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Tori looked startled and actually tossed her head as if to dispel her thoughts. “Voting rights.”

  Torn between rolling her eyes and laughing, Genevieve put her hand on Tori’s shoulder. “Tori, what percentage of your day is spent thinking about work?”

  At least she looked a little guilty. “A lot,” she admitted. “Sometimes I try to turn it off and… Well, I think about work a lot.”

  Genevieve nodded, grateful she didn’t have that problem. “I have some meditation techniques for drawing mental boundaries with work. I can help you, if you’d like.” Genevieve couldn’t imagine thinking about work right then—especially when Tori was naked in the shower and the tasks waiting for her at the office weren’t exciting legal questions but dull administrative tasks.

  It briefly occurred to her that maybe if she were hotter, or Tori wanted her more, she’d be the one shutting down Tori’s work thoughts. But maybe nothing she—or anyone else—could do would successfully stop Tori from spinning out on work sometimes. Neither scenario was especially uplifting.

  “Thanks—I’ll think about that. I’ve never tried meditation.”

  Genevieve took her hand, enjoying the feel of their fingers entwining. “Well. Good luck with voting rights. We need ’em. Fight the good fight, baby. ”

  She kissed Tori on the cheek, and Tori murmured something back, but she was clearly miles away already.

  In her car, halfway down Tori’s driveway, it hit her that she’d forgotten, again, to ask Tori about dining at her townhouse that night. Damn. Well, she’d call once she got to the office.

  The lobby of her building was empty, save for the security guard, and after flashing her ID in front of the elevator sensor and punching in the top floor where HER’s offices were housed, she rode the elevator alone, which never happened during the week. The motion detector lights on her floor clicked on one by one as she walked past the empty cubicles to her office.

  She only had one coat sleeve off when her desk phone rang. Before she’d even sat down, Frank was giving her the latest on their staff-restructuring initiative and HR’s report on the new benefits package. He was briefing her on the upcoming board meeting when her cell phone rang—Chuck, the new executive director, probably wanting to give her a rundown of the fundraiser in Sonoma the night before. She quickly wrapped up the call with Frank and clicked accept on her cell.

  Like Frank, Chuck wasted no time with pleasantries.

  “Genevieve, glad I caught you. Listen, sorry to say, but the numbers from the fundraiser weren’t what they had hoped.”

  “Well, that happens—and sometimes, we exceed expectations.”

  “Can’t wait for that to happen,” Chuck said. “Anyway, so, three wineries had competed for who got the beverage contract for the event, and I guess things had become nasty, and the local woman who organized the event for us gave contracts to all of them.”

  “Oh yeah, I remember Elaine. She’s sweet. Total pushover, though,” Genevieve said.

  “Right, well, good to know. Next time I’ll work more closely with her. But so, the different wineries’ staff members kept trying to one-up each other, and poured aggressively. Is that a thing?”

  “Great. So, in addition to the event costing a fortune, all the guests got wasted in the first hour and were too drunk to open their pocket books.”

  “Ah, so. Not the first time this has happened?” Chuck sounded breathless, and Genevieve remembered feeling that way practically every day when she first started at HER.

  “No, and I’m sure it won’t be the last. Listen, Chuck, you can’t solve every problem, and you can’t be everywhere at once, as much as you’d probably like to. We’re glad to have you on board, and we have every confidence that you’re going to be great in this job. You already are.”

  He took a deep breath. “Thanks for that, Genevieve, but I promise you, as soon as I get the lay of the land, our financials will look very different,” he assured her. “This isn’t my first rodeo—just my first one here.”

  By the time she’d hung up with him, had replied to all pressing e-mails, and had taken care of other mundane tasks, it was almost five o’clock and hints of a headache lurked behind her eyes.

  She dialed Tori and rubbed her temples while the phone rang.

  “Genevieve, hi! I just finished up. Well, I hope I have. I don’t know.” Tori paused. “No, I do know—I’m going to stop here, regardless.”

