Handpicked

by Dani Oden

"Well, we should go look again so I can show you guys," I said.

  "When?" Hannah asked.

  "Tonight?" I suggested.

  "Okay, but when?" she said.

  "Later?"

  "The library is supposed to be unlocked and open for studying twenty-four hours a day," Lindy said.

  "Yeah, but who studies during all hours of the night?" I asked.

  I'll tell you who. Girls majoring in Computer Science, that's who. We hung out in the library three nights in a row and still didn't have a chance to be in there by ourselves. Each time, the same three juniors were there until at least two in the morning without fail. We never figured out just how late they stayed because we always were too sleepy to stick it out. I think they were taking some kind of drug to stay awake and study, but I never found any way to prove it. Hannah suspected they had some kind of secret lesbian romance happening that was against every outdated sorority rule possible, but Lindy and I rejected her theory.

  "I'm sure they'd be going somewhere more exciting than the library for that kind of thing," Lindy had reasoned. “At least, I’d hope so.”

  On the fourth night, we decided to take a break from what we now called “Operation Library Inspection.” I liked to say it was actually "Operation Prove Myself Right and My Friends Wrong," but they didn't think that was funny.

  Instead of hovering in the basement, we joined the majority of our pledge class in the second-floor bathroom. The scene was reminiscent of all the girls getting ready for Preference, only this time we were showing more skin. Now it was a Thursday night and there were fraternity guys to prepare for.

  As we primped, the older girls roamed the hall explaining the dos and don'ts of fraternity parties with military precision. They advised us to leave our jackets and purses at home and to fill the tiny pockets of our tight clothes with our cell phones but not our IDs ("If anyone asks, you're twenty-one," they told us). We were also warned to pay attention to the color of our drinks and to whether or not a beer was opened in front of us (“If not, don’t drink it,” they said). Lastly, we were all made to recite the list of houses to just avoid completely. I would have been overwhelmed if Hannah hadn't rolled her eyes and assured Lindy and I she would help us if we were roofied.

  And, under no circumstances, were we supposed to talk to anyone from the school paper.

  “Why do you think that is?” I wondered as we stepped through the doorway onto our front patio. The cold night air stung my bare arms.

  “So we don’t say anything stupid that winds up on the internet?” Hannah shrugged.

  “So we don’t say anything stupid and make the house look bad in the school paper,” Lindy corrected her.

  “Do you think that’s a big problem here?” I said.

  Lindy shrugged. “I heard every few years someone tries to do a tell-all about the Greek System. They’re probably being overly cautious.”

  "And why can't I bring my coat? It's like forty-five degrees out," I said.

  "Because we'd get drunk and leave it somewhere," Hannah said, hugging herself for warmth.

  "I'm not drinking," I shook my head, remembering our first night.

  "Not at all?" Lindy asked.

  "Seriously?" Hannah said.

  "Maybe just one," I said.

  "Still don't bring your coat," Hannah instructed.

  As soon as we stepped off of Iota Beta property, I had to jump back to avoid being run over by a wall of cleavage. Groups of girls, hundreds of girls, from houses all over the Greek system were criss-crossing down the street and zig-zagging all around us, going to the next party. I couldn’t turn in either direction without seeing snug, shiny fabric, highlighted hair, and glossy lips. Throbs of rap music ricocheted off all the huge old mansions on our block, and squeals rang out from the clumps of girls.

  I had no idea just what we'd gotten ourselves into.

  "Guess we're not the only ones going out tonight," I observed as we clipped down the sidewalk towards Hannah’s boyfriend’s house.

  "We’re like all of them," Lindy noted. True, we had linked our arms and we were walking in step, too. I also saw countless pairs of jeans and heels similar to ours, and silky party tops probably bought from the same stores, maybe even the same racks as ours.

  "Or maybe they’re all like us," Hannah said breezily.

  Once we made it to Evan's, we stopped at the end of the sidewalk. From the outside, it was impossible to tell a party was happening inside. The impressive brick facade boasted a healthy display of climbing ivy, the windows had these nice open shutters, and the soft lighting on the porch was both welcoming and cozy. If it wasn't for the couple making out in the bushes, I would have guessed we were at the wrong place.

