The phone on Rachel’s desk starts ringing. “Oh, hello, Stan,” she says, when she answers it. “Oh, thank you so much, but I’m fine, really. Yes, it’s been just awful—”

Wow. Stan. So Rachel’s on a first-name basis with Dr. Jessup now. Well, I guess if a couple of kids in your dorm—oops, I mean, residence hall—die, you get to know the head of your department pretty well.

I start going through the briefing forms the weekend desk attendants have left me. I can generally get payroll, the budget, any memos that need to be typed, and the desk coverage schedules done by eleven in the morning. Then I have the rest of the day free for cruising the Net, gossiping with Magda or Patty, or trying to figure out who might be killing girls in my place of work, which is how I’ve already decided I’m going to spend this particular Monday.

I just haven’t quite figured out how.

I’m just finishing up the payroll when this pair of Nike-encased feet appear in my line of vision. I lift my head, expecting to see a basketball player—hopefully with a semilegible note I can add to my collection.

Instead, I see Cooper.

“Hey,” he says.

Is it my fault my heart flips over in my chest? I mean, I haven’t seen him in a while. Like almost seventy-two hours. Plus, you know, I’m totally man-starved. That has to be why I can’t take my eyes off the front of the jeans he’s wearing, white in all the places where the denim’s been stressed, like at his knees and other, more interesting places.

He also has on a blue shirt beneath his rumpled leather jacket—the exact same blue as his crinkly eyes.

“Wh—” is the only sound I can get to come out of my mouth, on account of the jeans… and the my-being-a-total-loser-who-is-completely-in-love-with-him part.

I watch as he takes a newspaper out from beneath his arm, unfolds it, and places it in front of me.

“Wh—” I say again. At least, that’s how it sounds to my ears.

“I wanted to make sure you knew about this,” Cooper says. “You know, before Us Weekly starts calling, and catches you by surprise.”

I look down at the paper. It’s the New York Post. On the front page is a large, blown-up photo of my ex-fiancé and Tania Trace dining at some outdoor café in SoHo. Underneath their images are the words, in eighteen-point type at least:

THEY’RE ENGAGED!

She shut you out.

What’d you do to deserve this?

She shut you out.

Put you out of service

Did she think you’d take this lying down?

Does she think you like playin’ the clown?

I’d never shut you out.

You gotta believe me.

I’d never shut you out.

You’re all I need.

Baby, can’t you see?

Don’t shut me out.

“Shut You Out”

Performed by Heather Wells

Composed by Valdez/Caputo

From the album Staking Out Your Heart

Cartwright Records

Wow. That didn’t take long. I mean, considering we’ve only been broken up for, what? Four months? Five, maybe?

“Wh—” seems to be the only sound I am capable of making.

“Yeah,” Cooper says. “That’s what I thought you’d say.”

I just sit there, looking down at the photo of Tania’s ring. It looks just like MY ring. The one I’d ripped off my finger and thrown at them when I’d caught them going at it in our bedroom.

But it can’t be the same ring. Jordan is cheap, but not THAT cheap.

I open the paper, and flip to the page with the article on it.

Look at that. They aren’t just engaged. They’re going on tour together, too.

“You okay?” Cooper wants to know.

“Yeah,” I say, glad I’ve gotten back the ability to say something besides “wh.”

“If it’s any comfort to you,” he says, “her new single got retired from TRL.”

I know better than to ask Cooper what he’s been doing watching Total Request Live. Instead, I say, “They retire videos when they’ve spent too long on the list. That means the song’s still totally popular.”

“Oh.”

Cooper looks around, clearly seeking a way to change the subject. My office is sort of the reception area for Rachel’s office, which is separated by an attractive metal grate that I’ve been trying to get the maintenance department to replace since I arrived. I’d decorated my area with Monet prints upon my arrival, and even though Rachel had wanted to replace the Giverny water lilies with anti—date rape and community development posters, I had held my ground.

I read in a magazine once that Monet is soothing. That’s why you see prints of his work in so many doctors’ offices.

“Nice place,” Cooper says. Then his gaze falls on the jar of condoms on my desk.

I feel myself turning crimson.

Rachel chooses that moment to hang up the phone and lean out of her office to ask, “May I help you?”

When she sees that the visitor to our office is of the male persuasion, over six feet and under forty—not to mention totally hot—she says, in a completely different voice, “Oh.Hello.”

“Good morning,” Cooper says politely. Cooper is unfailingly polite to everyone but members of his immediate family. “You must be Rachel. I’m Cooper Cartwright.”

“Nice to meet you,” Rachel says. She shakes the hand he offers and smiles beatifically. “Cooper… Cooper… Oh yes, Cooper! Heather’s friend. I’ve heard so much about you.”

Cooper glances in my direction, his blue eyes crinkling more than ever. “You have?”

