Greek: Double Date (6 page)

“You are so judgmental when you’re cranky. I have to admit, not one of your better qualities. Have some faith, little bro. Could it be that I have other—perhaps even a litany—of reasons for wanting to attend such a prestigious event?”

“Name one.”

Cappie put his hand around Rusty’s shoulders. “Perhaps I want to spend some time with my fellow engineering majors? A position I held for two days, admittedly, but we bonded a lot during those two days.”

“You were an engineering major for two days? Why?”

“I was young, foolish, and thought that there was a class on how to build a hovercraft open only to majors. But alas, none was offered. Ever since, Kappa Tau has had to make due with the G.I. Joe inflatable set I got off eBay.”

“We have a G.I. Joe hovercraft?”

“We
had
a G.I. Joe hovercraft. And lost many a brave plastic soldier upon discovering that it doesn’t work very well in a tub of beer.”

“So you’re taking Cappie?” Jordan asked. They were sitting on the Kappa Tau roof, enjoying the sunset after a long day of arrangements and other hassles for Rusty, to be followed by an open night, thanks to some bad fish. “Did he have some excuse or is he just chasing after your sister?”

“He said he was an engineering major for two days.”

“So?”

“Exactly. But I promised him he would be my backup if you couldn’t come—not figuring massive food poisoning into the plan—and I have to keep my promise.”

“I don’t have to go to the formal.”

“You are not going to miss a Greek event for me. Especially the All-Greek Formal. Your pledge sisters will be talking about it for days. I can’t do that to you,” he said. “Besides, I haven’t told Cappie yet, but Casey will probably break her date with Dale to go to the formal.
She’s
not going to miss out on the event of the year.”

“She is kind of…Super Sorority Sister. If that was an action hero, she would totally be it. But what’s she going to say to Dale?”

“I left that up to her.”

“Aw, Dale will be crushed.”

“I know. And then so will Cappie when he actually
does
have to make conversation with engineering students. Maybe I should tell him. I would, but then he’ll just go to the formal and do what he was planning to do anyway—publicly moon over Casey and then ruin her date. And possibly get in a fight I won’t be there for.”

“I have a camera on my cell phone.”

He turned his head sideways to face her. “I love you.”

“For my camera or for me?”

“Depends on the megapixels on the camera,” he said, not meaning it at all, but she knew that, and kissed him.

Casey Cartwright looked down at her cell phone for the third time in the last minute. The contact number on the screen cried out to her with its tiny blue light, reminding her and scaring her at the same time. It was Friday night, well after classes, and now she had no excuse not to call. Soon, perhaps, it would be too late to call, and she would have that excuse until tomorrow morning.

“If I tell him in the morning, he won’t cry himself to sleep
tonight,” she reasoned, and turned to her laptop to continue her paper, then back to the phone. “It’s the right thing to do.”

Ashleigh, fresh from dinner and a movie with Fisher, entered the bedroom. “Um, don’t you have somewhere to be?”

“You are not kicking me out for Fisher. House rules. And friend rules.”

“I mean, hello, engineering event you’ve been obsessing over?”

Talking to Ashleigh at least gave her a reason to close the phone and turn away from it, which she welcomed. “It was postponed.”

“Okay.”

“To tomorrow night. Food poisoning. Rusty didn’t know not to go with the lowest bidder for the catering.”

“But…we’ll all be at the formal.”

“And the deans assumed…mostly correctly…that not many honors engineers with a 4.0 grade point average were invited to an All-Greek Formal. Rather than have the alumni fly back in on the university dime, they decided to just hold it the same night.”

“So you’re out of your date with stalker Dale?”

“He’s not a stalker,” Casey admitted, because it was true. “He just has a crush on me, but it’s not like he follows me around or anything. This was going to be huge for him, I’m sure. I’m going to break his heart.”

“So, duh, have Rusty tell him. Aren’t they roommates? It’s not like they don’t see each other.”

“Rusty said it’s my responsibility to let Dale down, and he’s right. I made the promise. I should be the one to break it.” She picked up her phone. “Is a text message good enough, or is it even worse?”

“You’re not dating him. You’re not actually going out with
anyone yet—except supercute Rob, whom you will not be going out with if you miss your first date with him. Rob has potential. He’s cute and you said he’s smart—”

“I know.”

“And he’s a poli-sci major so you guys can talk about…that. What are you going to talk about with Dale?”

“Well, most of the time when we’re in the same room, he clams up.”