  "Are you sure it’s tonight?" Lindy asked.

  "Their party room is downstairs," Hannah explained, leading us up the walkway. Above the doorway, a grand trio of letters lorded over the door, NMX. Nu Mu Xi? Or Xeta? I was supposed to have the Greek alphabet memorized already, but I still had a way to go. NMX was close to what had been on my rose, Nu Mu Chi, but not close enough. I was beginning to doubt I’d ever see the mystery guy again. I sighed but neither of my friends noticed.

  Hannah opened the door without knocking, and the hot air, thick with the smell of stale beer, smacked me so hard in the face that I almost put a hand to my cheek.

  I'd never seen the inside of a fraternity house before. Nothing about it was anything like the IB house. It was old and dusty, and portraits of old white guys in suits hung everywhere. A tired trophy case slumped near the door, sinking into the dingy forest green carpet. I didn't see any awards newer than thirty years old. Everything, and I mean everything, was lined in dark wood.

  Two fraternity members were leaning against the banister, in jeans and polo shirts identical except for color. Both of them had popped their collars.

  "Hello, ladies. You're looking hot tonight," said the one in the sky blue shirt.

  "Can we show you the way downstairs?" added the one in the sea-foam green.

  They were stone cold sober, which was not what I expected.

  "Are you on door duty?" Hannah asked.

  "Yes, until midnight," the first one said. He’d lowered his voice, as if he was afraid of being heard.

  The other asked, "How do you know about door duty?"

  "I'm Evan's girlfriend," she said proudly.

  "Evannnnn," Blue Shirt said, his throat rumbling.

  "You mean Ham-bone?"

  "Maybe?" she eyed them carefully.

  "Ask him to tell you the story. He's bartending downstairs, you'll see him."

  Hannah started down the stairs toward the music, with Lindy and I following at her heels. "Your boyfriend is a bartender?" I asked incredulously.

  "How old is he?" Lindy said.

  "My boyfriend isn't a bartender, he's a pledge," she corrected us.

  At the bottom of the stairs, the lights grew dimmer, the smell stronger, and the music louder. We were at the end of a long hallway lined with girls with thick make-up and careful hairdos, and guys teetering and tilting their heads toward them.

  "We must be getting close," I said needlessly.

  We bumped through the hallway, finally coming to a large room with low ceilings and no lights except for those colorful spinning balls you see at trashy mall gift stores. There were no tables, no chairs, only a hundred or so people standing, dancing and drinking. Tables lined the wall, where a handful of guys manned rows and rows of unopened beer cans, and sloshed red, syrupy punch into solo cups. Was that the bar?

  Next to the drinks were another couple of guys staring at a laptop connected to the enormous speakers that vibrated throughout the room.

  Hannah squeezed my arm and shouted something I couldn't hear. She pointed to a cute boy with a striped polo shirt and gelled hair dipping a ladle into the punch bowl. His telltale pledge pin was proudly worn over his heart. She bolted toward him, while Lindy and I were left frozen in place.

  The first thing I noticed wa
s that the fraternity boys were all pretty hot. The second thing I noticed was that the other girls seemed to think so, too. And, just as predicted, one of them was the girl from my English class who’d identified herself as a writer for the school paper.

  “Don’t talk to her,” I pointed, and yelled into Lindy’s ear. “She’s a reporter.”

  “Good to know,” she answered.

  Hannah returned a few moments later with the cute boy in tow. "This is Evan!" she shouted over the music.

  "Hi!" I hollered back.

  "My roommate stinks your boot!" he screamed at me.

  "What?" I yelled.

  "My roommate thinks you're cute!" he clarified, motioning back toward the table, where a lone polo-clad dark-haired guy with his back to us was left to ladle punch on his own.

  "How do you know?" I hollered.

  "He saw you come in."

  “You should go talk to him,” Hannah shouted.

