“Yeah.”
“Have you talked to her?”
“She’s been avoiding me.”
“Well, as long as we’re keeping everything we say to this room—”
“Yes.”
“Between you, me and the bodiless Cuban revolutionary, I did speak to Rebecca on this subject.”
Casey perked up. “What did she say?”
“In answer to the direct question? She’s not sure. Or, she wasn’t when I spoke to her, and that was all she was willing to admit. This is big for her, and not just because of ZBZ. Political campaigns, they have all these connotations for her, because of her father. And because she doesn’t like anyone making decisions for her. I mean, I even try suggesting the name of a movie to see and she has to come up with an alternate one, I think for the sake of it.”
“How did you respond?”
“I told her that people were depending on her, so she should come to a decision, and she sounded annoyed that she was being walked all over by the pledge committee or whatever you have going at ZBZ. She seems to think it’s degrading.”
Casey swallowed. Evan had no reason to lie. He did have a reason to look out for Rebecca, though. “And?”
“And I reminded her that there were three other girls who really, really wanted it, and that if she dropped out, she would eventually be forgiven. Maybe not right away, but you’d find another contest to focus on. No offense.”
“None taken.” And it was certainly true. It would be disappointing, but no one would dare bring it up in front of Rebecca. And if she did drop out instead of losing, she could no doubt find a very good reason for it and get the sisters behind her. Even if she claimed she wanted nothing to do with politics, she was very good at leading people. If nothing else, last year’s presidential elections had proved that. “So…”
“So talk to Rebecca. And put it into perspective that it is not a huge deal, or it shouldn’t be. We let it get out of hand.”
“But you’re not going to stop the competition.”
“Of course not. It’s a sacred tradition, but it shouldn’t define someone. I’m not shutting it down, and I don’t think I would have the support within the house even if I tried, but I wouldn’t object to taking it down a notch. And I don’t think the brothers would object, either.”
“Yeah, we definitely need to calm down. And I need to talk to Rebecca.”
Even nodded. “I agree.” He rocked the head of Che back and forth. “But you might have better luck with the Cuban Revolutionary Army.”
Confronting Rebecca was no mean feat, so Casey was a little relieved when she couldn’t immediately find her, delaying the conversation just a little bit longer. Some of the sisters were at class, but those who were around were busying themselves writing cards, arranging gift baskets or complaining to poor Dale the hasher about the coloring of his latest batch of cookies. None of them knew where Rebecca was.
“How could she abandon us?” Abby said, only half joking. “I mean, if she’s at class that’s one thing—or maybe she’s following some Omega Chis around?”
“I’m sure she’s…doing whatever is appropriate for a sweetheart to do,” Casey said in Rebecca’s defense.
After a thorough search of the house, Casey decided to give up, at least for the moment, and entered her room. She jumped at seeing not Ashleigh on Ashleigh’s bed but Rebecca, a chemistry book in her lap.
“You scream, you die. You know I can make it happen,” Rebecca said, and Casey nodded and shut the door. “I was using the student center but this pledge found me. I can’t have peace and quiet anywhere.”
“Except in my room?”
“Unless you’re going to talk to me about being sweetheart. Which it looks like you are. I wonder if they keep those old sewage tunnels under the administration building open.” She closed her book and leaped up to leave, but Casey put a hand up to stop her.
“Look, I just want to talk to you, in some kind of meaningful fashion. And I need to apologize.”
“For completely ignoring both my opinion and my dignity? Or for letting pledges run my life in your all-consuming quest to not remain a lame sorority.”
“That. And, other things. Mostly the not listening to you part.” She sat down on her own bed, and fortunately, Rebecca followed, sitting across from her but looking very skeptical. Then again, she always looked like that. “I know this competition has gotten completely out of control. Which is not entirely my fault—”
“You did cover up our burning down the Gamma Psi house, earning them the pity vote.”
“And you actually caused the house to burn down, Rebecca. But you shouldn’t have to be bullied into something you don’t want to do. So, I’m sorry.” Rebecca registered very little response, but Casey didn’t expect a huge, gushing reply. Not from Rebecca. “So, I want to ask you, and please answer this honestly—do you want to be the Omega Chi sweetheart?”
“Do you mean, do I want them to choose me based on some seemingly arbitrary system of merits, or do I want to be paraded around like a spectacle for all to behold?”
“Either. Or, better yet, both. I’m asking both questions.”
“To answer the second question,” Rebecca said, “the answer is no, I’d like to maintain some semblance of dignity.
“And the first question?”
“Well, we’ve kind of lost sight of that, now haven’t we?” Rebecca said. “Do I care that much? No, much less than I’m supposed to. Would it be nice to be acknowledged for the awesome person I am? Yes.”
“I need a straight answer, Rebecca.”
“Did you really expect one?”
It seemed Rebecca hadn’t truly made up her mind, and Casey reminded herself that it wasn’t her business to make it up for her. “Look, you’re my Little Sister. That means I’m obligated to make this fun for you.”
“Oh, I’m glad you feel that it’s an obligation.”
