Saving Ben

by Ashley H. Farley

  “Wait a minute,” she said, wide-eyed. “You mean your mother buys your clothes?”

  I nodded. “Mainly because I hate to shop and she’s compulsive about it. She gets excited about going to Target to buy athletic socks for Ben.”

  “Sounds like your mother and I would get along just fine. I’d shop all the time if I had the money to buy anything.” She went to the mirror, holding the blouse up to her body. “Besides, my parents feel the need to control every aspect of my life. My wardrobe is just another battlefield.”

  “That bad, huh?” I asked.

  She nodded. “But let’s not ruin our first day together by talking about them.”

  I shrugged. “It’s your call. But just so you know, if and when you are ready to talk, I’m here for you. Deal?”

  Her eyes glistened with unshed tears. “Deal.”

  I nodded my head at the blouse she was still holding up in front of her. “By the way, you should totally wear that.”

  When I returned from the shower, I found Emma admiring herself in the mirror wearing the black top with a pair of low-rider white jeans. She had curves in places I was flat, and because she was at least three inches taller than my five foot six, the tank stopped well above the jeans and exposed quite a bit of tanned skin below her bellybutton. If her father was so concerned about his daughter covering her body, where had she gotten the jeans? They certainly weren’t mine.

  She fixed her crystal eyes on me. “Are you sure you don’t mind?” she asked, bouncing around on her bare feet. “I was just trying it on. I still have to shower and everything before I get dressed.”

  “It looks great. Really.” I nodded enthusiastically.

  “But you’ve already been so generous. I would never want to take advantage of you.” She was serious and sincere and grateful, so much so I would have lent her anything.

  “No worries. I’m happy to share,” I said, towel-drying my wet hair.

  Emma tilted her head to the side, watching me. “Don’t take this the wrong way, but have you ever thought of letting it grow long?” she asked.

  I ran my fingers through my cropped locks. “No way. I have too many cowlicks and not enough patience for long hair.”

  She looked at me from one angle and then another. “Not many people can wear their hair that short, but it works for you. You have that Winona Ryder thing going on.”

  “Great.” I plugged in my hair dryer and turned it on. “How old is she anyway, forty?” I shouted over the noise.

  “Maybe, but she’s still beautiful,” she yelled back at me.

  When I was finished drying my hair, Emma came at me with a can of hair spray and her bag of tricks. For what she lacked in clothing, she made up for in makeup. She had one of every tube and stick and compact available at Walgreen’s. “Sit still and close your eyes.” I felt a tug at my eyelids followed by a flutter across my cheeks and a rubbing along my lips. “Okay, now you can open them.” She pulled a handful of silver bangles out of the bottom compartment of her bag and slipped them onto my arm. She held a mirror out to me. “That little girl look is now sexy innocence.”

  “Me? Sexy? That’s a stretch, but thanks.” I handed the mirror back to her. “By the way, I met some girls down the hall. They invited us to make the party rounds with them tonight.”

  “I’ll pass,” she said. “Big groups are not my style. But you go ahead.”

  I shook my head. “No way I’m leaving you on our first night as roommates. I just thought it might be fun to get to know some of the other girls from our hall.”

  “Oh! I do too. Just not tonight.” Emma placed her cosmetic case and mirror in her top dresser drawer and turned around to face me. “Let me ask you this. Do you have any interest in joining a sorority?”

  “Maybe. I haven’t decided yet.”

  “Well I want to, and I don’t see how moving around from party to party in a big group, like a pack of dogs on display at the Westminster Kennel Show, will help my chances. Why would anyone want to put themselves in a position of having to stand out in a crowd?”

  She pulled the tank top off over her head, and I watched her waltz around the room in naked perfection as she gathered her things for her shower.

  Seriously? Emma lost in a crowd? Like that’s ever gonna happen.

  “Okay, so I can kind of see your point,” I said, “but networking is the biggest part of rush. Who knows? One of those girls down the hall might have a sister who can help you get in the sorority you like the most.”

