Текст книги "Size 12 Is Not Fat"
Автор книги: Meg Cabot
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Текущая страница: 15 (всего у книги 19 страниц)
23
I’m falling
Falling for you
I’m falling
All ’cause of you
Catch me now
I’ll show you how
I’m falling
Falling for you
“Falling”
Performed by Heather Wells
Composed by Dietz/Ryder
From the album Magic
Cartwright Records
Though it seems like hours, I think I’m only screaming for like a minute or so before I hear a distant, masculine voice shouting my name from far below.
“Here!” I shriek. “I’m up here! Tenth floor!”
The voice says something, and then, below me to my left, the two remaining elevator cabs both start moving down.
If I’d had any presence of mind, I’d have jumped for it, leaping to the roof of the nearest cab.
But it’s a distance of more than five feet—the same distance Elizabeth and Roberta would have jumped, and missed, if we were to believe they really had died elevator surfing—and I’m pretty much paralyzed with fear.
I realize, though, that I can’t hold on for much longer. Whatever struck my shoulder has left it numb with pain, and my palms are raw from clinging to rusty metal cable—not to mention slippery with blood.
Dimly, I think back to my PE days in elementary school. I had never excelled at rope climbing—or any physical activity, actually—but I did remember that the key to hanging suspended from a rope was to wrap one’s foot in a loop in the slack end.
Getting a steel cable to wrap around my foot proved more difficult than it had ever been back in fifth grade, but I finally get a semblance of a foothold. I know that I’m still not going to last more than a few minutes. My shoulder and especially my hands are aching so badly—and my threshold for physical discomfort has always been low, given that I’m a huge baby—that I know I’ll let go and fall to my death rather than endure much more.
And it isn’t as if I haven’t had a nice life up until now. Okay, maybe parts of it have been rockier than others. But hey, I had an okay childhood; at least my parents had seen to it that I’d never gone to bed hungry.
And I was never abused or molested. I had had a successful career—granted, it had peaked at age eighteen or so.
But still, I’ve gotten to eat in a lot of awfully good restaurants.
And I know that Lucy will be well taken care of. Cooper will look after her if anything happens to me.
But thinking of Cooper reminds me that I don’t really want to die, not now, when things were just getting interesting. I’m never going to know what it is he really thinks of me! He’d been about to tell me, and now I’m going to die, and miss it!
Unless, of course, when you die you attain all the knowledge in the universe.
But what if you don’t? What if you just die?
Well, then I guess it won’t matter.
But what about those repairmen? They’d assured me elevator cables don’t just snap. Okay, maybe one of them snaps, but not all of them, all at once. Those cables hadn’t broken accidentally. Someone had deliberately booby-trapped them. Judging from the ball of flame that had erupted beneath my feet, I’m thinking bomb.
That’s right, bomb.
Someone’s trying to kill me.
Again.
Reflecting on who could possibly want to kill me takes my mind off my aching shoulder and throbbing hands—and even Cooper and the what-he-thinks-of-me thing—for a minute or so. Well, of course there’s Christopher Allington, who may or may not have already tried to shove a geranium planter on my head because I suspect him of murder. He’d better have a really good alibi for this one.
But how would Christopher Allington have known that I’d be on that elevator? I rarely ride the service elevator. In fact, the only time I ever ride it is when I’m chasing elevator surfers.
Could Gavin McGoren somehow be involved in the deaths of Beth Kellogg and Bobby Pace? This seems far-fetched, but what other explanation could there be? Julio can’t be the murderer. For all I know, he’s dead down there. Why would he want to kill himself and me?
Suddenly, the elevator closest to me returns, and this time, there’s somebody on the roof. But it isn’t Gavin McGoren. Blinking—the shaft is filled with smoke—I see through the mist that a grim-faced Cooper is coming to my rescue.
Which must mean he likes me. At least a little. I mean, if he’s willing to risk his own life to save mine…
“Heather,” Cooper says. He sounds as cool and authoritative as ever. “Don’t move, all right?”
