DISCLAIMER: Harry's Law and its characters are the property of David E. Kelley and NBC. No infringement intended.
ARCHIVING: Only with the permission of the author.
AUTHOR'S NOTE: Thanks to Ann for the beta.
FEEDBACK: To ralst31[at]yahoo.co.uk
The Question on Everybody's Lips
By ralst
The phone calls had started two hours after Harriet had been fired and quadrupled in intensity, not to mention frequency, the second it was known that Jenna had upped sticks and followed her former boss into the ghetto. All the callers agreed on one thing: Harriet Korn had flipped out, but what none of them could fathom was how she'd managed to drag a lovely girl like Jenna down with her.
At first, Jenna had answered all the questions with aplomb, but as the disbelief and incredulity began to mount, she'd taken to screening her calls and ignoring the demands for an explanation. It was only a temporary measure; her mother would be on the first plane back to Cincinnati if she didn't pick up for more than twenty-four hours, but it bought her some breathing room, and time to fabricate a convincing lie.
The shoes had been a Godsend; the mere mention of Jimmy Choos had silenced half her friends and the word 'retail' had left the other fifty percent mute. Her parents, however, hadn't been so easily swayed; although, her mother did order a darling pair of glitter-finish sandals, and Jenna had been forced to cobble together a story of sexual harassment and office politics that had left her father fuming and her old boss with a price on his head.
Neither shoes nor lies worked on Harry, but the truth proved too impossible for her mind to comprehend. Irascible to the core, she had never allow herself to see the fondness in Jenna's eyes, and that left her blind to the love that had developed over time. So she told herself a dozen lies to explain away Jenna's devotion and stopped asking 'why' the moment it looked as if the truth would be revealed.
Eventually, the phone calls stopped, and Jenna's loyalty, when remarked upon, was met with a baffled smile. For Harriet, however, everything had changed, and slowly her barriers began to crumble, until all that was left was the question: why?
The End