Greek: Best Frenemies

by Marsha Warner

  “So there’s a term for it now?”

  Casey threw the pillow across the room in disgust. “What do you want from me, and so early in the morning? They’re working hard on your behalf. I thought you liked being popular and fawned over.”

  “To a point!”

  Casey climbed out of bed. “At least you’re being honest. So, what do you want me to do?”

  “Tell them they have to leave me alone for five minutes. And they cannot ‘shadow’ me to class, even if there will be Omega Chi guys there. I don’t need my virtue protected.”

  “No, it’s way too late for that,” Casey couldn’t help but say. “Wait, what? Virtue?”

  “Sorry, I’m taking a class on Jane Austen. The nineteenth century gobbledygook is getting to me.”

  “How very appropriate, though. The protection of virtue. Or the illusion of it.”

  “Don’t give them any ideas!” Rebecca was still incensed, and Casey was realizing that there was nothing she could do about it. She waited for Rebecca to leave (which she eventually did, to Casey’s relief), got dressed and made her way down to the dining room, only to be waylaid in the hallway by Abby, who was overflowing with ideas for the parade.

  “What did I say?” Casey reminded the pledge. “No signs, no posters, no T-shirts. Unless they’re just for color-coordination. And even then—nothing on the T-shirts. And no wet T-shirts. This is a sweetheart competition. It’s about dignity…sort of.”

  “No, no, that’s not what it’s about at all!” Abby wasn’t angry so much as hyper, as if she’d snorted sugar for breakfast. “They won’t know it’s a parade.”

  “They?”

  “The Omega Chis, duh. But they have places they hang out, right? Outside the house?”

  “Yes, I hear they occasionally go to class.”

  “So we’ve got three people willing to follow—excuse me, shadow—guys so we know their hot spots, and then Rebecca goes around casually, totally disinterested but in a polite kind of way, and hits all the spots. Like, she just happens to run into them. In a good way. With some ZBZ sisters? Or not? Your call.”

  “That could work, maybe.” Casey sensed she might have to clear this one with Rebecca first. She also sensed if she didn’t start nodding her head and smiling at Abby, she might starve to death before she saw the breakfast table. “But first, nutrients. Excuse me.”

  Casey took her regular place next to Ashleigh, who seemed to be in a Zen mode despite the hubbub. That or she was just really focused on her eggs. “What? I need protein,” she said in reply to Casey’s stare. “I thought you’d be the first person up. Unless it was a late night with Cappie.”

  “Never quote me on this, and if you do I’ll deny that I said it, but I may regret not staying over at the KT house last night,” Casey said. “Not that all this activity isn’t encouraging, especially so early in the morning.”

  “It’s Wednesday. That’s four days to win over the Omega Chis, and not even that because everyone knows they really make their decision ahead of Saturday night. Hell, they could have made it already. I could be behind on my midterm paper for nothing. Though to be honest, the status of the paper and the sweetheart competition might not have anything to do with each other.”

  “It’s a convenient excuse. And it’s true! You are busy. We’re all busy. I feel guilty for sleeping in. Though since when was 10:00 a.m. sleeping in? I guess since we have four days to convince them of something they’re probably already thoroughly convinced of.”

  “Rebecca is kind of a shoo-in. With Evan. And also being awesome and not from a gap year. Oh no, did I just say that out loud? Because we’re not in a gap year. Not yet.” Casey and Ashleigh were almost convinced that they were heading into the slump of gap years and that the current freshman pledges would not inherit as awesome a house as Casey and Ashleigh had joined three years before. Hence they were determined to win anything and everything, including sweetheart, which could only be good for Rebecca, who would be a junior next year. When Casey was a junior, ZBZ was arguably at its height, before the various scandals during Frannie’s term and the pledges walking out to form a new sorority. No wonder they were fourth-ish. Rebecca was Casey’s Little Sister, and she deserved better.

  Speaking of Rebecca, Casey found her sulking in the corner, avoiding her ardent admirers. It was not behavior befitting someone up for the highest honor Omega Chi could give a sister, and it did not make Casey happy. “Hey.”

