The Alpha Bet (12 page)

****

“Dang, sis. You look smokin,” Sean says, quickly moving his eyes from me to Jentry. She pinches his cheek playfully.

I hold my breath waiting for my parent’s reaction. Surprisingly, my mother doesn’t look like she’ll be needing a paper bag to breathe in and out of. My dad is grinning like a maniac behind her so I know he approves. A tear slips down my mother’s cheek and I contemplate running back to barricade myself in my dorm. What if she thinks college is having a negative impact on me and makes me come home? There is no way I would survive after my brief taste of the outside world.

“Hi, Mom,” I say apprehensively.

“Grace Kelly,” she says quietly. “You look gorgeous.”

Huh? She grabs me up in a hug before I can fully process her approval.

“You’re having a good influence on her, Jentry,” Mom says, backing out of our hug but not taking her eyes off me. Jentry seems to beam from the compliment.

“I missed you guys,” I say, backing out of the hug. Until this moment, I hadn’t really thought I missed anything about home, but seeing the three of them and getting their approval feels even better than it did to escape the deranged cheerleaders earlier.

We head out to the parking lot to my parents mini-van. Sean not-so-subtly scores the seat next to Jentry. He’s so pathetic.

“So where do the kids go to escape the dorm food around here?” Dad jokes.

“I saw a pizza place down the street,” Sean interrupts. I know that he is referring to the same pizza place Jentry and I went to my first night here. The official Greek hangout.

“Actually, Mr. Cook, there is a stir-fry place I’ve been wanting to try if it’s okay with you and Mrs. Cook,” Jentry pipes up while removing Sean’s hand from her knee. Jentry and I exchange a knowing glance. It is so awesome to have someone who is watching my back.

“Point the way,” Dad agrees enthusiastically. I lean back into the van seat, relieved to have dodged one bullet. Now if I can just make it through this meal without tipping my mom off that I’ve joined a sorority.

****

“Go easy on the seafood, Grace Kelly,” Mom says, as I continue to pile shrimp on top of the snow peas already in my bowl. “Your grandpa developed an allergy to shellfish late in life.”

“Mom, seriously,” I warn. Jentry snorts into her hand behind me.

Mom continues down the buffet, sulking. Her bowl is practically empty. I guess the new me has made her lose her appetite. She makes her way to the table where Dad and Sean are already pigging out.

“She’s actually handling things extremely well,” Jentry says, gesturing toward Mom.

“I’m sure the best is yet to come. Eat fast,” I joke. I have to admit that Mom’s reaction was much better than I had anticipated. I just don’t want to get my hopes up. The calm before the storm and all that.

Jentry and I head over to the table to join my parents. Sean jumps up with a noodle hanging out of his mouth and pulls out Jentry’s chair. I exchange a glance with my parents and we all nearly double over with laughter at Sean’s sudden chivalrous nature.

I tuck my cloth napkin into the collar of my shirt. I’m not about to take the chance of dropping something down the front of my shirt when I’m trying to show my parents my new sophisticated self.

“So, classes start on Monday, huh?” Dad asks, stabbing a baby corncob with his fork.

“Finally,” I answer between huge bitefuls of shrimp. “I can’t wait.”

“How about you, Jentry? Are you ready?” Mom asks. I already warned Dad that talking about Jentry’s dead (or not) mother was off-limits tonight.

“Well, I don’t have a brain like GK, um, Grace Kelly’s so I’ll have to work pretty hard to keep up,” Jentry admits. I put my fork down and look over at her.

“Not with me as a roommate you won’t,” I say confidently. My brain is already whizzing with different study aids that could help Jentry. I’m glad that I will finally be able to help Jentry after everything she has done for me.

“You’ve been busy,” she reminds me, throwing me a wink.

“Never too busy for you.”

“If anybody can help you, it’s Grace Kelly. She’s definitely the brains of the family.” Dad chuckles.

“Yeah, no pressure being the sibling of a genius,” Sean pipes up. “All of my teachers keep asking me if I’m going to graduate from high school at sixteen like my sister did. As if.”

Everything seems to slow down. I watch Jentry drop her fork, as it is mid-way to her mouth. She quickly recovers it and pretends to be extremely interested in her noodles. Leave to Sean to open his big mouth.

