“No one would vote for you. But if that’s what you want…I don’t want to say go ahead, but since everyone already knows that Grant and I are gay, I think I’m in the clear.”
She narrowed her eyes. “You don’t have any other secrets?”
“Not that I’m willing to admit to you right now, during this conversation,” he replied. “And if Evan has any that I don’t know, I pretty much don’t want to know them. But give me a heads-up, okay? Because it seems like you’re considering it. Which you shouldn’t, by the way.”
“Shouldn’t what? Blow everyone off, yourself not included, out of frustration?” But she relented. “Casey has backed off, and Ashleigh takes her cues from Casey. And they did take me dress shopping, even if it was horribly early in the morning, even for shopping. Not like they paid or anything.”
“But you don’t like people buying you things.”
“They don’t have to know that.”
“That’s some twisted logic.”
“It’s what I’m best at,” she admitted. “Look, just because I don’t know what I’m going to say about the contest doesn’t mean you have to look at me as if I’m a potential suicide bomber.”
“Ouch, dark.”
“I’m feeling dark. Even when it’s kind of unfair to Casey, something you did not hear me say and will never, ever quote me on unless you want me spilling your secrets.”
“You don’t know any.”
“So? I could make up some convincing ones you’ll never live down. I think anyone would believe anything about Omega Chi guys right now as long as it’s posted on Twitter and half the words are misspelled.”
“You should decide. Sometime before Saturday night, when you actually have to give the speech.”
“I picked out the dress. That’s, like, half the work.”
“You don’t have much faith in men, do you?”
“I’ve been hearing bad things about them in the papers. They’re always a reliable source.”
“Hey, I thought you hated the papers.” He was referring to her father’s scandal. “Sorry. You left yourself wide open for that.”
“I know. I know. I’m just really tired. Emotionally tired,” she said. “I’m sick of trying to decide whether I care or not.”
To which Calvin answered, “It sounds like you do care. Otherwise you wouldn’t be fretting about it. When does Rebecca Logan fret?”
“Another thing I’m swearing you to secrecy about, by the way. Fretting. You never saw me do it, and I will testify to that in court.”
“You’re imagining a lot of situations where I have to say things about you behind your back or at some kind of trial. Did you do something I don’t know about?”
“Nothing that can be documented,” was her quick reply. He didn’t need to know about her fat years. Nobody needed to know about those. And she was being hard on him. “Sorry. I’m not myself this week.”
“Hey, who is? Though actually, women vying for our attention and brothers yelling at each other in meetings is pretty much an average week for Omega Chi.”
“Male posturing in competition over females? Never. Next you’re going to tell me Evan has a silver back.”
He raised his eyebrows. “You would know better than I would.”
“So the Tri-Pi story is true? Bickering and calling me a bitch?”
He raised his hand. “For the record, I, nor Evan nor Grant called you a bitch. It was…someone else whose name I will not disclose, and the article was good enough not to disclose. They just gave us numbers.” They were listed as Omega #1 and Omega #2. “I was halfway into it and expecting to show up as Gay Omega #1.”
“Why? Why would Grant be number two? Because you came out first, or because you’re number one? This is good material if I ever need to blackmail you, right? This is something Grant would want to know, your opinion of who’s number one in the gay wing of Omega.”
“Rebecca, I know you well enough that I can safely say that I will never intentionally get myself into a situation where you need to blackmail me.” He added, “That’s a promise. Mostly to myself.”
Despite her confidence in front of Calvin, by the end of the day, Rebecca was no closer to a decision about what to say at the ceremony than she had been when she picked out her dress, the latter of which sort of guaranteed her attendance. Casey was expecting that much of her, and while Rebecca didn’t feel particularly behooved to live up to Casey’s expectations for her, changing them just to spite her didn’t seem right for a change. Lots of people had advice for her on what to say and how to act, and she managed to avoid pretty much all of them by staying out of the house until people had absconded to various parties elsewhere or were asleep.
After sitting in front of her computer for half an hour, compulsively checking her email while her speech-writing file remained conspicuously blank, Rebecca groaned and abandoned her computer for the refrigerator. Thankfully, the kitchen was quiet, not filled with pledges waiting to wish her good luck or give her suggestions. It was also clean and well-stocked, because they finally had a hasher who was good at doing things other than making out with Ashleigh. On second thought, she didn’t want to imagine Dale making out with Ashleigh even if it would never happen, so she put that thought out of her head as she poured herself orange juice, grabbed a bag of Cheesaritos and sat down at the center island. “Hey.”
“Hey.” Dale was used to being in the background, so he wasn’t expecting an acknowledgment all of the time. When she looked, he was poking a toothpick into the inside of a tray of brownies to see if they were done. And he was wearing an apron. Fisher, the previous hasher, never wore aprons, especially ones that said Cooking for Christ on them. “If you want brownies, they’re going to be a few minutes.”
“Did you use Splenda or sugar?”
“Splenda.”
“Then maybe.” She was, like every sorority girl, obsessed with her figure and Dale knew that. “Chocolate does hide the chemical taste.”
