by Meg Cabot
“Right,” I say sarcastically. “Like we did.”
“Right,” Jordan says, looking down at me. I can’t see his eyes, but I can still feel his gaze burning into me. Why’s he looking at me like that, anyway? Like he…like he…
“Oh no,” I say, taking a hasty step backward—right into the door. The knob presses hard against my back. “Jordan…what are you doing here? I mean, what are you really doing here?”
“My parents are throwing an engagement party for me,” he says, in a voice that suddenly sounds hoarse. “For Tania and me, I mean. Back home. At the penthouse. Right now.”
Mr. and Mrs. Cartwright hadn’t thrown an engagement party when Jordan and I had gotten engaged. Instead, Mrs. Cartwright had asked if I was pregnant.
I guess she couldn’t think of any other reason her son would bother to get himself engaged to a girl whose career was on the wane and waistline on the rise.
“Well, shouldn’t you be there, then?” I ask him.
“I should,” Jordan says. And suddenly I realize he doesn’t just sound hoarse. He sounds miserable. “I know I should. Only…only all I’ve been able to think of all day is you.”
I swallow hard and try to think rationally. After all, I’m a girl detective. That is what girl detectives do. We think rationally.
But there’s something about Jordan’s proximity—not to mention the misery…and raw need…in his voice—that’s making this really difficult.
And the weight of his hands on my shoulders is very pleasant. And suddenly, I don’t even mind the smell of Drakkar Noir so much.
And in the dark, of course, I can see neither the gold necklace nor the ID bracelet he’s wearing.
I know! ID bracelet!
“I just,” I babble, trying to keep down this wave of hysteria that’s threatening to engulf me. “I just think maybe the excitement of it all—the announcement, the reporters—is getting to you. Maybe if you just go home and have an Advil—”
“I don’t want an Advil,” Jordan murmurs, drawing me close. “All I want is you.”
“No,” I say, feeling panicky at the touch of puffy shirt to my cheek. “No, you don’t. Remember? You keep telling me I’ve changed. Well, I have changed, Jordan. We both have. We’ve got to move on, and start living our own—separate—lives. That’s what you’re doing with Tania, and that’s what I’m doing with…with…’’ With who? I don’t have anybody! It isn’t fair that he has somebody, and I don’t.
“Well, with Lucy,” I finish—quite bravely, in my opinion.
“Is that what you want?” Jordan asks me, his lips alarmingly close to mine all of a sudden. “For me to be with Tania?”
I can’t believe what I’m hearing.
“Now you’re asking?”
And the next thing I know, he’s stooped down low and is pressing his mouth over mine.
Ordinarily I’m pretty clear-headed in situations like this. I mean, usually when a guy starts kissing me—not that this happens very often—I have the presence of mind to either tell him to stop if I don’t like it, or kiss him back if I do.
But in this particular case, I’m so surprised, I just sort of freeze. I mean, I’m still conscious of the doorknob pressing into my back, and the fact that all the lights in the house are out, which means Cooper isn’t home yet—thank God!
But beyond that, and some mild embarrassment that the drug dealers, out on the street, are whooping encouragingly, “Go for it, mon!” I don’t feel…anything.
Anything but good, I mean.
I know as well as the drug dealers that it’s been a while since I’d gotten any.
It must have been a while for Jordan, too (either that, or Tania isn’t quite pulling her weight in bed…which isn’t surprising, given that she can only weigh like one-ten, tops), because all I do is slide my arms up around his neck—force of habit, I swear—and the next thing I know, he’s slammed my body back against the door, the front of his leather pants molded to me so closely that I can feel the individual rivets on his fly…
…not to mention the thickening, er, muscle beneath those rivets.
Then his tongue is inside my mouth, and his hands in my hair…
And all I can think is OH NO.
Because he’s engaged. And not to me. And I—well, really, I am NOT that type of girl. I’m NOT.
