Mistress of Justice

soft voice. But it sounded lame, terribly lame. Because, of course, she didn’t know anything of the kind.
    Reece asked, “Come over for dinner tonight.”
    She nodded. “Okay, sure.”
    “How’s eight?” Then he frowned. “Wait, it’s Tuesday … you’re playing piano at your club, right?”
    Was it Tuesday? The thought of the leches in the audience and Dimitri’s reference to her satin touch suddenly repulsed her. “Think I’ll cancel for tonight.”
    Reece gave a wan smile. “I’ll see you later.” He seemed to be looking for something to add but said nothing more. He looked up and down the hallway to make sure it was empty then hugged her hard and walked away.
    Taylor called Ms. Strickland and told her she was taking the rest of the day off. She couldn’t get the supervisor off the line, though; all the woman wanted to do was talk about Clayton’s suicide. Finally she managed to hang up. Taylor avoided Carrie Mason and Sean Lillick and a half dozen of the other paralegals and snuck out the back door of the firm.
    At home she loaded dirty clothes into the basket but got only as far as the front door. She stopped and set the laundry down. She turned on her Yamaha keyboard and played music for a few hours then took a nap.
    At six that night she called Reece at home.
    “Look,” she said. “I’m sorry, I can’t come over tonight.”
    “Sure,” he said uncertainly. Then he asked, “Are you all right?”
    “Yeah. I’ve got the fatigues. Bad.”
    “I understand.” But he sounded edgy. “Is this … Come on, tell me, is what happened going to affect us?”
    Oh, brother … you can hardly
ever
get men to talk seriously. And then, at the worst possible time, you can’t stop them. “No, Mitch. It’s not that. I just need some R&R time.”
    “Whatever you want,” he said. “That’s fine. I’ll be here. It’s just … I guess I miss you.”
    “ ’Night.”
    “Sleep well. Call me tomorrow.”
    She took a long bath then called home. Taylor was troubled to hear her father answer.
    “Jesus, Taylie, what the hell happened at your shop?”
    No “counselor” now. They were regressing to her grade-school nickname.
    “I just heard,” her father continued. “Was that somebody you worked for, this Clayton fellow?”
    “I knew him, yeah. Not too well.”
    “Well, take some advice: You keep a low profile, young lady.”
    “What?” she asked, put off by his professorial tone.
    “You keep your head down. The firm’s going to have some scars from a suicide. We don’t want any of it to rub off on you.”
    How can scars rub off? Taylor thought cynically. But of course she said nothing other than: “I’m just a paralegal, Dad. Reporters from the
Times
aren’t going to be writing me up.”
    Although, she added to herself, if they’d told the whole story by rights they
should
.
    “Killed himself?” Samuel Lockwood mused. “If you can’t stand the heat stay out of the kitchen.”
    “Maybe there was more to it than standing the heat, Dad.”
    “He took the coward’s way out and he hurt your shop.”
    “Not mine,” Taylor said. But her voice was soft and Samuel Lockwood didn’t hear.
    “You want to talk to your mother?” he asked.
    “Please.”
    “I’ll get her. Just remember what I said, Taylie.”
    “Sure, Dad.”
    Her mother, who’d clearly had a glass of wine too many, was happy to hear from her daughter and, to Taylor’s relief, wasn’t the least alarmist about what had happened at the firm. Taylor slipped into a very different mode with her—far less defensive and tense—and the women began chatting about soap operas and distant relatives and Taylor’s Christmas trip home to Maryland.
    The woman was so cheerful and comforting in fact that Taylor, on a whim, upped the length of her stay from three days to seven. Hell, Donald Burdick wants me to take some time off? Okay, I’ll take some time off.
    Her mother was delighted and they talked for a few minutes longer but then Taylor said she had to go; she was afraid her father would come back on the line.
    She put a frozen pouch of spaghetti into a pot of water.That and an apple were dinner. Then she lay on her couch, watching a
Cheers
rerun.
    Mitchell Reece called once but she let her answering machine do the talking for her. He left a short message, saying only that he was thinking of her. The words shored her up a bit.
    But still, she didn’t call back.
    Taylor Lockwood, curled on the old sofa, the TV