“Wow,” he said, scrubbing his hands through his unbound hair. “This is the craziest thing I’ve ever heard of.”
“Have you ever heard of anyone hypnotizing someone with yoga?”
“Uh , no. I’ve heard that if you do the breathing and such you can put yourself into a trance, but I don’t like yoga enough to try. It’s boring.”
Caja nodded, she could understand why a man with Michael’s energy level would struggle to maintain the stillness level yoga required. “Well I’ve been reading a lot, and apparently there are those who believe yoga is intrinsically linked to Hinduism, so I can see how some Christians would see it as a threat.”
“Yeah, but what the hell was Spraggins’ wife doing in a yoga class if her husband felt that way?”
“I don’t know. Maybe she didn’t feel that way?”
“Yeah, but he’s a public figure. She had to know her actions reflect back on him,” he said.
“Apparently she didn’t agree. She’s been coming here for at least a year according to her file. I don’t know when she started taking yoga.” Taking a deep breath she placed her palm against her forehead and lowered her arm until it was propped up on the bar by her elbow. She closed her eyes and rested. A niggling worry at the back of her mind reminded her that she should be concerned about being unable to relax except when Michael was around. Mentally she waved the thought away. Right now she had enough to deal with ; her feelings for him would just have to take a number.
“Baby, are you asleep?”
Her quick reflexes saved her from having her head strike the table as she drifted off. The sharp movement did hurt her neck quite a bit.
“I’d better go to bed before I do myself an injury.”
“Yeah, that’s probably a good idea.”
Suddenly reluctant to sleep alone, Caja extended an invitation. “I know you’ve got school tomorrow and it’s a long drive.”
“I’m an early riser, anyway. Are you asking me to stay?”
“If you don’t mind?”
“Only a fool would turn down such an invitation.”
CHAPTER
9
“TELL us again how all this came about.”
Caja looked down the small conference room table at Foster Myers, one of her first investors. He’d always been very enthusiastic about the prospects for her gym, but right now he looked as though he’d found his wife banging the pool boy. He’d even lost some of his florid color which he attributed to rosacea, but she privately thought came from overindulging in really fine Scotch. She bought him a bottle each year for Christmas. Calling the emergency meeting was one of the hardest things she’d ever had to do. She hadn’t felt this pressured about her company since she’d fought to keep her ex- fiancée from stealing it.
The conference room at Prema’s firm was fairly large and commodious, but right now it felt as though the walls in the elegant space were closing in on her. More than anything she wished she was still in bed spooning with Michael. She drifted off for a moment remembering the soft kisses he’d awakened her with this morning. She could almost feel his silky hair caressing her cheek and luxuriated in the memory of being surrounded by his masculine aroma. Caja came back to herself with a start to realize that one of the shareholders had been talking and she hadn’t heard a word. Get your head in the game, girl, before you find yourself ass out in the cold. She psyched herself up as she’d done so many times as a gymnast when nothing stood between her team and victory except her beam routine. This was the meet of her life. Time to act like it. She adjusted the jacket of her charcoal gray suit and focused on the people in the room. Getting all the investors together so quickly that morning had been a bit of a struggle, but Kit had more than earned her generous salary by pulling it off. Before long the story would be all over the media, best to get this out in the open now.
“I’ve told you all I know, Foster,” she said.
“This yoga instructor, did you not check him out before you hired him?” Kim Stephens, another investor asked. Of the four shareholders in the room Kim was the only one who looked even marginally sympathetic, but her questions were still pointed.
“I did my standard background check. I even looked at him a little more closely because I was curious as to why he would leave a market like Atlanta. I called friends I have over there, nobody had any dirt on him at all. Everything checked out.”
“Do we know whether he slept with any other clients?” That was Foster again. Jim Moody and Bryan White, the other two investors hadn’t asked any questions yet, they were mainly looking at their briefing notes while listening to the discussion.
“No one else has come forward. The police are still investigating though.”
“If there are any best to find them now and get it over with. The longer this thing goes on, the worse it’ll be,” Bryan finally spoke up.
Caja nodded. She agreed wholeheartedly and had already questioned her entire staff. Apparently no one knew anything about what Jensen had been up to. Her staff was fairly close-knit. She was amazed that such a flagrant violation of company policy, not to mention common sense had flown under the radar, but apparently it had.
“As I said, that’s all I know for right now. Of course, I’ll keep you posted as more information comes forth. Do you need me to leave the room while you discuss the situation?” she said.
The four shareholders looked at one another, then almost as one they shook their heads and Kim spoke. “Unless something more comes up I think we still trust you to continue with Brickhouse. We already know from that uh situation a few years ago that you’re good in a crisis, so, for now we’ll stay the course. I assume that we’re not to speak to the media?”