“Like I’m going anywhere,” I say. Or that’s what I try I say. What I hear is actually a string of hysterical blubbering. But surely it isn’t coming from me.
“Listen to me, Heather,” Cooper says. He’s climbed onto the roof of Elevator 1, and is hanging on to one of its cables. His face, I can see through the smoke, is pale beneath his tan. Now why is that? I wonder. “I want you to do something for me.”
“Okay,” I say. Or I try to, anyway.
“I want you to swing over here. It’s okay, I’ll catch you.”
“Um,” I say. And make the mistake of looking down. “No.”
Well, that came out definitively enough.
“Don’t look down,” Cooper says. “Come on, Heather. You can do it. It’s just a few feet—”
“I’m not swinging anywhere,” I say, clinging more tightly to my cable. “I’m waiting right here until the NYFD arrives.”
“Heather,” Cooper says, and some of the old familiar impatience with me is back in his voice. “Push off from the wall and swing over here. Let go of the cable when I say so. I swear I will catch you.”
“Boy, you have really lost it.” I shake my head. My voice sounds funny. It’s kind of high-pitched. “No wonder your family cut you off without a cent.”
“Heather,” Cooper says. “The janitor told me that that cable you’re holding on to probably isn’t stable. It could break at any minute, like all the others—”
“Oh,” I say. Well, that’s different.
“Now do what I say.” Cooper has leaned out as far from his elevator car as he can, and still have something to hold on to. “Push off the wall with your foot and swing over here. I’ll catch you, don’t worry.”
From the top of the service shaft comes a groaning sound. I’m almost sure it didn’t come from me. More likely from the cable I’m holding on to.
Great.
Closing my eyes, I heave on the cable, forcing it to swing toward the wall on the far side of the shaft. I unwrap my foot from the dangling end and shove, as hard as I can, at the crumbling brick. Like a stone from a slingshot, I’m propelled in the direction of Cooper’s waiting arms…
… but not close enough for my liking.
Still, he shouts, “Let go! Heather, let go now!”
That’s it, I think. I’m dead. Maybe they’ll do a Behind the Music on me now …
I let go.
And know, for a second, how Elizabeth and Roberta must have felt—the sheer terror of careening through the air with no net or body of water below me to break my fall…
Only instead of plummeting to my death, as they had, I feel hard fingers close around both my wrists. My arms are practically yanked out of their sockets as the rest of my body slams against the side of the elevator cab. I have my eyes screwed shut, but I feel myself being lifted, slowly…
I don’t stop scrambling for a foothold until the seat of my jeans finally rest on something solid.
It’s only then that I open my eyes and see that Cooper has managed to pull me to safety. We’re both panting from mingled exertion and fear. Well, me from fear, anyway.
But we’re alive.I’m alive.
Above our heads comes the groaning sound again. Next thing I know, the cable I’d been holding on to—along with the pulley it had been connected to—rips loose from its supports and plummets down the shaft, to crash into the roof of the cab below.
When I’m able to lift my gaze from the wreckage at the bottom of the shaft, I see that I’m clinging to Cooper’s shirtfront, and that his arms are around me protectively. His face has gone the color of the smoke around us. There are streaks of blood and rust all over his shirt from where I’d grabbed at him with my cut hands.
“Oh,” I say, releasing the now crumpled and greasy cotton. “Sorry.”
Cooper’s arms drop away from me at once.
“No problem,” he says.
His voice, like my own, is steady enough. But there’s something in his blue eyes I’ve never seen before…
But before I have a chance to put my finger on just what, exactly, it is, a familiar voice from inside the cab we’re sitting on demands, “So is she okay or what?”
I look down through the open panel in the cab’s ceiling and see relief wash over Pete’s face.
“You had us shittin’ our pants back there, Heather,” he says. And indeed, his burly Brooklynese has a tremor in it. “You okay?”
