“Honey, I think we should call it a night.” He stood and rubbed his hip absentmindedly, his attention on his wife.

  “Oh.” Marcia looked around her in surprise. “It’s dark! How did that happen? Well, Genevieve. It’s been a long time since I’ve laughed this much.”

  Genevieve took her hand. “I’m glad Tori introduced us. Took her long enough.” There was an edge to her voice that made Victoria itch at the back of her neck, but neither Alistair nor Marcia seemed to notice.

  “I hope you’ll come back soon,” Marcia said. “And you don’t have to make Victoria cook, you know—we can just order food.”

  “Oh, don’t you worry. I’ll be back. Maybe I’ll even bring Victoria.” She helped Marcia stand, and Alistair quickly moved to his wife’s side.

  “I’m going to help her to bed,” he said. “I’ll be back in a few minutes to clean up. Please, make yourselves comfortable.”

  Victoria kissed Marcia’s cheek and said good night. After Alistair ushered Marcia inside, Victoria and Genevieve collected the dishes on the porch table in silence, the only sounds the clink of plates and the cicadas outside. Victoria led the way back to the kitchen.

  “Thanks for coming, Genevieve. I think you made Marcia’s day. You have a gift for this kind of thing.”

  Genevieve sighed heavily. “I don’t have any special gift, Tori—I just enjoy getting to know people.”

  “What’s wrong, Genevieve?” Victoria set her dishes on the kitchen counter and opened the dishwasher to begin loading it, which provided a nice diversion, since she sensed something was about to erupt from Genevieve, who was staring at the floor.

  “I had a great time tonight.” She looked up and inspected Victoria’s eyes. “I think Alistair and Marcia did too. So that begs the question: why did you wait over a year to introduce us?”

  She set her stack of dishes on the countertop and paced to the other side of the kitchen. Victoria hesitated, then began loading Genevieve’s dishes into the dishwasher. This conversation reminded her of ice-skating when she was young and she had worried about hitting a thin patch.

  “I don’t understand. You’re mad at me for doing something you wanted me to do?” she asked.

  “Why do you keep our relationship so secret? I mean, that damn photo is out there, and everyone knows, so what’s the big deal?”

  Victoria closed the dishwasher and wiped her hands on a towel nearby. Leaning against the countertop, she and Genevieve stared at each other. Victoria tried to think of something she could say that would convey that she was trying to do better but that wouldn’t make Genevieve more upset. She opened her mouth but never got a chance to speak.

  “Oh, you two didn’t have to do the dishes!” Alistair said cheerily as he reentered the kitchen. Victoria instantly replaced whatever concern she was feeling with friendliness and hurried over to hug him.

  “Of course we did! We’re so happy you invited us.”

  Over Alistair’s shoulder, she watched Genevieve school her features into the picture of congeniality. Alistair turned his attention to her, they hugged, and Genevieve said softly, “Marcia’s delightful. And so are you.”

  He walked them to the door, and they each shared another hug with him before they headed to Victoria’s car. They waved as they backed down the driveway.

  They hadn’t gone one block before Genevieve started again. “We spend all of our time in your house. We never go to my place. We never go out. It takes over a year for you to introduce me to your friends. You’re ashamed.”

  Goosebumps traveled up Victoria’s arms, and she shivered despite the blast of heat hitting her from the car vent; this was rocky territory, and it was unlikely either of them could cross it unscathed. “Genevieve, you know I’m a private person.”

  “That doesn’t exactly explain your aversion to spending time on my turf.”

  “Turf? Really?”

  “You know what I mean.” Genevieve waved her hand dismissively, the picture of exasperation.

  “I’m not sure I do. Are we getting into an actual turf war?” Victoria merged into the exit lane to head toward her house.

  Genevieve shook her head. “Please take me home.”

  A chill went through Victoria’s veins, and her stomach knotted. “Really? You really don’t want to spend the night with me?”

  “I just need a little space,” Genevieve mumbled, which made no sense whatsoever to Victoria.