  Genevieve smiled and shook her head. “Tori, do you need me for this conversation?”

  She laughed lightly, a reminder of how happy her job really made her. “Sorry,” she said, the sound of her laptop closing audible in the background. “I’m good. How was your day?”

  “Fine, I suppose.” She’d only gotten through half of the items on her list for the day and was completely drained. Strange that she used to work fourteen hours in a single day, pouring over briefs or depositions, and felt more invigorated than this. She missed the thrill of litigation.

  “You sound tired,” Tori said, and the distinct sound of a cork popping out of a bottle came through the phone. “Come over—I’ll have some pinot decanted for you.”

  Shit—beaten to the punch again. “I don’t suppose you want to recork that? I was hoping we could do my place tonight. I even went to the grocery store.” Okay, that wasn’t exactly true, but she could easily stop on her way home.

  “Oh, I’ve had chicken tikka masala in the slow cooker since you left. It smells divine.”

  Of course it did. Damn Tori for being an amazing cook. She’d never lure her away from that house with offers of food; that much was clear. She’d have to try another tactic some other time. There wasn’t a snowball’s chance in hell she’d miss Tori’s mouthwatering tikka masala.

  “On my way, babe,” she said.

  Despite Tori’s slightly uncomfortably laugh whenever Genevieve called her “babe,” it somehow brought the first real smile to Genevieve’s face all day. Because being shy about terms of endearment was ridiculous, and she was going to convince Tori of that sooner or later.

  Chapter 3

  On the following Monday, Victoria sat in a leather chair in her private chambers and reread her clerks’ resumes to assess their strengths and interests. They were an impressive group—that was for sure. But her interviews with them had made it clear that they all lacked the charm of Wallace. Maybe she was sentimentalizing that heady time because it was during the Samuels case, or maybe it was simply because he had been one of her first clerks, but Wallace would probably always be her favorite.

  She made some notes about which of her clerks would be more suited for tax cases and which would be better equipped for human rights ones.

  She set the resumes aside and was contemplating an afternoon cup of tea when Alistair Douglas barged in. “Have you seen this?” he blurted out with a total lack of formality that would have probably annoyed Victoria if it had come from any of her other fellow justices.

  He threw a press release down on Victoria’s lap and paced to the window.

  “Well, hello, Alistair. Good to see you again. How was your summer?” She said it with a smile, hoping to break through his bad mood.

  “Irrelevant to today’s concerns.” He grunted at the paper in her lap. “The Louisiana Attorney General evidently files his press releases before his actual appeals.”

  It was unusual for her to learn about appeals from the media. She slid on her glasses. The headline read:

  SEEKING TO PROTECT CHILDREN, LOUISIANA ATTORNEY GENERAL APPEALS RULING IN ROWLINGS V. LOUISIANA

  “A gay adoption case?” She looked up at Alistair after reading the first few lines.

  His back to her, staring out the window, he sighed. “Let’s call it a same-sex parentage case—it’s not quite adoption.” He raised an eyebrow at her. “Victoria, how are you not read up on the details of this case by now?”

  “I don’t know,” she murmured, somehow embarrassed even though the case hadn’t even been filed yet with the Court. She wasn’t expected to know every case that might eventually come their way, was she?

  “And people think the gay rights fight ended with marriage equality,” she remarked, deflecting.

  “Exactly,” said Alistair, his hands clasped behind his back. “So this gay couple with two children moved from California to Louisiana. And Louisiana won’t recognize the nonbirth mother as a parent.”

  “God, what is wrong with people?” Victoria said.

  “Lord knows. So when the couple applied for a second-parent adoption, Louisiana denied their application, citing a constitutional amendment that denies recognition of two people of the same gender as legal parents of a child. To pour salt on the wound, the women had foreseen this difficulty and had tried to execute a second-parent adoption in California before they moved. The Sacramento judge they appeared before had denied their request because—and this is the real kicker—they were both already the legal parents of the child.”

