The Goal (Off-Campus Book 4)

September

Motherhood is hard. Harder than I ever imagined anything could be. It’s harder than studying for my SATs. My LSAT. More challenging than that paper I had to write for the Women’s Studies course in my freshman year that came back to me looking like two red pens had engaged in a murder/suicide all over my typewritten words. More tiring than working two jobs and taking a full load of classes for four years.

My respect for Nana is through the roof. If I had to raise one kid after the other, I’d be a little cranky too. But with her help and Tucker’s, I’ve fallen into a routine that seems to work, and by the time the second week of classes launches, I’m convinced I’ve got this. After all, I’m only in class three hours—at the most—a day. And I’m not working two jobs.

This is easy.

Easy.

Until I stumble out of my last class Friday of that second week, laden with my bottles, tubes, five pounds of books, and my computer with a class assignment of more than a thousand pages of reading for the weekend. They keep piling up. When Professor Malcolm announced we’d need to read the entire chapter on culpability and intent, I waited for someone—anyone—to object. But no one did.

After class, none of my peers appear to be affected by the fact that we’re pretty much required to read what seems like an entire semester’s worth of coursework in two days. Instead, three kids in my row decide to conduct an intense discussion about Harvard’s grading system, which they already should’ve known about before they even enrolled.

I wait impatiently for them to wrap up the conversation so we can all get the hell out of the classroom. I need to start reading, but more importantly, my breasts feel like they’re about to burst. I haven’t fed Jamie for nearly three hours and if I don’t get to the library’s lactation room, I’m going to end up leaking all over my damn shirt.

“I don’t like this no letter grades thing. Honors, Pass, Low Pass, and Fail?” grouses the sharp-nosed blond boy next to me.

“I heard that LPs are really discouraged. It’s either Honors or Pass. You really have to fuck up to get a Fail,” says the girl beside him. Her cheekbones are so fierce they could cut through my entire textbook.

I make a big show of gathering up all my shit and stuffing it into my messenger bag, but no one’s moving. Instead, another girl, wearing a peasant skirt that triggers bad memories of Hippie Stacy, chimes in.

“My cousin graduated from here a year ago and said that BigLaw calculates their own grades based on your H, Ps, and LPs, so it works all the same. H is an A, and so forth.”

“My big complaint is that only one person gets to be summa cum laude. At any other law school, if you get the grades, you get the designation. Having only one is shitty,” Cheekbones declares.

Peasant Skirt reassures her. “You can get the DS, though.”

“Still, only a couple people get the Dean’s Scholar too.”

“They’re so stingy with their honors,” the guy adds.

I clear my throat. They continue to ignore me.

“But it’s Harvard, so the bigs are going to look at you anyway,” Cheekbones says with the nonchalance of someone who’s secure in her postgraduate prospects. “How soon can you start bidding in EIP?”

“Early interview program?” Peasant Girl smirks. “Settle down, gunner. Second year only. Learn how to write a memo first.”

She shares a look of derision with the boy as Cheekbones flushes slightly. It’s no fun to be the butt of jokes, which spurs me to unwisely jump in.

“I’m not so worried about the grades as I am the amount of reading we’re going to have to do. I’d like to get a head start on it this afternoon.” Hint. Hint. Move the hell along, people.

Cheekbones lifts her chin, happy to be the insulter instead of the insulted. “That isn’t hard. Hard is picking the right Law Review article topic. Reading and digesting a few cases is a cakewalk.”

She turns with a contemptuous swish of hair, gathers her books and leaves me open-mouthed behind her. The two other students follow. The guy whispers to Peasant Skirt, “Hey, I heard there’s an application-only study group. I’m interested. How do I get in?”

She sniffs. “If you have to ask, you don’t belong.”

Lovely. At least we’re moving.

My boobs ache as if my body is getting ready to let all the milk out. Hurrying, I move toward the door, brushing by two classmates who have stopped to chat with another student. Don’t these kids have anything better to do than stand around and shoot the shit?