Casey couldn’t help but roll her eyes. “What do you want to do? Aside from call off the pledge committee? Throw the contest? Nominate someone else? Because I’m not sure if we can do that, but I suspect the Omega Chis might be up for anything at this point.”
Rebecca picked her head up. “You’re actually suggesting I throw the contest?”
“First of all, I think if we don’t do something, the pledges are going to do it anyway by annoying the living daylights out of the Omega Chis. Unless the pledges for the other three sororities are doing the same thing, in which case we’re out of our depth here.
“Second, this is about you. If you don’t want to be a sweetheart, I can’t make you be a sweetheart. And I shouldn’t have made you be. You don’t have to be sweet if you don’t want to be.”
Rebecca considered this. “Look, I know I can seem super-independent, but the truth is…the house matters to me. And I don’t want to put up with what this house will put me through if I drop out. That’s why I’m not dropping out. And because I’m not a quitter. Even if it means sacrificing my dignity.”
“Which we’re already addressing.”
“Which we’re already addressing. So no more muffins.”
“Except if we eat them. Which, red food coloring, gross.”
“It’s not a natural color for baked goods,” Rebecca agreed.
“People did get on board last time we snubbed the Omegas for the Lambda Sigs, but I don’t know if they’ll be willing to do that again, especially after what it did to the house standing.”
“At least our house is still standing.”
“And yes, I would like to get through one conversation without an arson reference. The point is, you could get people excited about snubbing the contest if you wanted to.”
“An object in motion is more likely to stay in motion than to flip around. Anyway, the point is I’m not changing horses in midsteam. Oh, my God, did I just use an awful old-timey political ad-campaign slogan?”
Casey giggled. “Maybe.”
“Then this is already a disaster if
that’s what I’ve devolved into, but I’m not willing to lead people away from it. Too much work. Just tell Ashleigh to tell them to tone it down. Come up with some rules reason, like they can devote only so many hours to the contest or be disqualified. Who reads the rules? I don’t think Omega Chi even makes them public.”
“Okay, can do. But what about the actual contest?”
“I have to give a speech on Saturday, right? It can be anything I want?”
“Aside from racial slurs and demonic incantations, yes, I think so. I totally trashed Frannie in my speech, yet somehow this made me sweetheart. You can get up there and make fun of the Gamma Psis for being houseless if you want, but I don’t recommend it.”
“Too obvious. But whatever I decide to do, will you support it? Support me?” Rebecca met Casey’s eyes, and it was the first hint of vulnerability Casey had seen in her during this entire sweetheart debacle.
Casey bit her lip. “Yes. Whatever you do, I’ll support it.” Just don’t make me regret it, she thought.
Ashleigh took the news incredibly well. “That’s so awesome!” was precisely what she said, seemingly more relieved that Rebecca was speaking to someone in the house again, especially Casey. It was not hard to get all of the ZBZs together for a special house meeting on the sweetheart contest. Ashleigh stood at the podium, but instead of slinking off to the corner with her head hunched, Rebecca was actually next to her and Casey on the other side.
“ZBZ has decided to go in a new direction with the sweetheart campaign,” Ashleigh said.
“It seems that all the other houses have copied our great ideas to the point where the Omega Chis are becoming disillusioned, which is the last thing we want. Instead, we’re going to be graceful and polite and…understated,” Casey said. “Yes, it means less baking and cards. And gift baskets. But I assure you, as a ZBZ sister, you will have plenty of opportunities in the future for the making of gift baskets and the receiving of gift baskets. We’re just asking you to hold off until after the competition ends.” She saw Abby preemptively raising her hand. “Yes, Abby.”
“How can we drop out of the race now and let the other houses leave us in the dust? What if they forget about us because we’re not campaigning?”
Casey had a prepared response for that. “First of all, this competition is about Rebecca, not us, and though her being crowned sweetheart would be good for the house, we put our sisters before misters. Remember?” It was what a very old woman in a walker told them during Founder’s Weekend, while going on about how many men she’d slept with in her youth in college. “Second, we—meaning Rebecca—are not dropping out. We’re just pulling back on some of our overly exuberant displays. Guys are not won over with cards and balloons, and the way to a guy’s heart may be through his stomach, but I’m sure their stomachs are all full at this point if they’ve been eating what we’ve been sending them, much less what the other three houses have been baking. And no more following the Omegas around campus. We’re coming off like stalkers, and nobody likes stalkers. Now, I know we’ve all been well-intentioned, but sometimes men have trouble understanding our intentions, so this shift in policy is meant to cast us in a better light and, more importantly, Rebecca in a better light. If you would like to work on a project for the sweetheart competition, please speak to me after the meeting and I would be glad to point you in the right direction. Any questions?”
The meeting dispersed, and Ashleigh asked, “What project?”
“Oh, something huge for them to build that we can lose or burn before Saturday night so no one has to see it,” Rebecca said. “But it’ll keep little pledge hands busy until Saturday.”
“Which is the point,” Casey said, glad to be in step with Rebecca, or have Rebecca in step with her—she wasn’t sure who was running this show. With a little dignity, they might win this after all—or Casey might win Rebecca back to the fold. Casey decided either option would suit her just fine.
chapter nine
“Try it again.”
