“I swear I’m not gonna talk to him,” I insist, raising my right hand and making the Girl Scout’s honor symbol with three fingers. Except, of course, I never was a Girl Scout, so it doesn’t count. “I won’t go near him.”
“Correct me if I’m mistaken,” Cooper says, “but aren’t you convinced he tried to kill you today?”
“Well, that’s what I’m trying to find out,” I say. “C’mon, Cooper, what could possibly happen at the Pansy Ball, for God’s sake? He’s not going to try to do anything to me there, in front of everybody…”
“No, he isn’t,” Cooper says. “Because I’m not letting you out of my sight.”
I blink. Wait. What did he just say?
“You—you want to go with me?”
“Only because if I don’t keep an eye on you, who knows what’ll fall on your head next time.” Cooper puts down the mail. His blue-eyed gaze bores into me like a pair of headlights. “And because I can see by the look in your eyes that you’re going to get your hands on a ticket somehow, even if it means seducing some unsuspecting rube in the geology department.”
I’m stunned. Cooper is taking me to the Pansy Ball! Cooper Cartwright is taking me out! It was almost like a…
Well, a date.
“Oh, Cooper!” I breathe. “Thank you so much! You don’t know how much this means to me—”
Cooper is already moving back toward his office, shaking his head. He keeps his thoughts to himself, but I have a pretty good idea that he isn’t, as I am, frantically trying to figure out what he’s going to wear.
Guys have it so easy.
20
Misconstrued
Everything I say to you is
Misconstrued
Why else do you do
The things you do?
Misconstrued
You think that I lie to you
Misconstrued
Truth is that it’s
Really you
That’s
Misconstrued
“Misconstrued”
Performed by Heather Wells
Composed by Dietz/Ryder
From the album Summer
Cartwright Records
I can’t get through the remainder of the workday fast enough.
Everyone asks after Jordan’s health, causing me to realize guiltily that I don’t even know how he’s doing, since I’ve been slightly distracted since leaving the hospital, what with meeting with detectives and getting asked out (sort of) by the man of my dreams, and having to figure out what I’m going to wear on our date to the Pansy Ball, and all.
So I call St. Vincent’s and after being transferred about a half-dozen times because of privacy concerns, Jordan being a big star and all, finally get someone who tells me, after I assure them I am not a member of the press and even sing a few bars of “Sugar Rush” to convince them that I’m really me, that Jordan is currently listed as being in good condition, and that doctors expect him to make a full recovery.
When I relay this news to Rachel, she goes, “Oh, good! I was so worried. It’s so lucky, Heather, that the planter hit him and not you. You might so easily have been injured yourself.”
Magda is less pleased with Jordan’s prognosis.
“Too bad,” she says baldly. “I was hoping he’d die.”
“Magda!” I cry, horrified.
“Look at my byootiful movie stars,” Magda says to a group of students who’ve shown up for an early dinner, waving their dining cards. Taking the cards and running them through the scanner, Magda says, to me, “Well, he deserves a whack on the head, after the way he treated you.”
Magda’s so lucky. To her, everything is black and white. America is great, no matter what anybody else might say, and members of boy bands who cheat on their girlfriends? Well, they deserve to have planters dropped on their heads. No questions asked.
Patty is relieved to hear from me when I call her. I guess when she’d crossed the park and seen all the blood on the sidewalk in front of Fischer Hall, she’d gotten really freaked out. She’d been convinced something had happened to me. She’d had to sit down in the cafeteria with her head between her knees for twenty minutes—and eat two DoveBars Magda pressed on her—before she finally felt well enough to flag down a cab and go home.
“Are you really sure about this college degree thing, Heather?” she asks now, worriedly. “Because I’m sure Frank could set up an appointment for you with people from his label—”
“That’d be nice,” I say. “Except, you know, I’m not sure how impressed Frank’s label would really be about the fact that most of my past performances took place in malls—”
“They wouldn’t care about that,” Patty cries. Which is really sweet of her, and all, but that’s exactly the kind of thing record labels do care about, I’ve discovered.
“Maybe we can get you a part in a musical, you know, like on Broadway,” Patty says. “Debbie Gibson’s doing it. Lot’s of stars are—”
“Operative word being star,” I point out. “Which I am not.”
“I just don’t think you should work in that dorm anymore, Heather,” Patty says worriedly. “It’s too dangerous. Girls dying. Flower pots falling down on people—”
“Oh, Patty,” I say, touched by her concern. “I’ll be all right.”
“I’m serious, Heather. Cooper and I discussed it, and we both feel—”
“You and Cooper discussed me?” I hope I don’t sound too eager. What had they talked about? I wonder. Had Cooper revealed to Patty that he has a deep and abiding love for me that he dares not show, since I’m his brother’s ex and sort of an employee of his?
But if he had, wouldn’t she have told me right away?
“Cooper and I just feel—and Frank agrees—that if—well, if it turns out this whole murder thing is true, you might be putting yourself in some kind of danger—”
This doesn’t sound to me like Cooper had said anything at all about harboring a deep and abiding love for me. No wonder Patty hadn’t called me right away to dish.
“Patty,” I say, “I’m fine. Really. I’ve got the best bodyguard in the world.” Then I tell her about the Pansy Ball, and Cooper’s escorting me there.