feel more protective of Ardrossan than ever before. My vigilante spirit awakes, and I have to hold on to the grubby metal handrail to stop myself from charging upstairs and demanding to know, like Malvolio in Twelfth Night, whether the intruders have no wit, manners nor honesty, to gabble like tinkers at this time of night. My compromise is another two steps, but as I creep up, my heart stops—the female voice grows loud enough for me to distinguish words.
“But it’s wrong! I know it is! I shouldn’t be doing it!”
“Charity, Selena! You’re the only thing that keeps me going! Hey…hey, come here…”
The man, whose voice I can’t place, continues to murmur and hush the agitated young woman. I recognized her voice at once; there is a strained, mewling quality to it that is very distinctive. I rode up in the elevator with her the other day, and she forced herself to talk to me although I could see that she was both shy and preoccupied. What Selena O’Neal is doing in the dome of the Observatory late at night is anybody’s guess, but the one thing she is not doing is planning acts of wanton destruction. I would wager the missing sum on my paycheck that Giles Cleveland is wrong about Selena’s virginity.
Overcoming parentally-imposed obstacles in order to have a sex life may be a drag. Presenting one’s work-in-progress in the graduate seminar of one’s academic program may be daunting. But neither warrant the sort of spectacle that Selena makes of herself when next we gather for an EMS meeting. She sits at the front desk like an Allegory of Misery, her face a sickly green above her demure jonquil blouse, trying and failing to unscrew the top of a water bottle by wedging it between her arm and her body. I can see from where I’m sitting how cold and sweaty her fingers are.
“Here, Selena, let me help.”
She hardly looks at me, let alone thanks me, and I begin to wonder whether she is in too much of a state to do this.
“Selena…Selena?” I have to raise my voice to arouse her attention. “Are you all right? What’s wrong with your arm?”
“Oh!” She stares at me, then at the arm as if it didn’t belong to her. “I changed from touchpad to mouse. It’s just a little sore. The doctor says it’s like tennis elbow.”
“I’m sorry to hear that. Shouldn’t you be wearing a sling?”
“No! No, it’s not that bad, really. I’m fine!” The skin between her brows puckers. “Thank you, Dr. Lieberman.”
She is dutifully polite, her little silver cross dangling above the tiny triangle of skin visible at the neck of her blouse. I can’t help finding this one a little creepy. Having seen the mother, I see the same large chest, luscious hair and full mouth on the daughter. Selena would actually be a much better candidate for America’s Next Top Model than Natalie because she would give Tyra Banks the chance to do magic. Even a day’s shopping and grooming with Irene Roshner—heck, even with me!—would go a long way toward turning this pasty-looking duckling into something swan-like. But Selena doesn’t want to be a swan. Good for her, but I do wish she weren’t such a drippy duckling. She makes me want to shake her, pull back her drooping shoulders, and send her out on early morning runs. Or better still, a course in kick-boxing. I’m convinced she goes up to the old observatory to have sex, but it doesn’t seem to be enough to get her circulation going.
“She’s not fine, you know.” Tessa has shifted on her chair so that she seems to be commenting on the people filing into the room. “She’s sick almost every morning, and I don’t believe for a minute that it’s flu or a bug. You don’t have a stomach bug for more than two weeks.”
“Not normally, no.”
“Well.” Tessa is still looking neither at me nor at Selena, and I’m actually not sure what she is driving at, or that I want to hear it. “Grad school isn’t for everyone, that’s all. It isn’t just about working hard. You gotta be able to stand the pressure, mentally. I’m not the toughest cookie myself—cried for two days when Beecher dissed me for my paper, although I knew he would; he always does. But next to Selena I’m hard as nails.”
I could say a thing or two about being hard as nails, or ever wanting to be hard as nails,