Of Poverty and Privilege

Chapter four

1995

Michael Cutter looked down at the bottle of wine he had bought, feeling self conscious as he read the label. It wasn't an outrageously expensive bottle of red, but the label looked fancy enough and displayed a few awards to indicate that it was an adequate gift to bring to the host of a party.

He was contemplating ringing the doorbell again. He'd been waiting for two minutes now with no indication that the host was coming to the door. He awkwardly pressed the doorbell again and heard an annoyed 'Coming!' from down the hallway.

His host's face seemed to be annoyed at being summoned when she answered the door, but when she saw who it was she instantly lit up at his presence.

"Michael! You've been here plenty of times before. You know you don't need to ring the doorbell. You're always welcome to just walk in." Emily Ryan gushed to Mike, taking the wine bottle off him and thanking him for it with a gentle pat on his shoulder.

Mike only waved his hand as a response as he followed his mentor through the hallway out into her dining area where he assumed the party would be taking place. He was expecting his regrets to attend this event to melt away once he got here, but instead it was intensifying by the second. He had skipped his ten year high school reunion three years ago, and he had been contemplating also skipping his five year law school reunion for the same reasons that made him miss his high school reunion.

There were only ten students that were taught by Emily Ryan in his year at law school, and they were her very first batch of students. Within that batch of ten, there were two of them that she had taken a special shine to. Himself, and one other he could see had yet to arrive.

"Grab yourself a drink. I need to take this next batch of canapes out of the oven, but then I need to talk to you one-on-one. I have a really good opportunity I think you might be interested in." Emily said to Mike before rushing out of the large dining room.

Wordlessly he grabbed a beer from an ice bucket placed upon a drinks table and made his way over to the two alumni who had arrived.

"Michael Cutter, how are you going? Are you still doing drug cases or have you moved up in the world?" The male in the room asked with a not-so-subtle jab at Mike's humble career beginnings.

"Why? Do you need someone to defend you on drug charges? I've branched out into other areas of defense law but I can still defend you if you need it. There is a lot of talk going around that people employed at your father's firm are well known for using cocaine in the bathrooms at strip joints." Mike quickly quipped back.

The male in the room was Stuart Trevelle, son of Colin Trevelle who jointly owned Trevelle & Stevens, a very sophisticated Manhattan law firm. Stuart had oozed pretension and privilege from the very first day of law school and very quickly rubbed Mike the wrong way. The hatred between the two during law school only grew from there once it was made very obvious that Mike Cutter, a man from a very ordinary middle-class family with no large networks, was far more bright. Stuart was able to scrape through law school to get his qualification but Emily Ryan had never taken any special interest in Stuart. Not that he needed it, his surname alone gave him every opportunity he could ever want. Something that made Mike extremely bitter.

"Do any of you know if Eric is coming tonight?" Annie, the chubby blonde in the room asked as she nervously wrapped a curly hair around her finger after asking the question.

Mike rolled his eyes at Annie's question. He had completely forgotten that Annie had a huge crush on one of their fellow students during law school. But then again, most girls at Hudson University had crushes on Eric during their law school years.