Old School Ch. 05: Danville

"I think this would be perfect for a satellite office of Reese, Walker, Sarvis & Bates LLP." I said.

I could see the follow-up question forming on her lips for a moment before she gasped and covered her mouth as her eyes widened.

"Reese, Walker ... and whatever ... as in Les Walker? You mean you ...," she said, relinquishing her hold on her bicycle as it clattered to the pavement.

I nodded and smiled. "I did. The last piece was the appeals attorney we needed and it occurred to me that one of the most accomplished in the country happened to be cooling her heels right here in Danville. So Jerilyn and I made a deal yesterday: she's going to come on board in an of-counsel role while I represent her in her divorce, and after all of that becomes final, she becomes an equity partner — the 'Bates' in Reese, Walker, Sarvis & Bates along with Harold Reese and Megan Sarvis who are following me from Gladney & Walker."

"Oh Les, you ... you're serious?" she said, "You did it? It's solid? It's done?"

"Well, almost everything is done," I said.

"What's not done?"

I walked to her, cupped her face tenderly in my hands and kissed her softly. Her hands, correspondingly, caressed my face before she laced her fingers behind my neck and stood on her tiptoes as our kiss gained in passion and intensity.

"OK, that last thing ...," I said, my heart now pounding. "I love you with all that I am, Kass."

I fell to one knee, and Kass gasped. I pulled a size six ring from my shirt pocket, held her hand and looked into her eyes, now brimming with tears.

"Kassie Lorene Felson, will you marry me?"

Her right hand covered her mouth. In that instant, words eluded her.

"Oh my God ...," she said. "Oh sweet Lord, yes. Yes! Yes! Yes!"

"Then let's make it official," I said, gently taking her left hand, kissing it, then guiding the new gold ring with a two-carat diamond flanked by two smaller half-carat stones on either side onto her third finger.

She held her breath as the ring went on, her eyes darting back and forth from her hands to my eyes, intent on memorizing every detail of this moment. When it was done, I stood and took her in my arms.

"My love for you guides my every decision, my every motive, my every move. My desire in this life is to give you every happiness, every joy within my power. Kass, you are — and always were — the best part of me."

Her face was flushed red. Tears trickled down her cheeks. Those I couldn't brush away with my fingers spilled onto her shoulders or chest. A few unruly golden-red locks blew onto the streaks of her tears, and a few threads of hair adhered to them. Kass pulled me against her and rested her head against my chest, her newly bejeweled left hand approximately over my heart.

"My heart always told me you are the one who can fill in the colors of my life. When I was a little girl in kindergarten. When we were in high school ... prom night and our first kiss. When something down deep commanded me to find you at Dano's graveside and reconnect. Even in those horrible days of doubt when we were tested. Les, you were always in here," she pressed my hand onto her chest over her beating heart. "And I prayed that someday, you would find your way home to it."

Tears continued to spill, even to the corners of a brilliant smile now on her face.

"And today — April second, 2023 — you did," she said.

I wrapped my arms around her and our lips met there in the lee of Kass's new property. We couldn't kiss each other deeply enough. What kiss could really solemnize a moment such as this anyway? My whole life had led to this point. In this instant, with my bride-to-be in my arms, the future seemed open, bright, inviting. Secure.

The future was no longer bounded by work, financial security, professional accomplishment — the limits of my imagination until last fall. The future was a family — yes, family, the way I had admired Karl and Marsha Blankenship's — with children that would physically manifest the greatest aspirations of Kass and me, our flesh and blood, our shared past, all projected into the future.

How can a kiss do justice to all of that? How can it convey every beautiful thing coursing through two hearts in that moment?

Somehow, in ways words can never capture, it just does.

▼ ▼ ▼

FaceTime was not totally novel to Elise Walker. Mom had used it several times. I had tried to bring her around to the idea of video accompanying a phone call the past couple of years. For a woman just entering her sixties, she wasn't bad, though she had trouble occasionally flipping the camera function around so that I could see her rather than her coffee table during our normal Sunday afternoon catch-up calls.

So when she answered and I saw flowers just off the patio of her home in Woodland Hills in Louisville, I wasn't shocked.

"Hi son. Hope you had a lovely Sunday in Danville," she said.

"Happy Sunday mom — and yes, I'm having a lovely Sunday in Danville. Still here," I said. "And look who's with me."