But this little voice inside my head keeps going, Maybe this is how it’s meant to be, and Hmmm, I remember how this feels, and Well, he certainly doesn’t seem to mind those added pounds, which makes it VERY hard to do the right thing, which is push him away.
As a matter of fact, well…the little voice is making it impossible to push him away.
I guess all those choreographers were wrong. You know, about me having trouble turning off my brain and just letting my body go. Because my body is humming along just fine, without any support from my brain at all…
It begins to look as if it would behoove us to get indoors, considering the supportive shouts of the drug dealers, so I twist around and finally get the door open, and we kind of fall into the dark foyer…
…where I press both my hands against his chest and use my one last moment of sanity to say, “You know, Jordan, I really don’t think we should be doing this—”
But it’s too late. He’s already pulled my shirt from the waistband of my jeans. Next thing I know, his hands are cupping my breasts through the lace of my bra while he kisses me. Deeply. Like he means it, even.
And okay, yeah, I do think—briefly—of reminding him that just that morning, I had been reading all about his engagement—to someone else—in the paper.
But you know, sometimes your body just takes up where your mind leaves off.
And my body seems to be on autopilot, remembering all the good times it had once had with the body that’s currently pressed up against it.
And it’s pretty much begging for more.
Then it’s like I can’t think at all for a while. Except…
Well, I do have this one thought, toward the end. This thought I really wish I hadn’t had.
And that’s Wrong brother.
That’s all. Just that I’m definitely, positively rolling around on the floor with the wrong brother.
And I’m not real proud of it.
The worst part of it is, it isn’t even that good. I guess the best I can say is that it’s quick—thank God, because the hallway runner is beneath me, not the most comfortable carpet in the house. And it’s safe—Jordan came prepared, like any good Easy Street member.
Other than that, it doesn’t end up being much different than the sex we used to have every Monday, Wednesday, and Saturday…
…with the obvious exception being that, this time, I’m the other woman.
I wonder if Tania ever felt as guilty about it as I do. Somehow, I doubt it. Tania doesn’t strike me as someone who ever feels guilty about anything. I once saw her throw a Juicy Fruit wrapper on the ground in Central Park. She doesn’t even feel guilty about littering.
Another notable difference to our post-breakup sex, as opposed to our pre-breakup sex, is that Jordan gets up almost immediately after we’re finished and starts getting dressed. Back when we’d been dating, he’d just roll over and go to sleep.
When I sit up and stare at him, he says, “I’m sorry, but I gotta go,” like someone who just remembered a real important dental appointment.
Here’s the really embarrassing part: I feel kind of sad. Like there’d been this part of me that had been sure he’d roll over and say he was going to call Tania and break up with her RIGHT NOW because he wants to be with me forever.
Not, you know, that I’d have gone back to him if he had. Probably not.
Okay, definitely not.
But it’s…well, it’s lonely, when you don’t have anyone. I mean, I don’t want to come off sounding like Rachel. I’m not saying that if I had a boyfriend—even Cooper, the man of my dreams—it would cure all my problems.
And I’m not about t
o start eating salad with no dressing if that’s what I have to do to get one—I’m not that desperate.
But…it would be nice to have someone care.
I don’t mention any of this to Jordan, though. I mean, I have some pride. Instead, when he says he’s leaving, I just go, “Okay.”
“I mean, I would stay,” he says, tugging his shirt over his head, “but I got a real early press junket tomorrow. For the new album, you know.”
“Okay,” I say.
“But I’ll call you tomorrow,” he says, fastening the buttons of his fly. “Maybe we can have dinner, or something.”
“Okay,” I say.
“So, I’ll call you,” Jordan says, from the foyer.
“Sure,” I say. I think we both know he’s lying.
After he leaves, and I’ve locked up behind him, I creep up the stairs to my apartment, where I’m met by an extremely exuberant Lucy, eager for her evening walk. As I look for her leash, I glance through the windows of my kitchen, and see the upper floors of Fischer Hall.
