Big Boned

8

The real horror doesn’t begin until after the routine announcements that follow the moment of silence. Tom will be acting as interim-interim hall director of Fischer Hall until a replacement interim hall director can be found. (I long to high-five him when I hear this, but as I feel all gazes turn in my direction when this is announced, settle for looking sadly at my shoes. I am, after all, the person who found my boss’s body this morning. None of them has to know I sort of hated the guy.)

The dean of student affairs, we are assured, will be sending around a mass e-mail acknowledging the passing of a staff member—though not referring to the tragic (hatch mark) nature of the death—and urging the entire college community to take advantage of counseling service’s grief workshops.

A memorial service—date and location to be announced—is being organized by Reverend Mark. Dr. Veatch’s soon-to-be-ex-wife and family (Owen had a family? People who actually liked him?) are on their way. In light of the tragedy (hatch mark), they will be accommodated without charge at Wasser Hall in the VIP guest suites (those bastards—by which I mean Wasser Hall, of course, not Dr. Veatch’s family. Seriously, though, they are such suck-ups over there. Like it’s not enough they have a pool—and no murders. They have to rub it in by having VIP guest suites, too?) normally reserved for visiting dignitaries and people on whom the college is bestowing honorary degrees (last year: Neil Diamond. The year before: Tippi Hedren).

That’s when Drs. Jessup, Kilgore, and Flynn make their last and final announcement… the one that strikes cold, hard terror to my—and, as his reaction illustrates, Tom’s—veins: that, because we’ve obviously been so torn apart by this tragedy (hatch mark), as well as the recent divisiveness involving the GSC, a team building exercise is in order.

Tom and I fling each other panicky looks. Team building exercise?

“Sweet Mother of God,” Tom breathes. “No. Anything but that.”

Unfortunately, Dr. Kilgore, with whom both Tom and I have had the misfortune of working closely in the past, overhears this. She sends us both a glance so sharp, it stings.

“Participation,” she says, her enunciation crisp, “is mandatory.”

But apparently not for college presidents, since President Allington abruptly excuses himself, saying he has an important appointment (with a scotch bottle, if he has any sense at all) and leaves. I expect Muffy Fowler to follow him out—she’s not part of housing staff, after all. But then I notice she’s managed to get her three-carat cocktail diamond snagged on the front of Reverend Mark’s sports jacket, and she decides, oh, what the heck, she might as well stay, since it might be a hoot.

Seriously. These are her exact words.

The team building exercise turns out to be even more horrific than either Tom or I could have anticipated. Dr. Flynn brings out a pile of unclaimed newspapers he’s snagged from behind the front desk downstairs. Then we’re told to divide into teams of five, and each team is handed a stack of newspapers. Tom and I instantly grasp one another, so we can be on one another’s team—“She’s been through so much already today, she really needs me,” Tom assures Dr. Kilgore, when she raises a skeptical eyebrow at this, since the goal of the exercise is to get to know staff members with whom we might not otherwise be well acquainted. Somehow, our other teammates end up being Reverend Mark, Muffy Fowler, and—because she assigns herself to our team, undoubtedly to keep an eye on Tom and me—Dr. Kilgore.

“Now,” Dr. Flynn begins, when each team has assembled on their assigned love seat… though, none of the love seats being large enough to accommodate a whole team, Tom and I find ourselves, once again, seated on the floor. “I’m sure you’re asking yourselves, what are we doing with these newspapers? Well, people, I want you to work together with your team to use these newspapers to build a free-standing structure large enough for your team to seek shelter in it.”

Simon, the director of Wasser Hall, looks furious. “How are we supposed to do that? We don’t have any scissors. Or tape!”

“I am aware of that, Simon,” Dr. Flynn says calmly. “You do, however, have a master’s in sociology, and four equally well-educated teammates, all of whom excel in their people skills. I think, by working together, you should be able to construct some sort of structure into which the five of you can fit for at least the moment it takes for your work to be scored—”

“We’re being GRADED on this?” someone else yells, clearly outraged.

