Jessica awoke late on Sunday morning, groggy from the NyQuil but clearheaded enough to realize she couldn’t keep hiding away with Chris, drugging herself and having dream sex that blew her mind and felt like it lasted for hours. She sat up and her temples pounded, sending her onto her back in bed next to Chris again.
Come on, McCloud! You have shit to take care of.
She gritted her teeth and rose again. It was time to return to Nu Alpha Omega.
At the very least, she needed to get her things. But mostly, she needed to talk to her sisters one last time before she moved on.
She texted Kate to give a heads up of her return, and then showered and got dressed, resisting the urge to climb back in bed with Chris and try one more time to upgrade dream sex to reality sex. But it was pointless. They’d tried before yesterday’s NyQuil binge and neither had been surprised to find the same old problem arise (or not arise, as it were).
She grabbed Chris’s keys from the coffee table where he’d tossed them the day before and fifteen minutes later, she was pulling up the long driveway toward the NAO house.
Her sisters’ cars were all there as far as she could tell, and she inhaled deeply, reminding herself that she could do this. She’d made a decision and it was definitely the right one, and if she was smart, she wouldn’t lose all the friends she’d worked so hard to make.
When she walked through the front door, her sisters were already gathered around the long dining room table, talking quietly. Then they fell silent as she stood in the doorway.
“Hey.” She forced herself to walk further in. This was her sorority. She was still the president and founder and reason for it to exist at all. She wasn’t an outsider. Maybe they were worried about what she had to say. They didn’t need to be. Nothing would really change for them.
She took a seat in her usual spot in the center and the rest waited for her to speak, even Kate, who sat facing her on the opposite side of the table.
“I’m not mad at anyone, so don’t worry.” While that didn’t erase the tension, it did seem to chip away at it. “But I’ve realized a couple things over the past few days.” She inhaled to steady herself against nerves and medication-induced grogginess that made everything around her spin just a little bit. “It’s time for me to move on. I want y’all to keep going, though. I want you to keep running NAO. I’m stepping down, and Kate will take over, but she was always more of a president anyway, so I’m sure you’re in good hands.”
“Where are you going?” Maddy asked from the end of the table.
“I’m dropping out of school. I’m gonna start a bakery.”
Judith chuckled. “Take me with you?”
A few sisters also laughed, and when Jessica did, too, the mood lightened. “Yeah, I’m pretty excited about it.”
“Good,” Kate said. “You should be.” And when Jessica turned her attention to the new president’s face, Kate added, “I’m sorry I got carried away with the rites.”
Jessica waved her off. “No, it’s fine. I can’t be squeamish about what needs to be done. And now I realized I was anxious about a lot of things that weren’t related to it, and I let it get the best of me. I’m sorry.”
“Still,” Kate persisted. “I shouldn’t have argued with you about it. You call the shots.”
“Not anymore,” Jessica said. “Now you call the shots. And I’m certain you’ll make the right calls.”
Simone said, “So you’re not going to disband NAO?”
Jessica shook her head firmly. “No way. And actually, I know this is a little ways down the road, but I’m wondering if there are any other campuses that might want to open a chapter. Once you’re done bringing in the new pledge class, obviously.”
Kate’s eyes opened wide. “I was thinking the same thing.”
“Of course you were.”
“Where are you going to go?” Pippa asked.
“Not sure yet. Gonna start scouting around.”
Judith cleared her throat. “I wasn’t kidding. Take me with you. Wherever it is.”
“I need you here, though,” Jessica said. “How else are we going to recruit the apathetic chainsmoker demographic?”
Judith rolled her eyes.
That took care of that business, at least, but there was still more to discuss, and holy shit did she want to discuss it with this exact group of people. “So I broke up with Mason.”
Kate held up her palm to Natalie, who sat on Jessica’s right, and the girls high-fived.
“And I got back together with Chris.”
“Hell yeah!” Jamie shouted.
Jessica laughed. “Oh just wait. It gets better.”
It was a sweltering hot day already, but Jessica didn’t mind. For one, it meant Chris wore only a sleeveless shirt, showing off his biceps and providing helpful visual fodder to be used once the two of them fell asleep that night. But also, she was technically on vacation and it was technically her birthday and she was technically intoxicated, so it was hard to worry about anything. Sure, she was running low on scratch-off money, but Austin was a big city with lots of gas stations that she could alternate between without drawing suspicion.
Where she sat on the cafe patio with Chris, Miranda, and Quentin, there was just enough of a breeze to make her sweat helpful, and things were starting to make sense to her as she stared out onto the busy sidewalks of South Congress Avenue.
As they finished off the last of their late brunch, Jessica tried counting the number of mimosas she’d consumed while at the table. It was definitely less than ten, but probably more than five.
“I’ve made a decision,” she said, as the conversation reached a natural lull.
“Oh yeah?” Miranda asked. “What’s that?”
“I’m going to open my bakery in Austin.”
Miranda shrugged. “Well, duh.”
“Duh?”
