Kathryn laughed. So did Imogen. And as the alcohol started to buzz in her body she found she could almost forget the other things that had been troubling her, namely her parents and Sigma and Maddy. But just almost. Because right there, under the surface, was the truth:
She’d betrayed one of her first and best friends at Baldwin.
Yep, Imogen. Hypocrite all the way.
THIRTY-SIX
Completely unfair. Maddy threw her uneaten slice of pizza back into the box, next to the crusts left by the other rushees who’d crowded into the commons to watch old Friends episodes. Everybody else was dealing with the lockdown by pigging out, but she had no appetite at all. Nobody seemed to notice that Imogen was gone. Or if they did, nobody seemed to care. Even Alex, their rush counselor had pulled up a bean bag and was giggling like an idiot with absolutely no idea that one of her girls had snuck out.
Rachel came into the commons with her hair in a towel, and Maddy tried to hide behind a clump of girls crowded around the couch; she wasn’t in the mood to talk. Rachel checked the pizza box. When she saw there was nothing in it, she looked up.
“Hey!” she said. “Heard anything from Imogen?”
Maddy rolled her eyes “Why? Did she already get her bid or something?”
Rachel looked confused. “Why would she get a bid before everybody else?”
“I don’t know. She’s out somewhere. We’re stuck here. Nothing would surprise me at this point.”
“She told me she was going to a Beacon party.”
“I wonder if she’s really at the Beacon.”
Now it was Rachel’s turn to roll her eyes. “Where else would she be?”
“It’s just . . . don’t you think it’s a little weird that she gets to go out and the rest of us don’t?”
“She doesn’t get to do anything,” said Rachel. “She snuck out.”
“Right.” Maddy glanced pointedly over at Alex. “And conveniently, nobody seems to care.”
Rachel eyed Maddy suspiciously. “You’re not going to turn her in, are you? That wouldn’t be cool.”
“But it’s cool that she gets to run all over with no consequences whatsoever?”
“That’s her business. It doesn’t affect you.”
“I think it does.” Maddy looked around the room, at the girls who had no idea what was really going on, and decided enough was enough. It was time for girls like her to stand up and demand a change.
“I’m going to bed,” she told Rachel. She went back to her room, but instead of changing into her pajamas she put on a black T-shirt and shorts. Back in the commons, she was relieved to see that Rachel had left; she’d probably gone to bed, too.
“I’m just running down to the front desk,” Maddy told Alex. “Forgot to check my mail.”
Safely inside the elevator, she bounced up and down, trying to work out the excess adrenaline. She’d never done anything like this before—it made her dizzy and super aware of everything around her. When the elevator reached the lobby she walked out quickly, going straight to the front door like she had every right to be headed outside. Her back tingled as she pushed open the glass and stepped into the night. She expected a counselor to call her name or grab her shoulder and demand to know where she was going. She’d gotten halfway down the front walk before it hit her that nobody had even seemed to notice she was gone.
The night air was damp and cool as Maddy started off for the Sigma house.
THIRTY-SEVEN
“You’re late,” said Leo, transferring a tray of Jell-O shots from his shoulder to Cass’s.
Cass steadied the tray with one hand and picked up a bottle of beer with the other, ignoring a drunk frat boy who was demanding another round of Jägermeisters. “I told you I’d be here, and I’m here. It just took me longer to get away than I thought it would.”
“Well, thank God you did,” said Leo “If you’d been any later, I think my dad might have had a stroke.”
“Sweet Baby Jesus, who knew this band was so popular?” Mr. Delaney shouted as he passed by with both fists full of debit cards. The Headless Denvers had taken a break, which had brought a huge rush of drink orders. “If I can make it through tonight, I just might be able to retire!”
Cass chuckled, thankful to Leo’s dad for lightening the mood. She’d hoped things would be a little less tense with Leo, but the air between them was thick from the moment she’d walked into the bar.
