The Bride Wore Size 12 Page 10

  “Heather.”

  I turn to see Julio Juarez, Fischer Hall’s head housekeeper, approaching me, looking as if he feels embarrassed about disturbing me while I’m preparing my breakfast, which of course I should have had before I left for work. But I’m running a little late due to all the excitement—some of it welcome—from the night before.

  “Good morning, Julio,” I say. “Do you want a bagel? I know someone who can hook you up.” I wink at Jimmy, who doesn’t notice due to texting.

  “Oh, no, thank you, Heather,” Julio says, looking even more embarrassed. Julio takes his job very seriously, ironing his brown uniform very carefully every morning before work and never allowing a speck of grime to remain on the lobby’s marble floors for longer than an hour. He is quick to fetch me when residents scratch graffiti into the brass elevator fittings with their keys or leave soda cans to stain the felt of the billiard table in the game room, hoping, as he does, that I will be able to catch the miscreants and bill them for their crimes. His pride in and love for Fischer Hall are immense.

  “I heard about the girl who died,” Julio says, his brown eyes sad. “I am wondering if her parents will be needing boxes for her things. In the basement I have many boxes from the check-in. We were going to throw them out on trash day, but if you want, I will save some good ones for the girl’s parents.”

  “Oh, Julio,” I say, suddenly no longer hungry for my bagel. “That’s a really nice thought. I don’t know when her parents are coming for her things, but it will probably be soon. So yes, please pick out some nice boxes and set them aside for Jasmine’s family.”

  Julio’s eyes look more cheerful. Everyone likes to do something to help when there’s been a death in the building.

  “Okay,” he says. “I will save some boxes. Now, what do I do about the trash on fifteen?”

  “Trash on fifteen?” I echo.

  “Yes,” he says. “Every morning the trash chute room on the fifteenth floor is filled with trash. Too much trash. No one is putting it down the chute.”

  Each floor on Fischer Hall, like most prewar buildings in Manhattan, has a room where residents can take their garbage. They’re supposed to sort it into separate cans for recycling, then stuff the nonrecycling down a chute for disposal. In olden times, the chute went to an incinerator, but those had long since been eliminated because of air-quality issues. Now the chutes lead to a massive compacter in the basement.

  “Can you tell who’s doing it?” I ask, knowing the answer before the words are even out of my mouth.

  “The prince,” Julio and Magda say at the same time.

  “A prince isn’t going to take out his own garbage,” Magda says. Her eyes have lit up. She completely adores the idea that a prince lives in Fischer Hall. It’s as exciting to her as the fact that a movie was once filmed here, and that a reality TV show was shot here over the summer starring her favorite female pop star, Tania Trace (she is always polite enough to add, “Except for you, Heather”). “How would a prince know how to take out his garbage? He’s always had butlers to do it, in the palace!”

  “Well, he’s taking the garbage out of his room,” I say. “He’s just not sorting it or stuffing it down the chute. Right, Julio?”

  Julio shakes his head in disbelief. “Right. And there’s a lot of it. Every morning since he moved in. So much. I’ve never seen so much garbage. The bags are tied very neat, but there’s so much, and I have to sort through them myself. It’s a lot of extra work.”

  “What’s in them?” I ask, curiosity getting the better of me. I’ve never had the chance to sort through a prince’s garbage.

  “Cups,” Julio replies promptly. “Many, many plastic cups. And bottles. Mostly tequila. Good tequila. Some vodka. Much champagne. And some wine.”

  “Shiraz,” I say, shaking my head. “A royal alcoholic.”

  “Although he is twenty-one,” Magda points out.

  When I eye her incredulously, she says, “What? I read it in Us Weekly. He had his royal birthday bash in London. Usher performed at it.”

  I try not to look impressed.

  “He’s obviously throwing parties in his room, Magda,” I say. “He’s not drinking all that booze by himself. And if he’s having parties, that’s a problem. This is freshman orientation week. He can’t be serving alcohol to minors.”

  Magda looks prim. “You don’t know he’s doing that.”

  I remember what Cooper said about my ability to tell when someone is manipulating me.

