Touch by Francine Prose

Author:Francine Prose [Prose, Francine]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Tags: General Fiction, cookie429, Kat, Extratorrents
ISBN: 0061375195
Publisher: HarperTeen
Published: 2009-01-01T00:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

Cynthia, the lawyer—our lawyer, as Joan keeps saying—is Joan’s good friend. It’s easy to understand why. They both have that same brassy, in-your-face quality. They both have their I-am-woman-hear-me-roar thing totally down.

They both like to think of themselves as alpha females, so it’s kind of funny that Cynthia’s office should be so totally alpha-male-lawyer: leather-upholstered chairs with metal studs, dark bookcases filled with dark books. I always think that if you took down any of those superimpressive leather-bound law books, they’d be hollowed out inside, and they’d contain some secret stash, like Cynthia’s face cream and diet pills. Or maybe her hormones and steroids. Cynthia wears tight little T-shirts so you can see she’s really buff, and sometimes, during our “meetings,” I catch Joan staring enviously at Cynthia’s biceps.

A few days after the incident on the bus, Joan called Cynthia to set up our first meeting. But so many kids must be suing their school boards—or so many people must be suing somebody—that it was another few weeks before we could get an appointment. I’ve never been able to tell if the whole lawsuit thing was Joan’s idea, or Cynthia’s. Probably, they put their perfectly coiffed, perfectly salon-streaked heads together and cooked up the whole thing.

I was already bored with the story by the first time I told it to Cynthia. And she seemed bored by it, too. Or maybe that was just how she always listened, because listening meant that she had to wait until it was her chance to talk.

After I finished, she asked Joan, “How long after the incident did the school call you to report it?”

“That night?” Joan says. Why did she say it as if she was asking a question? And why was Joan asking me?

“That’s right,” I said. “The same night.”

Cynthia looked disappointed. Positively crushed.

“Glad to hear it,” she said. “For Maisie’s sake, I mean. On the other hand, it’s not the greatest thing for us. From a purely legal standpoint, these cases work out better if a certain amount of time elapses before the school admits wrongdoing or negligence and decides to take action. Actually, I’m not surprised. Don Nyswander’s wife works for Calder and Smitt. So he’s pretty legal-savvy. It was pretty smart of him to call you as soon as he realized there was a problem. The longer a school delays about that, the smoother these cases have gone.”

“Which cases?” I said. I wanted to know if what had happened to me had happened to other kids. Was Cynthia saying that the country is full of girls whose best friends groped them on the back of the school bus and then lied and said she wanted to charge other guys to do the same thing?

“There are precedents,” Cynthia said. Precedents, as it turns out, is Cynthia’s favorite word.

“Like what?” asked Joan.

“Well, the Supreme Court handed down a ruling saying you can sue a school when the harassment is so serious and sustained that it violates a child’s right to an education.

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