“I think the whole school came back to town today,” she said as she surveyed the room. An impressive mix of people had come out for the show, from hipsters and drama geeks to jocks and sorority girls, with even more people lined up outside keeping Jack the bouncer on his toes. From the looks of things, the Sigmas were the only sorority that had been put on lockdown. Even the Beta Phis were out, with a full contingent at the other end of the bar. They’d already gotten busted for dirty rushing so they’d probably decided there was no reason not to go out and have fun.
“Hey, Cass!” The familiar voice came from a table by the wall. It was Jenn Sheets, a fellow voice major and one of the people Cass had been sorry to miss the other night. Cass hurried over to hug her, stumbling in the crowd and almost tripping over none other than the more-beautiful-in-person Mia Lancaster. She was impossible to miss, and the pain of seeing her with Leo returned like a smack to the face.
“Cass, this is Mia,” Jenn said. “She’s a musical theater composition major.”
“Oh,” said Cass. Composition was a new thing that year—a program for people who wanted to write musicals. It sounded cool and creative. And it only made Mia more intimidating.
Cass said as friendly a hello as she could manage and explained that she was working so it wouldn’t look rude if she didn’t stay to chat. Soon she would figure out how to watch Leo with other girls without feeling like she’d lost something that would take a long, painful time to replace. But it wasn’t tonight.
“What’s the matter,” Leo asked when Cass returned to the bar.
“Nothing.” She picked up the tray of drinks Mr. Delaney had shoved at her.
“You can go hang out with Jenn and those guys some more if you want. We’re busy but I know you haven’t gotten to see them yet.”
“No, it’s okay.”
“Or, if you’d rather go back to your sorority sisters, I can manage.”
Cass had finally had enough. Where had her fun, fiercely loyal best friend gone? She didn’t know what she planned to do about Sigma, but even if she left she wasn’t sure it would fix whatever was happening between them. Her lovesick heart had had all it could take.
“Can you just stop?” she said. “I don’t want to go back to the sorority. If you want to go hang out with your new girlfriend, I can take over here.”
“Girlfriend?” Leo looked confused. “Who, Jenn?”
“I hope not Jenn. Considering she doesn’t like boys.”
“Mia?”
Cass shrugged. “You guys looked pretty cozy all over Instagram the other night.”
“Yeah, because I’m doing the set design for a show she’s writing. Is that what you think? That I’m hooking up with Mia?”
Cass looked into the brown eyes she’d always known and trusted. Leo looked back with an expression that seemed to be wondering whether he could trust her.
“I don’t know what to think anymore,” she said, finally. “You come back after your fabulous summer away, and suddenly nothing I do is right. My Sigma stuff didn’t matter this much to you last year.”
“Last year was different.”
“How?”
“It just was. You’re one of those pretty white-dressed sorority girls now. What are you doing still hanging around a guy like me?”
“A guy like you has everybody lining up to hang out with him.”
Leo shook his head with a look that told her to get real. “Remember in high school? There was a whole group of people who were just sort of off-limits. I’d joke around with them, they’d tolerate me, but all they
really saw was a tattooed geek with a decent sense of humor—a stereotype. There was a line. Nobody had to draw it because we all just knew it was there. Now you’re crossing it.”
“You hate being stereotyped, but you’re doing it, too,” Cass said. “And the fact that you think I’d cross some stupid imaginary line is insulting. It shows how little you know me. How little you notice.”
“I notice more than you think.”
“That’s bull,” Cass shot back. “Because if you don’t know by now how I feel about you, then you’re the blindest, most ignorant ass there is.”
“Hey, you kids!” came a voice from across the bar. It was Mr. Delaney with three longnecks in each hand. “Are you working or falling in love over there? I need help!”
They stood looking at each other, Leo for once at a loss for words. Cass sniffed, fighting back tears. “This tray is stupid heavy.”
“Deliver those,” Leo said, nodding at the drinks on the tray. “Then go warm up the crowd before the band comes back.”
