My Favorite Gangster

Marcela I turn up the radio a bit as I endure the city traffic, so typical during peak hours. It's 7:45 a.m. All companies are supposed to start at 8:00, but I no longer have to worry about schedules unless I have a scheduled hearing or a consultation with a client. I wish I were one of those lawyers who have consultations and hearings every day. I used to work at Ortiz Lawyers Enterprise, the best law firm in Colombia. I was in the civil law section, and I felt very happy; the work environment was great, attractive salary, stability... but I lost all of that because of my toxic jealousy. Yes. I lost my job because of jealousy. My best friend, Vlad, a Russian who is actually more Colombian than coffee, turned out to be the boyfriend of Alejandro Ortiz, the younger brother of the firm's CEO. As I have been in love with Vlad since I met him at work, I couldn't handle the jealousy and caused a scene in the parking lot of the building where Ortiz Lawyers has its offices, almost revealing the identity of the youngest Ortiz —who has been well hidden from the public for 20 years—, and the CEO, Fernando Ortiz, who turned out to be dating Daniela —my best friend, and the one who introduced Vlad and Alejandro—, fired both Vlad and me. No. He didn't fire us. He asked for our resignation. If he had fired me, my CV would have been ruined for life, but that bastard had consideration for me, precisely because Daniela vouched for me. I didn't bother looking for a job at another law firm. I wanted to work independently, and that's how I ended up renting a small office near the courthouse, on a street where more drug addicts pass by than potential clients. The courthouse in Bucaramanga is in the city center, and like in most Latin American countries, the center of a city is not a very safe place. The offices of the best lawyers are not even close to the courthouse. In reality, they are located in one of the wealthiest areas of the city, near where I live. Why? Renowned lawyers are not sought after by ordinary people walking the streets of the city center, looking for a cheap lawyer to handle a small claims case. But of course, being a lawyer who is just starting to practice independently, I can't afford to rent an office outside the perimeter of the city center. Starting because the rent is already sky-high in those areas, and since I barely have a case or two, I'm actually spending more than I'm earning. You could say that I'm practically surviving with what the firm paid me in severance, but my bank account is seeing fewer numbers every day, and since I have to pay the installments for my apartment, my car, my iPhone, bills, my nails, hair dye, the gym, my food, and some other things... I'm simply going broke. I haven't even told my parents that I was fired from the firm. They will be disappointed in me, and I've always been my father's disappointment, why? He found out that I lost my virginity at 17 with an i***t I don't even want to remember the name of, and since my dad has always been a shitty chauvinist who thinks women lose their value by having a "libertine" life, he stopped treating me like his "princess." It was my mother who paid for my university, and later she paid for my postgraduate degree in civil law. I owe everything to my mother, and to my father... I just respect him because he's my father, but I hardly talk to him anymore. I park my nice gray Mercedes Benz in the parking lot near my office. The monthly fee for this parking is another expense on my long list of necessary expenses. I take in my hands the two cappuccinos that I made in my home coffee maker, which Vlad gave me last Christmas, and I get out of the car. The heels sink into the ground between the dirt and the little stones that all parking lots have. Damn. —Doctora Marcela —Andrés greets me, the son of the parking administrator, and I stop by his small desk located at the entrance of the place and give him his coffee. —With cream and no sugar, as you like it —I say, winking at him. Andrés is maybe a decade younger than me. I'm 26, and he's just turning 18, but I take advantage of my beauty and sensuality to attract the boy a bit and get him to lower the parking fee a bit without his father noticing. The boy swallows a sigh, and I continue my way to the small four-story building where my office is. I went from working in the most modern intelligent building in the city to working in an old building that is falling apart. Yes. I, Marcela González, dressed in an expensive tailor-made suit and with a Carolina Herrera bag, work in a dilapidated building where I have to push the door to open it. My coffee spills a bit when I push the door, but fortunately, it doesn't splatter on my suit or my bag. I enter my small office, and I find that it is flooded from the heavy rain that fell last night, and the window is broken, and the landlord of the place apparently doesn't care to fix it. With great care not to wet the expensive heels that I bought with so much effort, I mop the floor, and the