“Heather!” Muffy cries, shocked.
Stephanie bursts out laughing. So does Sarah, but for different reasons. Dr. Jessup looks amused, as does Lisa Wu.
“No,” Lisa says, smiling. “I’m a real residence hall director. I have my master’s degree and everything. I’ll hang my diploma up in my new office as soon as they mail it. I’ll admit this is my first professional position—”
I don’t want to be rude by saying so out loud, but I can tell. Something in my expression must give it away, since Dr. Jessup exclaims, “Jesus Christ, Wells, can’t you see why I hired her?”
I glance at him, startled. “Um . . . no?”
“She seemed like she’d be a perfect fit with you!” he says. “You’ve been through such a hard time lately with bosses”—I notice how he tactfully avoids mentioning that all of my bosses have ended up dead, jailed for murder, and/or promoted—“I thought the department should throw you a bone. Lisa Wu’s you . . . well, except for the Asian part.”
I look back at Lisa Wu, thinking that it’s a shame about Dr. Jessup’s early onset Alzheimer’s.
Then I notice something. She does look a little like me, except younger and skinnier and Asian, of course.
I’m wearing jeans and a T-shirt. Well, mine isn’t exactly a T-shirt, it’s a nice fitted black shirt made of cotton material with ruching around the front to give a delicate smocking effect where I need it.
I’ve got on flip-flops (though mine are platforms with sequins). And my hair is in a ponytail (because it’s so hot out). And I have, upon occasion, been accused of having too much energy . . . even of being perky, though I resent this.
Lisa must notice my scrutiny, since she smiles and says, a little sheepishly, “When Dr. Jessup called to say I got the job a little while ago, I was so excited. I said I happened to be in the city, and he said to come on over. I told him I wasn’t exactly dressed properly, but he said it wouldn’t matter. I was actually just over at Kleinfeld’s, having my last fitting for my wedding gown—”
“You’re getting married?” This is too weird.
“Yeah,” Lisa says. “I never thought I’d go for the big wedding, but my parents are insisting, and so are Cory’s. I found the cutest fit-n-flare, it was a sample on sale for only five hundred bucks.” She reaches for a nearby tote bag. Unlike Stephanie’s, it isn’t designer. It’s one that looks like she got it free for donating to PBS. Or probably her parents did. “I have a picture of it here in my wedding binder if you want to see it—”
She has a wedding binder? Maybe we don’t have that much in common after all. I begin to think there might be things I could learn from Lisa Wu.
“If I could interrupt the girl talk,” Stephanie says coldly, “scintillating as it is, could we get back to the subject at hand?”
I’d forgotten Stephanie was still in the room.
“Oh,” I say, a little disappointed. What’s a wedding binder? Whatever it is, I’m pretty sure there’s someone out there who’s tried to eat it. I would totally watch that. “Sure.”
“Shooting is going to start this weekend, when the girls come to check in, so I need to see what rooms they’re going to be put in.” Stephanie has drawn her own binder from her tote bag. It doesn’t look like it contains information about a wedding. “Some of them insist on bringing their mothers. This isn’t going to suit the show at all. We can’t have a bunch of stage moms running around, ruining things. So how can we get rid of these old biddies?”
“Legally,” Muffy hurries to explain, tactfully, “no one under eighteen is allowed to reside in New York College’s residence halls. So in order to facilitate the needs of your show, we were thinking we’d put in bunk beds—that’s the furniture delivery you saw out front—and assign three to four girls per room, plus one mom as their legal chaperone.”
“Well,” Stephanie says baldly, “that sucks.”
“Not really,” I say. “We could use suites. That way we can put the girls in the back room and the moms in the outer rooms. Then the girls can’t sneak out without waking the moms up.”
“That sucks even more,” Stephanie says.
“Good call, Heather,” Muffy says, ignoring Stephanie. “That’s the first thing I’d try to do if I were fourteen and staying in New York City for the summer. Get a fake ID and hit the bars.”
“Actually,” Stephanie says, pulling out her BlackBerry, “one of the things the network would like is if the girls did sneak out. That would add a lot more drama to the show.”
“Really?” Lisa Wu says. “If an underage girl snuck out of this building and into a bar and something terrible happened to her in downtown New York City, it would add more drama to your show. But I don’t think it would reflect very well on New York College, or on Tania Trace, and then ultimately on your network—do you, Stephanie?”
Oh my God. Lisa Wu just said out loud exactly what I was thinking in my head. Maybe Dr. Jessup was right after all.
“What?” Stephanie looks confused.
“I agree with Lisa,” I say. “Jordan Loves Tania is supposed to be a husband-and-wife-themed reality show, not Law and Order: Special Victims Unit.”
This Stephanie seems to understand. Her eyebrows rise. “It was only an idea,” she says scathingly. “It’s called brainstorming.”
“Of course,” Lisa says, smiling back at her. “You’re in the TV business. We’re in the business of providing students with a safe and healthy community in which to live and develop while they achieve their academic goals. I’m sure we’ll find a common meeting ground.”
Impressed, I swing my gaze toward Dr. Jessup. Where did he find Lisa Wu? If our department had ten more like her and ten less like Simon Hague, we might actually stop being the laughingstock of higher education.
Dr. Jessup’s too busy texting on his cell phone even to look my way.
“Ladies, shall we go check out those rooms?” he asks. “I hate to rush this, but Personnel would like me to bring Lisa over so they can get started on her paperwork—”
“Of course,” I say. “But I have one question.” I look at Stephanie. “Why does Tania feel so unsafe? I thought what happened to Bear was totally random. You assured us of that,” I add, “over and over again, the other night.”