Size 12 and Ready to Rock (17 page)

“I don’t think you understand. We’ve been waiting here for an hour already,” the woman says, annoyed. “My Cassidy is very special. The producer said so when she auditioned. And now she is starting to sweat.” She points a perfectly manicured nail at a young girl dressed in a lime green tank top and black leggings who does indeed look a little sweaty, but probably because a minute before she was demonstrating how to do a handstand to some of the other girls, who were admiring her perfect form. “How is Cassidy going to look her best on camera when she is sweating?”

“I don’t know,” Pete says. “Maybe if you’d come when you were supposed to, which is at ten—”

“There are some coffee shops in the area where you could take your daughter to get her a soda or something to cool off while you wait,” I hurry to offer, thinking Pete is being a little gruff. These people are from out of town, after all. They don’t know about New Yorkers and their notorious brusqueness. “The Washington Square Diner is right around the corner—”

“Oh, everyone would like that,” the woman steams, “wouldn’t they, for my Cassidy to get addicted to soda and get so chubby that she looks like a blimp at the Rock Off? Well, it’s
not going to happen.
”

I widen my eyes. I’m finding this lady as familiar as she seems to find me, but I can’t quite put my finger on why that is.

“Tell me this,” she says. “Are professional hair and makeup stylists going to be provided for the girls? Because I don’t see a trailer parked anywhere nearby. Are they in a room inside?”

I’m so confused by this question, I can’t speak. Fortunately, Magda takes over.

“No, ma’am,” she says. “I already asked this, and they said only Tania Trace gets professional hair and makeup, because she’s the star. The rest of us have to provide our own.”

The woman looks so outraged, I half expect, when she reaches into her enormous designer tote, for her to pull out a weapon. Instead, she’s simply diving for her cell phone. “We’ll just see what Cassidy’s agent has to say about this,” she says and stalks away on her spindly high heels, the phone to her ear. “Girls,” she calls to the other mothers, “you will never believe this.”

I glance at Pete, my eyebrows raised. “And I thought the parents of the undergrads were bad,” I say.

“You see?” he asks, calmly taking a sip of his coffee. “You see why I get paid the big bucks? This is what I’ve been putting up with all morning. That’s Mrs. Upton, by the way, also known as Cassidy’s mom.”

I feel a sense of horror come over me. I did all of the Tania Trace Rock Camp room assignments myself, by hand, so I recognize the name instantly. “Oh God,” I say. “Mrs. Upton’s one of the chaperones. I assigned her and Cassidy to the room to Narnia.”

“Nice one,” Pete says with a big smile. “Better hope the deodorizers Manuel put in there work. I don’t think she’s the type to appreciate eau de ganja.”

“This check-in is a disaster already,” I say, dropping my face into my hand. “Why are they making them wait? Why aren’t they letting them in?”

“Bunch of yukkity-yuks in there,” Pete says, nodding toward the door behind us. “Everyone from the president on down wants to stop by and say hi and congrats while they’re setting up. So back to the fanny pack. That’s where a lot of off-duty cops keep their guns when they carry. That or in the pocket of their cargo pants.”

This distracts me completely from my worries about Mrs. Upton and what she might say upon opening the door to room 1621. “Are you serious? Because I hid a pair of cargo pants Cooper’s been insisting on wearing a lot lately—”

Pete looks disgusted. “What’s wrong with you? You don’t hide a man’s pants. What’s so bad about cargo pants anyway?”

“Everything,” Magda says, her heavily made-up eyes rolling toward the sky.

“Seriously,” I say. “They’re
all
wrong in every way unless you’re a forest ranger. And you’re crazy. Cooper doesn’t own a gun. He told me.”

“Sure,” Pete says calmly. “Of course he told you that, because he lives with you and you’re a woman, the kind of woman who might get upset to learn that there’s a gun in the house.”

When I start to protest that this isn’t true, he gives me a sarcastic look and I shut up. It’s sort of true that I might get upset to learn that Cooper carries a gun, but only because he lied to me about it. And because he might shoot himself with it. Or get shot, drawing it on someone else.

“He’s working as Tania Trace’s bodyguard right now,” Pete points out. “And didn’t I hear on the news that her last bodyguard got shot?”

Until that very moment, I’d forgotten all about Bear, and about Cooper’s suspicion that his shooting might not have been so random after all, given the network’s willingness to move Tania Trace’s rock camp at such great expense.

“Okay,” I say, “but—”

“Shoulder holsters work only under jackets,” Pete goes on. He’s waxing poetic about where he likes to keep his gun when he’s off-duty. New York College protection officers aren’t allowed to carry guns (at least, not officially), only Tasers. “Ankle holsters make you chafe. You can carry a Glock on your belt, but then everybody’s gonna see it, unless you wear a jacket or keep your shirt untucked. You ladies have it easy, with your purses. You can hide anything in there.”

I’m starting to regret that I ever said anything.

That’s when the front door to Fischer Hall bursts open and Gavin runs through it, calling, “Heather! Heather, come quick!”

Chapter 13

So Sue Me

All those times you said

I’d never make it

All those times you said

I should quit

All those times you said

I’m nothing without you

The sad part is

I believed it too

Then you left and

What do you know

I made it on

My very own

So go ahead and sue me

You heard me

Go ahead and sue me

Now that I’ve made it

You say it’s you I owe

Well, you owe me too

For the heart you stole

If I’ve got one regret

It’s all the time I spent

All the tears I wept

Thinking you were worth the bet

Go ahead, go all the way

Take me to court

It’ll make my day

So sue me

Go ahead and sue me

“So Sue Me”

Performed and written by Tania Trace

So Sue Me
album

Cartwright Records

Nine consecutive weeks as the

Number 1 Hit Billboard Hot 100

I don’t know how he realized I was there. Maybe it’s that kind of sixth sense animals have when they know their mothers are nearby.