“I hardly think that an event meant to build team spirit should be scored,” someone else chimes in.

“Now, now,” Dr. Jessup says. “It’s all in good fun. Dr. Veatch would have wanted it that way.”

I don’t think anyone in this room actually has any idea what Dr. Veatch would have wanted, since no one here—including me—really knew him. Maybe he would have thought that making houses out of newspaper was fun.

He definitely would have been in favor of scoring the houses, if you ask me.

“Isn’t this a riot?” Muffy asks, as our team gets to work on our house.

“Oh yeah,” Tom says. “I’d much rather be here than in my office.”

Tom is totally lying. His office computer is loaded with Madden NFL, his favorite video game. He plays it all day… when he isn’t busy busting up keg parties and attempted date rapes. He’d play it all night, too, if his boyfriend Steve would let him.

“Me, too,” Reverend Mark says cheerfully. Then he looks at me and stops smiling. “Although of course I’m sad for the reason why we’re here.”

Muffy stops smiling, too. “That’s right,” she says, looking at me with her big dark Bambi eyes practically tear-filled. How does she do that… and right on cue, too? “You two worked together. You must be devastated. Just devastated.”

“You were Dr. Veatch’s secretary?” Reverend Mark asks, looking at me with concern… coupled with the sick fascination everybody feels for someone who’s recently stumbled across a corpse.

“Administrative assistant,” both Tom and Dr. Kilgore correct him, at the same time.

“Why don’t we get started on our structure,” Dr. Kilgore adds, holding up our pile of newspapers between a thumb and forefinger, clearly not wanting to get ink smeared on her clothing. The New York Times is notoriously smeary. “How do you propose we do this?”

“Well, it’s got to be free-standing, right?” Tom takes the newspapers from Dr. Kilgore, clearly losing patience with her girlishness. “Why don’t we make four supports, like this”—he rolls a few sheets into a thick, stick like object—“and use them as props, and just stick another sheet over it, as a roof.”

“Bingo,” I say, pleased. “Done and done.”

“Um,” Reverend Mark says. “No offense, but I did some mission work in Japan, and I was thinking if we folded each piece, like so—here, let me demonstrate… ”

Reverend Mark takes the papers away from Tom and begins to do some kind of fancy tearing and folding technique thingie. Muffy and Dr. Kilgore watch him, clearly impressed by the way his fingers are flying over the newsprint.

“My goodness, Mark—may I call you Mark?” Muffy asks.

“Of course,” Mark says.

“Well, my goodness, Mark, but you do that so well. ”

“In many cultures paper folding is considered an art,” Reverend Mark says conversationally, “but it’s actually more closely associated with mathematics. Some classical construction problems in geometry, for instance, can’t be solved using a compass or a straight edge, but can be solved using only a few paper folds. Intriguing, no?”

Muffy’s dark eyes are wide and admiring. “Totally. The Japanese are so great. I just love sushi.”

Tom and I exchange glances. Tom rolls his eyes.

“Good,” Dr. Flynn is walking around each group saying. “Good. I see that you’re all coming together, working with one another. This is what Gillian and I were hoping we’d see. The staff, overcoming adversity, defying tragedy—”

“Where’s my Day Runner?” Tom mutters.

“—and now, because I see this is way too easy for all of you, I’m going to throw a spanner in the works, and—blindfold all of you!”

From out of a cardboard box Drs. Flynn and Kilgore have brought with them, Dr. Flynn produces a couple dozen cheap silk scarves, which he proceeds to distribute with the instructions that we’re to tie them around our eyes and proceed to build our newspaper houses without looking.

“But if we can’t see,” Simon from Wasser Hall wails, “our houses will look like shit and we’ll get a bad score!”

