My coffee-and-hot-cocoa drink secured, I say, “You always look on the bright side of things, don’t you, Magda?”

“Well, I try,” she admits with a modest shrug. “It’s just my way.”

“Cheers,” I say, saluting her with my coffee mug. Then I head back to my office.

“Heather!” Gavin stops me. “Hells, woman. What is wrong with you? You walked right by without stopping to say hello or get the message Lisa left for you.”

I take a fortifying sip of coffee. “Lisa left me a note? She isn’t in the office?”

“Nah,” Gavin says. As usual, since he’s working the morning shift, he’s in his pajamas, which today consist of blue New York College sweatpants, a Ramones T-shirt, and his usual Goofy slippers. “She and Cory left about a half hour ago. She said she has a doctor’s appointment. Good thing too, she looked pretty sick. Probably all these damned RAs.” He looks disapproving. “They’re making me sick too. She stopped to write this for you, though, before she left.”

Gavin slides a sealed envelope toward me. I set my bagel and coffee drink on the counter, tear open the envelope, and find a folded note, written on New York College stationery, in Lisa’s distinctive, loopy handwriting.

— New York College —

Heather,

Sorry to leave you in a lurch like this, especially with the RAs acting so nuts, but I called my doctor last night like you said to, and she was able to squeeze me in for an appt. first thing this morning. I should be back by 11:00 a.m., noon at the latest. I haven’t forgotten your fitting, don’t worry! Thanks, you’re the best!

Lisa

P.S. I told Cory. You were right, he’s over the moon! And now, I have to admit, so am I!

Smiling, I refold the note, slip it back into the envelope, and stick the envelope into my purse.

“What’s so funny?” Gavin asks.

“What?” I ask, trying to wipe the grin off my face. “Nothing. Mind your own business. Have you finished the mail forwarding from yesterday? Because that pile over there doesn’t look like it’s getting any smaller to me.”

“Damn, woman!” Gavin cries. “Why you gots to be that way?”

“I’m not paying you to work on your screenplay, Gavin,” I say, pointing at his laptop, which is sitting open in front of him. “Do the mail. And why are those flowers from Prince Rashid still back there?”

Gavin looks over his shoulder. “Those are the ones for that girl in fourteen-twelve. I’ve left her like four notices. She says she doesn’t want them. So can I give them to Jamie? Please?”

“No, you may not,” I say. “Items left at the desk are not yours for regifting. Get to work on that mail.”

But Gavin can see that I’m still smiling. I’m finding it impossible not to.

“Seriously,” he calls as I walk away from the desk. “What did the note say? Obviously it was good news. But what kind of good news could Lisa possibly have had on today of all days?”

“Not good news,” I call to him over my shoulder. “The best news.”

“We’re all getting raises?” Gavin shouts, in a hopeful tone.

“You wish!” I shout back at him. “Get to work.”

I realize it’s a little premature—okay, a lot premature—but I’m picturing all the fun Lisa and I are going to have with her baby in the office (I was serious about making a little cradle for it in one of the file cabinet drawers). It’s going to be especially fun for me because it’s not my baby, so I don’t have to worry about changing diapers or sleepless nights or paying for college or it growing up to be a serial killer. I’m thinking about names—I wonder how Lisa will feel about Charlotte or Emily if it’s a girl?—when I turn the corner to the residence hall director’s office and see all the people lined up outside it.

Weirdly, the door to the office is propped open—as it usually is when I’m at my desk—only I’m not at my desk, and I had the lock to the office door changed the night before.

So who’s in there?

29

Prince of Qalif Held to Different Disciplinary Standard

Sources tell the Express that although Rascally Rashid, the prince of Qalif, has thrown a number of large parties in his room(s) at which alcohol has been present, he has received no disciplinary sanctions,

while nine resident assistants in Fischer Hall have lost their positions.

“Of course they haven’t done anything to him,” says a student and resident of the building (who wishes to remain anonymous for fear of reprisals). “His father donated half a billion dollars to the college. He can do whatever he wants.”

New York College administrators have declined to comment.

New York College Express,

your daily student news blog

Look,” Sarah is saying to Howard Chen, Kyle Cheeseman, and the rest of the RAs gathered around my desk, where she’s sitting behind the still-enormous—and even more fragrant—flower arrangement Rashid sent me. “Lisa isn’t here, all right? I don’t know where she is or when she’s coming in, but—”

She breaks off, seeing me walk through the door.

“Oh, thank God,” she says, and rises from my office chair, looking relieved. “There you are. I thought you’d never get here. These . . . people . . . want to talk to you.”

Sarah hesitates before saying the word “people” as if she’d have preferred to use a different word, but chooses the high road out of professionalism. Apparently, her patience has been worn thin.

I can’t say I blame her. The office is a zoo. Not only is it packed with dissatisfied RAs, but Carl, the building engineer, is back on his ladder, drilling the ceiling again, this time near Sarah’s desk—which is why she’d abandoned it for mine. Prince Rashid is there too, sitting on the visitors’ couch, right on time for his appointment with me . . .

But he’s brought along both his bodyguards, including Hamad, who are standing stiffly on either side of him, their expressions stony-faced.

Odd how State Department special agents go missing right when you need them.

“What’s with this letter?” Jasmine Tsai demands, waving a piece of paper in my face. All I can see is that it’s written on formal New York College letterhead. The paper has a watermark. We can’t afford paper like that in this office. Our budget isn’t big enough.