by Meg Cabot
I haven’t seen much of Cooper over the past few days, not only because whatever he’s been doing to prep for guarding Tania is taking up so much of his time, but also because I’ve been having to stay later and later at Fischer Hall every night. Miraculously, I’ve accomplished practically everything on my pre-check-in to-do list:
Made sure we have enough keys for each resident? (You would not believe the number of students who move out and forget to give back their key.) Check.
Gone over every detail about the assigned rooms, from the toilets (do they flush without flooding the room below?) to the window guards. (Does every window have one? Often residents remove the window guards so they can open the windows wider than the regulation two inches in order to stick their heads through the gap to smoke. In my experience, this only ends with bodies falling out of windows and hitting the skylight in the cafeteria.) Check.
Met with the housekeepers, building engineers, and resident assistants (thank goodness I hired one for every two basketball players—I’ve put them in charge of making cute name tags to stick on the front of each camper’s door) to make sure everything is ready and nothing could possibly go wrong, including confiscating the not-so-secret stash of cigars that belongs to Carl, the chief engineer? (I’ll return them to him by the end of the day.) Check.
Spoken with every single mail attendant, member of the paint crew, and security guard to ensure that, despite the presence of major celebrities in our midst, regular daily tasks like sorting and forwarding the mail and painting the rooms will continue as usual and every single visitor to the building, no matter how famous, will be required to leave photo ID and be signed in at the security desk? Check, check, and check.
Sure, I’m exhausted, because I’ve had to do all of this on my own, since Lisa Wu was still moving in and Sarah was continuing to work through whatever it is she’s working through and was too grumpy to be helpful. One of the tasks on my to-do list was to find out what was wrong with Sarah. Sadly, I wasn’t able to put a check next to this item.
“Sarah,” I said to her the day before check-in, “do you want to take a break and go get a cup of coffee? Brad can cover the office while we’re gone. I think we need to talk about . . . well . . . whatever it is that’s been bugging you.”
I suspected—but could not prove—that what was bugging Sarah was Sarah’s boyfriend. For most of the summer, I hadn’t been able to get Sebastian to leave the office, and technically he didn’t even work there. He hung around all the time because he was so in love with Sarah.
Lately, however, the office has been a Sebastian-free zone. I’ve noticed a distinct lack of phone calls to Sebastian on Sarah’s part, and whenever her cell phone rings, she viciously sends the call to voice mail. All is clearly not well in Sarah-and-Sebastian land.
When I asked if she wanted to talk about it, however, Sarah looked up from the supply request she was filling out on the computer and said angrily, “Not unless you want to tell me what’s been bugging you.”
I blinked back at her, surprised. “Nothing’s bugging me. Well, aside from the fact that we have fifty teenage girls checking in here tomorrow and we’re nowhere close to ready—”
“Really?” Sarah interrupted. “You don’t have anything to tell me? Nothing at all going on in your life that might have been distracting you? So much so that you forgot to bring me back a Shack Attack from Shake Shack after your doctor’s appointment last Monday even though you said you would because your doctor’s office is right around the Madison Park Shake Shack and you can never resist a visit to Shake Shack? But evidently something stopped you from going, didn’t it, or at least from remembering my Shack Attack. And you never even said you were sorry.”
I stared at her, openmouthed. I’d been so stunned after my doctor’s appointment, I hadn’t even noticed the Shake Shack, which was odd, because the line snaked almost all the way through the park.
“Sarah,” I said, “I’m so sorry. Your shake completely slipped my mind—”
“It’s no big deal,” Sarah said, with the kind of hostile shrug that indicated it was a very big deal indeed. “I realize I’m just someone you work with, not a friend with whom you might share confidences. And a Shack Attack is a frozen custard, not a shake, FYI.”
“Sarah,” I said, “of course you’re my friend—”
“But not one with whom you share personal news,” she said with a sniff. “Like you do with Muffy Fowler.”
