Greek: Best Frenemies (4 page)

“What if I just name you KT sweetheart? Does that count for anything? Because I can. If people are even awake to oppose me, I'll just point out that you
are
the sweetest girl in ZBZ. They have crap for evidence against that.”

“You did date Rebecca.”

“And they
hated
her. She's not getting our nomination in this mythical KT contest that we don't have the energy to organize or go through respectfully.”

“But you would get free cookies. And muffins.
Soooo
many muffins.”

“Okay, what do we have to do? There's a ceremony, right? Where are we going to give it? In front of the tire swing?”

“You have a tire swing?”

“Long story,” he said. “I want to be the helpful boyfriend, but Casey, I'm out of my element. And if this is as gooey and romantic as the name of the contest implies, I think Rebecca is out of her element, too. No offense, her being your Little Sister and all, but from what I know of Rebecca, she can't stand any of this stuff.”

“She accepted the nomination.”

“With a bunch of guys singing to her, her boyfriend offering it and the whole house behind her? What was she supposed to do?”

“For a contest you're not involved in, you sure know a lot about it.”

“Because you've told me every intimate detail!” He backed off when he saw the expression on her face. “Sorry, but you've been going a little nuts with this.”

“And now you're going to ask for your space?”

“No. No, absolutely not.” He kissed her, and she hardly fought him. “But I will be very glad when this week is over.”

 

When he finally reached his apartment for the night, Rusty was anything but ready to settle down. He was too full of nerves over so many things, but mostly school and the new Vesuvius project, as he called it because he had no better name for it. It really needed a better name.

“How does Gruntmaster 6000 sound to you?” he said to his roommate, Dale, as he arrived from work.

“Like a stripped-down version of the Gruntmaster 9000, obviously,” Dale replied. “I saw the
Dilbert
TV show, too. Hey, do I smell like cocoa batter to you?” He held up his arm for inspection but Rusty refused even to bend over for a polite sniff and pushed the arm away instead. “It's not really a bad way to smell, but I would prefer the fresh-linen scent our store-brand detergent promised me despite the fifty-cent savings. And I don't feel like doing laundry. Unless you want to do it.”

“You're fine,” Rusty said, looking back at his laptop on the kitchen table. Their apartment was rather spacious and luxurious for something so close to campus, the result of Casey's high standards when she temporarily felt the need to live away from ZBZ itself. It had worked out well when she ended up staying and the boys moved in, especially with Dale's spick-and-span attitude toward cleaning. “You smell like store-brand deodorant. The way you always smell.”

“Good? Bad? Because I don't want to put off the ladies, but…I want to put off the ladies at work. Without putting
them off. I'm trying to create a healthy workplace environment.” He did not add, in a sorority where he made two dozen weight-obsessed girls food. “I want to smell neutral.”

“Nothing says neutral like Super Dollar Store deodorant. Which might explain my inability to have a long-term relationship where someone doesn't go running.” One of Rusty's longest relationships, which lasted most of one semester, was with ZBZ pledge Jordan. Everything had been perfect until she dropped out of school to move to New York and pursue a career in photography, something that didn't happen so often in Rusty and Dale's engineering program. It was heartbreaking for Rusty, and he could admit that his flirtation with Panhellenic President Katherine of Gamma Psi was at least partially fueled by loneliness. “Why are you so concerned? If someone liked you, they would have made a move by now. I wouldn't categorize ZBZs as shrinking violets.”

Dale shrugged and sat down on the expensive couch that came with the apartment, well beyond what they could afford. They had really lucked out with Casey's find. “I might have unavoidably listened in on a long discussion about pheromones and perfume.”

“So?”

“It was unusually intense. They seemed to be hatching a diabolical plan to influence certain men.”

“Oh, right, that Omega Chi sweetheart thing Casey's obsessing over. That might not be a good atmosphere for you.”

“It's normally fine, but it's like they're putting the poor woman up for auction to the highest Omega bidder. It's not very progressive. Or is it progressive because they're aware they're doing it and not being progressive? They're choosing to be demeaning and all that?”

“Dale, my one liberal arts class last semester was art history, and I mainly used it to hang out with my girlfriend. I'm not the best authority on feminism.”

Dale nodded. “Right. Totally a question for Cappie.”

