by Meg Cabot
Dolls are not meant to be used as weapons. Miss Mexico’s head breaks off—along with the comb—in Gary’s skin.
But Gary is startled enough—and in enough pain—that when he lowers the gun with a cry, he inadvertently pulls the trigger so that the revolver fires.
Fortunately, the bullet goes harmlessly into the auditorium stairwell.
Still, I hear people in the audience begin to murmur. I’m certain the NYPD and campus protection officers posted around the auditorium have heard the gunshot and are on their way backstage. I only hope they won’t be too late.
I snatch Tania’s hand and pull her behind the scrim, forcing her to duck with me beneath a table from one of the Drama Department’s sets before Gary can pull Miss Mexico’s head from the back of his trigger hand with his teeth.
As he’s doing this, the stage door bursts open and Cooper strides out.
The bright white light thrown by the fluorescents behind Cooper temporarily blinds Gary Hall. But it allows Cooper to immediately recognize the man in the coat and tie from his photo on Tania’s high school website. He sees the gun that Gary Hall raises in his direction. And without a word, Cooper shoots him three times in the chest, until Gary Hall drops the revolver, falls forward, and lies still.
Chapter 29
So Sue Me
All those times you said
I’d never make it
All those times you said
I should quit
All those times you said
I’m nothing without you
The sad part is
I believed it too
Then you left and
What do you know
I made it on
My very own
So go ahead and sue me
You heard me
Go ahead and sue me
Now that I’ve made it
You say it’s you I owe
Well, you owe me too
For the heart you stole
If I’ve got one regret
It’s all the time I spent
All the tears I wept
Thinking you were worth the bet
Go ahead, go all the way
Take me to court
It’ll make my day
So sue me
Go ahead and sue me
“So Sue Me”
Performed by Tania Trace
Written by Weinberger/Trace
So Sue Me album
Cartwright Records
Thirteen consecutive weeks in the Top 10
Billboard Hot 100, current number-one hit
“ ‘Center mass,’ ” Cooper explains much later that evening when I climb into my bed beside him. “I wasn’t aiming for his chest. I was shooting at whatever I was least likely to miss in order to avoid having him shoot back at me. That would be the largest part of him. They call that part ‘center mass.’ That’s how you stay alive in a gunfight.”
“Good to know,” I say, passing him one of the drinks I’ve rustled up from the kitchen downstairs. “Anyway, you got him in the heart. I’d want you on my side in a gunfight anytime.”
He takes a sip of the drink, then makes a face. “What is this?”
“Your sister Jessica’s favorite drink, a pink greyhound.”
He passes it back to me. “Never make this for me again, especially after I’ve just shot a man. They might take away my detective’s license.”
I put the drink on my nightstand. “I had a suspicion you were going to say that, so I made you a backup drink, just in case.” I pass him a whiskey on the rocks.
“That’s more like it,” he says.
I lift the pink greyhound and clink the rim of his glass with mine. “L’chaim. It means ‘to life.’ I don’t mean to be insensitive that someone is dead. I’m just happy it’s not you or me.”
“Me too,” he says, after a sip. “And I know what l’chaim means.”
“Well,” I say, “at least with Gary dead, Tania won’t have to deal with all the negative press if the police had caught him and word had got out that the two of them were still married. Now she and Jordan can quietly remarry somewhere and say it’s a renewal of their vows or whatever.” I wince. “Is that an insensitive thing to say?”
Cooper shrugs. “Not as insensitive as some of the things I’ve been thinking about those two. You nearly died tonight because of my idiot brother not telling anyone about that first letter—”
“That’s a little harsh,” I say. “Jordan’s suffered enough, don’t you think?”
“No,” Cooper says flatly.
It had taken a little while for Tania and me to convince the dozens of NYPD and New York College protection officers who rushed backstage that Cooper was not the one who’d attacked us. That had been the man bleeding out on the floor. While all this was going on, Jordan was found unconscious in a stall in the lobby men’s room. It turns out that just moments before Gary Hall let himself backstage, Jordan had encountered him at the urinals, recognized him, and attempted to perform a citizen’s arrest. Sadly, this attempt was unsuccessful. Gary coldcocked him, propped Jordan up on a toilet, then shut the stall door, all as the auditorium lights were going down and everyone else was heading to their seats.
“But I tried, baby,” Jordan said when he and Tania were reunited. “I really tried to get him for you.”
“I know you did,” Tania said, so overwhelmed with relief that Jordan had been found alive that she insisted on riding along to Beth Israel with him in the ambulance to make sure his CAT scans turned out normal. Four hours later, we got the call that the scans had, and that they were sending over Jordan’s assistant to collect their things from our house.
“Thanks so much for everything, you guys,” Jordan said into the phone. “But Tania doesn’t feel like we need to stay with you anymore. She’s ready to come home.”
“Oh really?” I’d said, holding up my hand for Cooper to high-five. “That’s too bad. We’ll miss you both so much.”
Now I stroke Lucy’s head as she curls up on the bed beside us and gaze at Cooper’s new Armani tuxedo, hanging from my closet door.