“Muffy Fowler?” What was she talking about? “I haven’t shared any personal news with Muffy.”
I hadn’t even shared with Cooper the personal news I’d learned from that doctor’s appointment. Not that it was anything to worry about.
“Oh really?” Sarah asked. “Then how come I overheard her and that Brewer woman talking about how you and Cooper are engaged? If you and I are such good friends, why am I the last to know you’re getting married? You’ve never even told me you’re officially going out. Although only a blind person wouldn’t have noticed.”
Stephanie. I should have known she wouldn’t keep her mouth shut.
“Sarah,” I said, “I’m sorry. Cooper and I are going out. But we’ve been trying to keep it on the down-low because it’s complicated with his family, as you can probably imagine. I can assure you, we aren’t engaged.” I waved my hand at her. “See? No ring. It’s true we’ve talked about marriage, but there’s no date set.” None of this was technically a lie. “And I’m surprised at you, listening to office gossip. Aren’t you the one who once told me that gossip is a social weapon that’s used more often to hurt than to help?”
Though I said all this with what I considered a teasing, humorous tone, Sarah only grew sulkier.
“Yes. But—”
“So what’s really going on with you?” I asked. “Is it Sebastian? Because I’ve noticed he hasn’t been around here much lately—”
Sarah ripped the supply request form from the printer and said, “I’m going to Central Supply to get more markers and construction paper. Thanks to all the floor decorations the RAs made, we’re almost out,” and barreled from the office, almost colliding with Lisa Wu, who was on her way into the office. Sarah didn’t stop to apologize.
“What’s with her?” Lisa asked as Sarah fled past, stifling a sob.
“She won’t say. How are you?” I asked. I was kind of relieved for the interruption. “Almost moved in?”
“Getting there.” Lisa, dressed in flip-flops, shorts, and one of her seemingly endless supply of T-shirts, was holding a tray of enormous iced coffee drinks in one hand and a leash in the other. At the end of the leash was a small brown and white dog. “I wanted to stop by and introduce you to the other man in my life, since this one’ll probably be spending a lot of time with us in the office. This is Tricky. I call him Tricky because he knows a lot of tricks. Tricky, bang.”
Tricky, a Jack Russell terrier, promptly fell over onto the office floor, pretending to be dead.
Charmed, I said, “He’s adorable. I have a dog too. Her name is Lucy. But she doesn’t know any—”
“Freeze,” a voice called from the hallway. Startled, Lisa’s dog leapt back to his feet.
It was only Jared Greenberg, Jordan Loves Tania’s “field producer.” With him was the camera guy I remembered from the night of the Tania Incident, along with Marcos, the sound guy. The camera appeared to be on, since I could see a red light blinking on the side of it and the camera operator had the lens up to his face.
“Can you make him do that again?” Jared asked Lisa excitedly, pointing at Tricky.
“Uh,” she said, looking panicky. I would too if I was sweaty from moving stuff all day and had on no makeup and cutoffs, and some big-time TV producer was trying to film me. “Not right now. I only came down to get these drinks for my parents—they’re upstairs in my apartment, helping me unpack. Hafta be ready for tomorrow, right? Oh, there’s the elevator, gotta go, bye.”
She fled, scrambling with her dog to catch the elev
ator, the doors of which had opened with a ding.
Jared looked at me and said, a little mournfully, “We’re not monsters, you know. We don’t bite.”
I shrugged. “It’s nothing personal. None of us signed up to be on a TV show, that’s all.”
“You think any of us wants to be here?” Jared lowered himself into the visitor’s chair next to my desk. I know the seat looks inviting, but I really wish people wouldn’t sit there unless asked. How am I supposed to get any of my homework from Psych 101 (or actual work-work) done if someone is always sitting next to my desk, wanting to chat? “I went to this school, you know. I graduated from the film department. All of us did.” He nodded at Marcos, who’d lowered the boom and whipped out his cell phone, and at the camera operator, who’d started zooming in on the candy jar on my desk, which I keep stocked with condoms instead of candy. I guessed he was filming it for practice. I was pretty sure they weren’t going to use footage of a jar of condoms for Jordan Loves Tania. “Except Stephanie, of course. I suppose she told you about her MBA from Harvard.”
