Read Online Scar Tissue by William G. Tapply - Free Book Online

inspired. Women like to display flowers on their desks so that all visitors, strangers and acquaintances alike, will know that they are beloved.
    B esides preventing my personal life from falling into complete disarray, Julie works harder than I do, and she’s much smarter than I am when it comes to doing business. Julie, for example, believes in keeping full and complete records of billable hours. Telephone time is eminently billable. A three-minute phone conversation is billed as ten minutes, the minimum segment as specified in the standard agreement she designed for me and insists that my clients sign. Travel time is likewise billable. So, of course, is research time. I’m supposed to bill my clients for having drinks while I consult or negotiate with other lawyers, and Julie gets furious if I’m sloppy about keeping track of my court time, including all the hours I inevitably spend sitting
around courthouse lobbies waiting my turn. Every ten-minute increment of my workday, in fact, must be accounted for, and since Julie knows I’m careless about my time, she has devised a variety of ways to keep track of it herself. Julie knows when I go to the bathroom and when I leaf through fly-fishing catalogs and when I make weekend plans with Evie.
    Julie believes in being aggressive, going after business, getting there first. If she had her way, I’m convinced she’d have me chasing ambulances.
    The early bird gets the worm. That’s her motto.
    I remind her that it’s the second mouse that gets the cheese.
    If Julie’s merely meticulous about record-keeping, she’s downright Machiavellian when it comes to creating what she calls “the proper impression” for clients and other lawyers. She chose all the furnishings and appointments for our suite of offices and arranged them to create the illusion that I am a smart, powerful, wealthy, and in-demand Boston attorney.
    She believes that if a lawyer can see a client who has neglected to make an appointment, it conveys the impression of actually needing clients, and any lawyer who actually needs clients cannot be smart, powerful, wealthy, or in demand.
    The fact is, I am smart enough, and I have no interest in accruing any more power or wealth than I already have. I have as many clients as I want, which is considerably fewer than I could handle if I really wanted to work hard. The demand for my services is greater than my supply of enthusiasm for performing them. I’ll trade billable hours for a day of trout fishing any time.
    When I try to explain this basic economic equation to Julie, she rolls her eyes and shakes her head.
    So when she buzzed me on Thursday afternoon to announce that Jake Gold was there and wanted to see me, I was suspicious. “How long have you kept him waiting?”
    â€œHe just arrived. I explained that you’re busy.”
    I knew she was talking for Jake’s benefit. Julie’s desk is right there in the reception area.

    â€œI’m not busy at all,” I said. “I was just daydreaming about fly-fishing on Martha’s Vineyard next September with J. W. Jackson, in fact. We’re planning to enter the Derby this year, you know.”
    â€œYou’re almost done, then,” she said.
    â€œJulie, for Christ’s sake, there’s no need for this charade. You know what Jake’s been through. Bring him in here.”
    â€œExcellent,” she said—a bit frostily, I thought.
    A moment later she scratched on my door, and when I called “Enter,” she pushed it open and held it for Jake.
    I got up from behind my desk and went around to shake hands with him. “How’re you doing, Jake?” I said, though I could see how he was doing. His face was pinched and there were dark circles under his eyes. Jake was in his late fifties. Today he looked about eighty.
    â€œI’m all right,” he said.
    â€œCoffee, gentlemen?” said Julie.
    Jake shook his