Barring Complications

by Blythe Rippon

  “Apologies for my late arrival. My clerk and I were distracted by this afternoon’s HER announcement.”

  Victoria raised her eyebrows. She hadn’t heard any announcement from Her Equal Rights, a women’s rights organization that worked alongside agencies such as NCLR and the Human Rights Campaign. She took a sip of tea and continued to twirl her pen while waiting for Alistair to continue.

  “After HER publicized that they have a new president, HRC and NCLR announced that they’ve changed the legal team arguing the Iowa gay marriage case, should we grant it cert. Which, of course, we have. And they’ll know that this afternoon when we publicize the docket.”

  Kellen drummed his fingers on the tabletop. “Alistair. Wrap this up sometime today, please?”

  After a dramatic eye roll, a huge Cheshire grin spread across Alistair’s face. “The new president of HER, and lead counsel for the Iowa case, is Genevieve Fornier.” He pulled a piece of paper out of his briefcase and slid it down the table, revealing a printout from the HER website with the announcement.

  There she was.

  In the photo, she was descending marble courtroom steps, her black skirt suit showing off chiseled legs and black stilettos. Her black hair was styled to perfection. Her piercing blue eyes seemed to bore into everyone in the room. She might have been a model, except that every justice there knew her as a tough-as-nails litigator with an off-the-charts track record.

  The faces to the right of Kellen O’Neil looked annoyed. Expressions of delight could be found to his left.

  A small gasp escaped Victoria’s lips and her pen clattered to the floor.

  – PART II –

  Genevieve

  Chapter One

  Genevieve Fornier strode down the hallway of HER’s headquarters like a sheriff out to break up a gunfight. She threw open the conference room door and didn’t bother closing it.

  On opposite sides of a long, rectangular table, hands clutching the edge, feet planted apart, stood two of the most pretentious, laborious, arrogant lawyers Genevieve had ever encountered. And that was saying a lot, considering she’d spent three years at Harvard Law, a few years clerking, and about twenty at Leavenworth, Ross, and Waverley, LLP.

  “Sit. Both of you,” she ordered, and chose a chair in the middle of the table. Nic Ford, president of NCLR, obeyed and sat at the end to her right. HRC president Jamie Chance turned his back on the two women and crossed his arms. Nic fumed at him, but Genevieve simply laughed.

  “Mature, Jamie, even for you. Sit your ass down.” She didn’t wait for his acquiescence. “Now that we have a new staff, a new division of labor is in order. I expect full cooperation from both of your organizations, and I expect you two to stop acting like jealous lovers. You may not bat for the same team, but you’re on the same side.”

  Jamie was now perched on the edge of a chair, his perfect posture the only straight thing about him. His hands were folded pristinely in his lap, but his eyes were still blazing. He took advantage of the slight pause in Genevieve’s speech to interrupt.

  “Don’t think you’re sidelining HRC on this one. We have been in charge of strategy on the Iowa case for three years—”

  Nic broke in. “And look where it’s got us. That case was a fucking disaster and you know it. I can’t believe you’re still president after that embarrassing display of legal puffery.”

  “Puff? You shut your flannel-kissing—”

  “Children.” Genevieve leaned back in her chair. “I will put you both in timeout. And then no one gets to play.” She grinned. “And I’ve been told I’m very fun to play with.”

  Nic coughed, then coughed again and grabbed her water bottle to cover her embarrassment. There wasn’t a lesbian in the legal community who wouldn’t drop everything for the chance to play with Genevieve Fornier, and Genevieve knew it. While she rarely used it, right now it was useful. Allowing her sexuality to ooze out made Jamie uncomfortable and Nic self-conscious. She watched as the butch lawyer ran her hand through her buzz cut and tried to look tough, while Jamie rolled his eyes and tried to look as though he were above it all.

