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"Hi, Lisa Hi, Heather," Howard Chen and Christopher Mintz call sheepishly
"Hi, you guys," I call back, and give theood! Way to show your school spirit"
Neither boy waves back I can hardly blame them
"Oh God," Lisa says, when they’re out of earshot "They heard ht be pregnant"
"No," I say "They didn’t hear you" They probably did "Anyhat do you mean, you can’t remember when you had your last period?"
"I don’t know" Lisa turns to stride quickly toward Fischer Hall, looant--if slightly battered--brick lady that she is "The truth is, it’s been so busy, ithin, then everything ent through when they were fil and check-in I’ve barely had a minute to myself I must have had it in June I’ to jog a little to keep up with her rapid steps "It’s almost September"
"Oh my God" She looks like someone punched her in the stomach "Oh my God How could this happen to me? I’m the hall director I’m supposed to be a role model How could I let this happen?"
"You don’t know that anything’s happened yet," I say Except that quite a lot has happened A member of her staff is dead, and most of the rest of them are about to be fired I don’t feel I need to belabor this point, however "You’re probably only late because of the stress of check-in But it’s better to know, right? Why don’t you go to the drugstore right now, get an early pregnancy test, then go up to your aparto back to work?"
I turn her bodily so that instead of facing Fischer Hall, she’s facing the dog run, behind which (a block away, on Bleecker Street) the nearest pharo with you," I say, noticing that her knees have locked and she’s not budging, "I will"
"What?" Lisa asks in surprise She’s begun to store "No I’o to the pharht you said you had an errand to run"
"I do, a quick one I’ll be back in tenas if her feet are encased in cement blocks "See you then"
I turn around and head for a horrifically designed building once described as a "miracle of modern architecture," but which really is just a spiky tower of s and black les, called the Gottlieb Student Center As I stride toward it, I pull out es Cooper has left
"Hey," I say "It’s ht you died Where have you been?"