Size 12 Is Not Fat (Heather Wells 1)

Then I have to give myself a pedicure and manicure, since there isn’t time to have my nails done by professionals. Then I have to wash and condition my hair, shave my legs (and under my arms, since Patty’s dress is strapless), and, then, just to be on the safe side, I shave my bikini line as well, because, even though it’s highly unlikely I’m going to get lucky twice in two days, you never know. Then I have to apply a facial mask, and moisturize all over. Then I have to shape my eyebrows, dry and style my hair, apply makeup, and layer fragrance.

Then, noticing that the heels of my red pumps have obviously met with an unfortunate accident involving a subway grate, I have to go over them with a red Magic Marker.

And of course, through all of that, I have to pause occasionally to snack on Double-Stuff Oreos so that I won’t get light-headed from not having had anything to eat since this afternoon, when Magda smuggled that Reuben from the caf for me.

By the time Cooper taps on my apartment door, I’m just struggling to zip up Patty’s dress and wondering why it had fit two hours ago in her loft but doesn’t fit now—

“Just a second,” I yell, trying to figure out what on earth I’m going to wear if I can’t get Patty’s dress to close properly….

Finally the zipper moves, though, and I grab my wrap and bag and clatter down the stairs, thinking it’s a shame there’s no one who can open the door for me and say, “She’ll be down in a minute,” so I can make a sweeping entrance, like Rory Gilmore or whoever. As it is, I have to knee Lucy out of the way just so I can get to the door.

I regret to say I don’t register Cooper’s reaction to my appearance—if he even had one, which I kind of doubt—because I’m so completely taken aback by his. Cooper does own a tuxedo, it turns out…a very nice one, in fact.

And he looks more than a little sexy in it.

What is it about men in tuxedos? Why do they always look so good in them? Maybe it’s the emphasis on the width of the chest and shoulders. Maybe it’s the startling contrast of crisp white shirt front and elegant black lapel.

Whatever it is, I don’t think I’ve ever seen a guy in a tux who didn’t look great. But Cooper is the exception. He doesn’t look great.

He looks fantastic.

I’m so busy admiring him that I nearly forget I’m attending this event to catch a killer. For a second—just one—I really do delude myself into thinking Cooper and I are on a date. Especially when he says, “You look great.”

Reality returns, though, when he looks at his watch and says distractedly, “Let’s go, all right? I’ve got to meet someone later, so if we’re going to do this, we need to get a move on.”

I feel a pang of disappointment. Meet someone? Who? Who does he have to meet? A client? A snitch?

Or a girlfriend?

“Heather?” Cooper raises his eyebrows. “You okay?”

“Fine,” I say, faintly.

“Good,” Cooper says, taking me by the elbow. “Let’s go.”

I follow him down the stairs and out the door, telling myself that I’m being an idiot. Again. So what if he has to meet someone later? What do I care? This isn’t a date. It isn’t. At least, not with him. If I have any kind of date at all tonight, it’s a date with the killer of Elizabeth Kellogg and Roberta Pace.

I repeat this to myself all the way through the park, past the Washington Square monument, and even as we cross the street to the library, where the event is being held and which has been transformed, by strategic placement of red carpets and colored lights and banners, into a ballroom for the occasion.

We have to dodge a few stretch limos and a bunch of uniformed campus security guards (Pete had been asked to pull a double for the occasion, but he’d said no, since his daughter Nancy had a science fair that night), all of whom wear white gloves and have whistles in their mouths, just to approach the massive, clay-colored building. There are velvet ropes to keep out the riffraff…only there doesn’t seem to be either riff or raff expressing much interest in crashing the party, just some graduate students standing there, clutching their backpacks, looking angry that the party is preventing them from getting to their study carrels.

Cooper shows his tickets to a guy by the door, and then we’re ushered inside and immediately assailed by waiters wanting to ply us with drinks and crab-stuffed mushroom caps. Which are actually quite tasty. The Oreos turn out not to be sitting very well beneath my control top panties, anyway.

Cooper snags two glasses for us—not of champagne, but of sparkling water.

“Never drink on the job,” he advises me.

I think about Nora Charles, and the five martinis she’d downed in The Thin Man, trying to keep up with Nick. Imagine how many murders he might have solved if he’d followed Cooper’s advice, and stayed sober!

“Here’s to homicide,” Cooper says, tapping the side of my glass with his. His blue eyes glint at me—almost taking my breath away, as always, with their brilliance.

“Cheers,” I reply, and sip, glancing around the wide room for faces I recognize.

There’s an orchestra playing a jazzed up version of “Moon River” over by the reference section. Banquet tables have been set up in front of the elevators, from which jumbo shrimp are disappearing at an alarming rate. People are milling around, looking unnaturally amused by each other’s conversation. I see Dr. Flynn speaking rapidly to the dean of undergraduates, a woman whose eyes are glazed over with either boredom or drink—it’s hard to tell which.

I spot a cluster of housing administrators bunched under a gold New York College banner, like a family of refugees at Ellis Island, huddled under the shadow of the Statue of Liberty. College administrators, I’ve noticed, don’t seem to be hugely respected by either the student body or the academic population. For the most part, the building directors at New York College seem to be viewed as little more than camp counselors, and Dr. Jessup and his team of coordinators and associate directors aren’t given much more respect than that. Which is unfair, because they—well, okay, we—work super hard—way harder than a lot of those professors, who breeze in to teach a one-hour class once a week, then spend the rest of their time backstabbing their colleagues in literary reviews.

While Cooper is being sucked into conversation with a trustee—an old Cartwright family friend—I study my supervisors over the rim of my glass. Dr. Jessup is looking uncomfortable in his tux. Standing beside him is a woman I take to be his statuesque wife, since she appears to be exchanging pleasantries with a woman who could only be Dr. Flynn’s better half. Both women look lean and lovely in sparkly sheath dresses.