Sorority Girls With Guns

by Cat Caruthers

  How did anyone know about that? And what about the condom-selling? Or winning bets with drunk people? Richard didn't party, and when he had to walk through a bash to visit Morgan he'd always dash through the main room as fast as possible. Can't say I blame him – it's harder for a drunken idiot to puke on a moving target. Did he ever dash through when I was making a bet with someone clearly indisposed? Our own bet didn't get finalized until the next day (not that it was a losing bet for him, so far).

  Still, word could have gotten back to him. I understand better than anyone that not everyone gets amnesia from drinking. Or even rufies. Odds are, at least a few people remembered my exploits, and anyone could have repeated them to Richard.

  Or to anyone else on campus who might have seen my vids on GluedToYou. Well, crap, this isn't helping me rule out anyone.

  I decide to shelve the problem for now and check on our GluedToYou page. The good news is that we're up to almost five thousand hits on several vids, including the one of me dumpster-diving, which has been reposted hundreds of times in the last few hours on three social media sites. A few dozen people have posted that they love my suggestions to save money.

  Unfortunately, the chatter on some of those posts isn't all good. “Poser!” writes one doofus I've never heard of. It goes on:

  “I've met her before, and she's a total bitch! I'm not surprised she's a liar too!”

  “How many cans do I have to recycle to buy a Mercedes?”

  “Can't make any green of your own, so you have to recycle other people's trash?”

  “She once dared me to run across the Tri Delt lawn naked when I was too trashed to know better. And then she wouldn't even pay my bail! Bitch.”

  I remind myself that no publicity is bad publicity.

  “It's sad that she's so in denial about her own situation. No wonder so many young people are in debt today!”

  I have no debt, but apparently that's irrelevant.

  “What a materialistic, money-grubbing hobag. This project is obviously just a ruse to get money and attention for herself!”

  “Who cares if she's rich or not? If she can live like that well on that little money, count me in for reusing and recycling. Where's the nearest dumpster?”

  “Throwing her own hair on her plate to get a free meal was a cheap trick!”

  Like she has any proof of that. Oh,yeah, irrelevant.

  “Tiffany's way hotter anyway!”

  Of course, people always like Tiffany better. She's pretty, she's rich, she has the always-gets-what-she-wants glow. She got a 19 on the ACT, did you know that? And yet, somehow, she still got into college. To put that into perspective, the highest score you can get is 36; that's a 52%. That's not even a passing grade!

  I know, I know, I shouldn't be jealous. She studies twice as hard as I do to get lousier grades. But she gets all the stuff I want without having to try at all. And to think, she claims to actually be jealous of me?

  Wait a minute...Morgan doesn't party much, Richard avoids that scene like the plague, but Tiffany is at every party. Sure, she drinks, but she usually stops after two or three, mostly because she's the sort of person who gets more sad than happy when drunk. Like, when she's really trashed she sits around and cries about all the homeless puppies in the world. So, she usually doesn't get drunk enough to forget the night's activities....

  Come to think of it, I remember going to the health center with her for our annual free-birth-control visits. After the doctor renewed my prescription, I stopped on the way out and scooped up two big handfuls of condoms from the humongous pewter dish in the lobby. I remember Tiffany got this mortified look on her face and asked why the hell I needed all those when I was on the pill, remember? I told her that I still insisted on practicing safe sex, pill or not.

  The next weekend, we were at a sorority mixer when I saw these two drunken idiots, one of whom was a friend of Tif's, staggering off toward one of the empty bedrooms. I asked if either of them had a condom, and wasn't surprised when neither of them could come up with one. So, I scrounged one out of my purse, and offered to let them have it for a dollar, pointing out that penicillin and diapers are way more expensive than that! Not only did they buy it, but three or four other people came up and asked to buy a love glove. As I was counting my cash, I remember Tiffany saying she knew I couldn't possibly be planning to have that much sex this week when I took all those condoms.