  “Hey.” Rebecca just picked at her fruit plate.

  “Hey, only another four days.”

  “Four days of parading myself around like a tramp? Not having a minute to myself?”

  Casey rolled her eyes. “Yes. Only four days. Which is not a long time, really, considering what this is going to get you.”

  “And what is this going to get me?” Rebecca seethed. “The implicit understanding that I was the best suck-up, maybe literally, of all the sorority sisters on campus?”

  “This isn’t just about being sweetheart. If you’re president, or even if you’re not, you will be the face of ZBZ next year. No one stands out like you do. That’s why you were nominated, not because you’re going out with Evan or because you’ve got a ticker-tape parade about to go off in your honor if we only had ticker tape and even less self-restraint. Ashleigh and I won’t be here next year, but it doesn’t mean we’ve already given up caring about the house. You’re my Little Sister, and you’re going to be the face of ZBZ.”

  “And why is that? Because I’m your creation? Because you want your own personal mini-me?” Rebecca challenged.

  “Rebecca, you are like, the most competent, intelligent and loyal active in the house. You stuck through the first Frannie scandal. You went undercover at IKI house. You’re pretty much the reason we won a lot of contests over the past two years—and you would be a great president. That is, if you can manage it. And…maybe manage one event this afternoon.”

  Rebecca raised an eyebrow. What Casey had said actually meant a lot to her, but she wasn’t about to give her the satisfaction of knowing that her speech just might have won her over.

  “For the record, I plan on hating you forever for this,” Rebecca whispered to Casey, her fake smile unbroken as she spoke and kept her eyes straight ahead.

  “There are only so many times you can say that before I stop taking it seriously, and most of them happened your freshman year,” Casey said, standing beside her in a show of unity, strength, friendship, sisterhood and possibly because Rebecca would find some reason to flee if she didn’t. “Are you ready?”

  “I’m sensing saying ‘no’ is not an option,” Rebecca said as she put an extra oomph into her smile and stepped forward to greet the hungry masses—or at least those the greeter saw fit to let pass the ribbon gates around the tables. The campus lawn was set with beautiful tables and folding chairs, and each table had a three-tiered serving tray of tiny crumpets, scones and other pastries that weren’t part of the normal diet of someone on the campus meal plan. The Omega Chis were invited, of course, but this was a grand tea party put on by the grand hostess, Rebecca Logan, and excluded no one who remembered to wear a jacket, no matter how stained or mismatched. They were gentlemen and she was a lady hosting a refined event, or so Abby’s fliers said, in so many words. The other ZBZs acted as servers or companions at the tables, but she was the main event at her table on the dais.

  “It is so nice to see someone of refinement bring a bit of culture to our campus,” Dean Kessin said in her appearance at the bell ring to officially start the high tea. “Oh! Are those tart cakes?” That distracted her away from the main table, at least.

  “Be nice,” Ashleigh warned at the dark look that passed over Rebecca’s face. “She gave us the permit to use the lawn.”

  “She would give a permit to Scientologists if they said they were a student group.”

  “No nastiness!” Casey said, perhaps louder than she should have but still barely above a whisper. “The pledges have been doing the
work for you. You have to show up to at least one event in your honor.”

  Rebecca sent her a stare that would bruise fruit. And possibly puppies.

  “It proves you can hang out with the plebs,” Ashleigh said.

  “I think the fact that we’re calling them that negates like, half of it, but yeah. And look, the Omegas!” Casey tried to sound excited when they arrived at the greeting table. Unfortunately, neither of them were Evan.

  “We’re here to be served,” they said. They looked like pledges.

  “The hostess doesn’t serve. She snaps,” Rebecca said in a surprisingly neutral voice. And she was very good at snapping her fingers for the server to appear. “And what can I get for you two fine gentlemen? Green tea with a hint of cinnamon?”

  From the looks on their faces, that option did not sound appealing, and Rebecca smiled now out of joy. She made them drink it, too, even if green tea didn’t go with cinnamon, before they could proceed to the next table. Maybe something good would come of it, even if it was watching fraternity pledges choke down something possibly good for them while trying to keep their pinky fingers aloft. The others were not quite as fun—the actual tea aficionados, who complained about the bitter aftertaste and tried to guess the brand, or the guys who wolfed down scones in a manner that made her never want to eat a scone again and the endless parade of people asking the question, “And what is this for?”

