Meg Cabot - Size 14 Is Not Fat Either

But I recognize Tau Phi Epsilon right away, because the sign TAU PHI EPSILON, in subdued black lettering, instead of the Greek symbols.

Unlike the well-swept sidewalk in front of Fischer Hall, the courtyard in front of Waverly Hall is filthy, littered with beer cans. The potted shrubs on either side of the front door are decorated with women’s underwear instead of twinkly Christmas lights—all different sizes and colors and styles of women’s underwear, from black lacy thongs to white Calvin Klein briefs to polka-dot bikini bottoms.

“Now, that,” I say, looking down at the panties, “is just a waste of good lingerie.”

Cooper, however, continues to look murderous, not even cracking a smile at my semi-joke. He yanks open the door and waits for me to enter before going inside himself.

The heat inside is so intense, I feel my nose begin to defrost at once. We enter a fairly clean foyer guarded by a gray-haired New York College security officer, whose face is crisscrossed by so many broken capillaries that his off-duty (one can only hope) predilection for whiskey is plainly obvious. When I show him my staff ID and tell him we’re there to see Doug Winer of Tau Phi Epsilon, he doesn’t even bother buzzing up to see if Doug’s there. He just waves us toward the elevator. As we pass, I realize why: he’s busy watching soap operas on one of his desk monitors.

Joining Cooper in the tiny, three-person elevator, I’m silent during the bouncy ride… until the cab lurches to a stop on the fifth floor, and the door opens to reveal a long, somewhat dingy hallway, along which someone has spray- painted in three-foot-high flourescent pink letters: FAT CHICKS GO HOME.

I blink at the letters, which reach nearly to my hip, and are scrawled across doors and walls indiscriminately. The Tau Phi Epsilons are going to have some pretty hefty floor damage charges come the end of the school year.

“Well,” I say, staring at the wall.

“This,” Cooper bursts out, “is exactly why I don’t think you ought to be getting involved in this investigation.”

“Because I’m a fat chick, and I ought to go home?” I ask, struck to the quick.

Cooper’s expression darkens even further… a feat I hadn’t thought possible.

“No,” he says. “Because… because… guys like this… they’re animals.”

“The kind of animals who would chop off a cheerleader’s head and cook it on a stove in a dorm cafeteria?” I ask him pointedly.

But he’s apparently speechless with indignation. So I knock on the door closest to the elevator, the one with TAU PHI EPSILON written over the frame.

The door swings open, and a dark-haired woman in an honest-to-God maid’s uniform—not one of those sexy ones they sell on Bleecker Street, but a real one, with long sleeves and a skirt below the knees—blinks at us. She’s fairly young, probably early forties, and has a dust rag in one hand. She’s not wearing a lace cap, though. Thank God.

“Yes?” she says. She has a heavy Spanish accent. Heavier than Salma Hayek’s, even.

I show her my staff ID. “Hi,” I say. “I’m Heather Wells, and this is my friend Cooper Cartwright. I’m with the Housing Department. I just wanted to—”

“Come in,” the woman says disinterestedly. She steps out of the way so that we can enter, then closes the door behind us. We find ourselves in a spacious, well-lit loft—the old-fashioned kind, with high ceilings, crown molding, and parquet floors—in a foyer surrounded by doors on all four sides.

“They’re in there.” She nods her head toward a set of closed French doors off to the right.

“Um, well, we’re actually looking for someone in particular,” I say. “Doug Winer. Do you know which room is—”

“Look,” the woman says, not unpleasantly. “I just clean here. I don’t actually know any of them by name.”

“Thank you for your time,” Cooper says politely, and, taking me by the arm, steers me toward the closed French doors. He’s muttering something beneath his breath that I don’t quite catch… possibly because the minute his hand closed over my arm, my heart began to drum so loudly in my ears, it drowned out all other sound. Even through seven layers of material, Cooper’s touch excites me no end.

I know. I really am pathetic.

Rapping sharply on the glass panes of the double doors, Cooper calls out, “Hello, in there.”

A voice from within hollers something indistinguishable. Cooper looks down at me, and I shrug. He throws open the French doors. Through the thick gray fog of marijuana smoke, I’m able to make out the green felt of a billiard table, and, in the background, a wide-screen TV transmitting the flickering images of a football game. The room is lit by a bank of windows that let in the uneasy gray of outdoors, and by the warm glow of a brass and stained-glass lamp that hangs over the pool table. In a far corner, a spirited game of air hockey is taking place, and to my immediate left, someone opens a mini-fridge and pulls out a beer.

That’s when I realize Cooper and I must have just died—possibly on that rickety old elevator—and I’d somehow ended up in Guy Heaven by mistake.

“Hey,” says a blond kid leaning over the pool table to make a difficult shot. He has a joint pressed between his lips, the tip of which glows red. Incredibly, he’s dressed in a red satin smoking jacket and a pair of Levi’s. “Hang on.”

He draws back the cue and shoots, and the click of balls is drowned out by the sudden thunder of the football fans as they cheer on a favorite player. Straightening, the kid removes the joint from his mouth and studies Cooper and me from behind a hank of blond hair. “What can I do you for?” he inquires.

I look longingly at the beer the kid reaches for and sucks back while he waits for our response. A glance at Cooper tells me that he, too, is fondly recalling a time in his life when it was okay—even encouraged—to drink beer before lunchtime. Although I never actually lived through a time like that, never having gone to college.

“Um,” I say, “we’re looking for Doug Winer. Is he here?”

The kid laughs. “Hey, Brett,” he calls over his red satin shoulder. “This babe wants to know if Doug’s here.”

Brett, at the air hockey table, snorts. “Would we be enjoying this excellent ganja if the Dougster wasn’t here?” he inquires, raising his beer bottle in the air like that guy in that play who held up the skull and said he knew him well. “Of course the Dougster is here. The Dougster is, in fact, everywhere.”

Cooper is staring longingly at the wide-screen TV, apparently unaware that I’ve just been called a babe—which, while still sexist, is a nicer welcome than I’d have expected, based on the signage outside.

Still, with my partner apparently in a trance, I feel it’s up to me to steer the conversation in a more profitable direction.

“Well,” I say. “Could you tell me where, specifically, I might find Mr. Winer?”

One of the guys in front of the TV suddenly swivels around and barks, “Christ, Scott, it’s a cop!”

Every joint in the room, and a surprising amount of beer, disappears in a split second, crushed under Docksiders or stashed behind sofa cushions.

“Cops!” Scott, the kid at the pool table, throws down his joint disgustedly. “Aren’t you guys supposed to announce yourselves? You can’t peg me for nothing, man, ’cause you didn’t announce yourself.”

“We’re not cops,” I say, holding up both gloved hands. “Relax. We’re just looking for Doug.”

Scott sneers. “Yeah? Well, you gotta be buyin’, ’cause in threads like those, you sure ain’t sellin’.” A number of snickers sound in agreement.

I look down at my jeans, then glance surreptitiously at Cooper’s anorak, which he has unzipped to reveal a Shetland sweater featuring a green reindeer leaping over a geometric design in which the color pink figures prominently, a sweater I happen to know he received for Christmas from a doting great-aunt. Cooper is quite popular with the more elderly of his relatives.