Read Online Blackbird Fly by Lise McClendon - Free Book Online Page A

sane, to conquer the calendar in her head? To deal
with financial ruin and the fact that the only man she ever loved
turned out to be somebody she didn't love at all? Plus he was
dead?
    She looked at Jeff, twisting his beard. Calm
yourself. He had his own issues, no doubt. He must have gotten
the word to trim the budget, to transfer out the high-salary
veterans, to get more cheap fellows, to serve more law to the poor
for less. Or else.
    She sighed. “Sure, Jeff, give the old gal a
call.”
     
    Merle sat on a bench in Central Park and stared at
the yellow tulips instead of attending the interborough brown bag
lunch. She should have gone, but Laura would be fine, better no
doubt, without her. Tristan had settled down, doing his homework
without nagging, and talking about going back to school in a
hopeful, even eager voice.
    She dreaded this new job. She didn’t want to schmooze
corporate lawyers, ask them for pro bono time and fellowship
dollars. She hated asking for favors. She disliked most of the
lawyers she'd worked with, at least the partners and old-timers
she'd be begging for dollars. Most had a rich sense of entitlement,
and a nose for where the money was buried. From a personal
standpoint she’d have to get new clothes and the thought of
shopping made her feet ache. She’d have to start getting manicures
and dyeing her hair and wearing makeup. She smiled at a dog who
sniffed her. He eyed her suspiciously and moved on. Even stray dogs
rejected her.
    Who would she be if she changed everything about
herself, put on a fancy new face to the world?
    A Lawyer, of course. Someone in touch with her
emotions but able to totally compartmentalize, to understand the
motivations and emotions that are part of being a human yet stand
apart from them, use them, use others' emotions to get what you
want. Analytical, suspicious, duplicitous, ruthless. The perfect
lawyer: your worst nightmare.
    Merle sighed. That wasn’t who she was, not any more.
She graduated from high school early so she could be a lawyer
sooner. Maybe it was just a goal she could see, a clear choice, a
set future. It was on her list, Annie would say, something to be
checked off, a goal met. Her father was proud, she knew that. Maybe
she’d done it for him. Annie, four years older than Merle,
graduated law school just a year ahead of her. Merle and Stasia
ended up in the same class. Annie, so brilliant, and Stasia, so
everything. How could eager, precocious, gung-ho little Merdle be
as wonderful as they were? By being a lawyer too, of course.
    The lawyer, the attorney, the counselor. The choices
we make. She sighed again and pulled at her bangs.
    What-what?! Damn. The bugger was back, asking
too many questions. It had been silent, she realized now, for
weeks. Then, in the the geezer's office, listening to Harry’s will,
it flared up like hemorrhoids or a bad enchilada.
    The voice was familiar, her old
friend after all these years. H ow had it begun? Maybe a line
in a movie, maybe overheard from the noisy reception area at work:
What? What?!
    She had said it just once out loud, in the car after
a tedious dinner party at the home of a partner of Harry’s. The
partner's wife had irritated her with nonsense theories about the
cause of homelessness (laziness, a taste for narcotics, bad
choices, prostitution: take your pick) and the rest of the women
had abandoned her to the hyena. The men were no help, sequestered
with whiskey and cigars, conspiratorial and secretive, as if
letting anyone overhear their strategies would derail their rocket
ride to riches. On top of it all she had a headache, a doozy, and
the red wine hadn’t helped. So when Harry had asked as they drove
home in that mock-meek way he had, what was the matter, she had
exploded. “What! What?!”
    He had reflexively braked, as if she’d seen a deer or
a raccoon in the headlights. She turned to him, almost screaming.
“What do you want from me? What? What?!”
    He lapsed into silence. His typical