The day started out so well. It was sunny, warm—a welcome bonus for what had so far been a rainy April—with misty slats of sunlight streaming through the partially open plantation shutters. The delicious aroma of fresh coffee and buttery croissants floated up from Maxi’s café next door, enticing her further into the day.

Vivienne Shager stretched luxuriously, her taut, lithe body unraveling its impressive length from the contours of sleep as her mind made a happy reconnect with the world and what it had in store on this glorious work-free day.

It was hard to believe that four full weeks had passed since she and the GaLs—Girls at Law—had run and completed an entire marathon to raise funds for the charity Heads Together. So much had happened in that time—mostly work related, but she’d also had an irritating bug that kept coming and going, trying to lay her low but never quite succeeding. However, she was feeling pretty good today, she soon realized. This was a huge relief, for she and the GaLs were planning some serious celebration of their fund-raising efforts. The day was exclusively theirs; partners, spouses, offspring, parents, bosses, and colleagues had been given notice that they’d have to manage without the key women in their lives from midday until said women were ready to tip in the direction of home.

For Vivi, there was less of a problem on the family front, since she had no children and her partner, Greg, was going to Lord’s for the day. Her mother fortunately didn’t live anywhere close by. On the work front, her immediate boss, Trudy Mack-Silver, was one of the GaLs, so no difficulties there. This wasn’t to say that Vivienne didn’t have a mountain of work to get through; being a senior member of the in-house legal team at FAberlin Investments meant her desk and inbox were always crammed with issues needing urgent attention. Over time she’d learned how to prioritize the ceaseless flow of demands, though many of them saw her laboring late into the evenings and often over entire weekends. She didn’t mind; she loved her job and even liked many of the giant corporation’s upper-management team. They could be tough, bad-tempered, inconsiderate, and in some cases offensively sexist, but in times of crisis she watched closely, spoke confidently, and managed to learn a lot from those whose jobs she had in her sights.