“You know,” I say, “that paint is supposed to be washable.”
“I don’t want to talk about it,” Cooper says and reaches into the drawer of the nightstand on his side of the bed for the remote. “What do you say we unwind by watching one of those shows you like, where the people eat weird things?”
“You shouldn’t beat yourself up over it,” I say with a smile. “I thought those girls were being attacked too.”
“They were being attacked,” Cooper reminds me.
“Right,” I say. “Good thing you were there with your Glock to put a stop to it—”
He lifts one of the pillows and puts it over my face, pretending to smother me as I laugh and Lucy begins to bark and Owen, over on the dresser, looks away in disdain.
I don’t blame the cat. Cassidy, in her nonstop quest to get as much on-camera time as possible on Jordan Loves Tania, had thought it would be highly amusing to pull a paintball gun from where she’d hidden it in the dressing room and ambush the competition as they were lined up in the hallway outside the stage door, waiting for the Rock Off to begin.
That turns out to have been what all the screaming was about right before Gary came upon Tania and me backstage . . . and why, because the paintball attack caused so much hysteria and chaos, it took Cooper a little while to wade through it and get back to us.
“What did I do that was so wrong?” Cassidy kept asking, her eyes widened innocently, when Mallory and the other girls, in tears, accused her of purposefully ruining their outfits. “Anyone can check out paintball stuff from the college sports complex. All you have to do is leave your ID. Don’t be such bad sports, you guys. The show must go on, right?”
Only it turns out that in cases of shootings, the show does not go on. The Rock Off was canceled due to the real-life shooting, the film crew turned off their cameras, and the girls were told to go home with th
eir families. Tania Trace Rock Camp was over, for good.
“This is outrageous,” I overheard Mrs. Upton raging at Stephanie on the sidewalk outside the auditorium as I accompanied Cooper to Detective Canavan’s car (because it turns out you can’t shoot someone, not even a wanted suspect in multiple crimes, in self-defense and not have to go down to the station house to answer a lot of questions about it). “I demand that my daughter be given the opportunity that she was promised in the contract that she signed to compete for the $50,000 prize and recording contract with—”
“Mrs. Upton.” Stephanie Brewer was leaning against the side of the building. She looked happier than I’d seen her in a while, but I’m pretty sure that was because the camp was officially over. “I’ve been wanting to say this to you for two weeks now. Shut. Up.”
Mrs. Upton looked shocked. “What did you say to me?”
“I said, shut up,” Stephanie said again. “Even if we did reschedule the Rock Off, there’s no way your kid would win, because she’s such a little bitch, no one at Cartwright Rec-ords can stand working with her. Okay? So take my advice and get out of here. No, wait . . . get out of show business.”
Mrs. Upton blinked as if Stephanie had slapped her.
“I . . . I . . . I’ll sue Cartwright Records for this!” she cried.
“That’s right,” Cassidy said, backing her mother up. “Cartwright Records and Tania Trace.”
Emmanuella and a few of the other girls, including Mallory St. Clare, happened to be walking by with their parents as this happened.
“What did she say?” Emmanuella asked, coming to a halt beside Mrs. Upton.
“She said she’s going to sue me,” Stephanie said, dragging a hand through her hair. “And Tania. Like I care.”
“That’s what I thought she said.” Emmanuella looked at the other girls, and then, in pitch-perfect harmony, they began to sing, “ ‘Go ahead, go all the way, take me to court, it’ll make my day!’ ”
Their exuberant voices lifted toward the night sky, causing people as far away as the dog park in Washington Square to turn their heads curiously to listen.
“ ‘If I’ve got one regret,’ ” they sang, giggling in their paintball-streaked clothes, “ ‘it’s all the time I spent, all the tears I wept, thinking you were worth the bet . . . So sue me!’ ”
Christopher Allington walked over to where Stephanie was standing, tears in her eyes, as she watched the girls dance and sing as if they didn’t have a care in the world. He took out his camera phone to record the moment forever, but Stephanie put her hand on his arm and shook her head.
“No,” she said. “Don’t film it. Let’s be in the moment, not view it through a lens.”
Christopher smiled, lowered the camera, and put his arm around her.
Over by his car, Detective Canavan rolled his eyes. “Kids,” he said as he unlocked the door. “Lord knows I love my own, but if I had to work with ’em all day, I’d shoot myself in the head.” Then, with a glance at Cooper, he says, “Oh. Sorry. Aw, what am I apologizing for? You got the guy in the chest. Nice shot, by the way. Remind me to buy you a drink.”
Back in my room, Cooper stops pretending to smother me, rolls over with a sigh, and looks up at the dolls from many nations. “It’s nice to have your bed back.”
“It is,” I say. “Although I can’t stop thinking about what they might have done in here.”
“Like what?” he asks. “Besides pilfer your best doll? Gone through your diary? Is that the secret you’re so worried I’m going to find out? Don’t tell me Jordan knows it now and I don’t. Although we all know even if he knows it, he probably put it in his Crazy File—”
“No,” I say. “I meant what they did in here sexually.”