“I’m fine,” I say, and prove it by climbing shakily down from the roof of the cab virtually unaided. My shoulder twinges a painful warning at one point, but Pete’s steadying hand on one elbow, and Cooper’s careful grip on my belt, keep me from losing my balance. I find, once I’m safely inside the elevator car, that it’s difficult to stand without leaning against something since my knees are shaking pretty badly.
But I manage all right, by sagging against the wall.
“What about Julio?” I ask.
Cooper and Pete exchange looks.
“He’s alive,” Cooper says, but his jaw is strangely clenched.
“Least ways, he was a minute ago.” Pete yanks around the key he’d inserted in the override switch. “But as to whether he’ll still be alive by the time they get him out—”
I feel dizzy. “Get him out?”
“They’re gonna hafta to use cutters.”
I look to Cooper for a more detailed explanation, but he isn’t forthcoming with one.
Suddenly, I’m not so sure I want to know.
For the second time in two days, I end up in St. Vincent’s emergency room.
Only this time, I’m the patient.
I’m lying on a gurney, waiting to get my shoulder X-rayed. Cooper has gone in search of a tuna salad sandwich for me, since fear has made me famished.
While I wait, I gaze mournfully at my ragged fingers and palms, wrapped in gauze and smarting from numerous stitches. It will be weeks, an irritatingly young attending physician has informed me, before I have normal use of them again. Forget guitar playing. I can barely hold a pencil.
I’m glumly considering how I’m going to do my job properly when I have little or no use of my hands—undoubtedly Justine would have found a way—when Detective Canavan shows up, the unlit cigar still clenched between his teeth. I’m not sure it’s the same cigar. But it sure looks like it.
“Hey there, Ms. Wells,” he says, as casually as if we’d just bumped into one another at Macy’s or something. “Heard you had quite an eventful morning.”
“Oh,” I say. “You mean the part where somebody tried to kill me? Again?”
“That’d be the one,” Detective Canavan says, removing the cigar. “So. You sore at me?”
I am, a little. But then again, it hadn’t been his fault, really. I mean, that planter could have fallen over accidentally. And Elizabeth and Roberta really could have died while elevator surfing.
Except that it hadn’t. And they hadn’t, either.
“Can’t say as I blame you,” Detective Canavan says, before I have a chance to reply. “Now we got a Backstreet Boy with a busted head and a janitor in intensive care.”
“And two dead girls,” I remind him. “Don’t forget the two dead girls.”
Detective Canavan sits down on an orange plastic chair that’s bolted to the wall outside the X-ray lab.
“Oh, yeah,” he says. “And two dead girls. Not to mention a certain administrative assistant who should, by rights, be dead as well.” He puts the cigar back in his mouth. “We think it was a pipe bomb.”
“What?” I yell.
“A pipe bomb. Not particularly sophisticated, but effective. In an enclosed space, like the brick elevator shaft, it did a lot more harm than it would have if it had been in a suitcase or a car or something.” Detective Canavan chews on the cigar. “Somebody seems to want you dead in a big way, honey.”
I stare at him, feeling cold again. Cooper had thrown his leather jacket over my shoulders as soon as we’d gotten down into the lobby, because I’d started shivering for some reason. And then when the paramedics had arrived, they’d added a blanket.
But I’d been freezing ever since seeing the wreckage that had once been the service elevator, crumpled at the bottom of that shaft. Firefighters had tried to pry the doors open with massive pliers—the jaws of life, they called them—but the twisted metal just shrieked in protest. Lying in that wreckage was Julio, who I later learned had suffered multiple broken bones, but was expected to survive. I had started shivering just looking at the mangled cab, and my hands have felt like ice ever since.
“A pipe bomb?” I echo. “How would somebody—”
“Slipped it on top of the elevator car. Easy to make, if you have the know-how. All you need is a steel pipe, threaded on both ends so you can cap it. Drill a couple holes in the side for twin fuses, slip a couple firecrackers through the holes, epoxy them in place, tack on some cigarettes, then fill the thing with gunpowder. Easy as pie.”
Easy as pie? That sounds worse than the SATs!
