Read Online The Last Good Paradise by Tatjana Soli - Free Book Online
Authors: Tatjana Soli
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seen as weakness. One of the senior partners, Peleg, whose wife of thirty-five years died of cancer, managed to put in a half day after the morning funeral. No mercy would be shown to Ann.
She didn’t always hate the law.
During her summer breaks from law school, she interned for eccentric Professor Faucett, who drove a beat-up old VW van and lived in a shack in the shabby part of Silver Lake, brilliantly defending clients against corporations. Ann spent all-nighters, all-weekenders, with a group of a half dozen other idealistic types known as the “Faucetts,” who literally ate and slept in order to come to work, driven by the passion he inspired to do good.
Faucett had bad teeth, frizzy gray hair, and irregular laundry service, but none of that mattered because he was beating up the bad guys. After taking out living expenses (minimal), paying alimony (hefty) to a wife in the Palisades, who was not about to wait for the meek to inherit the earth, and child support (hefty) for their daughter, who attended private school and drove a BMW convertible, Faucett plowed every remaining last dime into defending the defenseless.
Ann was as in awe of Faucett’s selflessness as she was appalled by the wreck of his personal life. From his example, she, too, longed to do good. That summer she liked feeling that what she did mattered. She loved bolting out of bed in the morning like a legal knight in shining armor. But everything around her, from the expensive clothes in the Beverly Center to the big houses in Bel Air and Brentwood, suggested that the direction Faucett had taken was a fool’s path, one not capable of being followed, as impossible to replicate as trying to imitate Mother Teresa.
Just as in med school, where all the first-years professed a desire to help mankind and by the fourth year were clawing for specialties in dermatology or plastics, Ann noticed during the last year of law school that the aspirations of her fellow Faucetts underwent a seismic shift. Gone was the talk of pro bono work and public defenders. Now they were trying to guess the needs of the big firms: Patent defense? Estate planning? Now it was the address of the firm, the view from the office, the make of one’s car that determined one’s choices.
She never got in touch with Faucett again after being hired by FFBBP because she couldn’t bear confessing that the summer had been the equivalent of a moral one-night stand. She had sold out when the concept was still a valid one. Now guilt over selling out was as quaint and old-fashioned as knitted doilies, what with A-list actors hacking sheets through Kmart, and famous lawyers making cameos on TV shows. She joined the ranks of the dissatisfied, hating her job and dreaming of the day she could retire early and follow a passion—painting, or producing artisanal cheese, or deoiling penguins.
Ann was climbing back to their deck to towel off when she heard the snap of a door closing nearby.
* * *
In the harsh morning light, Loren, hungover, watched Ann come out of the hotel and walk down to the dock in a somber brown one-piece suit that looked proper for a grandmother taking a pram walk on the cold, rocky coast of Normandy. The suit flattened her breasts and covered every inch of derriere. A crime. An oversize straw hat hid her face, the zinc oxide 50 SPF sunblock giving her a Kabuki-like ghostly glow underneath.
If he didn’t know better, he would have thought her coldhearted, but he guessed she was merely unhappy, like many of his tourists. In the old days, if she had been single, he would have had her in bed within a day. If married, two. She was his type: good-looking but not flashy, intelligent but not dried out. Out of his league in the States, but all was possible in the islands.
One discovered interesting things about people when they were on vacation. Loren would take out a high-powered, arrogant businessman on a diving trip—the kind of guy who wouldn’t give anyone the
She didn’t always hate the law.
During her summer breaks from law school, she interned for eccentric Professor Faucett, who drove a beat-up old VW van and lived in a shack in the shabby part of Silver Lake, brilliantly defending clients against corporations. Ann spent all-nighters, all-weekenders, with a group of a half dozen other idealistic types known as the “Faucetts,” who literally ate and slept in order to come to work, driven by the passion he inspired to do good.
Faucett had bad teeth, frizzy gray hair, and irregular laundry service, but none of that mattered because he was beating up the bad guys. After taking out living expenses (minimal), paying alimony (hefty) to a wife in the Palisades, who was not about to wait for the meek to inherit the earth, and child support (hefty) for their daughter, who attended private school and drove a BMW convertible, Faucett plowed every remaining last dime into defending the defenseless.
Ann was as in awe of Faucett’s selflessness as she was appalled by the wreck of his personal life. From his example, she, too, longed to do good. That summer she liked feeling that what she did mattered. She loved bolting out of bed in the morning like a legal knight in shining armor. But everything around her, from the expensive clothes in the Beverly Center to the big houses in Bel Air and Brentwood, suggested that the direction Faucett had taken was a fool’s path, one not capable of being followed, as impossible to replicate as trying to imitate Mother Teresa.
Just as in med school, where all the first-years professed a desire to help mankind and by the fourth year were clawing for specialties in dermatology or plastics, Ann noticed during the last year of law school that the aspirations of her fellow Faucetts underwent a seismic shift. Gone was the talk of pro bono work and public defenders. Now they were trying to guess the needs of the big firms: Patent defense? Estate planning? Now it was the address of the firm, the view from the office, the make of one’s car that determined one’s choices.
She never got in touch with Faucett again after being hired by FFBBP because she couldn’t bear confessing that the summer had been the equivalent of a moral one-night stand. She had sold out when the concept was still a valid one. Now guilt over selling out was as quaint and old-fashioned as knitted doilies, what with A-list actors hacking sheets through Kmart, and famous lawyers making cameos on TV shows. She joined the ranks of the dissatisfied, hating her job and dreaming of the day she could retire early and follow a passion—painting, or producing artisanal cheese, or deoiling penguins.
Ann was climbing back to their deck to towel off when she heard the snap of a door closing nearby.
* * *
In the harsh morning light, Loren, hungover, watched Ann come out of the hotel and walk down to the dock in a somber brown one-piece suit that looked proper for a grandmother taking a pram walk on the cold, rocky coast of Normandy. The suit flattened her breasts and covered every inch of derriere. A crime. An oversize straw hat hid her face, the zinc oxide 50 SPF sunblock giving her a Kabuki-like ghostly glow underneath.
If he didn’t know better, he would have thought her coldhearted, but he guessed she was merely unhappy, like many of his tourists. In the old days, if she had been single, he would have had her in bed within a day. If married, two. She was his type: good-looking but not flashy, intelligent but not dried out. Out of his league in the States, but all was possible in the islands.
One discovered interesting things about people when they were on vacation. Loren would take out a high-powered, arrogant businessman on a diving trip—the kind of guy who wouldn’t give anyone the
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