I moved my phone back to respectable selfie distance for two and panned the view slightly to the left as Kass leaned in toward me and into the picture. "Hi Miss Elise!" Kass said.

"Mom, fix your camera so we can see you and not your patio."

"Oh ... this damn thing," she muttered as we saw a blur of moving fingers until finally her face appeared. "Is that better?"

"Much," I said. "Can you see us OK?"

"Yes, I see you both. You look wonderful, like you got some sun this afternoon," she said.

"We did. Went on a bike ride around town and I showed off Danville a little," Kass said.

"Did you go for a swim? Looks like your hair is wet, or is that just sweat?"

Mom doesn't miss a thing. I guess we didn't think about the need to dry our hair after a lengthy shower (and an orgasm apiece) when we got back exhausted from a bike ride, mostly on an upward incline, from the depot district.

"Well, yes, we did work up a pretty good sweat on the ride back," I said. It's true as far as it goes. "But Kass wanted to show you what she picked up along the way this afternoon."

Kass brought her left hand out of my lap in front of the lens and let her total of four carats of bling sparkle in front of it.

"Oh ... my ... heavens! That is so wonderful!" mom shouted on the other end of the call, momentarily dropping her phone in her excitement. "I had to wait nearly four decades for a daughter, but you're worth the wait, Kass!"

Kass was touched by Mom's words, even more than Mom knew.

"Dear girl, do you know how many fond wishes and even prayers this answers? I was looking through some old family videos just yesterday and saw one of the two of you playing in our backyard," Mom said. "You were maybe two and Les was four, maybe five, and you were having a hard time climbing up a little plastic slide, so Les came over and tried to help push you up the steps."

Now, Kass was sniffling, wiping her eyes and trying not to cry, and — as always — Mom noticed.

"Oh Kass, dear, what's wrong?"

Kass owned it.

"What you just said ... it means so much," she ducked her head to wipe her eyes on her t-shirt as I wrapped my right arm around her shoulder and pulled her close. "I can't tell you how much it touches me to be thought of as a daughter again ... and by a mom I've adored for as long as I can remember.

With her thought complete, she allowed herself a moment to cry softly. And in the silence on the other end of the call, I could see mom discreetly dab her eyes, though not in time to save her mascara. Finally, Mom cleared her throat.

"Lorene and Emmett are thrilled in this moment, so proud of the strong, independent woman you are, and I know they're partying in paradise right now, right alongside my sweet Richard," she said, the latter being a reference to my late father. "And they'll have an even bigger party over your wedding. Believe me, they'll be watching."

As Kass's tears momentarily abated, I took over the conversation for a moment.

"There's other developments, too, but I just wanted to let you know I'm leaving Gladney and Cincinnati and starting a new firm in Kentucky with some Gladney partners and a legendary appellate lawyer and law scholar who lives here in Danville," I said. "But keep that under your hat for a few days. Haven't formally notified Gladney's board of partners yet."

"So where will you two live?" Mom said.

"Danville. Kass's businesses are all here. We'll rent one of Kass's properties as a satellite office here and have our primary office in Lexington. I'll commute up there as needed, maybe Tuesdays to Thursdays — it'll vary. One thing the pandemic taught us: the office is as portable as your laptop," I said.

"So looks like he'll be my tenant before he's my husband," Kass said.

"Les, you said there were developments, plural," Mom said. "What else is going on?"

"Oh, I think those two are pretty good for one day. Nothing else that's anywhere near as pressing as our engagement and me making Kass and Danville home," I said. "But how about we give you the full download in person next week. Next Sunday's Easter, and we thought we'd come up to Louisville and spend it with you. If you don't already have plans ..."

"No plans I can't break. Yes, next weekend is perfect. Will you be staying here? I have a two-bedroom unit."

"Well, sure if that's OK."

"It's the most OK thing ever. Just let me know when you plan to arrive so I can clear my boyfriends out of the place," she said with a carefree cackle.

"I'll close with this: welcome to the family, Kass. You're a blessing and I love you," Mom said.

"I love you, too, Miss Elise. Now don't make me cry again."

"Love you, Mom. We'll see you this coming weekend," I said as Kass and I waved into the iPhone until it went blank.