  She considered this for a minute, and then shrugged it off, sauntering toward the door. “We have three days of orientation ahead of us,” she said over her shoulder. “Which is plenty of time for networking. Tonight is all about us. A time for new roommates to bond.”

  Three

  In the early fall of my eighth-grade year, my mother was seen making out with my best friend’s father during a party at the Farmers’ house one night. It was Maggie Farmer herself who spotted the lovebirds when she snuck outside to the rose garden for a smoke. According to the rumors that circulated before breakfast the following morning, they were going at each other like teenagers, which was not an easy thing for my tender adolescent ears to hear. Our family lived for weeks in the shadow of my mother’s shame, but as typical of most juicy scandals, the gossip had run its course by the time we sat down to Thanksgiving dinner. At least amongst the adults.

  The kids weren’t nearly as indulgent, especially at my all-girls school where drama was as much a part of the curriculum as algebra. Under normal circumstances, eighth grade is a volatile year for most girls, when some are experimenting with boys and drinking and others are not, when the lines are drawn between those who do and those who don’t. Never mind that we’d all been together since nursery school, only one of my friends stood by my side. Archer Roland, my best friend for life.

  I never understood why the others granted their allegiance to Ann Patton instead of to me when her father was as willing a participant in the affair as my mother, but their support boosted her confidence and fueled her anger. All throughout the winter months, Patton and her puppets staged vicious attacks against me. I never knew for certain which puppet was responsible for which prank, except for the most brutal of the assaults. One day in late January, Ann Patton faked cramps and broke into my gym locker while the rest of us were at swim practice. Not only did she put bleach in my shampoo bottle, which rendered my hair a disgusting shade of puke green, she used my phone to text an up-close-and-personal picture of a girl’s private parts, presumably her own, to everyone on my contact list.

  The irrational part of me yearned for my mother’s touch when I cried myself to sleep at night. I wanted her to acknowledge my suffering as a result of her mistake. I wanted her to explain to me how she could’ve cheated on my father, and I wanted her to apologize for the disgrace she’d brought on our family. But the parents I once knew, the mother and father who’d raised me since birth with love and affection, were lost to me. My mother, immersed in her own pity party, retreated to her room with a pitcher of martinis every afternoon around four; and my father, engrossed in trying to save his marriage for the sake of his family, joined her with a dinner tray every night at six. He spoiled her with boxes of Godiva chocolates and bouquets of exotic orchids; but despite his efforts, the only thing that changed was the sound of their arguments, growing louder as my mother’s mood swings became more extreme.

  Ben handled the crisis of our mother’s affair better than I did, but then again, he was older and more mature, in his tenth-grade year at St. Paul’s, the all-boy counterpart to St. Anne’s. Unlike mine, Ben’s friends not only stood by his side, they followed him around like little Ben wannabes. They played the same sports, dated the same girls, and applied to the same colleges. And because Ben protected me, his friends protected me.

  So when I found the three of them waiting for me just inside the front door of their fraternity house that first night, I realized they would ruin my life if I didn�
��t establish some boundaries.

  I looped my arm through Emma’s. “Meet Spotty Watkins and Reed Randolph, Ben’s best friends since birth. Literally. They were born in the same hospital three days apart.”

  “I was first, of course,” Ben said, sticking out his chest. “Then came Spotty, and naturally, Mr. Always-late-to-the-game Reed was last.”

  Emma turned to Spotty. “Do they call you Spotty because of these?” she asked, tapping the skin along the bridge of her nose.

  Spotty’s face turned several shades of red. “No, Emma,” Reed answered for him. “Spotty is short for Spotswood. He was named after his grandfather and the two before him.”

  “So, I take it the two of you are Lambda Deltas with Ben?” Emma asked Reed and Spotty who nodded their heads in unison.

  I rolled my eyes. “Welcome to Virginia, Emma, where people are born together and die together and spend every day in between either sucking up to one another or stabbing each other in the back.”

  “Ouch, that hurts,” Reed said, rubbing his arm as though someone had pinched him.

