Greek: Double Date, page 10
“I’ve heard it told a couple different ways, but never the IKI way.”
Linda swallowed the cherry from her drink. “ZBZ last year was a mess. When I accepted my offer, they were the most distinguished house with the best, nicest, prettiest girls on campus and Frannie was the most awesome president ever. I was thrilled. Then there was that whole scandal with Jen K., my pledge sister. I ran a marathon for charity with her! She was kinda weird, but she was a legacy so they had to let her in, and they didn’t suspect anything until she wrote the article about ZBZ and Greek life in general. From there everything was terrible—for everyone, but especially for ZBZ. Nationals sent this crazy woman to tell us how to act and instituted all kinds of crazy traditions and then Casey actually kept some of them when she left. ZBZ was not a fun place.
“Frannie told us to lie to the woman from Nationals, so we did, then Casey went behind her back and told the truth, and we all looked like liars. So Casey was made interim president, but Frannie came back, staying a fifth year and running for president again, even though she’d been president and was kicked out for her presidential decisions. So she ran a really mean campaign, and Casey ran a mean campaign right back and we all knew things we didn’t want to know about either of them, and Rebecca was like, ‘choose a side.’ And we all decided to take her side, because she was so organized and thoughtful, and we voted in Ashleigh. And that was another disaster, because she wasn’t running and totally did not want to be president and was much worse than Casey or Frannie and totally needed Casey’s help to do anything at first.”
Jordan just nodded.
“So all through Hell Week, I’m thinking I’ve spent a year of college memorizing handbooks and cheers and snapping instead of clapping and looking beautiful all the time and doing demeaning pledge chores, and for what? To listen to a bunch of older students bicker like they’re in high school? I couldn’t take it anymore, but if I walked out, I would never be in a sorority. So Frannie offered me a fresh start with this new house she was founding, and I hadn’t been personally involved with anything bad Frannie did, and it was really my only option, so I said yes.” She looked out at the bar, at nothing in particular. “I guess I shouldn’t be so judgmental because I wasn’t thinking critically, as Frannie made all these promises to get us to leave and she didn’t deliver on most of them and I should have expected that after all I’d been through in the past year, but I still had trust. Uh, this is just between us, right?”
Instead of swearing to it, Jordan shrugged her shoulders. “I don’t have anyone else to tell.”
“Okay, because I shouldn’t be going on like this, but you get it, right? I had no choice. Sort of. I had two choices, and one of them was bad and one of them was sounding better.”
“I don’t get the whole system anyway, so, yeah, I can understand that.”
“So we get to school and move into this house and it’s a mess because Frannie couldn’t afford a house hasher, and now the pledges refuse to do anything because they know that we’ve been dissolved and they have no reason to invest any time in IKI. Not that I blame them. They’re smarter than us, I can tell you that. And we have a creepy psycho landlady who’s always drunk and touchy. The only reason we’re still living there is we have nowhere else to go. All the dorms are filled up and it was too late to find other housing.” Linda looked depressed—or suicidal, just from her expression. “I miss what it all used to be like at ZBZ before this whole mess. We had a lot of fun times. But after everything that’s happened, I don’t know if anyone there would accept me back.”
“I would be okay with that.”
There was a sparkle of hope in Linda’s eyes. “Really?”
“Sure. You’ve already said you left for reasons that were important at the time but you were misled. If you pledged ZBZ, spent a year in ZBZ as a pledge, and then abandoned it because people were doing stupid political things, I wouldn’t hold it against you.”
“Really? You are so awesome. What’s your name again?”
“Jordan. But I’m just a pledge.”
“You’re an awesome pledge. Do us all a favor and don’t depledge.”
Jordan smiled for the first time that evening. “I’ll do my best.”
Cappie made good on his word—for the moment, at least—and Casey didn’t see much of him. Despite looking, against her better judgment. After the initial rounds, Dale got caught up talking to some alumni about something technical, and Casey was on her own. She took a seat and removed her shawl and took the opportunity to get off her feet for a moment. It would be a serious faux pas to remove her heels at an event, even an engineering honors ceremony, but it was good to not be standing directly on them for a few minutes.