“It hides a lot,” he said and put the brownies back in, unsatisfied with them. He was such a busy little worker, even if he wasn’t particularly little. He just wasn’t as tall as the guys she liked to date.
“Can I ask you a question?”
“Ask away.” He set the timer for the brownies.
“When you have no one to talk to—oh, forget it. You’re going to say you always have Jesus to talk to.”
“I do. Though, sometimes the messages seem really mixed or difficult to understand. Everything becomes clear in time, though,” he said with his usual confidence.
“I don’t have time. I have until Saturday night. And don’t say there’s always time for Jesus.”
“Jesus is my best friend, and best friends always have time for each other,” he said. “Otherwise they wouldn’t be best friends.”
“Then I don’t have a lot of best friends. And don’t say I have a friend in Jesus. I have no time for a religious epiphany, and I don’t think it’s going to help me with the sweetheart competition anyway.”
The timer went off, and he pulled the brownies out, tested them again and set them aside to cool. “You’re the one who keeps bringing up his name. And I’m sure Jesus is asked on a regular basis to help women win glorified beauty contests. And football games. And softball games. And pretty much every chess club tournament I went to in high school.”
“I would say it’s more than a beauty contest, but it isn’t.”
“I didn’t say it wasn’t also about inner beauty. I may think Evan is a tool, but the Omega Chis are obviously looking for someone who’s kind and generous and more than a beer-ad woman, because women in beer ads don’t send men cookie-grams. They stand next to beer and lure men to sin.”
“Dale, it’s not hard to lure men to beer.”
“It is very tempting. They make it very tempting. But that doesn’t seem like the contest you’re in.”
“They want me to be a sweetheart. I’m not sweet.”
“Then be your t
rue self, but everyone is capable of being sweet. The word has too many connotations for people to realize it.”
“If I don’t win…” It wasn’t about winning, it was about trying to win. Honestly, she could probably wow the guys with the dress and a great speech, but it was whether she wanted to or not that was the problem. “Everyone really wants me to put on this show and win. I have to succeed because…I’m not even sure anymore. Casey’s obsessed with it. She’s even treating me nicely and listening to what I have to say.”
Dale nodded sagely. He was weird that way. “That sounds like a true friend.”
“She’s not, though.”
“She’s doing it for her own selfish devices? I would find that hard to believe of the beautiful and sweet Casey Cartwright,” he said, mooning a little over his crush of the past two years.
“No. I mean, she says she’s doing it because it’ll help me if I run for president and it’ll help the house standing and she doesn’t want to leave me with a crummy, fourth-place house when she leaves.
“Does she have another reason?”
She racked her brain. “I don’t think so.”
“That sounds like she’s doing everything for you.”
“I didn’t ask for it.”
“It doesn’t change the fact that she’s doing it for you. Maybe she’s not good at consulting you, but everyone has their flaws.”
“So what am I supposed to do?”
Dale poked at the brownies and started cutting them up. “What do you want to do?”
“I don’t know. That’s why I’m asking.”
“You want my opinion of what’s the right thing to do, or what you should do?”
“Either, really. I’ll take either at this point.”
He nodded. “Good, because they’re the same. Casey is your friend, whether you want her to be or not, and if you really didn’t want her to be, you wouldn’t be here trying to figure out what to do. So you should be a friend to her. Wait, I’ve got something for this.” He put his mittens aside and went to his laptop, typing for a few moments. “Got it. ‘Greater love has no one than this, that he lay down his life for his friends. You are my friends if you do what I command. I no longer call you servants, because a servant does not know his master’s business. Instead, I have called you friends, for everything that I learned from my Father I have made known to you.’ John 15:13. And I used to be so good at these quotes when I couldn’t just look them up. I think the internet is actually hurting my memory.”
“I’m not laying down my life. I mean, that’s not what this contest is about. Laying down a life.”
“Some people seem to take it very seriously. And the meaning applies to less serious situations as well. Or it could, if you wanted it to.”
“But the point of the passage is clearly that you’re supposed to do what your friends want you to do.”
“That’s one interpretation,” Dale said. “Or it could mean that you do what your friends need you to do.”
To this, Rebecca did not respond. Dale was unmoved and held up a plate of fresh-cut offerings. “Brownies?”
chapter eleven
When Rebecca answered the door in the morning, the person on the porch was not the person she expected to see. “I haven’t been paying much attention, but I suspect Casey’s still mad at you.”
“That’s why this is a lose-lose,” Cappie said. “You wouldn’t mind giving her a message, would you?”
“I’m not doing your dirty work.”
“But you love dirty work! Or at least, some activities people would classify as dirty.” He didn’t bother avoiding her glare. “Casey’s not speaking to me, but I want to invite her to a party.”
“The KT anti-sweetheart party? You don’t think she has other plans?”
“I have a feeling we’ll be running later than anyone can last in a tuxedo. And our drinks will be better.”
Rebecca tapped her fingers on the door. “Hmm. The Omega Chis are promising an open bar, and they have a tendency to deliver on quality.”
“We have more creative drinks. The kind that need to be sucked off someone’s stomach—but don’t tell Casey that.”