  Ben waved me away. “Don’t listen to her. She’s been in a pissy mood all day.”

  “Of course she has.” Spotty wrapped his arm around me and squeezed. “This is an emotional time for her. The start of a new chapter in her life—‘Hello Kitty Goes to College.’”

  “Awh . . . ” Reed pinched my cheek. “Look at you all grown up.”

  I gave him the once over. “And look at you all tan. Did you actually get a job this summer or did you surf the whole time?”

  “I’ll have you know I worked as a lifeguard on the beach this summer.”

  “Some job.” I rolled my eyes. “Saving damsels in distress in their thong bikinis.”

  “Ha! The only woman I saved had no business wearing a bikini.”

  I nudged Emma and cut my eyes at a group of cute boys across the room.

  “No way,” Spotty said, stepping in front of me to block my view. “You’re here to listen to the band, right? Because if you came over here on the prowl, let me be the first to say that there is no man in this house good enough for you.”

  I took a deep breath. “Listen up, you two.” I pointed my finger first at Spotty and then at Reed. “Y’all need to back off. I’ve already warned Ben about this earlier today.”

  Spotty and Reed turned to Ben for help, but he shrugged them off. “I told you she was in a bitchy mood.”

  “Seriously,” I said. “I’m in college now, same as you. And I’ve earned the right to be here, same as you. As far as I’m concerned, we are on a level playing field. So, you have a choice. We can work out an exchange where you introduce us to some of your more worthy friends, and we do the same for you with our pretty little freshman friends at the bar over there, or I can take my new roommate next door to the DKE house.”

  The three of them quickly turned their attention to the bar, where four of the prettiest girls from our hall were waiting in line for a beer. Dolled up in little short sundresses, they giggled and flounced around in excitement over being at their first fraternity party. They were peaches, ripe for the picking.

  When the guys turned back to me, they were all smiles. “I see no reason for you to have to leave the party.” Ben grabbed his friends by the shoulders and turned them toward the bar. “Men, what say we go get everyone a beer while my sister cools off a little?”

  “You handled them beautifully,” Emma said, turning to me when they were out of earshot. “What a bunch of horny hound dogs. If you want to get a man’s attention, talk to his dick.”

  I burst out laughing. “Exactly.”

  “Look at them. They’re even hitting on the same girl,” Emma said, shaking her head in amusement as Ben, Spotty, and Reed made a pass at one of our unsuspecting freshman friends. “Reed can hit on me all day long. I thought you said he was from Richmond?”

  “He is.”

  “Well then, what beach did he work at?”

  “Oh right. No. His parents are divorced. His father lives at Virginia Beach now. Reed spends his summers with him down there.”

  “What about Spotty? He is definitely a cutie, as far as gingers go. His eyes are kind and his smile is sweet.”

  I nodded. “He’s definitely a nice guy. I’m glad to see him happy for a change. He’s been a mess for a really long time.”

  “You mean like drinking too much and stuff?”

  “No, more like in a seriously bad mood.” I moved closer to her so no one would overhear me. “In high school Spotty was considered the top lacrosse attackman in the state. He was being scouted by Division 1 schools when he tore his ACL, wrestling, of all things, with his brother in their family’s backyard. He never regained the speed and agility he needed for D1. Everything else was second best to him.”

  As the three guys headed back our way, I was glad to see Spotty walking with more pep in his step than I’d seen in several years. He handed me a plastic cup of warm beer. “Here. A peace offering. We talked it over and decided you’re right, Kitty. It’s time for us to give you some space.”

  While we waited for the band to start playing, several of Ben’s friends stopped to chat, seemingly under the pretense of asking about his summer. But it was obvious they were more interested in meeting Emma. My heart softened a little toward my brother as I watched him interact with his friends. He seemed so happy and relaxed, so well adjusted to his life at UVA. While his constant concern for my safety drove me nuts, I understood he couldn’t help himself, that his genetic makeup included this overprotective component of his personality.

