Water's Edge

by Robert Whitlow

  “Yes, sir,” Tom mumbled.

  “Very well. I’m going to grab a nap to knock back this jet lag,” Barnes said. “You gentlemen finish without me.”

  The phone clicked off. Tom didn’t move.

  “There’s not much else to discuss,” McGraw said. “Bring Mark up to speed on any cases you’ve been handling solo this afternoon. He and I will reassign them.”

  “Is he going to make partner?” Tom blurted out.

  “That wouldn’t be appropriate for us to discuss with you, would it?” Crowther replied with a tight smile. “You heard Joe. We appreciate the work you’ve done, and I’m confident you’ll find a good place to land. In the meantime, you can take all the time you need to settle your father’s affairs without feeling rushed. My father was a small-town CPA, and it took twice as long to administer his estate than I thought.”

  “I’ll send out a firm-wide memo about the change in your status within an hour,” McGraw added. “Nothing negative about you.”

  Crowther stood and extended his hand to Tom. “Best of luck to you, son. You’ve been well trained and can take that with you wherever you go.”

  McGraw turned toward his computer screen. The meeting over, Tom stumbled from the office. He passed Marie’s desk, faintly hearing her call his name as he dashed down the hall. Olson Crowther had made Tom’s tenure at the firm sound like an advanced class at a canine obedience school. The dog part of the comparison was right. Tom felt like a loyal pet dropped from a car in the middle of the city and left to fend for itself.

  The hustle and bustle of activity on the thirty-sixth floor now had a discordant tone. The first person Tom saw was a middle-aged paralegal who spent half her time working on Crutchfield files. His firing wouldn’t be the only fallout crashing down from the thirty-seventh floor. He resisted the urge to grab the woman and suggest she clock out early so she could take her ten-year-old son to Chastain Park and play catch with a Frisbee. Tom avoided making eye contact with anyone until he reached his office and shut the door. Plopping down in his chair, he swiveled to the side and looked out the window. Stone Mountain hadn’t moved; Tom’s world had crumbled like a dried clump of red clay.

  chapter

  TWO

  On the corner of Tom’s desk was a glass paperweight, a gift from his father, shaped like a miniature rainbow trout. Beneath the paperweight were John Crane’s last words, a typically cryptic message delivered to Tom’s administrative assistant. The phone call came in while Tom was out of town taking depositions. Before Tom could return the call, he’d received the news that John Crane had drowned. Tom removed the paperweight and, for the hundredth time, read the note:

  I’ve been fishing in a new spot, and the water is too deep for me. Can you come home for a few days and help me out?

  Tom crumpled the note and threw it in the trash. It was time to get rid of the worthless stuff he’d accumulated during his time at the firm. A message from his father that didn’t make sense was a good place to start. Tom had emptied two drawers of his desk when the phone buzzed.

  “Clarice is on line 750,” his assistant said.

  Tom’s girlfriend worked in the marketing department of a major soft-drink manufacturer. In her world, success was measured by a half-percent increase in sales to the Brazilian market.

  “I’m trying to decide the best colors to include in a pie chart,” she said in her slightly shrill voice. “Do you think it’s tacky to put magenta next to yellow? The new outfit I bought last week, you know, the one with the magenta top and yellow sweater, looks nice, doesn’t it? That’s what gave me the idea.”

  “They go well together. And you look super in the outfit.” Tom paused for a second. “I just got fired.”

  “Fired from what?” The natural tension in Clarice’s voice ratcheted up a notch.

  “My job. They called it a staffing consolidation, but the end result is the same.”

  “What did you do wrong?”

  “Nothing.”

  “That doesn’t make any sense.”

  Tom told her about the meeting with the senior partners without revealing the names of the clients involved.

  “At first I thought you meant you’d been fired by one of your clients,” Clarice said in a more subdued voice when he finished. “Where are you now?”

  “In my office.”

  “They didn’t seize your computer and escort you out of the building? That’s what happens here when someone gets axed.”

  “No. McGraw asked me to work to the end of the day.”

  “Do you think they’re letting you down easy? I mean, there had to be something you messed up.”

