Greek: Double Date (11 page)

Casey nodded. “He was.”

“Casey, you’re way better at dating and figuring guys out than I am. Why are you even asking me?”

“I don’t know.” She looked sad, or at least a little down. “I can’t figure Cappie out. I never know what he’s thinking. Why he’s hanging around me, but insisting he’s not.”

“So ask him.”

“He never gives me the real reason.”

“Maybe he doesn’t know it,” Rusty suggested. “Sometimes guys have trouble expressing their feelings. Instead they do stupid things like punching other guys or waiting too long and letting a pledge go after the girl they’re totally into and then having it blow up in their face and having their pledge depledge because of something they should have taken care of in the first place. And why is this surprising, anyway? Wasn’t your original problem with Cappie that he was a spaz and took the relationship for granted? You dated Mr. Jerk Chambers because he seemed like he didn’t. Because he was the opposite of Cappie.”

Casey raised her finger at him. “No Evan spite. He doesn’t deserve it—not anymore, anyway. And Evan is not the polar opposite of Cappie, and that was not the reason I went out with him. I loved him.” She frowned. “That’s not what I wanted to get into. But, yes, Cappie. Bad at commitments. No plans.”

“Is it true Evan gave up his trust fund? Because normally I don’t doubt my sources,” he said, meaning Calvin but not naming him, “but that’s crazy talk.”

“I haven’t asked him about it, but that’s the story.”

“So Evan makes commitments and can’t keep them. Cappie doesn’t make them in the first place.” He shrugged. “I don’t know what to say, except that these carrots are amazing. They’re in some awesome sauce.”

Casey picked up an unused spoon and tasted it. “It’s cayenne pepper.”

“Why does that name sound familiar?”

“You’re allergic to it.”

Rusty slowed his chewing. “I thought I was just getting a cold.” A cold that made him light-headed. “Um, could you do me a big favor and get Dale? I think he has an EpiPen.”

“Yeah,” Casey said, dropping her purse in his lap. “I’m gonna get on that.”

Cappie interrupted the older man he was talking to. “This has been really interesting, but I think I recognize that little guy they’re loading into the ambulance. Do you mind if I excuse myself?”

“By all means.”

There was some commotion, but Cappie was a master of getting around crowds, a skill honed from years of living in a small fraternity house that hosted large parties. In no time he was past the rubberneckers and at the ambulance, where an EMT put his hand up. “No other passengers.”

“I’m his brother.”

The EMT resisted for a moment, then let him in. The ambulance was parked, and it didn’t look to be going anywhere. Rusty was on the stretcher, his face red and swollen. On one side was Casey, and on the other, Dale. Casey glared at him. “You are
not
family.”

“Fortunately for us I’m not a Cartwright, but I
am
his brother.”

“I’m fine,” Rusty said. “I need to sit up.”

“You’re not fine, you’re in shock and you’ve been shot full of epinephrine,” Casey said. “You need to rest.”

“Do I look bad?”

“Rest. Sleep.
Sleeeeeeeeep
.”

“You’re not a hypnotist.”

Dale looked up at Cappie. “He’s a little…loopy from the shot. And obsessed with Jordan showing up.”

“Dude, she’s not expecting romance from a guy in an ambulance,” Cappie said. “Are they taking him to the hospital? And also, what happened?”

“They said he should be fine.” But Casey still wore a look of sisterly concern. “And, to answer your second question, bad carrots.”

“I thought they were good,” Dale said.

“That was the problem,” Rusty said, his voice muffled by the swelling in his mouth. “They were awesome.”

“He’s allergic to one of the ingredients. Cayenne pepper. Only he didn’t know they were spiced with it, so—”

“So that is totally something the pledges will have to memorize about you, Spitter. Obscure allergies. Very difficult.” He put a hand on his arm, but Rusty didn’t seem too observant of his surroundings. “Excellent work. Except for the whole actually eating stuff you’re allergic to. That I can’t recommend.” He looked across at Dale, who was of course still holding his trophy as though it was an Oscar or possibly glued to his hand. “Maybe he’s allergic to tacky trophies for track.”

“Hey! It’s supposed to be a dreamer. Reaching for the sky. The dean said it in his speech.”

“Track trophies were all they had,” Rusty said, and coughed
into his oxygen mask, “that didn’t have some kind of sports paraphernalia. It was that or call a soccer ball a bucky ball.” He giggled, which turned into another cough. “Bucky.”

