The Bride Wore Size 12 Read Free

holding— Room Change Wait List— like it’s the Ark of the Covenant, or something.
    “That’s it,” I hear someone farther down the line whisper. “The list .”
    It’s all beginning to come back to me . . . what it’s like to be popular. People used to line up like this in front of me fifteen years ago, but it was to get my autograph after playing a sold-out concert (back in the days when I was number one on the pop record charts), not to get their kid’s name on a waiting list to move into the residence hall where I work.
    “Then,” I say, lowering the binder and doing my Country Bear Jamboree automaton imitation again, “if Kaileigh still feels uncomfortable, she can come down here and fill out a room change request form, and as soon as a space becomes available through the wait list, we’ll contact you. I mean, Kaileigh. But right now Fischer Hall is filled to capacity.”
    There is a surprisingly loud groan, not just from Mrs. Harris, but from everyone standing in line behind her.
    I decide it’s better not to tell them that the wait list of students clamoring to live in Fischer Hall is already over five hundred students long, and that the chances of Kaileigh—or any other student—receiving a room change is zero.
    “Worked here for twenty years, and I never thought I’d see this,” I hear Carl mutter under his breath. “People lining up to move into this dump? What is the world coming to?”
    I’ve only worked in Fischer Hall for a year, but I feel the same way. Not that I consider Fischer Hall a dump.
    Still, I’m trying to act like a professional, so I don’t agree with him . . . out loud, anyway.
    “I don’t understand,” Mrs. Harris says. “I’m here. I’ve waited all this time. Why can’t I just fill out the form for Kaileigh?”
    “Well, even though I know you’d never do anything against Kaileigh’s wishes,” I say tactfully, “I’ve had family members—and roommates—request that students be moved
from rooms in which the resident was in fact perfectly happy.” Exactly the way spurned lovers sometimes call the electric company and try to get their ex’s power shut off, out of sheer spite. “So that’s why I need Kaileigh—and any other student who wants a room change,” I add, loudly enough for all the other parents to hear, “to come here and fill out the paperwork him or herself.”
    Not unexpectedly, Mrs. Harris and all the other parents who’ve been waiting in line for so long groan again.
    Seeing Mrs. Harris’s mutinous expression, I hurry to add, before she can interrupt, “Kaileigh hasn’t even tried talking to Ameera about the problem yet, has she? Or their RA?”
    Mrs. Harris rolls her eyes. “The RA? You mean that girl Jasmine, who lives down the hall? I’ve been knocking on her door all morning, but she’s not there. I don’t see why you hired her. My Kaileigh would do a much better job of making herself available.”
    “Kaileigh’s a freshman,” I point out, trying not to let her dig at our student staff—most of whom are new to the building, just like Kaileigh—irritate me, and go on, “Resident assistants have to be juniors or seniors. Look, I’m sure this whole thing between your daughter and her roommate will have blown over by the time classes start and the girls have to buckle down and start studying. In the meantime, if Kaileigh—or anyone else—really does feel the situation is untenable, they’re welcome to come down here and schedule an appointment with the hall director, or look at this list and see if there’s someone on it with whom they might want to swap rooms.”
    While Mrs. Harris continues to fume—she’s a parent who feels all of her daughter’s decisions need to be made for her—I notice a few faces in the line suddenly appear much more cheerful. But those faces all belong to students.
    Not the typical sweatshirt-and-Ugg-wearing students I normally see in my office, however. The girls are rocking sparkly eye