Meg Cabot - Size 12 Is Not Fat

The student-run newspaper, the Washington Square Reporter, had run a photo of Elizabeth the Monday after her death, a photo from the freshmen class yearbook, and Marnie, I’m sorry to say, wasn’t exaggerating. Elizabeth hadn’t been a pretty girl. No makeup, thick glasses, outdated, Farrah Fawcett—style hair, and a smile that was mostly gums.

Still, photos by school-hired photographers are never all that flattering, and I had assumed that Elizabeth was actually prettier than this photo indicated.

But maybe my assumption was wrong.

Or maybe, just maybe, Marnie’s jealous because her roommate had a boyfriend, and she didn’t.

Hey, it happens. You don’t need a sociology degree—or a private investigator’s license—to know that.

Cooper and I thank Marnie and leave—though we couldn’t escape without Marnie launching, once again, into a chorus of I-know-I-know-you-from-somewhere. By the time we make it out into the hallway, I’m cursing, as I do nearly every day, my decision—or, I should say, my mom’s decision—to forgo my secondary education for a career in the music industry.

Trudging back down the stairs in silence, I wonder if Cooper is right.Am I crazy? I mean, do I really think there’s some psycho stalking the fresh women of Fischer Hall, talking them into elevator surfing with him after having his way with them, then pushing them to their deaths?

When we reach the tenth-floor landing, I say, experimentally, “I once read this article in a magazine about thrill killers. You know, guys who murder for the fun of it.”

“Sure,” Cooper says dryly. “In the movies. It doesn’t happen so often in real life. Most crimes are crimes of passion. People aren’t really as sick as we like to imagine.”

I look at him out of the corner of my eye. He has no idea how sick my imagination is. Like how at that very moment I was imagining knocking him down and ripping off all his clothes with my teeth.

I wasn’t. Well, not really. But I could have been.

“Somebody should probably speak to the other girl’s roommate,” I say, resolutely pushing away my fantasy about Cooper’s clothes and my teeth. “You know, the one who died today. Ask her about the condom. Maybe she knows who it belonged to.”

Cooper looks down at me, those ultra-blue eyes boring into me.

“Let me guess,” he says. “You think it might belong to a guy named Mark who likes foreign films and has expensive taste in Bordeaux.”

“It won’t hurt to ask.”

“You got a guy on your staff who fits that description?” Cooper wants to know.

“Well,” I say, thinking about it. “No. Not really.”

“Then how’d he get the key from behind the reception desk?”

I frown.

“Haven’t worked that part out yet, have you?” Cooper asks, before I can reply. “Look, Heather. There’s more to this detective stuff than snooping around, asking questions. There’s also knowing when there’s actually something worth snooping around about. And I’m sorry, but I’m just not seeing it here.”

I suck in my breath. “But… the condom! The mystery man!”

Cooper shakes his head. “It’s sad about those girls. It really is. But think about how you were when you were eighteen, Heather. You did crazy things, too. Maybe not as crazy as climbing onto the roof of an elevator on a dare, but—”

“They didn’t,” I say, fiercely. “I’m telling you, those girls did not do that.”

“Well, they ended up at the bottom of a shaft somehow,” Cooper says. “And while I know you’d like to think it’s be cause some evil man pushed them, there are nearly a thousand kids who live in this dorm, Heather. Don’t you think one of them might have noticed a guy shoving his girlfriend down an elevator shaft? And don’t you think that person would have told someone what they’d seen?”

I blink a few more times. “But… but… ”

But I can’t think of anything else to say.

Then he looks at his watch. “Look. I’m late for an appointment. Can we play Murder, She Wrote again later? Because I’ve got to go.”

“Yeah,” I say, faintly. “I guess.”

“Okay. See you,” he says. And continues down the stairs at a clip so fast, there’s no way I’ll catch up with him.

Though on the landing below, he stops, turns, and looks up at me. His eyes are amazingly blue.

“And just so you know,” he says.

“Yes?” I lean eagerly over the stair railing.The reason I’m so against you investigating this on your own, I am expecting—well, okay, hoping—he’ll say,is because I can’t stand the thought of you putting yourself in harm’s way. You see, I love you, Heather. I always have.

“We’re out of milk,” is what he says instead. “Pick some up on your way home, if you remember, okay?”

“Okay,” I say weakly.

And then he’s gone.

“Who was that?” Sarah wants to know. “That guy who left just now?”

“That?” I slip behind my desk. “That was Cooper.”

“Your room-mate?” I guess Sarah has overheard me on the phone with him or something.

“House-mate,” I say. “Well, landlord, really. I live in the top floor of his brownstone.”

“So he’s cute and rich?” Sarah is practically salivating. “Why haven’t you jumped his bones?”

“We’re just friends,” I say, each word feeling like a kick in the head. We’re. Kick. Just. Kick. Friends. Kick. “Besides, I’m not exactly his type.”

Sarah looks shocked. “He’s gay? But my gaydar didn’t go off at all—”

“No, he’s not gay!” I cry. “He just… he likes accomplished women.”