“See? And then there’s Panhellenic, which for some reason you’ve been going on about…”

“I just wonder if I should somehow get involved in Panhellenic. It would help me network at Nationals and be good for my postcollege résumé. Or so says Congresswoman and ZBZ sister Paula Baker.”

“The woman who gave you that internship?”

“I may have had a terrible time, but I don’t question her career judgment. So, yes, important social event plus hot guy should win over sisterly duty.”

“And you have the perfect dress for it.”

“And I have the perfect dress. But…I promised Dale first. What should I do?”

Ashleigh huffed. “Uh, lame-ass engineering event with stammering guy and your brother or the Greek event of the year? Plus, new guy who is not weird or an engineer stalking you or a previous boyfriend? Plus, networking opportunities? You owe it to yourself to go to the formal. There’s not really any…I don’t know,
decision
to make here.”

The phone still in her hands, Casey squeezed it. “You’re right.”

“Of course I am!” Ashleigh was way too enthusiastic about it.

Casey was not so sure. “I’ll tell him in the morning. So he doesn’t have to be upset tonight.”

“Yeah, and where is he going to find a date at this hour? Plus none of them will measure up.”

Maybe she would tell him at the last minute, when he was too panicked about the actual event to further panic. “However I tell him, it has to be smooth. Appropriate. Kind.” And however it was done, one thing was certain—it could be done tomorrow.

Casey checked her phone one more time, then
focused her attention on the mirror and the pledge at her side. “You seriously have no makeup?”

“I had some, but it expired,” Jordan said. Her gown was amazing, sparkling blue to match her eyes, and there was a napkin around her neck to protect it from any makeup-related disasters. “Did you know it’s only good for five years?”

“Then you just have a natural complexion that people would kill for,” Casey said to her little sis. “Nothing that can’t be enhanced.”

“Why am I doing this again?”

“Because being beautiful is not just about looking hot and having guys fall all over you. It’s about self-esteem and presenting the best of yourself. You’re a ZBZ—you are not expected to look your best all the time. You just
do
.”

“A paradigm of womanhood?” Jordan smirked.

“I have other things to do,” Casey said, adding, “though helping out my little sis is always the most important. Now, red
or pink lipstick? I’m thinking something subtle, because of the color of your dress.”

Jordan managed to control her gag reflex through the entire procedure, which took longer not because of her indecisiveness but because she deferred all opinions to Casey, who insisted she make her own choices. When the work was finally done, she was amazing—radiant, really—but nothing Casey could say could really convince Jordan of that, and she thanked her and scampered away, Rebecca passing her on the way.

“Big problems with little sis number two?”

Now Casey had to control her gag reflex. “You know how pledges are. Especially ones I seem to be in charge of,” she said, in reference to Rebecca’s near disastrous pledge year.

Rebecca took her place in front of the mirrors. She didn’t have much makeup to put on, but she needed no instruction, and she spent a lot of time getting it perfect—something Casey was familiar with. And since Rebecca was solo—as far as Casey knew, and didn’t want to bring up—she was putting on an extra shine.

“So am I really going into this thing without you revealing the mysterious past of the infamous Mr. Howell?”

“Yes.”

“Did you date him and he dumped you in public?”

“No.”

“Did he work for your father?”

Rebecca grimaced. “No.” But her face said that touched a nerve.

“Does he have photos of you during your fat years?”

“I did not have ‘fat years,’” Rebecca said with all the self-confidence that would make one assume that she truly hadn’t and had no reason to lie. Of course, Rebecca always sounded
that way, even when she was lying through her teeth. “Though remind me to bring that up in the next game of ‘I never.’ I would find that interesting.”

“Did he humiliate a young, impressionable Becca Logan at summer camp?”

“You already asked that one.”

“Did you have a crush on him?”

“Try again.”

Casey closed her case of blush with an extra-hard snap created by indignation. “You know it’s your sisterly duty to inform me if I’m walking into a disaster zone. I would do the same for you, if you didn’t go ahead without telling us first.”

“Just keep him away from me, and you’ll be fine,” Rebecca said, not so reassuringly. “If he knows what’s good for him, that shouldn’t be hard.” With that vague warning, she left.

Casey was still cleaning up—a clean house was a well-run house—when Ashleigh entered. “Which situation should I ask about first?”

“Dale’s taken care of. I left two messages on his voice mail and sent him a text. What more can he ask?” Casey checked her phone again. “No response. He must be really upset.”

“He’ll get over it. What did Rebecca say?”

“That she never had fat years, and nothing else.”

“Ooo, this gets juicier by the minute.”