“Why wouldn’t you buy me a bra?” I ask Mom, partly to distract Jentry from learning the truth about my age, and partly because I really want to know.

“Grace Kelly, what on earth are you talking about?” Mom turns to Jentry and apologizes with her eyes. Jentry smiles uncomfortably and gets very interested in a forkful of rice.

I’m talking about the day that you and I went to the mall and I wanted a bra and you told me no,” I say louder, refusing to be ignored.

“Lower your voice, young lady. For your information you asked me to buy you a black push-up bra from Victoria’s Secret. I didn’t really think it was appropriate for a fifth grader,” Mom smarts off.

“Oh.” I do remember the bra being black. Jentry makes a chortling sound and I’m pretty sure she just accidentially snorted some rice.

“If you really want to have this discussion, I went back and got you two training bras the next day. Of course, you had already taken it upon yourself to make your own.”

Dad fidgets uncomfortably in his seat. Sean is laughing so hard that I’m just waiting for a snow pea pod to come out his nose. He is such a brat. He has always gotten to say or do whatever he wants. I’ll show him.

“Mom, did you know Sean looks at porn on the family computer?”

“Grace!” My family shouts in unison. Jentry spits the water she had in her mouth into her napkin and tries hard not to bust out laughing. Dad takes a long swig of sake.

“You are in so much trouble when we get home, young man,” Mom says, pushing her chair back and disappearing toward the bathroom.

“Thanks a lot, Graceless,” Sean yells, stomping off in the opposite direction as Mom.

My stomach cramps up with guilt for busting Sean out. He didn’t know that I was trying to keep my age a secret. I guess the bra thing is kind of funny. I’m just so confused. I love my new life but a part of me realizes now how much I’ve missed my family.

“Hey, sisters,” a cheery voice says, cutting through my pity party. I look up to see Kai, a fellow Alpha, standing at our table. My stomach officially plummets to my ankles.

“Hey, Kai. Your hair looks adorable,” Jentry says in an attempt to distract Kai, who is glancing over at my father.

“Thanks. I don’t know why I even bothered since we are all just going to be hanging out in our pajamas later,” she says, tossing her silky ebony locks over her shoulder.

“Yeah. Good times,” Jentry says.

“These two are so rude,” Kai says, holding her hand out to my father. “I’m Kai.”

When she doesn’t add, ‘their sorority sister’ to the end of her introduction my heart leaps. Dad will just think Kai called us ‘sisters’ as an endearing term. He won’t think anything of it.

“I’m Grace Kelly’s father,” Dad says, shaking Kai’s hand.

“Nice to meet you, Mr. Cook. I’m sure we’ll see you around the house soon.” She laughs. “I better get,” Kai says. Dad looks confused but Kai rushes off before he can ask her what she means. Mom and Sean pass Kai without realizing she was talking to us. The sudden dip in my oxygen level is in extreme danger of making me pass out in my bowl of stir-fry. I do not have the temperament to live on the edge like this. Sometimes I just want to crawl back into my books and never come out.

“Your father and I will discuss your punishment at home. Let’s not ruin our dinner,” Mom says, hushing Sean who is pleading for his computer time not to be completely revoked.

I’m trying to figure out how I can backtrack to get Sean out of trouble when I hear Kai’s voice again.

“Sorry to interrupt everybody, but Grace Kelly, I just wanted to remind you to wear your pledge pin to the Alpha house tonight. I saw that you didn’t have it on and I didn’t want you to get in trouble.”

****

We are back in my dorm room after our disastrous dinner. I am sitting in my plastic desk chair with my knees pulled up to my chest. Mom is pacing our floor while hanging up clothes I discarded earlier when I got dressed. Jentry is curled on her bed in the fetal position. Mom finally runs out of clothes and squats down next to my chair.

“I want you to know that I’m really proud of you,” she says, brushing some stray strands of hair behind my ears. “But I can’t help but be worried about how fast you’re moving. You’ve never been very big on change and, now, in one week, you’ve changed your appearance, moved away from home, and joined a sorority. And classes haven’t even started yet. How are you going to handle all this?”

This is just like her to treat me like a baby. I’m practically a grown woman, well kind of, except without a drivers license. So what if I can’t vote, or buy lotto tickets, or drink legally. I’m still a grown up. Sort of.

“I think I’m holding up pretty well,” I smart off.

