Big Boned (12 page)

“I’m just saying,” Dad goes on. “You’ve always been more like me than like your mother. Not one for the status quo. Never much of a nine-to-fiver. That’s why I’m surprised you seem so devoted to this job of yours.”

“I wouldn’t say I’m devoted to it.” I give up and grab
the scouring pad. Maybe if I’m careful, I won’t scratch the enamel. “I mean, I like it…”

“But your true love is singing,” Dad says. “And songwriting. Wouldn’t you say?”

“I don’t know.” The scouring pad isn’t working, either. “I like that, too.”

“What would you say if I told you I knew of an opportunity where you could do both again? Write and perform your own songs? For money. Good money, too. How would you feel about that?”

Success! The gunk has come off! But there is so much gunk to follow.

“I don’t know,” I say. “What are you even talking about? You know, Patty’s husband, Frank, is always trying to get me to go on the road with his band, and I gotta tell you, it’s not exactly my kind of thing anymore…”

“No, no,” Dad says, leaning forward in his seat. Behind him, I can see the lights of Fischer Hall gleaming in the kitchen windows. The kids are home from dinner, studying or getting ready to go out. It doesn’t matter to them that it’s a weeknight…or that their interim hall director was murdered this morning. Not when there’s beer flowing somewhere. “This is a real opportunity Larry and I would like to offer you. We know how you feel about the record business—once burned and twice shy and all of that. But this is nothing like that. This is something totally different. You’ve heard of the Wiggles, haven’t you?”

I pause in my gunk assault. “That British children’s program? Yeah, Patty’s kid loves them.”

“They’re an Australian children’s band, actually,” Dad cor
rects me. “But this would be something along similar lines, yes. Larry and I plan to produce and market a line of children’s music videos and DVDs. The production costs versus the amount of money you can take in is actually quite literally staggering. Which is where you would come in. We’d like you to be the star—the hostess and singer/songwriter—for these videos. You’ve always had a strong appeal to children, even when you were a teenager…something about your voice, your manner…maybe it’s all that blond hair—I don’t know. You would be the lead in a cast of characters, all of whom would be animated…you’d be the only human, as a matter of fact. Each episode you would address a different issue…using the potty, going to day care, being afraid of going down the drain in the bathtub, that kind of thing. We’ve crunched the numbers, and feel that we can give the competition—
Dora the Explorer
, the Wiggles,
Blue’s Clues
—a run for its money. We’re thinking of calling it
Heather’s World
. What do you think?”

I have stopped scrubbing. Now I’m standing at the sink, staring at him. I feel as if my brain is a DVR that somebody has just set on Pause.

“What?” I say, intelligently.

“I know you have your heart set on going back to school, honey,” Dad says, leaning forward in his chair. “And you can absolutely still do that. That’s the magic about this. There’s no touring, no promoting…at least, not right away. We just want to get the songs written, get the videos recorded, then get them out on the market and see how they do. I have a feeling—and Larry agrees—that they’re going to take off in a big way. Then we can work with your schedule to arrange
for any kind of publicity we might like to do. You’ll notice I said
we
. It’s totally up to you how much or how little you’d like to do. I’m not your mother, Heather. Under no circumstances would I want you to do anything more than you’re comfortable with…”

I can’t seem to wrap my mind around what he’s saying.

“You mean…give up working at Fischer Hall?”

“Well,” Dad says slowly. “I’m afraid that would be necessary, yes. But, Heather, you would be generously compensated for your work on this project, with a sizable advance that would be—well, a hundred times what you’re making yearly at Fischer Hall…as well as royalties. And I believe Larry would not be averse to letting you in on a percentage of the gross as well—”

“Yeah, but…” I blink at him. “I don’t know. I mean…give up my job? It’s a good job. With benefits. I get tuition remission and everything. And an excellent health insurance package.”

“Heather.” Dad is starting to sound a little impatient. “The Wiggles gross an estimated fifty million dollars a year. I think with fifty million dollars a year, you could afford the health insurance package of your choice.”

“Yeah,” I say. “But you don’t even know if these video thingies are going to take off. Kids might hate them. They might end up being really cheesy or something. End up just sitting in the bargain bin at Sam Goody.”

“That’s the risk we’re all taking here,” Dad says.

“But…” I stare at him. “I don’t write songs for kids. I write songs for grown-ups…like me.”

“Right,” Dad says. “But writing songs for children can’t
be that different from writing songs for disaffected young women like yourself.”

I blink again. “Disaffected?”

“Instead of complaining about the size of your jeans,” Dad goes on, “complain about why you have to use a sippy cup. Or why you can’t have big-girl pants. Just give it a try. I think you’ll be a natural. The truth is, Heather, I’m going out on a limb for you. Larry wants to approach Mandy Moore. I told him to hold off a bit. I told him I was sure you could come up with something that’d knock our socks off.”