Cappie backed him up. “It is fun to say.”

The EMT stepped in. “Does anyone know someone who can take Mr. Cartwright home?”

“He’s not being admitted?”

“He needs a little more oxygen and then a lot of rest.”

“I’ll take him,” Dale said.

“No!” Rusty really did try to stand up this time, and four sets of hands held him down. “I have a girlfriend. Gimme another shot of adrenaline. Then I’ll, like, fly to her. Or leap. Like in the
Hulk.
The first movie. The bad one.”

“Epinephrine is not for recreational use,” Cappie said. “I may know some…people who’ve tried it.”

“I’ll take him,” Dale repeated.

Casey reached into her pocketbook and produced some cash. “For a cab.” She looked at her brother. “Are you going to be okay?”

“I have to see Jordan…Trans-Jordan. Egypt. Either one.”

“Yeah, you definitely need to rest. Dale?”

“I’m on it.”

At the EMT’s insistence, Casey and Cappie left the ambulance, where Rusty would continue to rest until the swelling was down enough that he could be released—albeit into Dale’s care, or the university’s medical offices.

“The situation is being handled,” Dean Bowman was calling, urging partygoers to return to the hall. “The student will be fine. Please return to the building.”

At which point, Cappie broke out laughing, and Dean Bowman glared at him. “What?”

“I’m gonna save it,” Cappie said, “and you have Rusty Cartwright to thank for that because my overwhelming concern for him is overriding my incredible desire to share some of the alumni’s stories with you. For verification purposes.” He didn’t wait for Bowman’s reply and went inside, Casey following him out of curiosity.

Cappie returned to his seat at the mostly empty table, where a professorial man with little hair on his head and a gray beard was making a fort of his mashed potatoes. “Casey Cartwright, meet Aristotle Izmaylov.”

She didn’t recognize the name, but she shook the hand of this apparently eminent man. “Hello, Professor.”

“Oh, I’m not a professor anymore. Just a wealthy donor,” he said, squinting through his thick glasses. “Hence the invitations I keep getting. And I wasn’t even in engineering. I taught philosophy. To Dean Bowman and Ted Griffin, for better or worse. Your friend Cappie here is very interested in university history. Specifically the more embarrassing aspects. Not that I blame him. The rest of it is rather boring.” He smiled at her. “So you’re an engineer?”

“Political science.”

“I was going to say there are not enough women in engineering, but now that really isn’t my business, is it? There are plenty of women’s studies professors to get angry about that. Political science is an excellent major. Not that far from philosophy, not too taxing. Enjoy your youth.”

“Well, I am a senior,” she said, a bit nervously.

“So cramming in the last excitement and planning for the future at the same time? A bit of a dichotomy, but nothing you can’t manage, I imagine. I’m sure they’ve flooded this event with successful people to encourage you. Or perhaps it would
be to their advantage to do the opposite, and charge you for a fifth year. Something Dean Bowman almost had to take.”

“This is a great story,” Cappie assured her.

“Not a particularly long one. The university briefly experimented with a system where students could invent their own majors—with a certain amount of planning and then presentation of the idea to a board, of course. This was before they had gender studies, so a number of people were trying that, as I recall. Your Dean Bowman tried for and made a comprehensive case for majoring in fun.”

“Fun?” Casey parroted in disbelief.

“Yes. Fun. Had a rather long dissertation on it. He must have expected us to buy it, because he got halfway into senior year before bothering to present it to the board, where it was promptly rejected, despite my dissenting vote. So he had to cobble together another major by taking four philosophy courses in his final semester, which, in addition to the ones he’d already taken, allowed him to graduate on time. This was before fifth years were so trendy. If I were a betting man, I might have lost a good deal of money on betting on his success in the workplace. He’s carved quite a niche for himself as an authority figure. And as he spent his days in my class with a beer-soaked brain, he might not remember me well enough to realize how amusing I find it.”

“What do you do now?” Casey didn’t know if it was appropriate to ask if he was retired.

“This and that,” he said rather evasively. “I read. I write angry response articles to what I read. I make fake IDs.” Without batting an eye he said, “Technology is really quite incredible. The definition of self can entirely be redefined through a concentrated effort on Photoshop.”

“Please don’t encourage anyone present,” Casey said.

