Belinda

1

1.

THE TWENTY-SIXTH OF OCTOBER, 2017, Houston, Texas, a red glow was on her office wall from the setting sun. A bank of clouds had moved to the south, which made visible the Williams Tower, an exclamation point on Houston’s western horizon. Belinda Larkin sat at a desk, her back to the window, the rims of her shoulders glowing from the sunlight as if they radiated heat. She bent forward and her face was shadowed, her wavy hair short, curling beneath the jawline, a frame for her sharp features.

She normally turned around to watch the sunset through her window. But today she ignored it, struggling to finish a draft agreement. Her mind wouldn’t stay focused, which annoyed her. Every few minutes, the text on her monitor disappeared, like a ship sailing into a fog. The words were sharp, and then they were dots in a gloom. She considered whether to close the document, turn off the lights, and go home.

Her office was more her home than her house was. She’d never had a husband. Her career was her life. The law was her husband. It’d been a happy marriage for three decades. Then, a month ago, she’d started to lose interest. This faithlessness was hard to deny. She wanted to run out the door into the night, not sure where to go, but certain to never return. The law was no longer exciting, like it’d been when she started her career. Just like that, it had started to be a burden.

A woman in Texas chose to ignore age after sixty. But the managing partner of her law firm had sent her a reminder that the partnership agreement required her to submit a retirement schedule. It was meant to be a gentle process, easing herself away from her practice over several calendar years. That meant the best she could hope for was the end of 2020. She didn’t like easing into anything, particularly if it promised to be a slow descent into oblivion. A plan for aging was nonsensical. Age was just a number. Burden or not, the law was still her life. What would she do without it?

She stopped her attempts to draft and let her mind wander. Her restlessness would wear itself out, she thought, and her focus would return. When she was a girl growing up in Corpus Christi, she’d ridden a bicycle faster than the boys, thrilled by the wind pushing back her pigtails. The memories of hitting a softball over the fence and kicking a soccer ball into the goal thrilled her, the accomplishments still feeling fast and raw. She’d hated the fair skin on her arms and had tried hiding it with long sleeves. Her mother had said she had a colt’s long legs and called her by her proper name, Belinda, when she was strong minded. She’d worn jeans, never shorts, and she’d gone snake gigging with the boys, her eyes sharp to the movement of grass along the creek, her reactions swift, her aim deadly, never feeling remorse for the creature. It was a skill that continued to serve her well as a lawyer, given all the sideways-sliding men in suits.

It was late. Her head ached. At this rate, she would be there all night. There were so few provisions left, no more important sections to write, only continuity items, like straightening the napkins and silverware on the table before a dinner party. Not that she had many of those. They bored her, especially the men in suits, always talking about themselves. It was such a nuisance to get them to leave once it was clear they wanted to get her in bed. She’d slept with several men over the years, but only in locations from which she could easily depart. Her nights were precious. She wouldn’t squander them for a few moments of pleasure. One didn’t stay in the theater after the show ended.

There was a man whom she’d wanted to spend an entire night with, many nights, in fact. Jay Jackson had been a law partner of hers for many years. He left the firm to take over his family’s ranch. A few years later, on October 30, 2015—she remembered the exact date—they slept together. And then she hadn’t seen him in almost two years. She didn’t know where he was. But she didn’t much care. It was her habit to move on after disappointment. Life was short. She didn’t waste time with regrets.

She didn’t want to retire. A future without her career was unimaginable. She would fight it. The chance of winning was slim, she knew. The managing partner, a woman in New York who shamelessly ingratiated herself to the male partners, would be unsympathetic. If nothing else, Belinda resolved to go down swinging.