I wonder if Christopher Allington has managed to talk his way into Amber’s pants as easily as Jordan Cartwright talked his way into mine.
Then I remember that said pants are still downstairs, and I hurry down to get them before Cooper comes home and finds the proof of my profound stupidity on the hallway runner.
17
* * *
You told me/It’s over
I just didn’t/Believe you
You told me/I’m a pushover
I just want to/Be with you
Then I saw you/You were with her
And all I have to say is/Whatever
Whatever/Whatever
All I have to say is/Whatever
“Whatever”
Performed by Heather Wells
Composed by Valdez/Caputo
From the album Summer
Cartwright Records
* * *
I’m right about one thing:
Rachel is totally curious about Jordan, and the nature of my relationship with him.
The minute I walk into the office the next morning—wet hair, mug of steaming coffee from the caf in my hand, big scarlet letter on my blouse (just kidding about that last part), Rachel is all “So you and your ex-boyfriend seemed to be getting along pretty well last night.”
She has no idea how true this statement really is.
“Yeah” is all I say, as I sit down and look up the phone number for Amber’s room.
Rachel totally doesn’t take the hint.
“I saw you two outside,” she goes on. “Talking to President Allington’s son.”
“Chris,” I say. “Yeah.” I pick up the phone and dial Amber’s number.
“He seems nice,” Rachel says. “The president’s son.”
“I guess,” I say. For a murderer.
Amber’s phone rings. And rings.
“Cute, too,” Rachel goes on. “And I hear he’s quite wealthy. Trust fund from his grandparents.”
This last is news to me. Oh my God, maybe Christopher Allington’s like Bruce Wayne! Seriously. Only evil. Like maybe he’s had this whole cavern dug out from beneath Fischer Hall, and he takes innocent girls down there, has his way with them, then drugs them and takes them back upstairs and drops them down the elevator shaft…
Except that I’ve spent a lot of time in the bowels of Fischer Hall with the exterminator, and there’s nothing under there but mice and a lot of old mattresses.
Someone picks up the phone in Amber’s room. A girl’s voice says sleepily, “Hello?”
“Hello,” I say. “Is this Amber?”
“Uh-huh,” the sleepy voice says. “This is Amber. Who’s this?”
“No one,” I say. Just wanted to make sure you were still alive. “Go back to sleep.”
“Okay,” Amber says groggily, and hangs up the phone.
Well, Amber’s still alive, anyway. For now.
“So are you and Jordan getting back together?” Rachel wants to know. She doesn’t seem to think my calling students and waking them up for no apparent reason at all strange. Which actually says a lot about the weirdness of the place where we work, and our jobs there. “You make the cutest couple.”
Fortunately I’m saved from having to reply by my phone, which begins ringing right then. I answer it, wondering if Amber has caller ID and wants to know what the hell I’m doing, waking her up at nine in the morning on a school day.
Only it isn’t Amber on the other end. It’s Patty, going, “Okay, tell me everything.”
“About what?”
I’m not actually feeling very good. All I wanted to do when I woke up this morning was pull the covers back over my head and stay in bed forever and ever.
Jordan. I slept with Jordan. Why, God, why?
“Whadduya mean about what?” Patty sounds shocked. “Haven’t you seen the paper today?”
I feel my blood run cold for the second time in twenty-four hours.
“What paper?”
“The Post,” Patty says. “There’s a photo of you two kissing right on the cover. Well, you can’t really see that the woman’s you, but it’s definitely not Tania Trace. And it’s definitely Cooper’s front stoop—”
I say a word that sends Rachel skittling out of her office, asking if everything is all right.
“Everything’s fine,” I say, placing a shaking hand over the receiver. “It’s nothing, really.”
Meanwhile Patty is busy squawking in my ear.