  I watched, waiting for him to turn around. It was hard to tell from the back, but I’m sure he had the potential to be cute. “It’s too loud,” I said, shrugging off the set-up.

  “Did you meet Lindy?" Hannah said, introducing our friend.

  "Mindy?" he answered.

  "Lindy!" she explained.

  "Cindy?"

  "Lindy!"

  "Windy?"

  "Lindy!" the three of us shouted together.

  "Oh, hi!"

  Hannah yelled something into his ear. He nodded back, and she grabbed both of our hands, leading us deeper and deeper into the party room, until we were walking along the far wall. We stopped at a backdoor that was barely visible in the dim light. Hannah and Evan disappeared behind it, leaving Lindy and I on our own.

  "Did you catch where they're going?" I called to her over the music.

  She shook her head. "Did you?"

  "No," I exclaimed. “Should we follow?”

  “We could. Or we go could check the library again?” she grabbed my hand.

  “What, now?”

  “The whole Greek system’s out tonight,” she said, motioning to the party. “It’s too crowded in here. And I bet we can get into the library no problem.”

  I looked at the door Hannah and her boyfriend had just disappeared through, then back at Lindy. The idea of chasing our friend through the sticky fraternity hallways, or trying to navigate this party by ourselves, was losing its appeal. I gave her a nod, “Okay, let’s go.”

  We headed back up the stairs, and Lindy nudged me mischievously. “We’ll have to come back sometime, Evan’s roommate is way hot.”

  I turned in the direction she was facing and saw Rose Guy staring at us as we retreated.

  EIGHT

  I nearly broke her wrist trying to pull her back down the stairs. “What if I pretend to forget something?”

  “You didn’t bring anything,” she reminded me.

  “What if I pretend to need Hannah?”

  “Hannah’s not down there anymore.”

  “What if I pretend to recognize him from somewhere? What if I act like we went to high school together?”

  She was skeptical. “You want to try to pull that off?”

  I considered it, but before I could muster any kind of answer, she assured me, “Now you know where to find him. And Hannah’s here all the time, so it’ll be easy to come up with an excuse to come back. I think there’ll be other, better opportunities when you’re not leaving and then all of a sudden turning around and pretending to know him from somewhere he’s never been.”

  She did have a point.

  “And, besides we might not get another shot at the library for who knows how long?”

  “Fine,” I submitted, extending my elbow to her. “But this means now I need you to be my wingman for their next party.”

  “Done,” she smiled, linking her arm through mine.

  Barely a half hour had passed since we’d gone into NMX, but the streets were more crowded on our way home than they were on the way out. Girls in flowy party tops were staggering between the houses, displaying the effects of whatever they’d already had to drink. I even saw one throwing up in the bushes.

  Back at Iota Beta, a group of sophomores had already gotten back from their party of choice. They were shouting and laughing in the dining room, shoving slices of plain bread in their mouths as the random fraternity boys they’d brought home gleefully pawed at them in awe. It smelled like a tidal wave of booze had splashed onto their clothes. I discretely tipped my nose toward my shoulder. It was on me, too. Maybe it was good that I hadn’t tried to talk to Rose Guy.

  Lindy and I weren't even close to the same level of sloppiness as many of the girls, so we got our snack of water and cookies quickly from the pantry and retreated to the library.

  "Why isn't anyone going for these? Cookies are so much better than plain bread," I asked her as we navigated the maze of people and discarded chairs.

  "Shh," she whispered. "More for us."

  Downstairs was deserted. We stood excitedly at the large doors of the library. "I think our chances are good," I told Lindy.

  "Me, too," she agreed.

  We gently pushed one of the two large doors open, and were met with total darkness.

  "I knew they had to sleep at some point," Lindy said.

  "Or drink," I said, going inside and flipping on the light. The room was pristine, right down to the chairs neatly pushed in at the various tables scattered around the room.

  We closed the door behind us. "Should we lock it?" Lindy said.

  “Totally,” I said, reaching out to flip a latch that turned out not to be there. “How?”

