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My face feels hot. I fan it with my clipboard, turning my attention back toward Marnie. She’s just winding up for her big finish, which involves hip gyrations the likes of which I haven’t seen since Shakira’s last performance on the MTV Music Video Awards. She definitely isn’t imitating me. I’ve always been a rotten dancer, the despair of every choreographer I’ve ever met. I had difficulties, as they liked to point out, detaching my brain from my body, and just letting go.
Marnie pulls some kind of Carly Patterson back handspring thingie that ends in a set of splits and has the entire cafeteria on their feet, cheering. I rise to my feet as well… then start toward her. Lakeisha may have gone home, but Marnie’s still here, and might be able to confirm whether or not her roommate had ever hooked up with Christopher Allington.
But Jordan grabs me by the arm before I’ve gone two steps.
“Where are you going?” he asks worriedly. “You aren’t trying to sneak out of here before we’ve had our talk, are you, Heather?”
Jordan smells of Drakkar Noir, which is distracting. He’d worn Carolina Herrera for Men when he’d been with me, so clearly the Drakkar Noir is courtesy of Tania.
“I’ll be back in a minute,” I say, patting him reassuringly on the arm—his very buff arm. He’s been bulking up for his next tour, and it shows. In a good way. “I promise.”
“Heather,” Jordan begins, but I won’t let him finish.
“I promise,” I say. “When this thing is over, we’ll have a nice, long chat.”
Jordan looks placated.
“All right,” he says. “Good.”
I see Marnie cross to the side of the dining hall where all the other acts have gathered to await the decision of the judges, and while the next group sets up for their performance, I hurry over to her.
Marnie has pulled off her blond wig and is wiping sweat from beneath her eyes. She smiles when she sees me approach.
“Marnie,” I say. “Nice performance.”
“Oh, thanks,” she simpers. “I was worried you’d be mad. I finally figured out who you were, as you can see.”
“Yeah,” I say. “Look, I have to ask you something. Could that guy Elizabeth was seeing right before she died… could his name have been Chris?”
Marnie, clearly disappointed that the only reason I’ve sought her out is to talk about her dead roommate some more, shrugs unconcernedly.
“I don’t know. It was something like that. Chris or Mark.”
“Thanks,” I say. She turns to say something slighting about one of the other acts to the trio of Christina wa
She glances back at me. “Yeah?”
“See that girl over there in the fifth row, about ten seats over, talking to that blond guy?”
Marnie looks. Her eyebrows raise.
“That guy’s a babe. Who is he?”
“So you don’t know him?”
“Not yet,” she says, making it clear she intends to rectify that situation.
I try to hide my disappointment. Maybe if I can get my hands on a photo of Christopher Allington, I could waylay Lakeisha outside one of her classes and get her to make an ID that way…
Then I think of something.
“Do you know the girl?” I ask Marnie.
She purses her lips.
“Kinda. She lives on the twelfth floor. I think her name is Amber or something.”
Amber. Perfect. I have a name now, and a floor to go with it.
I get back to my seat just as two guys in drag launch into a rendition of “Dude Looks Like a Lady.” Jordan leans over and whispers into my ear, “What was that all about?”
I just smile and shrug. There’s no point trying to scream above the sound system, and besides, Sarah is eyeing me critically from over her clipboard. I don’t think she appreciates me fraternizing with the contestants, since it might render me less than impartial in my judging.
So I sit helplessly in my chair while Christopher Allington is possibly—probably—schmoozing with his next victim. Amber—from what I can tell, given that I’m only able to catch brief glimpses of her, not wanting to look as if I’m staring—seems to be coming to life under Christopher’s attentions. She fiddles with her red-brown hair and squirms in her seat, gri
Except that I can’t really see Christopher as the murdering type. The deflowering type, yeah. But a murderer?
Then again, Evita Peron’s husband had been a notorious letch, and I read somewhere that he killed a bunch of people in Argentina, which is why Mado
Finally the lip-synch ends. Greg, the hall president, comes out and a
“Well,” she says, smiling at me. “What did you think?”
I think we’ve got a problem, I want to say. A really big problem. And not with the contest.
But instead I say, “I liked Marnie.”
Jordan interjects, “You would! No, those guys who did the ’N Sync song were much better. They really had the choreography down. I gave ’em tens.”
Sarah says, “Their ironic take on the boy band was deeply amusing.”
“Um,” I say. “I liked Marnie.”
“And she’s been through so much,” Rachel agrees, earnestly. “It’s the least we can do, don’t you think?”
Just wanting to get the whole thing over with as soon as possible so I can make up an excuse to go talk to Chris, I say, “Yeah, okay. So let’s give Marnie first place, ’N Sync second, and the Christina trio third.”
Jordan looks a little peeved by the fact that we’ve basically ignored his input, but he doesn’t argue.
Rachel goes off to tell Greg our decision, and I turn in my seat to spy on Christopher some more…
… just in time to see him leaving, one arm draped casually over Amber’s shoulders.
I’m out of my chair like a shot, without a word to Jordan or anybody. I hear him call after me, but I don’t have any time to waste with explanations. Christopher and Amber are already halfway through the TV lounge. If I don’t act fast, that girl might end up as a stain on the elevator motor room floor.
But then, to my astonishment, instead of turning toward the elevators, Amber and Christopher actually walk out the front doors of the building.
I follow, darting past the groups of kids congregated in the lobby. Nighttime is when the hall really comes alive. Residents I’ve never seen before are leaning against the reception desk, chatting with the student worker on duty. The guard—not Pete, who works days—is harassing a clique of kids who claim to know someone on the fifth floor whose name they couldn’t remember. Why can’t the guard just be a pal and let them in?
I bolt past all of them, throwing open the doors and stumbling out into the warm autumnal evening.
Washington Square Park is crawling with cops at night, cops and tourists and drug dealers and chess players, who sit at the benches in the chess circle until the park closes at midnight, playing by the light of the street lamps. High school kids from Westchester, in their parents’ Volvos, tool down the street, playing their radios too loudly and occasionally having their cars impounded for creating a public nuisance. It’s a wild scene, and one of the reasons why so many kids request rooms overlooking the Square… when there’s nothing on TV, there’s always the park to watch.
Which is precisely what Christopher and Amber are doing. They’re leaning against one of Fischer Hall’s outdoor planters, smoking cigarettes, and watching the NYPD make a bust across the street. Christopher has his arms folded across his chest, and is puffing away like Joh