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Kati Mannequin is a hard-working and highly successful lawyer. She hardly ever loses a case.
Unfortunately, at the moment, it's not a case, but her patience that she's worried about losing.
"I'll have a coffee," he says, "white with no sugar."
She stares at him. "The coffee machine is down the hall."
He tuts loudly, then runs a hand through his hair. After a few seconds he says, "Do you know when Mr Mannequin's going to get here? I don't have all day, you know."
Kati grits her teeth. "Mr Colasour, I am Kati Mannequin. I am the lawyer who will be representing you in this case and I..."
He laughs. "No offence, sweetcheeks, but I'm looking for a real lawyer."
Kati doesn't often lose her cool, but she's pretty sure that she can actually feel her hackles rising. "Mr Colasour..."
"Now," he leans forward in his chair and flashes her a smile, "if you could be a dear and phone through to get someone who can actually represent me, I..."
Kati doesn't even realise that she's gotten up from her desk until her palm connects with his cheek. The slap is so hard that he nearly falls out of the chair. He clutches onto the wooden arm for a few seconds, trying to steady himself, his eyes comically wide. Then his face turns bright red.
"You...! How dare you! Do you even know who I..."
The second slap is even more satisfying than the first. Kati can't help from feeling a little smug as she sees his eyes widen for a second time.
"Mr Colasour! I do not appreciate being treated without respect. I am the lawyer handling your defence, and if you refuse to accept that, then I hope you are ready for the three-year driving ban that the court is going impose on you when you lose your case!"
He doesn't get angry this time. Instead, he shrinks back in his chair and regards her tirade with silent awe.
"Mr Colasour..."
He covers his mouth with a hand and stares at the floor. After a few seconds, his cheeks flush.
"Mr Colasour, are you, or are you not, willing to co-operate with me?"
He looks back up at her and nods. When he removes his hand from his mouth, he's wearing a tiny smile. "I'll co-operate."
"Good," says Kati, and makes her way back behind her desk. She smoothes her skirt as she sits back down, and tries to gather her thoughts. It takes a moment of rifling through her papers before she remembers where to begin. She doesn't often get this flustered. It's disconcerting.
Finally, Kati finds the file she's been looking for. She peruses it briefly. "So, Mr Colasour, you've been charged with 'driving under the influence', is that correct?"
He smiles at her. "Yes, that's correct, yes."
"And it says that this caused you to drive up the kerb and into one of the trees lining a very busy street?"
"Yes, that's what they say." His smile is growing into a grin. If it weren't for the red finger-marks on his cheek, it would be hard to tell that he's just been slapped in the face.
"But in your statement to the police, you claim that you were not in fact driving under the influence at all."
"Yes, that's right." He nods enthusiastically.
"So, Mr Colasour, do you maintain that you had not taken any alcohol or any other mind-altering substance on that day?"
"I was clean as a whistle. And, er, you can call me Patrick by the way, I don't mind."
Kati reads through the account again. "Yet they have video evidence of your car driving erratically before mounting the kerb and colliding with the tree."
Finally, Patrick has the decency to look sheepish. "Er..."
"Mr Colasour, will you care to give me your version of the events?"
"Well..." he says. "There was a...aha, well."
Kati looks at him.
He shrinks back in his chair a little. "A bee."
"A bee, Mr Colasour?"
Patrick laughs nervously. "Er..." he coughs, "I was driving along, and... I had the window open... Because it was a nice day, you know? But it wasn't warm enough to have the top down, right? So I had the window open. And this bee flew in and started buzzing all around me. So I just turned round to try to get it to..." Patrick mimes something complicated, which is probably supposed to look like someone trying to shoo a bee out of a car window, but actually looks a lot more like a random two-armed flail than anything else. "And the next thing I knew, there was an airbag in my face, and a tree in the front of my car!"
"Mr Colasour, are you telling me that a bee made you crash your car?" Kati isn't normally one to laugh at the misfortune of others, but she suddenly finds that she has to try very hard to suppress a snigger.
"Yes." Patrick nods dejectedly.
"And that's the full story?" Kati bites her lip.
