Total pages in book: 105
Estimated words: 98398 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 492(@200wpm)___ 394(@250wpm)___ 328(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 98398 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 492(@200wpm)___ 394(@250wpm)___ 328(@300wpm)
“And you need to make sure that the evidence provides proof beyond a shadow of a doubt so they don’t walk, and you can’t prosecute them later,” I said.
“Exactly,” he replied, looking at me for a moment.
The phone on the desk rang, and Harrison moved to answer it. When he hung up, he looked at me and told me that security had our dinner.
“Did you want to run down to get it, or do you want me to?” he asked.
“I’ll go get it. I need a break,” I said, standing up and trying to brush the wrinkles from my pants. “If I keep staring at these papers for another couple minutes, I’m going to go blind, so I’ll go ahead and grab the food.”
By the time I got to the elevator, went downstairs, got our dinner, and came back up, Harrison was lying on his couch with his eyes closed and thumbs pressed into the corners of his eyes.
“Are you okay?”
“Yeah, just a headache starting.” He sat up. I nodded and set the food down on the side of the table and then picked up all the folders and moved them to his desk.
“We need those,” he said.
“Not right now, we don’t,” I said. “We need a break or we’re going to burn out and we’re going to miss something. So let’s just have dinner and talk about anything else for a couple of minutes and once we are done, we’ll get back to it.”
He opened his mouth like he was going to argue but then nodded in defeat. He started unpacking the boxes while I took a seat on the couch next to him. We ate in silence for a moment, like neither one of us knew how to talk about anything other than work.
“Why aren’t you in law school?” he asked, making me choke a little bit on my sweet and sour pork.
“That was subtle,” I said. “I love how you just ease into the difficult questions like that.” I laughed and he gave me a rueful smile.
“But really, why aren’t you in law school?”
“Because it took me longer to finish my undergraduate degree than I was anticipating,” I said.
“What do you mean?”
“I mean I needed a specific number of credits to get my degree.”
“No, I know what that means, I’m asking you why it took you longer and why, since you have your degree, you’re working here instead of going to law school?”
“Because law school costs more money than I currently have and I’m not able to survive on just student loans and the measly financial aid I was getting for my BA, which meant I had to spread out my classes and take on more student loans which increased my debt, and I had to begin making payments.”
“Did you qualify for full aid?”
“Yeah, it covered the classes, but it wasn’t enough to also cover books, food and housing. So I quit.” I shrugged.
“You just quit?”
“Well no, I postponed applying to law school so I can work, pay on my loans, save up some money and still have some to live on. Then I plan to take law school classes one at a time and pay for them as I go,” I said.
“And that’s why you lived in that shithole apartment.” He made the connection himself. “So you could save up in order to apply to law school faster.”
“Exactly.”
“Okay, I guess that makes sense.”
“Well, now it’s my turn to ask a very personal and invasive question out of nowhere.”
“Okay?”
“It’s only fair,” I said with a smile, and he nodded and waved me on.
“What is your favorite color?”
“What?” He laughed, dropping his chopsticks in his chow mein noodles. “That’s your invasive personal question, what’s my favorite color?”
“I figure it must be extremely embarrassing because when I look around here, everything is beige. So you either love the color beige or you are deeply embarrassed by your favorite color. Is it pink? It’s pink, isn’t it? It’s like baby pink, you just love baby pink.”
Harrison started laughing so hard he had to put his cardboard container down. His laugh was robust, and I didn’t think I had ever actually heard it before. I meant we were working on a massive mob case, so I guessed there wasn’t a lot of time for jokes, but I wasn’t expecting such a full-bodied, robust laugh from such a serious man.
“I don’t think I actually have a favorite color anymore.”
“Counselor, I object. Everybody has a favorite color. Just because you haven’t thought about it in years does not mean that you do not have a favorite color.”
“Overruled,” he said.
“I’ll rephrase,” I said. “When you were seven, and someone asked you what your favorite color was, what would you say?”
“Relevance?” he asked.
“Because I want to know.”
“When I was younger, I said the color red. But now that I’m an adult I think it’s actually changed.”