“Please, Professor Luce. You’ve got to help me out.”

I can’t see Professor Luce. I haven’t been able to see anything or anyone since the world became a blur of dark and light shadows eight years ago. But I don’t have to see him to know he’s only half-listening to my pleas. I can hear the brusque sweep of a tablet and the slight crumple of notebook paper as he deposits them back into his bag—which I’m assuming is messenger-style since Professor Luce is in his 50s and not the type of anti-establishment young rebel to carry a backpack.

If he were, maybe he’d take this case, I think with a grumble.

“Landlord dispute without a rental contract in place. Not my purview. Maybe ask Professor Stanton. He teaches…”

“Disability and the law—I already did. But he’s out of town that day. And my social justice professor can’t do it because her dog is scheduled for surgery.”

Professor Luce made a consternated sound. “Then maybe try one of those service orgs for the blind. They usually have pro-bono lawyers—”

“I tried every single one in New York. But the eviction hearing is in two weeks and the wait time to talk to a lawyer at any of those places is at least two months.”

I hear him sigh. “While I sympathize with your friend’s plight, I don’t think a Public Health Seminar professor is going to be of much help to you.”

“But that’s just it. A little help—a very little help—is all they need. It’s so clearly a case of wrongful eviction. I’m sure the landlord is only doing this because my friend’s parents are both blind and he doesn’t think they can fight back.”

“I don’t practice law anymore, and even if I did, this isn’t a Public Health issue—”

“I know. But the professors who specialize in representing people with disabilities can’t do it, so I’m asking you. Please, Professor Luce.”

“Really wish I could help you, Ms. Reynolds, but I have a faculty meeting in less than ten minutes—”

I can already hear his footsteps shuffling across the carpet to get to the door.

“Great, a faculty meeting,” I call over the sound of the door swinging open. “I’ll go with you, and we can ask the other professors if they—”

The door whines shut on my suggestion.

Leaving me alone in the seminar room, inwardly cursing professors who claim to want to make the world a better place, but who won’t lift a finger to help the parents of the social worker who helped me get into Columbia Law in the first place.

“Heya, Reynolds. What’s what?”

At least I thought I was alone in the room. But apparently, Jake Ferra has waited up for me. Again. Ugh! He’s been bothering me ever since he transferred to Columbia from Princeton to finish up a dual J.D./MBA degree at the beginning of spring semester.

“Still not interested, Jake,” I say, heading for the door in Professor Luce’s wake with my AmbuTech mobility cane in an upright position since I know my way around the classroom. Maybe I can figure out where that faculty meeting is and go…

“C’mon, Reynolds, why aren’t you interested?” In the next moment, Jake’s voice is in front of me, and the soft mewl of the door opening but not closing lets me know he’s holding it open for me as he says, “I’m a real interesting guy once you get to know me. You should give me and yourself that chance.”

“Okay, I’m in a rush, and I’ve got to figure out how to get to Faculty House, so I’m just going to say this straight up: I don’t date rich guys or Italians, so…”

A beat, then he says, “Alright, I’ll take you to Faculty House.”

Without waiting for me to agree to his offer, he gets on my left side, putting his body in front of mine so I either have to take his bent arm in front of me or run into it.

“Okay, hold on…”

Since we’re about to leave the building, I put on a pair of sunglasses. Big and—I’m told by my best friend, Talia, who bought them for me as a birthday present—very fashionable. That was before she up and never came back from summer break last fall.

Now I’m in my last semester at Columbia Law and having to deal with boys without her help. She’d been a wiz at directing them away. But now not only was I missing my main on-the-fly guide, but I had to tell this new one, “Me accepting your help to get to Faculty House doesn’t mean I agree to go out with you.”

“Sure, I get it. Loud and clear. Not yet. I completely understand.”

“Not ever,” I stress as I reluctantly take his arm.

“What I want to know is how did you know I was Italian? And rich?” he says as we walk out of the law school’s main building.

“Because you talk like you fell out of Sylvester Stallone’s mouth and smell like those big donor fundraising dinners the school’s always making me attend to prove they’re accepting of people with disabilities,” I answer.

“Let’s see… I’m not prejudiced against blind black girls, but you’ve got something against rich Italians?”

“Hey, I’m an American! It’s my civil right, and some would say a requirement of citizenship, to be prejudiced against at least one segment of society. I chose Italians and the one-percenters. Feel free to hold that against all black and blind girls and never come on to one of us again.”

He laughs, big and obnoxious. “Good one, but no, not a chance. You know about all these steps, right?”

