studying

A little cafe. I am holding my hands over my ears, trying to block out all sound but the music playing on Wilbur (I just accidentally wrote Wallace, {sob}, who is buried in a latrine in Sudan), so I can concentrate on practice questions for the bar exam, but I can still hear the conversations around me. The man who looked knowingly at my bar review book sits down at the next table, joined by the woman in the embroidered skirt. They talk about work he needs done and she says, "I don't want a real job. I get skittish when I have to be somewhere," and I peer sideways around my hands still over my ears, in horror. How did this woman make it through law school? Please let them not be doing a job interview. "I pay my investigators and researchers before I pay myself," he says. "I depend on them to come through when I need them, so I make sure they get paid first." She takes notes of the research he needs done, and they stand up to leave. The woman in the non-conventional lawyerly clothing carries the cups off to the tub and I can feel the man watching me read the same question over and over (my brain is so tired), so I finally look up to see him nod at the book and say, "Good luck." I smile and shrug. I feel on display, with this big book and wearing a suit. Every lawyer who walks by knows exactly who and what I am: a recent grad, a job applicant. There is no hiding.