Wait . . . that’s mother bears, and it’s what they use to find their missing cubs. Probably Gavin saw me through the window.

In any case, I shove my coffee mug back at Magda and race into Fischer Hall after Gavin, expecting to find the place on fire at the very least.

Instead, I discover Davinia, one of the RAs, in tears, with Sarah, Lisa Wu, and Gavin’s girlfriend, Jamie, clustered around her. My entire staff, it seems, has gathered in the lobby, as has the crew of
Jordan Loves Tania,
minus the stars. Stephanie Brewer is standing in front of the desk, giving instructions of some urgency to her crew, who are for some reason
behind
the desk, where they have no business being. This is where we keep all the mail and deliveries for the residents.

Or possibly the message isn’t urgent. Maybe she’s shouting at the top of her lungs because Manuel, the head housekeeper, has decided to go over the lobby floors one last time with his industrial electric buffer. The noise is incredible . . . so loud that Dr. Jessup, who has shown up on a Saturday, has his hands over his ears as he stands beside Muffy Fowler, President Allington and Christopher Allington, and, of all people, Simon Hague.

These must be the yukkity-yuks that Pete was talking about. I suppose it makes sense. Why
wouldn’t
Simon Hague stroll over from his residence hall to mine on a Saturday morning to watch the check-in for Tania Trace Rock Camp? It’s not like he has a life.

“Well, hey, Heather,” Muffy yells in order to be heard above the buffer. “Nice of you to stop on by.”

I narrow my eyes at her. I can tell she thinks the entire situation is funny, but it’s so not. President Allington—dressed, as usual, in the New York College colors of blue and gold, in this case a blue-and-gold velour warm-up suit over a white tank top—is leaning negligently against the security monitors at the guard’s desk, eating fruit salad from a paper plate. There is no guard to tell him not to, because Pete is outside, keeping Mrs. Upton and the other moms from rushing over to Pitchforks “R” Us and instigating a rebellion.

The entire building, it appears, has hopped aboard the train to Crazy Town.

I hesitate, uncertain where to head first: To the front desk, to demand an explanation for why Stephanie’s crew is standing where they shouldn’t be? To my department head, to let him know that none of this is my fault? To the president, to tell him not to spill fruit salad on our very expensive security equipment? To Davinia, a student in need, to find out what’s wrong? Or to Manuel, to tell him to turn that damned thing off, for the love of God?

I head toward Davinia, making a slashing motion beneath my chin at Manuel, who’s looked up as I’ve entered, waving cheerfully, as is his custom.

When he sees me make the slashing motion, he appears startled. He clearly hasn’t noticed all the activity around him, having been too absorbed in his work . . . which, considering it’s Manuel, who takes extreme pride in keeping Fischer Hall’s brass fixtures and marble floors immaculate, isn’t surprising. He removes his earplugs, then turns off the floor polisher. The noise level in the lobby doesn’t decrease by much.

“Heather,” he rushes over to say to me, looking stricken. “I’m so sorry! I want the lobby to look nice for the movie, and for all those ladies who keep trying to come in.”

“It’s okay, Manuel,” I say. “I appreciate it. The lobby looks great.”

It actually looks so much cleaner than my own apartment, I consider hiring Manuel on the spot as my housekeeper. I know, however, that not only would this idea deeply insult him—he doesn’t do laundry—but he belongs to one of the most powerful unions in New York City and makes approximately three times what I do. Cooper and I could never afford him.

I hurry over to the sobbing girl. “Davinia,” I say. “What’s wrong?”

“N-nothing,” Davinia says, wiping her tears with the back of her hands.

“It’s
not
nothing,” Simon Hague assures me with malevolent delight, shoveling some fruit salad into his mouth. He has a paper plate too, same as the president. I look around and notice that the doors to the cafeteria are open. The cafeteria is open again, and everyone is helping themselves. Nice.

Sarah sends a dark look in Simon’s direction. “Thanks,” she says to him. “But we can handle it.” To me, she hisses, “That bitch Stephanie—”

“Everything’s all right,” Lisa says, glancing nervously in Dr. Jessup’s direction. Fortunately, he’s deeply absorbed in the plate of fruit salad with which he’s returning from the cafeteria. He’s also snagged a few strips of bacon, I notice, and a bagel. “Ms. Brewer hurt Davinia’s feelings by saying the hallway decorations for the sixteenth floor aren’t any good—”

“She tore down all the mermaid door tags Davinia stayed up until one o’clock in the morning hand-drawing,” Sarah interrupts, practically foaming at the mouth she’s so angry. “Just ripped them down and threw them in the trash.”

I glance questioningly at the resident assistant. Davinia’s a tall art major who got a fantastic internship at the Met but was going to have to turn it down and go back to India because her parents couldn’t afford rent for her for the summer . . . at least not until the Queen of the Island of Misfit Toys, also known as Heather Wells, came along and made it all better.

“The door tags were supposed to be a tribute to
The Little Mermaid,
” Davinia whispers. “Ariel’s my favorite Disney princess. And
Little Mermaid
is a musical, so it still fits in with singing camp. But Ms. Brewer said the sixteenth floor’s color scheme should be black and purple, something with more of an edge.”

I have no idea what she’s talking about. I also can’t believe this is what they’re all so freaked out about.