acrylic nails almost break when I wring out the mop in the bucket to get the water out. God. This is what I brought upon myself for being toxic. I finish drying everything, and I sit in the comfortable chair at my desk to check my schedule for today. Nothing. I don't have scheduled hearings, as the only two cases I have, a divorce proceeding and child support, are stuck, like all legal proceedings in this country where there is law but no justice. I chat for a while with Dani on chat, and she tells me that she is very excited about the trip she will take with Fernando through Europe and Asia. My guts twist. I envy Daniela. She is truly living a movie-like love story with her prince charming, while I've been doing poorly in love. I have the belief that definitely no man is worth it, and Daniela just got lucky with her boyfriend. I'm only wanted for s*x and nothing more. "If you dress vulgarly, don't expect any man to want you for something serious," the old misogynist my father had told me once. I don't dress vulgarly. I dress like a dignified lawyer. My dad only told me that because I like to show just a little bit of cleavage with my elegant jackets, but it's nothing that would make men's eyes go wild, and even if I showed more than advisable, why should I worry about how men see me? They are the savages who can't control themselves when they see some skin, not me. But I must admit that my sensuality has brought me more problems than benefits. The first thing sick men write to me on my social media is that I have nice t**s, a nice ass, and that they want to come in my beautiful mouth. If I weren't so physically blessed, maybe some man would actually notice my feelings, which I consider are very nice, as I am a loyal person, and Vlad can vouch. But, unfortunately, I had the idea to go under the knife at 18, influenced by the malicious comments of friends and family alluding to my small breasts and not very curvaceous body at that time. I became a somewhat... obsessed woman with her physique, to the point of enduring hunger and doing more physical activity than recommended if I gained even a single kilogram. I'm not anorexic, of course not. Enduring complete hunger would only make my hair and nails fall out, so I choose to sustain myself with diet shakes. I stop thinking about the fact that no man will truly love me and will only focus on my breasts. Instead, I look at the package that arrived a week ago and that I left on my desk, still unopened. They are business cards. A renowned lawyer like Fernando Ortiz never needed to go around the courthouse handing out business cards to get clients, starting because that jerk inherited his father's firm and will never know what it's like to have to go out and look for work on the street. The luck of rich kids... Daniela is definitely the luckiest woman in the world. Without much effort, she conquered that i***t who thinks he's the best lawyer in the world — but he's not — and now she lives a dream life as the wife of a millionaire. Well, actually, I don't even know whose girlfriend she is. Recently, some photos came out of her and her brother-in-law, the honorable army colonel and current interim president of the republic, Carlos Ortiz, kissing in a way that simple brothers-in-law wouldn't kiss. I haven't confronted her with that issue yet, and even though she lied to all of Colombian society saying that her relationship with Fernando was actually fake and that she was only pretending to be his girlfriend to hide his homosexuality, she doesn't fool me. I was the one who had to endure Daniela in that foolish in-love phase, so she's not going to come and tell me that it was all a setup. Spare me that story. Anyway... she complains about her life as a kept girlfriend because she doesn't want to feel that she depends 100% on a man, but I wouldn't have any problem living that life, to be honest. I like to work, of course, but if a man wants to give me a queen's life, who am I to tell him no? I look at the box for a good while and tell myself that I should put my pride aside. I wouldn't be the first or the last lawyer to hit the streets to distribute business cards in the hope of getting clients. I open the box and take out a good amount of cards and head out. I don't take my bag or, much less, my cellphone with me. Thieves are lurking. I stand on a corner, right next to a notary. It's a very strategic point, as everyone passing by is there for legal matters. Some pass by, others accept my cards, and some shameless old men tell me that of course they'll call me, but I doubt it's to hire me for any legal work. I return to my office after spending the whole day standing on that corner handing out cards. I sit in my chair, take off my heels, and caress my blistered feet. A week later, seeing that no one calls me or even drops by my office to ask how much I charge for drafting a petition, I burst into tears at my desk. With what little savings I have left, I can only survive for a month. After that, I don't know what the hell I'll do.