We followed that call up with a similar one to Kass's brother and her sister-in-law in Owensboro.

"Wow. Who could have guessed: you and Les from the old 'hood in Versailles," said Louis Felson III — named for his and Kass's grandfather, a name memorialized on Danville's most sought-out restaurant. Kass was three years older than her brother.

"Louie, would you be totally offended if I asked you to give me away at the wedding? And no, we haven't set a date yet," Kass asked.

The request choked Louie up momentarily. "I'd be honored, sis," he said. "I'll try to do dad proud."

With that call concluded, Kass and I slumped against each other on her sofa. Between the bicycling, the sunshine and the emotional yield of the afternoon, we slumped on the sofa beside each other, happy and languid. But Ry, who had been confined to the apartment while I was proposing to Kass on our bike excursion, was brimming with energy and staring at both of us with eyes conveyed an urgent message: I'm ready to play.

"What time would you have to get up in the morning to make it to Cincy in time for your meeting?" Kass asked.

"Early."

"How early?"

"Like ... 5 ... maybe 4:30."

"Ugh."

"Yep."

"Just doesn't seem fitting that a girl has to spend her engagement night all alone."

I nodded. "Preacher, meet choir."

"So you'll stay?" she said as her hand snaked beneath the hem of my t-shirt.

"Since when have I been able to tell you no?"

"That's right," she said, her hand now insinuating itself beneath the waistband of my shorts and caressing my stiffening penis. "I think this marriage just might work."

Her mouth covered mine before I could utter my concurrence. Ry would have to wait.

▼ ▼ ▼

Ramesh Quereshi had already figured out that I was there to tell him I was departing Gladney & Watson. Telling the office managing partner was standard procedure for notice of departure, a step that would be communicated immediately to the chairman of the firm's governing board of partners.

That set off a number of ethically required steps including having my communications on certain cases with specific clients curtailed to avoid conflicts of interests. It also began the process of assessing the monetary value of the equity shares I held by virtue of my more than seven years as a partner that the partnership would purchase back from me.

Quereshi's suspicion was, in his mind, confirmed when he saw me walk in without a tie, something of a snub to the stuffy, patrician culture of this 120-year-old firm, though not nearly the middle finger that it was considered to be before the pandemic.

"So, Mr. Walker, who finally picked you off: Skadden? Kirkland & Ellis? I know those two have been trying to poach you for years," Quereshi said.

"C. None of the above, Ramesh," I said as I took my seat across the desk from him. "But yes, this is my required notice."

"So where are you going?"

"I'm venturing out on my own. Going back to Kentucky and opening my own trusts and estates/tax/private wealth services boutique shop in Lexington," I said.

"How quaint," he said.

"Sure. Quaint." I said, nodding as I humored the pompous fool. I was ethically barred from telling him that four other partners, including top-billers Harold Reed and Megan Sarvis, would also totally fuck up his life by having this same meeting with him in the coming hours and days. A half-dozen of the Cincinnati office's top-rated associates and two legal assistants would join us as well. That might be enough to end Quereshi's tenure as the Cincinnati office managing partner. I smiled inwardly thinking of how he would try to spin that in the inevitable meeting he would have with the firm's chairman and its managing partner.

"Why ... Kentucky?" he sneered, affecting a snobbish scorn one might reserve for, say, Haiti.

"Well, for one, Ramesh, it's home and a damn good place to live. For another, my fiancé lives there. And maybe the best business reason is that a who's who of the globe's filthiest rich own the world's best thoroughbreds and have lavish country houses there," I said.

"Oh," he said, somewhat chastened. "I never considered that."

"Clearly," I said.

"Very well, Walker," he said. "I hope you are happy in your new endeavor. I know you've not been happy here for some time, so I hope it works out in everyone's best interest. I am sure you know to contact the ethics office and conflicts clearinghouse in Philadelphia immediately. Now if you will excuse me, I've got a conference call in five minutes."

He swiveled 180 degrees in his chair toward the floor-to-ceiling glass wall behind his desk, turning his back on me and making it clear he had no intention of conversing further or a parting handshake. I walked silently out of his office, not bothering to close the door.

I returned to my desk just as its phone rang. Caller identification showed it was Marlon Goldwater, the firm chairman, calling from the New York office.

"Les Walker," I said, picking up the phone.