  Lindy peered at the door knob, “There’s a keyhole, I’m guessing we need the key.”

  “The House Manager’s key?” I recalled what Sister President said when we found her on Bid Day. “I don’t even know who the House Manager is.”

  Lindy shrugged. “We’ll just have to hurry. Do you remember what you're looking for?"

  "Kind of," I answered. We crossed the room and stepped straight up onto the fireplace. Kayla had said something in one of our meetings about how it had been built forever ago, which made sense. From what I could tell from my years at the winery, it was indeed old but definitely well-maintained.

  I walked along the mantel, running my fingers along the cool stone, checking for anything unusual. The grout was rough, the bricks irregular and firm under my shoes.

  "Where were you sitting again when you saw the light?" Lindy asked.

  "I'm not sure we could find the exact spot with the chairs put away," I said over my shoulder, still focusing on the wall in front of me.

  "Try," she prompted me.

  "Somewhere over there," I motioned about ten feet behind us.

  She went over and studied the fireplace from where I'd pointed, sighing. "It’s the same from over here. Maybe we're too tired for this."

  "Wait, come here. Is this one...painted?" I said.

  She came up behind me and eyed the orange-ish rectangle I pointed at. "Maybe,” she breathed.

  I ran my finger over it, expecting it to be hard and cold like all the others. Instead, my finger squished into it. I pulled it back and pushed again.

  It was as soft as a pillow.

  I grabbed the brick, pulled it out of its square and set it on the ground to inspect it. It looked very realistic, but weighed about as much as a cotton ball. It reminded me of the fake foam rocks I'd discovered in the dinosaur exhibit at the local Children's Museum when I was about seven years old. I wasn't supposed to be snooping around then, either.

  "Should we text Hannah again?" Lindy ventured.

  "I'm sure she'd be asleep by now, or...um, busy," I said, remembering how she and Evan could barely keep their hands off of each other. Even so, I took my phone out and snapped a picture of the empty square in the brick wall and sent it to her. "Just in case. She'll know what it means."

  Before Lindy and I could debate what to do next, my phone chimed again. Hell yeah! Keep me
updated!

  I held the screen out to Lindy, who smiled. "Guess she doesn't care enough to leave her boyfriend's bed."

  "Would you?" I questioned, daring to reach my hand into the gap and feel around. I found a handle, like on a sliding door, and gave it a tug. Nothing happened. "It's locked," I reported. "You try."

  Lindy put her whole arm in and felt around. I finally heard one small click as she unlocked the secret door. "It was under the handle," she explained.

  She tugged the same way I had, only this time, all of the bricks moved with her, sliding sideways and disappearing into the fireplace wall, revealing a secret room the size of a walk-in closet.

  Light from the library shined into the space, revealing rows and rows and rows of dark, hooded robes.

  My breath caught in my throat. "Graduation robes?" I ventured.

  Lindy was pale. She shook her head. The robes were longer and more droopy than commencement robes, with an old-fashioned shape and odd embroidery. There were flaps on the front and back lying flat against the body of each robe. I reached out to touch one of them and get a better look, but instinctively pulled my arm back when a noise distracted me.

  Outside the door of the library, we heard laughter coming down the stairwell. Without speaking, Lindy and I jumped inside the closet and pulled on the handle together, closing the brick wall just before the door of the library opened. The only light we had was coming in from the small gap the foam piece had left behind.

  "The brick is still out there!" I whisper-shouted at her.

  In a panic, she pulled me to the ground, where we sat against a clump of robes.

  From the sounds that came through the opening, we could tell one of our sorority sisters had brought a lucky fraternity guy back with her. There were low whispers and soft giggles at first, then silence. They were quiet for so long, I began to wonder if they'd left without us noticing. I finally dared to peek, and saw them full-on making out on one of the study tables near the door, her shirt already discarded on the floor.

  "Get this," I said quietly to Lindy. "They're hooking up.”

  "Are they doing it?" she asked.

  "No, making out."

  "At least they're distracted. Can you tell who it is?"