He finished the summary of the Donaldson deposition and brought it to Greg Provost the next morning. Provost was a bit of a snake, but he was a partner in the firm, a widely respected attorney, and Josh’s boss. He spent the bulk of his time defending the firm’s corporate clients against accusations of fraud and other financial crimes. Since Josh had spent the better part of the last twelve hours reading through depositions, he felt confident concluding that the fraud charge in this particular case was bullshit. So he handed over the summary and was getting ready to leave again when Provost gestured toward an empty chair and said, “Have a seat.”
Provost had a corner office on the fifty-fourth story of the sleek high-rise the law firm occupied. He wore expensive suits and worked reasonable hours and Josh had to remind himself that paying his dues now was how he himself would eventually get to this place. He took a deep breath and waited for Provost to speak. Provost asked for an assessment of what he’d put together, so Josh gave him the bottom line.
Provost smiled. “Good work. I had a hunch, but I’m glad the rest of the evidence bears that out. Hopefully this stays out of court.” Provost set Josh’s summary aside. “You got that done rather quickly. I just gave that to Allison last night.”
“I worked quite late.”
“And I appreciate that. You show a lot of promise, Mr. Harlow. I want to give you some additional help on the Appleton case. Let’s get another associate on it and a couple of paralegals. Would that help?”
“Yes, sir. That would be a huge help.”
“Great. Hopefully that will free up time for one of the firm’s other initiatives.”
Oh, great. Just when Josh could almost taste free time, Provost was going to pull him into something else. He knew he had no right to complain; based on all the venting that went on in the private Facebook group for his law school class, his classmates were all going through the same thing right now. This was paying his dues and being rewarded handsomely for it. But at the same time…he missed sleep. And reading novels and watching garbage television and eating home cooked meals. He missed going for runs in the park and going on dates and having art on the walls of his apartment.
“All right,” he said.
“We at Davis, Cash, and Lee believe that giving back to the community is something every employee should be a part of. As such, we ask all of our associates to volunteer for something.”
Right, of course. Someone had mentioned this to Josh when he interviewed for the job. The associates had to volunteer a set number of hours per quarter. Most of the partners just donated money to good causes, which could be translated into volunteer hours via some elaborate equation. Josh nodded to seem game.
“I’m not picky about what you volunteer for, although my assistant Jane has a list she keeps of organizations we’ve done work for in the past if you want some suggestions. I only ask it be a long-term project and not just a charity event that takes place once a year.”
“No problem. My sister works with a lot of animal shelters. She probably knows of some good volunteer opportunities.”
The words were out of Josh’s mouth before he realized what he was saying, although it was true that his sister Lauren managed a cat café that did a lot of work with local animal shelters in Brooklyn. It was the path of least resistance—if he just asked Lauren, he could find a project easily and wouldn’t have to waste a lot of time researching it.
“Splendid!” said Provost. “Jane’s got a form for you to fill out.”
Josh arrived back at his own office fifteen minutes later with a form to fill out recording his volunteer hours. He added it to the mound of paper on his desk and wondered if all law firms killed this many trees.
Chapter 2
As Paige Danvers wiped down the tables after the Whitman Street Cat Café’s monthly book club meeting, she heard the bell ring. Startled, she dropped the cleaning cloth, and as she bent to pick it up, she heard her friend and boss Lauren, who’d been cleaning up front, hit the buzzer to let in whoever was at the door. Paige set the cloth aside and left the cat room to investigate.
Mitch walked in. Mitch was an old friend of Lauren’s who ran an organization that captured and spayed feral cats.
“Hi, sorry I’m so late,” he said to Lauren with a bashful nod toward Paige. Paige didn’t like to assume, but she was fairly certain Mitch had a crush on her. He was a nice enough guy, but a good fifteen years older than Paige and really not her type.
“It’s fine, Paige and I were just cleaning up after book club. You have flyers for me?”
“Yeah.” Mitch carried a medium-size box to the table closest to the counter and put it down. He opened it to show rows of brochures. “A buddy of mine just opened a copy shop in my neighborhood. He let me print these in color for free.”
Lauren took one out and looked it over. “Wow, these are nice.”
Sadie, the feline café manager, hopped up on the table and sniffed the box. Occasionally, Mitch brought by boxes that had cats or kittens in them, and Sadie was clearly deeply skeptical of this box.
“Not everything needs to be inspected by you,” Lauren said.
Sadie meowed in response.
Paige walked over. “Are these for the next rescue night?”
“Yes,” said Mitch. “We heard from the mayor’s office that there’s been something of a cat