“Yeah, duh. You said you would scout out the best place and start it there. You think anywhere else has a demand for gluten-free foods and a moderate enough openness to religion that you could be successful? I think Austin’s your only potential market. Why do you think I insisted you come spend the week at our condo?”
“Psh, I don’t know. Because you missed me? Because you wanted to help me celebrate my twenty-first?”
Miranda flicked her wrist, waving off the suggestions. “Yeah, sure, fine. But mostly I was tired of you dragging your feet about it.”
Jessica turned to Quentin. “Were you in on this plot, too?”
Quentin nodded slyly.
“Ooo! Me too!” Chris said, holding up his hand. “I knew about this, too.”
She turned to her boyfriend. “And you think it’s the right decision?”
He shrugged. “You know I don’t know jack shit about business. But if you’re in Austin while I’m finishing my degree in San Marcos, I can still see you all the time.”
When the check arrived, Quentin quickly signed it and slipped his card back in his wallet.
“Nah, dude,” Chris protested. “Not fair. I didn’t even see her put it down.” He paused and his eyes crossed a little bit. “Shit, I must be drunker than I thought.”
Quentin nodded. “Probably, but also I paid when I went inside, because I knew your broke college ass wouldn’t be able to afford a place like this.”
Chris pulled his napkin from his thigh and tossed it onto the table. “Psh. The guy gets a job and a little money and thinks he can talk to people however he wants.”
“First of all, my job pays a lot of money.” Quentin lifted his glass, which only had a couple fingers of mimosa left at the bottom. “And secondly, yeah. This is why everyone wants to be rich.”
Chris conceded with a nod but then added, “Hey. About that job of yours anyway. You say you walked into the interview and the guy took one look at you then gave you the position on the spot. Just like that?”
Quentin finished off his drink and then shrugged. “Yep. Just like that.”
“Is that because yo
u’re—” Chris stopped himself momentarily, and his eyes flashed over to Jessica. She shook her head as resolutely as she could while making as little actual movement as possible. This was neither the time nor the place to bring up Quentin’s particular divine nature for the first time. As far as she knew, Quentin was still in the dark about it himself.
“Black?” Quentin finished for Chris. “No. I don’t think it was because I’m black.”
Chris’s mouth dropped open and his eyes flickered to Jessica’s again, this time in an appeal. She widened her eyes meaningfully at him and he seemed to understand her seriousness about not mentioning angel stuff. “Aw, c’mon, dude. That’s not what I was gonna say. Shit.”
Quentin chuckled. “I know, I know. I’m just fucking with you because I’m rich now, so I can.”
But when Chris looked away, Quentin glanced quickly over at Miranda, whose attention had returned to people watching, before he locked eyes with Jessica and winked.
She squinted at him, trying to read his mind. Did that wink mean what she thought it did?
He nodded subtly.
She arched an eyebrow, uncertain.
He nodded minutely again then nonchalantly jabbed a finger toward his girlfriend, shaking his head the slightest bit, his lips pressed tightly together.
Huh. Okay. So Quentin knew but for whatever reason didn’t want Miranda to know. She’d have to corner him about that later.
Once Miranda insisted that the best way to digest brunch was with window shopping, the four of them made their way down the crowded South Congress sidewalks, staring at the generally armadillo- and boot-related oddities as they went.
Maybe it was the Champagne or maybe it was the mass amounts of vitamin C or maybe it was the sun on her skin or the clear blue sky, or the feel of Chris’s large hand in hers or the comfort of seeing Miranda and Quentin so happy with one another as they walked a few steps ahead, Quentin’s arm draped protectively around Miranda’s shoulder, but Jessica felt more relaxed in Austin than she ever had in San Marcos or Mooretown.
Chris ran into the back of Quentin when he and Miranda stopped in their tracks, staring at something in one of the stores. Jessica glanced up to see the sign above the front door and realized it was a local bookstore. Well, that made sense. Both Miranda and Quentin were book nerds in their own way. “Anything good?” she asked, standing on her tiptoes to see over Miranda’s shoulder. “Oh. Shit.”
They weren’t staring at something inside the window, they were staring at something on the window. Specifically, a large poster.
“For fuck sake!” Chris yelled when he got a clear glimpse of the book announcement. A few passersby jumped back at his exclamation, but he didn’t seem to care. “Can’t this guy just go away?”
A heavily touched-up photo of Jimmy Dean’s face stared back at them from the top half of the large poster. His eyes were closed, his chin lifted gently upward, his hands pressed flat together just below his mouth, as if he were praying. As if Jimmy actually thought he couldn’t do everything on his own without any help from Deus Aper.
And below his sickening gesture was a book cover as white as everything in the church Jimmy started for himself and himself alone. The title appeared in script across the side of a train that stretched from one side of the cover to the other.
Jessica read it off, hardly believing it even as the words crept from her lips. “Railed to the Cross: Finding God on Southern Railroads.” And below that was a date. One she knew quite well, considering it was her fucking birthday.
God dammit, Jimmy!
She turned to find Miranda, Quentin, and Chris staring at her with a mixture of concern and alarm. She sighed. “Yeah, this is gonna be bad.”