Outside, a student is handing out brochures. I grab one and stop in my tracks. It’s an invitation to attend an informational course on how to get on Law Review. The meeting is in fifteen minutes. My chest throbs.

“Your shirt’s sprung a leak,” an amused male voice says.

I drop my chin to see what he’s talking about and blanch at the sight of two damp spots right around my nipple areas.

“I don’t know what’s going on, but maybe you should see a doctor for that infection. That’s nasty.”

I recognize him instantly. Kale something or other, the asshole from the legal clinic. His hair is Ken-doll neat, plastered to the side of his face. Everything about him screams expensive and privileged. He nudges the guy next to him, who looks utterly grossed out.

I slap the brochure against his chest. “I’m breastfeeding, you douche.”

I swear I hear a mooing sound behind me, but when I turn around, both guys are walking away.

It takes me fifteen minutes to walk across campus. With each step, I drip more. My emotions are a cross between embarrassment, anger and frustration. Embarrassment that I’m leaking all over. Anger that I even care what that fuckface thinks. And frustration that all my precious breast milk is filling my bra cups and staining my shirt. Crossing my arms over my chest doesn’t do any good. The pressure makes the milk come out faster.

By the time I get to the library, I’m a fucking mess. The reference clerk who holds the keys to the lactation room gingerly hands it over, careful not to make any contact with my flesh.

A woman is just leaving as I arrive. “All yours,” she says cheerfully.

“Thanks,” is my dour response.

She catches the door as I start inside. “Bad day, huh?”

Her voice is so kind and understanding, I nearly break down. “You have no idea,” I answer, but then realize she, of all people, probably does have an idea. “Or maybe you do. But yeah, it’s been a shit day.”

“Hold on a sec.” She digs around in her bag. “Here.” She hands me a small plastic package. “I actually have a second set and I’ve never used them.”

“What’s this?” I turn the package over, examining the petal-shaped silicon pads.

“You stick them on your nipples and they stop the leaking.”

“Seriously?” I gape at her.

“Yep. They’re not perfect, and if you wait too long, the milk will eventually wear the adhesion off, but they do work.”

I clench the package tight in my fist, filled with overwhelming relief. I have to fight off the tears again. “I would hug you right now if I wasn’t all gross. But thank you so much.” I spot a distinctive red textbook with black and gold lettering on the spine sticking out of her bag. “1L?” I ask.

“Third year, actually. I was hoping to wait until I was done with school before this all happened.” She waves her hand at the insulated lunch bag she’s carrying. Her milk must be in there. “How about you?”

“1L.”

She grimaces. “Good luck, honey. Just remember, every year gets easier after the first one. And the first one is really just a war of attrition.” She pats me on the back. “You’ll be fine.”

I slip inside and attach myself to the medical grade pump. It’s a trek to get to Widener Library from the law school, but the pump engine is here, which means I only need to carry my bottles, horns and tubes, and I didn’t have to spring for the cost of an expensive portable pumping machine. My checking account is already weeping from the ravaging that my textbooks did to it.

I undo my silk button-down and pull off my bra. I should be grossed out, but I’m too damn tired. I’m mostly vaguely irritated given that it takes twenty minutes for the stupid machine to pull out two ounces of food from my boobs that Jamie doesn’t even want to eat.

Rocking in the chair, I pull out my phone to read my texts. Hope and Carin messaged me, but I skip those and tap on Tucker’s name.

Tucker: Went over to see J over lunch.

Underneath the message is a picture of Jamie sleeping in the crook of his arm. My heart squeezes, and the place between my legs—which I figured was dead from labor—pulses wildly. There’s nothing sexier than a loving dad.

Tucker makes all my hormones do a giddy dance.

Me: She’s such an angel.

Tucker: I hate leaving her.

Me: I leaked breast milk all over my shirt. It was horribly embarrassing.

Tucker: Awww. Poor baby. I’ll come over later and rub ur back.

Me: I have 1000 pages to read and that’s not even an exaggeration.

Tucker: I’ll take care of J. U study.

Me: I’ll take u up on that.

