Mr. Smithfield - Louise Bay Page 0,90

said. “What would be a surprise is if you said you were giving it up.”

“Actually, I wanted you lot to talk me out of resigning.” Since Primitivo’s, I’d mulled over the idea of leaving the law. Penelope was right that, in theory, I didn’t have to work. The family trust meant that my father hadn’t worked a day in his life, and I wouldn’t have to either. I’d been a lawyer a long time, dealing with shitty clients like Mike and whoever came before him or would come after him. At long last, it occurred to me that I didn’t have to do something I hated to be a role model.

“Excuse me, did I hear you correctly?” Dexter asked.

“I’m not saying I’m about to resign from the partnership. I’m just thinking about it.” The more I thought about it, the more appealing it seemed. “But obviously it’s a terrible idea and I need to hear it. I wouldn’t even know what else I could do. I don’t want to sit around doing nothing and I don’t want to do something I’m going to enjoy even less.”

“You don’t have to work, do you?” Tristan asked.

“No, but I want to. It’s important that I’m a good role model for Bethany. And anyway, what would I do all day?”

“You could do charity work,” Joshua suggested. “Set up a foundation. Raise money.”

Didn’t thousands of rich men do that? It always seemed as much of an ego trip as a charitable endeavor. I’d rather just donate to someone else’s foundation.

“Set up your own business,” Andrew suggested, which was typical for him because he seemed to have a new business every time I saw him.

“Doing what?” I asked.

Silence stretched around the table. That was the problem with lawyers. No one could see them doing anything but being lawyers, including the lawyers themselves.

“You could go into politics,” Dexter said. “You’ve got high moral standards and great decision-making skills.”

“I think that disqualifies me,” I said. “And anyway, I can’t think of anything worse.”

“You could sell tables,” Tristan said. “Like the one you made for your kitchen.”

Warmth gathered in my belly as I remembered Autumn describing how I gave furniture a new lease on life. I drummed my fingers on the table. “I didn’t make it,” I said.

“But you . . . polished it up or something, didn’t you?” Tristan asked.

Or something. It had taken me six months of evenings to get that table into a useable state. “I do that for fun,” I said. “To unwind.”

“Right,” Andrew said. “So make it into your job and you’ll never feel like you’re at work. But don’t do it unless you feel it in your heart. In your gut.”

“You’re saying that you feel it in your heart every time you want to start a new business?” I asked, ready for him to say of course not.

“Absolutely,” he replied. Andrew was a rich man. His family were well off, but Andrew was rich. And he’d done it himself, jumping from idea to idea, building successful business after successful business. So, although I wanted to dismiss his romantic idea that I needed some kind of visceral connection to a business, he’d already proved he did it the right way. “The question is, do you love working with secondhand furniture?”

“I love having sex with women. I’m not going to turn that into a business,” Tristan said.

Tristan was a dick at times, but I saw his point.

“Never say never,” Andrew replied. “You might need those gigolo stripes at some point in this economy.”

Everyone around the table chuckled. Dexter opened his mouth to say something, and Tristan raised his hand to stop him.

“Spare me the obvious gags, Dexter. I know, I’ll be bankrupt by the end of the week. Etcetera, etcetera.”

“You know what, Tristan? I will spare you. What I was actually going to say to Gabriel was that he should do whatever makes him happy.” Dexter turned to me. “Tune everything out. Ignore what you think you should do for Bethany. Ignore your reaction to your father’s poor parenting and what you think people think about you. If it was entirely up to you, how would you spend your time?”

“In my workshop,” I replied, without missing a beat. “But it’s fun. Doesn’t mean I’m good at it. And I know I’m a good lawyer.”

“You’d be good at anything you set your mind to. It’s who you are,” Tristan said.

I playfully punched him on the arm and glanced around when I didn’t hear the good-natured put-down