“I guess you were right all along,” he says. “He’s not such a bad kid, after all.”
Okay.What is going on with him?
But before I have time to figure it out, someone calls my name, and I look up and see Sarah standing on the sidewalk, staring at me, a nervous expression on her face.
At least I think it’s Sarah.
“Uh… see you at home, Heather,” Cooper says, taking in Sarah’s outfit with a raised eyebrow. It doesn’t take a trained detective to see that Sarah has undergone a radical makeover—she’s in lipstick and high heels, contact lenses instead of glasses, her hair blown and smooth, her legs bare and actually shaved. What’s more, she’s wearing a skirt — her skirt from her interview suit, maybe, with a white blouse that appears to have an actual Peter Pan collar (I didn’t know they even make those anymore).
But it’s a skirt, just the same.
She looks good. More than good. She looks hot. In a naughty librarian kind of way.
“Um… bye,” I say to Cooper, as I get slowly out of the car, and shut the door behind me.
Cooper shakes his head and drives away, leaving me alone with Sarah on the sidewalk. I realize I’ll just have to deal with him—and that heart-attack-inducing smile of his—later.
Although to be truthful, the fact that tonight will be the first night that my dad will be fully moved out—the first night in months that Cooper and I will actually be alone together in the brownstone—does cause my heart actually to skip a beat.
Stop it, Heather. You are engaged—well, practically—to another man. A man with whom you should be spending the night tonight.
Funny how the thought of spending the night with Tad does nothing whatsoever to my heartstrings.
Even though they’re a quarter of a mile away, I can hear the protesting GSCers chanting in front of the library.What they’re chanting, exactly, I can’t tell. But I can hear their strident voices, off in the distance, as clearly as I can hear the traffic on Sixth Avenue a block away.
“Hi, Heather,” Sarah says, fidgeting with her skirt. “I… I wanted to talk to you, but you… you were gone.”
“I had to run an errand,” I say, lamely. “Why aren’t you over there protesting? Why are you so dressed up?”
Sarah’s pretty face—yes! She actually looks pretty, for once—twists.
“Do I look too dressed up?” she asks anxiously. “I do, don’t I? I should go back upstairs and change? I was just—I was looking for you, to see what I should wear, but you weren’t around, so I asked Magda instead, and Magda—Magda did it.”
I look Sarah up and down. She looks, to be honest, fantastic. “Magda did this?”
“Yes. It’s too much, isn’t it? I knew it. I told her it was too much. I’m going back inside to change.”
I grab her wrist before she can do so.
“Hold on,” I say. “You look great. Honest. It’s not too much. At least, I don’t think so. Where are you going?”
A pink blush that has nothing to do with powder suffuses Sarah’s cheeks.
“Sebastian’s parents are in town,” she says. “He was arraigned this morning. They’ve posted his bail. I’m… I’m meeting them in Chinatown. We’re going to get something to eat.”
“So!” I can’t help laughing. “This is your meeting-his-parents look.”
“I look stupid,” Sarah says, tugging on the wrist I still hold. “I’ll go change.”
“No, you look great,” I say, still laughing. “Sarah, honest. You look fantastic. Don’t change a thing.”
She stops struggling. “Do you mean it? Really?”
“Really,” I say, dropping her wrist. “Sebastian is going to plotz when he sees you. I mean, the man’s just spent the past twenty-four hours in prison. What are you trying to do to him?”
Her blush deepens. “It’s just,” she says. “I know he doesn’t think of me… like that. And I want him to. I really want him to.”
“Well, one look at you in those heels,” I say, “and he won’t be able to think of anything else. You owe Magda. Big time.”
Sarah is chewing her lower lip—not a good idea, while wearing lipstick. Fortunately, she’s carrying more in a little patent leather clutch, which she opens with trembling fingers. “I feel bad, leaving the GSC to cope all on its own,” she says, as she pulls out some lip gloss. “And tonight is the big rally. But this is important, too.”
“Of course,” I say.
“I mean, this is about more than health benefits,” Sarah says, as she dabs gloss onto her lips with a little wand. “Sebastian’s life is at stake.”
“I understand,” I say. “He’s lucky to have you.”
“I just wish he’d realize it,” Sarah says, with a sigh. She puts the lip gloss back into her clutch, and snaps it closed. “Heather, there’s something else I wanted to talk to you about. Sebastian’s not allowed to leave the city, you know, until this whole thing is resolved, and the charges are dropped or whatever. When they are… well, who knows if he’ll even still want to go here, or whatever. I hope so. But until then… his parents are staying in a hotel, but it’s pretty far from campus, and I was just wondering—I know he can’t use the storage room anymore—it was wrong of me ever to abuse my grad assistant privileges that way. But could I sign him in as a guest to my room? I mean, if he wants to visit me?”
I shrug. “Of course.”
Sarah looks at me curiously. “Even though he’s the lead suspect in our boss’s murder? That’s not exactly going to make Sebastian popular around here, Heather. I mean, I don’t want you to say yes just because of your personal feelings for me. I already talked it over with Tom, and he said it was fine with him, but that it was up to you. You’re the one in the building who was closest to Owen, and I don’t want you to do anything that might have emotional repercussions for you later on. You know how you are, Heather. You act all tough on the outside, but inside, you’re just a big marshmallow, a really classic passive-aggressive—”
“Oh, look,” I say. “Here comes an empty cab. You better grab it. You know how hard it is to get an empty cab around here. Unless you want to walk over to Sixth Avenue. But in those heels, I wouldn’t advise it.”
“Oh—” She teeters unsteadily to the curb. “Thanks. Bye, Heather! Wish me luck!”
“Good luck!” I wave good-bye, watch her stagger into the cab, then hurry into the building as soon as she’s gone.
“Tom says to see him as soon as you come in,” Felicia says to me, as she hands me a huge stack of messages. “Did Sarah find you?”
“Oh, she found me, all right,” I say.
Back in the hall director’s office, Tom is freaking out, as usual.
“Where have you been?” he cries, when he sees me.
“Westchester,” I say. “I told you I was going to Westchester. Remember?”
“But you were gone so long,” Tom whines. “Like, forever. And so many people have been calling.”
“Tell me about it,” I say, waving my stack of messages as I flop down behind my desk. “Anything important?”
“Oh, just the fact that Owen’s memorial service is TODAY!” Tom shouts.
“What?” I nearly drop the phone I’ve just picked up to return Tad’s call, the first message in the pile I’m holding.
“Yeah,” Tom says. “And they want you to say a few words. Because you knew Owen better than anyone else did on campus.”
Now I really do drop the phone. “WHAT?”
“Yeah.” Tom leans back in his desk chair, which he’s scooted into the door frame of his office so he can look me in the face as he delivers these bombshells. You can tell he’s sort of enjoying himself. “And it’s at five today. They were going to have it over at the chapel, but the outpouring of grief from the community due to the tragedy has been so great, they’ve had to move it over to the sports center. So you better pull something together fast. And it better be good. Because they’re expecting at least a couple thousand people.”
I nearly choke on my own spit. A couple thousand? At Owen “Don’t Borrow Paper From the Dining Office” Veatch’s memorial service?
And I have to say a few words?
I’m so, so dead.
“But I barely knew him!” I wail.