Meg Cabot - Size 14 Is Not Fat Either

I mean, what am I supposed to do, go around looking for a guy with a cleaver and a girl’s body in a fresh grave in his backyard? Yeah, right. And get my head chopped off, too. The whole thing is ridiculous. Detective Canavan isn’t stupid. He’ll find the killer soon enough. How can anyone hide a headless corpse? It’s going to have to turn up sometime.

And when it does, I just hope I’m somewhere far, far away.

It still isn’t snowing by the time I leave work, but it is pitch-black outside, even though it’s just a little past five o’clock. The news crews are still parked along Washington Square Park, across the street from Fischer Hall—in fact, there are more of them than ever, including vans from all the major networks, and even CNN… just as President Allington had predicted.

The presence of the news vans isn’t doing much to deter the drug trafficking in the park, though. In fact, I run into Reggie as I turn the corner to Cooper’s brownstone. Although at first he hisses, “Sens, sens,” to me, when he recognizes me, his expression turns grave.

“Heather,” he says. “I am very sorry to hear about the tragedy in your building.”

“Thank you, Reggie.” I blink at him. In the pink glow from the street lamp, he looks surprisingly harmless, though I’ve heard from Cooper that Reggie carries in an ankle holster a.22 that he has, upon occasion, been called upon to use. “Um… you wouldn’t happen to have heard anything about why the girl was killed? Or by whom? Would you?”

Reggie’s grin is broad. “Heather,” he says, sounding delighted, “are you asking me what the word on the street is?”

“Um,” I say. Because put that way, it sounds so terrifically dorky. “Yeah. I guess I am.”

“I haven’t heard anything about it,” Reggie says, and I can tell by the way his smile has faded—but, more to the point, the way he maintains steady eye contact with me—that he’s telling the truth. “But if I do, you will be the first to hear about it.”

“Thanks, Reggie,” I say, and start back down the street… only to pause when I hear Reggie call my name.

“I hope you are not thinking about getting involved in whatever this young lady was messing with, Heather,” he says to me. He’s not smiling at all now. “Because you can bet she was messing with something… and that is what got her killed. I would not like to see that happen to a nice lady like yourself.”

“Thanks, Reggie,” I say. Which is not what I want to say. What I want to say is,I wish people would have a little faith in me. I’m not that stupid. But I know everyone is only trying to be nice. So instead I say, “Don’t worry, I’m leaving the investigating to the professionals this time. Anything you tell me that you hear, I’m taking straight to them.”

“That’s good,” Reggie says. And then, seeing a group of typical West Village dot commers, he hastens away from me, murmuring, “Smoke, smoke. Sens, sens,” at them.

I smile after him. It’s always nice to see someone so dedicated to his calling.

When I finally finish undoing all the locks to the front door of Cooper’s brownstone, I can barely get it open because of all the mail that’s piled up beneath the slot. Turning on the lights—Cooper must still be away on his little stakeout—I scoop up the enormous pile, grumbling at all the coupon packs and AOL trial disks. I’m asking myself why we don’t ever get any real mail—just bills and savings offers—when Lucy comes careening down the stairs, having heard me come in. In her jaws is a Victoria’s Secret catalog that she’s apparently spent the afternoon savaging into a droolly mess.

Lucy is truly a remarkable animal, given this special ability she has of singling out the sole catalog most likely to make me feel inadequate, and destroying it before I ever even get a chance to open it.

It’s as I’m trying to wrestle it away from Lucy—to keep her from leaving chunks of Heidi Klum’s torso all over the place—that the hallway phone rings, and I pick it up without even checking the caller ID.

“Hello?” I say distractedly. There is dog spit all over my fingers.

“Heather?” The voice of my ex-fiancé—sounding worried—fills my ear. “Heather, it’s me. God, where have you been? I’ve been trying to reach you all day. There’s something… there’s something I really need to talk to you about—”

“What is it, Jordan?” I ask impatiently. “I’m kind of busy.” I don’t say what I’m busy doing. He doesn’t need to know I’m busy trying to get my dog to stop eating a lingerie catalog. Let him think I’m busy being made love to by his brother.

Ha. I wish.

“It’s just,” Jordan says, “Tania told me the other day that you RSVP’d no to the wedding.”

“That’s right,” I say. I’m starting to piece together what all this might be about. “I have plans on Saturday.”

“Heather.” Jordan sounds wounded.

“Seriously, I do,” I insist. “I have to work. It’s check-in day for the transfer students.”

This isn’t a complete lie. Check-in day for the transfer students is on a Saturday. It’s just that it was last Saturday, not this coming Saturday. Still, Jordan will never know that.

“Heather,” he says, “my wedding is at five o’clock. Are you telling me you will still be working at five o’clock?”

Damn!

“Heather, I don’t understand why you don’t want to come to my wedding,” he goes on. “I mean, I know things were rocky between us for a while—”

“Jordan, I walked in on you getting head from the bride-to-be,” I remind him. “Which, at the time, I mistakenly thought I was. So I think my indignation was pretty understandable.”

“I realize that,” Jordan says. “And that’s why I thought you might feel… awkward about coming. To the wedding, I mean. That’s why I’m calling, Heather. I want to make sure you know how important you are to me, and how important your coming to the wedding is to me, and to Tania, too. She still feels terrible about what happened, and we’d really like to show you how truly—”

“Jordan.” By this time, I’ve made it into the kitchen with the cordless phone clutched in one hand, Lucy trailing behind me with her tongue lolling excitedly. After throwing away the damp Victoria’s Secret catalog, I flip on the light and reach for the handle to the fridge. “I’m not going to your wedding.”

“See,” Jordan says, sounding frustrated, “I knew that’s what you were going to say. That’s why I called. Heather, don’t be this way. I really thought we’d managed to put all that behind us. My wedding is a very important event in my life, Heather, and it’s important to me that the people I care about are there with me when it happens.All the people I care about.”

“Jordan.” There, behind the milk (I went grocery shopping yesterday, when I heard about the impending blizzard, so the milk carton is full and actually well before the expiration date, for once), it sits: a white cardboard box of leftover bodega fried chicken. In other words, a box of heaven. “I’m not going to your wedding.”

“Is it because I’m not inviting Cooper?” Jordan wants to know. “Because if it is—if it means that much to you—I’ll invite him, too. Heck, you can bring him as your escort. I don’t understand what it is you see in him, but I mean, the two of you are living together. If you really want to bring him—”

“I’m not bringing your brother to your wedding, Jordan,” I say. I’ve removed the white cardboard box from the fridge, along with a hunk of goat’s milk gouda from Murray’s Cheese Shop, a hard red apple, and the milk. I’m holding the phone to my face with my shoulder, and have to kick the fridge door to get it to close. Lucy is not helping by sticking to my side like glue. She loves bodega fried chicken (peeled from the bone) as much as the next person. “Because I’m not going to your wedding. And quit acting like you want me there because you care, Jordan. I know perfectly well your publicist suggested I come, to make it look like I’ve forgiven you for cheating on me, and that we’re pals again.”