Noting my raised eyebrows, Canavan removes the cigar and says, “Excuse me. Easy as pie if you know how to do it. Anyway, somebody lit that thing a few minutes before you and—what’s his name?” He refers to his notebook. “Oh yeah, Mr. Guzman—went for the ride. Now, if you don’t mind my asking, what the hell were you doing on top of that thing?”
Confused, I think back. A pipe bomb, with twin cigarette fuses? I have no idea what such a thing would look like, but I certainly hadn’t noticed anything like it when I’d been up on the elevator car’s roof.
Then again, with all the gears and machinery up there, a small bomb would be easy to hide.
But a pipe bomb? A pipe bomb, in Fischer Hall?
Behind the double doors to the waiting room, a nurse is calling, “Sir, you can’t go in there! Sir, wait—”
Cooper bursts through the swinging doors, his arms full of paper bags. A pretty nurse trails after him, looking mad.
“Sir, you can’t be barging back here,” she insists. “I don’t want to have to call security—”
“It’s all right, nurse,” Detective Canavan says, flipping open his wallet and showing her his badge. “He’s with me.”
“I don’t care if he’s with the Royal Academy of Medicine,” the nurse snaps. “He can’t be barging back here.”
“Have a cannoli,” Cooper says, producing one from a bag. The nurse stares at him like he’s insane.
“No, really,” Cooper says. “Have one. On me.”
Disgusted, the nurse takes the cannoli, chomps off a large bite, then leaves, still chewing. Cooper shrugs, then eyes the detective with undisguised hostility.
“Well, if it isn’t the NYPD’s biggest dick,” he says.
“Cooper!” I’m surprised. “Detective Canavan was just telling me—”
“What, that it’s all in your head?” Cooper laughs bitterly, then stabs an index finger at the wide-eyed detective. “Well, let me tell you something, Canavan. There is no way all six cables to an elevator cab could snap at the same time unless someone deliberately—”
“Cooper!” I cry, but Detective Canavan is chuckling.
“Simmer down, Romeo,” he says, waving his cigar at us. “We already established that a second attempt was made on the life of your girlfriend here. Nobody’s sayin’ what happened with the elevator was an accident. Keep your shirt on. I’m on your side.”
Cooper blinks a few times, then looks at me. I expect him to say something like, “She’s not my girlfriend.” Only he doesn’t. Instead he says, “The tuna salad didn’t look fresh. I got you salami instead.”
“Wow,” I say. Cooper hands me a sandwich that has to be a foot long, at least. Not that there’s anything wrong with that.
Detective Canavan peers at the many bags Cooper has scattered about. “Got any chips in there?” he wants to know.
“Sorry.” Cooper unwraps my sandwich and begins breaking it up into bite-sized pieces, since I can’t hold anything real well. “Olive?”
Detective Canavan looks disappointed.
“No, thanks. So,” he says, as if there’d been no interruption. “Who told you to get on that elevator?”
I say, speaking with my mouth full because I’m too hungry to wait, “All I know is, I got a call from the reception desk that Gavin—he’s this kid that lives in the hall—was elevator surfing again, and so I went with Julio to try and chase the kid down.”
“Yeah? And when you got up there, what?”
I describe the explosion, which had occurred almost simultaneously with my realization that Gavin wasn’t up there after all.
“So,” Detective Canavan says. “Who told the kid at the desk to call you?”
“We all know who did this,” Cooper says. The barely suppressed fury is back in his voice. “Why are you just sitting there, Canavan, instead of arresting him?”
“Arresting who?” Canavan wants to know.
“Allington. He’s the killer. It’s obvious Heather’s got him running scared.”
“I’ll say,” Canavan shakes his head. “The kid left town last night. He’s parked himself out at his folks’ place in the Hamptons. No way he could have planted that bomb, not without some help. Kid’s three hours away by LIE. Somebody wants your girlfriend dead, all right. But it ain’t Chris Allington.”
