I don’t know about anyone else, but when I throw up (and, I’m sorry to say, it’s something I do regularly every single New Year’s Eve), I like a little sympathy, even if the whole thing’s my own fault.
So I pat Mrs. Allington on her padded shoulder and say, “There. Don’t you feel better now?”
Mrs. Allington squints at me as if she’s noticing me for the first time.
“Who the hell are you?” she asks.
“Um,” I say. “I’m the assistant building director. Heather Wells. Remember? We met a couple of months ago?”
Mrs. Allington looks confused. “What happened to Justine?”
“Justine found another job,” I explain, which is a lie, since Justine was fired. But the truth is, I don’t know Justine’s side of the story. I mean, maybe she really needed the money. Maybe she has relatives who live in Bosnia or somewhere really cold, and they don’t have any heat, and those ceramic heaters kept them alive all winter. You never know.
Mrs. Allington just squints some more.
“Heather Wells?” She blinks a few more times. “But aren’t you…aren’t you that girl? The one who used to sing in all those malls?”
That’s when I realize that Mrs. Allington has finally recognized me, all right…
…but not as the assistant director of the building she lives in.
Wow. I never suspected Mrs. Allington of being a fan of teen pop. She seems more the Barry Manilow type—much older teen pop.
“I was,” I say to her, kindly, because I still feel sorry for her, on account of the barf, and all. “But I don’t perform anymore.”
“Why?” Mrs. Allington wants to know.
Magda and I exchange glances. Magda seems to be getting her sense of humor back, since there is a distinct upward slant to corners of her lip-linered mouth.
“Um,” I say. “It’s kind of a long story. Basically I lost my recording contract—”
“Because you got fat?” Mrs. Allington asks.
Which is, I have to admit, when I sort of stopped feeling sorry for her.
3
I tell you I can’t
But you don’t seem to care
I tell you I won’t
It’s like I’m not even there
I can’t wait forever
I won’t wait forever
Baby, it is now or never
Tell me you love me
Or baby, set me free
“I Can’t”
Performed by Heather Wells
Written by O’Brien/Henke
From the album Sugar Rush
Cartwright Records
Fortunately I’m spared from having to make any sort of reply to Mrs. Allington’s remark about my weight by the fact that my boss, Rachel Walcott, comes hurrying up to us just then, her patent leather slides clacking on the marble floor of the lobby.
“Heather,” Rachel says, when she sees me. “Thank you so much for coming.” She actually does look sort of relieved that I’m there, which makes me feel good. You know, that I really am needed, if only $23,500-a-year worth.
“Sure,” I say. “I’m so sorry. Was it—I mean, is it—someone we know?”
But Rachel just gives me a warning look—like “Don’t talk about family business in front of strangers,” the strangers being Mrs. Allington and Magda, cafeteria workers not being considered residence hall staff, and wives of presidents of the college DEFINITELY not being considered that way—and turns toward Mrs. Allington.
“Good morning, Mrs. Allington,” Rachel all but shouts, as if to an elderly person, though Mrs. Allington can’t be much more than sixty. “I’m so sorry about all this. Are you all right?”
Mrs. Allington is far from all right, but—even as upset as I am about the fat remark—I don’t want to blurt this out. She’s still, after all, the president’s wife.
Instead all I say is “Mrs. Allington isn’t feeling too well.”
I accompany the statement with a significant glance toward the planter Mrs. A. just heaved into, hoping Rachel will get the message. We haven’t worked together for all that long, Rachel and I. She was hired just a week or two before I was, to replace the director who’d quit right after Justine had been fired—but not out of solidarity with Justine, or anything. The director had quit because her husband had gotten a job as a forest ranger in Oregon.
I know. Forest ranger husband. Hmmm. I’d have quit to follow him, too.
But while Rachel is new to the live-in position of director of Fischer Hall, she’s not new to the field of higher education (which is what they call it when you’re involved in the counseling, but not the teaching, part of college life, or at least so I read in one of Justine’s files). The last dorm—I mean, residence hall—Rachel, a Yale grad, ran had been at Earlcrest College in Richmond, Indiana.
Rachel told me that it had been a bit of a culture shock, coming to New York City from a place like Richmond, where people don’t even have to lock their doors at night. But as far as I can tell, Rachel hasn’t exactly suffered any long-term hardships from her stint in the Hoosier heartland. She has a wardrobe any New York career gal would be happy to call her own, heavy on the Armani and the Manolos, which—considering her salary (not much more than mine, since directors get a free apartment in the building thrown in as part of their pay package)—is quite an accomplishment. Faithful weekly attendance of designer sample sales helps keep Rachel on the cutting edge of fashion. And her strict adherence to the Zone and two-hour daily workouts ensure that she stays a size 2, enabling her to fit into all those models’ castoffs.