“What, in the message I won’t be delivering?”
He rolled his eyes. “Look, if I don’t invite her in person, she’ll be insulted. If I see her, she’ll be mad at me. Again, lose-lose. I’m going with the slightly less los-ier option. Maybe.”
“Are you going to make it worth my while?”
“See, already into dirty area. Fine, what do you want?”
“You not to pull away as many sweetheart attendees as possible before I give my speech. Which is at nine, by the way.”
“Somehow I think things might be underattended for reasons not directly related to you, but I can do my best to push the party back. Now, Casey?”
“I’ll tell her. And I’ll add that you wussed out of telling her yourself.” And before he could answer that, she slammed the door in his face. The feeling was better than coffee in the morning.
“Strike two and I’m out,” Cappie said to himself, even if it didn’t make much sense, as he returned to the Kappa Tau house. There were some preliminary arrangements for the party, but it was Saturday morning and he couldn’t expect much until noon. The pledges had postered all thirty fliers to the front door instead of around campus, but he couldn’t blame Rusty for slacking off as pledge educator. Rusty had his hands more than full, literally and metaphorically, with the robots. Now sans radio transmitters, they were back to mechanical mode, but for all of his plastic tubing and engineering ability, he could only get them to face in different directions, not punch each other. That and they still looked like stick men with cardboard clothing, not tough robots. “Hey, Spitter. Struck out with your sister.”
“That’s, um, nice to know. Thanks for the creepy update.”
“And I’m not 100 percent sure Rebecca’s going to deliver the message about the party. How can I nominate Casey for anti-sweetheart if she’s not here?”
“And how do you know she won’t be insulted? Aside from the fact that she actually was, you know, sweet enough to win the contest last year, she does take this thing really seriously.”
“I might have noticed something in the last week.”
Rusty shrugged. “She’s still upset with you over the paper?”
“Not returning calls isn’t really her style, but so far she hasn’t changed her voice mail to my name following a series of very unsweetheartlike curses, which she did freshman year.”
“And she’ll be even more pissed if she finds out you’re further ignoring her advice by partying.”
“Spitter, multitasking. It’s the wave of the future. Why don’t you give it a try?”
“You’re going to study and party at the same time?”
“No, I have a better idea. And I’m going to need a little Rusty charm to pull it off.”
Rusty raised his eyebrows. “Am I going to like this?”
“It’s that or you can stay here and play with robot junk all day. What do you say?”
If Rebecca didn’t have her own makeup kit and comprehensive abilities in that regard, she would have had a volunteer army to help her. By six o’clock she was waxed, plucked, styled and painted in all the right ways, as disgusting as it actually sounded. She didn’t need any other help. Not that that prevented Casey from knocking on the door to her room with her game face on. “Hi.”
“Just checking on me to see that I haven’t gone out the window? Because I wouldn’t subject my bedspread to that. A 600-thread-count sheet needs to be treated with respect.”
“Good to know, but I wasn’t expecting it. Not after the whole waxing thing a lot of people wouldn’t voluntarily go through,” Casey said. “Are you ready for…whatever you’re going to do?”
“Yes,” was the entirety of Rebecca’s answer as she closed her makeup case with a definitive snap. She was not about to give Casey the answer she wanted as to the content of her speech.
Playing it all out for as long as possible was too much fun. “Oh, and I almost forgot!” she said, even though she hadn’t. “Cappie came by. You’re invited to the anti-sweetheart party.”
“Ugh! He knows I have somewhere else to be.”
“Also something he communicated, but he said his alcohol would be more interesting. That’s not precisely the way he put it, but it’s all he had to offer.”
“Again, ugh. I can’t deal with him right now.”
“Says the woman who is clearly putting academic responsibility above social presentation.”
“Hey, my grades are up and my homework is done. Somehow, after this crazy week. I even saw you at the library.”
“Yes, because God forbid we defy the stereotypes that this week has so thoroughly reinforced and succeed academically instead of just being college cuties. Which, if you ever refer to me as, there will be consequences. Terrible ones.”
“I wouldn’t dream of it,” Casey said. “Wait, are you actually defending Cappie?”
“We can’t all live up to your glorious expectations, Cartwright,” Rebecca said, her voice as neutral as Rebecca’s would ever get. “At least not all the time. Plus, Cappie looks like an adorable puppie when he’s trying and failing at the same time, so that invokes some unintentional sympathy.”
“He knows his responsibilities. To himself.”
“And maybe they’re none of your business, at least until he fails out completely. Then you can dump him and change your answering machine message to make your feelings clear. But if I shot down Cappie every time he slacked off, forgot something important or did something even more embarrassing to try to make up for it, even I would be sick of criticizing him.”
“Which is saying a lot.”
Rebecca smiled. “I’m so glad we’re on the same page. Shall we go down the path of judgment and subtle misogyny slated for tonight?”
“A kegger is starting to look more appealing when you put it that way, but yes, we should.” She was dressed and ready, of course. Casey was always ready, at least physically. Emotionally was another matter. “Do you need any help with your speech?”
Greek: Best Frenemies Page 13