“Cool it, Gavin,” Sarah says. “She’s skeeved out enough. What are you trying to do, make things worse?”
“Oh my God,” I say. “I am not skeeved out. I mean, I am. But—look, do we have to talk about this?”
“Of course we don’t have to talk about it, Heather,” Sarah says, in her most soothing voice. Then, to Sebastian and Gavin, she says, “Guys, please leave Heather alone. Finding a corpse—particularly one belonging to someone with whom you worked as closely as Heather worked with Dr. Veatch—can be very unsettling. It’s likely Heather will suffer from post-traumatic stress for some time. We’re going to need to watch her for signs of unexplainable aggressiveness, depression, and emotional detachment.”
“Sarah!” I’m appalled. “Would you please zip it?”
She says, in the same soothing voice, “Of course, Heather.” Then, to the boys, she stage whispers, “What did I tell you about unexplainable aggressiveness?”
“Sarah.” I seriously need an aspirin. “I totally heard that.”
“Uh.” Sebastian is looking at his feet. “How long does this post-traumatic stress thing usually last?”
“It’s impossible to say,” Sarah says, at the same time that I say, “I donot have post-traumatic stress.”
“Oh,” Sebastian says, looking at me, now, instead of his feet. “Well, good. Because I’ve been meaning to ask you something.”
I groan. “Not you, too.”
“She doesn’t date students,” Gavin informs him. “I already tried. It’s like a policy, or something.”
I drop my head into my hands. Seriously. How much more can I take in one day? It’s bad enough I actually jogged this morning (only for a few steps, but still. I could have dislodged something. I still don’t know. All my lady parts seemed to have been working fine back at Tad’s, when we took them for a test run. But how can you ever be sure without a visit to the gyno?), but now my boss has been shot, my office taken over by CSI: Greenwich Village, and Gavin McGoren is expounding on the official New York College stand on student-employee relations? I want those two and a half hours of sleep I missed out on back.
“Uh, I wasn’t going to ask her out, dude,” Sebastian says. “I was going to ask her if she could come to our rally tomorrow night.”
I separate my fingers and peer out at him from between them. “What?”
“Come on,” Sebastian pleads, throwing himself onto his knees. “You’re Heather Wells. It would mean a lot if you’d show up, maybe lead us in a little round of ‘Kumbaya’—”
“No,” I say. “Absolutely not.”
“Heather,” Sebastian says. “Do you have any idea how much it would mean to the GSC if we had a celebrity of your stature come out in support of us?”
“Come out in support—” I echo weakly, dropping my hands. “Sebastian, I could lose my job for that!”
“No, you couldn’t,” Sebastian says. “Freedom of speech! They wouldn’t dare!”
“Seriously,” Sarah says with a grunt. “They’re fascists, but not that fascist… ”
“Watch them,” I say. “Come on. I totally support you guys, and everything. Have I said anything about the fact that you, Sebastian, are constantly hanging around this building, even though you are not, in fact, an undergraduate, and do not, in fact, even live here? But sing at your rally? In Washington Square Park? In front of the library, and the president’s office? You have to be kidding me.”
“Really, Sebastian,” Sarah says, in the kind of voice only a woman who adores a guy who is frustratingly oblivious to her feelings for him ever uses. “Sometimes you do go too far.”
He throws her an aggrieved look. “You’re the one who said to ask her!” he cries.
“Well, I didn’t mean now!” Sarah says. “She just found her boss slumped over dead, for crying out loud. And you want her to host some union rally?”
“Not host it!” Sebastian cries. “Just show up and do a number. Something inspiring. It doesn’t have to be 'Kumbaya'. 'Sugar Rush' would be great, too. And it can be unplugged. We aren’t choosy.”
“God,” Sarah says, shaking her head in disgust. “You are too much sometimes, Sebastian.”
“She keeps saying she’s fine!” Sebastian insists, getting up and throwing his hands in the air.
“Don’t do it, Heather,” Gavin says. “Not unless you feel up to it.”
“I’m not doing it,” I say. “Because I happen to like my job and don’t want to get fired this week.”
“They would never fire you,” Sebastian explains, in a matter-of-fact way. “For one thing, not to be tactless, but your boss just got killed. Who would run this place? And for another thing, if they tried to fire you, that would be a violation of your constitutional right to congregate and peacefully protest.”
“Dude,” Gavin says. “She so knows it was you who put that fake arm on the elevator.”
“Heather Wells.” The deep voice booms from the open doorway. I look up and see one of New York’s Finest standing there. “Detective Canavan would like a word.”
“Oh, thank God,” I cry, and fling myself out from behind the desk, and toward the door. You know things are bad at work when you’re actually relieved to be taken away to be interviewed by a homicide detective.
But when you work in Death Dorm, those kinds of things happen with alarming frequency.
4
You’re not fat
You’ll be all right
Just say no to snacks
And you’ll see the light
“Big Boned”
Written by Heather Wells
Detective Canavan has had his hair cut since I’ve last seen him. It’s been buzzed into a severe crew cut, so tinged with gray it looks almost blue beneath the fluorescent light above my desk (I put in a desk lamp for rosy ambience, but the detective’s apparently chosen not to turn it on. I guess homicide detectives don’t care about rosy ambience). He’s scowling into the phone he’s clutching to one ear, glancing up at me as I walk in as disinterestedly as if I’m a rat that’s wandered out from behind some Dumpster.
“Yeah,” Detective Canavan says into the phone. “I know good and well what the city’s gonna say. They’re happy to shut down a street if someone wants to film an episode of Law & Order on it. But if the real NYPD wants to launch an investigation on an actual murder… ”
The door to Dr. Veatch’s office opens and a CSI type comes out, gnawing on a taco. I can see that he’s already paid a visit to the café before stopping by to photograph blood spatter.
“Hey, Heather,” he says, with a wink.
“Oh, hey,” I say. “The café’s opened for lunch already?”
“Yeah,” he says. “Special’s beef tacos. Oh, and turkey pot pie.”
“Mmmm,” I say longingly. The waffles seem to have been a long time ago.
“I know,” the forensics guy says, with a happy sigh. “I love it when we get called to Death Dorm.”
“That’s Death Residence Hall,” I correct him.
“You better not be dripping hot sauce on my crime scene again, Higgins,” Detective Canavan says crankily, as he slams down my phone.
Higgins rolls his eyes and disappears back into Owen’s office.
“So,” Detective Canavan says to me, as I sink into the blue vinyl chair opposite my desk, the one usually reserved for anorexics, basketball players, and other problem residents. “What the hell’s going on here, Wells? How come every time I turn my back, someone’s expired at your place of employment?”
“How should I know?” I demand, every bit as crankily. “I just work here.”
“Yeah,” Detective Canavan growls. “Tell me about it. Well, at least this time, whoever offed your boss did so from the street, not from inside the building, for a refreshing change. So where were you this morning, around eight o’clock?”
My jaw drops. “I’m a suspect? You’ve got to be kidding me!”
His expression doesn’t change. “You heard me. Where were you?”
“But after all we’ve been through together. You know me!” I cry. “You know I’d never—”