I nodded. I wasn’t sure what I’d done to encourage this idea Jared had that we were buddies. Maybe Cooper was right about my inspiring trust in people. Maybe I should consider a psych minor.
“I want to make documentaries,” Jared said, stabbing his thumb at his own chest. “Important documentaries about people who are wrongfully convicted of crimes they did not commit. I want my films to help people, make a difference, you know? Maybe get someone’s conviction overturned.” I knew exactly what kind of films he was talking about. I’d seen them on HBO. “Can I get a single studio to fund that idea? No. But Stephanie got Cartwright Television to fund her piece of crap, no problem. You know what they’re calling Jordan Loves Tania?”
I shook my head. “No . . .”
“A docu-reality series. Can you believe that?”
“Is that not what it is?” I asked.
“Wait until you see the final product,” Jared said ominously.
“Why?” I asked.
“I’m guessing you’re going to be amazed,” he said, “at how little actual reality is in it.”
Before I had a chance to ask what he meant, the camera guy lowered his lens.
“Let’s go, Jare,” he said. “I’m hungry. You promised you’d get the network to reimburse us for Ray’s.”
Jared sighed. “See?” he said, smiling. “See what I have to deal with?” He said good-bye, then left.
I suppose, given all that, I should have been expecting what occurs the morning the girls from Tania Trace Rock Camp check in. Instead, I’m blindsided.
It’s hard to believe anything bad can happen on such a glorious summer day, especially when, on my way to work, my phone rings and I answer it to hear Cooper say: “I can’t find my pants.”
“And a good morning to you too, honey,” I sing.
“I’m serious,” he says. “Did you put them somewhere?”
“Where would I have put your pants?” I ask, all wide-eyed innocence.
“Like in the laundry basket or something?”
“Cooper,” I say, with a laugh. “I value this relationship. I’m not doing your laundry anymore. I know how you are about your clothes. That time I accidentally—because despite what you seem to think, it was an accident—shrunk your Knicks T-shirt? I thought you were going to have an embolism. I told you, we need a skilled professional whom we pay to handle our household chores. And I know the perfect person, Magda’s cousin, the one who—”
Cooper interrupts. “I was wearing them yesterday. They were right by the bed when I took them off last night.”
“I remember,” I say with a meaningful leer, which of course he can’t see, since he’s back home, pantless.
A man going through the garbage cans at the bottom of a nearby stoop does see my leer, however, and shouts an obscenity at me, somewhat spoiling the mood.
“Cooper, you’re a private investigator,” I say, turning the corner onto Washington Square West, leaving the homeless man and his desire for me to do something unspeakable to his private parts behind. “Shouldn’t you be able to find your own pants?”
“Not when someone in my own home is deliberately hiding them from me,” Cooper points out. I can’t believe he’s caught on to me. “Did someone just shout what I think they did at you?”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” I reply. “And why would I do something as childish as hide your pants?”
“I don’t know,” Cooper says. “You’re a complicated woman. But you’re right. I didn’t mean to accuse you. The thing is, I really need those pants today. I can’t think where they could have disappeared to.”
“You have plenty of other pants,” I say. “Why do you have to wear the cargo pants? What about those nice flat-front khakis I got you? Or those jeans you had on the other day. You looked very sexy in those.” I’m leering again. I can’t help it.
“I need my cargo pants, Heather,” Cooper says. “For work. I like to keep things in the pockets.”
I don’t understand this.
“Jeans have pockets too,” I remind him, noticing there are quite a few cars parked outside Fischer Hall, which is unusual for so early on a Saturday morning, especially since parking on Washington Square West is illegal.
