“They didn’t,” I say, fiercely. “I’m telling you, those girls did not do that.”
“Well, they ended up at the bottom of a shaft somehow,” Cooper says. “And while I know you’d like to think it’s because some evil man pushed them, there are nearly a thousand kids who live in this dorm, Heather. Don’t you think one of them might have noticed a guy shoving his girlfriend down an elevator shaft? And don’t you think that person would have told someone what they’d seen?”
I blink a few more times. “But…but…”
But I can’t think of anything else to say.
Then he looks at his watch. “Look. I’m late for an appointment. Can we play Murder, She Wrote again later? Because I’ve got to go.”
“Yeah,” I say, faintly. “I guess.”
“Okay. See you,” he says. And continues down the stairs at a clip so fast, there’s no way I’ll catch up with him.
Though on the landing below, he stops, turns, and looks up at me. His eyes are amazingly blue.
“And just so you know,” he says.
“Yes?” I lean eagerly over the stair railing. The reason I’m so against you investigating this on your own, I am expecting—well, okay, hoping—he’ll say, is because I can’t stand the thought of you putting yourself in harm’s way. You see, I love you, Heather. I always have.
“We’re out of milk,” is what he says instead. “Pick some up on your way home, if you remember, okay?”
“Okay,” I say weakly.
And then he’s gone.
10
Let’s run away
Someplace that’s
Warm all day
I’ll make it worth your while
If you stay
I said
Let’s run away
Throw all our cares away
They can’t tell us
What to do
This time it’s just
Me and you
“Run Away”
Performed by Heather Wells
Composed by Dietz/Ryder
From the album Rocket Pop
Cartwright Records
“Who was that?” Sarah wants to know. “That guy who left just now?”
“That?” I slip behind my desk. “That was Cooper.”
“Your roommate?” I guess Sarah has overheard me on the phone with him or something.
“Housemate,” I say. “Well, landlord, really. I live in the top floor of his brownstone.”
“So he’s cute and rich?” Sarah is practically salivating. “Why haven’t you jumped his bones?”
“We’re just friends,” I say, each word feeling like a kick in the head. We’re. Kick. Just. Kick. Friends. Kick. “Besides, I’m not exactly his type.”
Sarah looks shocked. “He’s gay? But my gaydar didn’t go off at all—”
“No, he’s not gay!” I cry. “He just…he likes accomplished women.”
“You’re accomplished,” Sarah says, indignantly. “Your first album went platinum when you were only fifteen!”
“I mean educated,” I say, wishing hard we were talking about something—anything—else. “He likes women with, you know, a lot of degrees. Who are stunningly attractive. And skinny.”
“Oh,” Sarah says, losing interest. “Like Rachel, you mean.”
“Yeah,” I say, my heart sinking, for some reason. “Like Rachel.”
Is that really true? Does Cooper like women like Rachel—women whose handbags match their shoes? Women who understand what PowerPoint is, and know how to use it? Women who eat their salad with the dressing on the side, and can do hundreds of sit-ups without getting out of breath? Women who went to Yale? Women who shower instead of bathe, the way I do, because I’m too lazy to stand up that long?
Before I have a chance to really think about it, Rachel comes running in, her dark hair mussed, but still sexy-looking, and says, “Oh, Heather, there you are. Where have you been?”
“I was upstairs with one of the investigators,” I say. It’s even true. Sort of. “They needed to get into the dead girl’s room—”
“Oh,” Rachel says, losing interest. “Well, now that you’re back, could you call counseling services and see if they can see someone right away? Roberta’s roommate is in a state—”
I perk right up.
“Sure,” I say, reaching for my phone, my promise to Cooper that I would quit playing Murder, She Wrote promptly forgotten. “No problem. You want someone to walk her over there?”
“Oh, yes.” Rachel may have been dealing with a tragedy, but you would never have known it to look at her. Her Diane von Furstenberg wrap dress clings to her lithe figure in all the right places, and none of the wrong ones (the way wrap dresses do on me) and there are bright spots of color in her cheeks. “Do you think you can find someone?”
“I’d be happy to help,” I say.
Sure, I feel a twinge of guilt as I say it. I mean, that my willingness to lend a hand has more to do with a desire to question the dead girl’s roommate than actually to help her.
But not enough to stop myself.
I call counseling services. Of course they’ve already heard about “the second tragedy,” so they tell me to bring the roommate, Lakeisha Green, right over. One of my job responsibilities is personally to escort students who’ve been referred to counseling services to the building that houses it, because once a student who was sent over by herself got lost on the way and ended up in Washington Heights wearing her bra on her head and insisting that she was Cleopatra.
Seriously. You can’t make this stuff up.
Lakeisha is sitting in a corner of the cafeteria under a kitten poster Magda had hung on the wall to brighten the place up, since, as Magda puts it, antique stained glass windows and mahogany wainscoting are just plain “ugly on the eye.” Magda is there, too, trying to coax Lakeisha into eating some Gummi Bears.
“Just a few?” Magda is saying, as she dangles a plastic bag full of them in front of Lakeisha’s face. “Please? You can have them for free. I know you like them, last night you bought a bag with your friends.”
Lakeisha—just to be polite, you can tell—takes the bag. “Thank you,” she murmurs.
Magda beams, then, when she notices me, whispers, “My poor little movie star. She won’t eat a thing.”