“She’s not personally very sweet.”
“I don’t like people who are sickeningly sweet.”
“Yeah, I might have noticed.”
Calvin grimaced. It was time to reassure his boyfriend. “However you decide to vote, which is totally up to you, I’ll support you.”
“Even with ZBZ down in the rankings?”
“And the Gamma Psi pity vote working for it. Things are just more level this year, I guess. Playing fields, I mean,” Calvin said. “And that makes it a tougher contest.” He sighed. “It’s probably all going to come down to the sweetheart speech on Saturday night anyway. People get so caught up in the moment.”
“I think it’s kind of romantic,” Grant said with an evil grin.
“You also apparently like unicorns.”
“Yeah.” He bit into his second cookie. “Especially with sprinkles.”
When Calvin and Grant headed downstairs for the meeting, they found Evan and some of the other guys transfixed by the television. On it was a little girl, probably seven or eight, on a stage that looked much too big and empty for her. Wearing a sparkly, bedazzled leotard, she was tap-dancing to the best of her abilities, which were clearly limited, as she spent the entire segment with her eyes glued to the person next to her, copying her movements a second later. She didn’t know the routine at all.
“Who sent this?” Calvin said. “And who is it?”
“I thought it was Shelly, but the label on the tape says it’s Natalie,” Evan replied. “But it came without a sender, so I’m not sure if it was sent intentionally to make her look sweet and innocent or she didn’t come through with blackmail money and this is someone’s revenge. Could go either way.”
“If it’s already on Natalie’s Facebook page, I would go for the less interesting option,” Trip said. “I thought it was Shelly, too, but Shelly’s good at dancing.”
“She’s had a lot of time to practice since she was eight,” said Marco, still Shelly’s biggest supporter, but Calvin was pretty sure there were a few others now. It would eventually come down to voting blocs, which were starting to form. Unfortunately for Evan, who really wanted Rebecca to win, he had only Calvin and Grant to rely on—and maybe not Grant. “It’s…hypnotic.”
“Yeah,” Trip said.
The awfulness just consumed their attention until Evan looked at his watch. “Enough.” He shut the television off, to the moans of several disappointed onlookers. “It’s actually starting to get painful now. And we have a meeting to start.”
They all sat down, and Evan called things to order, even if it wasn’t a formal meeting so much as a discussion. Various members brought forward things they had seen or heard, but the big news of the day was what they had not seen or heard.
“ZBZ has definitely scaled way back,” Evan said and unintentionally looked at Trip. “And before anyone says anything, I don’t have any extra information about this. Maybe they’re frustrated, maybe they’ve decided to be more subtle. Again, could go either way.”
“It’s not very subtle if we don’t know they’re being subtle,” Marco said. “Or, wait, is that the point?”
“To be subtle is to get the message across without pressing it,” Evan said. “Which, at this point, I appreciate, because I think I have a serious cavity coming on.”
The others motioned in agreement.
A pledge raised his hand. “Can we get community-service hours for delivering the junk food to a soup kitchen?”
“Only if it’s sealed, and you get only one hour’s worth. But good initiative, pledge. Now, the candidates. Alphabetically, for the sake of it. Natalie of Gamma Psi?”
“We know she’s not a good dancer,” Marco said, to some chuckles.
“She hasn’t done anything incredibly outrageous. And the Gamma Psis make the best cupcakes,” Trip said. “I have it on good authority that they don’t make the hasher do it. They do it themselves.”
“Does Natalie do it? Because having people do stuff for you is not very sweetheartlike.”
He shrugged uncomfortably. “I don’t know. Am I supposed to be spying on them? I’m just repeating what I heard. Besides, everyone has the house working for them.”
“Whether they want it or not,” Evan mumbled. “Okay, what else?”
“I have her new roommate in my geology class,” Brandon said. “Rocks for Jocks,” as it was unofficially known, was still a very popular class despite it’s reputation. In fact, it was rather known for meeting guys. “The roommate she got when she was assigned an opening in a freshman dorm?”
