1 Motor City Shakedown Read Free

aware that being emotionally exhausted before the day had begun was no way to live.
    Minutes passed, and she was nursing the weak remains of the coffee while trying not to think about the pile of work stuffed in folders across her desk. That pile was nothing but drudge work farmed out to her from other law firms—firms that, unlike her one-lawyer show, had real clients.
    Her expression slackened with a bleak exhaustion-- a weary recognition that her future was laid out in a mound of rubber banded depositions and inexpertly written motions. Her sole responsibility was to take a red pen through it all, picking and poking, a proof reader for other lawyers.
    ‘Three years of law school, seventy grand in loans and I’m a secretary. Issabella Bright, Secretary at Law.’
    The sentiment was always with her of late, dimming the excitement she knew she should have felt at being on her own. She’d met all the goals she set for herself—graduating law school, a successful internship with a public defender’s office in Washtenaw County, passing the bar. A year ago, Issabella would have looked at where her future self was and been delighted that her aim had been so true.
    Now, there was no delight. There was doubt, everywhere.
    ‘Stop. Stop. Before it snowballs and you’re just running in circles again. You’re not going to do that today. Today is productive.’
    Her cell rang and she was grateful for it.
    “Hey, mom.”
    “Morning, Bella.”
    “You too.”
    “Everything fine?”
    Issabella rolled her eyes to the ceiling as if her mother, the head librarian of the Monroe County Public Library System, were sitting across from her. Ever since her mother had taken it upon herself to Map Quest Issabella’s business address and drive up I-75 to see it first-hand, she had been calling at exactly 8:30 in the morning to ask “everything fine?”
    The first time she made such a call it was to relate her harrowing journey through “that wretched , just awful neighborhood.”
    Throughout the week that followed, Issabella found herself amused with each subsequent morning-time call, as they always brought to mind the image her mother had painted of herself-- doors locked, one hand clutching her cell with “9-1-1” pre-dialed and ready to go if some hooded denizen of the netherworld lurched at her while she was caught at a light or stop sign.
    Now, two weeks into these daily safety-calls, Issabella was growing tired of the whole thing. They seemed less motivated by genuine concern and more like daily reminders that her mother thought she had made bad choices. They were a way to say “I told you so" in disguise.
    “Yes, mom, I‘m fine,” Issabella sighed. She tossed the coffee cup in her trash basket and leaned backwards in her swivel chair, one hand massaging the skin of her creasing forehead.
    “You’re sure?”
    “I am in my office, the door is locked and I am non-raped.”
    “Bella!”
    “I know.”
    “To even say that--”
    “I know. I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have.”
    “I wish you’d at least make an attempt t o find a spot with a firm. I don’t know what you think you’re proving.”
    “Mom…”
    “Well, I don’t. I know you don’t want to hear it, but there it is. What are you gaining with all of this?”
    Issabella closed her eyes, wanting to say “Independence. Autonomy. The ability to never compromise myself. You know, all the things you preached to me when I was a kid? Those words that were easy to say, but that nobody ever seems to actually want to adhere to? That’s what I’m gaining, Mom. I’m gaining the self-respect you earn knowing that you’re living entirely on your own wits and grit.”
    But she didn’t say any of that. Not only because it would wound her mother, but because she was battling her own doubts about her lot in life. Fighting the near-daily bouts of panic was all she could manage. She didn’t have the strength to also shoulder the guilt of having lashed out at her