Word travels fast when one of your bridesmaids is in charge of the place where everyone gets their breakfast.
“It’s okay,” I say. “How are you holding up, besides the flu? How did calling Jasmine’s parents go? And the meeting with the RAs—besides their being sick?”
“Ugh,” she says, collapsing against the back of her chair. “Horrible, naturally. Jasmine’s parents are in shock. They’ll be driving in from New Jersey this afternoon to meet with us, and with the coroner’s office. I think they’re expecting answers. Hopefully by then someone will have one. As for the staff . . . well, Jasmine was new, but she was pretty popular. Mostly people’s reactions were the same as Jasmine’s parents: disbelief. I think when the medical examiner gets back with the results, saying how she died, there can be a little closure, and the staff will get over it.”
I nod and murmur, “Sure,” because I know it’s what Lisa needs to hear, not because I believe it. The word “closure” gets tossed around a lot by people in helping professions and on shows like CSI and Law & Order, but there’s rarely any actual closure when someone young dies, even of natural causes. The death seems so wrong and unnecessary and senseless. There will never be any closure. Jasmine’s family and friends will move forward, but they’ll never “get over it.” They aren’t supposed to. That’s why it’s called a loss.
I’ve laid my bagel and coffee drink on my desk and sat down, more or less joining Lisa for breakfast, though we’re in separate offices. I swivel my chair around to look at her through her office door.
“I don’t know how you’ve done this so many times,” Lisa says mournfully. “I really don’t. I feel like I’ve been kicked all over my body by a horse. Especially in the boobs.” She reaches up to illustrate, rubbing them.
“That’s an interesting reaction to a student death,” I remark. “I can’t say I’ve ever had that one before.”
Lisa shrugs. “Well, I slept like a log last night. Cory said I snored.”
“It’s probably all the stress,” I say. “And the flu, leaving your body. Is that Tabasco sauce or ketchup on that burrito?”
“Both,” she says, shoveling more of it into her mouth. “Anyway, we’re going to have a long day ahead of us. That Fowler woman—”
“Muffy,” I say. “Head of media relations.”
“Whatever. She thinks it’s in our best interest to keep Jasmine’s death out of the press because of Prince Rashid and the animosity toward him on the part of some in the college community.”
“Gee,” I say, sarcastically. “You think?”
“So we can’t send out a mass text to the residents saying one of the RAs died, even though I understand that’s what the college does under normal circumstances. We can’t even advertise that there’ll be grief counselors available if anyone feels the need to see one, though Dr. Flynn and Dr. Kilgore are going to be here all day, for any residents or staff who want to talk about what happened. That includes you, by the way.”
I turn my head, my mouth full of bagel, to stare at her. “Me? Why would I need to talk to anyone?”
“Heather, you sat with a young girl’s dead body all day yesterday,” Lisa says. “Then you went home and your mom, who abandoned you a decade ago, dropped by unannounced. I think there’s a possibility you might need to talk to a mental health specialist. There’s no shame in it, you know. Cory and I saw a shrink before we got married. We still go sometimes. It’s fun.”
“Fun?” I can’t stop staring at her. “How is telling some shrink your darkest secrets fun?”
“That’s not the fun part,” Lisa says. “It’s that the shrinks sometimes point out that stuff you didn’t think was that important probably really is important, and after it’s been pointed out, you realize all these ways you’ve been sabotaging your own life. Like maybe you do have some issues about your mom abandoning you when you were in your late teens, even though you think you’re over it, and that’s what makes you feel so overprotective of the kids who live here, who are also in their late teens.”
“Of course I have issues about my mom,” I say, maybe a little more defensively than I mean to. “I don’t need a shrink to point that out. I’m totally envious of people who have loving relationships with their mothers. I’ll never have that. But that doesn’t mean I’m overprotective of the kids who live here. I’m only doing my job. It’s not my fault they keep getting themselves killed.”
“Okay, okay,” Lisa says, wadding up the tin foil her burrito had been wrapped in—amazingly, she’d eaten the whole thing. She must have been pretty hungry after throwing up so much the day before—and shooting a perfect three-pointer into the trash basket. “Forget I ever mentioned it. Anyway, we have a meeting set up this afternoon with a candidate for Jasmine’s position who Dr. Jessup swears will be perfect.”
“Wow,” I say. “That was fast.”
“Well, we need to get the ball rolling on finding a replacement. The sooner we find a good match, the sooner the staff can begin to heal. And Dr. Jessup says this candidate is a winner. The only reason he didn’t make the original cut was because he applied late. He’s a little bit older, a transfer student from New Mexico, Dave something or other.”