“Ameera is back?” Mrs. Harris sounds surprised.
“Yeah,” Kaileigh says. “After I hung up from talking to you this morning, I took a shower, and when I got out, Ameera was in her bed. Only she—”
The door to Lisa’s office immediately opens.
“What’s wrong with her?” Lisa barks at Kaileigh.
Kaileigh’s eyes widen. I don’t blame her. Not only is Lisa quite a sight in her current state, resembling an Asian version of Fantine during her death scene in Les Misérables, minus the shaved head, but she also appears to have come out of nowhere, possessed with powers of precognition.
“My roommate?” Kaileigh asks. “She . . . she won’t wake up.”
4
Room Change Request
Name:_____________________
ID#: _____________________
Sex:____M____F____Gender Neutral
E-mail: _____________________
Cell phone: _____________________
Where do you currently live? _____________________
__________________________________________
What kind of change are you interested in making?
__________________________________________
Reason for room change request.
Please check all that apply:
____Not getting along with roommate
____Wish for less expensive housing option
____Wish to move closer to campus
____Other (explain in space below)
__________________________________________
__________________________________________
By signing, I agree that I wish to be offered a room change by the New York College Housing Office.
X __________________________________________
What room are you in?” My boss’s pallid face peers through the crack between her door and the jamb, but her voice has all the force of a whip.
Looking a little shocked, Kaileigh replies automatically, “Room fourteen-twelve.”
“Heather,” Lisa barks. “Call the RA for—”
“—the fourteenth floor. I’m on it.”
I pull out the list I typed out myself of all the emergency numbers for the building, including all the new resident assistants. I used to consider the fact that I’d shrunk this list down to a wallet-size card (that I’d then laminated) pretty high-tech until one of the new RAs—the RA for the fourteenth floor, as a matter of fact, Jasmine—asked in a snarky tone, “Is it okay if I throw this away after I input the numbers into my smartphone?”
Imagine the nerve, implying that the list I’d worked so hard to make (because, of course, I’d distributed tiny laminated wallet-size copies to everyone) was disposable!
When Jasmine drops her smartphone in a rain puddle as she’s escorting some student to the hospital (and no matter what anyone says, this does sometimes happen), how will she know who to call from the emergency room pay phone to come relieve her?
Good luck with that, Jasmine.
Lisa opens her office door even farther, and a small brown-and-white projectile bursts out from behind her legs, then begins to run excitedly around the room, sniffing everyone’s shoes. Both of Prince Rashid’s bodyguards reach inside their jackets for their sidearms.
“It’s a dog!” I cry as I dial. “Tricky, come here. You guys, it’s a Jack Russell terrier, not a threat.”
The dog races over to me for one of the treats I keep for such emergencies—although they’ve never before involved weapons—while Hamad and his partner relax, but not without reproachful looks in my boss’s direction.
Lisa doesn’t even notice.
“Is Ameera breathing?” Lisa asks Kaileigh, who is still round-eyed with astonishment over how Lisa knows about her roommate’s situation.
There’s actually a good explanation: a long metal grate a few inches from the ceiling that separates Lisa’s office from the one in which my desk sits. The grate allegedly provides “light and ventilation to employees in the outer office,” since the outer office has no windows.
But what it actually does is allow us to snoop on each other’s conversations.
It doesn’t hurt, however, to let the students think we’re psychic (they never notice the grate), so we don’t bother disabusing them of the notion.
“I think she was breathing.” Kaileigh, unlike everyone else, is staring at Lisa instead of the dog, whose entire backside is quivering in ecstasy as I pass him treats one-handed, the other hand still gripping the phone. “How would I know?”
“Had she vomited in the bed?” Lisa demands. “Were her lips blue?”
“Of course she was breathing,” says Kaileigh’s suite mate Chantelle. “I mean, why wouldn’t she be breathing? She’s just, like, hungover.”
“We didn’t check the color of her lips, though. She had the covers pulled up over her head. We just shook her and she wouldn’t wake up.” Nishi’s squatted down in front of the dog and is scratching his ears, to his delight. “Oh my God, he’s so cute. What’s his name?”
“Tricky.” I hang up the handset. To Lisa, I say, “Voice mail. Jasmine’s not answering.”
Lisa looks worried, and not only about Ameera. Jasmine isn’t the RA on duty, but all student employees are supposed to be “available” during orientation week. The fact that Jasmine isn’t answering her phone (especially since it’s the hall director’s office calling) is troubling.
Then again, it’s only the first week of school. Jasmine will learn . . . especially after Lisa Wu gets through with her at the next staff meeting.
“I told you,” Mrs. Harris says, looking triumphant. “She’s not there.”
“I’ll phone the front desk to have the RA on duty go check on Ameera,” I say, ignoring Mrs. Harris as I dial, “and also Jasmine.”
“No need,” Sarah says quickly. “I’ll go.” She turns to face Kaileigh, who seems to be the only one who’s concerned about her roommate . . . or maybe she’s still freaked out about Lisa’s apparent mind-reading abilities. “I’m the graduate housing assistant for this building. It’s my job, along with Ms. Wu and Ms. Wells, to help assist in matters like this.”
One might assume Sarah’s superciliousness stems from an anxiety to make up for her earlier faux pas with Kaileigh’s mother—and possibly for the attitude she pulled with Prince Rashid—but the truth is, she basically lives for moments like this, since she’s studying for her master’s degree in psychology.