It was about eleven in the morning on the twenty-ninth of February, 2012, and I was seated at a corner table in a not too well-known cafe in a popular mall, hidden from public view. I had before me two pain au chocolat, a cup of brewed coffee, and an open laptop. My parents were at a medical mission, but my mother had been calling every twenty to thirty minutes since ten-thirty, asking if I had heard anything, even though two in the afternoon was The Hour.
By eleven-thirty the bread was all gone (my appetite probably hadn't yet realized the strain my mind was under), my coffee was cold, and a feeble prepaid internet thingamajig was sticking out of one of my laptop's USB ports. I contemplated calling some friends and asking them to come over and keep me distracted, but discarded the idea. I realized I didn't want anyone around me quite yet - not because I'd be too embarrassed if I didn't make it, but because I'd probably need a little time to assimilate whatever news the results would bring. As much as I wanted company, I probably needed to have some time to myself first.
I forced myself to do some work. A friend and I were planning to start a small export business, so I made myself write contracts and review the documents we'd need to incorporate. I went online to scout the competition, so to speak, and to search for suppliers. By half past noon, however, my browser was on the Supreme Court website, and I had already clicked refresh more than twice - just in case.
The Starbucks I spent most of my time studying in for the bar exams was about three floors up, and I toyed with the thought of leaving my spot and moving up there, just for the sake of symbolism. I shrugged the idea off, oddly feeling as though sitting there would leave me too... open. I rather liked my place in that little cafe, slightly closed-in as it was. It made me feel safe, cocooned.
I clicked refresh again; nope, still nothing.
Throughout the day text messages had been coming in, all of them along the lines of "any news?" I texted a friend of mine who worked at the Supreme Court the same, and wrangled a promise from him to let me know how I fared, no matter what the result was. He agreed.
By one-thirty, I'd clicked refresh a number of times more. My palms were cold and I was beginning to feel a bit chilled, but I wasn't quite sure if I was feeling numb or I was just dazed by the excess of random thoughts and projections my mind was coming up with. I looked around, observing other people in the cafe, and feeling both awed and bemused - it's amazing how some events that could so intensely impact a great many lives could happen so quietly that people not more than three or four feet away had no inkling of it.
At two o' clock, I clicked refresh, but the page wouldn't load. My mobile phone was jarringly silent. "If no one calls or messages you that day," a lawyer friend once said, "then you probably didn't make it. That's because they don't quite know what to say to you, or they don't want to be the ones to tell you."
Is that it, then? I thought. I didn't make it?
It's funny how long twelve minutes could be. In twelve minutes I'd already come up with a number of scenarios in which I informed my parents, other relatives and friends that I didn't make it; scenes were rewinded, replayed, edited and fast-forwarded in my head. [The wonderful thing was that in every single one of those scenes, nothing remotely like recrimination came out of my parents' mouths, because I knew that was how it would be in real life.]
At 2:12 in the afternoon, my phone rang; it was my friend from the Supreme Court.
"Hello," he said in greeting, sounding very casual. "Have you seen the list?"
"Um, no," I replied, my extremities very cold indeed.
"I have," he said, almost cheerfully. [And blood pressure raising-ly, in my opinion, but hey, that might just be me. I know some people would say that was a good sign, but believe me, at times like those, you definitely do not want to assume.]
I tried to sound casual, but I think I just sounded like I was choking. "And? Is it good news, or bad news?"
A beat of silence, and then, "Congratulations," he said, warmth in his voice. "You passed."
Relief. Profound, blessed relief.
Well, I thought to myself, there's no turning back now.
And despite all my misgivings about law school and becoming a lawyer, at that moment, on that day, I knew was right where I was supposed to be.