Prema, who until this point had sat quietly, spoke from her seat in one of the chairs on the side of the room with Kit who was taking notes. “That would be best. I don’t want anybody talking to the media except me. Anything you say, even defending Caja , would only make things worse.” Everyone nodded in agreement. The meeting quickly adjourned after that and Caja stood on shaky legs to shake her investors’ hands as they left. Then she collapsed back into the conference room chair.
“That was masterfully done,” Prema said.
“I’ve got another reporter on the phone wanting to interview you. They’ve been calling all day. Of course I’ve told them no way, but we can assume they’ll be going with the story. It’s amazing how fast all this got out,” Kit said.
“Not amazing at all. We have to assume the publicity is part of their plan,” Prema said.
“What next?” Caja asked.
“We batten down the hatches. You’ve talked to your staff. I’m sure the police will want to interview them, but other than that, they’re not to speak with anyone else. Unfortunately, this will drag on for months. There’s no telling when the rape trial will happen, and the civil suit can’t start until that’s finished,” the attorney said.
Caja leaned back in her chair and stared at the ceiling for a long moment. “You said it was going to be a fight. I wonder if their next move will be a hook, or an uppercut.”
* * * * *
“Well they’ve decided to drop the accessory to rape charges against you .”
Caja looked across the table at her lawyer. It had only been a couple of weeks, but she felt as though this crisis had been dragging on forever. Her days were incredibly busy because she spent most of her time avoiding the media, and there seemed to be endless meetings either with law enforcement, attorneys or shareholders. Plus, she’d just opened the new branch, and had to do quite a bit of handholding with the new staff and facility. Michael nagged her constantly to ensure s he was eating, which is why this meeting with her attorney was a working lunch instead of a conference call as originally planned. Odd how being pestered by Michael didn’t bother her. Normally she didn’t tolerate that from anyone other than her mother. She shoved the thought aside as she really had no time to ponder it now. She raised her brows and put her menu down as she
stared at Prema. This was the first good news she’d had since the lawsuit began, but... “Okay. And you look like a kid who just lost her puppy because...” she asked noting Prema’s hangdog expression.
Prema took a sip of her iced tea. “They want to proceed with the civil case while the media is hot. That couldn’t happen until the criminal case was over, so they made it go away. I don’t think they had a case in the first place. They only filed charges to rattle your cage a bit.”
Caja bit her lip, frustrated by the way the legal system was being used to manipulate her life, and she couldn’t do a thing about it. “So what does all this mean?”
“We’ll start discovery next week.”
“I don’t know anything about law suits and such, but doesn’t this seem a little quick?”
“Of course it is,” Prema said with a disgusted twist of her lips. “Spraggins has got someone in the Clerk of the Court’s Office on his payroll. We shouldn’t have a trial date for at least six months, instead we start in two weeks.”
“None of this sounds good.”
“It sounds awful, but it should be to your benefit. The sooner we start, the sooner you can put this behind you.”
“But are we ready?” Caja asked.
“Of course. Their case is baseless. As long as we don’t make any stupid mistakes, we’ll be fine.”
“But what about Delby? Are we going to be able to get him to testify that he didn’t hypnotize Marianne? That this is all a bunch of nonsense?”
“If only it were that easy. Jensen has a criminal case coming up. He’s not interested in talking to anybody about this. Interestingly enough, his trial isn’t on the docket until next year some time. He’s just grateful he was given such a low bail.”
“How low?”
“Five thousand dollars.”
“Isn’t that -- ”
“Surprisingly low for such a high-profile case and a defendant with no ties to the community?”
“Well , yeah.”
“Of course it is,” Prema said with a sharp snap of her teeth.
“But why -- ” Caja paused her thoughts whirling as she tried to come to grips with the impossible situation. “Oh my God, they want him to skip out so we can’t call him to testify!”
Prema gave her a mournful look. “Such a waste. You’re a natural. Yes, they want him to skip, but I doubt he would’ve done us much good anyway. No attorney on the planet would let him testify anyway. He’ll just assert his Fifth Amendment rights.”
Imagine that. She was actually involved in a case where someone might actually plead the Fifth. “Should I be worried that their side is able to manipulate the system this way?”
“Nope. That’s my job. Now, do you want to split a Santa Fe salad with me?”
* * * * *
“Ms. McPherson. Would you mind telling us about your educational background?”
Caja looked across the table at the Spraggins’ attorney. A small slightly built man he still exuded both power and confidence. Neither of the Spraggins w as present for the first day of pre-trial discovery, so the large conference room wasn’t particularly crowded as the only other person there was Prema and a stenographer taking notes. She’d left Kit at the office, and felt as though she were missing her right hand. Prema had told her over and over again to answer only the question asked and no more. Don’t volunteer any information, she repeated to herself before answering.
“I attended the University of Georgia.”
“And what was your major there?”
“I majored in Physiology and Nutrition.”
“Any other training?
“I also have a MBA.”
“So you have no theological training?”
“No.”