  “Space? We see each other a few times a month. Any more space, and we’ll hardly count as acquaintances.”

  “Just take me home.”

  Clutching the wheel tighter so that her hands wouldn’t tremble, Victoria changed lanes and drove past the exit to her neighborhood. “Genevieve, I don’t know how to fix something I don’t really understand.”

  “How can you not understand that our entire relationship is on your terms?” Her voice sounded like sandpaper against Victoria’s ears. “It takes over a year for you to introduce me to your friends, and you find an excuse not to hang out with mine every time I ask. And when you finally decide I get to meet Alistair and Marcia, you don’t even ask if I’m available—you just assume. You say jump, I ask how high. That’s how it always is.”

  Victoria’s mind spun, and she couldn’t slow it down enough to see one thought clearly. The painted lines on the highway kept disappearing, and soon she was pulling into Genevieve’s neighborhood. She still hadn’t managed to come up with a response—with every possible thing she came up with to say, she immediately thought of some way Genevieve could twist it into Victoria commandeering control of the situation.

  “I never tell you to jump,” she finally said after a long silence. “Relationships don’t work that way. You’re brilliant and creative, and I love you. I don’t want to tell you what to do.”

  “And yet it seems that you’re always making all the decisions.” Genevieve mumbled so softly that Victoria barely heard it. “Where we go, what we do. Now you even get to decide about my career.”

  “Your career?” she asked, feeling like this conversation was utterly spiraling, as she pulled to a stop in front of Genevieve’s townhouse.

  “There’s whatever the hell you and the other justices decide to do with my case. You get to decide, and it’s my case. Once again, you hold all the cards.”

  “Oh. So that’s what this is about? The conference tomorrow?”

  Genevieve shook her head and opened the car door. The interior light made Victoria blink.

  “Of course you’d take a complex issue and oversimplify it.” Genevieve shook her head. “It’s not just that.”

  “Then what else is it? What am I supposed to do when you spring all this on me?” Victoria grit her teeth at how defensive she sounded.

  “Look, I have a big day tomorrow and so do you. I shouldn’t have started this conversation now. So let’s just talk about this some other time.”

  A thousand words of protest passed through Victoria’s mind, but experience had taught her that pressing Genevieve to talk through things when all she wanted was space wouldn’t end well for either of them.

  “Okay,” she said softly.

  Genevieve looked at her with a surprised expression. “Okay?”

  The suspicion in Genevieve’s voice made Victoria sigh. “I would certainly rather talk more about this, but you don’t want to, and I’d like to prove to you that not everything we do is on my terms.”

  Genevieve closed her eyes, and Victoria couldn’t tell if it was in irritation or relief. She leaned over and dropped a quick kiss onto Victoria’s cheek before getting out of the car.

  “I’ll call you tomorrow, okay?” Genevieve said, and she shut the car door.

  As Genevieve walked up the steps, put her key in the door, and entered her townhouse, Victoria tried not to focus on the fact that it was the first time since they’d resumed their relationship last year that they hadn’t given each other a proper kiss good night.

  * * *

  At seven the next morning, as she dressed and mentally prepared to see her colleagues again, Victoria put on a black suit with a black shell. Might as well dress the part, considering she felt as if she were headed to a funeral.

  Besides, she always felt more powerful in black.

  As she walked down the carpeted hallway of the US Supreme Court, she passed framed black-and-white photographs of every justice to have served, in chronological order by appointment. The last picture before the conference room door was her own, a stilted portrait taken the day after she was sworn in. The cold, distant woman staring back at her was barely recognizable. Was that how Genevieve saw her right now?

  As the people who prized punctuality most, she and Kellen O’Neil were the first two in the room. She took her usual seat, which, given her lack of seniority, was as far away from the chief justice as possible.

  “Victoria. You look well.”

  He looked older, but she wasn’t about to say that out loud. “How was your summer?” she asked, feeling like every high school student ever.

