Meg Cabot - Big Boned

“But the Santa at the end of the parade is the real Santa,” Pete’s youngest informs me, gravely.

“Well, of course,” I say. To Magda, I whisper, out of the corner of my mouth, “Okay, Mother Teresa. What gives?”

“Nothing,” she says innocently. “I’m just watching them for a little while. You know Pete can’t take them home yet, because he’s still on the picket line, protesting.”

“Right,” I whisper back. “You just happened to volunteer to babysit. With no ulterior motives.”

Magda shrugs. “I was thinking about what you said yesterday,” she says, not making eye contact. “There might be a slight possibility I wasn’t exactly clear enough with my intentions. I intend to rectify that. And see what happens.”

I nod in the direction of the kids, who’ve turned back toward their homework. “And what if you end up mother of the year? I thought you were too young for that.”

“I’m too young to have my own,” Magda says, her heavily lined eyes widening. “But I’ll take someone else’s. No problem. Besides, these are already potty trained.”

Shaking my head, I grab a DoveBar and head back to my office. Is it my imagination, or is everyone around me seeming to pair up all of a sudden? I know it’s spring, and all, but really… this is getting ridiculous. Everyone… everyone but me.

Oh, wait. I have a boyfriend, too. God, why can’t I seem to remember that? A boyfriend who has a question to ask me, when the timing is right. That’s not a very good sign, is it? I mean, that I can’t seem to remember Tad when he’s not around. That doesn’t bode particularly well for the future of our relationship.

Nor does the fact that I can’t get some other guy’s smile—and, let’s be frank, hands—out of my head.

What is wrong with me?

My phone is ringing its head off by the time I get to my desk. The caller ID says it’s the head of the Housing Department, Dr. Stanley Jessup.

“Hi, Dr. Jessup,” I say when I pick up. “What can I do for you?”

“You can tell me why you just PNG’d Mark Halstead,” Stan says.

“Oh,” I say. “Because he regularly feels up one of my residents. It’s kind of a funny story, actually. She had a meeting with Dr. Veatch to write up a formal complaint about it the morning he was shot.”

“Are you sure this girl is telling the truth?”

“Um… yeah,” I say, in some surprise. “Why?”

“Because if there’s some way you can retract that PNG, you might want to do it. Reverend Mark is the one running Owen’s memorial service, at which you are speaking. So the next couple hours of your life are about to get very, very uncomfortable.”

“Who was Dr. Owen Veatch?”

This is the question, ostensibly rhetorical, with which Reverend Mark Halstead opens his eulogy.

I glance around to see if anyone in the folding chairs on either side of me seems to have an answer… but no one does. Everyone’s head is bent… but not in prayer. My colleagues are all studying the faces of their cell phones or BlackBerrys.

Nice.

“I’ll tell you who Dr. Owen Veatch was,” Reverend Mark goes on. “Dr. Owen Veatch was a man of conviction. Strong conviction. Owen Veatch was a man who had the courage to stand up and say no.”

Reverend Mark spreads his arms out very wide on the word no, and the long sleeves of his robe fly out like a white cape. “That’s right. Owen Veatch said no to this college campus becoming a place of divisiveness. Owen Veatch said no to New York College being held hostage by any one group who maintained their beliefs were more correct than any other’s. Owen Veatch just said no … ”

Muffy Fowler uncrosses her long, black-hosed legs (why didn’t I think of going home to change before coming here? I’m still in jeans. I’m wearing jeans to my boss’s memorial service. I have to be the worst employee ever. Noway am I getting a Pansy this year), leans over, and whispers in my ear, “Don’t you think he’s cuter than Jake Gyllenhaal?”

Tom, fanning himself with a copy of Us Weekly he’d snagged from the reception desk on our way out, and brought with him for moral support, looks shocked.

“Bite your tongue, woman,” he whispers back.

“I wasn’t talking to you,” Muffy says. We have to be careful whispering, because we’re in the second-to-the-front row of folding chairs—though considerably off to one side of the wooden podium upon which Reverend Mark is currently hammering his fist. We’ve already been caught whispering once before, and Reverend Mark had given us a dirty look that I’m sure everybody in the gym, even in the very last row, had seen.

