Greek: Best Frenemies

by Marsha Warner

  Rebecca stopped to consider her answer. “I don’t have to be political because I’m Senator Logan’s daughter. Or because I was Senator Logan’s daughter, and now I’m Mr. Private-Citizen-Who-Claims-He’s-Changed Logan’s daughter.”

  “But you like politics. At least a little. You nominated Ashleigh and got the house to vote for her for president even though she wasn’t running.”

  “That was because Casey and Frannie were embarrassing themselves and didn’t deserve to be president.”

  “There are lots of people who have opinions about presidents. There are people who think I shouldn’t be president. There are people who think the U.S. president shouldn’t be president. You performed a smart political maneuver, and at the time, you probably enjoyed it. So?”

  “I like to cause trouble?”

  “I know something about politics, too, at least at the Greek level, and that’s not what that says to me.”

  She hesitated, but she admitted it. “Okay, so I don’t want people to walk all over me.”

  “A vast understatement.”

  “Maybe. But I don’t want to have to put up with all of this…crap.”

  “It goes with the territory.”

  “So what are the benefits?”

  “I think everyone who’s running for anything has a moment where they wonder that, too,” Evan said. “Look, you’ll gain some good experience managing different personalities, and don’t forget the power, and the subterfuge. I’ll be happy when I crush Trip’s hopes and dreams.”

  “I knew there was a reason I liked you.”

  He grinned. Another good admission from Rebecca. Maybe they should have more heart-to-hearts. “The point is, I’m still president of Omega Chi, and you’re still running for sweetheart. Do you want to be sweetheart or not?”

  “…I don’t know.”

  “Not to be harsh here, but you should come to a decision. If not for the people who are supporting you, which a lot of people are whether it drives you crazy or not, but for yourself. Despite whatever nonsense about needing it on your résumé for presidency of ZBZ—if you even want to run—this is about us honoring you for being awesome. You have to decide, preferably sometime before the end of the ceremony on Saturday, whether you want the honor. Because if you don’t, I know three other less-admirable girls, in my eyes, who do.”

  “I can only imagine the catfight at ZBZ if I decide to take myself out of the running.”

  “I wouldn’t underestimate your sisters. And don’t get angry at them for supporting you. They’re doing their best. Their best may involve heart-shaped cookies and whatever the baking-flour incident was, but it’s their best. For you.”

  She considered it again. “I hope you’re right. I’ve been at the receiving end of Ashleigh’s displeasure. And surprisingly, it was worse than being at the end of Casey’s.”

  “For a week they’ll be mad, I’m sure. Maybe two. Then someone will break up with someone else and they’ll discover a new superguy on campus to fawn over and you’ll be yesterday’s news. And before you say it, I mean that in a good way.”

  “I wish I could defend ZBZ against your monumentally degrading accusations, but you are being stunningly accurate.”

  “Well,” he said, “I have some experience with ZBZ.”

  “Their drunken antics.”

  “We all have those.”

  “Their obsession with cats.”

  “I discovered that one night. But I thought I was hallucinating.”

  “We have a talking-stick type-thing for meetings called Pussy Willow.”

  He raised his eyebrows. “That I didn’t know.”

  “I guess you don’t know everything there is to know about ZBZ after all. And I thought you were the scholar of ZBZ women.”

  “Just two, really. And at the moment, one.”

  Rebecca didn’t say “aw” or fawn over him in a romantic gush for the comment. She just silently appreciated it, something she would never admit to if her life depended on it, and that was good enough for Evan.

  “So are you going to tell me about the baking-flour incident now?”

  “Let’s just say baking flour looks a lot like sugar, which looks like another substance that costs much more than both of them combined and is much harder to obtain, and no ZBZ should snort any of those substances.”

  “Very tantalizing. But not enough.”

  She smiled flirtatiously. “You haven’t earned it.”

  He returned the expression. “The night is young.”

  It was late when Casey arrived at the KT house, but it was college so everyone was still awake. The first guys she saw were hyperfocused on the television, and one nodded in the general direction of the backyard when she asked where Cappie was.

  Outside, she found Cappie, her brother and Dale working with some kind of wire frame that was bent and rusted and looked as if it had been salvaged from a different item entirely. It did come out haphazardly into a box shape. “You’re building a succah?”

  “Hey, Case.” Cappie climbed over the rubble to kiss her. “No, it’s way too low. And you can’t build it until Yom Kippur anyway, and that’s like six months away.”

  “What is she talking about?” Dale asked. He had gloves and protective eyegear on over his glasses.

  “Jewish ritual booth eaten in for a week during what Christians refer to as the Feast of Tabernacles but the Jews call Succot. It has to be constructed outdoors, and in the fall, after Yom Kippur,” Cappie said. “I used to be a Jewish studies major.”

  “I remember that semester. You were spending so much time at Hillel, thinking it would earn you extra credit,” Casey said. “So, what are you building?”

  “Rock’em Sock’em Robots,” Rusty said. “You know, the ones where they punch each other and their heads pop up?”

  “Yeah, you can buy those on eBay.”

