Everyonewas cupcakes and puppies around here, except the trash man.
It figured Sara would know him.
We ordered lunch as I filled her in on what Thatcher had done.
“When I first got here, I forgot to take out the trash. So it piled up for a week, getting stinky.”
“Is that why there was a bag of trash sitting in the back hallway a few months back?”
“Yeah. Since he didn’t pick it up raccoons got into it, so I had to go cleanthatup, re-bag it, and bring it inside for awholeweek.”
Sara said, “But that’s not Thatcher’s fault.”
“No. But I called the trash company and asked for a special midweek pickup, and the guy on the phone laughed at me! I may have forgotten to take out the trash, but the raccoons arehisfault.”
Sara shifted in her seat uncomfortably and nibbled on her pasta salad. “He doesn’t live here. He lives on Red Oak Mountain, and he does trash service for a half dozen local towns. He probably couldn’t come back just to get one bag of trash.”
That was the trouble with Sara. She was a real sweetheart. But she had a hard time seeing the bad in people.
And I was a lawyer. I waspaidto see the bad in people.
Leaving the prestigious law firm I’d worked at in New York City to come here for an internship with a small country lawyer had probably been a mistake. But I was too stubborn to admit my mistakes. I’d just keep plowing through them until I figured out my next step in life.
It was most certainly not this.
“Well, the next time was definitely his fault,” I told her.
She sucked down dessert first, a raspberry tart that was entirely too good for a small-town bakery to make. “What did he did that time?”
I had the common decency to look slightly abashed. “Well, it was part his fault and,” I cleared my throat, “part my fault.”
Sara waited for me to tell her, while the owner of the bakery, Emma, brought our meals out.
Looking away, I said, “I put the trash out, but… I may have forgotten to bring the can all the way to the curb.”
Sara raised her eyebrows, waiting for the rest of the story.
“I got a call from my old law firm while I was bringing the can out. My old boss did a hard sell to get me to come back. We had a little good-natured negotiation, the way lawyers do, and I’d gotten distracted by the large number he’d thrown my way if I came back. It would be a hell of a raise. So I forgot all about the trash.”
And I had to admit, the internship hadn’t gone exactly as planned.
I mean, imagine a lawyer being assigned to take out the trash and clean up the break area! It was also my job to make the coffee in the morning.
But if I stayed on for a year, and Hank liked me, he’d sell me the practice. And ifthathappened, I’d never take out the trash again. It would be Sara’s job.
Not that I resented her over it. But Hank had some funny ideas. When he hired me he told me that the paralegal, Sara, came in an hour late every day because she was trying to have a baby. If you asked me, having a baby and showing up at work on time had nothing in common. But to hear Hank talk about it, it was the only way it would happen.
He seemed fully invested in his paralegal getting the chance to pop out babies.
Sara frowned at me across the table as I finished my bacon croissant. “You’re thinking about leaving?”
That’s what she took from everything I said?
“I don’t know if I’m leaving or not,” but I was leaning that way. “Deer Springs is… cute. But I’m not sure I fit here. Sometimes I feel like it was a mistake to leave New York.”
Sara looked genuinely upset, even though we’d only known each a few months. “I hope you stay. We love having you here. And I thought you were buying Hank’s practice? You’re supposed to be my future boss.”
“I am buying it. I mean, I’m thinking about it. That’s the whole purpose of the internship—to make sure it’s a good fit and to give Hank time to transition into retirement.”