"Les, I understand you're leaving us. Anything I can do to dissuade you?"

I'd always had the greatest admiration for Marlon. He had hustled his way through Fordham working odd jobs and on a partial basketball scholarship as an undergrad. He earned his law degree mostly at night from City College of New York and then elbowed his way past pretentious Ivy Leaguers who dominated the city's white shoe firms through hard work and sheer brilliance. What endeared him to most — though not everyone — was that he remained humble and empathetic, affording everyone the same measure of respect and dignity whether they be a practice chair, a paralegal or the janitorial staff.

"Thank you, Marlon, but I'm afraid this is a life decision that may not be as lucrative, but it's where my heart leads me," I said, explaining the lure Kentucky still held on me especially since I became engaged over the weekend to a woman there whom I can't live without.

"Well, I'm afraid I can't compete with that, Les. Allow me to congratulate you and wish you every happiness. Is this someone you've known long?"

"Great question. Yes. Virtually all my life. We grew up together. I took her to prom my junior year in high school. Our lives branched in different directions for a couple of decades after that, but we met again last fall under some tragic circumstances and it clicked," I said.

"Was that the death of your friend ahead of all that unfortunate business with that gay-hating congregation?"

"It was. I'd known him almost as long as I had known Kass. She and I reconnected literally at his graveside, so if there's anything redeeming in all of that, well ... this is it."

Marlon sighed.

"There were people who wanted me to hang you over that. But it didn't cause us any huge problems and I was comforted that while you may have erred, you were doing the right thing by defending a friend against the worst kinds of thugs and bullies, and that's not a horrible thing for our lawyers to be known for."

"Thank you, Marlon. That means everything, it really does."

Of course, he may not feel as charitably toward me by Wednesday when Reese, Sarvis and the others tender their departure notices, but Marlon knows that all firms have to play the free agency game, and that you lose some but you also win.

That's when I heard a commotion outside. Donita was telling someone, "He's on the phone, you can't go in there," just as the door burst open and there stood a snarling Wilson Rush.

"Excuse me a second, sir," I said to Marlon Goldwater, holding the receiver to my chest as I pressed the phone's hold button.

"You ... deceitful prick!" Rush growled, his face ruddy with anger.

"Wilson, I'll be with you in a minute," I said.

"The fuck you will, you'll be with me right now. You've been trying to fuck me and this practice for months, and now you're cashing out and heading back to some shit-heel Kentucky hole in the wall for what? A steady piece of ass?"

"Leave now, Rush," I said through clenched teeth.

"Eat my cock," the livid Philadelphia Irishman growled with all the malevolence his bitter soul could muster. "You've known and I've known for months that you were looking to bail, and I can understand it. Hell, if I'd shit the bed as bad as you did over this hillbilly church thing, I'd slink back into the goddamn swamps too. But to do it without giving me so much as a heads-up is only something that a low-class hick would do."

I had already risen from my chair, my fists clenched, intent on beating Wilson Rush to within an inch of his life when a sound from my phone stopped me.

"Rush! Wilson Rush," came Marlon Goldwater's raised, apoplectic voice from the phone's conference speaker. I realized that rather than put the phone on hold, I had inadvertently pressed the adjacent button that activated the speakerphone. The chairman of the firm had just listened to the obscene tirade of the man he had nominated to chair the Trusts and Estates Practice just two years earlier.

It startled Rush, though he didn't yet know the identity of his unintended remote audience.

"Who's on that phone," Rush asked, his tone both threatening but fearful.

"This is Marlon Goldwater," the speakerphone voice said. "And what the hell do you think you're doing?"

In an instant, the blood from Rush's beet-red face ebbed away and it became ashen. His mouth hung open. His eyes darted everywhere. Beads of sweat accumulated on his forehead and the hollows beneath his eyes.

"Marlon, I ... ah ... Walker here is planning to leave and ... ah ..."

"I know he is. As is his right and the right of any lawyer in this firm under the partnership agreement. It happens. He's an attorney, not an indentured servant."

"Well, Marlon, I hoped I could ... ah ..."

"You've said enough Wilson. Be in my office in New York by close of business this afternoon. I suggest you do as Walker said: get out of his office and to the nearest airport." The line went dead, leaving only a dial tone. Not once had Marlon Goldwater raised his voice.