“Nonsense,” Dr. Flynn declares. “One teammate will remain unblindfolded. It’s up to all of you to pick that teammate. And that teammate will guide the others.”

“I pick Mark,” Muffy says quickly.

“Oh,” Mark says, looking up from his complicated woven wall with an embarrassed expression on his face. “Really, I—”

“I’d second that,” Gillian says mildly. She turns to look at me and Tom. “Do you two agree?”

“Um,” I say. We’ll be here all day if Mark is our team leader. I have no idea how he’s going to teach us to do origami house walls. Especially if we’re all blindfolded. But whatever. “Sure.”

“I don’t know,” Tom says slowly. He has a strange, dreamy look on his face that I don’t recognize. “I mean, Heather’s been so traumatized today, walking into her office and finding her beloved boss—not even her boss, but her mentor, really… isn’t that what you told me Owen was to you, Heather? Your mentor?”

I stare at him. “What?”

“Don’t be modest,” Tom says. “We’re all friends here. We know how badly seeing Owen like that freaked you out. You can admit it, Heather. This is a place of trust. I mean, seeing his blood spattered all over my old desk—”

“Oh, Tom, for God’s sake,” Gillian says, looking disgusted.

“I’m just saying. I really think Heather should be team captain,” Tom says piously. “After what she’s been through today, it would be cruel to make her wear a blindfold. She told me earlier that every time she closes her eyes, she sees Owen’s brain matter coating his Dilbert Month-at-a-Glance bulletin board—”

“Garfield,” I correct him.

“Would you two please—” Gillian begins, but Reverend Mark cuts her off.

“I agree with… Tom, is it?” Mark closes his eyes and shakes his head. “After what she’s been through, Heather should completely be team captain.”

“I think so, too,” Muffy says quickly. She looks at Gillian with tears in her eyes. “It’s only right.”

Dr. Kilgore looks like she’s about to have an aneurysm.

“Fine,” she says through gritted teeth, handing out the scarves she’s been handed by Dr. Flynn. “Everyone put on one of these. Everyone but Heather.”

“You, too, right, Dr. Kilgore?” Tom asks, with a smile.

“Me, too,” Gillian says grimly, tying on her blindfold.

“Mark,” Muffy says. “I can’t quite get mine. Can you help?”

“Oh,” Reverend Mark says. “Well, mine’s on already… but I’ll try… ”

Reverend Mark reaches out fumblingly for Muffy, and manages to grab a big handful of the boob she’s thrust directly into his palm.

“Oh my God!” he cries, blanching.

“Oh!” Muffy blushes prettily beneath her blindfold, though I know full well she’s thrilled. “That’s all right.”

“I’m so sorry!” Reverend Mark looks like he wants to kill himself. His handsome face has gone from snow white to beet red in three seconds flat. Even his neck, all the way to his shirt collar, is red.

“It’s not your fault. You can’t see!” Muffy reminds him. She manages to secure her blindfold the rest of the way herself, as she’d always been able to in the first place. “Oh, look at that. Never mind, I got it.”

“Are y-you sure?” Reverend Mark stammers. “Perhaps Dr. Kilgore… or Heather—”

“It’s all good,” Muffy purrs.

“Well, now that Heather is our team leader,” Gillian says dryly, “perhaps she ought to start leading.”

“Sure,” I say. “Mark, why don’t you show us how you make those wall thingies you’re doing?”

“Well, it won’t be easy,” Reverend Mark says. “Especially blindfolded. But I suppose, in the spirit of coming together as a team, I can try. First, you take a sheet of newspaper, and you tear it, like so—”

Gillian and Muffy both begin ripping strips of newspaper. Tom fumbles forward in an attempt to take a piece of newsprint off the pile, and leans in the direction of my ear—or what he approximates to be my ear, though it’s more like the top of my head. “This,” he whispers, “is the gayest thing I’ve ever done. And I don’t think I should have to remind you that I am, in fact, gay.”