  Ben is a worrier, has been all his life. When we were young, he worried that our parents would be killed in a plane crash, and that I would get rabies from playing with the wounded stray animals I was always trying to nurse back to health. As his mind and body matured, so did his worries. In high school he worried that this girlfriend didn’t like him enough, or that that girlfriend was cheating on him. He worried he hadn’t studied enough for his AP history exam, and he worried his SAT scores wouldn’t be good enough for UVA.

  Because he had no say in what happened between my parents after the Rose Garden Affair, the only aspect of the situation he could control was keeping me glued together. Ben was the one who rubbed my back at night while I soaked my pillow with tears. He was the one who walked me home after a rough day at school, and he was the one who took me out for ice cream on Friday nights when all the other girls were learning to dance at cotillion or attending sleepovers.

  When the music began to play and Emma and I turned toward the band room, Ben grabbed me by the arm. “You’ve done something different to yourself. You look good.” He bent down and whispered in my ear, “Please be careful and remember—don’t ever drink anything out of a trash can or take a drink from someone you don’t know. The guys around here like to take advantage of girls who drink too much.”

  “Getting drunk is not my style, Ben. You know that.”

  “Hey. I watch out for you. It’s what I do. I can’t just turn that off.”

  I followed Emma as she made her way to the front of the stage where everyone was dancing as one. We joined in, losing ourselves in the music as our bodies moved to the beat. Emma’s fair hair and radiant skin glistened under the strobe light. She was the prettiest girl on the floor, and every boy who tapped her on the shoulder for a dance recognized that. She made it clear to all of them that she was with me. Not in a lesbian kind of way but in a leave-me-alone-I’m-partying-with-my-girlfriend kind of way. That hour and a half was a point in time I wouldn’t soon forget. My first taste of real freedom.

  When the music stopped and the lights came on, Emma and I joined the long line of girls waiting for their turn in the restroom. We stood quietly, listening to others around us, the older girls who were commenting on the younger girls who were speaking openly of things they should’ve kept a secret.

  By the time I turned my stall over to Emma, the restroom was empty except for one other girl. I snuck a qu
ick glimpse of her reflection in the mirror while I was washing my hands in the sink next to her. I might have considered her unattractive—with hazel eyes, thin lips, and high forehead—if not for her golden hair. It wasn’t bleached white-blonde but the color of ginkgo leaves in the autumn.

  Our eyes met and she smiled. “You’re Ben Langley’s little sister aren’t you?”

  I nodded, surprised. “How’d you know?”

  “Your eyes. You have the same deep, soulful eyes.”

  I felt my face blush and I turned away from her, grabbing a paper towel from the dispenser.

  “I’ve been keeping a file on you, you know?” When she saw my concerned expression, she added, “Relax. I have a file on a lot of incoming freshmen. I’m Honey Mabry.” She held out her hand to me. “I’m the president of the Chi Delta sorority. Our mothers were pledge sisters.”

  “It‘s nice to meet you.” I forced myself to smile. “I’m Katherine Langley, but then you already know that, don’t you?”

  She covered her mouth and laughed, a tee-hee that sounded more like a sneeze.

  Emma came out of the stall and inserted herself between Honey and me. “I’m Emma, Katherine’s roommate. Do they call you Honey because of your hair?”

  Honey gave Emma a quick head-to-toe inspection before returning her attention to me. “Are you all settled into your room in the dorm?” she asked me.

  I’ve known girls like Honey all my life, girls from wealth and privilege who can spot an outsider from a hundred miles away. They have built-in radar that can alert them to impostors, and girls like Emma show up the brightest. Girls who try too hard. Girls who don’t stand a chance in their world.

  “Yep. Seems like we’ve lived there for years.” I leaned up against the counter with my back to the sink. “I’m curious too. About your name.”

  “It’s a boring story, really,” Honey said, sighing. “But if you must know. When my brother was little, he couldn’t pronounce my name, Elizabeth, so he adopted my mother’s nickname for me. Honey. It just kind of stuck.”