Size 12 and Ready to Rock

I look at Lisa. “I don’t know. What do you think we should do about it?”

“That’s what I’m wondering,” Lisa says, her expression concerned. “We’re responsible for her while she’s here, and so is Cartwright Records Television. But there’s no law in New York that says a fifteen-year-old girl can’t have a boyfriend, so long as he’s younger than eighteen.”

“On the other hand, if he’s a legal adult and the two of them are engaged in sexual relations and we knowingly let it go on, we can be held liable,” I say with a sigh, and spin around in my chair to reach for the campus directory. “Do you know the guy’s name, Davinia?”

“No,” she says. “What do you mean, we can be held liable?”

“It’s statutory rape,” Lisa explains. “The age of legal consent in New York is seventeen.”

“But we don’t know that Bridget—”

“We don’t know that she’s not,” I say. “Hi,” I say when someone on the other end of the number I’ve dialed on my office phone finally picks up. “Is this Wasser Hall? It is? Well, when you pick up, you should say that. You should say, ‘Hello, Wasser Hall,’ or something like that. Anyway, this is Heather the assistant hall director from over at Fischer Hall. Could you please put me through to Simon? Simon Hague, the residence hall director. Simon Hague, the guy who hired you.”

I hold the receiver away from me and say to Lisa and Davinia, “Oh my God, it sounds like a zoo over there. And we’re the ones with a reality show being filmed here. Yes,” I say into the phone. “I would be happy to hold.”

“Should we tell Ms. Brewer what’s going on?” Davinia asks, looking worried.

I frown. “That’s exactly what Cassidy and Mallory want us to do. Then, when Bridget goes back to the room in tears and Cassidy and Mallory are all, ‘What’s wrong?’ Stephanie can get the entire confrontation on film.”

Lisa nods. “I agree with Heather. Let’s keep this to ourselves for now. I’ll call Bridget down for a one-on-one with me in order to let her know that we know and to make sure she’s doing okay emotionally and—”

“Hello?” I say when someone on the other end of the line picks up. “I called to speak to Simon, please. He’s not? Well, is anyone in the residence hall director’s office? Anyone at all? How about the assistant residence hall director? Is there anyone there at all who can tell me . . . How about . . . Oh? Oh, really. Oh, okay, I see. That’s very interesting. You know what, that’s okay. I’ll just come over and do it myself. Okay, bye.”

I hang up.

“Simon’s not in the office today,” I say, climbing to my feet. “He’s still in the Hamptons.”

Lisa stares at me. “What? It’s Tuesday.”

“Yeah,” I say, trying not to allow the glee I’m feeling inside show on my face. “He has a summer rental where he’s been spending every Thursday through Tuesday, except when he’s on weekend duty, which is only every fourth weekend. He’s sharing the rental with his assistant resident hall director, Paula. She’s in the Hamptons with him now.”

Lisa’s jaw drops. Davinia looks confused. “Then who’s running the office?”

“That’s a very good question, Davinia,” I say. “I’ll be sure to let you know when I get back. Right now I have to go check the Wasser Hall security desk’s sign-in logs to find out the name of this guy Bridget’s being signed in by. I’ll see you guys later.”

Chapter 23

By the time I get across Washington Square Park and into the air-conditioned lobby of Wasser Hall, I’m sweating beneath my bra, which somewhat ruins the good mood I’d been in after discovering Simon’s dirty little secret. It’s another beautiful summer day, which means that the park is crowded with the kind of people who have the leisure time to stroll around a park when the weather is fine: workers on their lunch hour, dog walkers, nannies pushing baby strollers, students taking a break between classes to study outdoors, tourists snapping photos, and of course the type of people who make their living off tourists—buskers beating on drums or playing guitar for spare change, grifters pretending to have lost their keys and to need five dollars (five dollars only) to get a locksmith, and the drug dealers who discreetly offer their wares all over the park, most of them undercover police officers.

“Not today,” I growl at one of them when he heads in my direction.

He backs off immediately with a murmured “Sorry, ma’am,” causing me to wonder when I went from a “miss” to a “ma’am.”

Once I reach the security desk in the front of Wasser Hall’s gleaming modern lobby, it takes me three seconds to figure out the name of Bridget Cameron’s boyfriend. That’s because I find her New York College ID. It’s in the protection officer’s ID box.

“You have got to be kidding me,” I say, straightening up. “She’s here right now?”

Filming of Jordan Loves Tania must have broken for lunch. Bridget had to have hightailed it across the park pretty quickly to have gotten to Wasser Hall before me. But she is quite a bit younger than I am, young enough to be my daughter . . . if I had been a teen mom and did not have chronic endometriosis.

“Yeah,” Pete says from behind the desk. “I guess so. Wynona, did you see this girl sign in?”

Pete, in his quest to earn more overtime, happens to be covering the lunch shift at Wasser Hall. With Fischer Hall closed—only the Tania Trace campers are allowed to eat in its cafeteria—Wasser has been getting slammed at mealtimes, and they’ve needed to double up on the Protection Services staff to make sure everyone entering the building uses the correct sets of doors . . . one set goes downstairs, to the cafeteria, through which there is no access to the rest of the building. The other set goes into the main residence hall.

“No,” Wynona says irritably. She’s earning overtime covering the Wasser Hall lunch shift as well. “I can’t be watching every single person who comes in here, only the ones on my side of the desk. You have to be watching yours. Hey!” she yells at a student carrying an enormous backpack. “Where do you think you’re going?”

The student, looking terrified, says, “Lunch?”