“Uh, Jess? Is there something you want to tell us?” Miranda pointed at a line just a few inches below the release date.
Jessica had to read it twice. There were no words for the cocktail of emotions that began pulsing through her bloodstream.
No. Not even Jimmy was this stupid, right? She read the line again, this time going as slowly as possible, just in case her eyes were playing tricks on her. She moved closer. And sure enough, written in bold black lettering, just below today’s date, was: With a forward from Jessica Christ.
Help?
You’ve made it this far, so presumably you’re enjoying the series. That’s great!
I have one small favor to ask, though …
As an indie author, my ability to make a living and keep producing stuff you like depends entirely on building a name for myself. The only practical way to do that is one positive review at a time.
See where this is going?
If you leave me a glowing review, my book starts to stand out from the crowd, I get more sales, I can afford to buy the essentials like food and tampons and whiskey, and in return, I’ll keep writing this series (and others) for your entertainment. And it costs you nothing but a couple minutes of your day.
To show some review love for Nu Alpha Omega on Amazon, click here.
Thanks!
-Claire
As you might have guessed, I graduated from Texas State University. I love that place. I love San Marcos. I love the campus. I even love the dining hall food.
BUT.
Texas State is a school no one’s really heard of, so the reputation did nothing to help me in life as far as I can tell. San Marcos is kind of a dead-end town that morphs high-functioning alcoholic students into low-functioning alcoholic permanent residents with raisin-y skin. The campus really is built on a hill, which is great for getting ripped calf muscles, but not so great when you catch mono your senior year from a drinking game and have to walk from a class at the theatre building at the bottom of the hill to the student health center at the top. And the dining hall food gave me food poisoning two times. Like, bad food poisoning. Hallucinations. Luckily my bath tub was within spitting (re: vomiting) distance of the toilet. Small blessings.
When the university plopped the statue of alumnus and former president Lyndon Baines Johnson down in the middle of the Quad, people weren’t thrilled. There were various reasons for this. Sure, the Vietnam war wasn’t a success by any standards, and LBJ was apparently kind of a racist/misogynist or whatever, but I think the most relevant and legitimate complaint was that they stuck a life-size bronze statue in the middle of an area of heavy foot-traffic.
At first, LBJ was set right on the ground, so he looked like yet another person who’d spent too much time in a tanning bed. You expect people to move when you’re walking straight toward them—at least a little bit—but let me tell you from experience: statues don’t move. They have no sense of basic politeness in that regard. It’s also more painful (and embarrassing) to run into a statue than it is another human being.
But the dumbest thing about the statue isn’t that he’s life-size or placed right outside the English building where famed anti-Vietnam writer Tim O’Brien was chair, it was the gesture he was making, the way he was standing. He stood there with his arm outstretched for—I suppose—a handshake. But did anyone ever shake his hand? Of course not. What students did do was rest their balls in his outstretched palm. Or take a picture with his hand groping their ass. (This was back before it was cool for a president to grab a woman by the pussy, so no one thought to do that.) Some friends of mine got drunk on forties of Old English one night and rallied the troops to go take a piss on him. That was the plan: “Let’s go piss on LBJ!” Who said college students lack a definite sense of purpose?
I don’t have particularly strong feelings one way or the other on LBJ because I don’t have to and that shit seems mega boring and beside the point now, but peeing on a statue sounds fun. Unfortunately I lack proper aim with my urethra being what it is (and that is not in a penis, just so we’re clear that there’s nothing else going on with my urethra), so I missed out because I don’t like piss-soaked socks, and that’s been the unfortunate result every time I’ve tried to pee outside—even when not wearing socks, oddly enough.
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Then some students set LBJ on fire. I have that on good authority from student government officials who wish to remain anonymous. LBJ disappeared, and when he came back, he was on a stand, as if that was the reason he had disappeared and not because some students who probably had a solid D average in American history felt like being heroes to their jaded professors. So anyway, people stopped messing with ol’ Lyndon as much once he was up on a three-foot-high platform, towering above the masses. But he was a good punching bag up until that point. And it’s stories like this that connect people to a place, stories that outsiders don’t know and don’t consider when they cast stones.
Which is why I have one cardinal rule when I write these stories: only poke fun at things from the inside out.
It’s important to be critical of the things we’re a part of, whether that’s our culture, the institutions we join, or the fandoms we fall into. You can’t argue that outsiders “just don’t get it,” and then also discourage insiders from saying, “But this is a little fucked up.” I mean, you could, but that’s how things become terrible to the point where you’re left with the choice of either lying to yourself and others about the state of things or simply burning the whole culture/institution/fandom to the ground.
There is, of course, one exception that I make to this rule, one thing that I will defend to the death as perfect and complete and whole. And that is Dave Matthews Band.
I understand that this only affirms in your mind my “whiteness” or whatever, but I will always say that if you don’t like Dave Matthews Band, that’s on you, not them. You simply haven’t listened to them enough yet. Or maybe you just don’t understand music. Or maybe your definition of “words” is too narrow, because Dave knows how to say words, god dammit!
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