VIVIENNE
“You are not a lawyer yet.”
She said it across the kitchen table at Calloway Street the evening before the committee hearing with the directness she brought to things Sera needed to hear and might not be fully considering.
Sera looked at her.
“I know that,” she said.
“The committee will ask you questions as if you are,” Vivienne said. “Not because they want to trap you. Because the framework is a legal instrument and the person presenting it is expected to defend it in legal language and you have been living inside legal language for a year without having formal standing in it.” She held Sera’s gaze. “That distinction matters in that room tomorrow.”
“I know the distinction,” Sera said.
“I know you know it,” Vivienne said. “I am reminding you because tomorrow you are going t
