9½ Days. Mia Zachary

seeing me now. Not as the almost two-hundred-pound girl with bad skin and no friends I used to be.” She turned up the corners of her mouth, hoping it resembled a smile.

      Susan nodded. “So as a former ‘fat girl’ yourself, you’re in the best position to defend me.”

      Something inside of her twisted at the comparison, but Jordan focused on what was important. “I think we have a good chance with both the wrongful termination and the discrimination cases.”

      “You know, I have a journalism degree from Columbia. I started out writing copy at a couple of newspapers. Journalism requires long hours, unbeatable dedication and street smarts as well as brain smarts.” Susan’s expression hardened. “It does not require looking like a Barbie doll. Especially not when my male co-anchors have gray hair, paunches and bags under their eyes. What does sex appeal have to do with my ability to tell an audience about a multiple rush-hour fatality on the Beltway?”

      Susan was a very attractive woman: literate, funny, irreverent, and she had great personal style. And yet Jordan couldn’t suppress her reluctant aversion. It was like seeing herself the way she used to be, the way she’d worked so hard never to be again…

      However, she wasn’t about to let her personal issues affect her zealous defense of a case. “In our favor, several successful lawsuits have set a precedent. For example, Connecticut anchorwoman Janet Peckinpaugh won her 1999 case against Post-News-week. You’re not too old, nor too fat, to do your job, Susan. And we’re going to prove it.”

      From fifteen floors below, Jordan was distracted by the strident peal of a fire engine racing up Howard Street. The huge machine blared its horn at slow-moving cars until they pulled far enough toward the sidewalk for the engine to get by. She wondered if her elevator rescuer was onboard.

      She also wondered what he looked like. Jordan had been too ashamed to look at him when he’d stood before her, too embarrassed to glance back as she fled. The firefighter from the elevator would never be more than a faceless memory.

      3

      JORDAN DOVE INTO the sea of bodies on the sidewalk and headed down Pratt Street past the Convention Center and the Garmatz Federal Courthouse. She’d conducted all of her meetings and handled her caseload on autopilot this morning, unable to concentrate.

      She couldn’t stop thinking about…him. He was a complete mystery, this sensual stranger. And yet some air of familiarity had prompted her to let him kiss her, fondle and stroke her in the most intimate ways. Each time she closed her eyes, she experienced again the heat of his touch and the drugging taste of his kiss. Her lips actually tingled.

      Jordan startled when someone jostled her elbow. Realizing she’d been lost in thought, again, she hurried to cross Charles Street before the traffic light changed. Downtown was teeming with tourists, many wearing Baltimore Orioles T-shirts in anticipation of tonight’s game. Exhaust fumes polluted the humid air while the sounds of crawling traffic echoed off the multistory buildings.

      She waited through another red light by the Gallery mall on Light Street. She’d left her jacket at the office in deference to the heat, but the September sun seemed intent on burning a hole through her cotton shirtdress. Over the last few blocks, it felt as if her panty hose was melting and permanently adhering to her legs. Not to mention the way the waistband was strangling her. Queen-size? Yeah, right.

      The early-autumn heat wave made everything hot and tight and sticky. Not unlike the heat she felt racing along her veins whenever she relived those mind-blowing moments at the St. Charles Hotel. Over the past two nights, the firefighter from the elevator had become the faceless lover of her dreams. In her midnight fantasies that first explosive orgasm was followed by several others as they made crazy, passionate love against the wood-paneled wall.

      Jordan gave herself a mental shake as a truck horn blared impatiently. She had to stop this. There was probably a special area in purgatory for good girls gone bad. And she might as well get used to the idea because, if her daydreams were any indication, she was more than willing to be bad again.

      She crossed the street with a determined stride, heading toward the Pratt Street Pavilion where she was meeting her college roommates, Sheris Smith and Melanie Walters, for their Monthly Monday lunch. In the tiny amphitheater between the two main buildings of the Harborplace complex, a crowd clapped and ignored the midday heat as a juggler tossed bowling pins in time to music.

      The cool air inside the Pavilion was a welcome relief, and Jordan took a moment to let her body adjust and to check her watch. Five minutes early. Which meant Melanie would arrive at exactly twelve-thirty, and they should only have to wait another fifteen minutes after that for Sheris to show up.

      She opened the door to the Cheesecake Factory restaurant, gave her name to the hostess and asked for an inside table. Once seated, she settled in with a raspberry iced tea, idly gazing out the tinted glass window.

      Families and couples of all ages strolled along the red brick promenade on the harbor’s edge. Water taxis and duck boats carried tourists around the Patapsco River between the Inner Harbor and Fell’s Point. A line of people waited to tour the USS Constellation, a three-masted Civil War sloop anchored at Pier One.

      Looking past the facade of the World Trade Center, Jordan could see the triangular glass roof of the National Aquarium. She’d been meaning to get over there and see the new Amazon River Forest exhibit…

      “Hi!” Melanie bounced toward the table at twelve-thirty on the dot and waved to several people as she walked by. Mel was a diminutive dynamo and seemed to know everybody. With her petite figure and boy-short hairstyle, she looked like a happy pixie.

      She dressed like one, too. Today she wore a bright yellow-and-white-striped pants set that complemented her coffee skin. Jordan smiled. You couldn’t help but smile at Melanie. She was like a walking dose of antidepressant. Her wide-set eyes always reflected her joy in life.

      She stood up to trade hugs. No air kisses with Mel, who was genuine in everything she did. “I’m glad you could come today.”

      “Of course, Jordan! I wouldn’t miss our monthly lunch! How have you been? Is that our waitress? I’m dying of thirst!”

      “Try the raspberry tea. I think you’ll like it.” Jordan kept her voice carefully modulated since Melanie tended to make either a question or an exclamation of everything she said. “So, tell me what’s new.”

      “Rochelle did so well in school! And can you believe it? Chris made the winning goal for his soccer team during the last game of the season! Guess what we’re doing? Bill and I are taking the kids to Disney!”

      “That sounds great. But I thought you were planning a vacation without the kids.” Although Melanie treated her boyfriend’s children like her own, Jordan knew she often wished for more adults-only time.

      Melanie reached for her tea and drank half of it before answering. “Oh, that’s our anniversary trip in November! Bill and I are going back to Costa Rica! I think he’s finally going to propose! Have you and David talked about where you’ll spend your honeymoon? You two would just love Costa Rica!”

      She was saved from having to answer when she noticed heads near the restaurant entrance turning. “There’s Sheris.”

      Sheris nodded in response to Melanie’s excited wave and sauntered across the dining room. She always moved as though she owned whatever place she was in. Given her family’s diversified investments, she might very well have part ownership of the restaurant.

      Jordan stifled a pang of envy over her friend’s casual stylishness. Jordan spent hours meticulously planning her outfits and tending to her hair and makeup. Meanwhile, Sheris managed to look gorgeous in whatever she’d thrown on before casually running a brush through her hair and walking out the door. Her dark gypsy curls fell past her shoulders, which were bared by the white peasant blouse she wore with a short leather skirt and sandals. Only Sheris could wear leather in this heat and still look cool.

      “Sorry I’m late,” she offered as she brushed