* * *
This time I wouldn’t have to look.
Still, trauma flared, a wound quickly reopened. How easy it was to go there again. I tamped down the tremors of panic, struggling to keep my breath even, trying to rein in my accelerating pulse.
“We didn’t come here to gawk,” Angela said pointedly. “We had a class in Chambers Hall.”
“She looked so bloated. Like maybe she binged on Ben and Jerry’s and nachos.” Megan’s face puckered. “Lydia would hate having people see her that way, and look at all the guys who are watching. She’d be so mortified.”
We gave a sideways glance at the students on the bridge—mostly guys, but some girls, too. They were in that odd state of wonder that overcomes people at accident scenes. Any minute now people would start talking about their individual connections to Lydia, pooling tips about what they knew of her.
At last, Lydia was getting the attention she’d always craved.
I had known Lydia Drakos for more than a year, having met her when I was a freshman rushee and she a junior. Despite some personal interactions, Lydia was still a cardboard-cutout character to me—a Barbie doll in search of her Ken. She was all smug smile and milky white skin, a flirtatious girl who had plenty of dates but no long-term boyfriends. Occasionally, she had mooned over a childhood sweetheart and a frat guy who broke her heart last year, but I think she had impossibly high standards that no human being could fulfill. And the stories . . . Lydia was full of them. Stories of boarding school, of the proper way she had been raised by nannies and kindly aunts, of the shipping business that had made her grandfather a billionaire, of the family-owned island off the coast of Greece where she basked in luxury every summer. How she loved her nannies but regretted the way her parents foisted her off so they could host amazing parties and sail on their yacht. Maybe I doubted her because she never invited anyone to go along to Greece the way Tori invited the Rose Council girls to her parents’ house in Cabo or as Tamara had hosted the entire sorority at her family’s lakeside mansion in Coeur d’Alene. Or maybe it was because this granddaughter of a Greek tycoon had the wardrobe of a runaway nun, tending toward black and navy T-shirts and cable-knit sweaters. Some of her recent actions had cast serious doubt on her claim of family wealth, though I couldn’t be completely sure. You could spend three days straight with her and still not understand what made her shadowed heart tick. Lydia and I were bound to sisterhood and secrecy, but I had felt more like her slave than her friend.
Angela nudged my arm, jarring me back to the moment. “I gotta go. I’m gonna burst.”
I was equally desperate to escape. The flashing lights of emergency vehicles, the ogling crowd, the workers scuttling in the gorge below us to remove human remains . . . the whole sickening process knocked the wind out of me. Once you’ve been on the receiving end of a trauma, the curiosity and excitement of accident scenes give way to panic.
“We’ll see you guys back at Theta House,” I said, stepping away from the group.
“Seriously? You’re leaving?” Courtney called after us. “They might want you to help identify her.”
I knew from experience that they would call in the family for that task. Pretending that I didn’t hear her, I lifted my hand in a wave as we headed off.
“I feel sick, but I’m not gonna lie. I wasn’t a fan of Lydia Drakos,” Angela said as we made our way down the stairs at the end of the bridge. “But I don’t wish that on anybody.”
“We should have known. We should have stopped her.” I should have stopped her. I had witnessed Lydia’s unraveling when she’d pulled me closer these last few weeks. Not close like a friend. I had been hooked, netted, and dragged along in Lydia’s boat.
“It’s not that simple, Em.” Angela’s voice was sympathetic. “We’re sisters, not keepers. You know the Theta Pi creed: Freedom to Unify.”
“Still, I’ve got the guilts. My heart hurts.”
“There’s gonna be a lot of that going around.” Angela grabbed at a handful of dark braids and twirled them around one finger. I recognized the nervous gesture. She didn’t usually mess with her hair once it was done. It was currently wound into dozens of braids, swept back with a fake braided hairband that looked totally real. She had amazing hair, but as her roommate I had seen firsthand how much time she put into getting it just right. Our recruitment chair, Violet Sweetwater, the hair and fashion cop of Theta Pi, should have been pleased, but she never gave Angela the credit she deserved. Vi was always sending out e-mails about how it’s forbidden to wear open-toed shoes if you need a pedicure, how bra straps should never show, how anyone caught biting their nails would be given extra cleanup duty at the house.
