The Company You Keep

Chapter Three (#ub6c7486c-dbe7-56d2-826f-94a5ee55ff14)

Chapter Four (#ue0a2e87b-52cf-587e-b244-9fb31a209e01)

Chapter Five (#ufa10e713-a22a-5907-9cf3-75553a84710a)

Chapter Six (#ue559681c-c6df-5aef-b69a-2b2a458332ae)

Chapter Seven (#ub7f31eed-56f1-59e7-b240-35f1f78cbfe2)

Chapter Eight (#uc20fd02d-4c8d-5a5c-ad20-f8f56db60b86)

Chapter Nine (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter Ten (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter Eleven (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter Twelve (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter Thirteen (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter Fourteen (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter Fifteen (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter Sixteen (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter Seventeen (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter Eighteen (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter Nineteen (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter Twenty (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter Twenty-One (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter Twenty-Two (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter Twenty-Three (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter Twenty-Four (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter Twenty-Five (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter Twenty-Six (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter Twenty-Seven (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter Twenty-Eight (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter Twenty-Nine (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter Thirty (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter Thirty-One (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter Thirty-Two (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter Thirty-Three (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter Thirty-Four (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter Thirty-Five (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter Thirty-Six (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter Thirty-Seven (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter Thirty-Eight (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter Thirty-Nine (#litres_trial_promo)

Epilogue (#litres_trial_promo)

Excerpt (#litres_trial_promo)

PROLOGUE

Grantham University

Twelve years ago

“WHAT ROCK HAVE YOU BEEN living under for the past twenty-two years?” Mimi Lodge wailed. She shook her fist, the wide sleeve of her black-and-orange-pinstripe class jacket slipping down her arm.

Grantham University, an Ivy League college in Grantham, New Jersey, had been educating future world leaders for centuries in a pristine setting of academic Gothic architecture, ornamental shrubbery and a strong sense of entitlement. And every year its senior class picked a new jacket to wear for Reunions weekend before graduation. At five-foot-nine, with wide strapping shoulders from years spent competing in water polo—and the long, sleek torso from being in top physical condition—she was one of the few who could carry off such a garment with aplomb.

Of course, maybe it was just her forthright attitude that substituted for shoulder pads. She continued to fume. “In case you didn’t know it, this is the twenty-first century. Men and women are equal. Women have had the right to vote for almost one hundred years. You know the twentieth amendment?”

Vic Golinski, the object of her tirade, slowly peeled off his blue blazer. Vic was also graduating from Grantham, but he was wearing more sedate attire—or at least, had been wearing—until Mimi had upended a water pitcher all over him in a particularly heated moment. They were participating in what was supposed to be an open panel discussion.

Reunions organizers often featured panels with faculty members, administration officials and occasionally students to discuss topics of interest to returning alumni. Theirs had been anything but routine. With the subject being The Impact of Title IX on Participation in College Varsity Sports, the session had drawn a large crowd. Title IX was an amendment to the Civil Rights Act that prohibited discrimination based on sex in regards to school sports. And while the university abided by the law, there were any number of Grantham alumni from the once all-male bastion who felt it was undermining long established men’s teams.

And it appeared to Mimi, these former students—meaning, old, stuck-in-the-mud type guys—were not alone. Vic Golinski might be all of twenty-two, but as captain of the football team, he appeared to be firmly stuck in the mud. How else to explain his statement, “I believe the university’s football program must inevitably suffer due to siphoning off dollars to create so-called parity programs in minor sports. What’s going to happen next? The call for creation of a women’s football team when girls programs don’t even exist in high schools around the country? That would be the height of absurdity, all in the name of so-called equality.”

Whoa there. Minor sports? (Meaning hers, no doubt.) Height of absurdity? So-called equality? Talk about reaching a tipping point. Mimi had seen red. Her hand had migrated to the water jug. And upended it—all over her classmate.

“Giving women the right to vote was the nineteenth amendment,” Vic corrected, his voice low as if he was trying to keep his temper in check.