Big Boned

I whistle, low and long. “Twenty grand. That must have been some wedding china.”

“Limoges,” Muffy says. “Banded. Eight-piece settings for twenty. Including finger bowls.”

“Man,” I say, appreciatively. Finger bowls. I don’t know if I’ve ever seen a finger bowl before. And what does banded mean? I think, dimly, that this is stuff I better start learning about if Tad and I are going to… you know.

This thought makes me feel a little nauseous. Maybe it’s just all that whipped cream on an empty stomach, though. Or the sight of that enormous rat.

That’s when I notice something that makes me forget about my upset stomach.

And that’s Magda, hurrying out of Fischer Hall in her pink smock, and inching her way across the street through the backed-up cabs and toward the picket line, carefully balancing a steaming mug of coffee in her hands…

… which she presents to a picketer in a gray New York College security guard’s uniform, who stops marching, lowers his The Future of Academia Is ON THE LINE sign, and beams at her appreciatively…

And whom I realize is none other that Pete.

Who is not behind his desk like he is supposed to be.

Instead, he is standing in the park. ON A PICKET LINE.

“Oh my God,” I race up to him, completely forgetting Muffy, to shout. “Are you insane? What are you doing here? Why aren’t you inside? Who’s ma

Pete looks down at me calmly from the mug of Fischer Hall’s finest he’s delicately blowing across.

“Good morning to you, too, Heather,” he says. “And how are you today?”

“I’m just peachy,” I yell. “Seriously. Who is ma

“No one.” Magda is looking at me with strangely arched brows. Then I realize her brows aren’t arched on purpose. They’re just newly waxed. “I’ve been keeping an eye on it. Someone from the president’s office has been sniffing around. He says they’ll be sending some people from a private security firm over. I don’t know if that’s the best idea, though, Heather. I mean, someone from a private security firm isn’t going to know about the attendants, you know, for the specially a bled students in the handicapped accessible rooms? And how is someone from a private security firm going to know it’s not okay to let the kids sign in the delivery guys from Charlie Mom’s, or they’ll stick a menu under every single door in the entire building?”

I groan, remembering my conversation with Cooper from the day before. He’d been totally right. We were going to get mob-run security and custodial replacement staffs. I just knew it.

Then I blink at Magda. “Wait a minute—how come you aren’t striking?”

“We’re with a different union,” Magda explains. “Food services, as opposed to hotel and automotive.”

“Automotive?” I shake my head. “That makes no sense whatsoever. What’s an automotive union doing, letting academics into—”

“You!”

We all jump as Sarah’s voice—made ten times louder by the megaphone she’s speaking into—cuts into our conversation.

“Are you here to socializeor make socialchange?” Sarah demands of Pete.

“Jesus Christ,” Pete mutters. “I’m just having a cup of coffee with my friends—”

“Get back on the line!” Sarah bellows.

Pete hands his coffee mug back to Magda with a sigh. “I gotta go,” he says. Then he hefts his picket sign, and returns to his place in the circle around the giant rat.

“This,” Magda says, as she watches protesters shuffle past, as animated as the undead in a zombie flick, “is not good.”

“Tell me about it,” I say. “I better go watch the desk. Bring me a bagel?”

“With the works?” Magda asks, the works being code for full-fat cream cheese and, I’m sorry to say, three strips of bacon.

“Absolutely.”

I’ve made myself at home at Pete’s desk (after removing what I can only assume is a very old and very stale doughnut and not, in fact, a door stop from his middle desk drawer… although I can’t help noticing the trash can into which I deposit it has not been emptied in some time, and realize Julio and his crack housekeeping staff aren’t around… a realization that, more than any other, depresses me), and instituted what I consider the begi

“Are you Heather?” the guy from the president’s office wants to know. When I say that I am, he proceeds to inform me that Mr. Rosetti—the man in the shiny suit, which happens to be coupled very charmingly with a lavender silk shirt and several very attractive gold chains which lay nestled among some wiry graying chest hairs, along with multiple gold rings, one on each of the man’s not unsausage-like fingers—is going to be supplying “security” for the building, and could I please inform him of any special security concerns of which I might be aware that are unique to Fischer Hall.

At which point I kindly inform the man from the president’s office that Fischer Hall’s security needs are taken care of for the foreseeable future. But I thank him for his concern.

The man—whose name, he has informed me, is Brian—looks confused.

“How is that possible?” Brian asks. “The college security force is out on strike. I’m supposed to be overseeing getting replacements in all the buildings—”

“Oh, I’ve already taken care of that here in Fischer Hall,” I say… just as a tall, spindly kid comes rushing into the building, tugging off his backpack, out of breath but only one minute late.

“Sorry, Heather,” he pants. “I just got your text. I was in Bio. I’ll take the ten to two shift. Are you really paying ten bucks an hour? Can I have the six to ten shift tonight, too? And the ten to two tomorrow?”

I nod as I rise gracefully from Pete’s chair.

“The six to ten tonight’s already taken,” I say. “But the ten to two tomorrow’s all yours. If of course,” I add, “this whole thing isn’t settled by then.”

“Sweet.” Jeremy slides into the seat I’ve vacated, then barks at a student who’s just entered the building, flashed his ID, then strolled by without waiting to be acknowledged, “Stop! Come back here! Let me see that photo!” The student, rolling his eyes, does what he’s told.

Brian, on the other hand, looks more confused than ever. “Wait,” he says, as I stroll to the reception desk to mark Jeremy’s name onto the schedule I’ve made up. “You’re having students run the security desk?”

“Work-study students, yeah,” I explain. “It only costs the college a few cents for every dollar an hour we pay them. I imagine that’s a fraction of what you’re paying, um, Mr. Rosetti’s firm, and my student workers know the building and the residents. And I have something like ten thousand dollars left in my student worker budget for the year. That’s more than enough to see me through the strike. We’ve been pretty thrifty this year.”

I don’t mention that this is partly due to my tendency to steal paper from other offices.

“I, uh, don’t know about this,” Brian says, whipping a Treo from his suit pocket and banging away at it. “I need to check with my supervisor. None of the other buildings is doing this. It’s really not necessary. The president’s office has already budgeted for Mr. Rosetti’s firm to fill in for the course of the strike.”

Mr. Rosetti spreads his bejeweled—and quite hairy—fingers and says, philosophically, “If the young lady does not need our services, the young lady does not need our services. Perhaps we can be of use elsewhere.”