“Or Jesus. At least you know his stance on reformed prostitutes.” Rusty threw his hands up at Dale's sneer of indignation. “Come on, that one was fair. You were wide open for that one. And it speaks well of Jesus.”

“Are you implying there's something that doesn't speak well of our Lord and Savior?”

Rusty squirmed. “The…um, money changers might have another opinion. Don't paint me into a corner with this one.”

“I'm just saying, you bring the J-Man into this and you had better come to play.”

“I'm sorry.” Rusty backtracked. “I won't. Sorry, I'm just really stressed out right now.”

“Oh, is something bothering the Gary Wyatt grant winner?”

“Dale.”

“Sorry, I said I wouldn't do that.” But since Dale was passed over for Rusty for the award, and the generous grant it came with, there was still an air of competition in the apartment that had never fully dissolved. “What's the problem, champ?”

“It's a house thing. Well, a techie house thing that was partially my idea, so I shouldn't be complaining. Remember Vesuvius?”

“The plastic volcano that spouted beer?”

“Actually it was mostly foam and papier-mâché, but yeah.”

“And it met a horrible death at the hands of drunk engineering students, me being one of them.”

“That, too.” And the KT house would never rent their facilities to people with such poor tolerances for alcohol again. “I'm supposed to top it.”

“You do have a thing lately for topping things. And people. Because I am not a thing.”

“Dale, seriously. That was not about topping you. We both submitted our work and a totally objective outside party judged it.”

Dale huffed, still not ready to accept it. “So don't you have indentured servants to do this thing for you? I think you call them pledges.”

“This isn't really about the pledges. They have to make their own contribution. This is about KT without Vesuvius. And Cappie.”

“You're going to replace Cappie with another volcano? Because surely I'm not the only one to see that as a lousy and demeaning comparison.”

“No, it was Cappie's idea,” Rusty said. “Something about his gift to Kappa Tau's future.”

“Future? Cappie's kind of a live-for-the-moment guy. He just wrote an essay about it for the Cappie Monthly newsletter.”

“Yeah, well, some things are not easy to express. Or fit into a monthly newsletter that I, for some reason, am still on the mailing list for. I think it may have more to do with boosting Kappa Tau morale after Wade and Ferret got expelled. So he wants to build something.”

“But you have to do the grunt work.”

“I think I tricked myself into offering. I'm not really sure.
KT should have something to be proud of beyond a tire swing, and we don't even have that, yet.”

“Good. They're always full of bees. Or mosquitoes. You have to pour the water out every other day in the summer,” Dale said knowingly. He was from the South. “Plus, where would you swing? Into the patio furniture?”

“Exactly. So I have to come up with something else. Or Cappie has to come up with something else. Someone has to come up with something. And not just something you buy, either. Because anyone could buy stuff. Especially richer houses where people actually pay their dues and that can afford to host gatherings to name some arbitrary girl sweetheart.”

“She's not that arbitrary. She's usually sleeping with the house president,” Dale said, retrieving a juice box from the fridge. “And they make it up in muffins. With cocoa in them.” Dale's straw made a sucking noise that made it seem as if he was twelve. “So what's up, genius inventor? Regenerating wires not good enough for Kappa Tau? I will shamelessly admit it is impressive to watch if you understand it.”

“Yeah, I don't think I have to explain why that's not impressive to them.” Rusty closed his laptop. “I can't think about this anymore.”

“Then I have a very awesome distraction,” Dale said and retrieved the box Rusty had found on their mail stoop but promptly ignored after bringing it in, as it was addressed to Dale.
“Behold.”
Despite his mighty proclamation, it actually took a few minutes and some scissors to undo all the packing tape. Dale finally retrieved the brightly colored box inside. It was yellow, with figures in blue and red for contrast, and black-and-white pictures of overexcited kids with their toys—
Rock'em Sock'em Robots, two plastic, hand-controlled robots in red and blue that punched each other in the face.

“The original fighting robots,” Rusty said, though he was really reading off the bold-lettered advertisement on the box. “Where did you get these? Why did you get these?”

“eBay is the answer to both of your questions,” Dale pronounced and opened the box. “Some offers even I can't resist. And I am experienced at resisting temptation…most of the time.” He squirmed. “Shall we?”

