Turn up the Heat

else: a restaurant of his own that he could run his way. But I couldn’t imagine how he’d ever get the money together, especially with the salary he was earning now. A bank loan would be a gigantic risk. Would Josh take that risk? Probably. And would a bank even give him a loan?
    The four of us spent a few more hours talking together and listening to music before Josh and I decided to call it a night. We crashed in his room and left Snacker and Blythe on the couch in the living room. I still didn’t know what to think about Blythe’s auctioning off stolen goods on eBay, and didn’t know whether the thievery connected her to a greater crime. But I fervently hoped that Snacker wasn’t literally in bed with the enemy.

FOURTEEN

    MY cell phone shrilled loudly and woke me early on Monday morning. Man, did I have a raging headache! Must have been all those tamales...
    I rolled over in bed and fished my phone out of my purse. Shit. It was Naomi Campbell, my field placement supervisor. The sight of her name on the cell phone always made me feel slightly anxious; no matter how often I reminded myself that my Naomi Campbell merely shared a name with the phone-hurling model, I could never completely shake the expectation of bizarre abnormality. I suddenly remembered that I was supposed to meet Naomi at the office for my final student evaluation.
    “Hello,” I murmured into the phone. My voice was almost inaudible, but faintness was all I could muster.
    “Good morning, Chloe! Are you ready for your performance evaluation this morning? Can you come in at ten instead of noon?”
    I did my best to silence the enormous belch that erupted from my stomach. “No problem. See you soon.”
    I’d totally forgotten about this evaluation. The absolute last thing 1 felt like doing was hauling myself out of bed to hear Naomi tell me what a failure I’d been in my field placement. Naomi was deeply, even spiritually, devoted to the Boston Organization Against Sexual and Other Harassment in the Workplace, and I was sure that she had spent the past year in constant disappointment that she had ended up with an intern far less devout than she was. Unfortunately for Naomi, I was the only intern she had. In fact, since Naomi and I were the only people who worked at her so-called organization, the term itself was somewhat misleading. Anyway, as Naomi’s intern, I’d done my best. Okay, maybe not my very best or even my ordinary best. But I had definitely improved during the year, hadn’t I? Well, I’d improved, although probably less definitely than Naomi had hoped I would.
    My major task at the BO, an acronym I never used in front of Naomi, had been to respond to hotline calls. When Naomi had first referred to the hotline, I’d envisioned a red phone with flashing lights that would ring nonstop with calls from women in need of help. Despite our efforts to “get the word out,” as Naomi always said, I was lucky to get one call a day from a woman experiencing harassment at her job. I enjoyed the few calls that came in, and I learned to handle them pretty well, but I’d filled my two days a week at the BO largely with attempts to look busy: I’d tossed papers around the office and pretended to do research on the Internet. I could imagine all too well Naomi’s evaluation of my performance.
    I looked at the clock. Eight thirty. Josh was long gone, and Snacker probably was, too. I had to get moving. Stumbling to the bathroom, I could barely tolerate the sense that my brains were bashing against my skull. On the sink, I found a large bottle of aspirin—probably stolen from somewhere, too—and swallowed two while I gulped water from the faucet. I took a steaming shower and sulked about the hangover from hell, the impending meeting with Naomi, and Leandra’s memorial service, which I’d have to attend later today at Simmer. I wrapped myself in what I hoped was a semiclean towel and opened the bathroom door.
    “Hi, Chloe.” In front of me stood Blythe, who looked as bad as I felt.
    “Oh! Hi. I didn’t know you were still here.” I pulled my towel up a bit.
    “I had way too much to drink to drive home, so I really had to sleep here,” she said sheepishly.
    “Uh-huh... and...?” Something must have happened between Blythe and Snacker. I did my best to pretend that I was hearing wonderful news. In fact, if Blythe was the thieving eBay seller I thought she was, then the news that she and Snacker had spent the night together was