  So far, Clarice was failing miserably in the comforting words department.

  “No.”

  “Didn’t Brett Bollinger recommend you for his position?”

  “Yeah, but I guess his influence ended when he left the firm. I don’t have a clue why I became a target.”

  The phone was silent for a moment.

  “Did you miss a statue of limitations? A girl in our legal department did that last month and got canned on the spot.”

  “It’s statute of limitations. And no, I didn’t.”

  “Don’t try to make me look dumb,” Clarice replied with a snort. “I’m doing my best to help.”

  “Of course you are. Look, I’m pretty shook up. I’ll see you at home.”

  “I have to work late, so don’t forget to pick up dinner. I’m in the mood for Chinese again. You’ll feel better after you drink a glass of wine and eat a couple of spring rolls.”

  Clarice ended the call. Tom placed his phone on the desk. It was going to take more than wine and spring rolls to get him through this crisis.

  ______

  The hour that passed before McGraw’s e-mail hit Tom’s in-box seemed like a week. When the senior partner’s name finally popped up on his screen, Tom counted to five before opening it.

  Tom Crane will be leaving the firm at the end of the day. We wish him well in his future legal endeavors.

  A couple of minutes later there was a knock on his door.

  “Come in,” he said, steeling himself for an onslaught of sympathy that might or might not be genuine.

  Mark Nelson, his laptop under his right arm, stuck his head through the doorway. “I got a terse memo from McGraw ordering me to meet with you about your files. A minute later the one about you leaving the firm hit my server. I called McGraw’s office to get more details, but he didn’t have time to talk to me.” Mark ran his hand through his hair. “Did the request for time off to shut down your father’s practice have anything to do with it? I had a feeling that wouldn’t sit well with McGraw.”

  “No.”

  Mark came in and closed the door behind him. “What happened?”

  “McGraw didn’t send you anything about Crutchfield Financial?”

  “No.”

  Tom broke the news.

  “That will be bad for a lot of people,” Mark replied. “Did my name come up?”

  “Only in connection with reassignment of files.”

  “I’m sorry, man.”

  Tom studied Mark for a moment. He didn’t sense any phoniness in his colleague. They weren’t close friends, but they’d been through many legal wars together. Combat of any type has a way of bonding men together.

  “I thought you’d be the one to make partner.” Mark shrugged. “I’d even started floating my résumé to other firms a month ago. Last week I had an interview with a medium-sized firm in Sandy Springs.”

  “But if our firm—” Tom corrected himself: “If Barnes, McGraw, and Crowther lets you stay—”

  “I’ll hang around. The other job was a pay cut, but at least it was a job. I can’t expect Megan to start married life with a husband drawing unemployment benefits.” Mark sat down across from Tom and opened his laptop. “I bet Sweet and Becker would offer you a job, maybe even a partnership on the spot. You’ve hammered them several times, and Nate Becker has a lot of respect
for you.”

  “How do you know that?” Tom asked in surprise.

  “He told me. A friend and I signed up to play in a charity golf tournament and ended up in a foursome with Becker and one of his associates. He talked about you the whole round and asked me a bunch of questions.”

  “Why didn’t you tell me about this?”

  “Would you have cared?”

  “No,” Tom admitted. “It would only have fueled my ego.”

  “And today your ego needs a little fuel. But Becker wasn’t asking for social reasons. You’re on his radar as a possible hire.”

  Sweet and Becker was a solid law firm, not nearly as large as Barnes, McGraw, and Crowther but with a good core of clients. On the downside, the smaller firm might not be a suitable match for Pelham Financial.

  “Don’t start daydreaming about your next job yet,” Mark said, interrupting Tom’s thoughts. “Turn on your computer, and let’s get started on the transition. If the firm is going to fire me, I don’t want it to be because I fumbled a handoff from you.”

  Mark already knew bits and pieces about most of Tom’s cases because of biweekly status meetings. When they reached the new Linden Securities case, Tom mentioned what McGraw told him about the fraud committed by their client’s broker. Mark raised his eyebrows.

  “What did McGraw say when you told him you already suspected that?”

