The She-Hulk Diaries (6 page)

When I walked into the conference room at Quintal, Ulrich, Iverson, Ride, & Cooper, a young woman at the table took one look at me and said in a voice as rich and sweet as Tupelo honey, “Oh, brown pinstripes—how quaint!”

Thus it begins. I was prepared for mind games, because top attorneys are as bloodthirsty as sharks, and they’d want to make sure that I was one of them. I’m fierce in the courtroom when my adrenaline surges and when I inhabit the role of legal badass, but now I had to surreptitiously wipe my clammy palms on my skirt before shaking hands.

I recognized Amber Tumbridge from her bio on the QUIRC website, but that small photo didn’t convey how perfectly pretty she was—but in a way meant to intimidate. Her glossy golden blond hair fell perfectly below her shoulders, her complexion was perfectly smooth and creamy, her
blue-gray eyes were perfectly clear, her lithe body was perfectly toned, her teeth were perfectly pearly, and her suit was a perfect blue-black color.

But her physical beauty was nothing compared to her exquisite voice. I found myself wanting to hear her speak even though everything she said was aggressive. The others in the room faded into the background as Amber took control of the interview. Clearly, she’d been designated to hammer me down.

She managed to mention her Yale Law degree (twice), the
Yale Law Review
, a recent victory in a corporate espionage case, the renovation of her historic brownstone, and her friendship with prominent political families. She did this while playing with a ginormous diamond engagement ring on her delicate finger.

I wouldn’t have been surprised if she’d pulled out a tiny tiara and told me that she’d once been crowned America’s Most Accomplished Toddler.

Amber gave me more attitude during the Q&A. She called UCLA “a nice public school” and my time with the DA “nice public work.” When I mentioned Dad’s job, she said, “A county sheriff? How nice that he’s a public servant.”

I could tell that she thought “public” was synonymous with second-rate. Or third-rate. Amber’s lips were smiling, but her eyes were sneering, an expression Dahlia calls smeering. This snideness seemed almost personal, but Amber was that kind of woman.

My roiling emotions caused Shulky to wake inside of me, yearning to get out and grab Amber by her naturally blond hair, swing her until she whirred like helicopter blades, and launch her at the wall. She wanted to hear that delicious voice as a pure scream. I pressed Shulky back down and forced myself to look calm while Amber questioned me repeatedly about my rapid exodus from several firms.

Amber kept studying my CV, but one of the time manipulators at the Mansion had tweaked my history to account for the occasions when Shulky had been off-planet. The TM could also jimmy the continuum so I could take weekends off—or maybe visit Paris!

I’d rehearsed my answers so I sounded reasonably smooth even
though my nerves were jittering. “I’ve worked for a variety of companies in order to build up a range of experience so that I can better handle the complexity of my clients’ cases.”

Amber didn’t say, “What a pile of hooey,” but it was in her eyes.

I aced the other questions, throwing in heaps of legal Latin, all
audi alteram partem
this and
ex turpi causa non oritur actio
that, and I was in the home stretch when Amber said, “We at QUIRC will expect partner-track attorneys to surpass two thousand billable hours,” and watched to see if I’d react to the insane amount of work required at top-echelon firms. “We’re not interested in hiring someone who will decide that spending time with family and friends is more important.”

“I would expect no less.”

Amber gave me another smeery look. She waved toward the windows with their stunning view of Manhattan, which still look my breath away, especially at times like this, with a new flurry of snow sparkling in the winter light on building ledges and cornices.

She said, “The vast majority of the human population is satisfied with the banalities of an average life. One day blurs into the next, one week is indistinguishable from another. Their existence consists of waiting for the weekend, then waiting for retirement, and then waiting for death.”

Well, hell, she almost made me want to throw myself out the window and let buzzards eat my carcass. Or, considering the geography, rats and pigeons, eww.

Quinty Quintal peeked at his gold watch and gave me a wink. Something about him seemed familiar, and not just from his photos.

Amber continued spewing. “Only an exceptional few have the intelligence, skill, and determination to succeed in a place like QUIRC. Do you really believe you’re that rarity, Ms. Walters?”

I wished I could give her a Valley Girl
fer sure
, but I said, “My record of successes speaks for itself, Ms. Tumbridge.”