“Maybe not. Maybe it was something not dating related that she’s still upset about. Or maybe he’s grown up and is simply the sweet, hunky guy I’ve met and invited to the formal.”

Ashleigh shrugged. “Where there’s smoke, there’s fire.”

“Are you trying to sabotage my date?”

“I’m just looking out for you. Which Rebecca apparently isn’t doing.”

“Surprise, surprise.”

Ashleigh qualified it with, “If it was really terrible, she would say something. So just chill, go to the formal with your new hotness monster, and maybe it’ll all come out in some dramatic moment that everyone remembers for years.” She continued, “Ew, that didn’t sound good. I meant for it to sound better.”

“I know you did. And I am probably overthinking this because I met a new guy and he’s not a Greek and I don’t know anything about him and he’s not—”

“Cappie. Or Max. Or Evan. Or even the original hotness monster.”

“Right. Exactly. So I need to just…relax.”

Casey succeeded in taking her mind off it, sort of, by giving the speech to remind pledges to be on their best behavior in front of the other Greeks and especially members of the Panhellenic board, who would be there. She tried to do so without making too many references to their disastrous newspaper exposé and the horrible restrictions on campus life that had followed, and the pledges seemed to get the point. Either they were antsy by the end of the speech or some of them just weren’t so used to heels and needed to sit down, because they were squirming.

Then it was time to go. Some of the sisters were picked up by their dates, and some had to make their own way to the formal. The pledge class went together, and Casey saw them off from the porch. Most of her sisters had left when Rob appeared, almost a phantom in the night in his black tux on the poorly lit streets—the university was trying to save energy—but his smile lit up the night, or at least her night. “Hey,” he said, a little bit nervously.

“Hey,” she replied, standing gracefully, or trying to. The responsibility to her sisters sometimes left her feeling like a mother hen.

“What’s bringing you down? Or am I reading you wrong?”

“Just making sure my little sisters find their way,” she said. “Kind of leaves me the last woman standing.”

“I thought the president went down with the ship?”

“Ashleigh’s the president, so she’s supposed to get there early and stay through to the end. Also, her date lives ridiculously close to the university ballroom, and she is therefore picking him up. They’ve been dating for a while, so she doesn’t expect any dramatic, romantic gestures like Fisher arriving on his motorcycle to take her.”

“Should I have been dramatic?” he said. “Because a horse and carriage is really expensive. I checked.”

She accepted his hand. “I’ll manage without the dramatic gestures tonight, thank you. In fact, I would appreciate a lack of them.” He had no idea how close that comment had struck to a previous formal-transportation disaster. Max had been romantic and dramatic….

Walking close together, they headed in the direction of the main campus, where student cars were not allowed without a special permit that neither of them had.

“So,” Rob said, his hands in his pockets, possibly a sign that he didn’t know where to put them. Maybe he was nervous because he liked her? “You’re not a big romance type? I sort of had you pegged differently.”

“When it’s good, it’s good. When it’s bad, it’s very bad. And awkward. And then you break up with the guy because he’s creeping you out. Or he’s overcompensating because he’s a mess and he doesn’t know what to do with his life.” She frowned. “Wow. Bad way to start the evening.”

“A nice walk?”

“My dating history. Forget what I said.” She took his arm.
“Tonight is fresh and new and all about new beginnings. Or just an open bar and schmoozing with Panhellenic.”

He laughed. “If you want. I haven’t found them that interesting. Mostly administrative. They have a lot of memos to be copied.”

“My recent interactions with them have been when my house has done something wrong,” she said. “Which, admittedly, has only partially been on my watch.”

“I read about last year.”

She stopped. “You did?”

He smiled to reassure her. “Yeah, having wild parties and fooling around on campus? Who knew? I was wondering why everyone was so scandalized. I’ve seen bigger scandals in 1950s educational films, though those scandals are usually everyone rushing off to get married without their parents’ permission. If Cyprus-Rhodes doesn’t want to admit it’s a normal university, then it has a serious complex about itself.”

“Really?”

“Really. Maybe it would have been scandalous if this was a Mormon campus, where guys have mandatory haircuts and the vending machines don’t sell soda with caffeine. But we’re in college. Glorified summer camp,” Rob said, and they continued walking. “I think the reaction was because, you know, they had to react like it wasn’t the status quo because then it would be like they were saying it’s okay. It’s all about presentation—especially for the alumni. Dean Bowman is serious about how we look to the alumni, especially the ones who can’t seem to remember what
they
did in their campus days. Speaking of which, I’ve heard legends around the office about Dean Bowman’s wild years as an undergrad.”