Dale turned the dial again, but all he got was static and hissing, and no response from the robot, which was still little more than piping with card boxing around the skeleton. The difference was now it had a radio receiver and they were behind a barrier of lawn chairs. “It was responding before.”
“It was making a little beeping noise. I think that was just the battery going out.”
“Then we can change the battery again.”
“No way. I’m not going near those things until we get them right.”
“They’re not haunted,” Dale said, but he didn’t get up, either.
Rusty sighed. He really wanted this project to succeed. He missed Vesuvius and he loved KT and he would do anything for Cappie, as a pledge accidentally said in front of him in a far more shocking manner. Cappie was depending on him, perhaps unrealistically, or maybe they were just making the project too complicated with the radio controls. There was always the temptation to add another layer of complexity to any project to make it cooler, but that usually backfired. Still, engineers had a tendency not to learn from experience in this regard.
Upstairs, he knew Cappie was studying—actually studying. He was serious about this, at least for the time being. The idea of Cappie graduating was still something Rusty didn’t want to think about either, but he didn’t want to imagine Cappie still in school a year from now, moping because he’d lost Casey, who had no intention of sticking around CRU in the middle of Ohio as far as either of them knew. She would go on to a brighter and better future, and Cappie would have to follow her at least through the graduation walk if he wanted to stay in the relationship. So he was driven not to fail, enough to do an extra-credit assignment, or appear to be doing it. Cappie sometimes had problems finishing things, but when it really mattered, he came through in the end—most of the time. Rusty didn’t want to see his sister disappointed, and he didn’t want to see Cappie disappointed with him. Somehow, it all came down to Rusty again. “Change the frequency back to AM.”
“I don’t see how that’s going to do anything.” But Dale did it anyway, and the only visible reaction was that the bug zapper crackled especially hard and went out. “Except blow your bug zapper. That or it was a real whopper that flew in there.”
“No, wait. Maybe we are broadcasting a little too much. Let me try.” He took the radio controls from Dale. “Look, if they can make Tonka trucks that run into walls, we can do this. Or we can do this.” He pointed the antenna at the main porch light, which was off in the daylight. Rusty fiddled with the dial, and slowly the light came on then abruptly switched off. “How are we even doing that?”
“We did add a lot of components to the radio,” Dale said. In truth, it wasn’t really a radio. It was a control set from a radio-controlled toy truck with additional “adjustments” to try to tune it to the frequency in the receivers in the robot’s heads. “Rusty, I may not know a lot about houses of sin such as Kappa Tau, but I know they’re not generally impressed with universal remotes in comparison to volcanos.”
“Let me enjoy the moment,” Rusty said. “Then we can go back to crushing failure and ultimate disappointment.”
“Fair enough. I have to get back to the other house of sin, the one that’s paying me, anyway.”
“More cookies for Omega Chi?”
“If Calvin’s not fat yet, I’m doing something wrong in their book.”
“No! No more!” Calvin threw his hands up as Grant arrived in their room with another tray.
“These ones are cute! They’re shaped like unicorns…or horses with a serious cerebral problem. I’m not sure which.” Grant held up the tray for display, but Calvin refused to more than glance at them. “What is it?”
“How can you not be sick of cookies and muffins and jelly beans and other lame examples of Valentine’s Day gifts? They’re like what you make for the entire class when you have to make something for the entire class but you think cards are tacky. And the one kosher kid won’t eat them.”
“I just handed out cards,” Grant said. “Someone had a bad…what was this, fourth grade?”
“Fifth. And I was really into baking. Or maybe just wearing the apron, but it was between when my mom approved and when she started thinking it was suspicious behavior for a guy who didn’t have a girlfriend to impress.”
“So you didn’t continue?”
“Also, did I mention I was terrible at it? Because I was.”
“How can anyone be terrible at baking cookies?”
“I found a way. A way into the burn ward. So no baking and no more cookies, just on principle at this point. When is this contest over?”
Grant guiltlessly bit down on a horse head with rainbow sprinkles. “Two days. Not counting today. In which case, two and a half. And nobody took up our steak suggestion.”
“Great.”
“I think the ZBZs stopped following us. Or at least are being less conspicuous about it. Or maybe they just don’t want to buy steaks because that would acknowledge that they are following us and listening in on our conversations.”
“This contest is making everyone crazy. I need to get away. I wonder if they’ll notice if the gay vote abstains.”
“Then Rebecca Logan won’t have her voting bloc of Evan and you…and me. You know, maybe.”
Calvin decided not to hold it against him. Not yet. “What’s wrong with Rebecca?”
“Nothing’s wrong with Rebecca, but nothing’s wrong with Natalie, Shelley or Stephanie either. You have to maintain some impartiality.”
“She did help us cover up in front of your girlfriend.”
“Which I guess was kind of sweet,” Grant admitted. “Or at least dedicated.”
“A good quality in a sweetheart.”
Greek: Best Frenemies Page 10