The Cost of Happiness: A Contemporary Romance (9 page)

“Right. Well, Darlene wanted to know how you were doing, did I have any concerns about your performance, did I want another paralegal assigned to any of my cases, that kind of stuff.”

Meghan gripped the seat of her chair on either side of her legs. She felt swamped by her nerves, and the fear that something really bad was coming.
Breathe in, breathe out. Breathe in, breathe out
.

Dan glanced up at her, then looked back at the papers in his hands. “Okay, so I might have said something—I mean, I don’t know if something I said was off-limits.”

Well, this relaxed Meghan somewhat. He was a partner, and a former AUSA. No matter what he said, there wasn’t that much Darlene could do about it. “I’m sure it’s fine.”

“I was singing your praises, actually. I thought that wouldn’t be anything out of the ordinary for her to hear.” He looked at her then, and it was the purest blue-sky laser-beam look ever. Her breath caught slightly before she forced it in and out, slowly. In and out.

When she thought she could carry it off, she laughed a little. “Darlene is not my biggest fan, no.”

That seemed to open the floodgates. Dan sat up and slapped the papers onto the table. “Well, why the hell not, I’d like to know. Okay, so you aren’t—oh, how did she put it?—a conventional paralegal. And I wanted to reach through the phone and throttle her. Plus she has that wispy voice with some fake Southern accent. Please tell me that accent is fake,” he pleaded.

“Um, don’t know. As I say, we’re not exactly BFFs.”

“Anyway, I’m afraid I got a bit, uh, testy with her.”

Meghan began to enjoy this. She stifled a smile and quirked an eyebrow at him. “Testy?”

He looked sheepish. “Okay, I went into full prosecutor mode. Didn’t she understand what a treasure you were, that I didn’t want a conventional paralegal, I wanted a smart paralegal and that she’d take you away from my cases over my dead body. That kind of thing.”

She couldn’t help the smile spreading over her face. “I’m sorry I didn’t get to listen in.”

“Not my finest hour. I can be nice when I try, although I’m afraid I react badly to aggressively stupid people.”

“Oh, Darlene’s not stupid. You have to understand, she has an associate’s degree. I scare her, and I really don’t mean to, but supervising me isn’t that easy for her.”

“I think you’re being too generous.” He took another tack. “Darlene said she could understand if I wanted a new paralegal. What was that about? What’s even remotely understandable about not working with you?”

Meghan looked at the floor. “Not all partners wanted me on their cases.”

“Why the hell not? I mean, I already figured out that Georgia was phoning it in for a while, working her political connections to get the job in Washington. That’s even more reason to want a really smart person working on your cases.”

She sighed. “You’re right. You don’t understand the law firm mentality.” She unlocked her hands from the chair seat and leaned forward, her elbows on her knees. “I’m neither fish nor fowl, you know? I’m educated like a lawyer, but I’m not a lawyer so I can’t practice law. In fact, there has to be extra supervision to make sure I don’t ‘accidentally’ practice law without a license. So I can’t talk to clients directly, or if I do, it has to be very narrowly limited to matters appropriate for paralegal work.”

“That was the reason you were so uptight on the phone with Trioli yesterday?”

Meghan shrugged.

Dan thought about this for a minute. “Okay, let me see if I’ve got this straight. Fergusson hired you as a summer associate.”

“Yes.”

“As a summer associate, you’d have been asked to produce memos like these—” He pointed at the stack on the table.

“Yes.”

“And as part of the oh-so-exciting life of a summer associate, you’d have been included in things ‘real’ lawyers do, like, say, calls to the client.” Dan’s sarcasm warmed Meghan’s bruised ego, now that she could see where he was going.

“Yes.”

“So what the hell stops me from treating you like the summer associate you were four weeks ago?”

“Law firm culture. It simply isn’t done.”

Dan snorted.

Meghan lowered her voice to a soothing tone. “I understand their concerns. I’ve tried hard to show them that I understand their concerns. I really want to avoid triggering the crisis they’re all focused on. Only…it’s hard to prove a negative, you know? I can handle every case without a problem and it’ll never prove that I won’t overstep.”

