The Bride Wore Size 12 (24 page)

“Yes.” Magda claps her hands delightedly. “You will look so nice in your beautiful white dress and veil, sitting on his lap, as Cooper drives you around on the dance floor at that fancy hotel on his Mr. Jazzy.”

My coffee-and-hot-cocoa drink secured, I say, “You always look on the bright side of things, don’t you, Magda?”

“Well, I try,” she admits with a modest shrug. “It’s just my way.”

“Cheers,” I say, saluting her with my coffee mug. Then I head back to my office.

“Heather!” Gavin stops me. “Hells, woman. What is wrong with you? You walked right by without stopping to say hello or get the message Lisa left for you.”

I take a fortifying sip of coffee. “Lisa left me a note? She isn’t in the office?”

“Nah,” Gavin says. As usual, since he’s working the morning shift, he’s in his pajamas, which today consist of blue New York College sweatpants, a Ramones T-shirt, and his usual Goofy slippers. “She and Cory left about a half hour ago. She said she has a doctor’s appointment. Good thing too, she looked pretty sick. Probably all these damned RAs.” He looks disapproving. “They’re making me sick too. She stopped to write this for you, though, before she left.”

Gavin slides a sealed envelope toward me. I set my bagel and coffee drink on the counter, tear open the envelope, and find a folded note, written on New York College stationery, in Lisa’s distinctive, loopy handwriting.

Smiling, I refold the note, slip it back into the envelope, and stick the envelope into my purse.

“What’s so funny?” Gavin asks.

“What?” I ask, trying to wipe the grin off my face. “Nothing. Mind your own business. Have you finished the mail forwarding from yesterday? Because that pile over there doesn’t look like it’s getting any smaller to me.”

“Damn, woman!” Gavin cries. “Why you gots to be that way?”

“I’m not paying you to work on your screenplay, Gavin,” I say, pointing at his laptop, which is sitting open in front of him. “Do the mail. And why are those flowers from Prince Rashid still back there?”

Gavin looks over his shoulder. “Those are the ones for that girl in fourteen-twelve. I’ve left her like four notices. She says she doesn’t want them. So can I give them to Jamie?
Please?
”

“No, you may not,” I say. “Items left at the desk are not yours for regifting. Get to work on that mail.”

But Gavin can see that I’m still smiling. I’m finding it impossible not to.

“Seriously,” he calls as I walk away from the desk. “What did the note say? Obviously it was good news. But what kind of good news could Lisa possibly have had on
today
of all days?”

“Not good news,” I call to him over my shoulder. “The
best
news.”

“We’re all getting raises?” Gavin shouts, in a hopeful tone.

“You wish!” I shout back at him. “Get to work.”

I realize it’s a little premature—okay, a lot premature—but I’m picturing all the fun Lisa and I are going to have with her baby in the office (I was serious about making a little cradle for it in one of the file cabinet drawers). It’s going to be especially fun for me because it’s not
my
baby, so I don’t have to worry about changing diapers or sleepless nights or paying for college or it growing up to be a serial killer. I’m thinking about names—I wonder how Lisa will feel about Charlotte or Emily if it’s a girl?—when I turn the corner to the residence hall director’s office and see all the people lined up outside it.

Weirdly, the door to the office is propped open—as it usually is when I’m at my desk—only I’m not at my desk, and I had the lock to the office door changed the night before.

So who’s in there?

29

L
ook,” Sarah is saying to Howard Chen, Kyle Cheeseman, and the rest of the RAs gathered around my desk, where she’s sitting behind the still-enormous—and even more fragrant—flower arrangement Rashid sent me. “Lisa isn’t here, all right? I don’t know where she is or when she’s coming in, but—”

She breaks off, seeing me walk through the door.

“Oh, thank God,” she says, and rises from my office chair, looking relieved. “There you are. I thought you’d never get here. These . . .
people
. . . want to talk to you.”

Sarah hesitates before saying the word “people” as if she’d have preferred to use a different word, but chooses the high road out of professionalism. Apparently, her patience has been worn thin.

I can’t say I blame her. The office is a zoo. Not only is it packed with dissatisfied RAs, but Carl, the building engineer, is back on his ladder, drilling the ceiling again, this time near Sarah’s desk—which is why she’d abandoned it for mine. Prince Rashid is there too, sitting on the visitors’ couch, right on time for his appointment with me . . .

But he’s brought along both his bodyguards, including Hamad, who are standing stiffly on either side of him, their expressions stony-faced.

Odd how State Department special agents go missing right when you need them.

“What’s with this letter?” Jasmine Tsai demands, waving a piece of paper in my face. All I can see is that it’s written on formal New York College letterhead. The paper has a watermark. We can’t afford paper like that in this office. Our budget isn’t big enough.

Jasmine Tsai isn’t the only one waving a letter.

