The Bride Wore Size 12
Page 38“I’m so sorry,” she says brightly. “What did I miss?”
16
Allington Is What Ails New York College
For students at New York College, tuition keeps creeping up, which means we have to take on more debt to pay the bills. Yet our college president, Phillip Allington, who owns a $4.5 million home in the Hamptons, lives rent-free in a luxury penthouse at the top of Fischer Hall. And his son drives around in a convertible Mercedes and is a co-owner of the nightclub Epiphany (try the mojito, by the way, it’s delish).
Something stinks in Greenwich Village and we here at the Express say its name is Allington.
All week long, this blog will be reporting on how your tuition dollars may be going to fund the Allingtons’ extravagant lifestyle. Our first report is called “Who Pays for Mrs. Allington’s Birds?,” a hard-hitting exposé on the exotic birds belonging to the wife of our college president, and how much she might be spending on them.
New York College Express,
your daily student news blog
Lisa cries the whole way back to our office.
“Yeah,” I say. “About that . . .”
I have a hand on her arm and am steering her through the crowds—it’s another beautiful warm fall day, and the park is packed—since I’m not sure she can see through her tears. No one pays any attention to crazy Asian girls walking through the park crying because there are so many other distracting things to look at, such as the barefoot guitar players, overturned-plastic-can drummers, incense sellers, proselytizers, and cute dogs.
“Is there any chance you could be pregnant?” I ask.
Lisa stops walking in the middle of the park, or as close to the middle as we can get without walking directly into the huge fountain, the jets of which are shooting twenty feet into the air.
“What did you say?” Lisa demands. She isn’t crying anymore.
“I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to blurt it out like that. I probably should have saved this conversation for when we get back to the office, only I’m not going back to the office now. I’m going to make sure you get there, then I have to go run an errand—”
“Heather!” The tips of Lisa’s ears begin to turn red.
“It’s a work-related errand,” I say. “Don’t worry. But even if I went back to the office with you, you know we hardly ever have any privacy there. I just talked to Sarah”—I wave my cell phone in front of her—“and she says there’s another line of parents out the door—including Kaileigh’s mom, who’s heard about Jasmine being dead. She isn’t too happy that her daughter is not only assigned to a floor with a dead RA, but that her roommate Ameera is now weeping all the time instead of out sleeping around. Plus you have that RA candidate arriving at two, and Jasmine’s parents scheduled to arrive at three, plus nine RAs to fire. When are we going to have another chance to talk about this? I’m guessing this is my only opportunity.”
“You’re showing a lot of the early symptoms,” I explain, having to raise my voice to be heard over a guy who has come strolling by playing the bagpipes. “Breast tenderness, moodiness, nausea, vomiting. I could be totally wrong, but Eva thinks—”
“Eva?” Lisa’s voice too rises. The bagpiper, who is wearing a kilt, has decided to stand near us. He’s gathered a small crowd of admirers. “You told the medicolegal investigator that I’ve been moody lately? And that my boobs hurt? For God’s sake, Heather!”
“Well, you clearly don’t have the flu, because you’re fine right now,” I point out. “Except for the crying. When’s the last time you had your period?”
“When’s the last time you had yours?” she fires back, outraged.
“Three years ago,” I say. “I’m on continuous birth control pills for my endometriosis. Lisa, even if I weren’t on the pill, I couldn’t get pregnant. I have no idea what it’s like to be pregnant, and I doubt I ever will. I know it’s none of my business if you are, but I sit in the office outside yours all day, five days a week, so I know you pretty well. And if you are pregnant, I just want to make sure you know it, and take care of yourself.”
Lisa turns sober. “Oh, Heather,” she says, and reaches out to squeeze one of my arms. “Of course. I’m so sorry. Things have been so crazy lately. Honestly, I can’t even remember when I last had my period.”
The bagpiper ends his dirge on her last words, so that everyone nearby hears her shout “I can’t even remember when I last had my period” and looks over at us with varying degrees of pity, confusion, and amusement.
Lisa lifts her free hand to her now pale face. “Oh my God,” she says, and tightens her grip on my arm, then begins dragging me around the opposite end of the fountain, away from the bagpiper and his audience. “Oh my God. I can’t believe I just did that.”
“Are you kidding me? They all heard me. Oh, crap.”
Her face pales even further. I’m not sure why until I turn my head in the direction she’s looking. Moving swiftly toward us is a large crowd of people, some of whom look familiar—
And no wonder, since they’re residents of Fischer Hall.
“Hi, Lisa!” Jasmine Tsai calls, waving cheerfully as she steers a group of her residents across the park. “Hi, Heather! Hey, you guys,” she informs her residents, who are clearly all first-years. “That’s the director of Fischer Hall, Lisa, and the assistant director, Heather Wells. Say hi.”
The residents—the majority of whom are overexcited girls dressed to meet boys, under the auspices of taking a walking tour of the campus—all squeal and wave. “Hi, Lisa! Hi, Heather!”
Lisa and I wave lamely back, noticing that there are a few boys trailing along behind the group, but not the kind of boys the girls on the tour appear to be interested in.