She wasn’t ready to STFU yet. “We are aware of your friendship with a certain notorious superhuman, but celebrity connections will not factor into our decision.”

Shulky kicked me behind my eyeballs, and I said, “The appropriate term for She-Hulk is super
hero
, not the generic super
human
, since her efforts have saved humanity from destruction on numerous occasions. However, I expect no favors because of my outside relationships.”

Quinty said, “Ms. Walters, I’m very impressed with your UCLA degree—go Bruins!—and with your LLM from Harvard, a very nice
private
school.” He lifted one bushy eyebrow. “I know that your experience at Goodman, Lieber, Kurtzburg, & Holliway prepared you for our grueling schedule. Anyone good enough for Holden Holliway is good enough for me.”

He chuckled, and everyone but Amber obediently chuckled along, and then he said, “Ms. Walters, if you’re as smart as I think you are, you’re aware of our impending action against ReplaceMax Laboratories.”

I sat up straight. “Yes, I’ve heard that you were planning a suit against their organ cloning division.”

“I can’t reveal details about our plans, but Maxwell Kirsch continues to stand by ReplaceMax’s defective products,” Quinty said. “If anyone should take ReplaceMax on, the fight will be dirty and brutal.”

I felt the thrill that I get when I’m challenged in court. I looked Quinty in the eye and said, “If I worked for QUIRC, sir, and you had a case against ReplaceMax, I’d say, ‘Bring it!’ ” I let that hang there, gazing slowly around the room to let them all know that I was ready to crush any opposition.

Why can’t I have that kind of confidence all the time?

Half an hour later, the senior partner was saying, “Call me Quinty,” and escorting me to the minimalist lobby. “Ms. Walters, I can’t speak for the others, but I’d be delighted to have you onboard.”

It wasn’t “We want to hire you,” but it was encouraging, and I said, “Call me Jennifer.”

“Jennifer, after hearing about your reputation, I thought you’d be a battle-scarred warrior, not a soft-spoken young lady. You’re quite a catch, you know. Legally, I mean.”

Quinty’s eyes had a sort of
Mad Men
glint—a far-off expression that
men get when they’re nostalgic for the days when they could pinch a girl’s ass and ask for a martini and a blowjob. I wondered what he’d looked like when he was in his prime.

I didn’t have to wonder for long. The elevator pinged, the doors slid open, and a taller, brawnier, younger version of Quinty stepped out. A version that looked
exactly
like Ellis Tesla, down to the scar across his right eyebrow.

Ellis Tesla stepped out of the elevator.

Allow me to repeat: Ellis smoking-hot-rockin’-sex-god-and-star-of-my-most-fevered-fantasies Tesla stepped out of the elevator.

I did a quick assessment to see if I’d been thrown into a parallel dimension, but the clock on the wall didn’t show lost time and everyone around us was still speaking English and wearing the same clothes. No one had any extra limbs or was walking on the ceiling.

Ellis Tesla said to Quinty, “I thought I’d have to drag you out of your office.”

My brain felt like it had driven off a freshly paved interstate and down a steep embankment when Quinty said, “Hello, Ellis. Meet our newest recruit, Ms. Walters. Ms. Walters, this is Ellis the fourth. My family is not very imaginative with names. Ellis—Dr. Quintal—runs a science school in Jersey. He takes after his mother, who taught physics.”

Quinty was E. Charles Quintal III = Ellis Charles Quintal III. So Ellis was teaching science instead of working in the family business.

“Hello, Ms. Walters,” Ellis said with a brief smile. He still had that appealing roughness to his voice.

I was FREAKING OUT because I didn’t know if he recognized me, and I didn’t know if I wanted him to recognize me in a quaint suit. His deep chestnut hair was still thick, and his eyes were still the mutable browns and golds of autumn leaves. His face was still ruggedly handsome, as if he was the ideal genetic offspring of pirates and lumberjacks.

He still had those broad shoulders that a girl could hang on to while he held her by her hips and shoved her up against a wall and made her scream for more.

He wore a navy suit and a pale blue shirt. His one concession to quirkiness was his tie, which had an atomic structure motif.

My throat constricted so tightly that I could barely choke out, “Nice to meet you.”