  “No,” I say. “But I’ve got a pretty good feeling.” I look at Julio and smile. “Don’t worry. I’ll get to the bottom of this.”

  He smiles back. “Thank you, Heather. Oh, and thank you for the wedding invitation. My wife, Anna, is very excited.”

  “Oh,” I say, keeping my smile in place. “Great! See you later.”

  As Julio hurries away to continue his battle against dirt, Magda looks at me.

  “You invited Julio to your wedding?” she asks in astonishment. “Did you invite Jimmy too?”

  “No, I didn’t invite Jimmy,” I say, my smile vanishing. “I didn’t invite Julio either. Nicole did. I didn’t want that many people from work coming. I invited you, obviously, and Pete, and Lisa and her husband, Cory, and Tom Snelling and his boyfriend, Steven”—Tom was a former Fischer Hall director, now director of Waverly Hall—“and Sarah and Gavin, and Muffy Fowler, of course.” Muffy’s the head of New York College’s media relations. “I was trying to keep the numbers manageable, at least on my side. But you know what?” I add with sudden emotion. “Maybe what Nicole did wasn’t such a bad thing, after all. I want the people I see every day around me at my wedding.”

  “Tell me you still feel that way,” Magda says drily, “when Carl shows up with the inflatable doll he keeps in his locker downstairs as his plus one.”

  11

  Diamonds are forever

  That’s what all the ads say

  But what do ads know

  About love and what makes it stay?

  “Diamonds,”

  written by Heather Wells

  I’m surprised to find the Fischer Hall director’s office open and Lisa Wu already at her desk.

  I’m even more surprised to find her eating a breakfast burrito supreme, looking surprisingly perky compared to yesterday.

  “Oh my God,” she says with her mouth full when she sees me. “I was worried you weren’t going to come in today.”

  “Oh my God,” I say back to her. “I was worried you weren’t going to come in today.”

  “I think it was only a twenty-four-hour bug,” she says, after she swallows. The burrito is almost bigger than her head. “I feel fine this morning. Some of the RAs at the meeting last night, though—oh my God. They were hurting puppies. You do not want to catch this thing, whatever it is.”

  “I’ll be careful to wash my hands,” I solemnly assure her.

  Lisa Wu is a petite girl, six years younger than I am despite being my boss, with long black hair that she sometimes pulls back in a scrunchie (despite my objections) because she’s too busy to fuss with it.

  Today she’s taken care to style it, no doubt because there’s been a student death in the building. She’s dressed in a more businesslike fashion than I’ve ever seen her, in navy-blue slacks and a white knit short-sleeved sweater. Instead of the flip-flops she normally wears, she’s put on black loafers. There’s no sign of Tricky, her dog. I assume she’s left him upstairs because there’ll be college bigwigs lurking around, and it wouldn’t be considered professional to have her Jack Russell terrier bouncing up to them, wagging his tail.

  “Hey, Magda told me about your mom,” she says. “I’m so sorry that happened to you.”

  Word travels fast when one of your bridesmaids is in charge of the place where everyone gets their breakfast.

  “It’s okay,” I say. “How are you holding up, besides the flu? How did calling Jasmine’s parents go? And the meeting with the RAs—besides their being sick?
”

  “Ugh,” she says, collapsing against the back of her chair. “Horrible, naturally. Jasmine’s parents are in shock. They’ll be driving in from New Jersey this afternoon to meet with us, and with the coroner’s office. I think they’re expecting answers. Hopefully by then someone will have one. As for the staff . . . well, Jasmine was new, but she was pretty popular. Mostly people’s reactions were the same as Jasmine’s parents: disbelief. I think when the medical examiner gets back with the results, saying how she died, there can be a little closure, and the staff will get over it.”

  I nod and murmur, “Sure,” because I know it’s what Lisa needs to hear, not because I believe it. The word “closure” gets tossed around a lot by people in helping professions and on shows like CSI and Law & Order, but there’s rarely any actual closure when someone young dies, even of natural causes. The death seems so wrong and unnecessary and senseless. There will never be any closure. Jasmine’s family and friends will move forward, but they’ll never “get over it.” They aren’t supposed to. That’s why it’s called a loss.

