He looks like Tinker Bell. If Tinker Bell were dark-haired. And a lot hairier.
“Yeah,” I say. I have a sudden and nearly uncontrollable urge to rush at the cookie table and shove as many as possible into my mouth. They’re the good kind, too. Homemade (well, by the bakers over at the student center), not store bought. There are plenty of chocolate chips left. And even some brownies.
“Listen,” Mark says. “I know this probably isn’t the best place to bring this up, but I heard something kind of disturbing earlier today, and I can’t help thinking there must have been some kind of misunderstanding, and if it’s all right with you, I’d like to try to clear the air now, if I can, so we can just move on as soon as possible… ”
That’s it. I need a brownie. I turn and head for the nearest table.
“It’s not a misunderstanding,” I say, as I carefully choose a chocolate chip cookie—without nuts—that’s nearly as big as my head. “I received a complaint about you from a resident, and for her physical and emotional safety, until you’ve been cleared in a formal hearing by the board of trustees, I’ve made you persona non grata in my building.”
Reverend Mark’s dark eyebrows go up—way up—in surprise. “A formal—wait. You’re kidding me, right?”
I sink my teeth into the cookie. Delicious. That’s the thing about homemade cookies, as opposed to the stuff you buy in stores. They’re made with real butter, none of this hydrogenated stuff that, let’s be honest, you really don’t even know what it is.
“No,” I say. I don’t chew. I don’t have to. The cookie is melting in my mouth. “I’m really not.”
“How can you just categorically take this girl’s word over mine?” Reverend Mark demands.
“Because,” I say. “I like her.”
“Don’t I even get a chance to defend myself?”
“Sure,” I say. “At the formal hearing.”
“But I don’t even know what I’m being accused of,” Mark bleats. “It’s not fair!”
“Oh,” I say, swallowing. “I think you know. You already spoke with—and I’m using the term loosely. A less generous person might have said ‘threatened’—the victim, and tried to talk her out of writing a formal complaint once. It’s just lucky for you the person she was supposed to meet with in order to issue that complaint died suddenly.” I narrow my eyes as I gaze up at him. “Isn’t it?”
But Mark doesn’t take the bait. Instead he says, looking agitated, “You don’t understand. Jamie Price is a sweet girl, but she’s… confused. She misinterprets gestures of friendship as sexual in nature.”
I sincerely hope he doesn’t turn around and notice that Jamie is currently off in one corner of the room in a clench with her tongue down the throat of a certain fellow New York College junior.
“She’s actually disturbed,” Mark goes on. “I was going to recommend her for counseling.”
“Really,” I say. The cookie, which I’ve finished, is not sitting well. Maybe I need something else, to sort of settle my stomach. Only what? I notice that Tad and Muffy, over by the punch bowl, are still talking. So punch is out. I also notice that Cooper is keeping an eye on me, as he’d promised. He’s standing by the Mexican wedding cakes. Mmmm, Mexican wedding cakes. Tender, flaky, buttery morsels…
“This is all stuff,” I tell Reverend Mark, “that you can bring up at the hearing. Although you might want to consider looking into some counseling for yourself, too.”
“Counseling for myself?” Mark looks astonished. “Why would I want to do that?”
“Well,” I say. My gaze lands on the Mrs. Veatches, who are shaking hands with President Allington and his wife, who appear to be leaving. President Allington is keeping a hand on his wife’s arm… the only thing, as far as I can tell, that’s keeping her upright. “The birds,” Mrs. Allington keeps saying, meaning her pet cockatoos, whom she often references in moments when she’s imbibed a little too much. “The birds.”
“It’s my understanding,” I say to Reverend Mark, tearing my gaze away from Mrs. Allington’s highly amusing antics with an effort, “that this isn’t the first school where you’ve run into this kind of thing.”
Mark’s face changes. He goes from looking blandly handsome to darkly angry in a split second. The next thing I know, his hand is on my arm, his fingers wrapped around me in a grip that hurts. Well, in an annoying way, more than an actually painful kind of way.