“Miss Wells,” Hamad says woodenly, holding the letter I sent to Rashid the day before. “May we speak to you about this?”

“Yes, you absolutely may,” I say, moving into the seat Sarah’s rapidly vacated and placing my bagel and coffee drink on my desk. I have the feeling it’s going to be a long time until I’m going to enjoy them. “At nine o’clock, when the prince’s appointment begins.”

Hamad looks toward the ceiling . . . at Carl, who is pulling wiring through one of the ceiling tiles he’s removed and paying rapt attention to all the drama going on below him while pretending to be working.

“No, Miss Wells,” Hamad says in a tired voice.
“Now.”

“I don’t mind waiting,” Rashid says, from the couch. He’s practically hidden by the shadows of his protectors. “I’m happy to meet with Miss Wells.”

“The prince of Qalif shouldn’t have to—”

“Be held to a different disciplinary standard than the rest of the residents in the building?” I shake my head. “I don’t think so.” I’m stalling for time. Ameera hasn’t shown up yet for her appointment. But it’s still only three minutes to nine.

“Discipline?” Hamad’s face looks like it’s going to melt off, he’s getting so hot under the collar. “You dare to suggest a prince of the royal blood will be disciplined by—”

“I need the free room and board I was promised!” Howard Chen yells, unable to contain himself a second longer. “My parents can’t afford to send both me and my brother to school at the same time unless I have free room and board!”

“How could you and Lisa let this happen?” Kyle Cheeseman screams at me. “I thought you guys liked us!”

“Lisa and I didn’t let this happen,” I say. “All of
you
let this happen when you exercised such poor judgment by going to a party in the residence hall where you work. Just what, exactly, were you thinking? There was alcohol at that party, being served to
minors
. You’re RAs, remember? You’re supposed to bust parties like that. Then you lied to Lisa the next day about why you felt sick.” I make quotation marks in the air with my fingers when I say the word “sick.”

“When Lisa told you that she felt sick—which she genuinely was—you dummies let her believe you had the flu. But you didn’t, did you? What you actually were was hungover. How long did you think it was going to take for her to find out? You do know there are monitors all over the fifteenth-floor hallway, to help protect our VIR?”

I don’t wait for any of them to speak. I don’t feel like listening to anything they have to say.

“So it’s not
my
fault you lost your free room and board,” I go on. “It’s
your
fault. You broke the rules of the employment contract
you
signed, not to mention all rules of human decency, when none of you mentioned that Jasmine Albright had been at the prince’s party, even after you found out she’d died the next morning. Clearly you knew what you’d done was wrong because you tried to cover your asses. Didn’t you?”

All of the RAs look at one another. I can see the naked panic on their faces.

“I’m sorry,” I say. “I didn’t quite hear you. I said,
didn’t you?
”

“This isn’t fair.” Stephanie Moody is the first one to speak. “
I
didn’t even see Jaz at the party. And I didn’t find out she was dead until Lisa told us at that staff meeting.”

“Oh, shut up, Steph,” Christopher Mintz snaps. “You’re such a brownnoser.”

“I don’t think any of you understand,” Howard says, with mounting hysteria. “If I don’t get free room and board, I’m probably going to have to take out a student loan.”

“Howard,” I say, “well over two-thirds of students in this country will graduate this year holding a student loan of some kind, probably way more than whatever yours is going to be. I’m sure the financial aid office will be more than happy to help work something out with you. With all of you, as a matter of fact.”

“It is now nine o’clock,” Hamad, the more loquacious of the prince’s bodyguards, points out, holding up his diamond-encrusted watch. It probably cost more than the entire work-study-student budget the housing department was allotted. “May we please have our appointment, Miss Wells?”

“No,” I say. “I’m not ready yet. And even when I am, you aren’t invited to the meeting, Hamad.”

He looks furious. “Then we’re leaving.” Hamad utters a few words of Arabic to the prince.

Rashid looks as if he’s seen enough anyway and has grown bored. He stands.

This is a disaster. Where is Ameera? Maybe I should call her room to make sure she’s coming.

“Disciplinary action will ensue if you fail to attend this meeting, Rashid,” I say quickly. “It’s better if you stay and talk to me.”

“You’re not even the one in charge here,” Hamad says, with a sneer. “It’s the Oriental lady. Where is she?”

“Asian,” I say. “Lisa’s Asian-American. Rugs are Oriental, not people. And she isn’t here right now.”

“But my parents,” Howard is saying. I notice he’s wearing his Harvard hoodie again, like a reminder of his alleged failure. “They’re going to kill me.”

“
My
parents are going to kill Phillip Allington,” Jasmine Tsai declares. “They’re on their way into the city right now to demand a meeting with him over our unfair treatment. We’re not going down without a fight.”

“I noticed,” Sarah says drily. “Which one of you leaked the president’s letter to the
Express
? Because that was superclassy. By which I mean not classy at all.”

