Chương 10
“I thought maybe if you knew she was frightened—”
“I know she was frightened. She was also powerful.”
“Yes.”
“Both can be true.”
“I know.”
Nora pressed her fingers against her forehead. “You should not tell me details about her finances. The foundation has a funding dispute with her trust.”
“The trust money is protected. She cannot use it personally.”
“That’s not the point.”
“I’m bad at this.”
“At what?”
“Not trying to fix her.”
Nora understood that too well.
Vivian gave a short, embarrassed laugh. “I called to ask for mercy and ended up giving you a motive.”
“I’m not interested in humiliating your mother.”
“Everyone says that while sharing the video.”
“We haven’t shared it.”
“She thinks your father arranged the recording.”
“He did not.”
“I know.”
“How?”
“Because he looked terrible in it.”
Nora laughed before she could stop herself.
The sound surprised both women.
Vivian said, “Sorry.”
“No. He did.”
“He looked like someone had told him the house was on fire but manners required him to walk.”
“That is exactly how he moves through emergencies.”
The brief humor faded.
“I can’t promise what the board will decide,” Nora said. “But I can promise we won’t use personal information about your family.”
“Even if she withdraws the money?”
“Yes.”
Vivian was silent for several seconds.
“She will,” she said. “Not because she wants the program to fail. Because she thinks money is the only language people respect when they stop respecting her.”
After the call, Nora wrote a note to Priya documenting the contact without including the personal details Vivian had shared.
Then she went to find Tomas.
He was at the estate with the investigation team, waiting in a small sitting room that had once belonged to Nora’s grandmother. Someone had left a porcelain bowl of wrapped mints on the table. Tomas had arranged the wrappers by color without eating any.
“Do I need a lawyer?” he asked when Nora entered.
“No.”
“Would you tell me if I did?”
“Yes.”
He considered that. “Okay.”
Nora sat across from him.
“The board hired an outside investigator,” she said. “You can choose whether to participate. If you do, you can bring someone with you. The foundation will pay for independent advice if you want it.”
“Advice from who?”
“An employment attorney or advocate who does not work for us.”
“Why would you pay them to tell me whether you did something wrong?”
“Because that is part of doing it correctly.”
He looked at the mints.
“Ms. Vega said my shifts won’t change.”
“They won’t.”
“Because you told her?”
“Because retaliation would violate policy.”
“That wasn’t my question.”
Nora paused. “I told her to document scheduling for all temporary staff. I did not tell her to give you more or fewer shifts.”
Tomas nodded.
“Do you want to speak to the investigator?” she asked.
“I don’t want my name online.”
“It won’t be released by us.”
“What about her lawyers?”
“They may learn it if your account becomes part of a formal proceeding.”
“And then?”
“I don’t know.”
He looked at her sharply.
“I won’t pretend there is no risk,” Nora said. “There may be. People may try to discredit you. They may question why you did not report it formally. They may say you remembered differently after seeing the video.”
“That sounds bad.”
“It could be.”
“Then why would I do it?”
“You may decide not to.”
Tomas picked up a green mint, turned it over, and returned it to the bowl.
“You want me to.”
“Yes.”
“Because it helps your case.”
“Yes.”
The honesty seemed to irritate him less than reassurance would have.
“What happens if I don’t?”
“The investigation continues with what we have.”
“And Mrs. Ward?”
“I don’t know.”
“You say that a lot for a director.”
“More than I used to.”
He smiled slightly.
Then he asked, “Was she really trying to get you fired?”
Nora looked at him. “Who told you?”
“People talk.”
“Yes.”
“Does that make this easier?”
“No.”
“Seems like it would.”
“It makes me less certain which part of my anger belongs in the decision.”
Tomas unwrapped the green mint at last.
“My mom says when people show you who they are, believe them.”
“That’s good advice.”
“She also thinks the internet is stored in satellites.”
“Advice can be uneven.”
He laughed with the mint still in his mouth.
Then his expression became serious.
“I’ll talk to the investigator,” he said. “But I want Ms. Vega there.”
“That can be arranged.”
“And I don’t want you in the room.”
Nora nodded.
“That can also be arranged.”
The review lasted twelve days.
During that time, Nora became briefly famous in the exhausting, low-grade manner of people known for a single circulating clip. Strangers recognized her in coffee shops. A woman on the subway asked whether she had hidden the brooch herself. An online magazine requested photographs of her “workwear style.” Someone sold shirts printed with YOU WILL NOT SEARCH OR SHAME ME, turning the sentence into a slogan Nora no longer recognized.
She declined every interview.
Martin objected.
“You are allowing others to define the event,” he said.
“It was eleven seconds. Everyone is defining it.”
“You could redirect attention to the foundation’s work.”
“By using the program as reputation laundering?”
“By contextualizing your role.”
“My role is not the most important thing in the video.”
“It is why the video spread.”
“That is exactly the problem.”
The public loved that Nora was secretly powerful. Had Celeste treated an actual temporary employee the same way, the video might have traveled for a day, produced outrage, and vanished beneath the next humiliation. The reveal transformed the incident into entertainment: the arrogant socialite had chosen the wrong woman.
Nora kept thinking about the phrase.
The wrong woman.
May you like
It implied a right one.
The foundation’s donation portal received four hundred thousand dollars in small contributions, most accompanied by messages supporting Nora. That was significant but restricted in ways the Ward pledge had not been. Much of it came in ten- and twenty-dollar amounts from people who believed they were funding justice by funding an institution with Edward Vale’s name on the building.