She had to admit, though, the event was pleasant. Maybe this evening wasn’t the disaster she’d made it out to be in her panicked rush a few minutes earlier. Maybe it wouldn’t be so bad after all.
She lifted her head at the squeal of the microphone being adjusted. The awards ceremony had started. Before they got to the current students’ awards, they had a few honors to graduate students, and she was about to tune out when she heard Max’s name called out. Her heart seemed to leap into her throat as she craned her head to see him, but he wasn’t there. Of course, he was in England. His faculty advisor came to retrieve his award on his behalf in his absence. She gave a short speech about Max, only a few lines, about how dedicated he was to the things he cared about. Suddenly cold without her sash, Casey shivered and held her arms, her pulse rising, until she noticed someone looking at her. Not staring—just looking, rather politely, with concern. It was not her brother or her date, but Cappie. Max would love to be here, his faculty advisor said, but he had obligations in England. What she didn’t know was, he had no obligations here—no girl to tie him down. In fact his overseas move might even have been inspired by one particular girl, a senior and sorority girl, who’d chosen a guy who refused to commit to her over Max. That guy was Cappie, and unlike Max, he was here.
She’d lost Max but suddenly she didn’t feel so lost.
chapter nine
“Wow. Engineering social—not so bad,” Ashleigh said, looking up from her phone and the text message from Casey. “Who knew?”
Fisher, up for anything as usual, only shrugged. “People surprise you. Even engineers. I used to go out with one.”
“There are female engineers?”
“A strange genetic aberration, I know. No, it’s more common than you think. Just not common enough for the male engineers. They had no chance with her. If she’d made a signal that they did, it would have been a feeding frenzy. The hazards of a program with an uneven gender ratio.”
“Like English lit. But other way around.”
“There are totally guys in English lit.”
“Yeah, but mainly girls. Most guys are fulfilling their core requirements or are way too into English literature.”
“Any other majors we should make huge generalizations about?”
“Not off the top of my head.” She waved to the approaching couple. “Rebecca. Evan Chambers.”
“I come without my last name, you know,” Evan said, not truly annoyed, but definitely not thrilled either. As to Rebecca hanging on his arm, he was surprisingly neutral. In fact, one could say he was even having a good time. “Actually, right now I think I’m more an Evan than a Chambers.”
“Welcome to the world of the dispossessed,” Fisher said, and they bumped knuckles. “Me? I wash dishes at a sorority, but it’s not nearly as bad as you would think. I kind of lucked out, actually.” His other arm squeezed his girlfriend’s. “The job’s full of opportunities.”
“Life is full of surprises,” Rebecca said. She was rather conspicuously looking around.
Ashleigh jumped in for her. “Casey and Rob left.”
“They did?”
“Casey decided to go to the engineering event. Promises or something.”
“Oh. So she dumped him?”
“No, they’d just both had enough of the formal.”
“Oh.”
Fisher looked at Evan during this conversation, and he just shrugged, but didn’t detach from Rebecca or run away from his current obligation. The news didn’t affect him at all, even if Rebecca visibly relaxed.
“Since everyone else has already asked already, maybe I should give it a shot,” Fisher said. “Hey, Rebecca, what’s the deal with this Rob guy?”
“I need a drink,” Rebecca announced, and instead of asking Evan to get one, which would have been entirely appropriate for the formal setting, she spun around on her heels and left for the bar.
Evan was the first to speak. “Ouch.”
“I had it coming,” Fisher said.
“So…are you going out with Rebecca?”
Evan just shrugged. “She asked me to escort her to the formal. I was stag. I said yes. That’s the whole story. Not very interesting.”
“Did she mention why?”
“Probably.” But he was not being helpful, and left to join his date.
