The Lady Out of Time

1 - Julia Williams

There were two things Julia Williams was not: a weakling, and a quitter.

Now, people called her plenty of other things, and some of them contradictory. Bullish yet shrewd, savage and elegant, poisonously sweet. And incidentally, she felt like all these things at once as she stepped out of her 2.6 million dollar car in front of a lavish countryside estate.

Her phone was in her hand as she click-clacked her way up the winding driveway in her black stilettos. On hold, of course, but that was to be expected every time she called the office of billionaire business magnate Charles Henderson. Even his assistants had assistants who still relied on automated systems to route their hundreds of daily calls.

But if they knew what was good for them, they wouldn't make her wait long. She was already halfway up the driveway now, and the beautiful field of table parasols all over the verdant lawn were clearly visible. There were at least a dozen elderly women all dressed in pale florals sitting around, and one of them was going to make Charles Henderson a sad, sad man today.

He probably wanted a little warning before that happened.

Click.

"Hello, Ms. Williams. Unfortunately, Mr. Henderson isn't available, but I can pass on a message for you if you'd like."

Of course, as always. Messages that were never responded to, calls that were never returned. Well, today's would be a tad different. Julia smiled into her phone as she stepped onto the lawn, relishing the sheer pleasure of her moment of victory.

"Yes, please. If you could let him know that the court has made an exception, and that I can in fact serve the divorce papers on Mrs. Henderson's behalf to someone else, and the law will recognize this as completely valid."

There was a confused sound on the other end of the line, but she had been prepared for this, too.

"Now, Charles is probably going to be very confused, as he's been operating under the assumption that he is completely safe from being divorced as long as he hides and 'never receives' the papers. And up to a certain point, please do let him know that he's right: he must be served first, before the case can proceed to court."

Julia took a deep breath, inhaling the honey-sweet scent of the blossoms in the garden.

"But what he doesn't know is that I've appealed to the judge, who has approved my request to be able to serve the papers to a suitable representative or proxy for Charles Henderson instead. It took bringing a record of seven months of failed contact to his chambers, but yes, Judge Montrose finally agreed that it was going to continue to be impossible to fit being served into Charles's busy, busy schedule."

"Ms. Williams, I -"

"Now, when you tell him this, Charles may be extremely confused. He may ask, 'Why would Judge Montrose approve this? I'm a rich and powerful man with a great deal of influence in the city of New York. There's no possible way any judge would act against me.'  And he may also ask, 'Who is this representative or proxy who can be served on my behalf?' Well, I can answer both of these questions as soon as I taste this delicious-looking hors d'oeuvre here."

Julia leaned over and picked up one of the toothpick-impaled treats from the table. With a gracious smile at the confused, elderly woman sitting there, she then popped it in her mouth and continued on her merry way to the other side of the garden party.

"Take special note, I want to make sure he gets every word of this gripping saga. So to begin this story, Judge Montrose has been having marital issues of his own, and his wife has been adamant that she will make sure he suffers for every slight, every affair, every little thing he has done wrong in the thirty three years they have been married. Now, I told Judge Montrose that I would be only too happy to represent his wife in court, pro bono. When he declined, I let him know that my generosity couldn't be dissuaded. I was two seconds away from dialing his wife when he caved, and that is how I received special dispensation to serve these divorce papers to a proxy instead."

She waved at another batch of old women in pretty dresses, some of whom waved back, and others who looked at her with alarmed expressions. Ta-ta, she thought, and continued on.

"Which brings me to the question of who that proxy is. Well, I'm elated to inform you, and Mr. Henderson in turn, that I've received permission to serve the divorce papers to his mother. Hello, Mrs. Henderson! I'm so happy I found you, you're exactly the woman I've been wanting to see."

Without waiting for a reply, Julia proceeded to hang up the call and drop the phone back into her Louis Vuitton purse. Five feet away, a white-permed, bonnet-wearing woman in her sixties bearing a striking resemblance with Charles Henderson turned to look at her.

"Terribly sorry to intrude, but I have a wonderful gift for you that your son will positively hate -"

* * * * *

"I can't believe you really did it," someone had said after the case blew apart with a satisfying bang. "You really divorced the richest man in Manhattan from his wife and turned him into a pauper. I don't understand how you do the things you do."

"He shouldn't have ever hit her or their kids, then, don't you think?" she had replied, but they had all only shaken their heads in amazement as if her accomplishment was somehow more incredible than the fact that the legal system favored the wealthy so blatantly. "He got what was coming to him."

"Well, she's lucky she had you to help."

"These kinds of things won't be about luck soon anymore," Julia had insisted, but everyone had simply smiled and toasted her tenacity instead of agreeing.

She'd been angry. She'd been so angry that she had decided to celebrate her victory with the rest of the firm to her heart's content for the rest of the night, and then she had put in her notice that she was going on a vacation the very next morning.

"Um...This is all very sudden, Ms. Williams."

"Yes," she had said. "Yes, it is."

"I...When will you be leaving?"

Julia had smiled at her senior partner, making him shudder.

"In two hours."

Which explained why twenty four hours later, she was in fabulous new clothes and heels while waiting in a line outside the glorious Pantheon building in the city of Rome. Well, it had been the Pantheon in another life, a temple to the gods, but now it was the Basilica di Santa Maria ad Martyres - or the Basilica of St. Mary and the Martyrs, in common English. Beautiful, elegant. And so very hard to get into.

But she was not leaving here without getting to see what it looked like inside, this never-ending line of visitors be damned.

She pushed her thirty six hundred dollar Dolce and Gabanna sunglasses up the bridge of her nose and inched forward as the line began to move again. Almost, she thought as she climbed the stone steps and entered the shade, and it had only taken three damn hours. She was tired, thirsty, and hungry, but by God she had finally won. She wasn't a quitter, and the heat of the mid-day sun could kiss her Pilates and Crossfit-trained ass, because she wasn't a weakling, either.

But if this man behind her wouldn't stop whipping around with his gigantic camera swinging to and fro, she was going to throttle him and go to jail before she ever had the chance to step foot inside the Pantheon. She grit her teeth and began counting to one hundred as the line continued to move...

...until finally, the man swiveled around far too quickly, and sent Julia staggering out of the line with a crash of their shoulders. She reached out to try to hold onto something before she tumbled down the stone steps, but all she caught was empty space in her hands and the sight of the stone pillar next to her rushing toward her face -

Her forehead cracked against the column so hard that her toes spasmed, and then there was nothing but darkness.