In My Dreams I Hold a Knife

by Ashley Winstead

  What price, glory?

  Mint nodded at Jack in the driver’s seat, who gave him a thumbs-up, and then we were puttering forward, out from behind the cover of the basketball stadium and onto the parade route.

  Caro squeezed my hand. “This better be worth it.”

  I glanced at her. Caro had sacrificed more than anyone. “How long did it take you to get the keys from Charles? I tried waiting up for you, but I fell asleep. How’d you end up doing it?”

  Caro’s cheeks flamed. “It took a long time,” she mumbled. “And never mind how.”

  Strange—

  “Wave, idiots!” Heather, who looked completely at home in her bright-yellow bikini, glared at us, waving enthusiastically at the crowd.

  The crowd. Hundreds of people, lining both sides of the street as far as I could see. From the moment we rolled into view, I could see them pointing and laughing at us, the ridiculous college students dressed for the beach in the middle of a North Carolina fall.

  “Do you hear that shouting?” Frankie flexed for the crowd. “They love us!”

  And actually, he wasn’t wrong. Everyone I waved to grinned and waved back. Kids were cheering on Mint as he pretended to swim through the waves. The Chapman students had cleverly packed the back of the float with red and white confetti, and now Coop was tossing it, raining it down on everyone we passed, letting kids fight over handfuls. I’d even stopped feeling cold. The adrenaline heated my blood, making me forget the chill in the air as we zoomed down the street. Blackwell Tower, the end of the parade route, couldn’t be too far ahead.

  We were actually pulling this off.

  “Trouble!” Heather yelled, pointing ahead.

  It was the Chapman students, rushing to the side of the road.

  “Thieves!” yelled Trevor—who, to Courtney’s credit, actually did look like a weasel, small and furrow-faced. “Those assholes stole our float!”

  “No shit we did!” Frankie pointed to the banner we’d left hanging up front, crossing out Chapman Hall Champions and writing East House Seven.

  “You destroyed ours first!” Heather shouted.

  “Caroline!” That shout came from Charles, who stood on the sidelines in a red-and-white lacrosse jersey, blinking up at her. “I trusted you!”

  “Uh-oh,” Caro said, ducking behind me.

  “We won’t let you use our float to win!” One of the Chapman students broke through the parade barrier and ran into the street, directly in our path, followed quickly by more. They were trying to block us from reaching the finish line at Blackwell. If they stopped us, we’d hold up all the floats in line behind us. The entire parade would come grinding to a halt.

  Jack leaned over, shouting from the driver’s seat. “What do we do?”

  “Just hit one,” Coop yelled, still throwing confetti in wild handfuls, the red and white paper everywhere, but mostly strung like tinsel through his hair. “The rest will learn!”

  In a flash of desperation, a thought seized me. It was crazy and might lead to nothing but trouble, but there was something about being surrounded by Coop and Frankie, Mint and Heather and Caro, that made me feel like nothing bad could really happen.

  “The fireworks,” I said. “Shoot the fireworks to scare them.”

  Frankie didn’t ask questions; he simply ran to where we’d hidden them behind the palm trees.

  “Aim up,” Mint called. “And be careful, you don’t want to—”

  How it happened, none of us would ever figure out, no matter how many times we replayed it. One minute, Frankie was fumbling with the Roman candle; the next, his bathing suit was smoking, the firework was whistling upward, we were all shouting, and Frankie was doing what he later swore was the only thing he could think of: yanking his burning bathing suit off his body. He kicked it away right as the Roman candle exploded in the air, cracking like gunfire. The crowd gasped; the Chapman students ran, fleeing the street.

  “Someone cover Frankie!” Mint yelled. Frankie was wide-eyed, frozen in shock, hands cupping his middle. For once, Coop was obedient, tearing a giant leaf off a palm tree and shoving it at him. For a second, Frankie just looked at the leaf. Then, slowly, he shook his head.

  “Let’s hear it for the Crimson,” Frankie yelled, darting forward around the perimeter of the float, hands high in the air, while Coop chased him with the leaf. The crowd lost it when Frankie turned his back to them.

