Mr. Kirke was the Legal Studies teacher and in charge of facilitating students applying for scholarships, volunteering, and other opportunities in the legal field. I’d have bet my hefty inheritance he knew exactly what was going on here. I wiped all emotion off my face as I approached his open office door.
He was hunched over some papers on his desk, making a mess of the sandwich clutched in his hand. When I knocked on the doorjamb, he looked up over his rimless glasses and swallowed his bite of food.
“Miss Mead.” He pressed his lips together. “What can I do for you?”
Taking that as an invitation, I walked into his office and perched myself on one of the two chairs facing his desk. “Mr. Kirke, I’m sorry to interrupt your lunch. I just wanted to clarify something before my next class.”
“What’s that?” He leaned back in his seat, crossing his fingers over his beer belly.
“I just received an email from Horowitz, Ross, and Shore informing me I would not be interning at their offices this summer. It was brief and uninformative. Seeing as you help organize the internship, I’m hoping you can enlighten me.”
He was not at all surprised I hadn’t gotten it. I pushed the rage down. I was the only Fulton student who’d applied. He should’ve had my back. “Hundreds of people apply every year, Miss Mead. There is only one position.”
“I am aware of how competitive the position is. I am also aware of what they look for. My grades are unblemished, I’m taking several AP classes, I’m volunteering with a nonprofit with ties to the firm, and my planned career path is exactly what they nurture in potential interns. I am the perfect candidate. I’d simply like some insight into why I was not chosen.”
I wasn’t being arrogant—I was confident I’d done all the right things. I’d worked my ass off. And if there was something else that would’ve given me the edge, he should’ve told me. It was literally his job.
Mr. Kirke gave me a small, patronizing smile. “There were three dozen perfect candidates. Sometimes, life’s just not fair. Take this as a life lesson and move on, Miss Mead.”
That condescending mother—
“May I ask who the successful student was?” The information would be public within a week anyway.
“A bright young man by the name of Jacobs.” He didn’t even hesitate, didn’t have to look up the name. How long had he known?
This whole situation was infuriating. I crossed my legs but kept my posture perfectly straight. “Mr. Kirke, I did my research, like I always do, but tell me if I’m wrong here.”
He frowned slightly but nodded for me to continue.
“Horowitz, Ross, and Shore has been practicing law in the state of California and the West Coast since 1938. The internship has been running since 1963.”
The bell rang, and he sighed, but I rushed to keep speaking.
“In that time, only two women have been awarded the position: Jemima Holt and Miriam Randle.” I’d been determined to be the third—but I’d severely underestimated entropy, nepotism, and the fucking patriarchy.
“What’s your point, Miss Mead?” His nostrils flared. I was pissing him off. Good, because I was livid.
“As you yourself said, there are hundreds of applicants each year, dozens of ideal candidates. How is it that year after year, a male student is chosen?”
He scoffed and waved his hand dismissively. “Female students don’t generally have the same level of interest in studying law as male students. It’s probably just a numbers thing.”
“Females make up just over 50 percent of all students enrolled in law schools nationally. This number has been steadily growing over the decades, yet the percentage of women in leadership positions, higher paying positions, remains woefully low. Judges—27.1 percent. Deans—32.4 percent. Private law firm partners—22.7 percent. I would’ve thought you’d know these basic, easily accessible statistics as the Legal Studies teacher in one of the best schools in the country.” He sat up, his belly digging into the desk and his face turning red, but I refused to let him get a word in. “And if this were a post-graduate position in the legal field, your argument of ‘it’s a numbers thing’ may check out, but as it stands, it seems blatantly obvious Horowitz, Ross, and Shore is extremely biased toward male applicants when choosing their interns. I would expect an educational institution such as Fulton Academy—which prides itself on its progressive and exceptional approach to education—to take issue with such egregiously sexist practices.”
“Miss Mead, that’s quite enough.”
“No. What’s enough is your apathy, the ingrained sexism in the legal field, and no one doing anything about it.”
He shot to his feet. I refused to have him looking down on me, so I stood too.
“You are not privy to the selection process at Horowitz, Ross, and Shore,” he growled, “and you are not aware of how the real world works. But you will be very soon, so let me give you one quick lesson now. Women who throw around those kinds of baseless accusations against institutions such as Fulton Academy and Horowitz, Ross, and Shore very quickly find themselves unemployable. I would’ve thought that as a student of law, you’d know not to make accusations without proof. I’m sure you could cause a media storm in a teacup what with all this social media and the Twitter and such, but I’d be very careful who you make enemies of, Miss Mead, if you wish to have any chance of being employed after you finish college.”
I immediately wanted to post, tweet, fucking TikTok about this and show him just how fast I could cause some trouble. And his suggestion that I’d be ruining all my carefully laid plans by doing so was . . . weirdly freeing? I guess I was just in a “fuck everything” kind of mood.
He gathered some papers off his desk, walked to his door, and held the handle. “The bell rang ten minutes ago. I’m late for a meeting, and you should be in class.”
I was clearly dismissed, but it was probably for the best. The urge to grab his too-short tie and twist until he couldn’t speak nonsense anymore was growing by the second.
“This is bullshit,” I muttered as I stormed past him and down the corridor.
He let the cursing slide, pulling the door shut and rushing off in the opposite direction.
Chapter Eleven
Hendrix
My meeting with the guidance counselor was mandatory, but missing most of lunch to sit in an office with a woman who had no concept of my past turned out to be as big a waste of time as I thought it would be. When she asked why I hadn’t graduated last year as I was supposed to, I told her that information should be in my file and I wasn’t comfortable talking about it. I resented that it had even been brought up in such a casual way.
Then she spent a stupid amount of time rambling about college applications and areas of study while I tried to keep my bored mask in place. In reality, my skin was crawling, and I wanted to storm out of there the entire time. To her credit, she did try to ask me questions about what I wanted to do after high school, but I didn’t give her much in the way of responses. Because I had no fucking clue. I just wanted to get through the school year and graduate. I couldn’t bear to think about what would come after, what kind of future I might have.