penthouse. I don’t think she’s feeling too well. Can I… can I just help her get inside?”
The cop gives me the eye.
“I know you from somewhere?” the cop asks. It’s not a come-on. With me, this line never is.
“Probably from the neighborhood,” I say, with excessive cheer. “I work in this building.” I flash him my college staff ID card, the one with the photo where I look drunk, even though I wasn’t. Until after I saw the photo. “See? I’m the assistant residence hall director.”
He doesn’t look impressed by the title, but he says, with a shrug, “Whatever. Get ’er inside, if you want. But I don’t know how you’re gonna get ’er upstairs. Elevators are shut down.”
I don’t know how I’m going to get Mrs. Allington upstairs, either, considering she’s so unsteady on her feet, I’m practically going to have to carry her. I fling a glance over my shoulder at Magda, who, seeing my predicament, rolls her eyes. But she stamps out her cigarette and heads gamely toward us, ready to offer whatever aid she can.
Before she quite gets to us, though, two young women—garbed in what I consider standard New York College attire, low rider jeans with belly rings—come bursting out of the building, breathing hard.
“Oh my God, Jeff,” one of them calls to the bhang dropper. “What is up with the elevators? We just had to walk down seventeen flights of stairs.”
“I’m going to die,” the other girl announces.
“Seriously,” the first girl pants, loudly. “For what we’re paying in tuition and housing fees, you’d think the PRESIDENT would be able to invest in elevators that don’t break down all the time.”
I don’t miss her hostile glance at Mrs. Allington, who made the mistake of letting her photo be published in the school paper, thus making her a recognizable target around the dorm. I mean, residence hall.
“C’mon, Mrs. Allington,” I say quickly, giving her arm a little tug. “Let’s go inside.”
“About time,” Mrs. Allington says, stumbling a little, as Magda moves to take hold of her other arm. The two of us steer her through the front door to cries—from the students—of “Hey! Why do they get to go in, but we don’t? We live here, too!” and “No fair!” and, “Fascists!”
From the careful way she’s putting one kitten heel in front of the other, I’m pretty sure Mrs. Allington is already a little tipsy, even though it’s not quite noon. My suspicions are confirmed when the three of us pass into the building and Mrs. Allington suddenly leans over and heaves her breakfast into one of the planters in the front lobby.
It definitely looks as if Mrs. A. had a few Bloody Marys to go with her eggs this morning.
“Santa Maria,” Magda says, horrified. And who can blame her?
I don’t know about anyone else, but when I throw up (and, I’m sorry to say, it’s something I do regularly every single New Year’s Eve), I like a little sympathy, even if the whole thing’s my own fault.
So I pat Mrs. Allington on her padded shoulder and say, “There. Don’t you feel better now?”
Mrs. Allington squints at me as if she’s noticing me for the first time.
“Who the hell are you?” she asks.
“Um,” I say. “I’m the assistant building director. Heather Wells. Remember? We met a couple of months ago?”
Mrs. Allington looks confused. “What happened to Justine?”
“Justine found another job,” I explain, which is a lie, since Justine was fired. But the truth is, I don’t know Justine’s side of the story. I mean, maybe she really needed the money. Maybe she has relatives who live in Bosnia or somewhere really cold, and they don’t have any heat, and those ceramic heaters kept them alive all winter. You never know.
Mrs. Allington just squints some more.
“Heather Wells?” She blinks a few more times. “But aren’t you… aren’t you that girl? The one who used to sing in all those malls?”
That’s when I realize that Mrs. Allington has finally recognized me, all right…
… but not as the assistant director of the building she lives in.
Wow. I never suspected Mrs. Allington of being a fan of teen pop. She seems more the Barry Manilow type—much older teen pop.
“I was,” I say to her, kindly, because I still feel sorry for her, on account of the barf, and all. “But I don’t perform anymore.”
“Why?” Mrs. Allington wants to know.
Magda and I exchange glances. Magda seems to be getting her sense of humor back, since there is a distinct upward slant to corners of her lip-linered mouth.
“Um,” I say. “It’s kind of a long story. Basically I lost my recording contract—”
“Because you got fat?” Mrs. Allington asks.
Which is, I have to admit, when I sort of stopped feeling sorry for her.
3
I tell you I can’t
But you don’t seem to care
I tell you I won’t
It’s like I’m not even there
I can’t wait forever
I won’t wait forever
Baby, it is now or never
Tell me you love me
Or baby, set me free
“I Can’t”
Performed by Heather Wells
Written by O’Brien/Henke
From the album Sugar Rush
Cartwright Records
Fortunately I’m spared from having to make any sort of reply to Mrs. Allington’s remark about my weight by the fact that my boss, Rachel Walcott, comes hurrying up to us just then, her patent leather slides clacking on the marble floor of the lobby.
“Heather,” Rachel says, when she sees me. “Thank you so much for coming.” She actually does look sort of relieved that I’m there, which makes me feel good. You know, that I really am needed, if only $23,500-a-year worth.
“Sure,” I say. “I’m so sorry. Was it—I mean, is it—someone we know?”
But Rachel just gives me a warning look—like “Don’t talk about family business in front of strangers,” the strangers being Mrs. Allington and Magda, cafeteria workers not being considered residence hall staff, and wives of presidents of the college DEFINITELY not being considered that way—and turns toward Mrs. Allington.
“Good morning, Mrs. Allington,” Rachel all but shouts, as if to an elderly person, though Mrs. Allington can’t be much more than sixty. “I’m so sorry about all this. Are you all right?”
Mrs. Allington is far from all right, but—even as upset as I am about the fat remark—I don’t want to blurt this out. She’s still, after all, the president’s wife.
Instead all I say is “Mrs. Allington isn’t feeling too well.”
I accompany the statement with a significant glance toward the planter Mrs. A. just heaved into, hoping Rachel will get the message. We haven’t worked together for all that long, Rachel and I. She was hired just a week or two before I was, to replace the director who’d quit right after Justine had been fired—but not out of