24
Tonight is the night
Tonight we’ll get it right
Baby, I feel like I’ve been waiting
All my life for this night
So glad I waited
Anticipated
Tonight’s the night
For loving you
“Tonight”
Performed by Heather Wells
Composed by Dietz/Ryder
From the album Magic
Cartwright Records
Getting X-rayed is way painful, since the technician has to twist my body into several unnatural positions in order to get the angle he wants to photograph. But aside from some Motrin, I’m not offered a single thing for the pain.
Hello. You can buy Motrin over the counter. Where’s the Vicodin? Where’s the morphine? What kind of hospitals do they run these days, anyway?
After they X-ray me, they wheel me into this waiting room with a lot of other patients who are lying on gurneys. Most of them look to be in way worse shape than me. All of them seem to have much better painkillers.
Thankfully they let me keep my sandwich. It’s my only source of comfort. Well, that and some Fritos I get out of the candy machine at the end of the ward. It’s no joke getting those quarters in the slot with my bandaged fingers, believe me.
Still, even Fritos don’t make me feel better. I mean, by rights, I should be dead. I really should have been killed by that bomb. But I hadn’t died.
Not like Elizabeth Kellogg and Roberta Pace. What had gone through their minds when they’d been suspended above the hard ground sixteen, fourteen floors below? Had they struggled before they were pushed? There were no signs that they’d done so, just some burn marks, apparently.
But what kind of burn marks?
And why had I lived, while they had died? Is there some reason I’d been spared? Is there something I’m supposed to do? Find their murderer, maybe?
Or had I been allowed to live for some other, even higher purpose? Like to pursue my own medical career, and ensure that future pipe bomb victims would get better drugs when brought to local area hospitals?
A doctor who couldn’t have been any older than me finally shows up just as I’m finishing off the last of the Fritos, holding my X-rays and smiling. At least until he gets a good look at me.
“Aren’t you—” He breaks off, looking panicky.
I’m too tired to play games.
“Yes,” I say. “I’m Heather Wells. Yes, I sang ‘Sugar Rush.’”
“Oh,” he says, looking disappointed. “I thought you were Jessica Simpson.”
Jessica Simpson! I’m so appalled that I can’t utter another word, even when he blithely informs me that there isn’t anything seriously wrong with my shoulder, other than some deep tissue bruising. I need bed rest, and no, he can’t prescribe anything for the pain.
I swear I hear him humming the chorus from “With You” as he leaves.
Jessica Simpson? I don’t look anything like Jessica Simpson! Okay, we both have long blond hair. But there the resemblance ends.
Doesn’t it?
I find a ladies’ room and go inside. Peering at my reflection in the mirror above the sink, I’m relieved to find that I do not in the least resemble Jessica Simpson.
But nor do I resemble a human being. Much. My jeans are torn and covered with grease and my own blood. I’m clutching Cooper’s leather jacket as well as a bright orange blanket around my shoulders. There’s blood and dirt all over my face, and my hair hangs in greasy tangles. There isn’t a trace of lipstick anywhere in the vicinity of my mouth.
In short, I look hideous.
I try to rectify the situation as best I can. Still, the results aren’t anything to write home about.
But it’s a good thing I’d elected to freshen up a little, because when I wander out into the waiting room, my hospital bill—all seventeen hundred dollars of it, to be paid by New York College—in my back pocket, I’m almost blinded by the number of flashbulbs that go off. More than a dozen people I don’t know are calling out, “Miss Wells! Miss Wells, over here! Just one question, Miss Wells—” and the hospital security guard is trying desperately to keep more reporters from spilling into the lobby from the street.
“Heather!” A familiar voice sounds from somewhere in the throng, but not before a woman with a lot of pancake makeup and very big hair shoves a microphone in my face and demands, “Miss Wells, is it true that you and former flame ex—Easy Street member Jordan Cartwright are back together?”
Before I can open my mouth to reply, another reporter pounces.
“Miss Wells, is it true that this is the second time in two days that someone has tried to kill you?”
“Miss Wells,” a third reporter asks. “Is there any truth to the rumor that this bomb was part of an elaborate terrorist plot to eradicate America’s most beloved former teen pop sensations?”
