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Surely, this day can only get better from here.
3
NIC
Reputation is everything.
Take my brother, Barry. He’s been coasting on goodwill from his fraternity brothers for years, using the connections he made in college to get himself into meetings he’d never get on his own. Took a page out of dear old Dad’s book for that one, and why not? It works for them. Doesn’t matter that he’s a casual, if disinterested, bully, or if he can barely tell the difference between pro se and pro bono.
Or take my father, for example. Depending on who you ask, he’s a stand-up guy. Best lawyer in town, get you out of anything. The old boys’ network is alive and well, and both my brother and my father, Nicolas Pendergrass Sr., have made their lives and living out of it. Although, Dad’s reputation among his employees is a different story.
The only employee in my office is my personal assistant, Natalie Casteel. She was fifth in an exasperating line of temp agency hires and the only one who didn’t spend all her time on her cell phone, arrive constantly late, like the first one, or flirt like the third.
No doubt my reputation among those five—three women and two men—wouldn’t be good. I heard the complaints under their breath, the phone conversations they wrapped up as soon as I walked back in from lunch. Hard-ass, they said. Stick up his ass. Come to think of it, there were an awful lot of comments about my ass. Doubly so from number three, right up until I had to let him go.
Natalie, bless her, does her job, which lets me do mine, and we go about our business. No drama, no fuss. Simple. Easy.
“Hey, boss,” she says, smiling as she sets the coffee on my desk, along with the files I asked her to retrieve from my apartment. I try to avoid sending her there, but this client has been demanding my attention all week, and I want to wrap this up today. And while I trust her in my private space, I have no desire to push my luck and risk her running into my new next-door neighbor.
For the three hundred and seventy-seven days she’s been working here, never once has she mentioned a boyfriend, girlfriend, spouse, or lover of any kind.
“Good afternoon,” I say belatedly, thanking her for the coffee and the errand. We touch base on her tasks for the afternoon, and when my office door closes on her way out, I take a deep breath.
Three hundred and seventy-seven days, five hours, and forty minutes.
Not that I’m counting.
She’s changed something about herself again or is planning to. The last time I’d seen that particular smile, she’d come to work the next day with her dark hair all shiny, shorter, and different. It bounced and curled around her shoulders, and I wanted to wind it around my fingers to find out if it was as soft as it looked.
The phone on my desk rings. I answer immediately. Anything to get my mind off things I shouldn’t be thinking about.
“Pendergrass Law, Nic speaking.”
“Son, that’s about the dumbest way to answer your phone I have ever heard.”
I close my eyes. Check the caller ID next time, Nic. “Hi, Dad.”
“Why on earth do you pay that tubby secretary if you’re still answering your own damn phone? I’d like to know.”
I don’t bother answering the insult to Natalie or his questions. Nicolas Pendergrass Sr. doesn’t like to be interrupted, which means this conversation will end faster if I let him get to the point.
“And speaking of answering phones,” he gruffs. “Where’s Barry?”
I blink and realize he’s waiting for a response this time.
“I haven’t talked to him.”
“Well, what the hell is he up to? I’ve left messages. I know he keeps in touch with you. You tell him from me, he better call me back. Boy’s got some explaining to do.”
That boy is over thirty years old. “I haven’t seen him,” I say. It’s true; I haven’t actually seen my brother in weeks. “If that’s all, Dad, I’ve got to get back to work.”
He snorts. “Like you’re covered up with clients. You want to get into real law, you come work for me,” he says. “Instead of twiddling your thumbs with those one-off nickel-and-dimers.”
“I’ll tell Barry you want to talk if I see him.”
Dad hangs up without another word.
Thirty-four years of abbreviated conversations taught me long ago not to expect otherwise. At this point, I’m just happy he cuts the diatribes short.