“Not enough of them,” Cooper says. “And they aren’t deep enough.”
“Deep enough for what? Next thing I know,” I say lightly, “you’re going to start wearing a fanny pack.”
Cooper doesn’t say anything.
In addition to the cars, I notice there is a larger than usual number of people milling around in front of Fischer Hall. They aren’t students, because they’re the wrong age and dressed much too nicely. I’ve gotten used to seeing groups of tourists being led around the Village by guides wearing funny hats and holding signs, but these people don’t seem like tourists. There’s no real cohesion to the group. Some of them are leaning against their cars, and others are standing together in small clusters, eyeing the front door to Fischer Hall suspiciously—almost with hostility.
Also, there’s an unusually high number of thin young women, all very colorfully dressed, doing stretches and cartwheels along the sidewalk. Tourists wouldn’t do this, and neither would students. Maybe, I think with a spurt of excitement, there’s going to be a flash mob.
Then, as I get closer, I realize the thin young women in the brightly colored clothes aren’t young women at all, but girls, and the people leaning against the cars, fanning themselves impatiently in the heat that is starting to grow a little uncomfortable, are all women—most likely the girls’ mothers—all waiting to check in for Tania Trace Rock Camp.
Except I’d been assured by Cartwright Records Television that check-in wasn’t going to start until ten o’clock sharp, giving me, arriving at nine, an hour to make any necessary last-minute adjustments.
“Shit,” I say.
Chapter 12
Replay
I want a replay
When are things gonna start to go my way?
Don’t hafta happen to me every day
Just wanna replay
“Replay”
Written by Heather Wells
“What’s wrong?” Cooper asks over the phone.
“All the campers are here an hour early.”
I’ve noticed a couple of familiar-looking people leaning against the redbrick building, on one side of the front door—namely Pete, in his New York College security guard uniform, and Magda, dressed in her pink food service uniform. They’re both holding cups of coffee. Magda, for some reason, is holding two.
“Early bird gets the part, I guess,” Cooper says.
“That’s not a show business term,” I say. “That doesn’t even make any sense. They already got the parts.” Then I realize Cooper never replied to my previous statement. “Wait a minute,” I say into the phone. “You don’t own a fanny pack, do you?”
“I have to go meet Tania now.” Cooper’s v
oice sounds funny. “She’s coming later this afternoon to give the welcome speech. Give my regards to Broadway.”
He hangs up. So do I, but not before squinting curiously down at the phone. Men are so weird.
“I think Cooper just admitted to me that he sometimes wears a fanny pack,” I say as I walk up to Magda and Pete.
“Of course he does,” Pete says. “Where else is he gonna keep his gun in the summertime?”
“Cooper doesn’t own a gun,” I say as Magda passes me a tall plastic refillable mug in New York College colors. “Thanks. What are you doing here? Not that I’m not overjoyed to see you, but—”
“You didn’t hear?” Magda reaches up to pat her hair, which she’s teased to stand nearly six inches from her head. Her nails have each been painted with a tiny letter. When I peer at them, I see they spell out H-O-L-L-Y-W-O-O-D! “The producer man came into the café last week to buy a latte, and he said he liked my style so much, he had to have me on the show.”
“Of course he did,” I say, sipping from the mug. My favorite, a café mocha. Delicious.
“He said they’re reopening the cafeteria,” Magda goes on. “Have you seen it? They fixed it up to look so byootiful!” Magda’s voice, with its heavy Spanish accent, is so distinctive that several of the young girls stop doing their gymnastics and their mothers glance up from their cell phones, all looking curiously in our direction. Coming from the heart of the Midwest or wherever, it’s possible they’ve never heard—or seen—anyone quite like Magda, except maybe on TV.
“Excuse me,” one of the mothers says, hurrying toward us. She has on more necklaces than Mr. T used to wear back on those A-Team reruns, and enough makeup to make Magda look like she’s going au naturel. “Are you someone in charge?”