He shrugged. “Far be it from me to stand between man and his true nature. Which, at age eighteen to twenty, is to heavily consume alcohol. It’s never been any different and it never will be. Banning it just makes it more enticing, and I hate to see the promising young men and women of tomorrow in jail.”

“You were in a fraternity, weren’t you?”

“I predate the fraternity as you know it by some years, young Cappie. And in response to a good friend’s query, I would say only, drink up and be healthy, but all things in moderation.” He reached into his jacket and removed two cards, and they thanked him, and not until they were halfway across the floor did Casey bother to look at her card.

“He’s an advisor to the
Speaker of the House?
”

“Is that who that name is beneath his?” Cappie feigned ignorance. “I knew you’d want to meet him. People surprise you.”

“Sometimes they do,” Casey said, smiling just briefly before leaving him to check on her brother.

Rusty felt as if he was floating—not quite out of his
body, but certainly slightly removed from it.

“You sure you want to wait? Because we can go. I’m done. I have my…runner.” Dale held up his trophy. “And the cards of some awesome guys. Maybe I’ll see them next year. Do they invite the same people each year?”

“I don’t know.” And he couldn’t really concentrate on anything except staying upright on the bench outside the entrance to the hall.

“Is that a guestlist-related ‘I don’t know’ or a we-shouldn’t-go-home ‘I don’t know’? Because you are still woozy there.”

“Totally.” But he didn’t answer either question. It seemed like too much effort. He could imagine being home and he could imagine being back at the party, and either one worked, because it didn’t require him to move. He could wait here, forever, for Jordan, and she would find him a thousand years from now, molded into the seat, his body as fossilized as the wooden beams of the bench he sat on. Fossilized trees were
pretty and awesome to touch. He remembered a trip to Colorado, where, in a museum, he’d gotten to touch a trunk that had turned to stone. He must have been seven or eight, Casey ten or eleven, and she had pigtails and complained the whole way that he was hogging the Game Boy.

“I’m not hogging it.” Looking up—itself almost an Olympic struggle—he saw Jordan’s questioning face. “The Game Boy.”

“He’s not drunk,” Dale said. “He’s had a lot of epinephrine.”

“I can be a tree,” Rusty said. “I will be a tree. I just have to sit here long enough. Then, tree. I will totally be one. They’ll put me in a museum of rock trees.”

Jordan sat down next to him and took his hand, her skin incredibly soft. Maybe he thought that because he was turning into a fossil, and fossils were hard. “You need to go home,” she said.

“You’re beautiful.” She was in a formal gown, with her hair up in some stylish bun with all the right pins, and she even had a smidgen of makeup on, even though he thought she looked fine without it. She just sparkled more. Normally she sparkled when she was smiling, but now she sparkled more, even when she didn’t smile. “You sparkle.”

“It’s glitter.” She tugged on his arm, as useless as that gesture would be. He was fairly sure his arm weighed a thousand tons, precisely, at this exact moment. “You need to go home.”

“That’s not very romantic,” he said. “I wanted to be romantic. I
want
to be romantic.”

“We can totally be romantic at your place.”

“No atmosphere. Music’s not as good.” He added, “After-party.”

“No after-party, Rus. Home. You have to go to bed and sleep for a very long time.”

“No sleep. Clowns will eat me. I had a shirt that said that once. It was black.”

“I’m sure it was. Come on.”

“One dance.”

“
Maybe
. Back at your place, I will consider that.”

Rusty took that for a yes. Everything was possible, even him being able to stand, or precisely, be held up by his girlfriend and roommate long enough for him to be loaded into a cab. If they could lift a thousand tons, anything was possible. With that realization, he was satisfied.

Even after checking on her brother and leaving him on the bench with Dale, Casey wasn’t fully satisfied until Dale returned to the hall, still clutching his trophy, and offered up an explanation. “Jordan showed. Thanks for the cab money. She’s taking him back to the apartment.” He shrugged sheepishly. “I couldn’t convince him. He wanted to wait for Jordan.”

“He is dedicated,” she admitted. Rusty was dedicated to whatever or whomever he cared about, be it polymers or his current girlfriend. “Thank you for seeing him off.”

“What else was I supposed to do?” He asked it as if it was his duty and did not require asking. “Thank you for coming. I know…well, Rusty kind of talked you into it.”

She smiled. “I had a great time.” Aside from nearly having a heart attack thinking that Max had somehow come to the awards, her turbulent feelings for Cappie and seeing her brother nearly hospitalized over the carrot dish, she actually had.

