Size 14 Is Not Fat Either (Heather Wells 2)

I realize it even before I pounce on the phone and call the college’s weather hotline. Oh, yes. Classes are canceled for the day. The school is closed. The city, in fact, is shut down. Only necessary emergency personnel should be on the streets. Yes.

Except, of course, when you live two blocks away from where you work, you can’t exactly plead that you couldn’t get in.

But still. You can be late.

I take my time bathing—because why stand up if you don’t have to?—and getting dressed. I have to resort to the backup jeans because of the bloodstains on my primary pair, and I am dismayed to find they are slightly snug. Okay, more than slightly. I have to pull my old trick of stuffing wadded-up socks along the waistband of my jeans to stretch them out, while doing deep knee bends. I tell myself it’s because they just came out of the dryer. Two weeks ago.

And when I remove the socks before going downstairs, they are a little less tight. At least I can breathe.

It’s as I’m breathing that I realize I’m smelling something unfamiliar. At least, unfamiliar in this house.

Bacon. And, if I’m not mistaken, eggs.

I hurry down the stairs—Lucy at my heels—and am horrified when I walk into the kitchen and find Cooper there, reading the paper, while my dad stands at the stove in a pair of brown cords and a woolly sweater. Cooking breakfast.

“This,” I say loudly, “has to stop.”

Dad turns around and smiles at me. “Good morning, honey. Juice?”

Cooper flicks down one side of the paper. “Why are you up?” he wants to know. “They just said on the news New York College is closed.”

I ignore him. But I can’t ignore Lucy, who is at the back door, scratching to be let out. I open the door, letting in an arctic blast. Lucy looks disappointed by what she sees out there, but bravely soldiers ahead. I close the door behind her and turn to face my father. Because I’ve come to a decision. And it has nothing to do with the wooden flute.

“Dad,” I say. “You cannot live here. I’m sorry, Cooper. It was nice of you to offer. But it’s too weird.”

“Relax,” Cooper says, from behind his newspaper.

I feel my blood pressure shoot up another ten points. Why does this always happen whenever anyone says the word relax?

“Seriously,” I say. “I mean, I live here, too. I’m also an employee of Cartwright Investigations. Don’t I get a say in this?”

“No,” Cooper says, from behind his newspaper.

“Honey,” Dad says, turning around and handing me a steaming mug of coffee. “Drink this. You never were a morning person. Just like your mother.”

“I am not like Mom,” I say. Though I take the coffee. Because it smells delicious. “Okay? I am nothing like her. Do you see, Cooper? Do you see what you’ve done? You’ve invited this man to live here, and he’s already telling me I’m like my mother. And I am nothing like her.”

“Then let him stay here,” Cooper says, still not looking out from behind his paper, “and find that out for himself.”

“Your mother is a lovely person, Heather,” Dad says, as he puts two sunny-side-up eggs and some bacon on a plate. “Just not in the mornings. Rather like you. Here.” He hands the plate to me. “This is how you used to like them as a little girl. I hope you still do.”

I look down at the plate. He has arranged the eggs so that they are like eyes, and the bacon is a smiling mouth, just like he used to do when I was a kid.

Suddenly I am overwhelmed by an urge to cry.

Damn him. How can he do this to me?

“They’re fine, thanks,” I mutter, and sit down at the kitchen table.

“Well,” Cooper says, finally lowering the paper, “now that that’s settled, Heather, your dad is going to be staying with us for a while, until he figures out what his next move is going to be. Which is good, because I can use the help. I have more work than I can handle on my own, and your dad has just the kind of qualities I need in an assistant.”

“The ability to blend,” I say, chomping on a strip of bacon. Which is, by the way, delicious. And I’m not the only one who thinks so. Lucy, whom Dad lets back in after she scratched on the door, is enjoying a strip I snuck her, as well.

“Correct,” Cooper says. “An ability which should never be underestimated when you are in the private investigative field.”

The phone rings. Dad says, “I’ll get that,” and leaves the kitchen to do so.

The second he’s gone, Cooper says, in a different tone, “Look, if it’s really a problem, I’ll get him a room somewhere. I didn’t realize things were so…unsettled…between you two. I thought it might be good for you.”

I stare at him. “Good for me? How is having my ex-con dad live with me good for me?”

“Well, I don’t know,” Cooper says, looking uncomfortable. “It’s just that…you don’t have anyone.”

“As I believe we have discussed before,” I say acidly, “neither do you.”

“But I don’t need anyone,” he points out.

“Neither do I,” I say.

“Heather,” he says, flatly. “You do. No one died, left you their townhouse, and made you independently wealthy. And, no offense, twenty-three thousand dollars a year, in Manhattan, is a joke. You need all the friends and family you can get.”

“Including jailbirds?” I demand.

“Look,” Cooper says. “Your dad’s an extremely intelligent man. I’m sure he’s going to land on his feet. And I think you’re going to want to be around when that happens, if only to inflict enough guilt on him to get him to throw some money your way. He owes you college tuition, at least.”

“I don’t need tuition money,” I say. “I get to go free because I work there, remember?”

“Yes,” Cooper says, with obviously forced patience. “But you wouldn’t have to work there if your dad would agree to pay your tuition.”

I blink at him. “You mean…quit my job?”

“To go to school full-time, if getting a degree is really your goal?” He sips his coffee. “Yes.”

It’s funny, but though what he’s saying makes sense, I can’t imagine what it would be like not to work at Fischer Hall. I’ve only been doing it for a little over half a year, but it feels like I’ve been doing it all my life. The idea of not going there every day seems strange.