The Law of Attraction. Roxie Cooper

seven times so they’re all a bit bored of it now. Sensing this, she feels the need to up the ante.

      ‘Ladies and gentlemen. There’s nothing I love better than a challenge. And so, as the final candidate to be admitted to Circuit, I am going to declare my intentions… in Spanish!’

      Oh, for fuck’s sake.

      And off she goes. Everyone cheers. The showstopper of the evening. Wow, those nerves disappeared quickly once she decided to switch to a language that wasn’t her own. She steps down and does a curtsey that wouldn’t look out of place on a Shakespearean stage.

      ‘Right, that’s me done,’ Skylar says, throwing his napkin down on the table. ‘Would you like a lift home, Amanda?’

      ‘Yes, please,’ I reply, a little too enthusiastically.

      Skylar and I are the first ones out of the room and make a quick dash towards the exit. As I close the door, I feel the weight of it taken off me by someone behind, only to turn and see Sid, who smiles at me.

      ‘How was your first Mess, Amanda?’ he asks.

      ‘It was quite the experience.’

      ‘Well, that’s a good way of putting it,’ he smiles.

      ‘I don’t think I’ll be joining any time soon.’

      ‘And that’s another! Richard, do you remember the evening I joined Circuit?’ he yells ahead of me.

      ‘When you got so drunk you fell off the chair and broke your wrist? How could I forget?’ Skylar recounts.

      ‘I still finished my speech, though…’ Sid says proudly.

      ‘Yes… in the ambulance,’ Skylar recalls disapprovingly.

      ‘No way?!’ I squeal.

      ‘Oh yes. Sid caused me no end of trouble in pupillage. I almost got rid of him on countless occasions. Only reason I never went through with it is because he’s one of the best bloody barristers I’ve ever come across.’

      Coming from Skylar, that’s quite the compliment. I’ve never seen him speak so highly of anyone before.

      ‘Oh, come on, Richard. I wasn’t that much trouble,’ Sid says, playfully.

      Skylar gives Sid the look I’ve come to know as the Look of Death and Sid just smiles cheekily at him.

      ‘Yes, you were. I get ALL the troublesome pupils…’

      ‘Erm, what’s that supposed to mean?’ I ask, mock-offended.

      ‘You’re both “characters”,’ Skylar says with a worried look on his face.

      Sid and I both glance at each other.

      ‘Anyway, come on, Amanda. We have an early start tomorrow.’ Skylar points out as he heads off towards the car.

      ‘See you both tomorrow,’ Sid says, doing a kind of ‘see you later salute’. Probably the lighting and the fact we are standing in the darkness with the stars and whatever, but oh my goodness, Sid looks super-dreamy tonight. And he’s in his three-piece suit with his tie off. And his eyes really are so twinkly. I watch him walking away, ridiculous grin on my face.

      Skylar interrupts and cuts it dead.

      ‘Don’t go there, Amanda.’

      ‘What?!’

      ‘I saw the way you were looking at him.’

      ‘I was doing no such thing.’

      ‘I’ve warned you about this,’ he says in his best dad tone.

      ‘Oh, Richard. Honestly. Stop it. I am not a lovesick teenager. I am a woman completely in control of my emotions and I do not form crushes on work colleagues.’

      Even as I’m saying it, I make a mental note to file this quotation under ‘I Don’t Fancy Sid Ryder and Other Lies To Tell Your Pupilmaster’.

      The conversation naturally ends with the revelation that Skylar has received a parking ticket, which sends him into a furious rage. Nothing upsets him more than having to fork out money, especially for something which is unavoidable. He witters about it all the way to my flat then barks at me that I need to be in Chambers ‘BY 7 a.m.’ because we have a big sentence.

      It’s almost midnight by the time I crash into bed and I’m physically and mentally drained from the evening’s events. But one thing’s for sure: it’s given me a valuable insight into my colleagues, the people behind the wigs and robes, the ones I’ll be working with and who I’ll have to impress to win this tenancy, and that can’t be a bad thing.