Джозеф Файндер - Judgment

She caught him watching her and smiled.

“She’s a darling. Is she with her mother?”

“Her mother...” He looked away, put the phone back in his jacket’s breast pocket. She noticed tears in his eyes.

“Hey,” she said, touching his wrist. “I didn’t mean to...”

“No, it’s... We were swimming in Costa Rica, a place called Playa Hermosa, and she...” He compressed his lips. “She was a terrific swimmer, but the riptide was too strong, and by the time...” His face seemed briefly to crumple in on itself; then, just as quickly, he recovered.

“I’m sorry,” he said. “I thought this part of it was behind me.” He got up, bowing his head in apology. Juliana reached out a hand, caught his forearm, beseeching him to stay.

“Sit, please,” she said. “How long...?”

He picked up his drink, sipped, put it down. “Two years.” He slowly sank into his chair. “I still can’t really talk about it. I shouldn’t have tried. I... I never do this. This isn’t me.”

“It’s quite all right — Matías, is that right?”

“Yes. And... Juliana?” She nodded.

“I don’t know you,” he continued. “But I feel as if I do, that’s the weird thing. Just something I saw when I looked at you. Don’t ask me to explain.”

“Okay, now you’re going to have to explain.”

“Well, I can try. You’re beautiful, of course. But so many beautiful women have this icy reserve — they have to, it’s how they protect themselves, keep guys out of their swim lane. But you — this is going to sound crazy. I saw a sense of a light inside you.”

She blushed again, hoped it wasn’t visible. “LED, I’m sure.”

“You’re making fun of me, and you should,” he said, tipping his glass of Scotch toward her and taking a sip.

“No, I’m sorry, go on. What else did you see?”

“Honestly?”

Juliana reached for her wineglass, took a steadying sip. “Sure, why not?”

“I see a kind of... loneliness. Not by-yourself lonely. But lonely. Maybe because... well, didn’t you say you’re with the law conference? You are a lawyer? A judge?”

Juliana was momentarily speechless.

“I am so sorry,” Matías said. “I swear I’m not normally like this. Let’s blame the Ardbeg.” He put his hand on hers briefly, and she felt the heat. “Four hours ago I killed a deal that looked great on paper until I met the management team. And I knew within two minutes these guys couldn’t execute the plan. These were not the guys. Now, that’s where my instincts are good.”

She gave him a long look. “Maybe not just there,” she said, and she took a good swig of the Sancerre.

They kissed leaning against the door to his suite. She could taste the single malt. She pulled back, took a breath. He smelled of wood smoke and leather. He found a tendril of her hair and ran his fingers under it, along her cheek. His eyes met hers for a moment. “I wonder if you know how beautiful you are.”

She could feel the heat radiating off his body. “Tomorrow I’m flying off. Back to my life. This... this can’t mean anything.”

Something was happening inside her. Like a wave that suddenly, startlingly forms in a usually placid lake. A wave formed by that surprisingly good French Sancerre and some kind of reservoir of resentment at how goddamned predictable she’d become. Everybody knew she’d never do this. But shouldn’t there be more to her than what everybody knew?

For just one night, she’d pretend to be that woman she’s not. For just one night, she’d do what she never does. For just one night, she’d live a life that wasn’t the one she’d so carefully mapped out.

Just one night.

He found his key card and the lock beeped open and he held the door.

The next afternoon, waiting for an Uber home from Logan Airport in Boston, she found herself in a reverie, replaying moments in her mind from the night before. She couldn’t remember when she’d last been touched like that, by Duncan or by anyone else. It was as if he’d found her reset button; even now, her body hummed. At one point she had seen tears in his eyes, and she had wondered whether he was thinking of his late wife, making up for lost time.

Sitting on a corner of the king-size bed, she’d said, “I have a family.”

“I understand,” he’d replied, his voice gentle. “It can’t happen again.”

They were agreed.

She briefly wondered whether Duncan’s “dalliance,” as she thought of it, three years earlier, had played a role in her decision to go to Matías’s hotel room. She didn’t think so; she’d come to accept what had happened with him, and she wasn’t a petty person. She didn’t believe there was a balance sheet in a marriage, a ledger of rights and wrongs. In any case, the problems in their marriage, if she were being honest, were bigger than that one incident.

No, she had done something she’d never done before. She had taken a risk. She’d had a second drink. That wasn’t her at all, that woman in the bar at the Peninsula. She was the A student, the obeyer of rules. Judge Juliana Brody: sensible, prudent, and cautious. Unlike her mother (and because of her mother, who lived in her own dream world), she had always been a planner, always been careful to put her foot right, choose the next step thoughtfully.

And then she had gone and done one single incautious, impetuous thing.

And was it so bad? It had been a lovely evening, actually. Maybe she needed to let go more often.

Now, an e-mail flashed her phone alive, and she glanced at it despite herself. The reality of daily life was beckoning, haranguing. Her Uber was arriving. She had a couple of texts too, a voice mail, and a shit-ton of e-mails to sort through.

An ordinary, prudent life to get back to. She greeted that prospect with some relief.

One of the things Juliana liked most about being a judge was the routine, the predictability. Everything happened on schedule. She had something like 250 pending cases on her docket, but only one trial at a time. Every morning she arrived at her office before eight thirty, went through whatever writing she had to do — discovery disputes, motions, jury instructions — and then began presiding over a trial at 9:00 A.M. sharp. (These days she had a med-mal case — medical malpractice, a wrongful death.) The trial ended at 1:00 P.M. Then came lunch from 1:00 P.M. to 2:00 P.M., usually spent at her computer catching up on paperwork. In the afternoon, from 2:00 P.M. to 4:00 P.M., were often motion sessions. Which basically meant a bunch of arguments, made orally and on paper, on which she had to make decisions. These were cases that might go to trial but usually didn’t. For the last few months she’d been dealing with Rachel Meyers v. Wheelz, a sex-discrimination case that seemed as though it would never end.

True, there were little things that popped up fairly often. People walked in with requests for ex parte relief, motions to attach property, and so on. Appeals from sex offenders. Condo disputes. A motion ordering a hospital to release a guy’s medical records. Loads of paperwork. The Superior Court didn’t yet do electronic filing, so her office was heaped with piles of paper, with more coming in every day. The workload could be punishing. It was unyielding, an unending cascade. There was always a load of homework. Reading and writing. It was like being back in school. It truly never stopped. And — in fact — she loved it.

No one said judging was easy. You had to be really committed to it. You didn’t do it for the money. You didn’t make any friends in this job. In a courtroom, Juliana once realized, half the room thinks you’re just barely smart enough to get it. The other half just thinks you’re stupid. Lawyers liked to tell a joke: What do you call a lawyer with an IQ of eighty? “Your Honor.”