by Meg Cabot
He’s right. The park is a dead zone. The streets around it have barely been plowed at all. There isn’t a car to be seen, except way over on Eighth Street. None of the cabdrivers there can see us, however, no matter how frantically I wave.
I’m flummoxed. I don’t know what to do with Jordan. I believe his claim that none of the car services are able to make it over the bridges. And no way am I calling his dad—the man who told me nobody wants to listen to my “angry-rocker-chick shit”—to see if he can swing by in the family limo.
Jordan himself is happy as a clam, stumbling along between us, but he’s definitely the worse for wear. I can’t just leave him on someone’s doorstep—tempting as the idea seems. He’ll freeze to death. And it’s blocks—long blocks, not short ones—to the subway, and in the opposite direction—we’d have to go past Waverly Hall to get to Astor Place.
And I’m not risking running into any angry frat boys. Especially since I can hear sirens in the distance. The fire department must be automatically notified when the sprinkler system goes off.
Between us, Jordan raises his head and cries happily, having heard the sirens as well, “Oh, hey! Here come the cops!”
“I can’t believe you were ever engaged to this guy,” Gavin says in disgust—revealing, albeit accidentally, that he’s been Googling me. “He’s such a tool.”
“He wasn’t always like this,” I assure Gavin. Although the truth is, I think Jordan probably was always like this. I just never noticed, because I was so young and stupid. And besotted with him. “Besides, he’s getting married the day after tomorrow. He’s a little nervous.”
“Not day after tomorrow,” Gavin says. “Tomorrow. It’s past midnight. It’s officially Friday.”
“Crap,” I say. The Cartwrights have to be wondering what happened to their youngest son. Tania’s probably frantic. If she’s even noticed he’s gone, that is. I can’t send him back to her like this—with his pants half open and lipstick marks all over his face. God, why can’t he be just a little more like his brother?
Oh, God. His brother. Cooper is going to kill me when he finds out where I’ve been. And I’m going to have to tell him. I can’t drag Jordan home like this and not explain.
And I have to take Jordan home. It’s the only place I can bring him. I don’t think I can carry him much farther. Plus, I’m freezing to death. Pantyhose are definitely not suitable leg wear the night after a blizzard in Manhattan in January. I don’t know how those girls in the low-riders could stand it. Weren’t their belly buttons cold?
“Okay,” I say to Gavin, as we reach the corner of Washington Square Park North and West. “Here’s the deal. We’re taking him to my house.”
“Are you serious? I get to see where you live?” Gavin’s grin, in the pink glow of the street lamps, alarms me.“Sweet!”
“No, it’s not sweet, Gavin,” I snap. “It’s the opposite of sweet. Jordan’s brother is my landlord, and he’s going to be upset—very upset—if he hears us come in and sees Jordan like this. So we’ve got to be quiet. Super-quiet.”
“I can do that,” Gavin says gallantly.
“Because it’s not just Cooper I don’t want to wake up,” I tell him. “My, um, dad is staying there, too.”
“I get to meet your dad? The one who was in jail?” Oh, yes. Gavin’s definitely been Googling me.
“No, you don’t get to meet him,” I say. “Because hopefully he, like Cooper, will be asleep. And we’re not waking him up. Right?”
“Right,” Gavin says, with a sigh.
“Heather.” Jordan is dragging his feet a bit more.
“Shut up, Jordan,” I say. “We’re almost there.”
“Heather,” Jordan says again.
“Jordan,” I say. “I swear to God, if you throw up on me, I will kill you.”
“Heather,” Jordan says for a third time. “I think someone slipped something into my drink.”
I look at him in some alarm. “You mean this isn’t how you always are after a party?”
“Of course not,” Jordan slurs. “I only had one beer.”
“Yeah,” I say. “But how many glasses of wine did you have before you got downtown?”
“Only ten,” Jordan says innocently. “Hey. Speaking of which. Where are my skis?”
“Oh, I’m sure they’re fine, Jordan,” I say. “You can pick them up in the morning. Why would someone put something in your drink?”