“Right, because the house burned down,” Grant said. “Let’s all mention that as often as possible.”
Brandon looked annoyed. “Anyway, she asked me if I was involved in that sweetheart thing, and I said yes. She wanted me to know that Natalie totally snores. I don’t know how good her word is.”
“She wouldn’t have brought it up unless she had a beef with her,” Trip pointed out, and many agreed, even Evan.
“Fine, Natalie, possible snorer, possible not-snorer. Anything else?” When no one said anything, he moved on. “Rebecca of Zeta Beta Zeta.”
There were some groans. “She’s a bitch,” a pledge said.
“Did she do something bitchy to you? In the last week?” Evan drilled him.
“No. I just heard. You know, in general.”
“She is a bitch,” Trip said.
Calvin watched as Evan didn’t take the bait. “Trip, I’m not starting with you. You’re entitled to your opinion, and I’m entitled to mine, which is that while her personality can sometimes be abrasive, she can also be very nice and is reliable and remarkably honest. In other words, she’s not a suck-up. I’ve known her for almost two years now, and I can testify to that. Anyone else?” No one else wanted to get involved in that feud, so they moved on. “Shelly of Beta Theta Tau. What’s new?”
“She dances well.”
“We all know that.”
“And she’s not a skank, like Stephanie. Or a bitch or a snorer,” Marco said, to a chorus of boos. “What?”
“You’re not going to win people into the Shelly camp by dismissing the other candidates,” Evan said. “Maybe. Anyone else? No? Fine. Stephanie of Tri-Pi.”
“Skank!”
“Again, with the name calling,” Evan said. “Wait. Did I just hear someone scream? Does someone in here scream like a girl?”
“What’s this with the name calling again?”
“No, I mean, like a girl. Screaming. Or shrieking, I don’t know.” He stood up. “Because I heard one.”
They went quiet and they could hear shuffling upstairs. Evan motioned for the others to head up. Calvin opened a door to a pillow thrown at his face as a shrieking, barely dressed blonde girl hurled it at him and leaped down the stairs and out the door.
“Melanie! Baby!” Brandon screamed, but he didn’t chase her past the front door. “At least come back for your clothes!” As embarrassing and true as that might have been, she didn’t, and when he shut the door, he had to face down the entire fraternity. “Okay, so she was over. I thought she left!”
“Dude, she was listening in on the meeting!”
“Then maybe we should have been in the meeting room.”
“Someone is dangerously close to sacrificing his vote,” Trip said, this time with Evan backing him up with a nod. “Or at least getting some kind of probation.”
“Look, okay, she’s a Tri-Pi, but I was still going to vote for Natalie. Who would vote for those slutty Tri-Pis anyway? I wouldn’t vote for them if their house burned down!”
Calvin put his head in his hands and Evan just shrugged with general discontent. “You’re on probation,” Evan said. “And also, nobody bring their girlfriends over to the house until this is over, because we’re not soundproofing the living room. Which we shouldn’t have to do, anyway.” They all knew that, but they all knew something else now, too.
Things had officially gotten crazy.
At the Kappa Tau house, things
were also a little crazy for a nonparty night, and this fact was betrayed by the weird ambience of half of the lightbulbs being out.
“Guys, I don’t even know how we’re going to change that one,” Rusty protested as they pointed to the lamp that was high on the wall near the stairs, in just a position so that getting a ladder in and unfolded against the wall would be nearly impossible.
“Do it! Do it!” they chanted.
Rusty gave in and aimed the remote control’s antenna at the bulb, which became bright and then shorted out with a buzzing noise. Other improvements to the house included turning on the microwave from a distance, but they soon learned they couldn’t control the setting and the pizza was both severely overcooked and partially irradiated by the time they got it out. When Rusty walked past the radio, it picked up the local Mexican station, where a hyperactive disc jockey was playing nothing but Latin pop. When he moved away, it would slowly die down and eventually turn off again.
