Court reporters technically typed out sounds instead of words. The left side of Tiffani’s keyboard was for the first sound in a word and the right side was for the last sound. The vowels lurked down at the bottom.
The design of the machine was intimidating enough that court reporters had guaranteed job security. Too many people looked at the thing and then ran away. Tiffani was glad she hadn’t.
She had a tingling feeling in her spine. It took her a moment to realize that, for the first time in years, she was actually excited. Scared, sure, but also happy.
“All rise!” the bailiff thundered.
Tiffani stood along with everyone else as the judge entered the courtroom.
The other court reporters had been nice enough to give her a crash course in the judges she’d be dealing with
. Judge Terrence McMillan was nobody’s favorite. He had a stern face, sour eyes, and a mouth that looked like it had never smiled. Water cooler gossip knew him for his habit of handing out unfairly harsh sentences to juvenile offenders, supposedly out of a staunch and starchy morality.
More likely, Tiffani thought, he did it because he was a jackass.
He already looked like he disapproved of everyone in the room, and the man on trial hadn’t even entered yet. That would happen in just a moment, though.
The crime of the century, the local news said, apparently unconcerned that, only eighteen years into the century, this might be a little premature.
Two business partners had argued over whether or not to take their profitable tech company public. The quarrel had ended—allegedly—with one of them killing the other. That would have already been enough for a decent scandal, but it was really the poorly-handled body disposal that had attracted all the attention. Anything with dismemberment was always going to get people interested.
High emotions, media uproar, a courtroom full of camera flashes, a bad-tempered judge, and a lack of experience—all of it spelled disaster for Tiffani if she didn’t keep a cool head. And yet, even knowing all that, she was still thrilled to be there. She was doing something important. She had a handle on her work. She’d already nicknamed her steno machine: she and Felix would do great things together.
She sat down, the defendant came in, and people started talking.
Tiffani’s fingers, racing over her keyboard, got every word.
She loved settling into this kind of groove. She felt like a wire that electricity was flowing through.
It was only when Judge McMillan called a brief recess that she felt the real world start to come back to her. Her fingers were already a little stiff. Her butt and back wished for a more comfortable chair. Her mouth was dry.
Still, she was proud of the work she’d done. Or at least she was proud of it until McMillan called her into his chambers. At first, she naively thought he’d want her to take notes on something, so she brought a steno pad along. He put an end to that assumption pretty quickly.
“Do you realize,” he said in his thin, wheezy voice, “that this may be the most important trial of my career? I’m sure you don’t. Obviously Milo Stanislavski doesn’t, or he wouldn’t have sent you.”
Tiffani tried to keep the confidence that she’d had in the courtroom. He’s a bastard, she reminded herself. Everybody knows that. Everyone who’s ever worked with him hated him.
She kept her voice steady. “Your Honor, I’m well-aware of the trial’s significance.”
“Then you’re well-aware that it needs a court reporter who knows what he—or she—is doing. Not one I’ve never seen before. Not one who will complain about breaking a nail on the steno machine.”
If she were a different kind of woman, there would be a few things she could say to that. The first was that if he hadn’t seen her before, maybe he was the one who didn’t know what he was talking about, because certainly her picture—in a bikini, no less—had been splattered all over the news during her ex-husband’s trial. The second was that it was pretty hard to break a nail on a steno machine. The third was that she’d specifically trimmed her damn nails so they’d be more convenient for the job and so he clearly hadn’t even looked at them.
He clearly didn’t see her at all.
But instead of saying any of that, she just felt a heavy lump in her throat. She wouldn’t get anywhere by making a scene. She knew she shouldn’t care what he thought of her.
She could just feel the morning’s happiness draining away from her, like McMillan had sucked it out with a straw.
So much for her fresh new start.
“You’re welcome to review this morning’s pages for mistakes,” she said. “If my work isn’t up to your standards, you can talk to Milo. But I’m doing a good job, Your Honor.”
“Well.” He sniffed. “I’ll give you until the end of the day. But I will be looking at those pages.”
He should be looking at those pages anyway. Reviewing the case was a critical part of his job. It was a lackluster threat from a lackluster person.
She just wished it didn’t make her feel so small.