Heat Wave by Judith Arnold Page B

it,” she groaned, sinking
against her desk and covering her face with her hands.
    “I don’t know about everyone ,” he
said.
    “You saw it, didn’t you.”
    He sighed. “I had cafeteria duty today. You
know we try to keep the cell phone use to a minimum during lunch.
When I saw a group of kids clustered around and leaning in, I
figured they were looking at someone’s phone, so I moseyed over. I
don’t know if I saw all of it. But I saw enough.”
    She clamped her hands more tightly over her
face. She felt like a toddler playing hide-and-seek—if she could
see no one, maybe no one could see her.
    But they had seen her. Probably not everyone,
but enough kids had.
    “I deleted the video from that kid’s phone.
But I suspect other kids have it. It’s so easy to send that kind of
thing around.”
    Covering her face wasn’t helping. She
lowered her hands and peered up at Henry. “What am I going to
do?”
    “Hold your head high, darlin’. Don’t let the
yahoos get to you.”
    “It doesn’t matter if I hold my head high,”
she groaned. “My bosom is out there. Half the kids in school have
probably seen it. Stuart will decide he can’t give tenure to a
teacher whose bosom has been seen by half the school
population.”
    “Your tenure decision is months away,” Henry
said. “By then, this will have all blown over.”
    “I doubt it.” She shuddered, realizing that
when she’d removed her hands from her face it was to cross her arms
over her chest—as if to protect her body. Crossing her arms didn’t
help, though. Her body had been violated, thanks to twenty-first
century technology.
    That, and a pail of ice.
    “I’ll fight this,” she said, pushing away
from her desk. She might not be holding her head high, but she held
it higher than before. “I’ll fight it, Henry.”
    “That’s the spirit.” He smiled, but the
smile didn’t warm his eyes. They remained steady on her,
questioning. “How will you fight it?”
    “I know a good lawyer.”
    ***
    Caleb had told her to come to his office.
His air conditioning must be working.
    As she drove through town to the building
that housed Chase, Mullen and Solomon, she took deep breaths. This
was business. Not a dinner. She would pay for Caleb’s services in
legal American tender. Not that she knew what his services might
entail. Could he make the video disappear? She doubted it.
    She felt… violated . More than her tenure was at
stake. A bad thing had happened to her on the beach last Sunday.
She had to accept some responsibility; it had been her decision to
unfasten the top of her bikini so she could avoid a tan line. But
that decision—a pretty common one among the women she knew—should
not have resulted in…
    She shuddered. A video .
    She parked at the curb in front of his
building and strode inside, holding her head high as Henry had
instructed her to do. Inside the building, the receptionist sat at
her computer, squinting at the monitor, but she turned at
Meredith’s entrance and offered a smile.
    “I’m Meredith Benoit. I’m here to see Caleb
Solomon.”
    “Please take a seat.” The
receptionist gestured toward the waiting area. It was much more
basic than the elegant waiting area at the firm where her father
and brother worked. That was a much larger firm, of course, in a
much larger city. Located in a classic downtown building, the entry
featured plush velvet furniture, crystal chandeliers, and brocade
drapery. It could have passed as a movie set for Gone With the Wind.
    Caleb and his partners seemed less
interested in impressing their clients with their décor than
impressing them with their legal prowess. The chairs were
utilitarian, the carpeting a rugged neutral gray, the windows
dressed with accordion-pleat shades. But the place had air
conditioning. Her arms prickled with goosebumps as her skin
adjusted to the drastic change from the sticky air outside to the
cool atmosphere indoors.
    The receptionist pressed a button