“Could you just keep making those pole things you were doing earlier, before the Origami Master came along?” I whisper back. “Because we’re never going to beat Wasser Hall at the rate we’re going.”

“Heather,” Tom says, giving me a mockly disapproving look. “This isn’t about winning. It’s about coming together as a team.”

“Shut up,” I say. “We’re going to cream Wasser Hall if it’s the last thing I do.”

In the end, of course, that’s exactly what we do. Our “house” is completed well before anyone else’s. I corral the members of my team into it, then raise my hand and call, “Dr. Flynn! Oh, Dr. Flynn! I think we’re done.”

Dr. Flynn, looking pleased, comes over and examines my team’s handiwork.

“Oh, yes,” he says. “Great job. Just great. Really excellent teamwork, all of you.”

“Can we take our blindfolds off now?” Muffy wants to know.

“Oh, yes, of course,” Dr. Flynn says.

Muffy, Reverend Mark, Gillian, and Tom all remove their blindfolds and look around at the newspaper house they’re sitting in.

“Isn’t it amazing, you guys?” Dr. Flynn asks. “Can you believe you worked together to build something with your own bare hands—while blindfolded? Sit back and relax while everybody else finishes theirs. And give yourselves a well-deserved pat on the back… ”

Gillian is staring in astonishment at the four flimsy newspaper poles that are holding up an equally flimsy newspaper canopy… like the cheapest wedding chuppah in the world over two extremely confused couples.

“But… where are the walls we wove?” Muffy wants to know.

“Oh,” I say. “That was going to take forever. So I made an executive decision not to use them and go with Tom’s idea.”

“Well,” Gillian says, looking down at her ink-blackened fingers—and the consequent stains all over her cream-colored linen suit. “You could have said something.”

“You guys were so enthusiastic,” I say. “I didn’t want to break your pioneering spirit.”

“Well,” Reverend Mark says, as he crawls out from beneath the paper structure. “That was fun. Wasn’t it? Oh, here, let me help you up… ”

“Oh, thank you so much.” Muffy does appear to be having some trouble climbing to her feet, especially considering how tight her pencil skirt is, and how high her heels are. She slips both her ink-stained hands into Reverend Mark’s and, looking up into his eyes, allows him to pull her to her feet.

“‘My love,’” Tom sings softly into my ear. “‘There’s only you, in my life… the only thing that’s right… ’”

“Do we have to continue with this pointless charade?” Simon, from Wasser Hall, rips off his blindfold to inquire. He pronounces charade the British way. “They won. So why do we have to keep on—”

“It’s not about who wins or loses, Simon,” Dr. Flynn intones smoothly. Even though, of course, when it comes to me and Wasser Hall, it most definitely is about me winning and them losing. “Please put your blindfold back on, and continue to help your team.”

“But that’s not fair. Heather and Tom have worked together before,” Simon whines. “They’re obviously compatible. I hardly know the people I’m teamed up with—no offense, guys—”

“Simon!” says Dr. Jessup, who is wearing a multicolored scarf around his eyes and sitting in the middle of what appears to be a semicompleted teepee made of newsprint. “Put your blindfold back on!”

It’s at this moment that the library door opens and a student walks in.

“I’m sorry,” Dr. Flynn says to the student. “The library is closed for the afternoon for an important administrative staff meeting.”

The student looks around at all the grown men and women—presumably college officials, in professional attire—wearing scarves over their eyes and sitting in houses built out of old newspapers. His expression is, understandably, confused.

It’s only then that I realize that the student is Gavin McGoren.

“Um,” he says. “They told me downstairs I could find Heather Wells here?”

I quickly separate myself from my group and hurry toward him.

“It’s okay,” I assure Dr. Kilgore. “This will just be a minute.”

“Well, hurry back,” Gillian says, her brows knit with disapproval. “We still need to process what we’ve learned about ourselves here today.”