  “Life-size. Hopefully.” Cappie put his arm around her. “It was Spitter’s idea. And Dale’s. We needed another Vesuvius. Without the eruptions.”

  Rusty proudly held up a long pipe with various attachments to make it look more like a stick-figure man. “Imagine this with a lot of plastic and paint. And a head. Imagine it like the box, but bigger.”

  “So, not at all what I’m looking at.”

  “Not technically, but we’ll get there,” Cappie said. “You never had one of those sets?”

  “I did in kindergarten, but by the time I got there it was already broken and both guys were missing their heads. They just hadn’t cleared it out yet. Lazy preschool cleanup committee.”

  “That’s it!” Dale said, standing back up from where he was kneeling. “That’s the quote I was thinking of!”

  “What quote? About kindergarten?”

  “No, Aristotle. For Cappie’s essay,” Dale said. “He said if every tool could do its own work—like a hammer could hammer a nail in by itself—then workmen wouldn’t need servants. And slaves. He said slaves because it was ancient Greece. I can’t remember where it’s from.”

  Cappie nodded. “The internet can remedy that. Thanks, Dale. Now if you gentlemen would excuse me.” He took Casey’s hand and they ascended the stairs to Cappie’s room for some privacy. It was in its usual state—terrible, with no apologies from Cappie, who had given up that game long ago. It did smell rather…chemical.

  “Why does it smell like artificial lemon scent in here?”

  “It’s ‘lemon fresh,’ but I don’t think any actual lemons were harmed in the making of it,” Cappie said.

  Casey looked around and found one of the chemical-scent dispensers plugged into the overstuffed outlet. “What’s with the dispenser?”

  “Scented candles seemed like bad luck for fraternities. Or sororities. I mean, we don’t have sprinklers either.” He lay down on top of the covers and she joined him. They liked just to sit, or more accurately lay, like that. “And it’s a long story.”

  “Your room did kinda smell before. And not of fake lemons.”

 
“Okay, short story. Summed up by you.”

  She snuggled closer to him. He did smell better. “So you’re working on a paper?”

  “Kind of a special project. To boost my grade-point average into not-failing levels for a certain class.”

  “You’re failing a class?” she demanded to know.

  Cappie rushed to assure her, “Hey, I am trying not to fail a class. Even if it involved begging the TA, then the professor, then agreeing to do a massive paper of term-paper proportions by Monday, because I need the credits from the class to graduate.”

  There was a pause before Casey squealed. Not her most dignified response, but there didn’t seem to be a lot of dignity involved in her life this week anyway. “You said the G-word!”

  “Graduate?”

  “You said it again!”

  “I know, twice in one night. Don’t push it.” Cappie smiled at her proudly, but it was clear that was as far as that line of questioning was going to go. Cappie was the sort of guy she could picture only in college, and not just because she’d met him in college, when they were both freshmen and he was roommates with Evan Chambers. True adulthood was not a place she could imagine him in. He was at home at the lazy KT house, with the endless parties and total lack of responsibility. But they were in their final semester, and they were back together after a two-year separation and she wanted more than ever for him to graduate with her and not flunk his classes and be stuck for another year, even though it wouldn’t shock her. It would just severely disappoint her, more so because Casey had tried to make it clear, without explicitly saying it, that she would not stick around the area or do the long-distance relationship thing for him. She was moving on, with or without Cappie, but hopefully with.

  “You still there?”

  “Yeah,” Casey replied. “So what’s the paper about?”

  “I have to submit a proposal tomorrow morning. I thought I’d focus on Aristotle, because it’s Professor Izmaylov’s first name. Or maybe he sees that all the time. I don’t know. That’s what you get when you’re Greek and your parents name you Aristotle.”

  “Was he the guy who—”

  “—we met at the engineering awards ceremony last semester, yeah. He returned to teaching this semester. We must have inspired him, because he remembered me. And he’s old.”

  “Cappie!”

  “I know, I know. Anyway, that’s what Dale was talking about. They were doing the whole giant-robot thing and I like to multitask, especially when I’m under a deadline, so I’m going to write about robots. Or how robots are not people. And use way more quotes in my paper this time, because that’s what got me in trouble last time. Not enough quotes.” He snapped his fingers. “Aristotle’s Politics. That’s where the quote is from! I knew I’d get it. I was just reading it.”

  Cappie always amazed her with his brains, mostly because they were so firmly well-hidden within his thick skull. When he focused, he was a brilliant student. The problem was, he rarely ever focused. “I don’t know much about Aristotle, but I support whatever you say.”

  “You know, you’re technically a Greek.”

  She rolled her eyes. “I’m aware. Though this week isn’t making me feel any better about it.”

  “What, is Rebecca’s superawesome campaign not so superawesome? Nothing says fun like kissing up to the Omega Chis.”

  “Are you ever going to forgive them?”

  “For getting my best friends expelled? No way in hell.” But it was best not to stay on that topic. “I thought you were excited about the sweetheart competition. The two thousand text messages on my cell phone say something to that effect.”