  “Show-off!” Jack yelled from the driver’s seat. He put his foot to the gas, and the float lurched forward.

  It was utter chaos.

  “More fireworks!” Heather called. I whipped around, pulled by the laughter in her voice, and sure enough, she was beaming, looking out over the running Chapman Hall students and the shrieking crowd like this had all been perfectly executed.

  “Are you crazy? We’ll burn down the float!”

  Ignoring me, she lit a Roman candle. It sailed into the air in a perfect arc, cracking open into a sparkling flower. She shrugged. “I shoot fireworks with my dad every Fourth of July.”

  Of course. Father-daughter time, that mysterious thing.

  We turned the corner, revealing Blackwell Tower—and, in front of it, the massive stage where the chancellor gave his Homecoming address. We were so close.

  Coop stepped to my side, his face wreathed in a halo of confetti.

  “You look like a maniac,” I told him. “A school-spirit angel.”

  He handed me a lighter. “Come on, we both know you want to.” When he glanced at me, the look was back, and it was just the two of us, the rest of the cheering, laughing, exploding world fading into the background. It was the return of that look, more than anything, that had me flicking the lighter, touching flame to the firework.

  “Jessica the rebel,” Coop shouted, as the Roman candle shot up.

  I watched through my fingers as it crested and opened, raining light like glittering gemstones.

  The float neared the stage. And, for the first time, we came face-to-face with the chancellor, standing in the center of it, gripping a tall microphone. Even from here, I could see his face was purple.

  “Will all students,” he bellowed, “who wish to remain enrolled in this university kindly cease fire.”

  ***

  We were heroes. Not to the administration, of course, who’d escorted us straight into the chancellor’s office in Blackwell, where we’d had to wait an hour just to be yelled at about indecent exposure, illicit fireworks, complaints from irate Chapman Hall students. The chancellor kept questioning Coop, the only one of us who’d refused to put on a shirt, like he was the dark mastermind behind the whole thing. But there was still Mint, with his family’s clout, and Frankie, the football star, to contend with. So in the end he gave us two months’ community service and a stern warning to stay out of trouble for the next three years.

  No, the administration hated us. But the students…

  We walked into the Phi Delt Homecoming party that night, the seven of us together, arms laced, and stopped dead in our tracks. Hanging from the staircase in the foyer was the banner from our float, the one where we’d crossed out Chapman Hall Champions and painted East House Seven.

  “Holy shit,” Heather breathed. “They saved it.”

  The frat house was madness, filled with more people than usual, regular students plus alumni, the latter mostly slick, polished lawyers and bank managers in dad jeans. A guy standing at the top of the staircase near the banner spotted us and pointed with his beer. “East House Seven!”

  Everyone in the foyer turned, their eyes like spotlights swinging in our direction. “It’s those streakers from the parade!” someone shouted. “The ones who tried to shoot down the chancellor!”

  Cheers and whistles exploded across the room. “You shoulda won the Battle!” someone yelled from the back.

  A Phi Delt senior rushed forward
, grabbing Frankie. “Man, you guys have balls of steel.” He slung an arm over Jack’s shoulders, then winked at Heather and me. “But seriously, what’d the Chance say? You’re not kicked out, are you? ’Cause you clowns were born to be Phi Delt.” He punched Mint’s shoulder. “And you. Fucking troublemaker, who knew? I love it.”

  The brother dragged the boys away in the direction of the bar. I raised my eyebrows at their backs. If Frankie and Jack weren’t being rushed on their own merits before, they certainly were now.

  “Come on,” Caro said, tugging my hand. “Dance floor!”

  I turned, realizing I hadn’t seen Coop since we walked in—where had he disappeared to, and so fast?—but Caro was already pulling me.

  It turned out it wasn’t only the boys who were famous. When we stepped onto the dance floor, the crowd parted, dancers turning to tell us they loved our float, our bikinis, that we were a breath of fresh air, subversives taking on the administration and skewering Homecoming traditions. We laughed at their compliments, but we didn’t correct them, didn’t say, We were only out for revenge; everything else was an accident. We just smiled and drank what they handed us.