  “Well, I have to say that, in her position, I would probably feel compelled to do the same,” Victoria said thoughtfully. “A second-parent adoption would be entirely unnecessary.”

  “That’s exactly what the judge wrote in her decision.” Alistair’s hands had unloosened themselves, and he was gesturing emphatically. “She said that granting them one would be akin to treating them like second-class citizens, rather than treating them the same way the courts treat a straight couple.”

  She shook her head. “It’s like a catch-22. They get a judge who won’t grant their request because she’s basically too liberal.”

  “Right. Once they moved, the couple sued the state of Louisiana to declare its ban on same-sex parentage unconstitutional, on equal protection and due process grounds. The district court agreed with them; it ordered Louisi
ana to recognize existing same-sex parents and struck down its ban on same-sex parents.”

  “Well, thank God for judges who understand the Constitution.”

  “Indeed. The state of Louisiana was ordered to issue a new birth certificate form, replacing the blanks currently labeled with the gendered mother and father with parent one and parent two.” He paused. “Louisiana appealed, of course, but the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals upheld the district court’s ruling, and, well, now Archie Dalton’s appealing to the Court, and here we are.”

  “So, the two previous decisions are strong,” Victoria reassured him. “That helps if we hear the case. What do we know about Archie Dalton?”

  “Whatever we know now, we’ll sure be learning more in the coming months. You know Kellen will want to hear this case. And the rest of them will fall in line,” Alistair turned and studied her.

  “Okay,” she said, “so we’ll hear it. From what you’re telling me about it, it sounds like we couldn’t have asked for a stronger case to work with.”

  Tori removed her glasses and examined her mentor. His whole body vibrated with agitation.

  “Alistair, what am I missing?” she asked softly.

  “You don’t know, do you?”

  “Know what?”

  He laughed bitterly.

  “It’s Genevieve’s case.”

  In the silence that followed, her breath became loud in her ears, and she grew acutely aware of her own heartbeat.

  As Alistair sank into an easy chair opposite her, she continued reading the press release. Only this time, her throat felt tight.

  The original complaint was filed by current president of Her Equal Rights, Genevieve Fornier, the legal powerhouse who last year won federal recognition of gay marriage. Fornier, a close personal friend of the plaintiffs, has been quoted as saying that whatever people may think about the religious underpinnings of marriage, no one should ever interfere with two loving parents raising their children.

  Fornier has been friends with Crystal Rowlings (nee Sun) since elementary school and officiated the wedding ceremony in which Crystal married Heather Rowlings in Sonoma, California, in July 2008.

  The Supreme Court will now decide whether or not to hear arguments in the case. Should they decline, the fifth circuit court decision recognizing Crystal Rowlings as a parent will be upheld, and Louisiana clerks’ offices would begin issuing birth certificates with nongendered parental slots.

  Alistair wiped his brow and smiled grimly. “I imagine you two will have a fun, lighthearted discussion about this.”

  “I imagine she and I won’t discuss it at all unless the Court decides to hear it.” Victoria chewed her lip and tried to ignore the look of sympathy Alistair gave her.

  Well, she’d just have to deal with that later, if the Court decided to take the case. Maybe they wouldn’t. She could always dream.

  She cleared her throat. “So, how was your summer, Alistair?”

  He rolled his eyes at her. “We’re not done here, Victoria.”

  “What do you want me to do? Bribe Kellen not to hear the case?”

  “That man has everything he could ever want. There’s nothing you could bribe him with.”

  She sighed. “There are actual legal questions here. I mean, it might not all be bad. We have the possibility to make same-sex parents’ rights the law of the land.”

  Her attempt at optimism fell flat, and she fiddled with her fingers.

  He shifted in his chair. “With a conservative Court? We also have the potential to rip families apart. What if Genevieve insists on arguing the case? Are you going to insist on recusing yourself? Or what if she steps down, and some other lawyer has to learn the case from scratch in a hurry? Either way, it jeopardizes the success of even a case this strong.”