  “Restful. The wife and I went to Martha’s Vineyard.” Of course he called her “the wife.” Probably both a generational thing and a conservative hack thing. “How did you fare this summer?”

  She was saved from answering by the arrival of the other three conservative justices: Eliot McKenzie, Anthony Jaworski, and Matthew Smith inevitably traveled in a pack. As they approached, she could hear them boisterously discussing football, but as soon as they entered the room, they grew silent. The walls themselves seemed to encourage solemnity.

  The liberals trickled in one at a time, with Michelle Lin and Jason Blankenstein arriving shortly before Alistair. A good five minutes passed while they waited for the swing vote, Ryan Jamison, to join them, and the justices already present passed the time by reading through the binder of pending cases as if they hadn’t seen it before. In a nondescript brown suit, with his wispy hair and weak jaw, Ryan Jamison entered looking like the definition of boring milquetoast. He took the last seat, folded his hands in his lap, and looked expectantly at Kellen.

  The chief justice closed his binder and, removing his glasses, sat forward. “Now that we are gathered, permit me to welcome you to the new term. I trust you all used the summer to gather your strength. Naturally, we have a rigorous fall looming ahead. Let us now decide what that fall will look like.”

  The first case in their binders concerned a mundane tax law. Nevertheless, it sparked a heated debate. If they were going to argue with this much passion about the tax code, Victoria steeled herself for the debates they would have when they reached the voting rights and same-sex parentage cases.

  Two hours later, they had declined to hear eleven cases and granted review to three. After only a ten-minute break for coffee, they were right back at it. By lunchtime, they had voted up or down on over fifty appeals.

  She dined on a Caesar salad wrap, alone in her office. The first case waiting for a vote after the lunch break was the parentage one. Calling Genevieve was clearly out of the question, so she studied her notes on the case instead. The problem was, it only took four yes votes for the Court to grant review of a case. And the possibility of making same-sex parentage legal nationwide tempted her, even though she knew Genevieve would be furious at her for even entertaining such ideas and despite Alistair’s warning that they might lose. The safe bet was for the case not to get onto the docket at all.

  When they were again settled in their seats, Kellen turned with an unnecessary amount of enthusiasm to the Rowlings case.

  “I’ll start the discussion here. It is essential that we hear this case—there is a circuit split between the fifth and the ninth, so we must resolve it.”

  Michelle adjusted her glasses. “All due respect, Kellen, that’s not quite accurate: the ninth circuit opinion ruled that second-parent adoption in situations where both parents’ names are already on the birth certificate is an undue burden, and therefore discrimination. The petition in the fifth circuit relates to recognition of names on a child’s birth certificate. But it’s true that the potential outcome is the same: a ruling in favor of the plaintiffs means that same-sex parents nationwide are recognized as just that—parents.”

  Jaworski jumped in. “Doesn’t matter if the outcome is the same. The way we get to an outcome is a fundamental legal question that we can’t ignore—and it puts the outcome in question.”

  Alistair steepled his fingers and leaned toward Kellen, who placed his hands on the table, on either side of his binder. It was such a perfect picture of macho bravado—physical attempts at taking up space—that Victoria almost laughed.

  “I see no circuit split, nor do I see any issue with the appellate decision that needs revisiting. Let’s let it lie.” Alistair turned to her and raised his eyebrows, and she was confronted with the expectation from all eight other justices that she take a side on a case she felt profoundly conflicted about.

  During a prolonged blink, the picture of the Rowlings family—two women, two children, all smiles—flitted across her mind. Was she willing to risk tearing them apart?

  “I agree with Alistair. This case doesn’t require our attention.”

  She could almost see tangible disappointment seep from O’Neill’s eyes, float across the table like smoke, and engulf her; she coughed.

  “Well, if there are no other comments, I call for a vote,” O’Neill said.

  All four conservatives voted to hear the case. Since his vote wasn’t needed, Jamison abstained, giving no indication of his views.