“To take advantage of me, of course,” Jordan says. “Everyone wants a piece of me. Everyone wants a piece of Jordan Cartwright pie.”
Gavin, who gets a faceful of Jordan’s beery breath as he says this, wrinkles his nose. “Not me,” he says.
We’ve reached Cooper’s house. I stop to dig my keys from my purse, and give a mini-lecture as I do so.
“Now, when we get inside,” I say to Gavin, “we’re just going to dump Jordan on the couch in the living room. Then I’m taking you back to Fischer Hall.”
“I don’t need no escort,” Gavin says scornfully, his street slang coming back now that there are no Tau Phis in sight and he’s feeling cocky again.
“Those frat boys are angry,” I say. “And they know where you live—”
“Aw, hell, woman,” Gavin says. “Steve-O don’t know shit about me except my name. I was never cool enough for him ’cause I don’t like putting chemicals in my body.”
“Except twenty-one shots.”
“I mean except for alcohol,” Gavin amends.
“Fine,” I say. “We’ll argue about it later. First we’ll put Jordan down on the couch. Then we’ll worry about getting you home.”
“It’s two blocks away,” Gavin says.
“Heather.”
“Not now, Jordan,” I say. “Gavin, I just don’t want you—”
“Heather,” Jordan says again.
“What, Jordan?”
“Cooper’s looking at us.”
I look up.
And sure enough, there’s Cooper’s face in the window by the door. A second later, we hear the locks being thrown back.
“Okay,” I say to Gavin, my heart beginning to pound. “Change of plans. On the count of three, we ditch Jordan, then run like hell. One. Two.”
“Don’t even think about it,” Cooper says, as he comes out onto the stoop. He’s wearing cords and a wool sweater. He looks warm and calm and sensible. I long to throw myself at him, bury my head against his hard chest, breathe his Cooper-y scent, and tell him what a terrible evening I’ve had.
Instead, I say, “I can explain.”
“I’m sure you can,” Cooper says. “Well, come on. Get him inside.”
We drag Jordan inside, with effort—especially since Lucy appears and begins jumping excitedly all over us. Well, me, actually. Fortunately, my thighs are so frozen I can’t feel her nails as they rake my nylon stockings.
It’s as Lucy leaps up in an effort to lick Jordan’s hand that he suddenly becomes very vivacious, saying, as we haul him past Cooper, into the foyer, “Hi ya, bro! What’s happenin’?”
“Your fiancée called,” Cooper says, as he closes the door behind us and begins working all the locks. “That’s what’s happening. Did you just take off without telling anyone where you were going?”
“Pretty much,” Jordan says, as we let him go and he flops back against his grandfather’s somewhat dilapidated pink couch, where Lucy begins licking him in earnest. “Ow. Nice doggie. Make the room stop spinning, please.”
“How did he even get down here?” Cooper wants to know. “There aren’t any cabs. And no way Jordan took the subway.”
“He skied,” I explain lamely. It’s mercifully warm in the house. I can feel my thighs twitching as they defrost.
“He skied?” Cooper raises both eyebrows. “Where are his skis?”
“He lost them,” Gavin says.
Cooper seems to notice Gavin for the first time. “Oh,” he says. “You again, eh?”
“You shouldn’t be mad at Heather,” Gavin beg
ins. “It was all that guy’s fault. See, she was trying to sober him up with a brisk walk around the park, but he wouldn’t go for it. Fortunately I was passing by and was able to help get him here, or who knows what would have happened. Guy could have frozen. Or worse. I hear there’s a doctor who jumps on any drunks he finds in the park and harvests their kidneys to donate to wealthy Bolivians on dialysis. You wake up in the morning all achy and you don’t know why—and boom. Turns out someone stole your kidney.”
Wow. Gavin really is the king of the improv. He lies with such ease, and so convincingly, I can’t help wondering how many of the stories he’s fed me over the months I’ve known him were fabrications like the one he just came up with.
Cooper, however, doesn’t look impressed.
“Right,” he says. “Well, thank you for your aid. I think we can handle it from here, though. So goodbye.”
“I’ll walk you back,” I start to say to Gavin, but a voice from the hallway interrupts me.