“Ow,” I say, and look around for Cooper.
But something is happening over by the security desk. And that something is that someone no one is expecting to come to Owen Veatch’s memorial service—or, at least, the refreshment portion following it—has walked in.
And that someone is his suspected murderer, Sebastian Blumenthal.
To say that all hell breaks loose would be an understatement. The security guard, in the way of campus security guards everywhere (Pete excluded, of course), lets him in, of course, and Sebastian, with a square-jawed Sarah behind him, makes a beeline for Pam Don’t-Call-Me-Mrs. Veatch. I have no idea how he’d known she was the bereaved not-widow… maybe because she was standing beside the ancient mother-of-the-deceased in the receiving line.
In any case, every gaze in the place, including my own and Cooper’s, is drawn instantly to the developing little drama as Pam lurches instinctively away from Sebastian’s outstretched hand and heartfelt “Mrs. Veatch? I am so, so sorry for your loss—”
—just as Mark Halstead gives my arm a surprisingly hard yank and drags me toward a nearby side door to the natatorium.
I suppose my yelp of alarm might have alerted those nearest me that I was in trouble… if Pam’s shriek of outrage hadn’t drowned out everything else that was audible within a five-mile radius (I exaggerate, but seriously, that lady has a set of lungs on her).
I don’t get to stick around to see what happens next, because one minute I’m in the atrium with everyone else, and the next, I’m in the stairwell.
But I suspect fingernails were launched in the direction of Sebastian’s eyeballs.
Seriously, I don’t know what Sarah was thinking, letting him talk her into coming here. She had to have known what a bad idea it was. Sure, Sebastian might have wanted to pay his respects.
But couldn’t he have done it in some less public forum, when feelings might not have been running quite as high?
In any case, I don’t get to see how Mrs. Veatch One and Two react to Owen’s alleged killer showing up at his memorial service, beyond Mrs. Veatch Number Two’s shriek. That’s because Mark has me inside that stairwell and pressed up against the cinder-block wall in the blink of an eye, where he seems to be trying very hard to convince me that I ought to be keeping the information about his previous places of employment—and subsequent dismissals from them—to myself.
I can’t help being conscious of the fact that we are standing on the top of a very steep stairwell and that Mark is, for his profession, remarkably strong. It’s not out of the realm of possibility that he could throw me down those stairs, snapping my neck, then claim I fell accidentally. Everyone would believe it. I am not known, after all, for my grace.
“Look,” Mark is saying, shaking me with the force of his grip. He has both hands on my upper arms now. His thumbs are actually cutting off my circulation. “It wasn’t my fault about those other girls! I’m a good-looking guy! Girls hit on me! Of course I say no, and when I do, they get mad, and report me! It’s not me… it’s them!”
“Mark,” I say, in the calmest voice I can muster. There’s just a slim metal railing separating us from the stairwell. The smell of chlorine is sharp in the air. It reminds me of all those times I tried to burn calories swimming laps. Yeah. Like that worked. I came home so ravenous, I once ate an entire loaf of Roman Meal. With nothing on it. “I don’t care about those other girls. It’s Owen I care about.”
“Owen?” Mark’s face twists with confusion. “Who the hell is OWEN?”
“Owen Veatch,” I remind him. “The man you just gave the eulogy for.”
“What does he have to do with any of this?” Mark wants to know. “Christ—he didn’t say I hit on him, too, did he? I may be a lot of things, but I’m not GAY.”
I laugh. I can’t help it.
“Right,” I say. “Good one.”
“I’m serious,” Mark says. “Heather, I know I have a problem. But I mean… a lot of girls, they like it. Especially the ones who may not be as good-looking as the others, you know what I mean? The homely ones… the chubby ones—it gives them a little boost of self-esteem. I don’t mean anything by it. I really don’t. It’s just to make them feel good.”