  Victoria’s only consolation was the Voting Rights Act case—the conservative justices declined to hear the appeal, but the four liberals voted to grant review, giving them an opportunity to reinstate voting protections for minorities. The conference adjourned, and the justices drifted away to their offices or cars.

  She had work to do.

  Chapter 6

  Genevieve tried not to think about Victoria and what the other justices were deciding at that very moment, as she sat in one of HRC’s conference rooms for her weekly meeting with Penelope and Jamie. After the third interruption by one of Jamie’s staff, Genevieve politely suggested that maybe instead of rotating offices, they should hold their weekly meeting at The Three Branches. The other two enthusiastically agreed.

  “Okay, well, let’s see what we can get done before someone else tries to ask me something that absolutely can’t wait,” Jamie said.

  Genevieve sighed and handed them each a printout of a news article from Arizona. “I assume you two have seen this? It seems that that awful, racist sheriff in New Mexico—Rourke—found out that one of his employees is thinking about transitioning. In addition to firing young Jonathan Riley, Rourke or one of his lackeys knocked out one of the twenty-two-year-old’s teeth and dislocated his shoulder.”

  “We’ve been following it closely at HRC,” Jamie said. “We want to give Riley a chance to recover in peace, but once he’s released from the hospital, we intend to reach out and ask about filing a lawsuit.”

  Penelope poked at her salad thoughtfully. “What does Riley do for the sheriff’s office?”

  “He’s a guard at the jail,” Jamie answered. “Good at his job too, from everything I’ve heard.”

  Genevieve cleared her throat. This potential case exemplified the many reasons their respective organizations should be meeting regularly. “Before you contact Riley, Jamie, we should discuss the case’s implications and whether or not HRC is the best organization to spearhead any legal action.”

  “Agreed,” Penelope said. “Given that the HRC already has four high-profile trans cases in the pipeline right now, and that you just lost one, perhaps it would best for NCLR to take point on this one.”

  “Now, wait a minute,” Jamie said, his expression suddenly stormy. “This collaboration of ours isn’t about stealing business from each other.”

  “Listen, Spot, no need to piss on your territory,” Genevieve cut in. “Penelope has a point; this case will be a media darling, and you know it. Rourke is a lightning rod with national name recognition. And he’s not even apologetic about what happened to Riley. If the case goes to trial, Rourke’s antics on the stand will be historic, to say the least. HRC doesn’t need to hog the spotlight.”

  “That’s rich, coming from you, Genevieve,” Jamie said. “What’s this I hear about you representing a trans inmate in Michigan who’s seeking coverage for sex reassignment surgery? I don’t remember you offering to share the glory.”

  “She contacted us, Jamie. What you’re talking about here—contacting the victim and, knowing you, strong-arming him into a highly public, likely invasive trial—is entirely different.”

  “Okay, let’s just take a moment here,” Penelope said. Her rich, soothing voice was made for ending disagreements and forging alliances. It was also a bedroom voice, and Genevieve closed her eyes briefly, willing away inappropriate thoughts.

  “Jamie,” Penelope continued, “what if NCLR partnered with HRC on this New Mexico case, and HER continued to work solo on the Michigan one, which likely won’t have as high a profile?”

  “So, what? We’re putting our efforts toward equalizing the number of media points between our organizations now?” Jamie’s hands gripped the edge of the table until his knuckles turned white.

  “You know,” Genevieve said, “it’s exactly this kind of infighting that made me hesitant to take over at HER. Our organizations focus too heavily on publicity, competing with each other for airtime instead of collaborating on legal strategy.”

  “I agree,” said Jamie, who looked anything but agreeable.

  Penelope nodded. “As do I.”

  “That’s great in principle, but what’s happening here is a perfect example of each of us looking out for our own organization, rather than looking to the big picture,” Genevieve said.

  Jamie glared at her. “Weren’t you the one who raised concerns when I said HRC was taking this case?”

  They were getting nowhere. Were they as frustrating to Penelope as the heads of state she’d worked with as a diplomat?