  I’ve laid my bagel and coffee drink on my desk and sat down, more or less joining Lisa for breakfast, though we’re in separate offices. I swivel my chair around to look at her through her office door.

  “I don’t know how you’ve done this so many times,” Lisa says mournfully. “I really don’t. I feel like I’ve been kicked all over my body by a horse. Especially in the boobs.” She reaches up to illustrate, rubbing them.

  “That’s an interesting reaction to a student death,” I remark. “I can’t say I’ve ever had that one before.”

  Lisa shrugs. “Well, I slept like a log last night. Cory said I snored.”

  “It’s probably all the stress,” I say. “And the flu, leaving your body. Is that Tabasco sauce or ketchup on that burrito?”

  “Both,” she says, shoveling more of it into her mouth. “Anyway, we’re going to have a long day ahead of us. That Fowler woman—”

  “Muffy,” I say. “Head of media relations.”

  “Whatever. She thinks it’s in our best interest to keep Jasmine’s death out of the press because of Prince Rashid and the animosity toward him on the part of some in the college community.”

  “Gee,” I say, sarcastically. “You think?”

  “So we can’t send out a mass text to the residents saying one of the RAs died, even though I understand that’s what the college does under normal circumstances. We can’t even advertise that there’ll be grief counselors available if anyone feels the need to see one, though Dr. Flynn and Dr. Kilgore are going to be here all day, for any residents or staff who want to talk about what happened. That includes you, by the way.”

  I turn my head, my mouth full of bagel, to stare at her. “Me? Why would I need to talk to anyone?”

  “Heather, you sat with a young girl’s dead body all day yesterday,” Lisa says. “Then you went home and your mom, who abandoned you a decade ago, dropped by unannounced. I think there’s a possibility you might need to talk to a mental health specialist. There’s no shame in it, you know. Cory and I saw a shrink before we got married. We still go sometimes. It’s fun.”

  “Fun?” I can’t stop staring at her. “How is telling some shrink your darkest secrets fun?”

  “That’s not the fun part,” Lisa says. “It’s that the shrinks sometimes point out that stuff you didn’t think was that important probably really is important, and after it’s been pointed out, you realize all these ways you’ve been sabotaging your own life. Like maybe you do have some issues about your mom abandoning you when you were in your late teens, even though you think you’re over it, and that’s what makes you feel so overprotective of the kids who live here, who are also in their late teens.”

  “Of course I have issues about my mom,” I say, maybe a little more defensively than I mean to. “I don’t need a shrink to point that out. I’m totally envious of people who have loving relationships with their mothers. I’ll never have that. But that doesn’t mean I’m overprotective of the kids who live here. I’m only doing my job. It’s not my fault they keep getting themselves killed.”

  “Okay, okay,” Lisa says, wadding up the tin foil her burrito had been wrapped in—amazingly, she’d eaten the whole thing. She must have been pretty hungry after throwing up so much the day before—and shooting a perfect three-pointer into the trash basket. “Forget I ever mentioned it. Anyway, we have a meeting set up this afternoon with a candidate for Jasmine’s position who Dr. Jessup swears will be perfect.”

  “Wow,” I say. “That was fast.”

  “Well, we need to get the ball rolling on finding a replacement. The sooner we find a good match, the sooner the staff can begin to heal. And Dr. Jessup says this candidate is a winner. The only reason he didn’t make the original cut was because he applied late. He’s a little bit older, a transfer student from New Mexico, Dave something or other.”

  “Okay,” I say. “Well, good, I look forward to meeting Dave something or other.”

  “Ha,” Lisa says. “You’re funny. He’s coming at two. Jasmine’s parents will be meeting with us—and Dr. Jessup and Dr. Flynn—a little later. Maybe by then the coroner’s office will know how Jasmine died.”

  The phone on her desk begins to ring.

  “And so it begins,” she says, and lifts the receiver. “Hello, Fischer Hall director’s office, Lisa Wu speaking.”

