Then Rachel told Mrs. Pace that her kid wasn’t getting a room change and hung up.
And that was it. That was the only thing in Roberta’s file. The only sign at all that she’d had any sort of trouble adjusting to college life.
Except, of course, that now Roberta is dead.
I hear the ding of an elevator, and then Rachel’s heels clacking on the marble floor outside our office. A second later, she appears in the doorway, a steaming mug of coffee that she’s brought down from her apartment in one hand, and the morning’s Times in the other. She looks startled to see me at my desk so early. Even though I live four minutes away from it, I’m almost always five minutes late to work.
“Oh my goodness,” Rachel says, looking pleased to see me. “Aren’t you here early! Did you have a nice weekend?”
“Yeah,” I say, closing Roberta’s file, and kind of sliding it under some other stuff on my desk.
Not that I don’t have every right to be reading it. It’s just that I feel kind of reluctant to tell Rachel what I suspect—about the girls being pushed, and all. I mean, technically, I probably should have said something about the key, or the condom, at least, or that both girls had recently met a guy…
But I can’t help wondering—what if Cooper is right? What if Elizabeth and Roberta really did fall, but I make this big stink about how I think they’d been murdered? Would Rachel mark down in my employment file that I suffer from paranoid delusions? Could something like that keep me from passing my six months’ probation? Could they fire me for it, the way they had Justine—even though I’d fully kept my hands off the ceramic heaters?
I’m not about to risk it. I decide to keep my suspicions to myself.
“Mostly,” I say, in reply to Rachel’s question about my weekend. Because, aside from calling about the Marks and Todds, I’d done nothing but walk Lucy, watch TV, and fiddle around with my guitar. Hardly anything worth reporting. “You?”
“Terrible,” Rachel says, shaking her head. Although for someone who’s had such a bad weekend, she looks really great. She has on a new suit, really well-cut. The black brings out the ivory in her skin, and makes her hair seem an even deeper chestnut. “Roberta’s parents came in,” Rachel goes on, “to pick up their daughter’s things. It was just a nightmare. They plan on suing, of course. Though on what grounds, I can’t imagine. Those poor people. I felt so sorry for them.”
“Yeah,” I say. “That had to suck.”
The phone on Rachel’s desk starts ringing. “Oh, hello, Stan,” she says, when she answers it. “Oh, thank you so much, but I’m fine, really. Yes, it’s been just awful—”
Wow. Stan. So Rachel’s on a first-name basis with Dr. Jessup now. Well, I guess if a couple of kids in your dorm—oops, I mean, residence hall—die, you get to know the head of your department pretty well.
I start going through the briefing forms the weekend desk attendants have left me. I can generally get payroll, the budget, any memos that need to be typed, and the desk coverage schedules done by eleven in the morning. Then I have the rest of the day free for cruising the Net, gossiping with Magda or Patty, or trying to figure out who might be killing girls in my place of work, which is how I’ve already decided I’m going to spend this particular Monday.
I just haven’t quite figured out how.
I’m just finishing up the payroll when this pair of Nike-encased feet appear in my line of vision. I lift my head, expecting to see a basketball player—hopefully with a semilegible note I can add to my collection.
Instead, I see Cooper.
“Hey,” he says.
Is it my fault my heart flips over in my chest? I mean, I haven’t seen him in a while. Like almost seventy-two hours. Plus, you know, I’m totally man-starved. That has to be why I can’t take my eyes off the front of the jeans he’s wearing, white in all the places where the denim’s been stressed, like at his knees and other, more interesting places.
He also has on a blue shirt beneath his rumpled leather jacket—the exact same blue as his crinkly eyes.
“Wh—” is the only sound I can get to come out of my mouth, on account of the jeans…and the my-being-a-total-loser-who-is-completely-in-love-with-him part.
I watch as he takes a newspaper out from beneath his arm, unfolds it, and places it in front of me.
“Wh—” I say again. At least, that’s how it sounds to my ears.
“I wanted to make sure you knew about this,” Cooper says. “You know, before Us Weekly starts calling, and catches you by surprise.”
I look down at the paper. It’s the New York Post. On the front page is a large, blown-up photo of my ex-fiancé and Tania Trace dining at some outdoor café in SoHo. Underneath their images are the words, in eighteen-point type at least:
THEY’RE ENGAGED!
13
She shut you out.
What’d you do to deserve this?
She shut you out.
Put you out of service
Did she think you’d take this lying down?
Does she think you like playin’ the clown?
I’d never shut you out.
You gotta believe me.
I’d never shut you out.
You’re all I need.
Baby, can’t you see?
Don’t shut me out.
“Shut You Out”
Performed by Heather Wells
Composed by Valdez/Caputo
From the album Staking Out Your Heart
Cartwright Records
Wow. That didn’t take long. I mean, considering we’ve only been broken up for, what? Four months? Five, maybe?
“Wh—” seems to be the only sound I am capable of making.
“Yeah,” Cooper says. “That’s what I thought you’d say.”
I just sit there, looking down at the photo of Tania’s ring. It looks just like MY ring. The one I’d ripped off my finger and thrown at them when I’d caught them going at it in our bedroom.
But it can’t be the same ring. Jordan is cheap, but not THAT cheap.
I open the paper, and flip to the page with the article on it.
Look at that. They aren’t just engaged. They’re going on tour together, too.
“You okay?” Cooper wants to know.
“Yeah,” I say, glad I’ve gotten back the ability to say something besides “wh.”