  “I didn’t get a chance. It came up after he cut me loose. If I’d interrupted him at that point, it would have seemed like a last-ditch effort to save my job.”

  Personnel decisions by the partners, no matter how capricious or arbitrary, rarely affected bottom-line profit. There was always a fresh pool of top-notch legal talent anxious for the opportunity to work at a place like Barnes, McGraw, and Crowther. Tom felt degraded that his status had changed from “Future Partner” to “Former Associate,” a description forever synonymous with failure. As he and Mark worked, Tom struggled to push his disappointment and hurt feelings aside.

  “Let me know when you’re ready to leave,” Mark said when they finished. He closed his laptop. “I’ll help you carry your stuff to your car.”

  ______

  All Tom’s personal belongings fit neatly into four boxes. He’d decided to leave quietly. At 5:30 p.m. there was a knock on the door and Mark entered.

  “I knew you’d try to sneak out. I’m not going to let that happen.”

  “I can handle it,” Tom said. “It will only take a couple of trips.”

  “Don’t argue.”

  On their way to the elevator they passed the cubicle where Allyson Faschille, the administrative assistant who’d taken the last phone call from John Crane, worked. She glanced up.

  “Bye, Tom. I’ll miss you. Best of luck. Congratulations, Mark. I’ll miss you too.”

  Tom turned to Mark. “Congratulations?”

  “I’ll fill you in once we’re on the elevator.”

  The elevator door opened, and they stepped inside.

  “Did you accept the job with the firm in Sandy Springs?”

  “No.”

  “But Allyson said she would miss you too.”

  Mark stared straight ahead. “I had a meeting with McGraw after you and I went over your cases. I’m moving upstairs into Brett’s office. Allyson and I won’t be working together.”

  Tom’s jaw dropped open. “They made you a partner?”

  “Yeah,” Mark replied with an apologetic look on his face. “It’s as much a shock to me as it is to you.”

  “Did he tell you why?”

  “If you mean why me and not you, the answer is no. He mentioned I was doing a good job, then gave me a big stack of paperwork to read and sign. It was over in less than five minutes.”

  The elevator reached the ground floor. Tom stumbled into the foyer.

  “I wanted you to hear the news from me,” Mark said. “If I had the authority, I’d tell you to take that stuff back to your office.”

  The two men walked in silence to the parking deck and put the boxes in the trunk of Tom’s car. It was an awkward moment.

  “That’s great news for you and Megan,” Tom said, hoping his face didn’t reveal the struggle inside. “You need the security that comes with a partnership more than I do.”

  Mark smiled. “Man, you should have heard her scream when I called and told her the news. She’s probably online looking for houses right now.”

  Tom tried to smile, too, but suspected it looked a bit crooked.

  “Give me a call as soon as you’re back in town so we can grab lunch,” Mark said. “And keep me in the loop on your job search. Now that I’m a partner I can write a killer letter of recommendation for you.”

  “Thanks,” Tom managed. “I’ll do that.”

  Tom sat in the driver’s seat of his car for a few seconds and wondered if he would have been as gracious as Mark if their situations had been reversed. He watched the excited new partner disappear through the door leading to the office tower. Tom drove out of the parking deck. There were a lot of emotional potholes on the road to unemployment. So far, Tom felt like he’d hit every one.

  ______

  Tom could get home in less than thirty minutes unless he had to stop off for Chinese, Mexican, Japanese, Indian, Jamaican, or one of the other types of ethnic food craved by Clarice. Tom’s girlfriend grew up shuttled between divorced parents, neither of whom cooked. To her, take-home was the same as home cooked.

  There were four apartments in the two-story building where Tom lived. It was an older structure with high ceilings, crown molding, chair rails, and dark wood floors. His apartment was on the ground level. He parked in a reserved spot off the street beside a high privacy fence that sealed in a tiny backyard. The smell of the food on the car seat made his stomach growl.

  As soon as he opened the door, Tom was greeted by the throaty bark of a large, mostly brown dog that Clarice insisted would easily win the ugliest dog in Atlanta contest. Tom acquired the furry animal when a girlfriend prior to Clarice dragged him to the local humane society one Saturday morning.