  Victoria glanced around her private office, taking in the mahogany bookcases, the expensive carpeting, the original Charles Willson Peale painting of George Washington. Her stomach churned. “We perch in these fancy offices and issue directives as though the things that matter to us are who wins which political battles.”

  Alistair didn’t seem to take it personally. “It’s easy when you’re a justice to feel like you’re in some sort of ivory tower, to forget the people that your decisions affect. In this case, I can see that happening with five of our colleagues.” He sighed. “It would feel particularly callous for members of the Court to deny parental rights for existing families.”

  The Court hadn’t even decided to hear this case yet, and Victoria already found herself wondering if the walls in her office weren’t slowly, inexorably moving closer and closer together.

  “What are you going to do about this?” he asked.

  Her jaw tightened. Why was this something she, in particular, needed to do anything about? Weighing her responses, she looked at him—really looked at him—for the first time since he had barged into her office. There was a weariness in his eyes she had never seen before, and he looked pale. “Can I get you some tea, Alistair?”

  “Chamomile, if you don’t mind.”

  She brewed them both a cup from the machine in the corner, and they drank in silence for a while.

  “What would you like me to do about this?” she asked gently.

  He shook his head. “That’s up to you. But if the Court decides to hear arguments, you’re going to have to fight battles on two fronts. Whatever the fallout is with Genevieve, keep your head in the game here.”

  With such a conservative Court right now, recusing herself clearly wasn’t an option, and the list of reasons she didn’t want them to hear this case was growing long.

  They spent a long while finishing their tea, each lost in thought, before Alistair excused himself. It was Monday, and she and Genevieve rarely saw each other during the workweek; for once Victoria was grateful. Maybe by the time they faced each other, she’d know what to say.

  * * *

  Later that afternoon, for the first time since joining the Court, she invited herself into Alistair’s office the way he routinely did with hers. With the exception of some of the titles in the bookcases, it was remarkably similar to her own.

  She closed the door behind her, and from his place behind his desk, Alistair gestured toward two leather chairs by the window that looked identical to the ones they’d sat on earlier.

  “With all the excitement earlier, we haven’t had a chance to catch up,” she said, getting settled.

  Alistair rose heavily from his desk chair. “I have chamomile. Can I return the favor?”

  She nodded and watched him walk to the sideboard, taken aback by how much more pronounced his limp was than the last time she’d thought to notice. “I wanted to apologize if I was a bit out of sorts,” she said.

  “Not at all, my dear. Truth be told, I was too.” As the tea brewed, he leaned heavily against the window. “I’ve been thinking a lot about what’s next for me.”

  The look he gave her, equal parts resignation and despondency, told her volumes, and she blinked in surprise. She understood his frustration with Archie Dalton’s appeal in a new light.

  “Alistair, you can’t. You’re too young to retire.”

  He smiled faintly. “Well, I’ve missed my window anyway, haven’t I?”

  “Why would you retire now?”

  “Learning your wife has stage four ovarian cancer will change your perspective.”

  She couldn’t stifle a gasp. “Oh, Alistair. I’m so sorry.”

  He held up his hand, and Victoria understood that he had no desire for her pity. “We found out in June and have been making the most of our time together ever since.” His gaze drifted out the window, and Victoria’s heart ached for both of them. “I’ve been on the Court since you were in law school, Victoria. It’s time.”

  Still, the tension lines around his mouth indicated that he was conflicted about the decision. Besides, with the Court about to begin a new session, he wouldn’t want to leave a vacancy; he’d want to retire in the early summer so that the Senate could confirm his replacement by the start of October term. And there was another issue at play here: if Marcia died and he had retired, he would have no idea how to fill his time.

  Not that this was something Victoria would dream of saying out loud. “Can Genevieve and I bring dinner over this week?”

  He nodded, brought over their tea, and sat. “As long as it’s not soup. I can’t handle more soup.”