Yeah. Like how much I hate you? No need to process that, I already know.

I tilt my head toward the door, indicating to Gavin that he should join me outside, in the hallway. He does so, barely able to hide his amusement.

“What the hell is going on in there, woman?” he wants to know, as soon as we’re safely outside. “Some dude gets a bullet in his head and you all go completely cuckoo for Cocoa Puffs?”

“Gavin.” I quickly close the library doors. “We are trying to help each other process through our grief. What do you want?”

“By playing cowboys and Indians? And who’s the hot babe with the boobs?”

“Her name is Muffy. Seriously, you’re gonna get me in trouble. What do you want?”

“Muffy?” Gavin shakes his head in disbelief, as if now he’s finally heard it all. “Okay. Well, here’s the deal. I thought you’d want to know. There’s this chick on my floor, Jamie?”

I shake my head. “Yeah?”

“Well, I guess she had some meeting with Veatch or something this morning?”

Comprehension dawns. “Oh, right. Price. Jamie Price. Gavin, seriously, I don’t have time—”

“Whatevs!” Gavin holds up both hands in an I-surrender motion. “You know, she told me nobody would care. But I told her, I was, like, listen, Heather is different. Heather cares. But if you’d rather go back in there and play cowboys and Indians—”

I glare at him. “Gavin, what is it? Just tell me.”

Gavin shrugs. “Nothing. Just… well, I heard this Jamie girl… she was in her room, crying, right? And her roommate comes out and says she won’t stop, right? And I go, Let the Gavinator have a try at her, you know what I mean?”

“Gavin.” I seriously can’t believe my day. I really can’t. And it started so early. Six in the morning! Only to be followed by pain—my pain—and okay, then sex. But then bloodshed. And now this. “Do you want to die right now? Because I will—”

He drops the gangbanger routine.

“Okay, seriously. So I go in there, and I ask her what’s the matter, and she says to go away, and I say, No, really, I can help, on account of—” Here Gavin has the grace to look embarrassed. “Well, that part doesn’t matter. But anyway, she goes—”

“No, Gavin,” I say. “That part does matter. What did you say?”

“No, it doesn’t. It’s not an integral part of this narration. Okay? So she goes—”

“Gavin. I am turning around and walking right back in there if you don’t tell me—”

“Itoldhermymom’sagynecologist, okay?” Gavin is blushing now. “Look, I know it’s stupid, but… chicks’ll tell you anything if they think your mom’s a gynecologist. I don’t know why.”

I stare at him. It’s a shame, actually, that Gavin is a film major, because he would be a true asset to our nation in any of its security agencies.

I can’t think of anything to say except “Go on.”

“So, anyway, I’m thinking she’s gonna tell me… you know, that she’s got VD, or whatever. That’s what I’m hoping it’s gonna be, anyway, because that means, you know, that she likes to get nasty—”

I sigh. “Oh, Gavin,” I say, looking toward the ceiling. “And I thought your love for me was pure, like freshly driven snow.”

“Whatevs.” Gavin’s blush returns, but this time he rocks a little on his Nikes. “A man’s got needs. And, you know, she’s kinda… well, Jamie, she’s kinda hot. You know. In a… well… like you. Sorta.”

“Okay,” I say. “Now I’m gonna be sick. Gavin, I swear, if you dragged me out of that meeting to hit on me—”

“I didn’t!” Gavin looks too indignant to be lying. “Heather! Come on!”

“Then what is this about, Gavin?” I demand.

“What she told me!” he says, thrusting out his goateed chin.

“Well?” I fold my arms across my chest. “What was it?”

“That she knows why he got shot,” Gavin says. “Your boss, I mean. And she was real upset about it.”

Startled, I drop my arms. “What?Why? ”

“I don’t know why,” Gavin says. “I’m just telling you what she said. She said it was all her fault. That if it weren’t for her, Dr. Whatever His Name Was would still be alive today.”