Cooper looks appropriately disgusted. “Do we have to discuss my brother’s sex life? I know you’ve been there and done that, but it’s really not a subject I enjoy visit—”
“We’ve all made decisions that we’re not so proud of,” I interrupt quickly. “Even you. I’ve met some of your ex-girlfriends. And what Jordan lacks intellectually he makes up for in good intentions. He has a very kind heart. He also has a very big—”
Cooper picks up the pillow again and holds it threateningly over my face.
“—ego,” I finish, laughing. “And I don’t have a secret diary.” I sit up, growing serious. “But there is something we need to talk about. I went to the doctor a couple of weeks ago, and she said . . .”
I don’t know where I find the courage. Maybe from the same place where Tania found the courage to tell Gary Hall he wasn’t on the invitation list to her Rock Off and so he needed to leave, even though he was pointing a gun in her face. In any case, somehow I manage to tell Cooper what the doctor said about how if we want to have a baby, we need to get busy . . . and how it probably isn’t going to be that easy.
When I’m finished, he doesn’t appear to understand.
“Baby?” he says, shaking his head. “Who said anything about wanting a baby?”
I’m confused. “Cooper. Don’t you want kids someday?”
“We already have kids,” he says, pointing toward Fischer Hall, though the windows of my room face the opposite direction so he ends up jerking his thumb at the wall behind my bed. “We have an entire dorm full of kids. Every time I turn around, you’re rushing over there to help one of them out. Gavin, that Jamie girl, that one who was going to have to go back to India, the other one whose dad hates him because he’s gay, not to mention an entire basketball team—”
“Those are other people’s kids,” I remind him.
“It doesn’t seem like it to me,” he says. “We see them more than their own parents do.”
“Cooper,” I say. “Most of them are in their early twenties. They hardly qualify as kids.”
“Then why do I always have to pay for dinner whenever we go out with them?”
“Cooper—”
“Let’s say the odds aren’t really as bad as you think and you don’t have to get this operation, or whatever it is,” he says, growing serious. “Let’s say you somehow end up with a baby. Are you going to quit working at Fischer Hall to stay home to take care of it?”
I have never thought of this before. In my fantasies, I always magically have three children, and they’re five, seven, and ten, delightfully self-sufficient, and dressed in charming navy blue plaid school uniforms. “Well,” I say, “I don’t know—”
Quit working? I haven’t even gotten a chance to look at Lisa’s wedding binder yet. She’s the first fun boss—aside from Tim, who doesn’t count, because he was never officially my boss—I’ve ever had.
And what about Sarah? Even though she and Sebastian seem to have reconciled, I’m sure he’s still going to Israel. Who’s going to hold her hand through that? Not like I’m going to get pregnant and have Jack, Emily, and Charlotte right away—it will probably take years—but still, there’s a lot of stuff I have to do, none of which involves staying home with a crying baby . . .
“Because,” Cooper says, “and I don’t mean this as an insult or anything, so don’t get mad, but I don’t really see you as the stay-at-home mom type. I know I am definitely not the stay-at-home dad type. I love my job . . . on the days when people aren’t trying to kill one of us, that is.”
“Most people can’t afford to quit their jobs when they have a baby,” I explain to him. I realize that many of Cooper’s friends don’t have children yet, because they’re either incarcerated or famous rock stars, so it’s possible he doesn’t know these things. “They hire nannies or find day care. But yes, you’re right, I do love my job, and I have to finish school. So I don’t want to stay home to take care of a baby either. But—”
“Well,” he says, “if neither one of us wants to take the time to stay home and take care of it, it seems to me like neither of us actually wants to have a baby yet. Or am I wrong on this point?”
I try to digest this, but it’s extremely difficult, since everywhere I go, it see
ms, I’m bombarded with images of women my age pushing baby strollers or showing off their baby bump or telling interviewers that they never knew what true love was until they “looked into the eyes of their newborn.”
“But if we don’t try to have one now, we may never be able to have one. And doesn’t everyone want a baby?” I ask. “Isn’t it a primal urge?”
Even as the words are coming out of my mouth, however, I remember what Lisa said in our office. She doesn’t want kids. I know Tom doesn’t either. Is there really a chance Cooper feels the same way?
“Parenthood is the most difficult, demanding job in the entire world,” Cooper says. “Even if you do it right, you could end up with a kid like . . . well, I think over the last few weeks we’ve both seen plenty of evidence of the kind of kids you could end up with. I think the worst thing anyone can do is have a baby because they think it’s what’s expected of them, or because it’s what everyone else is doing, or because they don’t know what else to do with their lives. If you decide to have a baby, you’ve got to be 100 percent committed to the job. But if you ask me, Heather, you already are committed to it.” He points again in the direction of Fischer Hall. “Whether you’re willing to admit it or not, you’ve already got a bunch of babies. They just came pre-toilet-trained. And you didn’t have to have an operation or risk your health squeezing them out.”
“Okay,” I say. “Fair enough. But I can’t really see Gavin or any of those guys supporting us in our old age, can you?”
