Read The Common Lawyer for Free Online Page A

they desperate enough to date us?" Curtis said.
    "You're desperate—how high are your standards?"
    "Excellent point."
    "Still, a forty-year-old woman," Andy said, "that'd be kind of creepy, like dating your mother."
    "My mother's dating a thirty-five-year-old guy she found in the personals," Dave said. "Says he can be the older brother I never had."
    "No kidding?"
    Dave nodded. "And my dad's dating a twenty-six-year-old girl. He says she can be the sister I never had. But what does it mean if I want to have sex with my new sister? And if he marries her, then I'll want to have sex with my stepmother."
    "See, that is creepy."
    "You haven't seen her."
    Ronda dropped off four Coronas and took their orders. Beef tacos, chips and queso , and more beer. All the essential food groups.
    "I revised my ad," Dave said.
    "No hits?"
    " Nada . So now I'm six-two, a Democrat, and a vegan."
    "You're five-nine, a Republican, and you eat meat like a freakin' T-Rex."
    Curtis: "This girl's ad says 'absolutely no Christians or Republicans.' "
    "See?" Dave said. "Easier to find a virgin than a Republican in Austin. You tell a girl you voted for Bush, you're history."
    "But you're lying."
    "Everyone lies in those ads, Andy. It's like a résumé, a way to get your foot in the door. Doesn't have to be true."
    Dave was in real estate.
    Curtis said, "This one says, 'I'm cute, smart, funny and all that other shit I tell myself as part of my daily self-affirmation routine.' "
    "She's in therapy," Dave said. "Next."
    " 'I'm romantic and at times emotional. I get teary-eyed from sad commercials—those animal shelter commercials are soooo sad.' She has a frown-face emoticon."
    "Needy. Next."
    "This girl says the four people in history she'd invite to dinner are Jesus, Gandhi, the Dalai Lama, and Paris Hilton."
    "Dumb and dumber. Next."
    "Okay, listen to this one. She's twenty-six, a kindergarten teacher, and lives in SoCo. She's five-five, one-ten, athletic build, drug and disease free, drama free, and maintenance free. Reads the Chronicle , shops at Whole Foods, works out at the Y, and gets her coffee at Jo's. Says her idea of a perfect date is shrimp fajitas at Güero's and Mexican Vanilla ice cream at Amy's. She drinks socially but doesn't smoke. Her favorite activity is—get this, Andy—biking the greenbelt followed by swimming at the Barton Springs Pool."
    Andy sat up. "Wow, she's perfect."
    "Except there's one catch."
    "What's that?"
    "She's seeking a 'man or woman ' for dating."
    "She's bi?"
    "Apparently."
    "Now there's a girl you could take home to your mother," Dave said. "Or to your sister."
    "I wish I had a sister," Curtis said.
    "Maybe I can take her home to my new sister."
    Andy Prescott leaned back and turned up his beer. He was twenty-nine years old and the last girl he had taken home to meet his mother was Mary Margaret McDermott. He was on a twenty-year losing streak with women. He considered that sad record a moment, then sighed and waved his empty Corona bottle in the air until Ronda spotted him.
    " Uno más, señorita. "
    He had read that beer was not only a natural anesthetic, but also an herbal remedy for depression.

THREE
    At exactly seven-thirty the next morning, loud rock music woke Andy Prescott from his coma-like state of sleep with all the subtlety of a SWAT raid. He reached over and smacked the radio across the room, but it was just a symbolic gesture. He was awake. He tried to sit up, but the movement sent a sharp pain ricocheting around his skull like a pinball.
    A dozen Coronas sure packed a wallop.
    His head ached from the beers and his body from the fall down the ravine, and he was as stiff as a two-by-four from sleeping in one position all night. His right arm was numb. He must have slept on it—or he had suffered permanent nerve damage in the fall.
    Heck of a start to a new week.
    He rolled out of bed and realized he was still wearing the same clothes from the night before. There was a sizable salsa stain splashed