Employee of the Year

Chapter 30 - A Random Miracle

The week of July 4.

Following the arraignment Todd and I fell into a routine. We had precious little time to figure out a plan to prove my innocence.  We had to be organized. We had to present our case, our evidence, and our witnesses for the trial. The preliminary hearing was scheduled in two weeks. My attorney told me was an aggressive timeline for a murder case. It seemed like Blair was trying to pressure the justice system, pushing fast to get to trial to help his own political ambitions. Marcus Davis’s lawyers seemed to be playing along, betting they could beat the district attorney’s case since the big boss had an alibi.

            “Don’t you want to slow this down so we have more time to make our case?” I asked my attorney.

            “I don’t think it’s going to help,” Todd said. “We’re going to be outnumbered on this thing either way. If we get more time, that means they get more time. Blair wants to rush this through. I’d rather try to use that to our advantage.”

That meant only fourteen days remained until the hearing. We had no time to spare.

We met every morning in the visitation room of the TwinTowers, taking seats on opposite sides of the glass panel. Todd would come in with his notebook. We would sit in the booth and talk for hours, facing each other through the glass separation panel.

            “You need to tell me everything,” Todd said. “Let’s start when you were hired at Passion.”

            “That was two years ago.”

            “How did you get the job? You told me yourself you have no background in financial services. You never worked in a call center before this, right? Why did they take you?”

            “It was a lucky break. Just an accident really. One of the agents called me out of the blue about something completely different. Since I had her on the phone I asked her for a job. She was skeptical at first. Then she decided to help me. She brought me in for an interview. She fought really hard and finally convinced her boss to take a chance. She believed in me.”

            “This is Gina Hill, the lady you told me about? Sounds like a good friend.”

            “She was. I mean, she is. I owe her big time. If she hadn’t got me the job, who knows what would have happened.”

            “I still don’t understand how you met her.”

            “She called me one day. She was trying to collect.”

            I remember it so clearly.

It was one of those days in your life when the fog clears and you can see the way forward. You can see the path your life is meant to take. Believe me, I haven’t experienced too many days like that.

I’ve never been one to believe that everything happens for a reason.

When a gangbanger’s stray bullet takes out a bystander waiting at a bus stop, that’s not God who made it happen, that’s the evil, random math of the world. Nobody wanted it. Nobody decided it. It wasn’t meant to happen. It just happened. Anybody who tells you otherwise is full of it.

Then again my mother used to say that at times the angels were watching out for me and helping things along. For every drunk driver who smashes head long into the innocent victim, we should consider the fatal crashes that should’ve happened but didn’t. I guess you could say that for every random tragedy, an equal random miracle also occurs.