  Only Courtney wasn’t impressed. She glared at us from the corner of the dance floor, surrounded by her usual coterie of girls who were dressed like knockoff versions of her. They whispered, pressing close, wanting her shine to rub off on them. I almost felt sorry for her, but then again, I could afford to now. It could have been the East House Eight, but she’d bet wrong. Now we had the glory, and she was cut out. I could already feel the divide growing between us, invisible but solid.

  Heather paid no attention to Courtney, spinning on the dance floor with her arms outstretched. We’d switched dresses tonight: she was wearing my pink dress that tied in the back, and I wore a black dress I’d coveted since the day I saw her buy it at the mall, though I blanched even remembering the price tag. When we were getting ready, she’d asked, Want to borrow? And it hadn’t even been a question. Immediately I’d turned to her closet, looking right where this dress hung, fabric whisper-thin and shimmery. But I couldn’t admit I wanted it until she’d said, I’ll wear one of yours. An even trade. Then it had been okay. She’d pulled my pink dress on, and said, Perfect fit, with a little smile. And then, to her reflection, tugging on the bow, Charmingly down-market.

  It was that word—down-market—that made something click when it hadn’t before. Made me remember what she’d said to Courtney when she defended me yesterday: Stop punching down. Meaning I was Heather’s friend, yes, but that’s how she saw me: beneath her.

  I wore her black dress anyway. So maybe I was.

  The song changed to something Frankie liked to play on repeat in his room, and Jack came swinging around the corner, clutching a bottle of whiskey, his perfectly combed Mr. Rogers hair mussed over his forehead like he’d been roughhousing.

  “It’s my song,” Frankie said, skidding onto the dance floor behind Jack, losing his balance so fast Jack had to grip him to keep him upright. Without losing a beat, Frankie whirled to Caro and lifted her by the waist. “Has anyone told you you’re tiny?”

  “But mighty,” Mint said, stepping up behind them with another bottle of whiskey, his cheeks flushed, eyes bright. Drunk. “Our East House spy.”

  “Sweet saboteur!” Jack crooned.

  I eyed Mint, nodding at his whiskey. “The Phi Delt brothers sure love you.”

  He shrugged, but couldn’t contain his grin. “They love all of us. You’re probably a lock for Chi O, by the way. After today.”

  What a stark contrast. Yesterday, I’d been old Jessica Miller. Today, I was the girl in the expensive dress, one-seventh a star, a future Chi O pledge. I thought of Duquette’s promise: We will change you, body and soul. Maybe it was happening.

  Heather spotted Jack and stopped spinning, her eyes focusing like he was the only person in the room. She walked to him and stretched out her hand. Jack looked uncertain for a second, then took a deep breath and walked toward her, reaching out.

  “The whiskey,” she said. He froze, nearly fumbling the bottle as he snapped his hand back and replaced it with the whiskey. Even the darkness of the room couldn’t hide the high color on his cheeks.

  Heather took a swig from the bottle, then held it out again. She was smiling her cat-and-canary smile. “For courage,” she said.

  What was she up to? The perennial question.

  Jack made for the bottle, but she grabbed his hand and pulled him in. Right in the middle of the dance floor, with all of us watching, Heather kissed him, whiskey bottle in one hand, Jack’s face cupped in the other.

  “Finally,” I groaned, and Frankie whistled so loud I was sure Jack would wrench away and bolt. Mint turned to me, grinning, and opened his mouth to say something, but just then the music hit a crescendo, the bass vibrating through the floor, and Frankie yelled, “This is my favorite part!”

  Instead of speaking, Mint grabbed my hand and spun me, the black dress fanning out in a perfect circle. Out of the corner of my eye, I could see Caro laughing with Frankie; Jack and Heather finally pulling apart, their heads still close.

  “Where’s Coop?” I yelled, against the rising music.

  Mint turned and pointed to the back door, which led off the dance floor to a courtyard. “Where else?”

  I looked. Sure enough, there stood Coop, in the corner of the courtyard with two other guys. He was deep in conversation, listening to one of them talk. Absently, he pushed a hand through his hair, tucking it behind his ear. I watched a strand curl up rebelliously, but he didn’t seem to notice. Only me.