They had made, unintentionally, the greatest remote control in the world. Rusty wasn’t even sure what alterations caused the anomaly and whether he implemented them or Dale did. Dale gave up after an hour, as he had to report to class and then to his job at ZBZ, but he wished him the best of luck with his new magical device.
The one thing it didn’t do was control the rock’em sock’em life-size robots, which were strangely unresponsive to the new ultrauniversal (possibly dimensional) remote. They stood lifeless. Rusty was convinced that he could eventually make them work, but by the more conventional way of levers and pulleys that the smaller version used. The problem was the size of them made them hard to balance, and further calculations would be needed—calculations that might take longer than the designated weekend Rusty had to pull this off, and he had yet to break the news to Cappie, who was oddly still at work on his paper, as the door to his room was shut. Either that or something else was going on in that room, but either way, Rusty knew better than to open the door. Cappie had to emerge for food sometime.
Rusty eventually was guided by his fraternity brothers to the television, which, due to a tardy cable bill, received only five stations until they paid their arrearage. At first the remote did nothing and he set it aside to grab a drink, but when he returned, the television was on and the station was Korean or Chinese. To be perfectly honest, he couldn’t tell the difference. “What did you guys do?”
“Dude, it just turned on,” Beaver said. “This thing is haunted. By an awesome ghost who likes sword fights.” There was some feudal drama on, with actors standing in cheap sets hacking at each other with swords but not causing any real bloodshed, just another long argument. “Do you speak Japanese?”
“I think it’s Chinese.” There were subtitles, too, but also in another Asian language. “Has anything else come on?”
“We’ve been afraid to touch it,” Heath admitted, staring warily at the remote.
Rusty wasn’t the type to be scared by technology, even mysterious technology, and he fiddled with the device. The TV went out again, then back on, this time to what they eventually identified (after some guessing and one internet search for verification) as a curling tournament. After that they found a Saudi Arabian rap station, the international version of CNN where all the reporters were British and did actual reporting, a looped tape of city council meetings from Lebanon, Arkansas, and a Bollywood epic that involved a lot of turbans and a lot of singing to the camera. This was immediately classified as alternately “awesome” or “mind-altering” but did make for compelling watching.
Then, at last, the real channels started popping up. Cheers erupted when a Bring It On cheerleader movie marathon commenced.
Cappie emerged from his room an hour later, library books under his arm, to find the whole house watching television. “What is this?”
“Bring it On Again,” Heath said. “The straight-to-DVD sequel to Bring It On. It’s a marathon.”
“Brought to us by Rusty’s magic remote,” Beaver said and gestured to Rusty, who was nervously staring at it, hoping it wouldn’t change the channel again, or at least not until a commercial.
“The remote’s accessing all kinds of stations,” Rusty said.
“What remote?”
“The one that’s supposed to work on the robots but doesn’t. It works on everything else, though.”
“Is that why my hallway isn’t lit?”
“Um, yes?” He tried his most innocent expression. “They made me do it.”
“Not to worry, Spitter. I think it adds atmosphere. And how is two movies a marathon?”
“Five. The original, and the four DVD sequels. Apparently they weren’t well-publicized.” Rusty was temporarily entranced by the cheerleaders before looking up at Cappie again. “How’s the paper?”
“Sucking and robotless.” But he wasn’t being too harsh on Rusty. He was busy being just as transfixed as everyone else. He looked down at his books. “These are due. Or need renewing. Or I can pay the fine.”
“They fine you?”
“You don’t know? Or have you never had a book in late?”
“Will you be surprised if I said the latter?”
“No. Sorry.” Cappie took a seat on the couch. “Hmm, what about a ten-cent entry fee for a showing from a premium pay channel?”