"It is! I swear!" Patrick pouts, and Kati has a sudden, irrational urge to pat him on the head.
She turns back to the file in front of her instead. "Ok, Mr Colasour." She smiles. "Leave it to me, and I'll see what I can do."
***
Luckily for Patrick, Kati is a very talented lawyer.
She manages to persuade the jury that, despite all appearances, Patrick Colasour was not driving while under the influence. He was, in fact, merely driving while stupid.
Not that that necessarily makes him any less of a liability on the roads, but it's a testament to how good Kati is at her job that she manages to work it so he gets off with only a small fine and doesn't have to forfeit his drivers' licence at all.
Patrick is understandably pleased when he hears the verdict. Although Kati is pretty sure that jumping up and down and shouting "We showed you, you bastards!" is not the proper etiquette when they're still in the courthouse. She tells him so, and he quietens down immediately, but it doesn't wipe the grin from his face.
"We did it, Kati! I'm so relieved!"
"Mr Colasour, I'd appreciate it if you didn't call me by my first name."
"And I told you to call me Patrick," says Patrick. "It's not hard. Pa-trick. Try it with me: Pa-trick."
Kati decides that the best course of action is to ignore his idiocy, so she begins to gather up her papers.
"God," says Patrick, "this is cause for a celebration. We should go celebrate."
"That's all very well, Mr Colasour, but I have to..."
"Come to dinner with me."
Kati looks up.
Patrick's cheeks are flushed again, and he almost looks... hopeful.
Kati closes her briefcase with a click. "Mr Colasour, yours is not the only case that I am working on at the moment. I am far too busy to go do dinner with my clients."
"It doesn't have to be tonight." He follows her as she walks to the door. "How about tomorrow? The day after? Next week?"
Kati steps outside. "Goodbye, Mr Colasour."
***
The following week, Kati gets an unexpected phone call at work.
"Kati, it's me! Patrick Colasour!"
"Mr Colasour..."
"Come to dinner with me!"
"Mr Colasour, I think I already made myself clear on this point: I will not go to dinner with you."
"Are you sure?"
"Absolutely." Kati hangs up before he can say anything else.
***
But the next morning, there's a bouquet of flowers on Kati's desk. They come with a card, which reads, "Come to dinner with me."
Kati ignores them in favour of getting on with her work.
***
And that's the last that Kati hears from Patrick Colasour.
At least, that is, until two weeks later, when he walks right into her office.
Kati sighs and rubs her temples. "Mr Colasour, I am busy. I am supposed to be seeing a client right now and..."
"I know," says Patrick, sitting down. "It's me."
"You?"
"Yes." He nods. "I'm your next client. Ask your secretary. I'm here because I need you to represent me in court."
"You need legal representation?"
"Yes."
"For the second time in three weeks?"
"Yes."
Kati stares at him in disbelief. "Are you serious?"
Patrick looks her in the eye. "I would never lie to you, Kati."
For a split second, Kati is shocked. She's never seen Patrick look so sincere before. It's...
She sighs. "Fine. Tell me, Mr Colasour, what have you been charged with this time?"
"Dangerous driving."
"Again?"
"I drove into a tree."
"Mr Colasour, even I don't believe that you are quite as inept as to..."
"I did it on purpose."
Kati finds herself stunned to silence. "You..."
"I wanted to see you again."
"Mr Colasour."
"You wouldn't go to dinner with me."
Kati tries to talk. Stops. Then tries again. "Are you telling me that you drove into a tree because I wouldn't go to dinner with you?"
Patrick smiles a brilliant smile. "Yes."
Kati doesn't know whether to laugh or to bang her head on the desk.
"So I've come to ask you to dinner again."
"And..." Kati treads very carefully, "if I refuse... are you going to drive into yet another tree?"
Patrick nods solemnly. "Most probably, yes."
This, Kati realises with a growing sense of dread, may well be one case that she is not able to win.
Patrick leans forwards onto the desk and takes her hand. "Come to dinner with me."
***
The rest, as they say, is history.
Patrick gets to have dinner with Kati.
He also gets banned from driving for three years.
He doesn't seem that upset about it, all things considered.