“Where is all of this attitude coming from?” She asks, looking sad.

Is she serious? Does she really not take responsibility for me being so ill prepared to interact with my peers?

“Why didn’t you ever try to help me look better or feel better about myself?” I demand.

The stunned look on Mom’s face sends a dart of pain shooting through my chest.

“Grace Kelly, you never wanted anything to do with clothes or makeup. Your books were the only things that ever mattered to you. I didn’t know how to compete with that,” she defends herself. “The time I took you to get contacts, you got hysterical and kept screaming the parts of the eye until we got escorted out of the store. After that I just quit trying. You’ve always been smarter than me so I figured you knew what was best.” She stands back up and moves across the room.

I want to scream at her and tell her to quit making excuses. Then a memory floats up of an elderly security guard rushing us somewhere and I can hear myself screaming, ‘iris, cornea, retina’.

“You took me for contacts?” I ask amazed.

“I tried. I even tried to get you to cut your hair but you didn’t want anything to do with it. You didn’t want anything to do with me either. You still don’t.

“That’s not true, Mom,” I say weakly. Because as much as I don’t want to admit it. She’s right. I always took her attempts to take me shopping or just spend time with me as her way of trying to sabotage my learning. My grades never seemed important to her. I would hand her a report card filled with straight A’s and barely get a response, then Sean would get a C and she would practically scream with joy.

“I’ve never really known how to talk to you,” Mom admits. “But I’ve always trusted you. So if you really think you can handle all of this,” she says, gesturing around the dorm room. “Then I’ll take your word for it.”

I nod numbly, hoping I know what I’m doing.

****

I’m still in shock that Mom didn’t throw all my stuff in garbage bags and drag me out of the dorm by my newly highlighted hair. She trusts me. She has never said that to me before and she sure never acted like it. I told Mom that I needed to use the bathroom and that I would meet her at the van to say goodbye. But the truth is that I don’t really want to say goodbye. I miss my family. I miss my room back home. I’m comfortable there. At home I don’t have to worry about my makeup being perfect or that I don’t trip and fall, I can just be myself. It’s not that I’m acting like a different person for the Alphas but with the legacy lie and my age hanging over my head, I always feel on guard. Not to mention watching my back so that Sloane doesn’t trick me again.

I had to come in and sit on a closed toilet seat to calm myself down. The last thing I want to do after convincing my mom that I’m mature enough to handle college is go down to the car and start bawling when they leave me here. Which doesn’t even make sense because I love it here. I just wish I could have both.

I take a few calming breaths then make my way out of the dorm and head toward the visitor parking lot.

“Grace Kelly. Over here,” I hear a voice whisper from behind a tree. I walk toward the voice to see Aimee, a fellow Alpha, hunkered down spying on two girls.

“Aimee, what are you doing?”

“That’s my ex-girlfriend and the ho she dumped me for. Look at her. She’s not even cute. Got thunder thighs?” She says bitterly. Okay, I so don’t have time for this. “Oh my God, they’re coming this way,” she says, hopping up.

“Act natural,” I tell her, although I’m sure she’s pretty much going to be labeled a stalker once her ex sees her hiding behind this tree.

“Kiss me,” Aimee demands, suddenly in my face.

“Uh, no offense…”

“I’ve got K. Kiss me and I’ll run back to the house and rip it down,” she pleads, her ex closing in on us. I debate for a second then remember the cheerleaders with rage issues I had to deal with earlier. This kiss thing seems like a pretty easy out. I close my eyes, push my lips out and lean in Aimee’s direction. Our lips touch and she wraps her arms around me. Her lips are soft and pillowy but still nowhere as dreamy as Charlie’s. I wonder if it’s weird that my second kiss is from a girl.

I guess Aimee’s plan must have worked because her ex is yelling at me to get away from her. I open my eyes and instead of being scared that I may have pissed off a rather large girl, I’m more terrified when I see Sean’s eyes peering back at me from the back of my parent’s minivan.

I walk toward the van, relieved when I realize that my parents were so deep in discussion they had no idea that their daughter was experimenting with the opposite sex just a feet away. Sean is rolling around in the backseat holding his sides from laughing so hard. He’s such a little troll and now he has so much power over me.

“Hi,” I say when Mom rolls down her window. I can tell she’s been crying but she’s trying really hard to cover it up.