She dropped off the drinks, dodging the drunk frat guy, who’d decided that instead of Jägermeister he’d rather have a handful of her ass. Then she took off her apron and waded over to the empty stage. A wave of excitement rippled up as she hoisted herself onto the platform, but when people realized it was just her and not the Headless Denvers starting a new set, most of them went back to their drinks. Only those closest to the stage continued to pay attention.
She picked up the guitar left by the Denvers’ lead singer, strummed a couple of chords, and tried to think of what to sing. An old ballad bubbled up out of her heartache. It was one of Mr. Delaney’s favorites, and it put to words what Cass feared the most. It didn’t matter if no one else listened. The song was for Leo.
Aye fond kiss and then we sever,
Aye farewell, alas, forever . . .
As she sang, she watched people from around the room stop their conversations to listen. It was like opening a part of herself that she’d sealed tight and forgotten. This was where she belonged. Onstage she didn’t care who her friends were, what she looked like, or whether she had some special sorority seal of approval. When Cass Ryland sang, no one could ever call her subpar.
Jenn stood up from the table by the wall, put her fingers in her mouth and whistled while the others waved their arms back and forth in time to the song. When she finished, everybody burst into applause.
“When are you getting your own night?” a girl asked as she came down from the stage. “I’d come out just to hear you.”
“Ask Mr. Delaney,” Cass answered. “Right now I only serve the drinks.”
And it was a good thing she did because back at the bar, Leo was lost in his thoughts, one hand resting on the lid of a neglected blender of what appeared to be margaritas.
“You’re getting behind on the orders,” said Cass. She stepped in front of the machine and started blending while Leo continued to watch her. “What do we need?”
“One white Russian, two appletinis, and one nuclear kamikaze.”
“A what?” Cass threw her hands up in frustration. “I don’t even . . .”
“I’ll make it. It’s for your friend Jäger boy. I could make him a hot fudge sundae with whipped cream and he’d never know the difference.”
They worked side by side, Cass still battling an enormous urge to cry. Her emotions had been so close to the surface all week that she worried about turning into the weeping barmaid, getting tears in everybody’s beer.
“You were amazing up there,” Leo said as he salted the margarita glasses. “As always. Sorry if I’ve been a dick lately. I just really missed you this week.”
“Well from now on I’ll be around more,” said Cass. “’Cause it turns out you were right. I’m pretty much miserable at Sigma. Tick-tick boom.” She made her fingers do a halfhearted starburst. “Happy?”
“It doesn’t make me happy to see you miserable.”
“But here’s something you will like. I almost brought the system down from the inside. I tried to lead a mini-revolution. But it didn’t take.”
Leo smiled, a truly adorable smile that brought out the dimple in his cheek and made his brown eyes crinkle at the edges. Cass had missed that smile. So much.
“You know what?” he said. “If it means that much, maybe it’s not something you should just quit.”
“Am I hearing correctly? I thought you hated all things Greek.”
“I hate anything that might take you away from me,” Leo admitted. “I think I really might be a dick in that regard.”
“You’re not a dick. And the sorority isn’t taking me away.”
“Not yet,” said Leo.
“Not ever.”
“Hey!” someone shouted. “Where’s my Irish car bomb?”
Cass blushed as Leo hurried to pour his margaritas. “Okay then,” he said. “Let’s divide and conquer. I’ll take this end of the bar; you take the other end.”
It didn’t take long to realize that Leo had gotten the better end of the bargain. A group of Delta Zetas and some guys in lacrosse jackets had camped out where the bar curved into the wall. Delta Zetas were just under Beta Phis in the Greek hierarchy, and they were known for partying hard. One of them seemed hell-bent on taking that reputation to a whole new level as she lolled on her barstool, slurring her speech. She and her friends ordered daiquiris without even glancing in Cass’s direction, which probably should have bugged Cass but actually suited her just fine. That was one perk of not looking much like a sorority girl, no matter what Leo said: most of the time she didn’t even rate a sizing up.
