I had grown up a hippie child, the son of a failed rock star who had married a New Age yoga instructor in a ceremony officiated by a Hindu guru.
I decided to rebel and go to law school. What could I say? I was raised to be a nonconformist, and a nonconformist I was.
My parents spent the last half of my senior year shaking their heads and sighing, “Well, you’re an adult now. It’s your life.” Yes, it was. And I wasted no time getting out into the world to make my mark on it.
Vicki, on the other hand, was stuck in entertainment law hell as the paralegal. She had gone to law school and intended to be a lawyer, and honestly, she was probably a better lawyer than half of our partners. But, she was stunted in her career. She couldn’t pass the California bar exam, and so seemed forever doomed to a purgatory of half-fulfilled dreams.
So, she was the paralegal, and I was a partner, but there was an undeniable spark between us. We had a sort of coded office flirtation, and we were separated enough by rank that we could relax without all of that cutthroat big city law firm bullshit between us.
All of that would have probably stayed that way if my sister back in Sedona hadn’t been accused of murder. I got the call, and the next thing I knew, I was flying back home to stay with the parents who had spent the last decade praying to culturally appropriated Eastern gods that I would one day see the light and give up my legal career to become the starving Broadway actor they knew I was destined for. Krishna and Buddha worked in mysterious ways I guessed.
My sister Harmony was a brilliant artist, who had been framed for murdering an art critic. The evidence looked pretty bad for her, and she was represented by a lazy public defender that her fate wrapped all nice and pretty with a plea deal, and a quick prison detour in the fine print.
Harmony insisted she was innocent, so I went to work on her behalf. I spent the next several weeks sorting through security footage, and talking to everyone in town, all of whom were convinced she did it.
Everyone that was, except for one crime blogger--a nineteen year old community college student named AJ Castillo. AJ and I traded information and she started helping me. We were getting somewhere at first, but then we started hitting a lot of dead ends. Just when I couldn’t think of anywhere else to go with this case, there was a mysterious knock on my parents’ door.
Vicki Park had followed me all the way from Los Angeles.
I had never been so grateful to see anyone in my life. So, Vicki joined up with AJ and me, and we set up in a makeshift office slash Vicki and Henry love nest in my parents treehouse. Yes, their treehouse. There wasn’t room for us in the house, and something about the treehouse at the time, held a rustic romantic charm.
I think it had to do with watching Vicki, a legit high fashion L.A. woman, don a pair of jeans and walking boots to climb up and down the ladder, with a smile on her face.
Somewhere in between falling madly in love with this sassy Korean, I was, however, still trying to solve a murder case. We knew that Harmony needed a better lawyer than the crappy public defender, but I was only licensed to practice in California, and Vicki wasn’t licensed at all. The public defender, with whom we have since mended fences, was completely sold on the plea deal, and actually forbade us from doing case work on our own.
Vicki and I took matters into our own hands, and decided to become licensed Arizona attorneys. We busted our asses in the treehouse to study for the bar exam, and we actually passed. Both of us--which was a shock for Vicki.
We fired the public defender, and then exonerated Harmony, who lived happily ever after.
Once the dust all settled, it became clear that there was nothing for us back in Los Angeles. Vicki was now a licensed attorney, AJ had shown mad skills as an investigator, and I had just created my own legal team, and the cases were pouring in. Could we leave all of that behind as one off?
And, then there was Vicki and me. To hell with the coded office banter. We couldn’t keep our hands off each other.
So I flew back to L.A to get my stuff and tell my boss I quit. He thought I was completely nuts and told me I was voluntarily flushing my career down the toilet, and to call him when I snapped out of my lust induced stupor.
There was a part of me that believed him, but after making senior partner, it seemed starting my own practice was the next step for me. So I moved back to Sedona.
Vicki and I got a little cottage and then we rented an office space, and started Sedona Legal. That was a year ago. Now we’ve got a handful of good clients, and we’re connected by just a degree or two to every mover and shaker in town. It had been a good year.
It was so good, we got engaged last month. I whisked her off to Tahiti for an impromptu romantic getaway, and popped the question with my great grandmother’s ring on a torch lit beach. We really just got back, and the work was already starting to heat back up.
In a town of ten thousand people, we didn’t have a lot of big trials. Most of our caseload
