Size 14 Is Not Fat Either Part 12

Cooper raised his eyebrows. "You what?"

"I gave her s.h.i.+t." Then, seeing Cooper's expression, Doug glances nervously in my direction, and says, "I mean, stuff. I gave her stuff. You know, the kind of stuff girls like. Jewelry and flowers and stuff."

Now, Lindsay was that kind of girl. At least, from what I knew of her.

"I was even gonna give her this bracelet for her birthday-" Suddenly the kid slings himself out of bed, affording us a view I'd have preferred not to have of his snug black Calvin Klein briefs. He goes to a dresser and draws a small black velvet box from a drawer. Turning, he casually tosses the box to me. I fumble, but manage to catch it. "I don't know what I'm gonna do with it now."

I open the black velvet lid and-I will admit it-my eyes widen at the slender strand of diamonds lying inside the box on a bed of royal blue silk. If this is the kind of payback Lindsay was routinely receiving for her services, I guess I could understand it a little better.

Stifling a desire to whistle at the costliness of such a gift, I tilt the box at Cooper, who raises his dark eyebrows. "That's quite a trinket," he comments mildly. "You must have some allowance."

"Yeah." Doug shrugs. "Well, it's just money."

"Is it Dad's money?" Cooper wants to know. "Or your own?"

The kid had been rooting around, looking for something on top of the dresser. When his fingers close around a bottle of aspirin, Doug Winer sighs.

"What difference does it make?" he wants to know. "My money, my dad's money, my grandfather's money. It's all the same."

"Is it, Doug? Your father and grandfather's money comes from construction. I understand that you traffic an entirely different substance."

The kid stares. "What are you talkin' about, man?"

Cooper smiles affably. "The boys down the hall intimated that you know your way around certain hydroponics."

"I don't give a s.h.i.+t what they intimidated," Doug declares. "I do not deal drugs, and if you accuse me of selling so much as one of these to someone"-He shakes the bottle of aspirin at us-"my dad'll have your a.s.s in a sling. He's friends with the president, you know. Of this college."

"That's it," I say, feigning terror. "I'm scared now."

"You know what? You better be...." Doug starts toward me. But he gets no farther than a step before Cooper blocks his path, a hulking ma.s.s of muscle, anorak, and razor stubble.

"Just where do you think you're going?" Cooper asks lightly.

As Cooper had evidently hoped he would-guys are so predictable-the kid takes a swing at him. Cooper ducks, his grin growing wider. Now he has license to beat the c.r.a.p out of Winer, as he'd no doubt been longing to do.

"Coop," I say. Because suddenly I realize things are not going at all the way I'd hoped. "Don't."

It's useless. Cooper takes a step toward the kid just as Doug is taking a second swing, catches the kid's fist in his hand, and, by applying steady pressure with his fingers alone, sends Winer to his knees.

"Where were you," Cooper growls, his face inches from the kid's, "the night before last?"

"What?" Doug Winer gasps. "Man, you're hurtin' me!"

"Where were you the night before last?" Cooper demands, evidently increasing the pressure on the kid's hand.

"Here, man! I was here all night, you can ask the guys! We had a bong party. Jesus, you're gonna break my hand!"

"Cooper," I say, my heart beginning to drum. Hard. I mean, if I let Cooper hurt a student, I'll be in serious trouble. Fired, even. Also...well, much as I dislike him, I find I can't stand by and see Doug Winer get tortured. Even if he deserves it. "Let the kid go."

"All night?" Cooper demands, ignoring me. "You were at a bong party all night? What time did it start?"

"Nine o'clock, man! Lemme go!"

"Cooper!" I can't believe what I'm seeing. This is a side of Cooper I've never witnessed before.

And am pretty sure I never want to see again. Maybe this is why he won't tell me what he does all day. Because what he does all day is stuff like this.

Cooper finally releases the kid, and Winer slumps to the floor, clutching his hand and curling into a fetal position.

"You're gonna regret this, man," the kid wimpers, fighting back tears. "You're gonna be real sorry!"

Cooper blinks like someone coming out of a daze. He looks at me and, seeing my expression, says sheepishly, "I only used one hand."

I am so stunned by this explanation-if that's even what it is-that I can only stare at him.

A tousled blond head peeks in from the bathroom doorway. The girl from the water bed has managed to pour herself back into a bright orange party dress, but she's barefoot, her wide eyes focused on Doug's p.r.o.ne form.

But she doesn't ask what happened. Instead, she asks, "Are my shoes in there?"

I lean down and lift up two orange high-heeled pumps.

"These them?"

"Oh, yes," the girl says gratefully. She takes a few hesitant steps around her host and seizes the shoes. "Thank you very much." Slipping the pumps onto her feet, she says to Doug, "It was very nice meeting you, Joe."

Doug just moans, still clutching his injured hand. The girl scoops some of her blond hair from her eyes and leans down, displaying an admirable amount of cleavage.

"You can reach me at the Kappa Alpha Theta House anytime. It's Dana. Okay?"

When Doug nods wordlessly, Dana straightens, grabs her coat and purse from a pile on the floor, then wiggles her fingers at us.

"'Bye, now!" she says, and jiggles away, her backside swaying enticingly.

"You get out, too," Doug says to Cooper and me. "Get out or I'll...I'll call the cops."

Cooper looks interested in this threat.

"Really?" he says. "Actually, I think there are a few things the cops need to know about you. So why don't you go right ahead and do that?"

Doug just whimpers some more, clutching his hand. I say to Cooper, "Let's just go."

