by Meg Cabot
I know what she’s about to ask—if it’s Mrs. Allington.
“No,” I say firmly. “Not even close. It has to do with Junior.” That’s our code name for Christopher.
“Oh God,” Sarah says, sounding disgusted. “I don’t want to know, do I?”
I look behind me. Through the French doors, I can see the EMTs putting away their equipment. Tania is looking a bit less forlorn. She’s even managing to smile a bit. Jordan is on his feet and shaking the female attendant’s hand.
“No,” I say to Sarah, turning around again. “You don’t want to know. So why were you crying?”
“I don’t feel like talking about it,” Sarah says, sullen again. “It’s personal.”
I’m fairly certain I know what’s troubling her. She’s had another fight with Sebastian Blumenthal, the first real love of her life. Sebastian’s head of the GSC, the Graduate Student Union, and teaches at New York College. I once strongly suspected him of murder, but I guess that’s not unusual, given that he carries a man purse . . . not a messenger bag or a backpack, but an honest-to-goodness murse.
“That’s all right,” I say to Sarah. “Maybe we can talk about it tomor—”
“Great, bye,” Sarah interrupts, and hangs up on me.
Wow. I can’t keep track of all the ups and downs of Sarah’s turbulent relationship, but I do know that tomorrow morning I’ll be picking up chocolate croissants on my way in to work. They usually cheer her up.
I hang up too, then turn around and notice that Jordan has come out onto the terrace. He’s joined Cooper and Christopher and Stephanie, who’ve stood up from the table. Tania is still sitting on the couch inside. She’s pulled a large designer purse onto her lap and is digging around in it. The EMTs appear to have gone.
I go stand by Cooper’s side and catch only the tail end of what Jordan is saying.
“—definitely dehydrated and most likely anemic.”
“Well, that’s no surprise,” Stephanie says. “She’s vegan.”
Cooper says, without a hint of irony in his voice, “You know, Stephanie, I’ve heard it’s possible these days to be vegan and not be anemic.”
I hide a smile. Cooper eats cheeseburgers like they’re about to be declared illegal, and he needs to get as many under his belt as possible before the legislation passes. The worst part of it is that he never gains an ounce—possibly from his enthusiastic exercise regime, which includes playing one-on-one basketball on the Third Street courts—and has the blood pressure of a polar bear. Some people have all the luck in the genetic lottery.
So it’s amusing to see him coming to the defense of a vegetarian.
“I’m just saying.” Stephanie had obviously been assuming, because Cooper’s a guy, that she could score points with him by maligning vegans. Ha. Wrong. Cooper doesn’t care what people do, so long as they don’t hurt other people. “She’s pregnant. She needs to be careful. Pregnant women need more iron than the rest of us, and there’s a lot of iron in red meat.”
“That’s what the ambulance lady said.” Jordan is looking worried. “She told us Tania should see her private physician tomorrow morning for blood work. But also that Tania should go home now and rest.”
“Of course,” Stephanie says, putting her hand on Jordan’s shoulder and patting it. “Of course she should. You two go home and get some sleep. It’s been a long night.”
This is quite a turnaround from before, when Stephanie had been standing there practically forcing them to keep filming, even though Tania had fainted. I wonder what’s changed.
“I’ll set up an appointment with Tania’s ob-gyn tomorrow morning. Don’t you worry about a thing.” She’s already typing swiftly into her cell phone with one hand and at the same time snapping at the production assistant with the other. “Lauren. Lauren. Tell them to pull the car around. Jordan and Tania need to leave. Everyone, you can start loading up your stuff. We’re going.”
Lauren, standing at the far side of the terrace enjoying a cigarette with Marcos the boom guy, puts down her Red Bull and touches her headset, then begins speaking swiftly into it. The rest of the crew go inside and begin to pack away their equipment.
“So,” Stephanie says to me and Cooper, “after we drop off Jordan and Tania, would you two like to join us for a drink back at Epiphany? I’d love to get to know you a little better. I think it would be amazing to have you do a little cameo on the show, Heather. The fact that you used to live with one Cartwright brother but now you—”
“Live with another?” I finish for her quickly, my gaze going to Jordan. “No, that’s okay. My career in the entertainment business is finished, I’m afraid. Besides, it’s a little late for drinks. I’m a regular working girl now and have to be back here at nine tomorrow morning, so, no.”
Jordan is looking from me to Cooper. “You guys sure?” he asks. “It would be fun to have you on the show. Mom and Dad would love it.”
“No thanks,” Cooper says, like he’s refusing seconds at dinner.
“Suit yourself,” Jordan says. “But we should still do drinks sometime. Well, Tania can’t drink, but, you know. Hey.” He looks at Stephanie. “Speaking of Tania, that’s not all.”
“Uh-huh.” Stephanie’s gaze has gone back to her keypad, like the mere mention of Tania Trace forces her to start text-ing. “What else?”
Jordan’s gaze strays toward Tania, back in the Allingtons’ living room. She’s found what it was she was looking for in her bag. Incredibly, it’s a live dog—a Chihuahua—that Tania is holding up in the air, oblivious to everyone else in the room. The dog wriggles in ecstasy, probably from a combination of finally being released from the bag and seeing its mistress. Tania smiles fondly up at the dog, which promptly begins to lick her all over the face.
