Meg Cabot - Size 12 Is Not Fat

Then Magda lifts her head from my shoulder and says, “Uh-oh.”

I turn to see what she’s talking about and suck in my breath real fast. Because Mrs. Allington, the wife of Phillip Allington—who last spring was inaugurated as the college’s sixteenth president—is coming down the sidewalk toward us.

I know a lot about the Allingtons because another thing I found in Justine’s files—right before I threw them all away—was an article clipped from the New York Times, making this big deal out of the fact that the newly appointed president had chosen to live in a residence hall rather than in one of the luxury buildings owned by the school.

“Phillip Allington,” the article said, “is an academician who does not wish to lose touch with the student population. When he comes home from his office, he rides the same elevator as the undergraduates next to whom he resides—”

What the Times totally neglected to mention is that the president and his family live in Fischer Hall’s penthouse, which takes up the entire twentieth floor, and that they complained so much about the elevators stopping on every floor on their way up to let the students out that Justine finally issued them override keys.

Aside from complaining about the elevators, President Allington’s wife, Eleanor, seems to have very little to do. Whenever I see her, she’s always just returning from, or heading off to, Saks Fifth Avenue. She is uncannily committed to shopping—like an Olympic track athlete is dedicated to her training.

Only Mrs. Allington’s sport of choice—besides shopping—seems to be consuming vast amounts of vodka. When she and Dr. Allington return from late-night dinners with the trustees, Mrs. Allington inevitably kicks up a ruckus in the lobby, usually concerning her pet cockatoos—or so I’ve heard from Pete, my favorite university security officer.

“The birds,” she’d once told him. “The birds hate your guts, fatty.”

Which is kind of mean-spirited, if you think about it. Also inaccurate, since Pete isn’t a bit fat. He’s just, you know. Average.

Mrs. Allington’s drunken verbal assaults are a source of much amusement at the hall’s reception desk, which is staffed round the clock by student employees—the ones I’m supposed to supervise. Late at night, if Dr. Allington isn’t home, Mrs. Allington sometimes calls down to the desk to report all sorts of startling facts: that someone has eaten all her stuffed artichokes; that there are coyotes on her terrace; that tiny invisible dwarfs are hammering on her headboard.

According to Pete, the students were at first confused by these reports, and would beep the resident assistants, the upperclassmen who, in exchange for free room and board, are expected to act as sort of house mothers, one per floor. The RAs in turn would notify the building director, who would board the elevator for the twentieth floor to investigate.

But when Mrs. Allington answered her door, bleary-eyed and robed in velour—I know! Velour! Almost as good as stretch velvet—she’d just say, “I don’t know what you’re talking about, fatty.”

While behind her (according to various RAs who’ve repeated this story), the cockatoos whistled maniacally.

Spooky stuff.

But apparently not as spooky to Mrs. Allington as it is to the rest of us, probably because she never seems to remember any of it the next day, and heads off to Saks as if she were a queen—the Queen of Fischer Hall.

Like now, for instance. Loaded down with shopping bags, Mrs. Allington is looking scathingly at the cop who is blocking Fischer Hall’s front door, and going, “Excuse me. I live here.”

“Sorry, lady,” the cop says. “Emergency personnel only. No residents allowed back in the building yet.”

“I am not a resident. “ Mrs. Allington seems to swell amid her bags. “I’m… I’m… ” Mrs. Allington can’t seem to quite figure out what she is. But it’s not like the cop cares.

“Sorry, lady,” he says. “Go enjoy the street fair for a while, why dontcha? Or there’re some nice benches over in the park there. Whyn’t you go relax on one till we get the all-clear to start lettin’ people in again, okay?”

Mrs. Allington is looking a bit peaked as I come hurrying up to her. I’ve abandoned Magda because Mrs. Allington looks as if she needs me more. She’s just standing there in a pair of too-tight designer jeans, a silk top, and tons of gold jewelry, the shopping bags drooping in her hands, her mouth opening and closing in confusion. She is definitely a little green around the gills.

“Did you hear me, ma’am?” the cop is saying. “No one’s allowed in. See all these kids here? They’re waiting, too. So either wait with them or move along.”

Only Mrs. Allington seems to have lost the ability to move along. She doesn’t look too steady on her feet, if you ask me. I step over and take her arm. She doesn’t even acknowledge my presence. I doubt she even knows who I am. Though she nods to me every single weekday when she gets off the elevator across from my office door on her way out to her latest binge—I mean, shopping expedition—and says, “Good morning, Justine” (despite my frequently correcting her), I suppose seeing me on a weekend, and out of doors, has thrown her.

“Her husband’s the president of the college, Officer,” I say, nodding toward Mrs. Allington, who appears to be staring very hard at a nearby student with purple hair and an eyebrow ring. “Phillip Allington? He lives in the penthouse. I don’t think she’s feeling too well. Can I… can I just help her get inside?”

The cop gives me the eye.

“I know you from somewhere?” the cop asks. It’s not a come-on. With me, this line never is.

“Probably from the neighborhood,” I say, with excessive cheer. “I work in this building.” I flash him my college staff ID card, the one with the photo where I look drunk, even though I wasn’t. Until after I saw the photo. “See? I’m the assistant residence hall director.”

He doesn’t look impressed by the title, but he says, with a shrug, “Whatever. Get ’er inside, if you want. But I don’t know how you’re gonna get ’er upstairs. Elevators are shut down.”