She bent over to get the strawberry mix out of the mini-fridge and heard, “So what about Courtney and Aimee? Where are they?”
“All the Sigmas are locked in. Just like the rushees.”
Cass stiffened. She kept her head down, pretending to rummage while she strained to hear the rest of the conversation.
“So who’s the latest?” Drunk Girl said.
“Some girl named Madeleine Christopher. Just got a text from Courtney that it’s done over at Sigma.”
“We axed her, too,” came another voice.
“Mu Phi Alpha’s still voting—I’m texting them now.”
“Major waterworks at the dorm tomorrow,” Drunk Girl said with a giggle. “Imagine opening up your bids and finding out, oops! You don’t have any.”
The other girls laughed. Cass sloshed some daiquiri mix and rum together and plopped the glasses onto the bar. Then she rushed back to the other end and grabbed Leo by his shirt.
“Leo! Switch with me!”
“What?” he said. “Why?”
“I think my mini-revolution might be back on. See those girls over there?” Cass pointed. “Go talk to them and see if you can get in on what they’re doing.”
Leo observed the Delta Zetas and wrinkled his nose. “No offense, but I don’t really think I want to get in on whatever they’re doing.”
“I don’t mean it that way!” Cass smacked him in the arm. “They’re up to something with rush, I’m positive. If you want to stand up to all those stereotypes, then this is your chance.”
Leo considered this. Cass could see the spark lighting in his eyes.
“For the revolution?” he said.
“For the revolution.”
He headed over to where the Delta Zetas sat, and she waited, trying to distract herself by seeing how many orders she could remember at once. The job got a lot easier when the band came back and people rushed the stage. Half of the barstools went empty, giving her a chance to get caught up with empties and to think. She remembered high school—the way Leo flitted from group to group but always came back to her. The way they’d shared a world almost all to themselves. Cass had never imagined that, under all his confident easiness, he might actually be afraid of losing her.
Leo came back as she was loading glasses into the dishwasher.
“Those girls are totally wasted,” he said.
“That’s
all you’ve got?” Cass wiped her hands on her apron. “Tell me something I don’t know.”
“How about this?” He held up an iPhone in a hot-pink case.
“What is it?” Cass grabbed the phone from his hand.
“Don’t touch anything!” He snatched the phone back, checked the screen, and sighed with relief that nothing had been disturbed. “One girl just walked away and left this on the bar. Right in the middle of a text-a-thon, apparently. You’ll probably want to read the whole conversation, but there are a couple I thought you’d find especially interesting. Isn’t there a girl in your house named Courtney Mann?”
When Cass realized what Leo was saying she took the phone again and started scrolling through a text conversation that looked like it had been going on for the past several days. Her heart beat faster when Courtney’s name appeared.
Courtney Mann
Victim #1: Rachel Morgan—STW
STW apparently stood for “spread the word” because that’s just what happened, until the various recipients started sending messages confirming that Rachel Morgan had been cut from their houses, too.
On it went, day after day, with other girls tossing in names of rushees they didn’t like. The net effect was a giant digital blackball pool. Not only would the rushees in question not get bids at the houses where someone didn’t like them, they also would get cut from a ton of other houses, too.
Cass scrolled forward until the posts were from Pref Night. And there it was:
Courtney Mann
Madeleine Christopher—STW
Cass looked up at Leo while her brain processed what she’d just discovered.
“I have to show this to Delia . . . I mean, the house president. She didn’t believe me when I told her this was going on . . .”
She was gasping, trying to get the words out as she tugged the strings of her apron. One hand struggled to undo the knot, while the other one gripped the iPhone like the precious proof it was.
Leo met her at the end of the bar. He took off her apron and tossed it over his shoulder.
“I’ll finish up here,” he told her. “You go. Be the change!”
Rush Page 20