The Bride Wore Size 12 (Heather Wells 5)

“My mother doesn’t have the power to make me unhappy anymore,” I said. “Not unless I let her. And I’m not going to let her this time, Cooper. I’m not.”

But even as I said it, tears filled my eyes again.

Cooper’s arm tightened around my shoulders, and he placed his other arm around me as well.

“I know you aren’t,” he said. “But in the meantime, whether you like it or not, I’m going to do what I can to make sure that she doesn’t have another opportunity to make you unhappy. Tonight was unfortunate—I should never have let her inside the house, but—”

“I know,” I said, lifting my hand to stroke his cheek. “She caught you off guard. She had all those bags, and she’d sent the cab away, and she pulled her defenseless, poor-little-me act. That’s what she was always good at, you know: manipulating people. That’s the real reason I couldn’t make it in the music business without her. I was never very good at manipulating.”

Cooper lifted one of my hands and kissed it tenderly. “But you’re good at something more useful: being able to tell when someone’s trying to manipulate you. And, of course, being incredibly, irresistibly gorgeous.”

He’d kissed me then, deeply, and for a long time we didn’t talk at all. We were too busy doing other things, our bodies having sunk back against the bed. Owen, the cat I’d adopted from a former boss, watched the whole time from the top of the dresser, his eyes half closed. It was difficult to tell if he approved. In general, I’m guessing he did.

I didn’t tell Magda this part, however. Or the part about how Cooper was going to have my mother tailed. Only the part about Cooper declaring his sister dead to him.

“He wants to kick Nicole out of the wedding,” I say, strolling back toward Jimmy’s counter, where he’s put my bagel, lightly toasted, on a plate. “Thanks, Jimmy.”

“He might as well let me have her killed, then,” Magda says. “Because she’s going to want to die. Being your bridesmaid is the best thing that ever happened to that girl. She told me. She said, ‘This is the best thing that’s ever happened to me.’ And you know, I believe her. I don’t think she has any friends. Nicole told me she never had a boyfriend. She told me during the last bridesmaid gown fitting that she’s a virgin.”

“She is?” I’m surprised, and yet somehow not surprised at the same time.

“She says so.” Magda walks me toward the condiment bar, where they keep the cream cheese. “But she plans to correct this at your wedding. She thinks there’ll be a lot of—what did she call them again? Oh, right—eligible bachelors there.”

“Wow.” I can’t help thinking of Cooper’s friend Virgin Hal. Is he really a virgin? I wonder. Would he and Nicole hit it off? He’s kind of goofy. But then, Nicole, who has been known to break into self-written songs about tasting her own menstrual blood, is no prize either.

“Heather.”

I turn to see Julio Juarez, Fischer Hall’s head housekeeper, approaching me, looking as if he feels embarrassed about disturbing me while I’m preparing my breakfast, which of course I should have had before I left for work. But I’m running a little late due to all the excitement—some of it welcome—from the night before.

“Good morning, Julio,” I say. “Do you want a bagel? I know someone who can hook you up.” I wink at Jimmy, who doesn’t notice due to texting.

“Oh, no, thank you, Heather,” Julio says, looking even more embarrassed. Julio takes his job very seriously, ironing his brown uniform very carefully every morning before work and never allowing a speck of grime to remain on the lobby’s marble floors for longer than an hour. He is quick to fetch me when residents scratch graffiti into the brass elevator fittings with their keys or leave soda cans to stain the felt of the billiard table in the game room, hoping, as he does, that I will be able to catch the miscreants and bill them for their crimes. His pride in and love for Fischer Hall are immense.

“I heard about the girl who died,” Julio says, his brown eyes sad. “I am wondering if her parents will be needing boxes for her things. In the basement I have many boxes from the check-in. We were going to throw them out on trash day, but if you want, I will save some good ones for the girl’s parents.”

“Oh, Julio,” I say, suddenly no longer hungry for my bagel. “That’s a really nice thought. I don’t know when her parents are coming for her things, but it will probably be soon. So yes, please pick out some nice boxes and set them aside for Jasmine’s family.”

Julio’s eyes look more cheerful. Everyone likes to do something to help when there’s been a death in the building.

“Okay,” he says. “I will save some boxes. Now, what do I do about the trash on fifteen?”

“Trash on fifteen?” I echo.

“Yes,” he says. “Every morning the trash chute room on the fifteenth floor is filled with trash. Too much trash. No one is putting it down the chute.”

Each floor on Fischer Hall, like most prewar buildings in Manhattan, has a room where residents can take their garbage. They’re supposed to sort it into separate cans for recycling, then stuff the nonrecycling down a chute for disposal. In olden times, the chute went to an incinerator, but those had long since been eliminated because of air-quality issues. Now the chutes lead to a massive compacter in the basement.

“Can you tell who’s doing it?” I ask, knowing the answer before the words are even out of my mouth.

“The prince,” Julio and Magda say at the same time.

“A prince isn’t going to take out his own garbage,” Magda says. Her eyes have lit up. She completely adores the idea that a prince lives in Fischer Hall. It’s as exciting to her as the fact that a movie was once filmed here, and that a reality TV show was shot here over the summer starring her favorite female pop star, Tania Trace (she is always polite enough to add, “Except for you, Heather”). “How would a prince know how to take out his garbage? He’s always had butlers to do it, in the palace!”

“Well, he’s taking the garbage out of his room,” I say. “He’s just not sorting it or stuffing it down the chute. Right, Julio?”

Julio shakes his head in disbelief. “Right. And there’s a lot of it. Every morning since he moved in. So much. I’ve never seen so much garbage. The bags are tied very neat, but there’s so much, and I have to sort through them myself. It’s a lot of extra work.”