The Outfit Clash: I'm Told to Strip novel · Chapter 2 of 24

Chapter 2: The Front Row

Patrice Sterne calls Georgia's suit stolen and demands she hand it over; Georgia refuses again, a law student's video backs her, and she walks into convocation, where the president introduces the new board chair and she stands up.

The two security officers looked at each other.

Neither of them moved.

One of them was gray at the temples and had a coffee stain on his tie.

"Ma'am," he said to Patrice. "What's the charge?"

"Assault," Patrice said. "She attacked a student and his staff. Half the quad saw it."

"He swung at me first," I said.

"Did he?" Patrice turned to the crowd. "Did anyone see Mr. Sterne swing at this woman?"

Forty people looked at their shoes.

The girl with the coffee looked at the sky.

Patrice smiled at me.

It was a thin smile.

"And there's the matter of what you're wearing," she said.

She stepped closer and lifted my lapel between two fingers.

"My nephew's suit is one of two in the world. He told me so himself. So either you're wearing a cheap copy, or you're wearing a stolen one."

"Neither," I said.

"Then you won't mind handing it over." She let go of the lapel. "The jacket and the shirt. Security will hold them as evidence while we sort this out."

Hunter laughed behind her.

"She can do it right here," he said. "Saves time."

Tyler whistled.

My face went hot. My hands went cold.

"No," I said.

Patrice blinked. "Excuse me?"

"I'm not taking off my clothes on a quad because your nephew wants to watch me do it," I said. "Not the jacket. Not the shirt. Not a button."

I said it loud.

I wanted every phone on those steps to get it clearly.

"You're a student here," Patrice said. "Student affairs is my office. You'll do as you're told or you'll be gone by lunch."

"That's not how this works."

The voice came from behind me.

A man pushed through the crowd with his phone held up, screen out.

He was big through the shoulders, with rumpled sandy hair and wire glasses.

His nose had been broken once and set a little crooked.

He wore a flannel shirt with the sleeves shoved up, and a canvas bag with a law school patch hung off one shoulder.

"I got the whole thing," he said. "From 'take your shirt off' to the right hook."

Patrice's smile stayed on. Her eyes didn't.

"And you are?"

"A third-year law student who runs the legal clinic in the basement of the library," he said. "You can look me up. Section four of the student code says no officer of the university can order a student to remove clothing outside a medical setting. Section nine says a conduct charge needs a hearing before any sanction. Nobody's getting expelled by lunch."

He held the phone out to the gray-templed officer.

The officer watched the clip.

Then he looked at Hunter.

Then he looked at Patrice, and his mouth went tight.

"Ma'am," he said quietly. "I can't take her in on this."

"I'm telling you to."

"And I'm telling you I've seen the video."

Patrice didn't argue.

She just took a small notebook out of her jacket pocket and wrote something down.

The officer's name, I guessed.

Then she looked at the law student and wrote something else.

He grinned at her.

I noticed a girl at the edge of the crowd.

She was small and freckled, with a riot of red curls piled up and stabbed through with a pencil.

She wore overalls and a pincushion on her wrist like a watch.

She wasn't looking at me.

She was staring at Hunter's collar, and she'd gone the color of chalk.

"Hunter," Patrice said. "Go inside. You're seated in the front row."

"She doesn't get to walk," Hunter said.

"She'll be dealt with. Go."

He went.

On his way past me he leaned in close.

"I'll see you in there," he said. "Sit somewhere I can see you."

His bodyguard limped after him.

Tyler shoulder-checked me on his way by. I let him.

The crowd started breaking up and drifting toward the auditorium.

The law student held my phone out to me.

I hadn't even seen him pick it up off the bricks.

The screen was a spiderweb. It still lit up.

"Thank you," I said.

"Don't thank me. I've been waiting two years for somebody to tell him no." He tilted his head. "That wrist thing was very rude, by the way. I loved it."

"I was aiming for polite."

"Then I'd hate to see you rude."

I almost smiled.

Patrice was still standing three feet away, watching us both.

"Whatever you think you are," she said to me, "you're done here. I'll make sure of it."

I checked my watch.

Twelve minutes.

"Excuse me," I said. "I'll be late."

I walked away from her.

Up the steps, through the big oak doors, into the cold dark of the auditorium.

It was already full.

The balcony was packed with freshmen. Faculty in black robes filled the side rows.

Hunter was in the center of the front row, legs crossed, his aunt's empty seat beside him.

He saw me coming down the aisle and smiled.

He thought I was looking for a seat.

I walked past the third row, the second row.

The usher at the front stepped aside for me.

I sat down in the reserved chair at the far end of the front row, eight seats from Hunter.

The card taped to the seat said BOARD.

Hunter stared at me.

Then at the card.

He leaned over to Tyler and said something, and Tyler laughed.

The lights went down.

The university president walked out to the podium, a tall white-haired man in a red academic robe.

He tapped the microphone and smiled out at two thousand people.

"Before we begin," he said, "I have a rare honor this morning."

"Many of you knew our late chair, who served this board for forty years."

"His seat has passed to his granddaughter, and the board elected her as its chair in August."

"Please welcome the new chair of the Carlisle University Board of Trustees."

He turned toward the front row.

"Georgia Carlisle."

I stood up.

Two thousand people started clapping.

Eight seats away, the color drained out of Hunter Sterne's face.

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