Size 12 and Ready to Rock by Meg Cabot

bus—”
    “I don’t know who it is,” Sarah says. “Dr. Jessup’s assistant called and said he’s coming by right now with some people so he can make the introduction in person and tell us some news about the building—”
    “ Now? ” I break into a jog. Big mistake. I’m not wearing a jogging bra. I don’t even own a jogging bra. What am I thinking? I slow down. “Why didn’t you tell me sooner? Are you sure he said ‘make the introduction’? Because if he said that, it can’t be Simon. We already know Simon. Why would he introduce us to Simon?”
    “Maybe he means make the introduction as in, ‘This is your new boss, Simon,’ ” Sarah says. “ ‘You might know him as the former director of Wasser Hall, but now he’s the director of Fischer Hall. Have a nice day, losers.’ ”
    My heart feels as if it has sunk to my knees, where my boobs are, because I’ve been running in a bra not made for that kind of physical exertion.
    “Oh God,” I say, trying not to gag. “No. Anyone but Simon.”
    “Of course,” Sarah says, “it could also be this woman I saw coming out from Dr. Jessup’s office over at the Housing Office earlier today when I went to drop off the time sheets. Either way, we’re dead.”
    “Why?” I ask, panicking. “Why are we dead if it’s her? Did you look her up on the FBI’s Most Wanted? Is she on there?”
    “She just looked so . . . so . . .” Sarah seems unable to find the word she’s looking for.
    I start running again. I don’t care how many tourists from the Sex and the City tour buses get photos of me holding my boobs up with one arm.
    “Corporate? Stick up her butt?” I try to think of all the kinds of women I’d least like to work with. “Wants to marry for money? Sociopath?”
    “Perky,” Sarah finishes.
    “Oh,” I say. I can’t run anymore, and I’ve only reached Fifth and Fifteenth Street. A ribbon of sweat is trickling down my chest, always an attractive look when meeting your new boss for the first time. “Perky is good,” I say between pants. “Perky is better than Simon, who’s . . .” I can’t even think of a word to describe Simon, my hatred for him is so blinding.
    “Not this kind of perky,” Sarah says. “She looked like a sorority girl. The bad kind. Like she majored in perk. The I-want-to-cram-my-fist-down-her-throat-she’s-so-perky kind of perky.”
    “Sarah,” I say. It doesn’t seem possible, but her attitude is scarier than the idea of Simon becoming my boss. “She can’t be that bad. What’s wrong with you?”
    Sarah’s been in a horrible mood all week—more than a week, actually—and she hasn’t explained why, at least not in a way that makes sense. She’s tried to blame it on everything from the cafeteria in the building being closed so she has to walk all the way across the park to get her coffee at the Pansy Café, to the fact that I hired too many females to work in the office, which isn’t even remotely true, because it’s only the two of us and Brad, a resident whose father told him not to bother coming home for the summer when he found out Brad is gay, so Brad had nowhere to live, being a work-study student on a very limited income.
    That’s how Brad became another one of the misfit toys, when it was unanimously decided by myself and Sarah that Brad would be offered a free room in Fischer Hall for the summer in exchange for working twenty hours a week in the office, covering our lunch shifts.
    So when Sarah starts complaining over the phone as I’m standing there on Fifth Avenue, “Our ovulation cycles have synchronized. Everyone knows this happens when women spend too much time together. And this woman Dr. Jessup has hired is only going to make things worse. I almost wish he’d hired Simon,” I nearly burst a blood vessel.
    “Sarah,” I snap, “Professor Lehman in my Psych 101 class says there’s no such thing as menstrual synchrony. Its existence was debunked long ago—all the studies