“Heather!”
Above the microphone props and shoulder-held cameras towers Cooper. He gestures to me, indicating a side door that says Hospital Personnel Only on it.
But before I can duck toward it, someone grabs me by my sore shoulder and shouts, “Heather, is it true that you’ll be making your singing comeback representing Calvin Klein’s new fragrance for his fashion company’s fall line?”
Thankfully, a cop shows up, breaking through the wall of reporters and taking hold of my good arm. He physically propels me from the middle of the throng, using his nightstick as a prod to hasten our progress.
“All right, all right,” he says over and over again, in the flat Brooklyn accent I’ve come to know and trust since moving to New York City. “Let the lady through now. Show a little compassion for the patient, folks, and get out of her way.”
The anonymous officer steers me through the Hospital Personnel Only door, then posts himself in front of it like a Marvel comic book superhero, guarding Fort Knox.
Once inside what turns out to be the very same hallway where I’d left Cooper and Detective Canavan when I’d gone to get X-rayed, I see that they’d been joined by a number of people, including Patty and Frank, Magda and Pete, and, for some reason, Dr. Jessup.
Both Patty and Magda let out wails of dismay when they see me. I don’t know why. I thought I’d cleaned myself up pretty good.
Nevertheless, Patty springs out of her plastic chair and grabs me in a hug I’m sure she means to be friendly, but which actually hurts quite a bit. She’s crying and saying things like, “I told you to find a different job! This job is no good for you, it’s too dangerous!”
Meanwhile, Magda’s staring at my hands, her jaw moving in a weird way. I’ve never seen her eyes so big.
“Oh my God,” she keeps saying, throwing accusing looks in Pete’s direction. “You said it was bad, but you didn’t say how bad.”
“I’m okay,” I insist, trying to extricate myself from Patty’s impossibly long arms. “Really, Patty, I’m okay—”
“Jesus, Pats, you’re hurting her.” Frank tries to pry his wife off me. He peers down at me anxiously as he untangles Patty’s arms from mine. “You really okay, kid? You look like hell.”
“I’m okay,” I lie. I’m still shaken up, not so much from my ordeal in the elevator shaft as from my ordeal at the hands of those reporters. Where had they come from? And how had they found out about the bomb so fast? New York College appeared in the press rarely, and positively, if at all. How was this going to reflect upon my six months’ performance review? Would it be held against me?
Then Dr. Jessup coughs, and everyone looks at him. In his arms is an enormous bouquet of sunflowers. For me. Dr. Jessup has brought me flowers.
“Wells,” he says, in his gravelly voice. “Always hafta be in the spotlight, dontcha?”
I smile, moved beyond speech. After all, Dr. Jessup is very busy, being assistant vice president and all. I couldn’t believe he’d taken time out to come down to the hospital to give me flowers.
But Dr. Jessup isn’t done. He leans down and kisses my cheek, saying, “Glad you’re all in one piece, Wells. These are from the department.” He thrusts the flowers at me, and when I helplessly raise my bandaged hands, Magda steps in, taking the bouquet for me. Dr. Jessup doesn’t see her scowl, or if he does, he ignores it. He also doesn’t hear her mutter, “He gives her flowers, when what he should be giving her is a big fat raise… ”
“Rachel said to tell you she’s sorry she couldn’t come, but somebody has to hold down the fort.” Dr. Jessup grins, showing all of his teeth. “ ’Course, she didn’t know about all the paparazzi. Bet she’ll be sorry she missed that when she hears about it. So, who you gonna sell the story to,Entertainment Tonight or Access Hollywood?”
“The Post ’ll offer you top dollar,” Magda informs me, not aware that Dr. Jessup is kidding. “Or the Enquirer.”
“Don’t worry,” I say with a smile. “I won’t be talking to the press.”
Dr. Jessup doesn’t look convinced. His expression has gone from one of friendly concern to one of worried suspicion. I realize suddenly that the only reason he even showed up at the hospital was to see if I intended to go public with my story.