  “I am excited for Rebecca. I’m not so excited about Rebecca’s attitude.”

  “Tons of roommates cheering for you? Having romantic gifts nobody wanted or asked for sent in your honor to the sleaziest house on campus? What could she possibly have a problem with?”

  “It’s not that. Everyone puts up with that. Rebecca’s good under pressure, maybe better under pressure than anyone I know. That is, if she wants the pressure.”

  “You mean, if she wants to be sweetheart?”

  Casey thought about it. “Yeah. I guess I do mean that.”

  “Well, did you ask her?”

  “Ask her what?”

  “If she wants to be sweetheart.”

  “It’s a moot point now. Evan nominated her and she accepted.”

  “From what I remember of sweetheart nominations, it’d be pretty difficult not to accept. And she’s still going out with Evan, right? But does she actually want this fairy-tale contest with muffins and flowers and whatever caused Dale to smell so delicious?”

  “But it’s not like she has to lift a finger, really. The pledges are more than happy to do it for her. And it’s good for the house. If ZBZ loses sweetheart, it’s going to be a depressing place, and so far this semester, it’s been pretty depressing.”

  “Yeah, arson is pretty depressing I guess.” He tried to avoid it when she hit him with the spare pillow. “Ow! Okay, I promise not to bring that up again.”

  “This will be like, the fourth time you’ve promised that. Why did I ever tell you?”

  “Because how can you possibly keep a secret like that?”

  “I’m keeping the Amphora secret just fine!” Last semester, she had stumbled upon a meeting of the Amphora Secret Society while following Cappie around.

  “No, that’s not fine, because you just mentioned it,” he said, but he wasn’t completely serious or angry about it. He was more in the mood for laughing. “But seriously, burning a house down? How could I not mention it behind closed doors and with the person who told me?”

  “It was an accident.”

  “I believe you. You know that. That said, it was a pretty big accident.”

  “Those scented candles are supposed to be safe!”

  “I think the spray is better. The automated one.” He pointed to his. “Look. No accidental burning down of KT. Which I think would evoke less sympathy because we’re guys and the house is already considered a biohazard, but it might help us win the sweetheart competition.”

  “Ugh, don’t remind me! If Gamma Psi takes it over the pity vote I’ll just…gah!” She didn’t have words for it. “After they walked out on our social last semester…”

  “Are you about to say you’d wish their house would burn down?”

  “No! I am not that vindictive.” She calmed herself down. “I just get excited about certain things. Like sweetheart contests. And house standings. And ZBZ in general.”

  “Wow. I’ve never noticed it, but now that you point it out—”

  She hit him with the pillow again. “I’m allowed to be obsessed with my house.”

  “You’re sounding dangerously close to an owner, not a sister.”

  It was true. She did think of it as her house and her responsibility, as if she needed to nurture and care for it. She’d always felt that way, since the moment she became a ZBZ, but she wouldn’t acknowledge it openly even if Cappie was spot-on. “If everyone showed the same level of enthusiasm, I wouldn’t have to feel this way. Besides, I have a responsibility not to leave the house heading into a gap year because of stupid decisions we made. Like my mean campaign against Frannie for president, which ended up making Ashleigh president. I mean, I’m glad she’s president, but it wasn’t our best moment as sisters. And Rebecca shouldn’t be left to a house that’s crashing in the rankings. I may hate her some of the time, or sometimes what feels like all of the time, but she’s my Little Sister. She should succeed.”

  “And if she doesn’t want to?”

  “Why wouldn’t she want to?”

  Cappie sat up. “If she doesn’t agree to it on your terms. That means being sweetheart and whatever other honors you worked hard for, like president, which I know from experience watching you is a lot of hard work. As opposed to this place, where I’ve been president for two years because we forgot to have elections and just decided to let everyone
keep their positions.”

  “I bet KT’s harder to keep together than it looks.”

  “Maybe, but at least we don’t have to bake anything. Or order Dale to bake anything.”

  “You know what Gamma Psi gave us when they turned down our offer for a social the first time around? Before we agreed to pay their utility bill? Cupcakes with frowny faces on them.”

  “That sounds like the most delicious rejection ever.”

  “Actually, it was. They were awesome. The cupcakes I mean, not the Gamma Psis.”

  “Remind me to invite the Gamma Psis to a social. They won’t go near our property, and the guys like cupcakes. I like cupcakes.” Casey swatted him again. “Stop hitting me!”

  “Stop saying stupid things.”

  “I thought you liked me for my acerbic wit?”

  “Acerbic?”

  “It was my word on the word-a-day calendar thing. Acerbic. Means sour, unripe or bitterly harsh.”

  “Harsh is not the way I would begin to describe you,” Casey said and kissed him. Further kisses would have continued, but they were interrupted by a crash coming from the backyard and the string of unRusty-like curses that followed it.

  “I should go check on my little brother,” she said.

  “I should go check on my Little Brother,” he replied, and they dashed downstairs.

  On the lawn, Rusty had a fist-shaped red welt on his forehead. “Good news—the punching robot punches.”