Casey was pleased with herself as she headed to Kappa Tau, knowing she left ZBZ in good hands, even if the house wasn’t hers to leave. Technically Ashleigh was in charge, but Casey always felt responsible for the house. Maybe that was because lately, they seemed to always have a crisis on their hands, like keeping the sorority from falling apart, or from going to jail for burning down a house, however accidental it was. But the house wasn’t in crisis right now. The girls weren’t nearly as keyed up, and she judged that to be a good thing. After moaning a bit about losing their edge with the sweetheart competition if they stopped baking, they were placated when Casey eventually found a distracting and strangely empowering Bring It On marathon on cable, and with enough bowls of popcorn and chips being passed around, they managed to at least mentally shelve, if not forget, that the house was locked in an important conflict with the other sororities where respect and the house standing were on the line and everything rested on the “sweetness” of it. As Casey had had enough of cheerleading for one day, she excused herself to check first on Rebecca to discover she had escaped to study in the library of all places, or that was her cover story, and then on to the KT house to see what Cappie was up to. She hoped he was studying. She knew he was capable of it, when he wanted to be, but motivation was difficult to come by in Cappieland. He could swing either way, she knew, but he seemed to be on a steady track, the best motivation being perhaps her anger over him not graduating if he failed to do so.
The fraternity house was quiet from afar, which was odd for a Thursday night. The lights—some of them—were on in the house but most of them were out on the front lawn, including the glow-in-the-dark electrically powered gnome they were so proud of. Cappie certainly went on about it after they received it from eBay, insisting it had a name and a history and a certificate that was official in some capacity, whatever capacity gnomes could be official in, that was. Casey had her doubts, but as someone who came from a sorority where they passed around a cat named Pussy Willow for speaking at special meetings, she decided not to comment.
She knocked on the door to the KT house. No one answered, but the door wasn’t locked so she hesitantly opened it. The noises were familiar and not male. They emanated entirely from the television, which was playing the same marathon as the one consuming the girls in her house, though she was positive the viewers had an entirely different interpretation of the merits of the film.
And there was Cappie, the great student, with books on his lap but his eyes on the screen, not drooling as hard as some of the guys but something close to it. She had to tap him on the shoulder before he even noticed her. “Oh! Hey, Case!” He raced to his feet, dropping his books as he went and then scrambling to pick them
up. “Do you know if the library is still open?”
“It closed an hour ago. What are you doing?” This was met with a chorus of shushing from the KTs.
He ushered her away from the television and into the hallway. “Your brother is a genius.”
“And Mensa will back him up. They sent him some really boring magazines when he was fourteen. Why is this news?”
“He found some way to program the TV so we get pay channels. There’s a marathon of—”
“I know, I’m familiar with it,” she said. “And also, people who don’t spend their entire budget on beer and Ping-Pong equipment that won’t actually be used for Ping-Pong can afford pay channels, too. Only we pay for them. What are you doing?”
“Come on, Case. These upstanding cheerleaders wait for no man to see them win the Cheer Camp Nationals.”
“I mean, about your paper. The one your graduation suddenly hinges on?”
“Woah, just throwing the G-word right out there, aren’t you? Just because I used it once—”
“And you’re going to hear it a lot this semester, so get used to it! You’re supposed to be studying or writing or whatever this professor—”
“Hey, he has a name. A name that’s unusual and old-timey, but it is a name.”
“That’s not important! And neither is a marathon of sophomoric DVD movies! I get one thing right, and then another disaster comes along. Rebecca and the house aren’t going to tear each other’s throats out, and I get five seconds alone—”
“And you want to spend it with me? I assume not at the library, though it does seem like you were checking out the hours. You know, we never did use the library to—”
She cut him off. “I just know the hours, Cappie, because I use the library. For normal, library purposes!” She was ready to scream at him but not in front of the others. It was so easy to get worked up considering how wound up she was over the past week. Maybe it wasn’t fair to Cappie, but she was disappointed in him. “I just expected more from you.”
“Casey…”
“With the paper and you made Rusty do that whole robot thing—”
Greek: Best Frenemies Page 11
