The court chair pointed her pen at him. “And I’m telling you, Ted, to stop talking. Your job, in this context, according to the rules of the university court, is to silently observe the hearing. Legal counsel are allowed to confer with their respective parties. What they can’t do is address us.”

“Can we just wait until—”

Dean McGrath ran a palm over his bald head. “We are not pushing this off.”

Susan Brown nodded. “We’re taking care of it today.”

“With one shitty-ass afternoon hearing? That’s not fair.” Ted Rhine folded his arms and settled a glare on Maggie. “This girl gets the better bargain. She’s holding all the aces.”

Maggie glared back. She wanted to cry out, “Better bargain? This hell isn’t a good deal for me. And I don’t hold all the aces.” Or any aces. She was only trying to do the right thing. Outside of finding a shred of justice, what did she hope to win by retelling the most painful and humiliating thing that had ever happened to her?

She took a deep breath and looked away—and then realized she didn’t know where to look. There were too many people in the room. People who hated her and who’d hurt her. People she’d never wanted to see again. She settled on staring out the window and wished herself out there, anywhere that wasn’t here. Just … gone.

Perched on the edge of the counter and twirling the ends of her ponytails, Ran Kita glanced toward the door when Maggie entered the bookshop and grinned. “Yay!” Her hands, still holding the ponytails’ ends, flew up over her head. Then she flung back the hair and shouted toward the back of the store, “She came! Marge is here!”

Marge. Maggie winced.

“Ye gads, Ran,” a low voice scolded.

Maggie whirled around.

A trim man with silver threading the hair at his temples stood by a front window, arranging the novels on display. Smiling apologetically at Maggie, he straightened, then nudged his glasses up the bridge of his nose and collected a stack of books. “You’re hurting the poor girl’s ears,” he told Ran, and brought his armful to the counter.

“Sorry, Dad,” she said cheerfully, and slipped to the floor, “but I was excited. I’m so glad you’re here, Marge. I was waiting to see if you’d come. This way!” She hooked an arm through Maggie’s and steered her through the bookshop. “You’re all out of breath. Did you run here?” She nodded at a customer flipping through an enormous cookbook.