  I finish my bagel while I listen to her say “Uh-huh” and “Yes, I understand” to whoever is on the other end of the phone, probably not even conscious the whole time that she keeps tugging at her bra like it isn’t fitting correctly.

  Do I need therapy? I wonder. Maybe what I need is some time off. Not for my honeymoon—I’m already getting that. Cooper and I are going to Italy—but now, right now, so I can deal with all this wedding crap and maybe my mom. (Not that Lisa’s right. My issues with my mom aren’t psychological. They’re purely practical.)

  I suspect Cooper might be right, and that whatever has brought Mom back to the United States has nothing to do with me, despite her claim that she’s here to help with my wedding. It’s probably a good idea for him to find out why she’s really here, before the actual reason blows up in my face, as things concerning my mother have a tendency to do.

  Patty’s right, too. This place should give me an honorary degree. I’ve already mastered the art of critical thinking. And what about all the criminals I’ve caught on campus?

  This reminds me of Prince Rashid’s extracurricular activities, so after I’ve finished my bagel and returned the plate to the dining hall, I stop by the security desk on my way back to my office.

  “Hey, Pete,” I say casually. “Looking forward to seeing you out of that uniform and in a suit at my wedding, Magda looking hot on your arm.”

  Pete doesn’t fall for it.

  “Whaddaya want, Heather?” he asks. He’s gotten portlier than he’d like to be since he started dating Magda, and his daughter, Nancy, who is something of a math and science prodigy though she’s still only in junior high, had explained to him that if his LDL cholesterol got any “lousier,” he’d probably have a heart attack. He needed to up his HDL, or “happy” cholesterol, she’d explained, and stop eating all the free donuts Magda kept sneaking him from the caf.

  So lately Magda has been bringing him free carrot sticks.

  This has not put him in a very good mood.

  “I want to see the sign-in logs for the past few nights,” I say.

  All residents are required to sign in each of their guests, who are supposed to show picture ID before entering the building, ID they then leave with the security guard during their stay.

  “Particularly for Prince Rashid,” I go on. “Also, can you roll back any video you have on the hallway outside his room during the evening?”

  “Can I roll back any video I have on the hallway outside his room during the evening?” Pete echoes, in a rude imitation of my voice. He makes it much higher-pitched and Valley
Girlish than I believe I sound. “Why should I? Do you know how hard it is to work these fricking things?”

  He gestures at the stack of video monitors in front of him, which has grown much larger since Prince Rashid moved into the building.

  “I barely know how to work my kid’s Xbox,” Pete complains, “and you’re asking me to play back something—”

  “I’ll buy you lunch,” I say. “Not from the caf. From wherever you want. A sandwich from Murray’s. Dumplings from Suzie’s. A slice from Joe’s Pizza . . .”

  His gaze flicks toward the cafeteria doors. This early in the morning, the week before classes have begun, there’s no one but us two in the lobby, and the student worker behind the desk, who happens to be Gavin, dressed in his pajamas and dozing. He’s desperate to earn as much money as he can before school starts so he can buy, he explained to me in excruciatingly boring detail, some kind of camera, with which he intends to film the greatest American horror story ever told.

  It was at that point that I’d stopped listening and gave him all the hours at the desk that he wanted. No one else had volunteered, so it worked out great for both of us.

  “Choza Taqueria?” Pete asks. “And you won’t tell Magda? Because she’s been ratting me out to my kid every time I eat anything over four hundred calories.”

  “Of course I won’t tell Magda,” I say. “Choza Taqueria it is.”

  Pete hands me the sign-in logs and begins to fiddle with the monitors. “I don’t know if I’ll be able to find anything,” he says. “I think these things record back over themselves after twenty-four hours.”

  “Just do your best,” I say.

  I don’t know what I expected to find in the sign-in logs, but certainly not what I end up finding: a big fat zero. Prince Rashid’s signature is nowhere. I wonder if the prince is even required to sign in his guests, or if he has some kind of special privileges we don’t know about, passed down to him from the president’s office. I wouldn’t be surprised.