After graduating college, Austin Curtis returns home without really knowing what to expect. Time has helped her mature, but through the years she spent away from Tulsa, there was a nagging in her mind about how she left everyone...more specifically...
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The two women arrived at the courthouse a few minutes early, which did nothing except allow Austin's anxieties time to grow exponentially. The building was caught between the east and west sides of town, and was almost directly across the street from the police station. Sitting in the nice, warm office, looking across the street at the building Austin had gone to all too many times to meet her friends after they'd been picked up by the fuzz, she couldn't help missing a time in her life she never thought she would want back. She'd fought every adversity society had thrown at her for striving to be a woman with a job other than secretary, nurse, or teacher. Austin held great respect for the women in those careers, and considered them groundbreakers for pushing to have a career in the first place, however she found great satisfaction working with kids that reminded her of her friends in their youth. Youth was a curious way to describe their younger years given how many children on their side of the tracks didn't have a childhood on account of being forced to grow up the second they could walk and talk. Youth was a statement of age rather than a statement of being for the kids she grew up with, and she knew the importance of someone having been in their shoes advocating for those whose youth was nothing more than a mask.
Austin waited impatiently, and tugged at her skirt as she sat alone in a sparsely furnished room. Gracie had been by her side in the lobby, but she couldn't join Austin in her father's office. Sitting in front of Austin was a large desk and, on the other side of it, a tall-backed chair. Beside her was another chair resembling the one she sat in, equipped with a firm seat with minimal cushion that made getting comfortable nearly impossible. She had tried to steal a glance at the clock on Mr. Lenard's desk when she heard the door click open. Quickly, she stood, spun around, and offered her hand at arm's length to the man.
"Ms. Curtis," he stated her name as if it was greeting.
"Good morning, sir," Austin replied with a smile as he took her hand. "Pleased to see you again."
"And I, you," he said with what seemed to be a genuine smile before lowering himself into his seat. "My, I haven't seen you since before Gracie left for college."
"Yes, and then I moved to Arkansas just before she moved back, so she and I just missed one another again," Austin babbled as her nerves overcame her.
"She's told me a lot about what you've done in school: President's List every semester, graduating early, an internship with the court, you really are as much as an over achiever as your older brother is," he commented joyously. Austin never really compared herself to Darry; for the longest time she never knew whom she took after in terms of work ethic, physical appearance, or even in her talents and ambitions, but being compared to Darry almost took her by surprise. She took his comment as the compliment he intended.
Austin could still remember when Gracie and Darry began dating in high school. She had invited him over for dinner one night and Darry had been at his wits ends trying to figure out how to dress and conduct himself in a Soc's home. Even at the young age of seventeen, he knew he cared deeply for Gracie, and that it was important to make a good impression on her parents. In Austin's memory, her brother returned home from his venture to the South side with a victorious smile plastered across his face. The Lenards were as taken with Darry's charm as their daughter was, and it was through Darry that Mr. Lenard—head of the brand-new juvenile department of justice—could determine that not every child in the rough neighborhoods of the north were like the desperate souls he encountered on a daily basis.
