Mistress of Justice

messages:
    Ralph Dudley, giving her the address of his club again.
    Sebastian, confirming dinner tomorrow.
    Reece, confirming dinner on Saturday.
    Danny Stuart, Linda Davidoff’s roommate, apologizing for not getting back to her but suggesting they meet for lunch in the Village tomorrow.
    Three dinners and a lunch. Damn, how
do
spies manage to stay trim?
    One more message remained. She hit play.
    “Hello, counselor. Got some news. I’ll be in town in a week or so and I’m going to take my little legal eagle out to dinner. Call me and we’ll make plans.”
    Taylor instantly looked around her room to see how straightened up it was—as if the phone contained a video camera beaming the images directly to her father’s law office.
    She sat down slowly on the arm of the couch, Samuel Lockwood’s call reviving a question Mitchell Reece had asked yesterday.
    So how’d you end up in New York?
    Taylor recalled perfectly sitting in front of her father two years ago, the man of medium build, jowly and pale—byrights, he should have broadcast an anemic image, but he filled the living room of their house in Chevy Chase, Maryland, with his powerful image.
    She tried to gaze back at him.
    But couldn’t, of course.
    Finally, the sound of spring lawn mowing from outside was broken by his asking, “You can simply try it, Taylor.”
    “I have other priorities, Dad.”
    “ ‘Priorities,’ ” the lawyer said quickly, pouncing. “See, that very word suggests that there are several directions you’d want to go in.” A smile. “In the back of your mind you’re already entertaining the possibility that you’d like to be a lawyer.”
    “I mean—”
    What
had
she meant? She was too flustered to remember.
    “My talent—”
    “And you
are
talented, darling. I’ve always recognized that. Your grades … Honey, A’s in every government, politics, philosophy course you’ve ever taken.”
    And in music composition, music theory, improvisation and performance.
    “Music too,” he added, with perfect timing, diffusing her anger. Then he laughed, “But there’s no way in Satan’s backyard that anyone would ever make any kind of serious money playing music in bars.”
    “I don’t do it for the money, Dad. You know that.”
    “Look, you should pursue everything. Lord knows I do.”
    And he had. Law, business, golf, tennis, skydiving, sailing, teaching.
    “It’s just that it’s easier to get your law degree now. Going back after you’re older … it limits your opportunities.”
    Reduced to a child before him, Taylor could think of no logical retorts. Well, the best legal minds in the country had engaged in forensic battle with Samuel Lockwood and lost. She said weakly, “I just feel alive when I play music, Dad. That’s all there is to it.”
    “And what a feeling that must be,” he said. “But rememberthat we go through stages in life. What excites us now isn’t necessarily what sustains us all forever. I pitched a dozen no-hitters in college. And I never felt higher than being on the pitcher’s mound. What a thrill that was! But making that my life? A pro ball player? No, I had other things to do. And I found getting up in court gave me exactly the same thrill. Even better, in fact, because I was in harmony with my nature.”
    “Music isn’t a sport to me, Dad.” She believed she was whining and hated herself for it.
    “Of course not. I know it’s an important part of your life.” He then tactically reminded, “I was at every single one of your recitals.” A pause. “I’m only saying that it would be better to excel in a profession—doesn’t have to be the law, not by any means.”
    Oh, right …
    “And work at the music part-time. That way if the … you call them gigs, right? If they
don’t
happen, well, you’d still have something. Or you could do both. Your music could come first and law could be second.”
    He seemed to have forgotten that he’d absolved her from the practice of law just a moment earlier.
    Continuing, Samuel Lockwood said, “There’s a whole different approach to practicing nowadays. There are part-time arrangements. A lot of women have other ‘priorities’—families and so on. Firms are flexible.”
    “I’m supporting myself playing, Dad. Not a lot of people are.” Not that the eighteen thousand a year she’d made in clubs and playing weddings and a few corporate shows last year could be considered supporting herself.
    “And what a feather in your