by Meg Cabot
Sarah, seated next to Jordan, can’t take her eyes off him. She keeps asking him searching questions about the music industry, the same ones she’d asked me when she’d first met me. Like, had he felt like a sellout when he’d done that Pepsi ad? And hadn’t he felt that performing at the Super Bowl halftime show had been degrading to his calling as a musician? And what about that calling? Did it bother him that he knew how to sing, but not how to play a single instrument? Didn’t that, in a way, mean that he wasn’t a musician at all, but merely a mouthpiece through which Cartwright Records could deliver their message of corporate greed?
By the time the lights go down, and the hall president, Greg, gets up to welcome everyone, I’m feeling a little sorry for Jordan.
Then the first act comes on, a trio of girls lip-synching Christina’s latest, with choreography and everything. With the lights down, I’m able to scan the audience without looking too obvious.
There are a lot of students there. Nearly every seat is filled, and the cafeteria can hold four hundred. Plus there are people lining the back of the room, hooting and applauding and, in general, acting like eighteen-year-olds away from home for the first time. Beside me, Jordan is staring at the Christina wannabes, his clipboard clutched tightly in his hands. For someone who’s been shanghaied into the job, he seems to be taking it way seriously.
Or maybe he’s only acting interested in order to keep Sarah from asking him any more questions.
The first act comes to a hip-grinding stop, and a quartet of boys leaps into the spotlight. Heavy bass begins to shake the cafeteria walls—they’re performing “Bye Bye Bye” by ’N Sync—and I feel pity for Fischer Hall’s neighbors, one of which is an Episcopalian church.
The boys throw themselves into their act. They have the choreography down pat—so much so I practically wet my pants, I’m laughing so hard.
I notice Jordan isn’t laughing at all. He doesn’t seem to understand that the boys are making fun of boy bands. He is carefully scoring them on originality and how well they know the lyrics.
Seriously.
Glancing over my clipboard as I score the boys’ act—I give them mostly fives out of ten, since they don’t have costumes—I notice a tall man wander into the dining hall, his hands buried deep in the pockets of his khakis.
At first I think it’s President Allington. But the president never wears khakis, preferring, as I think I’ve mentioned before, white Dockers. The newcomer is entirely too well-dressed to be the school’s president.
When he moves into a shaft of light that spills from the Coke machine, however, I realize that it’s Christopher Allington, the president’s son. So my confusion is understandable.
It isn’t unusual for Christopher to drop by. I mean, even though he has his own place at the law school dorm, his parents do live upstairs. He’d probably come over to visit them, then stopped in the café to see what all the noise was about.
But when he moves toward a group of students leaning against a far wall and begins chatting casually to them, I start to wonder. What is Christopher doing here, exactly? He’s a law student, not an undergrad.
Pete had told me that when the Allingtons first arrived from the college somewhere in Indiana where President Allington had worked before, there’d been a big hush-up over the fact that Christopher hadn’t scored high enough on his LSATs to get into New York College. Apparently his father had pulled some major strings, and gotten him in anyway.
But then, with an alcoholic mother and a father who wears tank tops in public, the poor kid probably doesn’t have much in the way of gifts from the Allington gene pool anyway, and needed the extra help.
’N Sync pounds to a finish, and then an Elvis impersonator gives it a go. During his rendition of “Viva Las Vegas,” for want of anything better to do, I watch Christopher Allington mingle. He works his way through the crowd until he’s settled himself in a chair behind a whole row of girls. They’re all freshmen—you can tell by their giggly awkwardness. They aren’t quite in the New York College groove yet, as their unpierced faces and undyed hair and Gap clothing prove. One of them, a bit more sophisticated than the rest, turns in her seat and begins talking to Christopher, who leans forward to hear her better. The girl sitting next to her resolutely refuses to join in the conversation, keeping her face forward.
But you can tell she’s eavesdropping like anything.
Elvis finishes to respectable applause, and then Marnie Villa Delgado—yes, Elizabeth Kellogg’s roommate—takes the stage. Everyone gives her an extra hand. I try not to let myself think that the ovation is for having scored herself a single room for the rest of the semester.