“Dad.” I shake my head. “I don’t want to write—or sing—about sippy cups.”

“Heather,” Dad says. “I don’t think you understand. This is an extraordinary opportunity for all of us. But mainly for you. It’s a chance for you to get out of that hellhole you’re working in—a place where just today, Heather, your boss was shot in the head, just a room away from where you sit. And also a chance for you to—let’s be honest with one another, Heather—get a place of your own, so you don’t have to live here with Cooper, which can’t be the healthiest arrangement for you.”

I turn quickly back toward the dishes. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“Don’t you?” Dad asks gently. “Why haven’t you returned Tad’s calls yet, Heather? Is it really because you’ve been too busy? Or is it because deep down, you know you’re in love with someone else?”

I nearly drop the wineglass I’m scrubbing.

“Ouch, Dad,” I grumble. “Way to hurt a girl.”

“Well.” He gets up from table and comes over to lay a
hand upon my shoulder. “That’s just it. I
don’t
want to see you hurt. I want to help you. Lord knows you’ve helped me these past few months. I want to return the favor. Won’t you let me?”

I can’t look into his face. I know if I do I’ll say yes. And I don’t want to say yes. I don’t think.

Or maybe part of me does. The same part of me that’s ready to say yes to Tad, too, when he decides the time is finally right, and he pops the question.

Instead, I look into the sudsy brown water in the sink.

Then I sigh.

“Let me think about it, Dad, okay?”

I don’t see Dad smile, because of course I’m not looking at him. But I sense the smile anyway.

“Sure thing, honey,” he says. “Just don’t think about it too long. Opportunities like this don’t last forever. Well…you know that from last time.”

Do I ever.

I don’t have a clue anything out of the ordinary is taking place over on Washington Square West until I round the corner of Waverly Place the next morning, sleepily slurping the whipped cream topping off my grande café mocha. (About which, as Gavin would put it, whatevs. Like I totally didn’t go running yesterday. I deserve a little whipped cream. Besides, whipped cream is dairy, and a girl needs dairy to fight off osteoporosis. Everyone knows this.)

I’m licking off my whipped cream mustache when I see it—or think I see it, anyway: a giant rat.

And I don’t mean your everyday, gray-brown, cat-sized subway rat, either. I mean a GIANT, twelve-foot, inflated, semi-lifelike replica of a rat, standing on its hind legs and snarling directly across the street from Fischer Hall’s front door.

But how can this be? What would a twelve-foot inflatable rat be doing in front of my place of work? Could I be seeing things? It’s true I only just woke up. Relishing the fact that I got to sleep in this morning—no running for me—I rolled out of bed at eight-thirty, and, forgoing my morning shower—well, okay, bath. Who bothers with a shower when you can bathe lying down?—I just pulled on a fresh pair of jeans and shirt, ran a brush through my hair, washed my face, slapped on some moisturizer and makeup, and was out the door at five of nine. Time to spare for that grande café mocha. I didn’t even see Cooper or my dad. Both of them being early birds, they were already up and out—Dad had even taken Lucy for her morning walk. I was definitely going to miss that when Dad was gone, that was for sure.

But it doesn’t matter how many times I stand there and squeeze my eyes shut, then reopen them again. The rat doesn’t disappear. I’m fully awake.

Worse, marching back and forth in front of the rat, carrying picket signs that said things like
New York College Doesn’t Care About Its Student Employees
and
Health Care Now!
were dozens—maybe hundreds—of protesters. Many of them were raggedy-looking grad students, baggy-pantsed and dreadlocked.

But many more of them were in uniform. Worse, they were in New York College campus security, housekeeping, and engineering uniforms.

And that’s when it struck. The cold, hard terror that crept around my heart like icy tentacles.

Sarah had done it. She had convinced the GSC to strike.

And she’d convinced the other major unions on campus to strike along with it.

If my life were a movie, I’d have tossed my grande café mocha to the sidewalk just then, and sunk slowly to my knees, clutching my head and screaming, “Nooooooooo! WHY???? WHYYYYYY????????”

But since my life isn’t a movie, I settle for tossing my drink—which I suddenly feel way too queasy to finish—into the nearest Big Apple trash receptacle, then crossing the street—after looking both ways (even though it’s one way, of course—you can never be too sure on a college campus if a skateboarder or Chinese food delivery guy on a bike is heading the wrong way)—cutting between the many news vans parked along the sidewalk until I reach a tight circle of reporters clustered around Sarah, who is giving the morning news shows all her best sound bites.

“What I’d like to know,” Sarah is saying, in a loud, clear voice, “is why President Phillip Allington, after assuring the student community that their tuition wouldn’t be raised and that neither he nor his trustees would receive a salary increase this year, went on to raise tuition by six point nine percent, then received a six-figure salary increase—making him the highest paid president of any research college in the nation—while his graduate student teachers are not offered stipends equal to a living wage or health benefits that enable them even to use the student health center!”

