Read Online The Associate by John Grisham - Free Book Online Page B

apology?”
    “I don’t know.”
    “That’s better. I expect some anger here.”
    “Don’t get me started.”
    “How about lunch?”
    “No.”
    “Why not?”
    “I’m busy.”
    “You can’t skip lunch.”
    “Where are you?”
    “Guilford.”
    “And where might that be?”
    “Just down the road from New Haven. There’s a great little place for breakfast. I’ll bring you here sometime.”
    “Can’t wait.”
    “Meet me at The Grill at noon. Please.”
    “I’ll think about it.”
    He drove back to New Haven, refusing every half mile to glance at his mirror. He slipped quietly into his apartment and took a shower. Mitch, his roommate, could sleep through an earthquake, and when he finally staggered out of his bedroom, Kyle was sipping coffee at the kitchen counter and reading a newspaper online. Mitch asked a few vague questions about last night, but Kyle deflected them nicely and gave the impressionthat he had bumped into a different girl and things went extremely well. Mitch went back to bed.
    _________
    Complete fidelity had been agreed to months earlier, and once Olivia was convinced Kyle had not cheated, her attitude thawed a little. The story he’d been working on for several hours went like this: He’d been struggling with his decision to pursue public-interest law instead of taking a big job with a big firm. He had no plans to make public-interest law a career, so why go there to begin with? He would eventually work in New York, so why delay the inevitable? And so on. And last night, after his basketball game, he decided he had to make a final decision. He turned off his phone and took a long drive, east for some unknown reason, on Highway 1, past New London and into Rhode Island. He lost track of time. After midnight, the snow picked up and he found a cheap motel where he slept for a few hours.
    He had changed his mind. He was going to New York, to Scully & Pershing.
    He spilled this over lunch, over a sandwich at The Grill. Olivia listened with skepticism but did not interrupt. She seemed to believe the story about last night, but she was not buying the sudden change in career plans. “You must be kidding,” she blurted when he hit the punch line.
    “It’s not easy,” he said, already on the defensive. He knew this would not be pleasant.
    “You, Mr. Pro Bono, Mr. Public Interest Law?”
    “I know. I know. I feel like a turncoat.”
    “You are a turncoat. You’re selling out, just like every other third-year law student.”
    “Lower your voice, please,” Kyle said as he glanced around. “Let’s not have a scene.”
    She lowered her voice but not her eyebrows. “You’ve said it yourself a hundred times, Kyle. We all get to law school with big ideas of doing good, helping others, fighting injustice, but along the way we sell out. Seduced by big money. We turn into corporate whores. Those are your words, Kyle.”
    “They do sound familiar.”
    “I can’t believe this.”
    They took a couple of bites, but the food was not important.
    “We have thirty years to make money,” she said. “Why can’t we spend a few years helping others?” Kyle was on the ropes and bleeding.
    “I know, I know,” he mumbled lamely. “But timing is important. I’m not sure Scully & Pershing will defer.” Another lie, but what the hell. Once you start, why quit? They were multiplying.
    “Oh, please. You can get a job with any firm in the country, now or five years from now.”
    “I’m not so sure about that. The job market is tightening up. Some of the big firms are threatening layoffs.”
    She shoved her food away, crossed her arms, and slowly shook her head. “I don’t believe this,” she said.
    And at that moment Kyle couldn’t believe it either, but it was important, now and forever more, to give the impression that he’d carefully weighed the issues and had arrived at this decision. In other words, Kyle had to sell it. Olivia was the first test. His friendswould be next, then his