“Do you want to come to the after-party? I have to leave—set up with the band. It’s not the Greek formal but—” he shrugged “—the music’s okay. We’ve really been working on our sound.”

“I’ll try to swing by,” she said, possibly meaning it. She could use a drink, but first she needed to get out of her heels. Unwilling to go so far as to kiss him, she hugged Dale.

“I really appreciated it,” he said. “You must be really busy with your sorority and stuff.”

“They’ll deal.”

“It’s important—I mean, to be with people who really care about you,” he said, and blushed before he left.

The party was wrapping up. The last-minute chatterers were swarming the more interesting alumni, others having been regulated to the status of “not donating” or “not offering me a job when I graduate” and therefore abandoned. Nothing kept her there, but she didn’t immediately leave, instead looking around the room a final time.

At which point, she heard a crash and assumed Cappie had something to do with it. It wasn’t quite glass shattering, but it was oddly similar. It didn’t come from the room, but using her incredible investigative skills of following the remaining people who were also interested and better at finding things than she was, Casey ended up on the lawn where the cocktail hour had been held, sectioned off for events by trimmed hedges. The tables were still standing, but empty, and some of them had their tablecloths removed. In the center, the gigantic, half-melted ice sculpture was no longer on its perch. It lay in chunks on the ground, chunks that were quickly being snatched up by none other than Dean Bowman and the night’s speaker, Ted Griffin, who held them in their jackets and took off in the other direction.

“Come on, you have to see this,” Cappie said, appearing at her side—how did he always do that?—and grabbing her arm. To Casey’s surprise, she didn’t resist, and followed him to a
nearby empty assembly hall, which had a wooden floor. Somehow, hockey sticks had been obtained, and what unfolded was a drunken, somewhat confusing game of hitting the chunks of ice back and forth between the players—Griffin and, of all people, Bowman. Professor Girard, the young anthropology professor, made a third.

“What is this?”

“Ice hockey,” Cappie said. “A sacred and time-honored tradition that until tonight had been lost. Alas, it has been found.”

Casey rolled her eyes. “What did you do?”

“Me?” Cappie was all innocence, or would be to the uninformed observer. “No way. It was all this guy.” He gestured to Aristotle Izmaylov, the former philosophy professor, who was walking with a cane. “Hey, Professor.”

“Hey, yourself, Mr. Cappie,” Izmaylov responded. “And of what do I stand accused?”

“Spiking Bowman’s coffee.”

“That was Girard,” Izmaylov said, gesturing to the professor who was busy trying not to get smashed into the wall by the other players, none of whom were wearing protective gear, and all in formal dress. “As to the discussion of traditional Cyprus-Rhodes ice hockey, I do believe the esteemed Mr. Griffin mentioned it first. Unfortunately in the presence of a person such as yourself.”

“Bowman and Griffin used to steal ice sculptures from university events,” Cappie said. “Then they would get together with a bunch of other guys and play until the ice melted. Nobody could remember the scoring system, if there was one. Another requirement was that you had to be drunk. So Dean Bowman walks by, and I ask him, and in front of Professor Izmaylov—”

“
Former
Professor Izmaylov—”

“—
former
Professor Izmaylov, he completely denies this, mentions something about juvenile delinquents and walks away. Griffin hears all this and starts cracking up, calling Bowman all kinds of names, and decides he has to do something about this.”

“We decided we needed a man on the inside, not being university people ourselves,” Izmaylov said, “so Cappie here was enterprising enough to approach Girard about it. He was immediately on board. Something about what Bowman said to him a few semesters ago in an academic review. He mumbled most of it so that it couldn’t be held against him at a future date. Very intelligent man.”

Casey squirmed as she heard a chunk go
crack
against the wall. “Is this legal?”

“Absolutely not. Bowman and Griffin were penalized some then-incomprehensible sum for damages, but spread over all their cohorts, it wasn’t so bad. I wonder what it will cost now.” Izmaylov grinned. “That wall’s definitely going to need re-painting. You know, Mr. Cappie, if you were to participate, it would be quite difficult for your dean to hold you responsible without implicating himself. With photography and all that.” He held up his cell phone and took a picture of them. “Quickly, before he sobers up.”

Cappie didn’t need any other nudging, and grabbed a stick from the small pile and joined the game, which mostly seemed to involve who could knock the most ice against a certain spot on the wall that was growing ever darker and wetter. Dean Bowman didn’t object to his presence, or really seem to notice.