Although I rarely polished my toenails and frequently bit my fingernails, I somehow flew under Violet’s radar. With ordinary brown hair, shoulders that were too broad, and a chest that was too flat, I think my averageness helped me to roam with the pack, unnoticed. Or maybe my eyes made up for those other deficits. Electric-blue eyes. People are charmed by blue eyes, as if something magical were going on behind them, and I wasn’t going to be the one to debunk the myth.
We rounded the stone posts at the bottom of the stairs and headed down the river path leading to west campus. The twin gables of Theta House beckoned from between tall fir trees framing the Tudor-style house that had been home to our sorority for more than sixty years. Ours was the closest residence to the Stone Bridge.
I stared at the paving-stone path. “She would have walked this way to the bridge.”
“Late last night, or early this morning, so no one would see her.”
“No one to stop her.” I imagined a figure huddled in a cotton-candy-pink robe on the rail of the bridge. “They found something pink in the water. It’s that damned robe she never took off.”
“What do you want to bet she walked out of the house in that thing? Walked straight to the bridge in her pajamas and jumped.”
“In a total daze.”
“Do you think she was on drugs?”
“Not Lydia.” Depression seemed far more potent than any drug.
Angela shrugged. “Well, if that’s really Lydia down there, get ready for a shit show of fake tears and stories that cover up the fact that she was a mean, bossy bitch. I almost stopped pledging because of her. She was the one who tortured our pledge class every time National turned their heads.” National was the name for Theta Pi headquarters in Des Moines, where dues were collected, standards were enforced, and networking activities were staged. “Honestly?” Angela added. “Nobody liked Lydia.”
“I know, but still . . .” Everything Angela said was true, but it was small stuff compared to Lydia dying. “All her annoying qualities don’t add up to this. We should have stopped her.”
“She wasn’t our friend.”
“She was our sister,” I said, “and we knew she was in a bad place in the past few weeks. Sleeping all the time and sitting in the dark. Always in that robe.” A chill traveled through me.
“That fucking pink robe.” Angela let out a huff of air. “At first, I was a little glad to see that the mighty Lydia had fallen, but she was such a pathetic mess, and pity just made me hate her more. She was a wreck, but what were we supposed to do?”
The obvious answer would have been to get her help, but reaching out for crisis intervention on the Merriwether campus was no longer an option. After the rash of suicides in the spring, the administration had changed the policies in the student clinic. Under the guise of “early suicide intervention,” the counselors now treated every panic attack and bout of depression like full-blown mental illness. Show up at the center with the smallest concern and they’d strap you to a gurney, cart you out in an ambulance, and badger you to sign papers of withdrawal from the university as they wheeled you out.
This had happened to one of our sisters, a freshman from the spring pledge class who had been in the Merriwether honors program. A smart, fragile girl with blond curls, sweet as a baby chick, Lexi had gone into the
clinic to talk about her exam anxiety and she had never returned. As soon as the counselor got a whiff of suicide, Lexi was carted off to a loony bin. After taking her finals online in the psych ward at Portland General, she had been forced to withdraw from the school.
It turned out she signed a form when she was freaking out in the counseling center, signed it without realizing what it said. She’d been kicked out, just like that.
And she wasn’t the only one. My friends and I had heard about girls in other sororities, kids in other classes who had gotten the boot once they went to the counseling center for help. The process was always the same. Someone would go in to talk about stress or anxiety, they would mention suicide or the desire to cut, and just like that their counseling session turned into a deportation. Within an hour they were strapped onto stretchers and sent to the psych ward in Portland.
