AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“Do you still drink cheap merlot?”
He shakes his head, following me to where the driver has unceremoniously unloaded my things onto the curb. “My wife won’t let it in the house.”
“The woman has good taste.” I add, “Aside from when she married you” at the same time he says, “And that’s why she chose me.”
He throws his head back in that familiar loud, honking laugh, and I remember why our friendship endured three years of law school and eight months backpacking through Europe. Avery brought the unshakeable sense of humor while I made sure we didn’t flunk out of school or die in the Alps.
“Now that you’re here,” he comments, nudging one of the heavily taped boxes with his toe, “I’m determined to make you an academic. Reasonable hours, eager young minds to torment, a surprisingly decent dating pool. You’ll never want to go back to law practice.”
I finish tipping the driver and watch my only escape route drive away. “Because you know empathy and kindness are my strongest traits. I definitely wouldn’t make anyone cry by the second day.”
“You haven’t changed a bit.”
Change.That incomprehensible word. What the hell would I change into? If I knew what people wanted, if I understood at all, maybe I could fake it before I lost them.
“Now that you’re here,” I change the subject, “are you going to help me move in?”
Avery groans. I got his wedding invitation a few years ago, to a woman who owns a bakery, and he’s looking rather soft around the middle. “You can hire people to do this, you know. Lithe young men who won’t throw out their backs for a month.”
“You sound so goddamn old. I’ve been sitting all day; I’m excited to carry a few boxes.”
Grunting dramatically, he drags a suitcase to the front door and kicks it open with his brown loafer. “Or make your friend do it.”
“Or that.”
“Let’s rough it this evening,” Avery suggests as we ride up in the dim elevator with its chorus of rattles and creaks. “Get some takeout, eat on the floor.”
“Ithasfurniture, you know.” I study the clouded gold paneling, covered in fingerprints, and try to imagine myself trapped in this musty box every morning at four and again every night at eight or even later, wandering in the maze of my own tired thoughts. I’d prefer to take the stairs.
The elevator opens on a private hallway, dusty but bright, with a dark green doormat someone left behind that saysDachshund Dad. I scoot it in the direction of the garbage chute with my foot as I enter the front door code.
I only considered fully furnished apartments. Memories, like bed bugs, are better left behind. The furniture looks sparse and minimalist: a beige sectional, a dark wood table and chairs, some kind of incomprehensible textile art dominating the wall. Somewhere along the line, an architect ripped out the period windows and replaced them with floor to ceiling warehouse-style panes in every room. Light pours in, yellow puddles of warmth across the hardwood, and outside a chaotic panorama of skyscrapers and smoke.
Averyoohs andaahs tactlessly. After we’ve collected the rest of my possessions from the curb, both of us sweating into our suits, he wanders around poking his nose into things while I sit at the counter next to his bottle of chardonnay and read the building’s paperwork.
“By the way,” he muses, ogling the view, “I never congratulated you on winning the Lang case.”
I turn the last page of the building’s bylaws and sign at the bottom, satisfied with its ambiguous wording. It always feels safer putting my name on contracts when I’m confident I can work my way out of them if necessary.
“Are you listening?” He knocks on the counter impatiently, then offers his hand. “That was some of the most elegant legal work I’ve seen in my life. I’m going to teach it in my classes.”
“I don’t want to talk about it.” I step around him and walk down the hall to the study, which has navy blue shelves built into every wall, ready for the boxes of books I had shipped ahead.
“No need to be modest…” Avery’s voice fades when he sees the look on my face.
“Don’t. I mean it.” My voice cracks. Victor Lang’s case is something so suffocatingly painful that I don’t have the vocabulary to process it myself, let alone express it.
Ten years ago, I was a young, foolish civil attorney who had just let another man break his heart and burn down his dreams. When I got offered the role of corporate contract lawyer for a Seattle tech mogul, I threw myself into it body, mind, and soul. Enough paperwork moved through my office every week to deforest the fucking Amazon. More and more, as the CEO transitioned me to handling his personal papers and private matters, I started seeing things that didn’t add up. But by that time, all my worst professional traits—myopic, credulous, arrogant—were dialed up to the breaking point, and it was too late. Everything fell apart. I discovered that his son, Victor, one of my only friends, had endured untold horrors for the sake of preserving his family reputation, while his father’s company covered up mountains of corruption and abuse.
People ask how on earth a highly trained lawyer could have missed all the signs. No one in their right mind could be that disgustingly naïve.
I’ve tormented myself with that question until I can’t sleep, until I’ve lost all confidence in my skills, my instincts, and my character. I’ve thought over every contract I can remember a hundred times, until my mind is scraped raw and bleeding, trying to figure out what word, what sentence, should have tipped me off. I still don’t have an answer. I wish to God I did.
After a long pause, Avery says, “You know you can talk to me, Gray.”
“Thank you for coming, but I need to get an early night.”
He studies me regretfully. “Don’t brood too much. And don’t think you’ve escaped dinner at my house. My wife wants to hear about the time you got that Girl Scout cookie table shut down because they didn’t have the right permit.”