  While Tom waited at the shelter, he stood in front of a cage that contained a brownish-black animal with long legs, floppy ears, square jaw, furry tail, and black tongue that protruded slightly from the right side of its mouth. The dog looked at Tom with bloodshot eyes that would have shamed a drunk.

  “What is it?” he asked a middle-aged woman serving as a volunteer.

  “It’s your dog,” she responded brightly. “See the way he’s looking at you? He’s been neutered and had all his shots.”

  Tom shook his head. “Neutering him was a good idea. Puppies that look like that wouldn’t be good for the canine gene pool. Is he housebroken?”

  “Probably, although we can’t guarantee that sort of thing. Dogs respond well to routine. Do you see the nose and ears?”

  “They’re hard to ignore.”

  “Based on those features, I suspect he has a significant percentage of bloodhound. The black tongue and furry tail most likely come from a chow. The brindle coat doesn’t go with the solid-brown head, so that part is a mystery. I’ll bring him out so you can get a closer look.”

  “No thanks.”

  “At least let him lick your hand.” The woman reached for the latch on the cage. “Dogs in this area are scheduled to be euthanized on Monday.”

  Tom muttered while the woman opened the door of the cage. The dog ambled over and sniffed Tom’s hand, then leaned against his leg. Tom reluctantly rubbed the top of the mutt’s head, causing the animal to emit a low moan of pleasure.

  “I already have a cat,” Tom said to the volunteer.

  “Cats are great pets, but a dog like this will be devoted to you forever and ask for nothing except love in return.”

  Tom’s girlfriend returned with a frisky golden retriever on a leash.

  “What’s that?” she asked when she saw Tom and the ugly dog.

  “Ask her.” Tom pointed to the volunteer. “She can tell you all about
him while I fill out the adoption paperwork.”

  The first time Tom brought the dog home, the beast put his nose to the floor and began crisscrossing the living room like a four-legged vacuum cleaner. Whiskers, Tom’s calico cat, retreated to the top of the sofa with intense suspicion. As he watched the dog’s antics, Tom considered naming him Vacuum, but a more suitable name immediately came to mind.

  “Rover,” he said with a satisfied nod of his head. “If a dog ever deserved that name, you’re it.”

  Rover turned out to be thoroughly housebroken, never jumped on the furniture, ignored Whiskers, and didn’t chew Tom’s shoes. However, for all his good qualities, Rover had one bad one—he couldn’t keep stray drops of drool from leaking out the side of his mouth. Every so often, Tom had to do a quick run through the apartment with a damp mop to remove the residue.

  The girlfriend and her golden retriever left Tom’s life shortly after Rover entered it. Dragging Tom to the humane society was the best thing she ever did.

  ______

  Rover sniffed the paper bag in Tom’s hand before leading the way into the small kitchen. Whiskers didn’t move from her spot on top of the sofa. Tom placed the food in the oven on low to keep it warm, then changed into exercise clothes for a fast thirty minutes on the treadmill. Rover lay in the corner of the spare bedroom with his head on his paws and a look on his face that questioned Tom’s sanity for running in place.

  When he saw the lights of Clarice’s car flash through the windows of the kitchen, Tom took the food out of the oven and lit a candle in the middle of the tiny round table where he and Clarice ate their meals. The front door opened. Rover woofed but didn’t leave Tom’s side.

  “Yum. I can smell dinner out here!” she called out.

  Clarice walked into the kitchen and kicked off her shoes. Whiskers followed and brushed against her leg. Tall and shapely, with blond hair and blue eyes, Clarice Charbonneau had attracted Tom’s attention at a pro-am golf tournament twelve months earlier. For the past eight months they’d not dated anyone else.

  “Magellan was in a horrible mood today,” she continued. “Three people were royally chewed out during the planning session. I kept my mouth shut, but it made me wonder why I put up with the stress he stirs up every time he comes into town. If he was based here instead of L.A., it would be unbearable.” Clarice paused. “Oh, I went with the magenta next to the yellow and held my breath during the meeting. Magellan didn’t comment on it one way or the other. Alice thought it was pretty.”