Ashleigh crossed her arms. “Definitely a conspiracy.”
“Or he’s just doing the stand-up thing. And he was dateless,” Fisher suggested. “He probably doesn’t know any more than we do. Why would she tell him?”
“I don’t know. She’s Rebecca. Woman of mysterious and cold calculations.”
“Hey, I thought you were supposed to be listening in on the gossip on other houses, not ZBZ. Can’t you do that enough at the house, keeping track of the pledges?”
“Really the talk is mostly about IKI, because this party is lame and nothing else interesting has happened.” In the corner of her eye she could see Rebecca talking to a dean. “I need spy equipment. Like headphones and microphones in the plants. Ooh, and a teeny-tiny camera in a corsage or something.”
“I bet someone at the engineering bash could make you one of those.”
“That thing is sounding better all the time. But at least the dancing is starting. Want to?”
“Nothing could make me happier,” Fisher said. A slight exaggeration on his part, but definitely better than standing around. It was a better use of his feet. They moved to the now-open dance floor, where couples were assembling. “See, this is why Evan said yes.”
“Because he likes to dance? Do you know something I don’t?”
“Because being single at this exact moment would suck,” he said, squeezing her hands. “And I’m glad I’m not.”
“Do you want to dance?”
Jordan looked up from her phone and saw Calvin standing in front of her, having swept in when she was not paying attention to her surroundings. “Are you serious?”
“About as serious as you need me to be,” he said. “Look, you’re a ZBZ, and I’m an Omegi Chi. It’s my manly duty to ask a lady to dance. But if you don’t want to, I totally understand.”
“Do you like dancing?”
He shrugged. “To be honest, it’s not really my type of atmosphere.”
“And to be honest,” Jordan said with a smile, “my feet are killing me. I don’t think I could dance if I both knew how and wanted to. Neither of which is true.”
“Then can I escort a lady to a seat?”
Jordan offered her hand. “I would be thrilled.”
He took her hand and, with all the formality of their surroundings, escorted her to a seat at one of the tables around the dance floor, where they both promptly collapsed.
“I don’t have as much to complain about, I know,” Calvin said, “but I think my feet spread over the summer. My shoes are killing me.”
“My heart bleeds for you.”
He looked at the phone in her hands. “How’s Rusty?”
“Typing way too fast. So he’s either overeager to talk or he’s busy. Probably both.”
“Anyone die of food poisoning yet?”
“You heard about that? He says that was totally not his fault. And I think he’s right. He didn’t undercook the food. Either way, his event still sounds way better than this. I’m supposed to be supporting my sisters, but all they want to do is gossip and it gets old.”
“I know the feeling,” Calvin said. “Even though guys aren’t supposed to gossip, we totally do. Or just try to look interested in everyone else.”
She put a hand on his shoulder. “You have it tough, I have to admit.”
“Hey, I get to look good in a tux, the food is good and the bill’s on Panhellenic. I’m not exactly suffering, at least above my knees.” He looked out at the seemingly happy crowd, and back at Jordan. “So—do you want to dance?”
“Do you think Rusty will feel threatened?” she said jokingly.
“Rusty is the first person I came out to at Cyprus-Rhodes and the least likely to feel threatened. And it’ll kill some time before the main course.” He offered his hand. “My lady?”
She smiled and, against her best instincts, took his hand. “I’ve changed my mind. I would love to dance.”
Casey made a conscious effort to stop deciding if her night was going well or not. Things had changed course too many times for her to keep track. She decided to live in the moment, and the moment seemed to come when she was getting up from her table to find and check on her brother and a crowd of people passed by, followed by a man in a ridiculously stylish but still sort of offbeat suit—and it wasn’t Cappie. Even Casey recognized Ted Griffin, though he looked shorter in person, and the little bits of gray were more evident in his beard than when he appeared in magazines.
“Hello,” he said. “I think I’m supposed to congratulate you now.”