A reporter from Channel 7 with hair almost as big as Sar
ah’s has gotten from lack of sleep (and Frizz-Ease—although I assume the reporter’s hair pouf is on purpose) spins around and points her microphone into a surprised-looking Muffy Fowler’s face. Muffy’s only just stumbled onto the scene…literally stumbled, on her four-inch heels, having just arrived via a cab, clutching a red pocketbook to her tightly cinched Coach trench, and trying to pull stray curls of hair from her heavily glossed lips.

“Ms. Fowler, as college spokesperson, how would you respond to these allegations?” the reporter asks, as Muffy blinks her wide Bambi eyes.

“Well, I’d have to check m-my notes,” Muffy stammers. “B-but it’s my understanding the president donated the difference in his salary between this year and last year b-back to the college—”

“To what?” Sarah calls with a sneer. “The Pansies?”

Everyone laughs. President Allington’s support of the Pansies, New York College’s less than stellar Division Three basketball team, is legendary, even among the reporters.

“I’ll have to check into that,” Muffy says stiffly. “But I can assure you, President Allington is very concerned about—”

“Not concerned enough, apparently,” Sarah goes on, loudly enough to drown Muffy out, and cause every microphone in the vicinity to swing back toward her. “He’s apparently willing to let students at his own college suffer through the last six weeks of their semester without assistant teaching instructors, security guards, and trash removal—”

“That’s not true!” Muffy cries shrilly. “President Allington is totally willing to negotiate! What he won’t be is held hostage by a group of radical leftist socialists!”

I know even before Sarah sucks in her breath that Muffy’s said exactly the wrong thing. The reporters have already lost interest—the networks have moved on to their mid-morning programming anyway, so they’ve begun to pack up their equipment. They’ll be back—maybe—for an update at noon.

But Sarah’s already rallying her troops.

“Did you hear that?” she roars at her fellow picketers. “The president’s spokesperson just called us a bunch of radical leftist socialists! Just because we want fair wages and a health care package! What do you have to say to that?”

There is some confused muttering, mostly because it seems to be so early in the morning, and no one really knows what they’re doing yet. Or possibly because no one heard Sarah properly, on account of all the noise from the news teams packing up. Sarah, apparently realizing this, jumps off the wooden platform she was standing on and heaves a megaphone to her lips.

“People,” she cries, her voice crackling loudly enough that, over in the chess circle, the old men enjoying their first game of the morning hunch their shoulders and glare resentfully over at us. “What do we want?”

The picketers, marching dolefully around the giant rat, reply, “Fair wages.”

“WHAT?” Sarah yells.

“FAIR WAGES,” the picketers reply.

“That’s more like it,” Sarah says. “And when do we want them?”

“NOW,” the picketers reply.

“Holy Christ,” Muffy says, looking at the picketers in a
defeated way. I can’t help feeling a little sorry for her. The rat—which has painted-on drool dripping down from its bared, yellow fangs—does look really intimidating, as it sways gently in the soft spring breeze.

“Hang in there,” I say, patting her softly on the shoulder.

“This is because they arrested the kid,” she says, still staring at the rat. “Right?”

“I guess so,” I say.

“But he had a gun,” she says. “I mean…of course he did it. He had a gun.”

“I guess they don’t think so,” I say.

“I’m gonna get fired,” Muffy says. “They hired me to keep this from happening. And now I’m gonna get fired. And I’ve only had this job three weeks. I paid twenty grand in broker’s fees for my place, too. I sold my wedding china for it. I’ll never see that money again.”

I whistle, low and long. “Twenty grand. That must have been some wedding china.”

“Limoges,” Muffy says. “Banded. Eight-piece settings for twenty. Including finger bowls.”

“Man,” I say, appreciatively. Finger bowls. I don’t know if I’ve ever seen a finger bowl before. And what does banded mean? I think, dimly, that this is stuff I better start learning about if Tad and I are going to…you know.

This thought makes me feel a little nauseous. Maybe it’s just all that whipped cream on an empty stomach, though. Or the sight of that enormous rat.

That’s when I notice something that makes me forget about my upset stomach.

And that’s Magda, hurrying out of Fischer Hall in her pink
smock, and inching her way across the street through the backed-up cabs and toward the picket line, carefully balancing a steaming mug of coffee in her hands…

…which she presents to a picketer in a gray New York College security guard’s uniform, who stops marching, lowers his
The Future of Academia Is ON THE LINE
sign, and beams at her appreciatively…

And whom I realize is none other that Pete.

Who is not behind his desk like he is supposed to be.

Instead, he is standing in the park. ON A PICKET LINE.