I don’t know how I’m going to get Mrs. Allington upstairs, either, considering she’s so unsteady on her feet, I’m practically going to have to carry her. I fling a glance over my shoulder at Magda, who, seeing my predicament, rolls her eyes. But she stamps out her cigarette and heads gamely toward us, ready to offer whatever aid she can.

Before she quite gets to us, though, two young women—garbed in what I consider standard New York College attire, low rider jeans with belly rings—come bursting out of the building, breathing hard.

“Oh my God, Jeff,” one of them calls to the bhang dropper. “What is up with the elevators? We just had to walk down seventeen flights of stairs.”

“I’m going to die,” the other girl announces.

“Seriously,” the first girl pants, loudly. “For what we’re paying in tuition and housing fees, you’d think the PRESIDENT would be able to invest in elevators that don’t break down all the time.”

I don’t miss her hostile glance at Mrs. Allington, who made the mistake of letting her photo be published in the school paper, thus making her a recognizable target around the dorm. I mean, residence hall.

“C’mon, Mrs. Allington,” I say quickly, giving her arm a little tug. “Let’s go inside.”

“About time,” Mrs. Allington says, stumbling a little, as Magda moves to take hold of her other arm. The two of us steer her through the front door to cries—from the students—of “Hey! Why do they get to go in, but we don’t? We live here, too!” and “No fair!” and, “Fascists!”

From the careful way she’s putting one kitten heel in front of the other, I’m pretty sure Mrs. Allington is already a little tipsy, even though it’s not quite noon. My suspicions are confirmed when the three of us pass into the building and Mrs. Allington suddenly leans over and heaves her breakfast into one of the planters in the front lobby.

It definitely looks as if Mrs. A. had a few Bloody Marys to go with her eggs this morning.

“Santa Maria,” Magda says, horrified. And who can blame her?

I don’t know about anyone else, but when I throw up (and, I’m sorry to say, it’s something I do regularly every single New Year’s Eve), I like a little sympathy, even if the whole thing’s my own fault.

So I pat Mrs. Allington on her padded shoulder and say, “There. Don’t you feel better now?”

Mrs. Allington squints at me as if she’s noticing me for the first time.

“Who the hell are you?” she asks.

“Um,” I say. “I’m the assistant building director. Heather Wells. Remember? We met a couple of months ago?”

Mrs. Allington looks confused. “What happened to Justine?”

“Justine found another job,” I explain, which is a lie, since Justine was fired. But the truth is, I don’t know Justine’s side of the story. I mean, maybe she really needed the money. Maybe she has relatives who live in Bosnia or somewhere really cold, and they don’t have any heat, and those ceramic heaters kept them alive all winter. You never know.

Mrs. Allington just squints some more.

“Heather Wells?” She blinks a few more times. “But aren’t you… aren’t you that girl? The one who used to sing in all those malls?”

That’s when I realize that Mrs. Allington has finally recognized me, all right…

… but not as the assistant director of the building she lives in.

Wow. I never suspected Mrs. Allington of being a fan of teen pop. She seems more the Barry Manilow type—much older teen pop.

“I was,” I say to her, kindly, because I still feel sorry for her, on account of the barf, and all. “But I don’t perform anymore.”

“Why?” Mrs. Allington wants to know.

Magda and I exchange glances. Magda seems to be getting her sense of humor back, since there is a distinct upward slant to corners of her lip-linered mouth.

“Um,” I say. “It’s kind of a long story. Basically I lost my recording contract—”

“Because you got fat?” Mrs. Allington asks.

Which is, I have to admit, when I sort of stopped feeling sorry for her.

Fortunately I’m spared from having to make any sort of reply to Mrs. Allington’s remark about my weight by the fact that my boss, Rachel Walcott, comes hurrying up to us just then, her patent leather slides clacking on the marble floor of the lobby.

“Heather,” Rachel says, when she sees me. “Thank you so much for coming.” She actually does look sort of relieved that I’m there, which makes me feel good. You know, that I really am needed, if only $23,500-a-year worth.

“Sure,” I say. “I’m so sorry. Was it—I mean, is it—someone we know?”

But Rachel just gives me a warning look—like “Don’t talk about family business in front of strangers,” the strangers being Mrs. Allington and Magda, cafeteria workers not being considered residence hall staff, and wives of presidents of the college DEFINITELY not being considered that way—and turns toward Mrs. Allington.

“Good morning, Mrs. Allington,” Rachel all but shouts, as if to an elderly person, though Mrs. Allington can’t be much more than sixty. “I’m so sorry about all this. Are you all right?”

Mrs. Allington is far from all right, but—even as upset as I am about the fat remark—I don’t want to blurt this out. She’s still, after all, the president’s wife.

Instead all I say is “Mrs. Allington isn’t feeling too well.”

I accompany the statement with a significant glance toward the planter Mrs. A. just heaved into, hoping Rachel will get the message. We haven’t worked together for all that long, Rachel and I. She was hired just a week or two before I was, to replace the director who’d quit right after Justine had been fired—but not out of solidarity with Justine, or anything. The director had quit because her husband had gotten a job as a forest ranger in Oregon.

I know. Forest ranger husband. Hmmm. I’d have quit to follow him, too.

But while Rachel is new to the live-in position of director of Fischer Hall, she’s not new to the field of higher education (which is what they call it when you’re involved in the counseling, but not the teaching, part of college life, or at least so I read in one of Justine’s files). The last dorm—I mean, residence hall—Rachel, a Yale grad, ran had been at Earlcrest College in Richmond, Indiana.