I should have known, I guess. I mean that Dr. Jessup wasn’t there out of concern for me. Dr. Jessup was there for one reason, and one reason only:
Damage control.
I think he suspected it was going to be bad—why else would he have braved the traffic this far into the West Village? – but I don’t think he ever thought it was going to be this bad. A bomb going off in a New York College dormitory—I mean, residence hall—is news with a capital N. Something similar had happened at Yale, and it had made CNN, and been a lead story on all the local networks, even though it had turned out to have nothing to do with terrorism.
And the fact that one of the victims of this bomb is a former teen pop sensation? Well, that just makes the story that much juicier. My disappearance from the world of music had not gone unnoticed, and the reason behind it—including my mother’s new Argentinian cattle ranch—had been made graphically public. I could just see the cover of the Post:
BLOND BOMBSHELL
Former Pop Star Heather Wells
Nearly Blown to Bits
at low-paying job she was forced to take at New York College in order to support herself after her music career tanked and she was thrown out by former fiancé, Easy Street member Jordan Cartwright.
Still, I can understand Dr. Jessup’s concern. Having two of his employees injured in an elevator accident is one thing.
But a bomb in one of his dormitories—I mean, residence halls? Worse, a bomb in the building in which the president of the college lives? What’s he going to tell the trustees? The poor guy probably thinks he’s watching his vice presidency slip away.
I don’t blame him for being more worried about his own skin than mine. After all, he’s got kids. All I’ve got is a dog.
“Heather,” Dr. Jessup begins again. “I’m sure you under stand. This thing is a PR nightmare. We can’t have the public thinking our residence halls are out of control—”
To my surprise, it’s Detective Canavan who interrupts the assistant vice president. Noisily clearing his throat, then looking around unsuccessfully for a place to spit, Detective Canavan sighs, then swallows.
Then he says, “Hey. Hate to break this up, but the longer Ms. Wells here sticks around, the harder it’s gonna be for my boys to maintain crowd control out there.”
I feel an arm slip around my shoulders. Looking up, I’m surprised to see that the arm belongs to Cooper. He isn’t looking at me, though. He’s looking at the door.
“Come on, Heather,” he says. “Frank and Patty brought their car. They parked it down below, in the garage. They’ll give us a lift home.”
“Oh yes, let’s go,” Patty urges. Her beautiful face is filled with distaste. “I hate hospitals, and I hate reporters even more.” Her dark, almond-shaped eyes slide toward Dr. Jessup, and she looks as if she’s about to add,And I hate uptight bureaucrats most of all, but she refrains, entirely for my sake, I’m sure, since I choose that moment to step on her foot sort of hard, causing her to let out a little yelp of pain.
After I say good-bye to Pete and Magda—who promise to stick around the hospital until they get to see Julio—a hospital administrator gladly shows us the way down to the parking garage, as if any sacrifice she can make to get rid of us—and ergo, all the reporters—will be well worth it.
All I can think the whole way to the car is,Oh God. I am so fired. When I’m not thinking,Oh God, what’s with the arm? about Cooper, that is.
Except that once we’re safely in the car, Cooper removes his arm. So then I just have the one thing to worry about.
“Oh God,” I can’t help saying miserably, a catch in my throat, from the backseat. “I think Dr. Jessup is going to fire me.”
“Nobody’s going to fire you, Heather,” Cooper says. “The guy’s just looking out for his own interests.”
“That man even crosses his eyes at you, baby, he’s gonna hafta deal with me,” Patty growls, from behind the wheel. Patty is an assertive—one might almost say aggressive—driver, which is why she, instead of Frank, does all the driving when they’re in the city. She leans on the horn as a yellow cab cuts her off. “Nobody messes with my best girlfriend.”
Frank, looking back at me from the front passenger seat, says, “Cooper give you his jacket?”
I look down at the leather coat still wrapped around my shoulders. It smells of Cooper, like leather and soap. I never want to take it off, not ever again. But I know I’m going to have to, when we get home.
“No,” I say. “I mean, just to borrow.”