The RAs raise their voices in unanimous protest. Rashid, looking disgusted, turns to leave . . . then freezes. I soon see why. A familiar (if somewhat ghostly pale, though still very beautiful) face has appeared in the doorway.

It’s Ameera, fashionably late for her nine o’clock meeting with me.

She looks frightened. Well, the wording in my letter
had
been strong. And, of course, the RAs are being extremely loud. One thing about RAs is that they don’t have problems expressing their feelings.

“Come in, Ameera,” I shout. I have to shout to be heard over the RAs voices and also Carl’s drilling.

Rashid steps quickly out of her way. As he turns, I see that his face has gone almost as pale as hers. He can’t seem to take his eyes off her.

Ameera steps across the threshold, looking shy (and thin) as a young doe. She’s wearing a white print sundress, brown leather sandals, and no jewelry except for the gold pendant with interlocking rings she’d been wearing the last time I saw her. She looks around the office uncertainly, but finally focuses her attention on me, since I’m the person behind the most centrally located desk.

“I got a letter,” she says in her polite, British-accented voice. I can hardly hear her above the din, she’s speaking so softly. “You wanted to see me?”

Rashid hasn’t budged from the doorway. He’s still staring at her. Even his normally voiceless bodyguard looks uncomfortable. He lays a hand on the prince’s shoulder and says softly, “Your Highness? I think we should go now.”

But Rashid ignores him, staring at the girl.

“I do want to see you,” I say. “You and the prince, whom I think you know. Am I right about that?”

Ameera barely glances at Rashid. “We’ve met,” she says, in the same shy voice.

“So you wouldn’t mind talking with me for a couple of minutes,” I say, getting up to unlock the door to Lisa’s office with my master key. “In here, privately, both of you.”

It’s Rashid who responds first.

“Of course,” he says eagerly. “I’ll be happy to.” He barrels across the office, elbowing through the clusters of RAs, practically knocking Carl’s ladder over in his haste to get into Lisa’s empty office to meet with Ameera alone—well, not quite alone, since I’ll be there.

But he’s apparently willing to take whatever he can get, as I’d suspected when I’d heard from Mrs. Harris how desperate he was for a few minutes of the girl’s company.

“Your Highness,” Hamad cries, attempting to follow the boy. “No!”

I hold out a hand to halt the bodyguard.

“I’m sorry,” I say. “This is a residence hall judicial meeting. It’s private. Only Rashid and Ameera may attend. You’ll have to wait outside.”

Hamad was traveling so quickly to protect his prince that he walks straight into my hand. I don’t know if touching an unmarried woman is against Qalifi law, but the bodyguard sure acts like it is. He leaps back about three feet, looking shocked.

“No,” Hamad practically spits. “You cannot! You
cannot
 . . .” Then he seems to remember himself, and declares, “You cannot meet with the prince alone! It is not done.”

“Hamad,” the prince calls from Lisa’s office. His voice is steady and self-assured. “It’s fine. I’ll be all right. Do as Miss Wells says, and wait outside.”

Hamad looks more enraged than I’ve ever seen him. His dark-eyed gaze is practically crackling with fire. I reach instinctively for my purse handles. Of course I have no intention of going for the pistol Hal insisted I bring to work with me . . . but suddenly I’m awfully glad he did.

“All right,” Hamad says, throwing himself down upon the couch Rashid has recently vacated, with the ill grace of an angry child who’s been given a time-out. “I will wait. But for five minutes
only
.”

“I can’t imagine it will take longer than that,” I say, relaxing my grip—but only a little—on my purse handles. “Ameera?” I look questioningly at the girl. “Will you come with me?”

Ameera is holding her shoulders so tensely, you’d think she was going to her execution, not a meeting in the residence hall director’s office with the young heir to the throne of Qalif.

Still, she doesn’t demur. She nods, and says faintly, “I will,” and walks into Lisa’s office like Joan of Arc on her way to the stake.

Now that I have the two residents I’ve most wanted to question since Jasmine’s death exactly where I want them, I turn to the RAs in the outer office and say, “As you can see, I’m about to have a very important meeting. I understand how frustrated and upset all of you are, but you’re not going to accomplish anything hanging around here. Lisa’s not going to be back until noon. I suggest you go visit President Allington’s office now that it’s open. One word of advice before you go, though.”

I pause to take a sip of my coffee—thank goodness I’ve fortified it with extra whipped cream, because I really need it.

“One thing I’ve noticed is that not a single one of you has said the words ‘I’m sorry.’ When you get over to the president’s office, if you do manage to get an appointment with him or any other administrator, that’s something you might want to consider doing—taking some responsibility for your actions. A girl died, you know. I’m not saying her death was your fault, or even that she died as a result of the party, but the whole reason residence halls exist is to help students transition safely into adult life. The whole reason RA jobs exist is to
assist
them in doing that.”