Size 12 and Ready to Rock

“Uh,” Lisa says uncertainly. “Sure, I guess—”

“Fantastic,” Stephanie says and glances at Davinia. “It wasn’t that yours weren’t right, sweetie. They weren’t right for the show.”

“I don’t feel so good,” Jared says from behind the desk.

Gavin spins to face him on the tall front-desk chair. “Dude. You got a nosebleed.”

This is the understatement of the summer—possibly of the year. Blood is flowing in two steady streams from Jared’s nostrils, dripping down onto his faded gray New York College T-shirt.

I’m immediately alarmed, especially when Jared says sarcastically, “You think I don’t know that?” and raises his arm. He’s apparently been dabbing his nose for a little while, since the sleeve of his blue hoodie has turned black. “It won’t stop. And I think I’m going to throw up. If someone could just call my doctor—here, he’s in my important contacts . . .” He fumbles in his pocket for his iPhone, then drops it. “Shoot.”

My mind darts to one of the many episodes of Freaky Eaters I’ve seen . . . and also one of the mandatory staff meetings I was forced to attend in the past few months.

“Gavin,” I say, throwing open the door to the front desk, “call 911. Brad, get the first aid kit. There’s a bottle of hydrogen peroxide in it—”

Gavin reaches for the phone. “Don’t let him hurl back here,” he says as he dials. “Take him to the bathroom.”

“What is it?” Stephanie’s eyes are wide. “What’s wrong with him?”

“I think it’s warfarin,” I say, grabbing a roll of toilet paper—toilet paper is one of the few things residents at Fischer Hall get for free—from beneath the desk and shoving it against Jared’s nostrils. “It’s an anticoagulant. It’s the active ingredient in a lot of rat poisons.”

“Oh my God,” Lisa cries, following me. She snatches the bottle of hydrogen peroxide from Brad and rips off the top, shoving it toward Jared’s face. “How much should he drink?”

I’m trying to remember. “I don’t know. Just make him throw up.”

“Uh,” Dr. Jessup says, approaching the desk, Simon and Muffy close behind him. “Maybe this isn’t—”

“Aw, jeez,” Jared is saying, pushing Lisa away. “Don’t worry. It’s not poison. It’s just a—”

“Don’t stand up!” Lisa and I cry at the exact same time as Jared attempts to climb to his feet.

It’s too late. His legs crumple beneath him as his eyes roll back into his head, and neither Lisa nor I is strong enough to support his weight as he collapses.

Chapter 14

Muffy Fowler decides—and Dr. Jessup agrees—that it’s not a good idea for the moms to see the show’s field producer being carted out of Fischer Hall covered in blood and on a stretcher. Nor does she think it’s a good idea for them to see Detective Canavan and the other law-enforcement officers from the Sixth Precinct who show up to question Gavin and anyone else who might have had contact with the individual who dropped off the cupcakes (though until there is a toxicology report proving they actually did contain a poisonous substance, we’re urged by Detective Canavan “not to make any assumptions”).

It also seems wise to keep the campers and their moms from witnessing the breakdown that Simon Hague has in the middle of the lobby, shortly after Jared’s collapse.

“I ate one!” he shrieks. “I swallowed a bite of one of those cupcakes too! Dear God in heaven, I don’t want to die!”

That’s when Lisa and I force him—and Stephanie too—to swallow some hydrogen peroxide and vomit into various trash cans (so we can preserve the evidence).

Then we send the RAs outside to invite all the campers into the cafeteria to enjoy breakfast and “bond” with one another. It seems to work. Not only do none of the moms notice the unconscious man being smuggled out of the building through a side exit into the waiting ambulance—or the staff members who leap into a taxi to follow it (Muffy feels that representatives from New York College should go along to the hospital to support Jared and Stephanie, and of course Simon)—but they seem unfazed by the announcement that filming has been postponed until tomorrow because of a “technical delay.” It helps that Magda does such a terrific job of telling them how “byootiful” they all look, like true movie stars, making sure they get all the fruit salad and nonfat yogurt they can eat.

The rest of the staff do their own jobs amazingly as well, exactly the way they’ve been trained . . . well, except for the president, who leaves, muttering, “Glad I didn’t eat one of those things.”

I’m sitting at my desk, waiting to give my statement to Detective Canavan and staring at a red spot on the sleeve of my white blouse—a spot, I realize, that is probably never going to come out, no matter how much stain remover I use, because it’s Jared Greenberg’s blood.

Otherwise check-in has gone on as planned, just a couple of hours later than scheduled. All of the girls (and their mothers) seem happy with their rooms—which, given how much money CRT has spent on the decor, they should be. There are flat-screen TVs bigger than my desk in each room, as well as bucketloads of swag donated from Sephora and Bed, Bath & Beyond. Davinia reported having been able to hear the squeals of delight all the way down the hall in her own room.

My phone rings, but it’s my cell, not my office phone.

“I just heard,” Cooper says when I pick up. “Are you all right?”

“I’m fine,” I lie. My fingers still haven’t stopped shaking, despite the two—nondiet—sodas and Reuben sandwich I’ve downed to cushion the shock. “I’m not the one who swallowed a vegan cupcake dusted with rat poison.”

“Thank God,” he says. “My dad says they’re doing everything they can for the guy, but that it’s not looking good. Stephanie Brewer seems to be in the clear, though, and so does the guy from the other residence hall—”

I’ve forgotten all about Simon.

“Too bad,” I say before I can stop myself. “If anyone deserves to die like a rat—”

Then I clamp my mouth shut guiltily. I can’t wish that kind of death on anyone, not even Simon . . . especially when Sarah, sitting at her desk nearby, looks up in surprise from the hushed conversation she’s having on her cell phone. I feel ashamed of myself. I’m supposed to be a role model.