“What do you tell your clients when they ask about the impact yoga can have on their Christian faith?”
“I don’t tell them anything.”
“Why not?”
“Because no one has ever asked me that.”
“And what would you say if they had?”
Prema shook her head, indicating that Caja shouldn’t answer that question.
“Max,” Prema said addressing the other lawyer, “I’m not going to allow my client to speculate. We’re here about facts.”
Max pursed his rather thin lips but didn’t argue. “So what do you talk to your clients about?”
“Exercise and nutrition.”
“And nothing else?” he asked in a querulous tone.
Caja paused. “Sometimes they want to know where I get my workout gear.”
“Anything else?”
Caja hesitated before answering the question. It was damned difficult to recall everything she’d ever talked to a client about over ten years, but she knew she’d never discussed the spiritual aspects of yoga with one. “Nope, that’s it.”
“How long does one of your private sessions generally last?”
Caja frowned wondering why he wanted to know that. Spraggins hadn’t used a personal trainer. “Anywhere from forty-five minutes to a couple of hours depending on what they’re working on.”
“And in all that time all you talk about is exercise and nutrition?”
“And clothes,” she said.
“Who do your customers talk to when they enroll in the gym?” he asked.
“We have customer service representatives in the front office that they talk to. If they need more detailed information, they talk to one of the trainers,” she said.
“How many personal trainers do you have here?”
“I have four that work directly for me, plus a half dozen freelancers who work out of this location.”
“So it’s possible that one of them might have talked to my client about yoga and spirituality.”
Prema interjected. “Again Max, you can only ask my client about what she herself has either done or witnessed. We’re not in the speculation business here.”
“Okay. Have you ever heard any employee talk about yoga and spirituality with a client?”
“No.”
“You answered that rather quickly. How can you be so certain?”
This was damnably annoying. “Because we’re in the business of fitness. There are yoga classes in town that are more spiritually focused. We’re not one of them, and we don’t mislead our clients.”
“So you would’ve corrected your employee?”
Prema gave Max a sugar-wouldn’t-melt-in-her-mouth smile, “Again, Max. No speculation.”
The other attorney sighed. “If you keep this up this is going to be a long day.”
“That’s what I get paid to do, is it not?” Prema returned with a wider grin.
THE discovery session continued that way for several more grueling hours. With the attorney asking her the same questions repeatedly, she wondered if he thought she was a moron who would forget what she said the first or fifth time a question was asked. Thank God Prema was there to remind her of what was at stake. She was pretty sure she would’ve walked out or at the very least poured a pitcher of water over the obnoxious man’s head. Now as she turned the key to unlock her front door , she lamented the fact that Michael wouldn’t be coming over tonight. They were getting ready to administer standardized tests at his school and it was an “all hands on deck” kind of situation. He’d sounded really wiped out when he called her. She’d considered stopping by on her way home, but it was so late he was probably in bed by now.
Pausing by the front door , she dropped her bags and toed off her high heels. Dressing appropriately for these meetings was doing a number on her feet. The cool hardwood floors were a welcome relief. Barefoot she padded over to the kitchen and opened the refrigerator. She removed a bottle of beer and stood there to drink it. The crisp pale ale was a real palate cleanser on the unusually warm April day, and she was grateful that Michael had left it there. Thinking about him reminded her that she’d better eat something or there’d be hell to pay so she opened the refrigerator again. Fortunately, he’d been around quite
a bit so she actually had some food available. She pulled out a pork chop he’d grilled the previous evening and the last of a really outstanding potato salad she’d made and sat down at the bar to eat. She was rinsing her plate in the sink when her phone rang. Her heart gave a little stutter when she saw Michael’s name on the ID. Really? She was going to have to do something about that.
“Have you eaten?” he said, without any greeting.
“Just finished up. What are you, the Food Police?”
“Trying to keep you alive baby. You sound tired.”
“You do too. Testing got you down?”
“It’s pretty much balls to the wall around here. I hate this shit. If only they’d trust teachers we’d have a helluva lot more instructional time. I know my kids’ capabilities down to the last hair on their chinny chin-chin s ,” he said.
They’d had this conversation before and he sounded even more disgruntled than usual. “I know, but all teachers aren’t on your level.”
“Then fire their asses and let’s get on with it. All this testing does is stress everybody out, especially the kids, and does nobody any good.” He sighed. “Anyway. That’s not why I called. How is the case going?”
“I have no idea. Prema seems confident, but it’s hard for me to tell how much of that is for show. It’s all just so fucking ridiculous.”
“You want me to come over?”
“You know I do, but it’s almost midnight and you have a long day ahead tomorrow.”
“You’re right. Get some rest. What time are you going in tomorrow?”
“My first client is at six. Then the lawyers at nine.” She almost groaned aloud just thinking about it.
“Make sure you eat. Don’t make me get Kit on you. Goodnight.”
Head of the Class Page 10