  Here I was, in the middle of a crowded party, in a private room of my own.

  But my looking pulled at him, and he turned.

  “Coop!” yelled Caro, jumping in time to the music, even as it sped. “Come dance with us!”

  “Don’t be a loser!” Heather yelled.

  Jack lifted his bottle. “We have whiskey!”

  “I’ll get naked again,” Frankie boomed. “If you ask nice.”

  Coop laughed and shook his head, turning back to his conversation. I took a deep breath and yelled, “Come on, Coop.”

  He turned and raised his brows. I raised mine. A challenge. Suddenly he was slapping one of the guys’ hands, passing something between them, and walking in the door, cutting across the dance floor. Caro and Frankie whooped; Jack grinned with the whiskey bottle outstretched. And inside me was a feeling I barely recognized, one I didn’t have words for. The closest might have been Look what I can do or Oh, what have I done.

  But Coop didn’t come to me. He walked straight to Caro, pushed past Frankie to grab her hand and spin her, making her laugh. The feeling inside me turned into an arrow—

  Mint seized me just as a boy burst from the foyer onto the dance floor, wearing our banner over his shoulders like a cape, and everyone jumped back, clapping. The song was climbing toward its climax, toward the top of the hill, and we were laughing, the seven of us, jumping, arms brushing. I could see their faces, shining in the dark. And I think I knew, even then, that it would never get better than this. I think some part of me could sense—even here in our triumph, in our wild, perfect beginning—the small seeds of our destruction.

  Chapter 6

  January, freshman year

  Terror and anticipation: the world’s most potent chemical cocktail. Before Bid Day, I’d never witnessed so many girls about to expire from it in my life. The basketball court in the gym was packed, wall to wall, with squirming, shaking freshmen, some talking a mile a minute, others deathly quiet. Caro and I represented both camps: she couldn’t shut up, and I couldn’t manage a word.

  “Do you think it’s true what they say, that the frats line up on their porches and yell at us as we run? Do you think it’s true they throw things? What if absolutely no one wants us and we fall straight to the bottom, land in AOD or something? What if
we don’t get Chi O?” Caro closed her eyes, breathing deeply. “It’ll be okay. Everything will be okay.”

  What if I didn’t get Chi O? That was the fear haunting me. But I would get in; I had to. Getting in would be like getting my forehead stamped with the words beautiful, popular, best, so everywhere I walked, people would know.

  Our Panhellenic leader handed Caro an envelope, then me.

  Heather scooted closer. “Excited?”

  “Uh-huh,” said Caro unconvincingly. I nodded, throat dry.

  “This is our social destiny, right here in our hands!” Heather tossed her envelope and laughed, as if it wasn’t weighted with a thousand pounds of expectations. Because of course. I was learning there wasn’t a second of her life Heather didn’t feel supremely confident. It was intoxicating, normally. Now, I felt a stab of envy.

  “All right, ladies,” the Panhellenic president called over the microphone. “The time is here. Open your envelopes; then you’re free to race to your new home on campus, where your sisters await you!”

  Across the gym, squeals and the sounds of tearing. I pulled at my envelope, but it resisted me.

  Next to me, Caro shrieked. “I got Kappa! Oh my God, Jess. I know it’s not Chi O, but I’m still excited!”

  I didn’t have time to console her. Screams and sobs echoed through the gym. I pulled harder, finally tearing the envelope in half, clutching the beautiful engraved card inside.

  Jessica Miller, we are excited to have you as a member of Kappa Kappa Gamma’s 2006 pledge class!

  Kappa? Though I was sitting, the ground beneath me spun. A sob tried to escape, but I held it back. I couldn’t cry here. I wouldn’t. I needed to get out before what was building inside me exploded.

  A shriek of happiness drew my attention to where Heather and Courtney jumped up and down together, their bridges long-since mended from Homecoming. “We’re roommates and Chi Os!” Heather crowed.

  They’d gotten in and I hadn’t. Heather and Courtney. The room tilted.