Marnie, wearing a long blond wig and a pair of low-ride jeans, bows politely. Then she launches into a song that sounds vaguely familiar. I can’t place it, at first. All I know is that it’s a song I don’t like very much…
And then it hits me. “Sugar Rush.” Marnie is giving her all to the song that had made mine a household name… thirteen years ago. And only if that household contained a pre-adolescent girl.
Jordan, beside me, guffaws. Some of the students who know about my past laugh along with him. Marnie herself even gives me a sly look while she mouths the line, “Don’t tell me stay on my diet/You have simply got to try it.”
I smile and try not to look as uncomfortable as I feel. It helps to look back at Christopher, instead. He’s still chatting up the girls in the row ahead of him. He has finally attracted the attention of the shy girl, who, while not pretty, has a more interesting face than her more vivacious companion. She has turned in her seat and is timidly smiling at Christopher, hugging her knees to her chest and pushing back wayward tendrils of reddish hair.
Up front, Marnie is tossing her blond wig—not to mention her hips—around in a manner that the crowd seems to find hilarious, and which I can only hope is not supposed to be an accurate imitation of me.
And that’s when it hits me—out of the blue—that Christopher Allington could be Mark.
Or Todd.
15
You’re a tornado
Blowing through my heart
You’re a tornado
Can’t finish what you start
You wreck everything
In your path
Think you’ll have
The very last laugh
You’re a tornado
And you’re blowing
Me Away
“Tornado”
Performed by Heather Wells
Composed by Dietz/Ryder
From the album Staking Out Your Heart
Cartwright Records
I guess you can say my blood went cold.
Okay, it didn’t really. But it does feel kind of like someone has spilled some really cold Diet Coke down my back, or something.
All of a sudden, my palms are so sweaty I can hardly hold on to the clipboard. My heart starts hammering unsteadily, the way it had that time I’d sung those songs I’d written myself for Jordan’s dad, and he’d laughed at me.
Christopher Allington? Christopher Allington? No way!
Except…
Except that Christopher Allington has complete access to Fischer Hall. He never has to be signed in or out, and he has the authority to order someone to let him into the director’s office whenever he wants. I know because one time the RAs were complaining about how there was never any paper left in the copier on Monday morning and Rachel said that was because Christopher Allington always has one of the maintenance men key him into our office Sunday night so that he can copy his friends’ class notes.
So he could have perused Rachel’s files at his leisure, combing them for likely victims, girls who’ll fall easily under his persuasion, girls without much experience, whom he could seduce.
And then he set out to meet them, starting up innocuous conversations and introducing himself under a fake name… all so that he could get laid without a lot of fuss. It’s like he has his own little harem of willing fresh women
to choose from!
My God. It’s diabolical. It’s ingenious. It’s…
Totally far-fetched. Cooper would totally scoff at the idea.
But Cooper isn’t here…
And Christopher Allingtonis way charming. Over six feet tall, with kind of longish blond hair that he wears feathered back, he has the boyish good looks of… well, a guy from a boy band. What freshman girl wouldn’t be flattered by his attentions… so flattered that she’d have sex with him on a comparatively short acquaintance? My God, he’s cute, older, sophisticated… Any eighteen-year-old girl would go ga-ga over him. Any twenty-eight — year-old girl would go ga-ga over him. The guy is fine.
But why did he kill them? Scoring babes is one thing, but killing them afterward? Doesn’t that kind of defeat the purpose? If they’re dead, you can’t score with them again.
More importantly,how did he kill them? I mean, I know how—if, indeed, they were being killed—but how was he managing to push full-grown women down an elevator shaft when, undoubtedly, they’d be struggling against him? Drugs? But wouldn’t the coroner’s office have found some evidence of that?