“There she is!” My dad comes in, dressed in pajamas and a robe. It’s clear from the way a tuft of what’s left of his hair is sticking up in the back that he’d been asleep, but Tania’s call had wakened him as well as Cooper. “Heather, we were so worried. When that Tania person phoned, and then we couldn’t find you—don’t you ever do that again, young lady! If you’re going to go out, you had better darn well tell one of us where you’re going.”
I blink, looking from my father to Cooper and back again. “Are you serious?” I ask incredulously.
“I’ll walk Gavin back,” Cooper says, making it evident that he’s anticipated my next move—avoidance. “Heather, get some blankets for Jordan. Alan, call Tania back and tell her Jordan’s crashing here for the night.”
Dad nods. “I’ll say he was at an impromptu bachelor party,” he tells us. “And came here to sleep so as not to disturb her.”
I just stare—mostly because I’ve forgotten my dad has a first name, and that Cooper had just used it. But also at the preposterousness of what Dad’s just said.
“Jordan doesn’t have any friends,” I say. “Who’s going to throw him a bachelor party? And he’d never be that considerate, not to disturb her.”
“I do so have friends,” Jordan insists from the couch, where Lucy has progressed to licking his face. “You two are my friends. Or six. Or however many you are.”
“I don’t need anyone to walk me back,” Gavin declares, as Cooper reaches for his coat.
“Maybe not,” Cooper says grimly. “But I need some fresh air. Come on.”
The two of them go out, leaving me alone with Jordan and my father—two men who both abandoned me when I needed them most, and then both came crawling back when I didn’t need—or want—them at all.
“You owe me,” I say to Jordan, after I’ve stalked back into the living room with a blanket—and a salad bowl to throw up in—for him. Even though I’m fairly positive he won’t remember any of this in the morning, I add, “And I’m still not coming to your wedding.” To my dad, I say, “Don’t tell Tania I was with him when you call her.”
“I may have been in prison for the past two decades, Heather,” Dad says, with wounded dignity. “But I still have some idea how these things work.”
“Well, good for you,” I say. Then, calling for Lucy, I hurry up the stairs to my own apartment, hoping if I lock the door and get in bed fast enough, I’ll miss Cooper’s return. I know Sarah would accuse me of practicing avoidance techniques.
But hey, when it comes to Cooper sometimes avoidance is the only way to go.
23
’Cause when she’s his wife
And not you
She’s not the only one
Who’s playin’ the fool.
“Marriage Song”
Written by Heather Wells
I sneak away the next morning to avoid Cooper. I do this by rising at the ungodly hour of eight, and manage to get bathed and dressed and out the door by eight-thirty. This is so unlike my usual schedule—of not appearing downstairs before eight fifty-five—that I avoid everyone in the house, including my dad, who is still tootling his Indian flute “tribute to the morning” song when I creep by his room, Timberlands in hand so as not to cause the floorboards to creak.
There’s no sign of Cooper—a peek through his partly open bedroom door reveals a neatly made bed—or, more ominously, Jordan. The blankets beneath which Jordan had slept are folded at the end of the couch, and the salad bowl sits on top of them, mercifully empty. It seems clear to me what’s happened: Cooper roused his brother and is currently transporting him in his own vehicle uptown. There’s no way Jordan would have woken so early on his own the morning after a tear like last night’s. I’ve known Jordan to sleep until four in the afternoon the night after a carouse. Our mutual dislike of morning was one of the only traits we had in common—besides an affection for Girl Scout cookies (him: Thin Mints. Me: Do-Si-Does).
Feeling as if I’ve just won the lottery, I let Lucy out to do her business, grab a chocolate-chip protein bar (for energy during the walk to work), let her back in, and take off—only to find a note taped to the front door.
Heather, it reads, in Cooper’s neat, infinitesimally tiny handwriting, which I have been forced to learn to read in my capacity as his bookkeeper,we’ve got to talk.
Heather, we’ve got to talk? Heather, we’ve got to talk?Could there be four more ominous words in the English language than we’ve got to talk? I mean, seriously, who wants to see a note that says THAT taped to their front door?
