I glanced at Holly, then back at Q. “What are they saying? Does anyone know anything new?”

Q sighed. “It’s just Tanner flapping his gums. But nothing new.”

I felt a presence outside my door, I saw two first-year attorneys walking by, pausing for a second when they got to my office. One threw a nervous smile my way. The other glanced around.

“Hi, guys,” I said.

I was usually a favorite among the law clerks, all of whom were stellar students from the local law schools. I was closer to their age than a lot of the other lawyers. I would sometimes drink with them after work, and I would give the straight skinny about whose butt to kiss and who to avoid.

But now they looked at me with curiosity and something approaching pity. “Hi,” they said then kept walking.

I wanted to yell out, Nothing to see here! Instead, I stood, closed the door and grabbed my suit coat off the back of it. I put it on and looked in the mirror. My lightly freckled skin appeared pale with a faint gray hue, and my hair, normally bright and orange-red, looked faded. It was as if, in a twenty-four-hour span, I’d lost some of my luster. The thought only powered me into action.

I looked at Q. “I’ll be back.”

He squinted his eyes, probably sensing I could get myself into trouble. “Why don’t you…”

“I’ll be back.” I turned, opened the door and stormed down the hallway.

I marched to the elevators and pushed the button repeatedly. I rode for two floors then made my way to the last door down the long hallway. Tanner’s office.

Inside, Tanner was on the phone, his chair turned toward his windows so that he didn’t notice me at first. I stood in the doorway, trying for patience, and looked around the place.

Every partner at Baltimore & Brown was encouraged to decorate their office in their own way and each got a small budget, but Tanner had clearly gone over his. His desk was a massive Oriental-teak affair, carved in detail and polished with a rosy, high gloss. His rug was plush, swirled in shades of crimson. Unlike most of the other lawyers who dealt with the overhead fluorescents, Tanner’s office was lit by a trio of antique lamps.

He must have sensed me there, for he turned in his chair. The exhaustion in his eyes seemed to mirror mine.

“I’ve got to go,” he said into the phone. “Hi to Peg. We’ll talk tomorrow.”

He waved me toward the brocade couch across from his desk. I closed the door and took a seat.

Tanner’s eyes moved to the closed door, then to me. No one called the stage directions in his office except Tanner. I was past caring.

“How are you?” Tanner said. He looked as if he cared about the answer, which threw me.

“I’ve been better.”

He nodded. He stared out his window for a moment, then back at me. “What do you need?” He glanced down at his watch.

There it was-the typical brusque tone, the usual attitude that assumed everyone would run around him like obsequious puppies. I was glad for the condescension. It put me right back in the mood.

“You know what I need?” I said, heavy on the sarcasm. “I need you to stop spreading rumors about my fiancé. The whole firm is talking about Sam and the bearer shares and the safe and Forester. And the only way they could be finding this out is from you or Q. And I know it’s not Q. I’d have thought that you’d respect the privacy of another lawyer.”

Tanner didn’t say anything immediately, but his face softened into empathy. This left me feeling off-kilter. Tanner rarely listened or heard or thought about anyone apart from himself. Finally, he said, “I would think that you would appreciate my position.”

“What position is that? This is none of your business.”

His eyes narrowed, and he shook his head as if disappointed. “Izzy.” He paused. It was the first time he hadn’t called me Isabel. “What was I supposed to do here? I found out that the fiancé of one of my associates, one of the firm’s best associates, appears to have stolen a lot of money from one of our biggest clients. I have to tell my partners about that. It is my fiduciary duty to do so. And if those partners tell their associates and the associates tell the secretaries, I cannot control that.”

I blinked. He was right. “I’m sorry.”

He shook his head, brushing off my apology.

“No, really, I’m sorry,” I said. “It’s just personal, what with Sam being gone, and then Forester. I’m having trouble seeing things correctly.”

“Yeah. We’re all having a tough time with Forester’s death.”

“I know. I realize you knew him much longer than I did. How…how are you?” I almost stumbled over the last few words. I’d never imagined being so personal with Tanner.

His mouth sagged a little. “Such a great man.”

“He was.”

He nodded. I nodded back. He stood, and I followed suit. It seemed we’d reached an impasse on our little come-to-Jesus moment.

“Izzy!” a woman’s voice screamed. “Where you?”

Back in my office, I moved the phone away from my ear and sighed. On even the best of days, Maria, my wedding-dress seamstress, was hard to handle. First there was her energy level, which rivaled that of a Chihuahua on cocaine. Then there was her dual approach to life-one was Hispanic blue-collar, the other patrician elite. Maria only sewed and made patterns for the wealthiest and most fashionable of Chicago ’s crowd. I would normally not have been able to afford her, or meet her extremely high taste levels, but our wedding coordinator had railroaded her into making my dress, and my mother had graciously offered to pay. And every other Wednesday for the last few months, Maria and I been making each other crazy.

I looked at my watch. “Shazzer,” I said, one of my replacement curse words for shit. It made no sense, but I liked it. My appointment had been at six o’clock, ten minutes ago, and I’d completely forgotten. Or maybe I’d forgotten on purpose. Yesterday, when the wedding had swamped my mind, I had wanted to forget. I was hit by guilt again now. Was I unconsciously borrowing trouble for myself?

“What you say?” Maria said, indignant.

“Maria, I’m sorry. I forgot our appointment.” I breathed out hard. “This has been a terrible day.”

A stumped silence. “Terrible day? We all have terrible day! I work hard. You work hard. But you go for appointment, you do what you say and you say you be here.”

“Yes, Maria, I know.” I paused. “A friend of mine died yesterday.” There. I’d thrown the highest card. You can’t trump death. Everyone gives you a pass for death.

Except, apparently, Maria.

“I no care that your friend die! You should call me if you want cancel. I have you book for one hour, and do you know what one hour of my time cost?”

“Yes, I do,” I said forcefully.

But the truth was, I didn’t know. Lately, I’d gotten so weighted down with the wedding and my job that I’d been somewhat avoiding my mother, who only wanted to talk about all things bridal. She was so wrapped up in the affair-what I would wear, what she would wear, what the tables would look like, what the place cards would say. She was not normally this frenetic or enthused about anything. She was normally the calmest of women, usually wearing a shawl of melancholy. But the wedding had jump-started her. Even her husband, Spencer Calloway, a well-known, now mostly retired real-estate developer, was surprised by how intense she’d gotten about it. But that’s what mothers were supposed to do, he’d said to me.

Suddenly, with Maria prattling on, I was embarrassed by how strained I thought I’d been by the wedding and my work. I would have given anything to go back to that kind of stress. The kind of stress that had me worrying about what bikini to take on the honeymoon in Costa del Sol, Spain. The kind of stress that left me pondering truly momentous decisions like whether to have a jazz trio for the cocktail hour or a full band. The stress of being the highest-paid associate at the firm.