Dan was leaning back in his chair, considering all this. “How did you get a job as a paralegal anyway? Why didn’t they keep you on as a summer associate?”

“I’d already left the firm. I’d cleared out my desk. Clearly I needed a new job, so I talked with our placement office.” She shrugged. “I was told someone at the law school called in a favor.” When she was offered the paralegal position, Meghan had been sullen and resentful, although she’d tried to say the right things and thank the right people. It had just been easier to put her head down and work, not really caring if she interacted with anyone at the firm. She didn’t tell Dan any of that. It hadn’t been her finest hour.

“I dunno,” he said. “I keep thinking there has to be some way to allow you to work more as a quasi-lawyer. What do I know? I’m no expert on legal ethics.”

“It’s okay,” she assured him. “I love my job, really. It’s mindless at times. I even like that part.”

“You were born to be a lawyer. This paralegal bullshit is…well, bullshit.”

She hesitated, then went on, “I—I’ll admit that I am enjoying this work.” She nodded at the stack of memos. “Enjoying it a lot. I just don’t mind the other work.”

“You’re a better man than I am, Gunga Din,” he quoted.

“Now that’s appropriate,” she teased. “Wasn’t Gunga Din some native servant or something?”

“Oh, you know what I mean,” he snarled. “I bet Gunga Din was actually respectful to his elders and betters, brat.” His eyes were still sunny skies.

“So you’re going to play the age card again, hmm?” She giggled. “Spill it, then.”

“Spill what?”

“Your age.”

“Thirty-four, almost thirty-five.” His eyes narrowed, waiting.

“Hah. I’m amazed you took this job.” She laughed. “Why not go straight to the nursing home?”

“Oh, I have a few good years in me yet.” He got up, making an elaborate pantomime of straightening out stiff joints. “C’mon, brat, I’ll drive you home.”

That stopped her cold. Clearly an order rather than an offer.

Breathe in. Breathe out
.

Dan was surprised on Monday afternoon to get a call from Wallace Leith’s secretary requesting his presence in the great man’s office. When Dan got there, he could see that status has its privileges. From Wally’s northwest corner office—which was twice the size of Dan’s and decorated in tasteful antiques and Oriental rugs—the view stretched from the dark honey stone of the Greek Revival art museum, along the Schuylkill River and Boathouse Row, past the tree line of Fairmont Park to the hazy horizon of the Main Line and beyond. Dan watched the Philadelphia Zoo balloon rise with more tourists on board. It still wasn’t as high as Wally’s office.

Wally leaned back in his massive leather desk chair. There was a bone-thin woman sitting on the sofa along the south wall. She glared at Dan when they made eye contact.

“Dan, good to see you. Have you met Darlene McAndrews?”

“We’ve spoken on the phone,” Dan said pleasantly. He shook her hand in much the same spirit as he greeted lawyers defending scumbag clients. Wait to hear what they have to say before eviscerating them.

“Yes, well, Darlene has a concern,” Wally said, his voice so carefully neutral that Dan couldn’t tell what the hell was going on. “Ordinarily, Darlene here would have spoken to Anne van Oostrum—our litigation coordinator—but Anne’s out today.”

So it landed on the chairman’s desk? How bad was this going to be?

“Darlene?” Wally nodded at the paralegal coordinator, whose mouth was pressed to a single red line of disapproval.

“Mr. Howard—” she began.

Dan settled back in his chair. He bestowed his sunniest smile on her. “Call me Dan.”

She nodded in annoyance. “I was checking the paralegal time accounts this morning and I noticed that Meghan Mattson has billed—” She made a show of consulting some papers she had in her hand. But she had these numbers memorized, Dan could tell. Her smoking gun, and she just couldn’t wait to pull the trigger. “Ah, yes, she billed eighteen hours this weekend. And that’s on a case we haven’t even officially opened a billing code for.”

Dan’s mouth widened into a happy grin. “Impressive, isn’t it, how quickly she worked to get me the information and legal research I asked for.”

Her toothpick torso nearly levitated off the sofa, she was so incensed. She looked like a cobra, weaving slightly and ready to strike.