  She evaded the answer by offering more scones because the real reason was still too humiliating. The only relief from the agonizing four hours of high tea (which was far too long for high tea, two Victorian England–obsessed history majors informed her after telling her that leaving her hair uncovered was also inappropriate and she should be wearing a bonnet) was Evan’s appearance. “Sorry Calvin couldn’t make it. He has class. Am I supposed to bow?”

  “This is tea on the green, not Pride and Prejudice,” she assured him. Casey and Ashleigh were working the other tables and Abby was chatting up the wandering Omegas. “Just grab some scones. The chocolate-chip ones are the least vile, but they’re all pretty stale at this point.”

  Evan politely bit into one. “I like ’em hard. My teeth need the exercise.”

  “This is humiliating.”

  “I don’t know. I think for a sweetheart-propaganda thing, this is pretty classy.”

  “So the wet T-shirt contest at Tri-Pi wasn’t classy?”

  “There were no pinky fingers raised,” he said, actually sipping his tea. “Maybe some other things, but not fingers.”

  “Nice.”

  “Guys are guys. And girls are…very obliging when they want to be.”

  She glared at him.

  “It didn’t win them many points,” Evan said. “Maybe in general, but not for sweetheart. Does that make you feel better?”

  “The bell for six o’clock will make me feel a lot better,” Rebecca said.

  He raised his glass in acknowledgment before vacating his seat. “I’ll see you at 6:01, then.” At least he knew when to avoid her wrath—which was more than she could say of the guys approaching her with Watchtower pamphlets in their hands.

  “Welcome,” she said, gritting her teeth. We take all kinds, she thought. And Abby is a dead woman for letting them in.

  Despite the multitude of pledges available, Calvin found himself answering the door and returning to the living room as people were settling down for the meeting. “Who ordered the pizza?”

  “What kind?”

  “Let me see.” He opened it up to reveal a giant cookie the size of a pizza but in the shape of a heart, with red icing. “The new Domino’s suck-up special. Who likes cookie?”

  The Omega Chis groaned, and Calvin put it on the ever-growing pile of gift baskets, cards and other things bestowed upon them by some not-so-subtle candidates. No one was keeping track of who gave what at this point, making the entire exercise irrelevant. It did make their living room a lot more…red. The balloons did an especially good job of livening up the place. If they were KTs, they might throw a party just to get rid of all of this stuff. In fact, Calvin was leaving the option on the table, especially with four days to go. “Did we get anything interesting today?”

  “I got a ring,” Marco said. “The real thing, too. Not from a cereal box. I haven’t put it on yet in case it turns me invisible.”

  “From Shelly?”

  “No, Stephanie from Tri-Pi.”

  “Wow, that came out of left field,” Trip said. Marco was Shelly’s more stalwart defender, not Stephanie’s. Of course, all was fair in the sweetheart competition. “Was anyone getting the feeling they’re being followed?”

  “Specifically by ZBZs, yeah,” Trip said and glared at Evan.

  “How is this my fault?” Evan said. “They wouldn’t do something to hurt their chances. They’re not that stupid.”

  “How do you know?”

  “Just the way that everyone knows. Standard sorority stuff. I’ve seen it four times now,” Evan said with the authority of a senior. “So we’ve got some overeager sorority girls following us. Not the end of the world. And they’ll go away Sunday morning.”

  “Was the contest this bad last year? Because I don’t remember it being this crazy,” Grant asked.

  The general consensus seemed to be that things were ramped up this year. First there was Rebecca, who wasn’t exactly universally sweet, even if she was hot, and ZBZ had dropped significantly in the rankings after blowing off Omega Chi and losing half their pledges during the initiation ceremony to a new sorority, which had then failed.

  Gamma Psi had Natalie, a strong contender, and that would have been enough if they weren’t going full-out for the pity vote for their house burning down thanks to a stray candle no one could remember leaving lit. They were still scattered across campus, stuck in freshman dorms and some off-campus housing, but they were campaigning hard for sweetheart, in spite of, or perhaps because of, the disaster.