Tucker: Good. U never let me do enough.

Because I don’t want to drive you away.

Of course, I don’t type that.

Me: You’re the best dad J could ever ask for.

Tucker: U have low standards, babe, but I like it.

Me: 🙂

Me: I’m going to take a nap now while all my life blood is sucked out of me. I look like I’m part of the Matrix, plugged into a machine.

Tucker: Did u take the red pill or the blue one?

Me: Which one makes Jamie go to sleep? That’s the one I’ll take.

Tucker: I’ll go buy an rx of Ambien.

Me: Too bad I’m not allowed to take that.

Tucker: My mom said her mom used to rub brandy on her gums to get her to go to sleep.

Me: Hopefully DHS isn’t spying on these messages. Did it work?

Tucker: I dunno. I’ll leave a bottle of brandy next to the Ambien.

Me: See. Best dad ever.

Tucker: LOL. Go to sleep, darlin.

*

Hope and Carin bought me a book called “Go the Fuck to Sleep.” I’ve read it to Jamie a hundred times. It doesn’t work. That thing is trash. Over the weekend Jamie decides she’s allergic to sleep. The only time she even closes her eyes is when I’m moving.

While I can read and walk at the same time, simultaneous sleeping and walking is beyond my abilities, which is why I start my third week of law school eight hundred pages behind. I drag myself into class, having not read even one word for my contracts class. I made it through criminal law, but that was it.

Hopefully Professor Clive will call on anyone but me today.

“Last week, we went over the first two elements forming a contract. Mr. Bagliano, please share with the class those two elements and the holding of the 1898 Carlill case.”

Mr. Bagliano, who looks as Italian as his last name sounds, obediently recites the two principles we learned earlier. “Offer and acceptance. The 1898 Carlill case discussed whether an advertisement could be construed as an offer. The case was decided by the English Court of Appeals, who held that yes, it was a binding unilateral offer that could be accepted by anyone responding to the advert.”

“Excellent, Mr. Bagliano.” Professor Clive consults his sheet of paper that I presume has all of our names.

I close my eyes and pray that my name magically disappears.

“Ms. James, tell us the third element of a contract and the holding of the Borden case.”

As my heart plummets to my stomach, I desperately scan the room as if somehow I can read the answer in the eyes of one of my classmates. No light bulb appears over anyone’s head, least of all mine.

Beside me, a guy whose name I haven’t made the effort to learn mutters something out of the side of his mouth. It sounds like confederation. That doesn’t seem right. He coughs “confederation” again into his hand. Nervous laughter spreads across the room while my cheeks light up like twin flames.

Down in the front of the lecture bowl, Professor Clive’s lips thin. “Mr. Gavriel is saying consideration, Ms. James.” He shifts his gaze to the poor guy next to me. “Mr. Gavriel, since you know the answer, perhaps you can share the holding of the case?”

Mr. Gavriel shoots me a sympathetic look before whipping out his perfectly constructed notes and proceeding to discuss mutuality and illusory promises and other shit that I don’t have the first clue about.

I casually draw a notebook over my own chicken scratching where the ink is smeared and bleeding through the page from where I drooled on it when I fell asleep, along with a healthy dose of breast milk and baby spit.

It’s hard to hear the last of the lecture with embarrassment roaring in my eardrums, but I take copious notes in the hopes that when I review this crap later, it will all make sense.

After class is over, Professor Clive gestures for me to join him in the front of the room.

He steeples his fingers below his chin. “Ms. James, Professor Fromm shared with me your home circumstance, and while I can appreciate how difficult that must be, the standards in class are not modified due to motherhood.”

Stiffly, I reply, “I didn’t think that they would be. I apologize about today and promise that there won’t be any lapses in the future.”

“I certainly hope not, but then again, we grade on a curve and someone has to be on the bottom.”

I raise my hand to scratch my neck, not because I itch, but because of the overwhelming urge to flick him off.

“It won’t be me,” I assure him.

He peers at me for a long, uncomfortable moment before dismissing me with a slight nod. “We’ll see.”