Although the university was insisting that their more “stringent policies” were saving lives, some of us realized that Merriwether was dumping at-risk kids to save their stats and look better on paper. It was totally fucked up, but when the student council asked the administration about it, they said they weren’t allowed to discuss students’ medical profiles.
Having watched Lexi disappear, the girls of Theta Pi were wary. So when Lydia had begun to unravel earlier this month, we knew she couldn’t go to the student clinic. But we didn’t know where else to take her.
So she stayed in Theta House. She stayed in that fuzzy pink robe and spent most of her time in the suite she shared with Courtney.
Until last night.
The windows of Theta House reflected the silver sky, giving a pallid look to the old mansion. It was the first time in my year and a half on campus that I’d sensed a gray gloom hanging over the old house.
I pressed a hot hand to one icy cheek. My body temperature was all out of whack. “I feel like nothing is ever going to be right again.”
“We’ll get through this,” Angela said. “But right now I’m pissed at Lydia.”
CHAPTER 4
Unbuttoning her raincoat, Dr. Sydney Cho approached the mullioned windows of the old admin building, keeping a respectful distance from the university president, who unnerved her under the best of circumstances, and the board member who always seemed to be a breath away from asking her out. The president’s office afforded a fine view of the usually breathtaking ravine below. The two men watched the police activity intently, as if overseeing a surgical procedure. Although the details of the search in the gorge were blurred, Sydney focused on the flashing light of the ambulance as it made its way up the access road of the ravine, carrying the body off to the medical examiner. An autopsy was a standard procedure for a suspected suicide. A procedure Sydney now knew all too well.
She wanted to be down there on the scene, not just to escort the police but to provide a presence, to let the students know that the administrators weren’t hiding in their ivory towers in the wake of tragedy. When she had taken this job, she’d vowed to make her office accessible to students, and that meant being out on campus. But when the president of the university summoned her to his office, she got there, quickly.
“The housemother, Jan Johnson, has identified the body as one of her residents, Lydia Drakos, and that matches the cell phone left on the bridge,” Sydney said as she slipped off her raincoat. It was warm in here, and she would have liked to remove her blazer, too, but wanted to maintain a professional appearance, as well as a sense of boundary for Wendell. “Of course, we’ve notified the family, and I’ll continue to work with the police.”
Dr. Martin Salerno spoke in hushed gray tones that were far more menacing than any parent’s stern reproach. “It’s unacceptable. A disgrace for the university, another black mark on our record. And God knows, our U.S. World and News Report rating is going to be shot to hell.” With his spidery gray brows and gritty voice, Salerno always reminded her of a cold-blooded creature that had slithered out of the old crypt under Chambers Hall.
“Fortunately, we score so well in other categories, our overall rating won’t be affected,” Sydney said, not as an excuse but as a way to temper the situation. Her boss tended toward doomsday scenarios.
“Merriwether’s reputation for excellence won’t be harmed by something like this,” Harry Wendell agreed, giving her a smile of support. His pale blue eyes might have been attractive if they weren’t always staring at Sydney’s chest. As if she were teasing him with her blazer, scarf, and buttoned-up blouse. Or perhaps he was simply enticed by the mystery of wondering what was inside the package. In the few months since her appointment, Sydney had been able to rely on Wendell for support, even if it was for all the wrong reasons. “Let’s not overexaggerate the consequences, Martin. Don’t make this a thing.”
“Hyperbole is not my thing,” Salerno said in a blistering, low voice.
“I didn’t say that, Martin, but there’s a way to navigate this judiciously.” Wendell held up one hand defensively. “Let’s not make a scandal where none exists.”
“Believe me, I would love to let this go.” Salerno tucked his chin, as if he were a turtle retracting his leathery head into his shell. “But I get flak from our alumni every day. Famous graduates. Politicians and CEOs. Playwrights and doctors. They all want to know what we’re doing to address the problem. I have responded that we hired you—” He wheeled around, latching his gaze on to Sydney. “A young person who appeals to our youth, a dean with a plan to remove suicide liabilities from the campus. I keep blowing your horn, Dean Cho, but quite frankly, I’m running out of hot air.”