“Are you saying she was authorized to do this work? Because I have to tell you, we’ve had problems with that one…”

“That one? Are you referring to Ms. Mattson?” Dan asked quietly.

Darlene made a noise in her throat that reminded Dan of his sister’s cat coughing up a fur ball. She addressed Wally. “I should never have agreed to hire her as a paralegal. She’s trouble. I said so from the beginning.”

Dan didn’t bother to look at Wally. “I don’t understand, Ms. McAndrews. Are you suggesting it’s trouble for the firm to have an incredibly bright, agile mind working here—in any capacity? I should think it would be to Fergusson and Leith’s benefit to have the smartest person in any position. From mail clerk to—well, to the chairman.”

“Look,
Dan
.” She spat his name like it was bitter on her tongue. “I’ve been here a lot longer than you. I’m not impressed by your background or your defense of Meghan. She upsets my paralegals.”

What the hell—? “
Your
paralegals?”

Wally interjected. “I’m sure Darlene meant the firm’s paralegals. She’s very protective of them, you understand, Dan.”

Dan looked over at Wally, who was backlit by the afternoon sun. Impossible to read his expression. “But Meghan’s not quite like the other paralegals, is she, Wally?”

“My point exactly.” Darlene stabbed the air with a bony finger. She had the Wicked Witch persona down pat. “She’s different. I don’t want different. I want stable and Meghan’s unstable.”

Dan’s head was reeling. How was that not defamatory? Was Darlene really that crazy? And why wasn’t Wally jumping down this woman’s throat?

He waited for Wally to say something, but when a beat passed in silence, Dan decided it was time to channel Blackjack McIntyre.

“Ms. McAndrews, for your sake, I’m glad that only Wally and I have heard your comments about Meghan. I’ve not litigated a defamation lawsuit—maybe Wally has, I don’t know—but the smartest move would be to keep your more…strident, shall we say?…comments about Meghan Mattson to yourself. For my part, I’m trying to land an important client for the firm. Meghan’s work has armed me with essential research and technical information I need when we see the client later this week. As soon as they sign the retainer agreement, you’ll have a billing number for the hours she worked this weekend.”

“We? Are you proposing to take Meghan on a client visit? Absolutely not. She can’t leave the building,” Darlene turned to Wally for support in her outrage.

“Dan…” Wally started.

“Meghan’s the paralegal for Complex Litigation, isn’t she?” Dan kept his body relaxed, his facial expression pleasant.

No one replied.

“So I believe she’s my paralegal to use in any way that advances the Complex Litigation team’s cases. She’s up to date in her work on the other cases. I’ve decided that I need her to land ProCell as a client.”

Wally leaned forward and rested his hands on the immaculate desk blotter. “I spoke with Lou Trioli. He’s expecting a junior associate to accompany you.”

Shit. Had he left Lou with that impression?

Dan shrugged, as though he wasn’t responsible for Lou Trioli’s misunderstanding. “Think how happy he’ll be when our bill shows Meghan’s time is charged at sixty dollars an hour, not a hundred and sixty.”

“Dan, that’s hardly the point,” Wally said.

“Okay, then tell me. What is the point?”

“I believe Ms. Mattson’s rather unusual history puts her—and the firm—in a delicate position.” Wally’s eyes softened. “She’s trained as a lawyer, she was hired as a summer associate, and now she’s a paralegal. We cannot present her to a client even as a summer associate let alone a licensed attorney.”

“And I haven’t done that. I don’t know what Trioli told you, but I know what I told him. Meghan’s a first-rate legal mind, among the best I’ve ever met. And that’s from someone used to working with Jack McIntyre. I can assure you, if Blackjack had Meghan working in his office, he’d throw everything he could at her. It’s the smart thing to do.”

Wally’s head tilted in a gesture of kindly rebuke. Darlene licked her lips, literally. Dan imagined her tongue was forked.

“It’s different now,” Wally said. “We have clients, and we need to be circumspect in how we proceed.”

Time for the gloves to come off. “Wally, are you telling me that paralegals never make visits to clients’ offices?”