“Oh! I’m not an engineer. My engineer is…off, somewhere. He’s Dale. Dale Kettlewell. I’m Casey Cartwright.”
He didn’t rush off, or even excuse himself. He nodded. “What’s your major? If you’ve declared.”
“Political science.”
“I would have thought more about minoring in that, if I knew how political being a public figure could be back when I was in college,” he said. “Sorry, Ted Griffin.”
“I know. I mean, I’ve heard about you. And read about you.” Fortunately she was not a gushing fan, but she did feel a little flustered anyway. “I’m sure Cyprus-Rhodes is honored by your presence.”
“They were less honored when I was a student,” he replied. “And I didn’t have a 4.0 grade point average every semester. It’s hard to do that and have a social life, and I was a Kappa Tau, so that cut into a lot of study time.”
“It is a difficult balance. Wait, you were a KT?”
Griffin smiled. “I’d do the secret handshake but you don’t look like a KT. Unless things have really changed around here.”
“No, no. The KTs are…pretty much the slacker party house. No offense.”
“None taken.”
Think, Casey, think! Say something smart! And intriguing. “I read your critique of laptop batteries.” It was the only thing she could think of that he’d written that she’d actually read, by chance, while surfing the Internet when she was looking him up during her internship. Suddenly she realized she couldn’t make much of a conversation about it beyond its title.
“It was a very intriguing article,” Cappie cut in, to her distress. She glared at him, but he focused on Mr. Griffin. “Newsweek, right? I agree—and so does Casey, sorry, she’s a friend of mine—that battery technology is way behind computer and phone technology. My laptop dies in two hours.”
“Are you running nonessential programs?”
“Just Microsoft Word. It’s really a problem. But—not being, I confess, an engineer myself, I don’t fully understand the problems of electrical engineering in batteries. We’re a simple folk, we liberal arts people.”
Griffin laughed. “I took the history of literary criticism and I didn’t find it so simple, just more conclusive than my article, which was mostly to complain about the state of things. Newsweek likes that.”
“They are big on critical articles,” Casey said, not sure if she was cutting in on Cappie or supporting him. But she did, fortunately, know the nontechnical areas of Newsweek very well, or had read up on them since trying to switch her major. “I can’t tell if they’re legitimately trying to start a national conversation or just going against the grain for attention.”
“Going against conventional wisdom is always good for attention, and attention is always good for readership,” Griffin said. “I like to think they’re a bit more altruistic than that, but that’s the engineer in me talking and not the politician. Which, somewhat sadly, I am often categorized as because I get behind causes. Of course it’s not all bad—there are plenty of good reasons to go into politics.”
“Or at least understand them,” Cappie said. “Me, I’m just a women’s studies major—currently—but Casey here is the expert.”
She blushed. “I wouldn’t say that.” Was she actually happy that he was praising her, or still too cynical? She didn’t have time to decide. “I am very interested in a career in politics—the nobler side, if it exists.”
“Questioning its existence is showing more sense than most starry-eyed youngsters.” Griffin laughed. “Did I just say ‘starry-eyed youngsters’? I must be getting old. Well, I did take the long route, making the money first, though that wasn’t my intention when I started working in airplane development. Life can be pleasantly surprising.”
“You did revolutionize how airline cockpits are designed,” Cappie baited.
He waved it away. “Like anyone’s interested in that. Okay, maybe the electrical engineers—but they have to do better, not the same. They discuss it with dollar signs in their eyes sometimes, like mechanical devices all come with a huge payout. That’s only slots and only if you hack one.”
“You hacked a slot machine?” Cappie said, with too much interest, probably.
Griffin’s face lit up. “It was supposed to be my senior project, but the deans shot it down. I built a device that sent electrical signals to confuse the magnets in the machine—and this was before it was all done with microchips. Now I think it would be even easier. I never got to test it in an actual casino, but I did get it working on a kiddy slot that paid out tokens on a boardwalk. The deans were not interested in magnifying this accomplishment by recognizing it.”