This is pretty normal behavior for a dog owner—Lucy and I regularly share the same plate. I can’t help it if she jumps onto the couch and starts eating my food, and I’ve caught Cooper letting her do the exact same thing. I know the Dog Whisperer wouldn’t approve, but what are we going to do, push her away? She came from the shelter, she was probably abused as a puppy.
Of course, it’s a problem that lately the cat, Owen, has started to move in on the action as well.
I’m not at all surprised to see Tania letting her dog give her face a tongue bath, but Stephanie, who’s also followed Jordan’s gaze, looks away, revolted.
“What is it, Jordan?” she asks.
“It’s about the camp,” Jordan says. “The rock camp?”
“What about it?” Stephanie asks. I notice the vein in her head has begun to throb again.
“Tania says she doesn’t want to go. Not without Bear.”
“Well, she’s going to have to go without Bear,” Stephanie says, without looking up from her screen. “Because Bear is going to have to get his spleen removed thanks to the stray bullet that pierced it, and he’s not going to be springing back from that any time soon. At least, not in time to go to rock camp with Tania.”
“But,” Jordan says.
“You know what your father’s going to say, Jordan,” Stephanie reminds him.
Jordan looks down at his shoes. “Oh,” he says. “Okay. Yeah.”
“But don’t worry,” Stephanie says. “We’ll get her another bodyguard.”
“Sure,” Jordan says. He continues to stare at his shoes. They’re some kind of trainers, huge and black with colorful neon swoops on the sides. “Of course.”
Something is clearly bothering him. Whatever it is, he doesn’t mention it out loud. He just stands there, staring down at the swoops on his shoes.
“Hey, buddy,” Cooper says, noticing the same thing I am. “Everything all right?”
Jordan glances up, then smiles his sweet, dumb smile. “Yeah,” he says. “Why wouldn’t it be? I got my own TV show, dawg. It’s all good.” Then, as if really seeing the two of us for the first time, he asks, his eyes narrowing suspiciously, “Hey, are you two together or something?”
Christo
pher, to whom Cooper announced that we’re engaged, glances at Jordan oddly, but before he can open his mouth to speak, Cooper says, “What would make you think that, Jordan?”
“I don’t know,” Jordan says, with a shrug. “You just look . . . together. But I know my big brother Coop would never scam on my best girl.” Jordan grins at Cooper, then raises his fist and gives him a mock punch in the shoulder.
There’s an uncomfortable silence until finally Cooper asks Jordan the obvious question. “Isn’t Tania your best girl? She’s your wife.”
“Well, yeah,” Jordan says, lowering his fist. “But Heather was my first.”
“Jordan, we were never married,” I remind him, keeping the frustration from my voice with difficulty.
Sometimes it’s hard to remember what I ever saw in Jordan. Except that he was cute and could be very sweet and affectionate when we were alone together, a lot like Tania’s Chihuahua.
“And even if we were married,” I say, “we’re broken up now. So does that mean I can’t go out with anyone else?”
Jordan looks confused. “No,” he says. “You can go out with whoever you want to . . . except him.” He points at Cooper. “Because that would be like incest.”
Fortunately Lauren, the production assistant, pokes her head through the French doors and calls, tapping on her headset, “Car’s ready downstairs.”
“Oops,” Jordan says. “Gotta go. Call me.” He gives me a quick kiss on the top of the head, faux-punches Cooper in the shoulder again, then turns around to jog back into the Allingtons’ apartment to collect his wife and her tiny dog.
When I glance at Stephanie and Christopher, I see both of them staring at Cooper and me, Stephanie with an expression that reminds me of Owen the cat when he is scheming a way to get more half-and-half out of one of us.
Cooper must have noticed Stephanie’s expression too, since the next words out of his mouth are, “May I remind you that if either Jordan or Tania hears a single word about the two of us being engaged, I’ll know it came from one of you, and I’ll make certain that stories I’m pretty sure you want kept out of the press show up exactly where you least want them to. Understand?”
The smile vanishes from Stephanie’s face. “What stories?”
“I understand,” Christopher says quickly.
Stephanie glances at him, horrified. “He’s talking about you? My God, I thought he meant some deep dark secret from the Cartwright family that could hurt the show. But he means you? What did you do?”
“Nothing,” Christopher says, taking her arm and steering her away from us. “It was stupid.”
“But—”
“Just drop it.”
“So,” I say to Cooper as they walk away, arguing in whispers. “That went well.”
Cooper smiles, then glances at his watch. “I think the ball game is probably still on. If we walk fast, I can catch the last inning.”
“By all means, then,” I say. “Let us walk fast.”
On our walk home—after making sure everyone involved with CRT is signed out of the building—I can’t help dragging my feet a little, thinking back to the way Jordan kept staring down at his shoes. There was something he’d wanted to say, I’m sure of it. He’d either lacked the mental capacity or been too frightened to utter whatever it was out loud.