It didn't take long for two engineers to assemble plastic robots meant to be assembled by kids—or their parents—on Christmas morning, and within five minutes they had the whole ring set up and the robots going at it, Dale's robot repeatedly bashing Rusty's robot's head in, or out, as it would pop up when it was hit.

“That's it!” Rusty yelled.

“What?”

“The project.” He called the match in Dale's favor. Dale was clearly more aggressive anyway. “Imagine
this.
But life-sized.”

“That sounds very breakable. Unless you're picturing guys in it. Then it's just sumo wrestling. You can rent those suits.”

“This thing isn't that complicated. It just takes a lot of plastic—and I'm a polymer scientist. It's not even electric. If we do it to scale, it would work.”

“Am I getting roped into this?”

Rusty's grin was triumphant. “Whenever you feel you've baked enough muffins for one lifetime, let me know.”

On Wednesday morning, Casey was woken not by the
gentle sounds of birds outside her window (not that they had ever woken her) or her more irritating and thrice-near-destroyed alarm clock, but by the sounds of eager pledges and ZBZ sisters and one particularly shrill Little Sister. That was…odd, until she looked at the time and realized it was ten in the morning. Less odd, perhaps, but still annoying and making her regret not staying over at Kappa Tau with Cappie. She groaned and put a pillow over her head.

“No! You don't get to escape this,” Rebecca shouted, her voice only a bit calmer than the shrieking downstairs. Or maybe the acoustics just made the sounds worse than they already were. “This is your doing!”

Casey lifted the pillow off her face. “Aside from possibly suffocating me with my pillow, what are you doing in here?”

“You're Miss Campaign Manager, and these women are driving me crazy! Did you tell Abby to follow me?”

“I believe the term is
shadow,
and no, I didn't.”

“So there's a term for it now?”

Casey threw the pillow across the room in disgust. “What do you want from me, and so early in the morning? They're working hard on your behalf. I thought you liked being popular and fawned over.”

“To a point!”

Casey climbed out of bed. “At least you're being honest. So, what do you want me to do?”

“Tell them they have to leave me alone for five minutes. And they cannot ‘shadow' me to class, even if there will be Omega Chi guys there. I don't need my virtue protected.”

“No, it's way too late for that,” Casey couldn't help but say. “Wait, what? Virtue?”

“Sorry, I'm taking a class on Jane Austen. The nineteenth century gobbledygook is getting to me.”

“How very appropriate, though. The protection of virtue. Or the illusion of it.”

“Don't give them any ideas!” Rebecca was still incensed, and Casey was realizing that there was nothing she could do about it. She waited for Rebecca to leave (which she eventually did, to Casey's relief), got dressed and made her way down to the dining room, only to be waylaid in the hallway by Abby, who was overflowing with ideas for the parade.

“What did I say?” Casey reminded the pledge. “No signs, no posters, no T-shirts. Unless they're just for color-coordination. And even then—nothing on the T-shirts. And no wet T-shirts. This is a sweetheart competition. It's about dignity…sort of.”

“No, no, that's not what it's about at all!” Abby wasn't angry so much as hyper, as if she'd snorted sugar for breakfast. “They won't know it's a parade.”

“They?”

“The Omega Chis, duh. But they have places they hang out, right? Outside the house?”

“Yes, I hear they occasionally go to class.”

“So we've got three people willing to follow—excuse me, shadow—guys so we know their hot spots, and then Rebecca goes around casually, totally disinterested but in a polite kind of way, and hits all the spots. Like, she just happens to run into them. In a good way. With some ZBZ sisters? Or not? Your call.”

“That could work, maybe.” Casey sensed she might have to clear this one with Rebecca first. She also sensed if she didn't start nodding her head and smiling at Abby, she might starve to death before she saw the breakfast table. “But first, nutrients. Excuse me.”

Casey took her regular place next to Ashleigh, who seemed to be in a Zen mode despite the hubbub. That or she was just
really
focused on her eggs. “What? I need protein,” she said in reply to Casey's stare. “I thought you'd be the first person up. Unless it was a late night with Cappie.”

“Never quote me on this, and if you do I'll deny that I said it, but I may regret not staying over at the KT house last night,” Casey said. “Not that all this activity isn't encouraging, especially so early in the morning.”