He nods, and we step from the room, closing Doug's door behind us. Standing once again in the Tau Phi House's hallway, inhaling the rich odor of marijuana and listening to the sounds of the football game drifting out from the game room, I study the spray paint on the wall, which the maid who'd answered the door is trying to wipe off with paint remover and a rag. She's barely started on the F in FAT CHICKS. She has a long way to go.

She has a Walkman on, and smiles when she sees us. I smile automatically back.

"I don't believe a word that kid said," Cooper says, as he zips up his anorak. "How 'bout you?"

"Nope," I say. "We should check his alibi."

The maid, who apparently hadn't had the volume on her Walkman turned up very high, looks at us and says, "You know those guys are gonna back him up whatever he says. They're his fraternity brothers. They have to."

Cooper and I exchange glances.

"She has a point," I say. "I mean, if he didn't talk when you had him in that hand lock, or whatever it was..."

Cooper nods. "The Greek a.s.sociation really is a marvelous inst.i.tution," he remarks.

"Yes, it is," the maid says, just as gravely. Then she bursts out laughing and goes back to scrubbing the F.

"About what happened back there," Cooper says to me, in a different tone of voice, as we stand waiting for the elevator. "That kid...he just...the way he treated that girl...I just..."

"Now who's got the Superman complex?" I want to know.

Cooper smiles down at me.

And I realize I love him more than ever. I should probably just tell him that, and get it out in the open so we can stop playing these games (well, okay, maybe he's not playing games, but Lord knows I am). At least that way I'll know, once and for all, if I have a chance.

I'm opening my mouth to do just that-tell him how I really feel about him-when I notice he's opening his mouth, too. My heart begins to thump-what if he's about to tell me that he loves me? Stranger things have happened.

And he did ask me to move in with him, pretty much out of the blue. And okay, maybe it was because he felt bad about the fact that I'd just walked in on my fiance, who happens to be his brother, getting a b.l.o.w. .j.o.b from another woman.

But still. He could have done it because he's secretly always been in love with me....

His smile has vanished. This is it! He's going to tell me!

"You'd better call your office and tell them you're going to be late getting back," he says.

"Why?" I ask breathlessly, hoping against hope that he's going to say, Because I plan on taking you back to my place and ravis.h.i.+ng you for the rest of the day.

"Because I'm taking you over to the Sixth Precinct, where you're going to tell Detective Canavan everything you know about this case." The elevator doors slide open, and Cooper unceremoniously propels me into the car. "And then you're going to keep out of it, like I told you."

"Oh," I say.

Well, okay. It isn't a declaration of love, exactly. But at least it proves he cares.

12.

The "rat" in "unreliable narrator"

The "lie" in "silliest"

The "end' in "narcissistic tendencies"

The "us" in "total disgust."

"Rejection Song"

Written by Heather Wells

"What do you mean, we have to go to tonight's game?"

"Departmental memo," Tom says, flicking it onto my desk. Or should I say his desk, since he's apparently taking it over for the duration of Gillian Kilgore's stay? "Mandatory attendance. To show our Pansy Spirit."

"I don't have any Pansy Spirit," I say.

"Well, you better get some," Tom says. "Especially since we're having dinner beforehand with President Allington and Coach Andrews here in the caf."

My jaw drops. "WHAT?"

"He thinks it's just the ticket," Tom says, in a pleasant voice I happen to know is solely for the benefit of Dr. Kilgore, behind the grate next door, "to show the public that the Fischer Hall cafeteria is safe to eat-and live-in. He's upset about everybody calling this place Death Dorm."

I stare at him. "Tom, I'm upset about that, too. But I don't see how eating warmed-over beef stroganoff and watching a basketball game is going to help."

"Neither do I," Tom says, dropping his voice to a whisper. "That's why I'm taking a little peppermint schnapps with me in a flask. We can share, if you want."

Generous as this offer is, it doesn't quite make the evening sound more palatable. I'd had big plans for tonight: I was going to go home and make Cooper's favorite dinner-marinated steak from Jefferson Market, with a salad and roasted new potatoes-in the hope of b.u.t.tering him up enough to ask how he'd feel about my dad moving in for a bit.

And Cooper needed major b.u.t.tering up, if I was going to get him to quit being so mad at me over the Doug Winer thing. After his initial chagrin over the way he'd manhandled the kid (or over me witnessing the way he'd manhandled the kid) had worn off-about midway through our meeting with Detective Canavan-Cooper had been quite vocal in his disapproval over my involving myself in the investigation into Lindsay's death at all. I believe the words "d.a.m.ned stupid" were mentioned.

Which did not bode well for my plan of bearing Cooper's children, much less asking him if my dad could move in.

Sadly, Detective Canavan was not in the least bit interested in any of the information I was able to impart pertaining to Lindsay's complicated love life. Or at least, if he was, he didn't act like it. He sat at his desk with a bored expression on his face through my entire recitation, then, when I was done, all he said was, "Ms. Wells, leave the Winer boy alone. Do you have any idea what his father could do to you?"

"Chop me up into little pieces and bury them in cement beneath the concrete foundation of one of the buildings he's constructing?" I asked.

Detective Canavan rolled his eyes. "No. Sue you for hara.s.sment. That guy's got more lawyers than Trump."

"Oh," I said, deflated.

"Was the Winer boy signed in the night Lindsay was killed?" the detective asked, though he clearly already knew the answer. He just wanted me to say it. "Not just by Lindsay, but by anyone else? Anyone at all?"

"No," I was forced to admit. "But like I was telling Cooper, there are tons of ways people can sneak into the building if they really want-"