Sarah raises her arms, and to my surprise—and Lisa’s too, evidently, judging from her stunned expression—throws her arms around Lisa’s neck, embracing her in what looks to me like a stranglehold of a hug.
“This is just . . . You’re just . . . This is all just so great,” Sarah sobs into Lisa’s neck. “This is exactly what the staff needs after everything that’s happened with Jasmine. Someone like Dave. Thank you. Thank you.”
“Oh,” Lisa says, her eyes widening at me over Sarah’s broad shoulder. “Um. Okay. Well, I wouldn’t thank me yet, Sarah. I haven’t told you the bad news.”
“I don’t care,” Sarah says, still clinging to Lisa. “I don’t care, I don’t care. I’m so happy right now. I’m so happy someone like Dave’s going to be joining our staff.”
“I bet you are,” I say. “I saw you checking out his biceps. Guess there are some decent guys left after all, huh, Sarah?”
“Shut up, Heather,” Sarah says, but happily, without a trace of her usual rancor. “You’re such a great person, Lisa. I’m serious. I know I usually have a bad attitude, and I may come off as kind of bitchy sometimes”—sometimes?—“but I want you to know that I genuinely love this job, and I genuinely love you.” She lifts her head and looks over at me. “Both of you. For real. You’re my best friends. Well, my only friends, really. But I want to make sure you know it.”
“Okay,” Lisa says, patting Sarah on the back. “That’s great, Sarah. We feel the same way about you. Don’t we, Heather?”
“You know,” I can’t help pointing out, “we don’t even know for sure that Dave’s heterosexual. He could have a girlfriend. You’re kind of just assuming—”
“Don’t we, Heather?” Lisa says again, through gritted teeth.
“Yes, Sarah,” I say, patting her on the back the way Lisa had. “We both love you too.”
“Great,” Lisa says, prying Sarah’s grip from her neck. “But you and I are still going to have to have a little chat about some other stuff that’s going on around here, Sarah. Stuff I don’t think you’re going to like very much. But first I have to have a talk with Heather really fast. Could you give us some privacy for a few minutes? Like I said, Jasmine’s parents should be here soon, so knock on my door when they show up. And please take that dirty plate back to the cafeteria, it’s stinking up the entire office. I’ve asked you before not to eat at your desk. Bagels in the morning are one thing, but cheeseburgers are disgusting.”
“Of course,” Sarah says, practically floating.
Lisa pauses as she’s about to close the door to her office with me inside. “Where did those flowers come from?” she asks, noticing the bouquet on my desk.
“Prince Rashid had them delivered,” Sarah replies. She’s in such a good mood now, she doesn’t make any disparaging remarks about the repressive regime in Qalif, or large flowers being overcompensation by men concerned about the size of their genitalia. “He sent some to you too, Lisa. They’re up at the desk. Want me to get them and bring them back for you?”
“Ugh, no,” Lisa says, swinging the door closed. “The smell is making me sick.”
As soon as the door is shut, Lisa sinks down into her office chair, pulls open a desk drawer, and brings out a little white plastic wand. “Take a look at this,” she says to me grimly.
I examine the wand, which Lisa lays on the top of her desk. It’s clearly a wand from a pregnancy test. I recognize it from having seen them on TV and in the movies.
“Oh,” I say, attempting to sound casual. “So you did the test already?”
“Of course I did the test already,” Lisa says miserably. “I did six of them. I bought three of the kind that come two in a pack.” She pulls more of the wands from her desk drawer and lays them out on top of her desk, quite close to Dave’s file. “They’re supposed to be ninety-nine percent accurate, and they all say the same thing.”
“You peed on all those?” I ask, my eyes widening.
“Of course I peed on them,” Lisa says. “That’s how you find out if you’re pregnant.” She widens her own eyes at me. “Oh my God. Have you never done a pregnancy test before?”
“Well, no,” I admit. “I told you, I’ve got chronic endometriosis. I couldn’t get pregnant without medical intervention even if I never used birth control, and I’ve never not used birth control, so how am I going to get pregnant?” I remind myself never to touch that area of Lisa’s desk again, at least not until I’ve borrowed some cleansing liquid from Julio and thoroughly disinfected it. Not that I think Lisa is carrying any diseases, but honestly, used pregnancy tests are way more revolting than Sarah eating cheeseburgers at her desk. “So what do they say?”
“They say I’m pregnant!” Lisa cries. “See the plus sign? That means pregnant. Super-duper pregnant. Six times six pregnant.” She flops against the back of her office chair. “I have a dead RA, nine who are about to be fired, and a baby. Whoop-de-do! I’m the luckiest residence hall director in the world.”
I find myself needing to sit down. I sink into one of the hard-backed chairs to the side of Lisa’s desk.
After the information Eva had given me, I’d suspected Lisa was pregnant, of course, but I hadn’t fully believed it. Now that the truth is glaringly obvious, I’m having a hard time processing it.
But not as hard a time as Lisa.
“Heather, what am I going to do?” she asks, leaning forward to drop her head onto her desk. “This is so not how things were supposed to go. I just started this job. I have a building to run. I can’t have a baby!”
“Well,” I say carefully. “If you decide to keep it, I’m sure we can work something out. You bring your dog to work all the time. Why not a baby?”
Lisa, her head still on her desk, lets out a sarcastic snort. “Babies aren’t dogs, Heather, in case you never noticed.”
“Still, babies are pretty small,” I go on, every bit as carefully. “We could probably fit yours in the bottom drawer of that file cabinet over there. No one will ever even notice.”
Lisa raises her head. Her face is tear-streaked. “Cory’s going to notice,” she says, pulling a tissue from the box on one corner of her desk. “We had an agreement: no kids.”