“It's Wednesday. That's four days to win over the Omega Chis, and not even that because everyone knows they really make their decision ahead of Saturday night. Hell, they could have made it already. I could be behind on my midterm paper for nothing. Though to be honest, the status of the paper and the sweetheart competition might not have anything to do with each other.”

“It's a convenient excuse. And it's true! You are busy. We're all busy. I feel guilty for sleeping in. Though since when was 10:00 a.m. sleeping in? I guess since we have four days to convince them of something they're probably already thoroughly convinced of.”

“Rebecca is kind of a shoo-in. With Evan. And also being awesome and not from a gap year. Oh no, did I just say that out loud? Because we're not in a gap year. Not yet.” Casey and Ashleigh were almost convinced that they were heading into the slump of gap years and that the current freshman pledges would not inherit as awesome a house as Casey and Ashleigh had joined three years before. Hence they were determined to win anything and everything, including sweetheart, which could only be good for Rebecca, who would be a junior next year. When Casey was a junior, ZBZ was arguably at its height, before the various scandals during Frannie's term and the pledges walking out to form a new sorority. No wonder they were fourth-ish. Rebecca was Casey's Little Sister, and she deserved better.

Speaking of Rebecca, Casey found her sulking in the corner, avoiding her ardent admirers. It was not behavior befitting someone up for the highest honor Omega Chi could give a sister, and it did not make Casey happy. “Hey.”

“Hey.” Rebecca just picked at her fruit plate.

“Hey, only another four days.”

“Four days of parading myself around like a tramp? Not having a minute to myself?”

Casey rolled her eyes. “Yes. Only four days. Which is not a long time, really, considering what this is going to get you.”

“And what
is
this going to get me?” Rebecca seethed. “The
implicit understanding that I was the best suck-up, maybe literally, of all the sorority sisters on campus?”

“This isn't just about being sweetheart. If you're president, or even if you're not, you will be the face of ZBZ next year. No one stands out like you do. That's why you were nominated, not because you're going out with Evan or because you've got a ticker-tape parade about to go off in your honor if we only had ticker tape and even less self-restraint. Ashleigh and I won't be here next year, but it doesn't mean we've already given up caring about the house. You're my Little Sister, and you're going to be the face of ZBZ.”

“And why is that? Because I'm your creation? Because you want your own personal mini-me?” Rebecca challenged.

“Rebecca, you are like, the most competent, intelligent and loyal active in the house. You stuck through the first Frannie scandal. You went undercover at IKI house. You're pretty much the reason we won a lot of contests over the past two years—and you would be a great president. That is, if you can manage it. And…maybe manage one event this afternoon.”

Rebecca raised an eyebrow. What Casey had said actually meant a lot to her, but she wasn't about to give her the satisfaction of knowing that her speech just might have won her over.

 

“For the record, I plan on hating you forever for this,” Rebecca whispered to Casey, her fake smile unbroken as she spoke and kept her eyes straight ahead.

“There are only so many times you can say that before I stop taking it seriously, and most of them happened your freshman year,” Casey said, standing beside her in a show of unity, strength, friendship, sisterhood and possibly because
Rebecca would find some reason to flee if she didn't. “Are you ready?”

“I'm sensing saying ‘no' is not an option,” Rebecca said as she put an extra
oomph
into her smile and stepped forward to greet the hungry masses—or at least those the greeter saw fit to let pass the ribbon gates around the tables. The campus lawn was set with beautiful tables and folding chairs, and each table had a three-tiered serving tray of tiny crumpets, scones and other pastries that weren't part of the normal diet of someone on the campus meal plan. The Omega Chis were invited, of course, but this was a grand tea party put on by the grand hostess, Rebecca Logan, and excluded no one who remembered to wear a jacket, no matter how stained or mismatched. They were gentlemen and she was a lady hosting a refined event, or so Abby's fliers said, in so many words. The other ZBZs acted as servers or companions at the tables, but she was the main event at her table on the dais.

“It is so nice to see someone of refinement bring a bit of culture to our campus,” Dean Kessin said in her appearance at the bell ring to officially start the high tea. “Oh! Are those tart cakes?” That distracted her away from the main table, at least.

“Be nice,” Ashleigh warned at the dark look that passed over Rebecca's face. “She gave us the permit to use the lawn.”