“I thought those were rumors. Or something Cappie made up.”

“Who’s Cappie?”

“The president of Kappa Tau.” She grimaced. “And I might as well just tell you—my ex-boyfriend from freshman year.”

“The president of Kappa Tau? That’s not the name on the info at the registrar’s office.”

She stopped dead and faced him. “You know Cappie’s real name? Oh, my God, you can’t tell anyone.”

“No worries. Student confidentiality and all. Seriously, I need this job. It’s the reason I had such an easy time with transferring my credits and my source of housing.”

“Seriously. You have to keep it a secret.”

“I don’t remember it, anyway. I just remember it was weird, and his file in Dean Bowman’s office is huge.”

She patted him on the arm. “You know, I’m starting to think you’re a really great guy.”

Dale knew he was late. Far too late. He arrived at the ZBZ house running, huffing because his tie was too tight for this kind of physical activity. Approaching the ZBZ house was always a little intimidating, but it was Dale’s responsibility to pick Casey up. Worse, she didn’t even know what time he was coming.

Casey did not answer the door. It was someone he didn’t know, in a bathrobe. He wasn’t that late, was he? “Um, hello?” she said.

“Hi. I’m here…to pick up Casey.” He tried to catch his breath without leaning over or possibly collapsing on the front steps. “She’s expecting me. But maybe she isn’t. I was going to call her but the phone company repairman for the house line didn’t show—”

“Uh-huh.”

“—and my cell phone, okay, it doesn’t hold up to water. It’s dead. I tried to call to give her a time, but I couldn’t. So I thought maybe I could e-mail her, but the phone company is owned by the cable company and they said the reason they couldn’t send the repairman was because he was busy fixing the cable lines for Internet—”

“Uh-huh.”

“—and if we had only stayed on campus, we could have reliable service! Except for that time it went down because someone overloaded the campus server trying to download every
Star Trek
episode ever made in HD format—”

“Uh-huh.”

He pushed his glasses back up on his nose. “I think he got halfway into
Next Generation.
Anyway, so everything was down and Rusty was already gone so I couldn’t reach her and I figured I would go over early, but band practice was held up—do you know we’re playing tonight? Anyway I think my watch is slow. I should have gone digital but it was my grandfather’s watch.”

“Uh-huh.”

“So, I tried to take the campus bus and the times posted are
completely
wrong. No wonder I’ve never taken them—”

“Uh-huh.”

“And…wait, am I at the right house?” He thought maybe there was no way he could panic more, but maybe he could.

“Oh. Yeah. I’m Betsy.” She closed her robe tighter as if she was suddenly self-conscious, even though it didn’t truly need closing. “I’m a ZBZ. But I didn’t have a date. Or a dress.”

“Okay.” He was confused by her air of befuddlement. Maybe she just didn’t understand how critical this moment was. “Where’s Casey?”

“She left. For the thing.”

“Oh.” He frowned. “At least she won’t be late. Thanks!” Without spending more time while his date was waiting, he took off in the direction of the social hall. Maybe his luck was finally changing.

“Professor Hale—nice to see you. Yes, I was in your class last semester. Third row. Great TA. Mr. McFadyen—thank you for coming. I hope you’re feeling better.” Rusty’s current job as he stood by the trimmed hedges leading to the cocktail hour outside the meeting hall was supposed to be checking invitations, but was turning into more of a greeter job, as his advisor had given him specific instructions to record who, of the alumni and professors stricken by the mysterious illness, actually showed up. He even had a clipboard. Fortunately he was good with names and faces, and knew most of the professors anyway. “Professor Girard. How are you?”

“Please, it’s Nick.” The paleontology professor shook his hand. The event was open to all professors, though few outside of the hard sciences attended. Rusty had taken Girard’s class for a social sciences credit first semester. “Is it me, or do these things get bigger every year?”

“I think it’s more for the alumni than the students being honored.”

“And the job market. You youngsters need those connections. I’m just here to see some old students.”

“Well, enjoy.”

Professor Girard nodded and entered. Next up was Associate Dean Devora Kessin, still pale from her adventure in mercury poisoning. “What’s the ice sculpture this year?”

“A satellite.”

“Last year it was a swan. Lazy sculptors.”

He nodded and felt his phone vibrate. It was Jordan texting him. Rather than spend all the time it would take typing, he ducked behind the bushes and called her. “Hey.”

“Hey, yourself. How goes?”

“Not bad. I think it was, like, a twenty-four-hour thing. Everyone seems pretty recovered.”

“Where’s your Man-Date?” Jordan asked.