My face feels hot. I fan it with my clipboard, turning my attention back toward Marnie. She’s just winding up for her big finish, which involves hip gyrations the likes of which I haven’t seen since Shakira’s last performance on the MTV Music Video Awards. She definitely isn’t imitating me. I’ve always been a rotten dancer, the despair of every choreographer I’ve ever met. I had difficulties, as they liked to point out, detaching my brain from my body, and just letting go.
Marnie pulls some kind of Carly Patterson back handspring thingie that ends in a set of splits and has the entire cafeteria on their feet, cheering. I rise to my feet as well… then start toward her. Lakeisha may have gone home, but Marnie’s still here, and might be able to confirm whether or not her roommate had ever hooked up with Christopher Allington.
But Jordan grabs me by the arm before I’ve gone two steps.
“Where are you going?” he asks worriedly. “You aren’t trying to sneak out of here before we’ve had our talk, are you, Heather?”
Jordan smells of Drakkar Noir, which is distracting. He’d worn Carolina Herrera for Men when he’d been with me, so clearly the Drakkar Noir is courtesy of Tania.
“I’ll be back in a minute,” I say, patting him reassuringly on the arm—his very buff arm. He’s been bulking up for his next tour, and it shows. In a good way. “I promise.”
“Heather,” Jordan begins, but I won’t let him finish.
“I promise,” I say. “When this thing is over, we’ll have a nice, long chat.”
Jordan looks placated.
“All right,” he says. “Good.”
I see Marnie cross to the side of the dining hall where all the other acts have gathered to await the decision of the judges, and while the next group sets up for their performance, I hurry over to her.
Marnie has pulled off her blond wig and is wiping sweat from beneath her eyes. She smiles when she sees me approach.
“Marnie,” I say. “Nice performance.”
“Oh, thanks,” she simpers. “I was worried you’d be mad. I finally figured out who you were, as you can see.”
“Yeah,” I say. “Look, I have to ask you something. Could that guy Elizabeth was seeing right before she died… could his name have been Chris?”
Marnie, clearly disappointed that the only reason I’ve sought her out is to talk about her dead roommate some more, shrugs unconcernedly.
“I don’t know. It was something like that. Chris or Mark.”
“Thanks,” I say. She turns to say something slighting about one of the other acts to the trio of Christina wannabes, and I have to reach out and tug on her sleeve. “Uh, Marnie?”
She glances back at me. “Yeah?”
“See that girl over there in the fifth row, about ten seats over, talking to that blond guy?”
Marnie looks. Her eyebrows raise.
“That guy’s a babe. Who is he?”
“So you don’t know him?”
“Not yet,” she says, making it clear she intends to rectify that situation.
I try to hide my disappointment. Maybe if I can get my hands on a photo of Christopher Allington, I could waylay Lakeisha outside one of her classes and get her to make an ID that way…
Then I think of something.
“Do you know the girl?” I ask Marnie.
She purses her lips.
“Kinda. She lives on the twelfth floor. I think her name is Amber or something.”
Amber. Perfect. I have a name now, and a floor to go with it.
I get back to my seat just as two guys in drag launch into a rendition of “Dude Looks Like a Lady.” Jordan leans over and whispers into my ear, “What was that all about?”
I just smile and shrug. There’s no point trying to scream above the sound system, and besides, Sarah is eyeing me critically from over her clipboard. I don’t think she appreciates me fraternizing with the contestants, since it might render me less than impartial in my judging.
So I sit helplessly in my chair while Christopher Allington is possibly—probably—schmoozing with his next victim. Amber—from what I can tell, given that I’m only able to catch brief glimpses of her, not wanting to look as if I’m staring—seems to be coming to life under Christopher’s attentions. She fiddles with her red-brown hair and squirms in her seat, grinning nonstop and generally acting like a girl who has never had a handsome boy pay attention to her in her life. I watch worriedly, chewing my lower lip, wondering if tomorrow morning, we’re going to find Amber at the bottom of the elevator shaft.
Except that I can’t really see Christopher as the murdering type. The deflowering type, yeah. But a murderer?
Then again, Evita Peron’s husband had been a notorious letch, and I read somewhere that he killed a bunch of people in Argentina, which is why Madonna didn’t want people to cry for her in that song.
