“You won't believe this, Tan. I'm going to work for the P.D.”
“The public defender's office?” She laughed too. “You mean I have to try my cases against you?” They went out to lunch to celebrate and all they talked about was work. Marriage and babies were the last thing on her mind. And the next thing she knew, the rest of the year had flown by, and another one on its heels, trying murders and rapes and assaults and assorted other crimes. Only once or twice did she actually find herself working on the same case Harry was on, but they had lunch whenever they could, and he had been in the public defender's office for two years when he told her that Averil was pregnant again. “So soon?” Tana looked surprised. It seemed as though Harrison Winslow V had been born just moments before, but Harry smiled.
“He'll be two next month, Tan.”
“Oh, my God. Is that possible?” She didn't see him often enough, but even at that it seemed impossible. He was going to be two. It was incredible. And she herself was twenty-eight years old, which didn't seem so remarkable actually, except that everything had gone so fast. It seemed like only yesterday when she was going to Green Hill with Sharon Blake, and taking long walks with her into Yolan. Only yesterday when Sharon was alive, and Harry could dance.…
Averil had a baby girl this time, with a tiny pink face, a perfect little mouth, and enormous almond-shaped eyes. She looked incredibly like her grandfather, and Tana felt an odd tug at her heart when she looked at her, but again, it didn't feel like anything she could ever do herself. She said as much to Harry when they had lunch the following week.
“Why not, for chrissake? You're only twenty-nine years old, or you will be in three months.” He looked at her seriously then. “Don't miss out on it, Tan. It's the only thing I've ever done that really matters to me, the only thing I really give a damn about … my children and my wife.” She was shocked to hear him say that. She thought his career was more important to him than that, and then she was even more startled to hear that he was thinking of giving up his job with the P.D., and going into practice for himself.
“Are you serious? Why?”
“Because I don't like working for someone else, and I'm tired of defending those bums. They all did whatever it is they claim they didn't do, or at least most of them anyway, and I'm just sick of it. It's time for a change. I was thinking of going into partnership with another lawyer I know.”
“Wouldn't it be dull for you? Ordinary civil law?” She made it sound like a disease and he laughed as he shook his head.
“No. I don't need as much excitement as you do, Tan. I couldn't run the crusades you do every day. I couldn't survive that day in, day out. I admire you for doing it, but I'll be perfectly happy with a small comfortable practice, and Averil and the kids.” He had never set his sights high, and he was happy with things just as they were. She almost envied him that. There was something deeper and hungrier that burned within her. It was the thing that Miriam Blake had seen in her ten years before, and it was still there. It wanted tougher cases, across-the-board convictions, it wanted harder and more, and greater challenges all the time. She was particularly flattered when, the following year, she was assigned to a panel of attorneys that met with the governor over a series of issues that affected the criminal processes all over the state. There were half a dozen lawyers involved, all of them male except for Tana, two of them from Los Angeles, two from San Francisco, one from Sacramento, and one from San Jose, and it was the most interesting week she thought she had ever spent. She was exhilarated day after day. The attorneys and the judges and politicians conferred long into the night, and by the time she got into bed every night, she was so excited about what they'd been talking about that she couldn't sleep for the next two hours. She lay awake running it all through her mind.
“Interesting, isn't it?” The attorney she sat next to on the second day leaned over and spoke to her in an undervoice as they listened to the governor discuss an issue she had been arguing about with someone the night before. He was taking exactly the position she had herself and she wanted to stand up and cheer.
“Yes, it is.” She whispered back. He was one of the attorneys from Los Angeles. He was tall and attractive and had gray hair. They were seated next to each other at lunch the next day, and she was surprised to discover how liberal he was. He was an interesting man, from New York originally, he had gone to Harvard Law School, and had then moved to Los Angeles. “And actually, I've been living in Washington for the last few years, working with the government, but I just came back out West again, and I'm glad I did.” He smiled. He had an easy way, a warm smile, and she liked his ideas when they talked again that night, and by the end of the week, all of them felt as though they had become friends. It had been a fascinating exchange of ideas for the past week.
He was staying at the Huntington. And he offered her a drink at L'Etoile before he left. Of all the people there, they had had the most thoughts in common, and Tana had found him a pleasant companion on the various panels they'd been on. He was hard working and professional, and pleasant almost all the time.
“How do you like working in the D.A.'s office?” He had been intrigued by that. Generally, the women he knew didn't like it there. They went into family practices, or other aspects of the law, but female prosecutors were rare everywhere, for obvious reasons. It was a damn tough job, and no one made things easy for them.
“I love it.” She smiled. “It doesn't leave me much time for myself, but that's all right.” She smiled at him, and smoothed back her hair. She still wore it long, but she wore it in a knot when she worked. She was given to wearing suits and blouses when she went to court, but she still lived in jeans at home. And she was wearing a gray flannel suit now, with a pale gray silk shirt.
“Married?” He raised an eyebrow and glanced at her hand, and she smiled.
“No time for that either, I'm afraid.” There had been a handful of men in her life in recent years, but they never lasted long. She ignored them for weeks on end, preparing trials, and just never had enough time for them. It wasn't a loss that had bothered her very much, although Harry kept insisting she'd be sorry one day. “I'll do something about it then.” “When? When you're ninety-five?”
“What were you doing in government, Drew?” His name was Drew Lands and he had the bluest eyes she'd ever seen. She liked the way he smiled at her, and she found herself wondering how old he was, and correctly guessed that he was around forty-five.
“I had an appointment to the Department of Commerce for a while. Someone died, and I was filling in until they made a permanent change.” He smiled at her, and she realized again that she liked the way he looked, more than she had anyone in a long time. “It was an interesting job for a time. There's something incredibly exhilarating about Washington. Everything centers around the government, and the people involved with it. If you're not in government, you're absolutely no one there. And the sense of power is overwhelming. It's all that matters there, to anyone.” He smiled at her, and it was easy to see that he had been part of that.
“That must be hard to give up.” She was intrigued by that, and she herself had wondered more than once if she would be interested in politics, but she didn't really think it would suit her as well as the law.
“It was time. I was happy to get back to Los Angeles.” He smiled easily and put down his scotch again, looking at her. “It almost feels like home again. And you, Tana? What's home to you? Are you a San Francisco girl?”
She shook her head. “New York originally. But I've been here since I went to Boalt.” It had been eight years since she arrived, and that in itself was incredible, since 1964. “I can't imagine living anywhere else now … or doing anything else.…” She loved the district attorney's office more than anything. There was always excitement for her there, and she had grown up a lot in her five years on the job. And that was another thing … five years as an assistant D.A. That was as hard to believe as the rest … where did the time run to, while one worked? Suddenly one woke up and ten years had drifted past … ten years … or five … or one … it all seemed the same after a while. Ten years felt like one felt like an eternity.