  “I’ve divided up the justices,” Genevieve said. “I want the HRC to focus on all the related opinions written by Kellen O’Neil, Eliot McKinzie, Anthony Jaworski, and Matthew Smith. NCLR will take Alistair Douglas, Michelle Lin, and Jason Blankenstein. My legal team from HER will be in charge of Victoria Willoughby and Ryan Jamison, as well as legal research on precedents involving marriage, the Equal Protection Clause, and states’ rights.”

  “What the hell is this?” Jamie demanded, gesticulating wildly. “You’re giving NCLR all the liberals? What’s the point? We know how they’re going to vote already!”

  Nic seemed equally displeased. “Why is NCLR only researching three justices? We’ve demonstrated we’re far more competent than HRC when it comes to legal…well, everything.”

  Crossing her perfectly sculpted legs, which inched up the hemline of her suit skirt, Genevieve turned first to Nic. “I’ve given you three justices because you have something of a harder job than Jamie. You’d better make damn sure we do not lose one of our own.”

  Nic pondered that for a moment and then nodded, mollified.

  Her attention now on Jamie, Genevieve continued. “We don’t know how anyone will vote. Nothing is a given here, Jamie. I should hope you learned that in Iowa, when only one of the two liberals swung your way. Although, as I understand it, none of them actually swung your way, and I hear your co-counsel tried damn hard with Judge Rogers after the decision came down. Classy, by the way.” She paused for effect and Jamie sighed. “But that’s neither here nor there. HRC’s task is to find decisions authored by every single conservative justice that might provide an opening, language we can use to support our arguments, precedent we can apply to this case. Additionally, I need to know what questions they’re going to throw my way. Prepare predictions for each justice. Let’s think outside the box on this one.”

  She stood. “Ladies,” she addressed them, intentionally displeasing them both. “You have work to do. So, go. Do.”

  With that, she turned and exited the boardroom.

  * * *

  Alone in her office, Genevieve closed the door and headed straight to the sideboard, pouring herself a tumbler of Pellegrino and wishing it were something stronger. Neat piles atop her desk beckoned to her and she absently leafed through a file folder while she mulled their case’s prospects.

  Babysitting the butch Nic and the fey Jamie might turn into her reward for everything else that came with this case. It wasn’t so much the press that bothered her, or the pressure. Genevieve had always been cool under pressure, finding high stakes appellate arguments a welcome challenge after the minutiae and procedural quagmires of most litigation. No, it wasn’t the substance of the case that bothered her.

  It was who she’d be arguing before.

  Genevieve had always loved history. History was not just the events of the past; it was the product of writers and archivists selecting particular events and excluding others in order to construct a narrative whose conclusion ultimately appeared inevitable. Historians operated by the sixty-year tenet: only sixty years after an event would there be enough critical distance and perspective to study it and make claims about its significance.

  So maybe in forty years she would have enough distance to understand the significance of Victoria Willoughby.

  For now, she needed to focus on how to construct her arguments. She assumed, along with everyone else in the legal community, the vacuum that called itself cable news, and avid followers of the evolving legal recognition of gay rights, that Ryan Jamison would be the key to this case. Although they hadn’t spoken in twenty-three years, Genevieve knew that Victoria—no, she had to get used to calling her Willoughby—would be strategizing on the inside about the best way to sway Jamison.

  The damned swing vote was just so erratic. Insiders called Jamison “The Robot” because of his flat affect and mechanical manneri
sms, but she preferred the more dynamic nickname “Earthquake.” He was as unpredictable as tectonic shifts, and his decisions on the court often had consequences more serious than a 6.0 on the Richter scale. Some legal scholars and historians considered the swing vote on the Court, rather than the president, to be the most powerful person in the country. She shook her head at the thought, finding Jamison too insipid to wear that mantle.

  She sank into her desk chair and began with the two opinions Jamison had bestirred himself to write. One of them addressed the Equal Protection Clause and might be promising. If there was a code she could use to crack The Robot, maybe she would find it within the language and structure of his own admittedly scarce writing.