“The headline says Sleazy Street. I guess they mean because Jordan’s scamming on his fiancée. But don’t worry, they call you the ‘unidentified woman.’ God, you’d think they’d be able to figure it out. But it’s obviously an amateur shot, and your head is in shadows. Still, when Tania sees it—”
“I don’t really want to talk about this right now,” I interrupt, feeling queasy.
“Don’t want to?” Patty sounds surprised. “Or can’t?”
“Um. The latter?”
“I gotcha. Lunch?”
“Okay.”
“You are such a dope.” But Patty is chuckling. “I’ll swing by around noon. Haven’t seen Magda in a while. Can’t wait to hear what SHE has to say about this.”
Neither can I.
I hang up. Sarah comes in, full of eager questions about—what else? Jordan. All I want to do is curl up into a ball and cry. Why? WHY? WHY had I been so WEAK?
But since you can’t cry at work without seventy people coming up to you and going, “What’s wrong? Don’t cry. It’ll be okay,” I pull out a bunch of vending machine refund requests and started processing them instead, bending over my calculator and trying to look super busy and responsible.
It isn’t like Rachel doesn’t have plenty to do herself. She found out earlier in the week that she’d been nominated for a Pansy. Pansys are these medals, in the shape of a flower, that the college gives out to staff and administrators every semester when they’ve done something above and beyond the line of duty. For instance, Pete has one for ramming this girl’s door down when she barricaded herself behind it and turned on the gas in her oven. He completely saved her life.
Magda has one, too, because—weird as she is, with the movie star thing—the kids, for the most part, just adore her. She makes them feel at home, especially every December, when, in disregard of all campus regulations, Magda decorates her cash register with a stuffed Santa, a miniature crèche, a menorah, and Kwanzaa candles.
I personally think it’s nice that Rachel got nominated. She’s dealt with a lot since she started here at Fischer Hall, including two student deaths in two weeks. She’s had to notify two sets of parents that their kid is dead, pack up two sets of belongings (well, okay, I did that, both times), and organize two memorial services. The woman deserves a pansy-shaped medal, at the very least.
Anyway, because of her Pansy nomination, Rachel is automatically invited to the Pansy Ball, this black-tie affair held annually on the ground floor of the college l
ibrary, and she’s all aflutter about it, since the ball is tonight and she keeps insisting she has nothing to wear. She says she’s going to have to go hit some sample sales at lunch to see if she can find something suitable.
I know what this means, of course. She’ll be coming back with the most beautiful gown any of us has ever seen. When you’re a size 2, you can just pop into any store and find hundreds of totally stunning options.
When I’m finished with the refund requests, I announce that I’m going to disbursements to get them cashed, and Rachel waves me away, thankfully not commenting on the fact that I hate waiting on line at Banking (which was Justine’s favorite place) and usually send a student worker to do it.
Of course, on my way to disbursements, I swing by the caf to see Magda. She takes one look at my face and informs her supervisor, Gerald, that she’s taking a ten-minute break, even though Gerald’s like, “But you just went on break half an hour ago!”
Magda and I walk out into the park, sit on a bench, and I pour out the whole stupid Jordan story.
When she’s done laughing at me, Magda wipes her eyes and said, “Oh, my poor baby. But what did you expect? That he was going to beg you to come back?”
“Well,” I say. “Yes.”
“But would you have gone with him?”
“Well…no. But it would have been nice to be asked.”
“Look, baby, you know and I know that you are the best thing that has ever happened to him. But him? He just wants a girl who will do whatever he say. And that is not you. So you let him stay with Miss Bony Butt. And you wait for a nice man to come along. You never know. He might be closer than you think.”
I know she’s talking about Cooper.
“I told you,” I say, miserably. “I’m not his type. I’m going to have to get like four degrees just to compete with his last girlfriend, who discovered a dwarf sun, or something, and got it named after her.”
Magda just shrugs and says, “What about this Christopher you were telling me about, then?”
“Christopher Allington? Magda, I can’t date him! He’s a possible murderer!”
When I reveal my suspicions concerning Christopher Allington, Magda gets very excited.