No one, that’s who.
Which is why I pull it off and crumple it into my pocket on my way out the door.
What could Cooper want to talk to me about? The fact that I dragged his brother home last night, dead drunk, to sleep it off on his couch, when Cooper’s made it more than clear he wants nothing to do with his immediate family? The fact that I snuck out to investigate Lindsay Combs’s murder, without telling anyone where I was going and after I’d sworn that this time I would leave the detecting up to the professionals? Or possibly the fact that I endangered the life of one of my residents while doing so?
Or maybe it didn’t even have anything to do with what happened last night. Maybe Cooper’s decided he’s sick of putting up with the Wellses and all of their quirks—Dad’s Indian flute and my tendency to drag home drunk pop stars and twenty-one-year-old baggy-panted wannabe gangstas. Maybe he’s going to toss us all out on our ears. Some of us would certainly deserve that kind of treatment.
And I’m not talking about Lucy or my dad.
My walk to work is reflective and sad. Even the protein bar tastes a lot more like cardboard and a lot less like a Kit Kat bar than usual. I don’t want to get kicked out of Cooper’s house. It’s the only home I’ve ever known, really, not counting the apartment Jordan and I lived in together, now forever tainted by the memory of seeing him with Tania Trace’s lips locked around his—
“Heather!” Reggie, back on his usual corner, seems surprised to see me out and about so early.I’m surprised to see him back at work. Though the snow has stopped and the plows have made some headway, the streets are still mere narrow strips between vast mountains of piled-up snow.
“Morning, Reggie,” I say, coming out from behind a six-foot drift covering some unfortunate person’s car. “That was some storm, huh?”
“I wasn’t too happy about it,” Reggie says. He’s bundled up against the cold in a gold Tommy Hilfiger parka. A paper cup of coffee steams in his gloved hands. “Sometimes I think it might be better to return to the islands.”
“But what would you do there?” I ask, genuinely interested.
“My parents have a banana plantation,” Reggie says. “I could help manage it. They have wanted me to come home to do so for a long time. But I make more money here.”
I can’t help but mentally contrast the Winer boys and their family situation with Reggie’s. Doug and Steve Winer’s dad wants them to make their own fortunes, and so the boys h
ave turned to selling drugs. Reggie’s parents want him to take over the family business, but he makes more money selling drugs. The whole thing is just… stupid.
“I think you’d be better off on the banana farm, Reggie,” I say. “For what it’s worth. It’d be a lot less dangerous.”
Reggie seems to consider this. “Except during hurricane season,” he finally concedes. “But if I were back there, I would miss seeing your happy face every morning, Heather.”
“I could come visit,” I say. “I’ve never been to a banana farm.”
“You wouldn’t like it,” Reggie says, with a grin that shows all his gold teeth. “We get up very early there, before light. Because of the roosters.”
“God,” I say, horrified. “That sounds awful. No wonder you prefer it in New York.”
“Plus, if you can make it here, you can make it anywhere,” Reggie says, with a shrug.
“Totally,” I say. “Hey, did you hear anything about that Doug Winer guy I asked you about?”
Reggie’s smile fades. “I did not,” he says. “Although I did hear there was a bit of a ruckus in one of the fraternities last night.”
I raise my eyebrows. “Really? Wow. What kind of ruckus?”
“One that apparently involved your ex, Jordan Cartwright,” Reggie says. “But that must be just a rumor, because what would the famous Jordan Cartwright be doing at a fraternity party two nights before his wedding?”
“You’re right,” I say. “That must be just a rumor. Well, I better go. Don’t want to be late!”
“No,” Reggie agrees gravely. “Not you.”
“See you later! Stay warm!” I wave cheerfully, then duck around the corner onto Washington Square West. Phew! That was close. I can’t believe word about what happened last night has already reached the drug dealers. I wonder if it will make Page Six. Thank God the Greeks don’t have a sign-in policy. I’d be in so much trouble at work if it got out I’d been there… .
When I walk through the front door of Fischer Hall at twenty of nine, Pete, who is at the security desk, nearly chokes on his bagel.