The image of old man Salerno pumped up like a Thanksgiving parade float made for an awkward moment, and she turned away from the window to hide a smirk. “We have a plan in place,” she said, “but the culture of a campus does not change overnight. It will take time for troubled students to find their way to counseling, and we haven’t completed the curriculum for our stress-management program.” The new program, a requirement for next year’s incoming freshmen, would address stress, depression, and anxiety and offer advice on coping strategies.
“When will that curriculum be ready?” asked Salerno.
“It should be ready for review soon. We’ll have a final version completed before next fall’s orientation session.”
Salerno grunted. “Doesn’t help us now.”
“These things take time,” Wendell said. “We invested in this strategy knowing that it was long-term.”
“While I can peddle that off to the alumni, the local media will counter with the obvious. What have we done to help students like the one who just jumped? Doesn’t every life matter?”
“Every life is vital. Of course each person matters.” Sydney knew that more than anyone here, but this was no time to spill her story. “I share your frustration, Dr. Salerno.” She kept her voice level as she thought of the recovery effort she’d witnessed in the ravine. “A young girl jumped to her death last night. I wish there was something we could have done to prevent that. I really do. But isn’t that the nature of a free society? Respecting our students’ freedom is of utmost importance.” Where was this coming from? She wasn’t usually quick on her feet, though she’d expected Salerno’s sour attitude. She had learned through the grapevine that he had tried to stop the board from hiring her, but had been overruled because the trustees wanted to demonstrate that they were addressing the suicide crisis. She had gotten past him before. It was time to move past her fear of the gray curmudgeon and maintain focus on her mission.
Saving kids.
That was at the heart of this job, the reason that she had stepped back from the career in hospital administration she’d been aiming for and had agreed to serve in the university. It was all about saving lives. While the university was currently more concerned about reducing liability and negative media attention, Sydney believed that, with the right approach, she could accomplish both tasks.
“Most university students are too young and naïve to appreciate a concept like freedom,
” Salerno rambled on. “They think it affords them a free ticket to hedonism without consequence. Alcohol and marijuana, video games and sex, skateboards that mark up our curbs and stairs, and cell phone addictions.”
“That’s a bit harsh, Dr. Salerno,” Sydney said, standing her ground. “Though, in some cases, it’s true. But it’s our job to open their eyes to the various interpretations and possibilities of freedom. And it wouldn’t hurt to teach them how to harness and master the use of vices and technologies.”
“Touché,” Wendell said with a spirited smile.
Really? Wendell might have stepped out of an Oscar Wilde play. Well, at least he was on her side.
Sydney turned back to the window and noticed that the ambulance was gone. “I need to get back out there. The police will be finishing up at the crime scene and looking to interview students.”
Salerno scowled. “Our security chief can handle that.”
“Security forces and police can be intimidating, even for the innocent. I want to make sure our students are treated respectfully.”
“Excellent point.” Wendell’s furry brows moved like spider legs as he squinted at her. “We’re finished here, aren’t we, Martin?”
“Fine. Go.” Like a disappointed father, Salerno dismissed her.
CHAPTER 5
Trying to maintain some semblance of normal, I plodded off to my Psychology class, usually the high point of my Mondays, and found a seat in the anonymity of the large amphitheater. Today the professor came to the front of the desk and removed her glasses. Alice Habib usually had a brusque demeanor, though I had seen her rein it in once when she had talked about her Syrian heritage and the difficulties of maintaining an “unpopular” culture in America. Her penetrating dark eyes and stern retorts kept the class in line. But today, her face had softened with the weight of sorrow.
“It’s good to see you all.” Dr. Habib pulled her nubby blazer closed over her ample form. “Before we begin, let’s talk about the tragedy that happened on our campus last night. An apparent suicide, they’re saying, but that doesn’t make it any easier to rationalize.”
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