In the row in front of us, Pam Don’t-Call-Me-Mrs. Veatch sits sandwiched between Mrs. Allington, the president’s wife, and a woman who can only be Owen’s mother, Mrs. Veatch Senior, who, at eighty-something, looks as if she might drop dead herself at any moment, no bullets necessary. All three women are staring up at Reverend Mark, tears streaming down their faces. Only Mrs. Allington’s tears are due to the flask I know she keeps in her Prada bag, and nips from regularly, when she thinks no one is looking. Every time she takes a nip, Tom makes a note in his BlackBerry. He’s brought it along because it’s more expedient for note taking, he believes, than his Day Runner.

“And this man, this professional educator, who believed so strongly in his convictions, who strived to make this campus a safe, fair, learning environment for everyone,” Reverend Mark goes on, “this man lost his life for his job—a job he dedicated more than half his years to—to the young people of this country. He was there for our children, for over twenty years.”

Reverend Mark seems to be warming up to his subject. The youth choir, in risers to one side of his podium, are gazing at him rapturously… almost as rapturously as Muffy and Tom are. Not surprisingly, Jamie is not there. No one in the choir appears to be missing her too much. Or at all. In their gold and white robes, the student singers look youthful and angelic and quite unlike their normal selves, a few of whom I recognize as Fischer Hall residents I’ve busted for smuggling kegs into the building under their coats.

“Revered and admired for his gift of communicating with the youths of today, Dr. Veatch will be sorely missed and his passing deeply mourned,” Reverend Mark informs us. “However, take comfort in the words of our Lord Jesus, as written in John, chapter three, verse fifteen, that whosoever believeth in Him shall not perish, but have eternal life.”

I glance over at the Mrs. Veatches to see if they are taking comfort from the reverend’s words. Mrs. Veatch Senior appears to have fallen asleep. Pam and Mrs. Allington are staring up at the Reverend Mark, their mouths open. Apparently it hadn’t occurred to either of them that Owen might have attained eternal life in the kingdom of the Lord. I have to admit the possibility never occurred to me, either. But then I have only a passing familiarity with the Bible.

Next to Mrs. Allington, her husband, President Allington, is deeply entranced in his BlackBerry. Except when I look closer, I see he’s not checking his e-mail or surfing the Web. He’s playing Fantasy Football.

“Fellow Pansies,” Reverend Mark goes on, in his deep, melodic voice, “I call upon you not to grieve for Dr. Veatch, nor mourn his passing, but to celebrate his entrance into the kingdom of the Lord.”

Reverend Mark seems to be winding down. I can see that the choir is getting ready to launch into their next number. We’ve already been treated to “Bridge Over Troubled Water.” I wonder, as I flip through my note cards to review what I’m going to say about Owen, what our next musical treat will be. I have no idea what kind of music Owen liked. I recall he once mentioned Michael Bolton, and shudder involuntarily. Tom glances over at me and says, knowingly, “I know. If she keeps up at this rate, they’re going to have to carry her out,” and nods meaningfully at Mrs. Allington.

With a few final assurances that Dr. Veatch is currently dwelling in the house of the Lord—a far better abode than the one-bedroom apartment he’d formerly dwelt in—Reverend Mark leaves the podium, wiping his forehead with a handkerchief, the long robes of his surplice fluttering behind him. Muffy smiles her big, toothy Miss America smile at him as he passes by. Reverend Mark smiles back, but not as big—

Then his gaze falls on me, seated next to Muffy, and the smile crumbles, then disappears completely. In fact, you might even say the look he gives me is… well, deadly.

Yeah. Reverend Mark doesn’t like me too much.

He’s so busy giving me the death stare that the Reverend Mark almost smacks into Dr. Jessup, who is making his way up to the podium next. Dr. Jessup shakes the minister’s hand, and Reverend Mark utters a few words and places a comforting hand on the Housing Department head’s shoulder.

The brief lull gives me an opportunity to look around the newly renamed (for reasons best left unmentioned) New York College Sports Center gymnasium. Every folding chair and most of the bleachers are filled with people. People who didn’t know Owen. People who have just come to gawk at the memorial service of a murdered man. The gym floor is filled with flowers… and film crews from the local news channels. Except for the youth choir and the Fischer Hall resident assistants (whose attendance Tom made mandatory, informing them they’d be assigned extra hours at the reception desk if they didn’t show up), I see almost no students.