  Four hours later she was no closer to determining the common threads linking Jamison’s constitutional interpretations in the decisions he’d authored to those he’d signed onto. But she was pleased to note that he took an expansive interpretation of the Equal Protection Clause—or at least, he did on one particular day.

  She was eyeing the binder labeled “Justice Willoughby” when her desk phone rang.

  “This is Genevieve,” she announced into the receiver.

  “Ms. Fornier, Nicolette Ford is on the phone for you,” her secretary informed her.

  “Put her through, please.” She waited for the connection. “Nicolette. Miss me?”

  Nic cleared her throat. “Please, call me Nic.”

  Genevieve laughed. “Yes, Nic suits you better. What can I do for you?”

  In the brief pause that followed, she knew Nic was trying not to let her mind wander at that question. “Um, it would appear that if you’re going to have a problem with Michelle Lin, it will be because she doesn’t think the state should be in the business of sanctioning marriage at all—gay or straight.”

  Genevieve thought about that a moment. “Well, to follow that argument through to its logical conclusion, Justice Lin would have to write some kind of opinion that the Constitution doesn’t provide federal recognition of any marriage. Do you really think she’s prepared to do that?” She was dubious. Frankly, if Nic sincerely believed Lin would take such a drastic step, Genevieve doubted her ability to contribute meaningfully to the case strategy.

  “It’s hard to say,” Nic demurred. “When she was on the district court in California, she issued some fairly radical decisions.”

  “I hardly think legalizing recreational marijuana use qualifies as radical. Besides, a jurist’s behavior on a district court is often more extreme than her decisions once she reaches the highest court in the land. There’s something about that institution that tends heavily toward the middle. Look at the history of it. Even in the 80s, when seven of the justices were Republican appointees, the court found a balance.”

  Nic cleared her throat again. “I think there’s more to say on this subject. I suggest we continue this conversation over dinner tonight.”

  Genevieve couldn’t help but laugh at what she now recognized as a thinly veiled excuse to ask her on a date. She heard more throat-clearing and checked her laughter. “I’m sorry, Nic. I have plans this evening. Besides, I don’t think it’s in the best interest of this case for factions of us to socialize. If Jamie felt he weren’t being kept in the loop, there would be hell to pay, and we need the HRC’s organizational and financial support.”

  Nic covered a little too quickly. “Of course. I hadn’t meant it that way. We should invite Jamie to join us too. The three of us should be working together, every step of the way. Of course.”

  “Yes, but I still have plans for tonight,” Genevieve lied. “Let’s each do our own research for the next few days, and I’ll have my office schedule a strategy session with you and Jamie for next week.”

  “Great. Next week. Great. Um. See you then.” Nic’s voice dropped even lower than its usual timbre.

  “Have a lovely weekend, Nic. I look forward to hearing your insights next week.”

  “Of course. Goodbye, Genevieve.”

  “Au revoir, Nic.”

  Genevieve hung up the phone. Her strategy had certainly worked, and she was confident Nic and NCLR would support her leadership on the case. Not for a moment did she consider saying yes to social plans with Nic, though. It wasn’t the first time a colleague on a case had been interested in pursuing a more social relationship with her. Over the years, there had been many offers, but she had learned the hard way never to mix business with pleasure. “Don’t shit where you eat,” her law school roommate had instructed her once. It might be crass, but she found it to be sound advice. The long series of brief romantic attachments she had engaged in had been far removed from the legal arena.

  Love, she had long ago decided, was nothing more than a distraction.

  Chapter Two

  The following day, Genevieve sequestered herself in her office to research Victoria’s past opinions. As a relatively new justice, Tori had authored only two decisions, both unanimous, on obscure and mundane tax cases. The senior justice on each side assigned authorship of that side’s opinion, and Kellen O’Neil and Alistair Douglas, who almost without fail voted opposite ways, had assigned more cases to themselves and the more senior justices than to their newest colleague.