It’s possible I’m projecting, though. We learned about projecting last week in my Psych 101 class. Projecting is when a person ascribes feelings or emotions that she herself is experiencing onto others as a psychological defense mechanism.
God knows I have reason to be frightened of the Allingtons’ terrace, so I could be imagining the fear. Whatever it was Jordan had to say, it must not have been that important. Because if it was, wouldn’t he have figured out how to say it?
Assuming this turns out to be my first mistake. Well, maybe my second. My first mistake was coming over to the building that night to begin with.
“You know,” I say as Cooper and I are walking up the steps to the front door of what he now insists I call “our” brownstone, “for a guy who isn’t that close with his little brother, you sure raced into the Allingtons’ apartment pretty fast when you heard his voice. You practically ran Christopher Allington over.”
Cooper is digging around in his pocket for his keys. “Yeah?” His tone is uninterested. “Well, Christopher Allington has a history of being a douchebag. I tend to use extra caution when dealing with known douchebags.”
“That’s probably wise,” I say. “Is that why you were asking so many questions?”
“Heather, need I remind you that a man got shot?” He’s found his key chain and hits the clicker on it that remotely deactivates the brownstone’s alarm system. I hear the control panel inside the door beep, giving us the all clear. Only then does Cooper begin undoing the lock. “I might even stop by the hospital when Mr. Bear is feeling better and ask him a few questions. But that doesn’t mean I’m getting involved in the mess that is my brother Jordan’s life.”
“What does it mean then?” I ask. “Because it sounds like you are getting involved. And you told me I have to stay out of the amateur sleuthing business.”
“It means I’m allowed to get involved if I want to because I have a license to practice private investigation,” he says. “Issued to me by the state of New York. Am I going to have to show it to you?”
“I think you are,” I say gravely. “And possibly your wrist restraints too.”
He grins as he kicks open the door. “Get inside and I will.”
Chapter 6
A Fine Line
He said he liked my lips
He said he liked my eyes
But I had to realize
I was big in the thighs
He said my mind was fine
My voice was sweet like wine
But I was the wrong size
And I’d have to realize
There’s a fine fine line
Between good and great
A fine fine line
Between chance and fate
And to be with him,
I’d have to lose some weight
Because winners win
and losers don’t wait
I said to him
As I sipped my wine
That I understood, and it was time
To say good-bye, ’cause my size is fine
There’s a fine fine line
Between good and great
A fine fine line
Between chance and fate
A fine fine line
Between slide and skate
And winners may win
But losers don’t wait
“A Fine Line”
Written by Heather Wells
A week and a half later, I’m staring at my reflection in the full-length mirrors of a local clothing store. Three full-length mirrors, to be exact, side by side, each telling me the same thing:
No, no, and definitely not.
“Oh,” the saleswoman says, adjusting the shoulder strap of the floor-skimming, empire-waisted, pure white gown that I’m trying on. “It’s you. It’s just so you.”
It’s so not me.
“You look so beautiful.” The saleswoman busies herself straightening out the folds of the gown I’d found crumpled in the sales rack, marked down to 75 percent off. That’s the only reason I decided to try it on.
Well, that and the fact that it was the only one remotely close to my size. The last time I’d been shopping, I’d barely been able to squeeze into a 14. But I was surprised to see that when I held up this dress—a 12—to me, it looked as if it would fit.
It does.
Looks like the bridal gown designers have finally caught on to the vanity size thing like the rest of the fashion industry, though I’d like to think I’ve dropped a few pounds. I read somewhere that lovemaking burns two hundred calories an hour, a disappointingly low number compared to horseback riding (six hundred). But still impressive.
I have been eatin
g a little less lately, not only because I’ve been too distracted by all the recent activity going on in my bedroom since Cooper and I started hooking up to go see what’s in the fridge, but because the Fischer Hall cafeteria is closed for renovations too, which means I can no longer stroll fifty feet down the hall from my office to grab a free bagel and cream cheese (with bacon). I have to walk all the way across the park to the Pansy Café (the closest place that accepts New York College dining cards).
However, I went to the gyno last week for my annual, and I know I weigh exactly the same as last year, give or take a pound or two.
“You’re having a beach wedding, right?” the saleswoman says, bringing my attention back to the situation at hand. “Then this is perfect, simply perfect.”
I’d explained to her about Cooper’s desire for an elopement. But Cooper’s idea is that we’re going to get married in October on the Cape, making this summery gown about as appropriate as a bikini in Anchorage. I don’t even know what I’d been thinking, trying it on. I must have been seized by wedding madness, brought on by the fact that the store is slashing the prices of all its summer stock to make room for its fall clothes, even though it’s still only July.
Maybe it would look better with one of those cute glittery cardigans they have on all the mannequins . . .
No. No one wears a cardigan with a wedding gown. Except Kate Middleton, but she only wore one with the dress she changed into for the reception. And there isn’t going to be a reception, because so far we haven’t told anyone about our wedding plans, except Christopher Allington and Stephanie Brewer the Sunday before last. But that hadn’t exactly been an invitation.
So what am I doing, trying on wedding dresses? I know, but I don’t want to think about it.