one
Angelina
"Judge Castellano, I read your opinion onHunter v. State. It's a brilliant application of the dormant commerce clause."
I turn toward Judge Whitmore with the smile I've perfected over six years on the bench. Professional. Warm enough to invite conversation, but cool enough to discourage anything else. The smile of a woman who belongs exactly where she is.
"Thank you, Judge Whitmore."Here we go."Though I suspect the Ninth Circuit may have thoughts on appeal."
Whitmore laughs, that practiced chuckle of a man who turned networking into an art form three decades ago. "Don't they always?"
I nod, murmur something appropriately self-deprecating, and let my gaze drift past his shoulder to the east entrance. The guards haven't moved.Good. Fine. Everything is fine.
My shoulders have crept toward my ears again. I force my shoulders down, shifting my weight until my back meets the wall.
Better. Not good, but better. The room can't surprise me from behind. Dio, I'm tired of needing that.
Whitmore is still talking. Something about judicial restraint and the current court's trajectory.
"Absolutely," I say, because it fits most sentences and Whitmore isn't really listening for a response anyway.
A server passes close, too close, and his elbow grazes my arm.
Just a server. Just an accident. You're fine.
I turn the movement into reaching for my wineglass, as if I meant to shift my grip all along. Smooth. Practiced. The kind of recovery that comes from years of hiding reactions that would make people ask questions I don't want to answer.
Whitmore doesn't notice. He's moved on to complaining about his clerks.
Ofcourse,he has. If I have to hear about his clerks one more time, I'm going to object on grounds of terminal boredom.
My fingers find the St. Christopher medal beneath my blouse, the worn silver warm against my collarbone. Three times I trace the familiar grooves.Protector of travelers.Dad gave it to me before my first day on the bench, back when he still remembered what a bench was. Back when he still remembered me.
The thought lands with a thud, and I press it down where I keep everything else I can't afford to feel right now.
Two hundred colleagues mill beneath sparkling chandeliers, champagne flutes catching light, laughter rising and falling in waves that never quite sound genuine. Everyone here speaks the same language. Precedent and politics are wrapped in pleasantries, and ambition is dressed up as collegiality.
I speak it fluently. Have for years.
I hate it.
"If you'll excuse me," I interrupt Whitmore, touching his arm briefly because that's what you do, "I should pay my respects to Chief Judge Morrison before the keynote."
"Of course, of course." He's already scanning the room for his next conversation. I was never anything but a stepping stone. That's fine. That's how this works.
I move through the crowd with the measured stride I perfected years ago. Unhurried and confident.Judge Castellano, untouchable in her black wrap dress and pearls The youngest federal judge in San Francisco, and a woman who absolutely has her life together and definitely isn't counting ceiling tiles to keep her heart rate steady.
Seventeen. Eighteen. Nineteen.
I don't know why I'm counting tonight. The conference is routine. The security is standard. There's no reason for the low hum of unease that's been sitting in my chest since I walked through the door.
But the counting helps. It always helps. I used to count Chesca's breaths when she was a baby, lying awake in the dark listening to that tiny rhythm and thinkingshe's alive, she's safe, I got her out.Now I count other things. Exits. Tiles. Steps between me and the nearest door.
Twenty-three. Twenty-four.
I make it to the bar and order club soda with lime. The bartender assumes I want gin in it. I let him assume. Easier than explaining that I stopped drinking anything I didn't pour myself years ago.
Control freak,hisvoice whispers.You're so paranoid, Cara. It's exhausting.