“Yep,” I answer and quietly start counting as we go down the huge set of stone stairs outside the law school.

He manages to keep his mouth shut until we get all the way to the bottom.

“Alright, Faculty House is to the right and around the corner. But you know, if you need a lawyer I can get you one of those.”

I stop in my tracks, tugging back on his arm to say, “Don’t be funny. My friend and her parents will be out on the street if I don’t find someone to take their case.”

“I get it, and I’m not trying to be funny. Got a friend of the family who’d be happy to do it.”

“You have a lawyer.” I downshift my shoulders, not wanting to believe what he’s telling me. But having nearly run out of options, I’m forced to ask, “Would he work pro bono? My friend’s parents have, like, no money and she’s a social worker, living in New York. So your guy would have to do it for free.”

“He will. We’ve got him on exclusive retainer, so he’s always free to do pro bono stuff when we don’t need him. I’ll call him right now and put him on the case.”

A kind offer, but I don’t hear him reaching for his phone. “Let me guess. You’re not doing this out of the kindness of your heart. I’m going to have to go out with you if I want your lawyer to take my friend’s case.”

“C’mon, Reynolds. You’re acting like going to dinner with me is a burden. I’d call it more a benefit of accepting my generous offer.”

Yeah, he would call it that. But I’ve met guys like Jake. Bored rich guys who’ve grown tired of all the easy conquests. And I hear the girls tittering every time he walks into our seminar.

I have no idea what he looks like, but here’s a convo I heard between three girls the other day before class:

“I would die if Jake Ferra asked me out. Die.”

“I would die if he spoke to me.”

“I would die if he even looked at me. Like, I’d be dead right here on the floor. You guys would have to call a coroner to carry my body out. My family could file a wrongful death suit against him for killing me with direct eye contact.”

So though I’ll never be able to see what he looks like, I get it…he’s that kind of hot.

In my experience, that kind of hot is always on the lookout for new experience points. And as I found out the hard way when I started college in New York as a naïve freshman at Hamilton College, Pretty Blind Girl counts for a lot of experience points.

But still, Naima’s parents need a lawyer. Like, stat. And one dinner seems like a small price to pay to make sure Naima and her parents get to stay in their townhouse.

I let out a disgusted sound and say, “Fine. But only if he wins the case.”

Jake’s lawyer wins the case. Of course, he does. The lawyer Jake found for the Almontes smells even more big donor than Jake. And he easily convinces the judge to declare a stay on the eviction notice until the Almontes can get their new service dogs trained and licensed, so they no longer violate their landlord’s “no pets policy.” Not only that, but he alludes that because of the landlord’s attempted eviction, the Almontes can now bring a discrimination suit against the man who is the son of their old landlord, if he chooses to serve them at-will eviction papers instead of providing them with a formal lease. By the time the judge ruled in the Almontes favor, everyone except the landlord and his lawyer is ecstatic.

“Thank you! Thank you! Thank you!” Naima says, giving me a huge hug. “I thought this was only going to get us thirty days, but now it looks like we might get to stay for at least another year. We couldn’t have done it without you.”

“No thanks necessary,” I answer. “It was total BS that the landlord even tried to pull that eviction notice out on you and your parents.”

“That’s why we need more lawyers like you,” Naima says, just like she’s been saying for the last two years after convincing me to go for my law degree. She’s not blind, but having parents who met as two of the youngest people at a Macular Degeneration support group, she understands the issues blind people have in ways most sighted people cannot.

“I know,” I agree. “I seriously can’t wait to graduate in May.”

“Less than four months to go—whoa!”

Naima’s sudden drop in tone from cheerleader to stunned makes me ask, “What?”

“Some crazy hot guy just came into the courtroom, and he’s walking this way!”

Somehow I know who it is even before he comes up to our group and says, “Heya, Reynolds. What’s what?”

Apparently, Jake’s here to collect his date with the blind girl. I thank him for loaning the Almontes his family’s lawyer anyway.

Then I listen as Jake works the room, thanking the lawyer and giving the Almontes and Naima his card while smoothly responding to their profuse thank yous with a line about how he’d been happy to help.

But then, of course, he asks if I’m ready to go to dinner in front of everyone like we had something planned all along.

I can almost hear Naima’s inner cheers when instead of pointing out our plans to go somewhere for a celebration dinner, she says, “Well, we won’t keep you. Have fun!”

Ugh!

“Can I choose the place?” I ask as Jake guides me toward the court building’s front door.

“Sure, you got a restaurant you like better than La Mirabelle, I’ll take you there.”

“I do,” I answer. “It’s my favorite place in town.”