“You’re accomplished,” Sarah says, indignantly. “Your first album went platinum when you were only fifteen!”

“I mean educated,” I say, wishing hard we were talking about something—anything—else. “He likes women with, you know, a lot of degrees. Who are stunningly attractive. And skinny.”

“Oh,” Sarah says, losing interest. “Like Rachel, you mean.”

“Yeah,” I say, my heart sinking, for some reason. “Like Rachel.”

Is that really true?Does Cooper like women like Rachel—women whose handbags match their shoes? Women who understand what PowerPoint is, and know how to use it? Women who eat their salad with the dressing on the side, and can do hundreds of sit-ups without getting out of breath? Women who went to Yale? Women who shower instead of bathe, the way I do, because I’m too lazy to stand up that long?

Before I have a chance to really think about it, Rachel comes running in, her dark hair mussed, but still sexy-looking, and says, “Oh, Heather, there you are. Where have you been?”

“I was upstairs with one of the investigators,” I say. It’s even true. Sort of. “They needed to get into the dead girl’s room—”

“Oh,” Rachel says, losing interest. “Well, now that you’re back, could you call counseling services and see if they can see someone right away? Roberta’s roommate is in a state—”

I perk right up.

“Sure,” I say, reaching for my phone, my promise to Cooper that I would quit playing Murder, She Wrote promptly forgotten. “No problem. You want someone to walk her over there?”

“Oh, yes.” Rachel may have been dealing with a tragedy, but you would never have known it to look at her. Her Diane von Furstenberg wrap dress clings to her lithe figure in all the right places, and none of the wrong ones (the way wrap dresses do on me) and there are bright spots of color in her cheeks. “Do you think you can find someone?”

“I’d be happy to help,” I say.

Sure, I feel a twinge of guilt as I say it. I mean, that my willingness to lend a hand has more to do with a desire to question the dead girl’s roommate than actually to help her.

But not enough to stop myself.

I call counseling services. Of course they’ve already heard about “the second tragedy,” so they tell me to bring the roommate, Lakeisha Green, right over. One of my job responsibilities is personally to escort students who’ve been referred to counseling services to the building that houses it, because once a student who was sent over by herself got lost on the way and ended up in Washington Heights wearing her bra on her head and insisting that she was Cleopatra.

Seriously. You can’t make this stuff up.

Lakeisha is sitting in a corner of the cafeteria under a kitten poster Magda had hung on the wall to brighten the place up, since, as Magda puts it, antique stained glass windows and mahogany wainscoting are just plain “ugly on the eye.” Magda is there, too, trying to coax Lakeisha into eating some Gummi Bears.

“Just a few?” Magda is saying, as she dangles a plastic bag full of them in front of Lakeisha’s face. “Please? You can have them for free. I know you like them, last night you bought a bag with your friends.”

Lakeisha—just to be polite, you can tell—takes the bag. “Thank you,” she murmurs.

Magda beams, then, when she notices me, whispers, “My poor little movie star. She won’t eat a thing.”

Then, in an even lower voice, Magda asks, “Who was that man Pete and I saw you with today, Heather? The handsome one?”

“That was Cooper,” I say, since I’ve told Magda all about Cooper… as one does, naturally, discuss hotties over sloppy joes on one’s lunch break.

“That was Cooper?” Magda looks aghast. “Oh, honey, no wonder—”

“No wonder what?”

“Oh, never mind.” Magda pats me on the arm in a gesture that would have been comforting if I hadn’t, you know, been terrified of being poked by one her nails. “It will turn out all right. Maybe.”

“Uh, thanks.” I’m not at all sure what she was talking about… or that I wanted to know. I turn my attention to Roberta Pace’s roommate.

Lakeisha looks really, really sad. Her hair is done up in braids all over her head, and at the end of each braid is a brightly colored bead. The beads click together whenever Lakeisha moves her head.

“Lakeisha,” I say, gently. “I understand you have an appointment to speak to someone at counseling services. I’m here to walk you there. Are you ready to go?”

Lakeisha nods. But she doesn’t stand up. I glance at Magda.

“Maybe she wants a rest,” Magda says. “Does my little movie star want a rest?”

Lakeisha hesitates a moment. Then she says, “No, it’s okay. Let’s go.”

“You sure you don’t want a DoveBar?” Magda asks. Because DoveBars are, actually, the solution to nearly every problem in the universe.

But Lakeisha just shakes her head, causing her hair beads to rattle musically.

Which is surely how she stays so skinny. Refusing DoveBars when offered, I mean. I can’t remember ever turning down an offer of free ice cream. Especially a DoveBar.

Our walk out of the building is slow-paced and somber. They are letting students back into the building a few at a time, with the warning that they’ll have to use the stairs to get to their rooms. As one might expect in such a small community, word of another death has spread fast, and when the students see Lakeisha and me leaving the building together, there is a lot of whispering—“That’s the roommate,” I hear, and someone else responding, “Oh, poor thing.” Lakeisha either doesn’t hear it or chooses to ignore it. She walks with her head held high, but her gaze lowered.