Finally the lip-synch ends. Greg, the hall president, comes out and announces that the judges should begin deliberating. Everyone else gets up and heads for the Doritos (luckies). Rachel scoots her chair around so that she is facing me and Jordan and Sarah.
“Well,” she says, smiling at me. “What did you think?”
I think we’ve got a problem, I want to say. A really big problem. And not with the contest.
But instead I say, “I liked Marnie.”
Jordan interjects, “You would! No, those guys who did the ’N Sync song were much better. They really had the choreography down. I gave ’em tens.”
Sarah says, “Their ironic take on the boy band was deeply amusing.”
“Um,” I say. “I liked Marnie.”
“And she’s been through so much,” Rachel agrees, earnestly. “It’s the least we can do, don’t you think?”
Just wanting to get the whole thing over with as soon as possible so I can make up an excuse to go talk to Chris, I say, “Yeah, okay. So let’s give Marnie first place, ’N Sync second, and the Christina trio third.”
Jordan looks a little peeved by the fact that we’ve basically ignored his input, but he doesn’t argue.
Rachel goes off to tell Greg our decision, and I turn in my seat to spy on Christopher some more…
… just in time to see him leaving, one arm draped casually over Amber’s shoulders.
I’m out of my chair like a shot, without a word to Jordan or anybody. I hear him call after me, but I don’t have any time to waste with explanations. Christopher and Amber are already halfway through the TV lounge. If I don’t act fast, that girl might end up as a stain on the elevator motor room floor.
But then, to my astonishment, instead of turning toward the elevators, Amber and Christopher actually walk out the front doors of the building.
I follow, darting past the groups of kids congregated in the lobby. Nighttime is when the hall really comes alive. Residents I’ve never seen before are leaning against the reception desk, cha
tting with the student worker on duty. The guard—not Pete, who works days—is harassing a clique of kids who claim to know someone on the fifth floor whose name they couldn’t remember. Why can’t the guard just be a pal and let them in?
I bolt past all of them, throwing open the doors and stumbling out into the warm autumnal evening.
Washington Square Park is crawling with cops at night, cops and tourists and drug dealers and chess players, who sit at the benches in the chess circle until the park closes at midnight, playing by the light of the street lamps. High school kids from Westchester, in their parents’ Volvos, tool down the street, playing their radios too loudly and occasionally having their cars impounded for creating a public nuisance. It’s a wild scene, and one of the reasons why so many kids request rooms overlooking the Square… when there’s nothing on TV, there’s always the park to watch.
Which is precisely what Christopher and Amber are doing. They’re leaning against one of Fischer Hall’s outdoor planters, smoking cigarettes, and watching the NYPD make a bust across the street. Christopher has his arms folded across his chest, and is puffing away like Johnny Depp or someone, while Amber twitters like a little bird, holding her cigarette like someone who isn’t used to holding one at all.
There isn’t a moment to lose, I can see that. I approach them, trying to look casual. I imagine that’s how Cooper would have handled the situation, anyway.
“Hey,” I say amiably to Christopher. “Can I bum a smoke?”
“Sure,” says Christopher. He draws a pack of Camel Lights from his shirt pocket and hands me one.
“Thanks,” I say. I put the cigarette between my lips, then lean down so Christopher can light it with the Zippo he’s brandished.
I’ve never been a smoker. For one thing, if you’re a singer, it messes up your vocal cords. For another, I just don’t get how a cigarette could ever be better than a Butterfinger, so if you’re going to indulge, why not go the way of delicious peanut buttery crisp?
But I stand there and pretend to inhale, wondering what I should do next. What would Nancy Drew do? Jessica Fletcher? That other one, what was her name? On Crossing Jordan? God, I totally suck as a detective. What’s going to happen after Cooper and I get together—you know, after I get my degree and all? How are we going to be all Nick and Nora Charles, when Nora can’t hold up her share of the detecting? This is a very distressing thought. I try to push it from my mind.