I wish the floor would open up and swallow me whole. I try to remember what I’ve ever said to Rachel about Coop. Besides the fact that he’s my landlord, I mean. Because what if I said something really indiscreet, like that Cooper’s my idea of a perfect mate and that sometimes I fantasize about ripping his clothes off with my teeth? I’ve been known to say things like that sometimes, when I’ve had too many Krispy Kremes combined with too much caffeine.

But all Rachel says is “I suppose you’ve heard about our troubles here.”

Cooper nods.

“I have.”

Rachel smiles again, a little less beatifically this time. I can tell she’s mentally calculating how much Cooper’s watch must cost—he wears one of those gadget-heavy black plastic ones—and deciding he can’t possibly be worth a hundred grand a year.

If only she knew.

Then the phone on her desk rings again, and she goes to answer it. “Hello, Fischer Hall. This is Rachel. How may I help you?”

Cooper raises his eyebrows at me, and I remember, in a rush, what Magda had said, about Rachel being Cooper’s type.

No! It isn’t fair! Rachel is EVERYONE’S type! I mean, she’s attractive and athletic and well put together and successful and went to Yale and is making a difference in the world. What about ME? What about girls like me, who are just… well, nice? What about the nice girls? How are we supposed to compete with all of these competent, athletic, shower-taking girls, with their diplomas and their Palm Pilots and their teeny tiny butts?

Before I have a chance to say anything in defense of my kind, however, one of the maintenance workers comes rushing in.

“Haythar,” Julio cries, wringing his hands. He’s a little guy, in a brown uniform, who without being asked to, daily cleans the bronze statue of Pan in the lobby with a toothbrush.

“Haythar, that boy is doing it again.”

I blink at him. “You mean Gavin?”

“Sí.”

I glance over at Rachel. She’s gushing into the phone, “Oh, President Allington, please don’t worry about me. It’s the students I feel for—”

I sigh resignedly, push back my chair, and stand up. I’m just going to have to face that fact that where Cooper is concerned, I’m always going to look like the world’s biggest spaz.

And there’s nothing I can do about it.

“I’ll take care of it,” I say.

Julio glances at Cooper, and, still wringing his hands, asks nervously, “You want I should come with you, Haythar?”

“What is this?” Cooper looks suspicious. “What’s going on?”

“Nothing,” I say to him. “Thanks for dropping by. I have to go now.”

“Go where?” Cooper wants to know.

“I just have to deal with this one thing. I’ll see you later.”

Then I hurry out of the office and head for the service el evator, which is reserved for use of the maintenance staff only, and has one of those metal gates inside the doors to keep students out…

Only I know which lever to push to throw the gate back. Which I push, then turn to say, “Ready when you are” to Julio—

Only it isn’t Julio who’s followed me. It’s Cooper.

“Heather,” he says, looking annoyed. “What’s this all about?”

“Where’s Julio?” I squeak.

“I don’t know,” Cooper says. “Back there, I guess. Where are you going?”

From inside the elevator shaft, I can hear whooping. Why me? Why, God, why?

There’s nothing I can do about it, though. I mean, it’s my job. And it will mean a free medical degree, eventually, if I can stick it out.

“Can you work a service elevator?” I ask Cooper.

He looks even more annoyed. “I think I can figure it out.”

More whooping from inside the shaft.

“Okay,” I say. “Let’s go then.”

Cooper, looking curious as well as annoyed now, follows me inside, ducking so as not to hit his head on the low jamb, and I pull the grate shut and yank back the power lever. As the elevator lurches upward with a groan, I put a foot on the side rails and, with a heave, grab the sides of the wide opening in the elevator’s roof where a ceiling panel has been removed. Through it, I can see the cables and bare brick walls of the elevator shaft, and high overhead, patches of bright light where the sun peeks in through the fire safety skylights.

Cooper’s curiosity quickly fades, so that all that’s left is annoyance.

“What,” he asks, “do you think you’re doing?”

“Don’t worry,” I say. “I’m okay. I’ve done this before.” My head and shoulders are already through the hole in the elevator’s ceiling, and with another heave, I wiggle my hips through it, too.

Then I have to rest. Because that’s a lot of upper body lifting for a girl like me.

“This is what you do all day?” Cooper, down below me, demands. “Where does it say in your job description that you are responsible for chasing after elevator surfers?”

“It doesn’t say it anywhere,” I reply, looking down at him in some surprise through the opening between my knees. The dark walls of the elevator shaft slip past me like water as we rise. “But somebody’s got to do it.” And if I don’t, how am I ever going to pass my six months’ probation? “What floor are we on?”

Cooper glances through the grate, at the painted numbers going by on the back of each set of elevator doors.

“Nine,” he says. “You know, one slip, and you could end up like those dead girls, Heather.”

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