  Tri-Pi was up to their usual tricks, which included rather flirtatious offers in exchange for votes, but they wouldn’t be Omega Chi if they accepted. Just offering couldn’t disqualify the house, or Tri-Pi would never have made it to the final ceremony every year, but a brother’s vote could be voided if anyone found out he sold it for any reason, sexual or otherwise.

  Beta Theta Tau, after their strong showing in the dance competition, was definitely in contention. There was blood in the water, and it was coming from ZBZ. ZBZ had been knocked off the top and someone had to replace them. Nature abhorred a vacuum. BTT hadn’t lost their house or embarrassed themselves, but Shelly wasn’t winning many people over with her clips from the ballet. They were still guys after all, no matter how many pink-and-red balloons currently lived on their ceiling.

  So ZBZ still had a shot, and the whole house was behind their sophomore nominee, Rebecca. Evan suspected Casey had a large part in it, if only for the sake of the house. There was no love lost between Casey and Rebecca, Evan knew (having once been between them, sleeping with both), but Casey cared about the house more than anyone he could think of cared about his or her house. Besides, Rebecca was her Little Sister. Rebecca was Casey’s legacy. Casey wouldn’t rest until that legacy was in place at the top, whether Rebecca wanted it or not.

  “I do not appreciate being stalked by ZBZs,” Trip said. “I don’t think anyone does.”

  “Assuming you’re not imagining things,” Evan replied. “Or it’s not another house. Or all the houses. They’re definitely going over the top this year.”

  “What, you think it was easier when ZBZ was on top and we all voted for their sweetheart and that was it?”

  “You are actually making it sound easier,” Grant said. “That sounds way easier.”

  “Hey, it’s not Gamma Psi’s fault their house burned down,” Marco said. “And they get the pity vote for it. It’s just a fact of life.”

  “We don’t know it’s not their fault. Who leaves a candle burning in the living room, even a scented candle?”

 
“Pledge, out of line,” Evan said. “They did not burn their house down for the pity vote. They did not burn down their house for any reason.”

  “Insurance?” Grant said, then ducked. “Kidding, kidding! Jeez, we’re surrounded by aromatherapy baskets and perfume and everyone’s still so tense.”

  “Grant, you’re leaving yourself wide open with that one,” Brandon said.

  “Hey, he can comment on perfume and have it not be gay,” Calvin said, suddenly furious and eager to come to his boyfriend’s defense.

  “Yeah, um, there sure is a lot of perfume in the room. How about that?” Evan said diplomatically. “And beautiful flowers. Some of which I think are fake but scented. Good fakes. Do I have to go into how much I like body salts before you’ll sit down and respect your brothers?” he said to Brandon. “Good, because I’d be lying. They’re weird. Salt belongs on steak.”

  “Mmm, steak. Why didn’t they give us any of that? Why is it all candy and cookies? Do we ever eat this crap? We give it to girls, not the other way around,” J.P. said. “I could go for a porterhouse, even those mail-order ones. Or there’s that place in town that does delivery. Does anyone want to loudly drop that hint while being stalked by ZBZ?”

  “Seconded,” Trip said.

  “Hell, third-ed,” Calvin said. He looked to Evan, who just looked exhausted.

  Evan rubbed his eyes. “Fine. Anyone is welcome to talk loudly about steak in front of any sorority sisters, but don’t expect anything. And don’t ask for anything. Be subtle about it. You know, to the best of your abilities.” He cleared his throat. “Moving right along, so we can get to dinner. Anyone we can rule out? Feelings one way or the other?”

  “I still like Shelly, tutu and all,” Marco said. “She’s wholesome. And she hasn’t done anything too embarrassing yet.”

  “Noted.”

  “I think the ZBZs are being really obnoxious,” Trip said.

  “For the last time, you don’t know about the stalking thing.”

  “I do. I know when I’m being followed. And it wasn’t Rebecca anyway, it was her flunkies. I’m saying, it’s not very sweethearty to send people after us.”