“She would give a permit to Scientologists if they said they were a student group.”

“No nastiness!” Casey said, perhaps louder than she should have but still barely above a whisper. “The pledges have been doing the work for you. You have to show up to at least
one
event in your honor.”

Rebecca sent her a stare that would bruise fruit. And possibly puppies.

“It proves you can hang out with the plebs,” Ashleigh said.

“I think the fact that we're calling them that negates like, half of it, but yeah. And look, the Omegas!” Casey tried to sound excited when they arrived at the greeting table. Unfortunately, neither of them were Evan.

“We're here to be served,” they said. They looked like pledges.

“The hostess doesn't serve. She snaps,” Rebecca said in a surprisingly neutral voice. And she was very good at snapping her fingers for the server to appear. “And what can I get for you two fine gentlemen? Green tea with a hint of cinnamon?”

From the looks on their faces, that option did not sound appealing, and Rebecca smiled now out of joy. She made them drink it, too, even if green tea didn't go with cinnamon, before they could proceed to the next table. Maybe something good would come of it, even if it was watching fraternity pledges choke down something possibly good for them while trying to keep their pinky fingers aloft. The others were not quite as fun—the actual tea aficionados, who complained about the bitter aftertaste and tried to guess the brand, or the guys who wolfed down scones in a manner that made her never want to eat a scone again and the endless parade of people asking the question, “And what is this for?”

She evaded the answer by offering more scones because the real reason was still too humiliating. The only relief from the agonizing four hours of high tea (which was far too long for high tea, two Victorian England–obsessed history majors informed her after telling her that leaving her hair uncovered
was also inappropriate and she should be wearing a bonnet) was Evan's appearance. “Sorry Calvin couldn't make it. He has class. Am I supposed to bow?”

“This is tea on the green, not
Pride and Prejudice,
” she assured him. Casey and Ashleigh were working the other tables and Abby was chatting up the wandering Omegas. “Just grab some scones. The chocolate-chip ones are the least vile, but they're all pretty stale at this point.”

Evan politely bit into one. “I like 'em hard. My teeth need the exercise.”

“This is humiliating.”

“I don't know. I think for a sweetheart-propaganda thing, this is pretty classy.”

“So the wet T-shirt contest at Tri-Pi wasn't classy?”

“There were no pinky fingers raised,” he said, actually sipping his tea. “Maybe some other things, but not fingers.”

“Nice.”

“Guys are guys. And girls are…very obliging when they want to be.”

She glared at him.

“It didn't win them many points,” Evan said. “Maybe in general, but not for sweetheart. Does that make you feel better?”

“The bell for six o'clock will make me feel a
lot
better,” Rebecca said.

He raised his glass in acknowledgment before vacating his seat. “I'll see you at 6:01, then.” At least he knew when to avoid her wrath—which was more than she could say of the guys approaching her with Watchtower pamphlets in their hands.

“Welcome,” she said, gritting her teeth.
We take all kinds,
she thought.
And Abby is a dead woman for letting them in.

 

Despite the multitude of pledges available, Calvin found himself answering the door and returning to the living room as people were settling down for the meeting. “Who ordered the pizza?”

“What kind?”

“Let me see.” He opened it up to reveal a giant cookie the size of a pizza but in the shape of a heart, with red icing. “The new Domino's suck-up special. Who likes cookie?”

The Omega Chis groaned, and Calvin put it on the ever-growing pile of gift baskets, cards and other things bestowed upon them by some not-so-subtle candidates. No one was keeping track of who gave what at this point, making the entire exercise irrelevant. It did make their living room a lot more…red. The balloons did an especially good job of livening up the place. If they were KTs, they might throw a party just to get rid of all of this stuff. In fact, Calvin was leaving the option on the table, especially with four days to go. “Did we get anything interesting today?”

“I got a ring,” Marco said. “The real thing, too. Not from a cereal box. I haven't put it on yet in case it turns me invisible.”

“From Shelly?”

“No, Stephanie from Tri-Pi.”

“Wow, that came out of left field,” Trip said. Marco was Shelly's more stalwart defender, not Stephanie's. Of course, all was fair in the sweetheart competition. “Was anyone getting the feeling they're being followed?”