“I should discourage him,” Casey said, “but I can’t come up with a good reason.”

“And I don’t like to be discouraging,” Izmaylov said. “So we have a conundrum. Or we could just let youth be youth…and middle-aged academia be middle-aged academia.” He grimaced as Bowman took a shot to the head, which looked as if it would hurt but didn’t particularly slow him down, nor did he seem to notice. “I hope they’re not under the false assumption that I’m keeping score.”

“Is the lesson here that boys will be boys, no matter what their age?”

“Proverbial boys, yes, though I didn’t have a lesson plan when I came here tonight,” he said. “Though, I would also add perhaps that while one may remain an adolescent, it does not exclude a man from also growing up. Specifically when three people return to work on Monday—presuming no serious head trauma—and pretend nothing happened. We are all capable of the shift from maturity to immaturity, and the other way around.”

“Should we stop them before the head trauma thing?”

“They’ll run out of ice long before— Ow. That looked like it hurt.
Hopefully
they’ll run out of ice long before we need to act.”

True to former Professor Izmaylov’s prediction, the ice did melt, and caused some slips and slides that ended the game with three out of four declaring themselves the winners and arguing about it. Cappie instead returned to Casey. “This is awesome.”

“You have a black eye.” Or what would soon be one, from the redness and the shot she’d seen him take.

“Yeah—from Dean Bowman. Best blackmail ever.”

“Does it hurt? Can you see me? How many fingers am I holding up?”

“Two.” He waved to the aged professor. “Thanks a ton!”

“Yes, and be well. And I do emphasize that last part.”

“I would put an ice pack on it if I could find some ice,” Cappie said. “Do you know where I can get some ice?”

He must have been tired, or a little confused, because he leaned on her excessively as Casey guided him out of the building and back toward the main road. “Are you sure you’re okay?”

“I’m fine. Best black eye
ever,
” he insisted. “So what’s up with you, Case? Missing the formal to come to what was apparently the best engineering party ever?”

“What’s up with me? What’s up with you and your sudden interest in alumni relations?”

“I think that panned out,” Cappie said. “I’m thinking of switching majors.”

“Engineering requires four years of study.”

“That or something science-y. You know they’re building Web filters to find and block pornography on the Internet? Who decides what’s pornography? Obviously you would need to be some kind of expert on the digital experience.”

“And you would be that expert.”

“Precisely. There are whole fields open to guys with little technical experience but a willingness to learn, provided that learning involves female anatomy. Which my current major of women’s studies will really help me with. Real résumé builder.”

Casey was amazed. “Wow, Dean Bowman must have hit you pretty hard.”

“I always talk about naked women. Or the prospect of seeing them. Ideally for money.”

“Because you’re talking about your résumé. That’s sophisticated, near-graduate talk.”

“Yeah, well, despite my best intentions the registrar informs
me I will soon have enough credits to graduate. Unless I do something really spectacular in the failing department next semester—and believe me, I have not ruled it out—they might be hauling my ass out of here in June. Or maybe I could go out with someone at the registrar’s office, then break up horribly—I’m good at horrible, traumatic breakups—and that girl who’s there on Thursdays, I think she’s a temp—”

“Cappie, stop.”

“What?” He was walking on his own now, though following her lead. “You’re the one asking questions. What are you doing here? Why are you talking to alumni? Why do you have extracurricular interests all of a sudden? Though I think this would actually count as curricular interests.”

But she really didn’t have a good reason. “I’m not like you.” That was the best she could come up with.

“Because you understand all that was, is, and ever shall be Cappie?” He paused. “Just say it. The stalking thing. You think I’m stalking you.”

“No.”

“You’ve already said it. Other people have said it. I’ve heard that word so much tonight I’m starting to think a thesaurus should be mandatory for incoming freshman—”

“It’s not that.”

“Really? Well, okay, maybe you’re right. Maybe some of my interests were related, somehow, in some extremely remote fashion to you. And either seeing you hanging out with Dale or not seeing you with Bob or Todd or whatever his name is.”

“Rob,” Casey said. “His name is Rob. And I am free to take whomever I choose to the formal, as I am currently single because someone wasn’t interested in second chances.”

She was referring to her closet admission—literally, in the
KT closet—of still having feelings for him and Cappie not rejecting her but being unwilling to commit. “I didn’t say I wasn’t interested,” Cappie said.