When Ellis shook hands with me, all I could think of was the delicious things he’d done to me with those long, strong fingers. I was SO FREAKED OUT that I felt like unsweatable parts of my body were sweating, like my teeth and my kneecaps.

I tried to keep my voice steady and said, “I haven’t actually been hired yet.”

“Sure you have. It’s just not official.” Ellis turned to his father. “Dad, ready for lunch?”

“Give me a minute.” Quinty said to me, “Scientists are selfish with their time because they don’t bill by the hour,” and he left us in the lobby.

Ellis hadn’t really focused on me yet and was glancing down the hallway. “Ms. Walters. Are you the Ms. Walters who used to be in the DA’s office and at GLKH?”

He could say absolutely anything in that voice, which sounded like he’d been swigging tequila and gravel since preschool, and it would seem like a perverse and irresistible proposition.

“Guilty as charged,” I said, trying to sound blasé, and feeling relieved—or was I?—that he didn’t remember me. I could start fresh, and he’d see me as a successful professional and not a drunk coed dancing in front of the stage at a concert.

“You’ve tried some very high-profile cases,” he said.

“I wasn’t looking for publicity. I was looking for justice.” Agh! I sounded dull and pretentious, which wasn’t a significant improvement over drunk and slutty.

“Really?”

I couldn’t tell if he was being sarcastic. Whatever it was, I felt a bead of sweat slide down my spine, but I wasn’t finished proving that I was both tedious and prissy. “It’s the duty of those with access to power and privilege
to protect and defend the rights of the common man, or woman, or children, those who have no voice…”

I wished to heavens that I had no voice, but I could not stop, even though I saw Ellis’s smile drop away, and he turned to face me straight on. I kept telling myself,
shut up, shut up, shut up!
but I continued to jabber and at the same time I was thinking about him naked. I was remembering the taste of his mouth and the touch of his hands. I may have glanced down at the front of his pants.

Ellis took a step toward me and said quietly, “Genevieve?”

My brain short-wired. I said “Uh, uh,” and then I said it some more.

Ellis gave me a slow smile that made me feel as if my panties had just vaporized. “Those green, green eyes. Ginny, from the party at Caltech.
That
weekend.”

Someone shut a door, and the noise knocked me out of my short-circuited loop. I nodded and my voice came out in a whisper. “Jenny, not Ginny. Jennifer Walters.”

“No wonder I couldn’t find you. I checked USC law school, looking for you.”

I was confused because I
knew
I’d given him my phone number. To the best of my recollection. “I went to UCLA, not USC.”

He laughed and said, “I was pretty ripped when you told me. But not too ripped to forget… that was
some
weekend, wasn’t it? I didn’t recognize you at first because you weren’t dressed.” He hesitated so long that in a movie calendar pages would have been flying by, and then he said, “Like this.”

He talked like that, all suggestive pauses for me to fill in. He still had something that was more a smirk than a smile, but a fantastic smirk, sexy and confident. I was caught in his gaze and we stood looking at each other for long seconds.

“Your hair was lighter, shorter, and…” Agonizing pause. “I didn’t expect to see you in this context, here in New York.”

“My hair gets lighter with the sun,” I said, and suddenly remembered one of Dahlia’s early coloring and cutting experiments. “I’m sorry Fringe Theory broke up.”

“That happens. Our song still gets airplay on top cult hits shows.”

Did “our” mean his
band’s
song, or
our
song?

“I’ve heard,” I said. “Do you still, uh, play?”

“Yeah, I play [significant pause] for fun. I like to do things for fun. My work is lots of fun. What about you?”

“Uh, I like fun, too.” It was official: I was an idiot.

“So glad to hear that,” he said with a lowered voice that made me have the mad thought that he’d grab my hand, drag me into a stairwell, and rip my clothes off. Which probably would not have been appropriate
après
-job-interview behavior.

I realized that he could easily find me online now that he knew my name. And if I got hired by QUIRC, I’d see Ellis when he visited his father. Even if I didn’t get hired, he could look me up if he wanted to. “My full name is Jennifer Susan Walters,” I said. “Jennifer S. Walters, Esquire.”

He dropped his head closer to mine as he asked, “So what kind of things do you do for fun, Jennifer S. Walters, Esquire?”