  Still, Tori’s decisions from her six years on the DC Court of Appeals had been informative. She often went to great lengths to write narrowly-tailored decisions, unlike Douglas, whose writing was rich with sweeping language. Judicially speaking, Douglas had come of age before the rise of strict constitutionalism, or the notion that if the Founding Fathers had failed to specifically enumerate a right in the Constitution, that right did not exist—never mind that inventions like the Internet weren’t around for the Fathers to address. In the face of this new conservative philosophy, Tori’s decisions seemed geared toward creating nimble law capable of being altered as society and technology evolved.

  Genevieve removed her glasses and leaned back in her office chair. She was rubbing her eyes and contemplating going home when her phone rang.

  “Genevieve, your seven o’clock is here.”

  “I have a seven o’clock? On a Friday?”

  “Yes, dear, it’s on your calendar.”

  Genevieve looked at her calendar. There it was: 7 p.m. interview with The Advocate. She often wondered what good it was putting events in a calendar if she never looked at it.

  “Well, send her in. Or him.”

  Her secretary hung up the phone and a moment later there was a knock on the door. Genevieve smoothed her skirt and slid into her interview persona as she walked to open it.

  “Hi, Ms. Fornier. I’m Max.”

  “Max. How do you do?” Genevieve couldn’t tell the gender of the person whose hand she was shaking. She supposed it didn’t really matter. “Can I get you some water, or perhaps a glass of wine?”

  “No, thank you, I’m fine.”

  “Shall we?” Genevieve gestured, and they settled in the two leather chairs.

  “Well, Ms. Fornier, I see no reason not to jump right in.” Max pulled out a recording device and Genevieve appreciated that they wouldn’t waste time on pleasantries. “How are you adjusting to DC?”

  “Oh, fine. DC is lovely.”

  “Ms. Fornier. There’s no need to be politically correct here. Our readers just want to get to know you a little.”

  Genevieve sat back in her chair and pretended to relax. “Well, in that case, it was hard to leave Chicago, which had been my home since law school. I miss my brownstone in Andersonville. I miss my coffee shop and neighborhood bar and favorite restaurant. Relocating is never easy. But I’m sure I’ll be happy here, once I learn how to drive around those bizarre traffic circles.”

  Max laughed. “A common complaint. So, I’ve done a little research about you. It would seem that early in your career, you were something of a victim of your own success. Your work was so good that you just ended up getting more of it. How did it feel to be the youngest woman ever named partner for your firm?”

  Genevieve laughe
d her interview laugh. These were talking points she had perfected years ago. “Quite an honor, of course. I was lucky, though. I think it was my status as a public lesbian that did it—I didn’t need to go out and drum up business for the firm like other would-be partners. Gay men and women who had suffered discrimination came to me, and I brought the firm a lot of business that way.”

  “You were quite the inspiration for a lot of gay attorneys, you know.”

  “Well, I don’t know about that, but it’s lovely to hear.”

  “Was coming out hard for you? You came out in law school, if my research serves.”

  Genevieve blinked at Max. “Coming out is almost never easy, Max. My experience was harder than some, and easier than others.”

  “Would you care to elaborate?”

  “Not particularly.”

  Max nodded and wrote something on a notepad before firing away the next question. “You’re always impeccably dressed. Does that come naturally?”

  Genevieve suppressed the urge to roll her eyes. It was rare that she gave an interview in which someone didn’t find a way to bring up her appearance. “Let’s talk about the case, shall we?”

  Max wrote something else. “Okay then. How confident are you that you’ll win?”

  She leaned forward in her chair, finally interested in their topic. “Look, we have a good case here. The law is on our side. Broader questions of justice and equality are on our side. Love is on our side.”

  “I guess the only question is, are five Supreme Court justices on your side?”

  “Yes, Max, I think so. I think any justice would be hard pressed to find logical, reasonable arguments—arguments based in legal precedent—against marriage equality.”

  “Do you feel a lot of pressure to win?”

  “Naturally I do. When I stop and think how painful a loss would be for thousands of Americans, how many people would feel that their government thought them less than full citizens, well, it can be overwhelming. So I try to focus on the case, and not on the possibility of losing.”