“Oh my God,” I race up to him, completely forgetting Muffy, to shout. “Are you insane? What are you doing here? Why aren’t you inside? Who’s manning the security desk?”

Pete looks down at me calmly from the mug of Fischer Hall’s finest he’s delicately blowing across.

“Good morning to you, too, Heather,” he says. “And how are you today?”

“I’m just peachy,” I yell. “Seriously. Who is manning your desk?”

“No one.” Magda is looking at me with strangely arched brows. Then I realize her brows aren’t arched on purpose. They’re just newly waxed. “I’ve been keeping an eye on it. Someone from the president’s office has been sniffing around. He says they’ll be sending some people from a private security firm over. I don’t know if that’s the best idea, though, Heather. I mean, someone from a private security firm isn’t going to know about the attendants, you know, for the specially abled students in the handicapped accessible rooms? And how is someone from a private security firm going to know it’s not okay to let the kids sign in the deliv
ery guys from Charlie Mom’s, or they’ll stick a menu under every single door in the entire building?”

I groan, remembering my conversation with Cooper from the day before. He’d been totally right. We were going to get mob-run security and custodial replacement staffs. I just knew it.

Then I blink at Magda. “Wait a minute—how come you aren’t striking?”

“We’re with a different union,” Magda explains. “Food services, as opposed to hotel and automotive.”

“Automotive?” I shake my head. “That makes no sense whatsoever. What’s an automotive union doing, letting academics into—”

“You!”

We all jump as Sarah’s voice—made ten times louder by the megaphone she’s speaking into—cuts into our conversation.

“Are you here to social
ize
or make social
change
?” Sarah demands of Pete.

“Jesus Christ,” Pete mutters. “I’m just having a cup of coffee with my friends—”

“Get back on the line!” Sarah bellows.

Pete hands his coffee mug back to Magda with a sigh. “I gotta go,” he says. Then he hefts his picket sign, and returns to his place in the circle around the giant rat.

“This,” Magda says, as she watches protesters shuffle past, as animated as the undead in a zombie flick, “is not good.”

“Tell me about it,” I say. “I better go watch the desk. Bring me a bagel?”

“With the works?” Magda asks, the works being code for
full-fat cream cheese and, I’m sorry to say, three strips of bacon.

“Absolutely.”

I’ve made myself at home at Pete’s desk (after removing what I can only assume is a very old and very stale doughnut and not, in fact, a door stop from his middle desk drawer…although I can’t help noticing the trash can into which I deposit it has not been emptied in some time, and realize Julio and his crack housekeeping staff aren’t around…a realization that, more than any other, depresses me), and instituted what I consider the beginning of Heather’s New World Order—
All Residents Will Stop and Show ID Long Enough for Me to Examine the Photo Closely
, since unlike Pete, I don’t know every resident by sight, a fact which appears to annoy them no end…but not as much as they’re going to be annoyed when I launch
Throw Your Own Trash in the Dumpster Outside
—when the “guy from the president’s office” Magda mentioned reappears. He’s a flunky I’ve never seen before in an expensive suit, and he’s accompanied by a much larger guy in a much less expensive, but much shinier suit.

“Are you Heather?” the guy from the president’s office wants to know. When I say that I am, he proceeds to inform me that Mr. Rosetti—the man in the shiny suit, which happens to be coupled very charmingly with a lavender silk shirt and several very attractive gold chains which lay nestled among some wiry graying chest hairs, along with multiple gold rings, one on each of the man’s not unsausagelike fingers—is going to be supplying “security” for the building, and could I please inform him of any special security concerns of which I might be aware that are unique to Fischer Hall.

At which point I kindly inform the man from the president’s office that Fischer Hall’s security needs are taken care of for the foreseeable future. But I thank him for his concern.

The man—whose name, he has informed me, is Brian—looks confused.

“How is that possible?” Brian asks. “The college security force is out on strike. I’m supposed to be overseeing getting replacements in all the buildings—”

“Oh, I’ve already taken care of that here in Fischer Hall,” I say…just as a tall, spindly kid comes rushing into the building, tugging off his backpack, out of breath but only one minute late.

“Sorry, Heather,” he pants. “I just got your text. I was in Bio. I’ll take the ten to two shift. Are you really paying ten bucks an hour? Can I have the six to ten shift tonight, too? And the ten to two tomorrow?”

I nod as I rise gracefully from Pete’s chair.

“The six to ten tonight’s already taken,” I say. “But the ten to two tomorrow’s all yours. If of course,” I add, “this whole thing isn’t settled by then.”

“Sweet.” Jeremy slides into the seat I’ve vacated, then barks at a student who’s just entered the building, flashed his ID, then strolled by without waiting to be acknowledged, “Stop! Come back here! Let me see that photo!” The student, rolling his eyes, does what he’s told.