  There was another time when she asked to borrow a black lace top I'd worn the day before, which of course I couldn't loan her because I'd already returned it to its real owner. I'd acted agreeable, then pretended to be unable to find it in my pile of laundry (which was, to be fair, a genuine mess). Could she have suspected? Was she really smart enough to have figured out my secret before I revealed myself as a Feebay expert?

  I'd like to say that I have a hard time suspecting my dear friend of screwing me over. I'd like to say it, but I can't. It wouldn't be the first time a friend stabbed me in the back; truth be told, I've been stabbed in the back so many times I'm not sure why I haven't bled to death. Friends, family, boyfriends, you name it, they've lied to me, stolen from me, cheated me, cheated on me. The only reason I semi-trusted Tiffany until now was because I really thought she was too stupid to pull off a major screw-over. But hey, maybe I misjudged her.

  ***

  Going to Tiffany now would be a mistake. She'll just deny my accusations and I'll have tipped her off that I'm onto her. So instead I go after the weak link in Tiffany's chain: Charlie.

  My phone is moderately busy with text alerts as I drive back to my shitty hotel and scope out Charlie's room. I park at the end of the lot, where I can see his door, even though there's no sign anyone is home. I pull out my phone and review the alerts I got during the drive. Aside from dozens of notifications from GluedToYou about new followers, I have a bunch of group texts from my friends. Or enemies-posing-as-friends, in some cases.

  Morgan: OMG we're up to almost 7,000 hits on GluedToYou! Maybe that trash talk article helped.

  Tiffany: OMG, the video of me and Dusty has over 14,000 hits! Yay!

  Charlie: Holy shit, did any of my videos go viral yet?

  Matt: No dude, but I could smear horseshit in your face if you want!

  Charlie: No thanks.

  Morgan: SHADE where are you?????? We need to talk!!!

  Tiffany: Did you see that story? She's probably buying out the Dooney & Burke counter to prove its not tru!

  Richard: Why don't you leave Shade alone? She's the reason this B Green 2 Save Green project has been so successful.

  Tiffany: But is it tru Shade? Did you really lie about being rich? Are you really as poor as Richard?

  Morgan: We know you're out there, Shade. Please come and talk to us, it's super important!

  Yeah, sure it is – super important that they all find out the truth about me, about my life, about how desperately I don't want to go back to being the girl whose parents couldn't afford fucking doorknobs. It may be the truth, it may be my past, but I don't have to own it. I never owned it, and I never will.

  I pull my ancient laptop out of its bag and start on some minor editing work as I wait. I have a plan to handle Tiffany, assuming I'm right about her. Every few seconds, I look up at the door, but the room remains dark. If he's out somewhere, it's probably with Tiffany.

  Unless, of course, he's otherwise occupied. I text Richard:

  Is Charlie with you? Don't tell him I asked.

  Yeah, he's trashing my hotel room with one last big bash before I check out. You know, you really need to get over here and talk to us.

  Is Tiffany there?

  No, she's supposed to come by later with Morgan. They're out looking for you! Where are you?

  Please, do me one favor. It's the least you can do for getting me into this mess.

  I got you into this mess? That's debatable, but what is it?

  Tell everyone I need time to cool off and I'll talk to them tomorrow, okay?

  About what
I said earlier...

  We don't need to talk about that right now.

  I toss my cell phone into my Juicy Couture velour bag (only $22 on Feebay, including shipping), get into my crappy car, and head back to Richard's hotel.

  Chapter Thirty-Nine

  As I suspected, Richard texted me three more times on my way to the hotel, always asking where I was. Then Tiffany texted, then Morgan. I'm glad I made them all think I'd be anywhere but the party.

  Richard's face goes through some permutations of surprise, fear and relief when he opens the door and finds me standing there. Loud hip-hop music wafts out the door with the smell of spilled expensive wine and cheap pizza. Charlie and Matt may be rich, but they're still used to being college students.

  “Are you actually serving $3,000 a bottle champagne with pizza?” I ask.

  Richard rolls his eyes. “Morgan talked them out of the two-for-one special from the pizza place down the street, before she went to look for you. I told them just to order from the hotel – those pizzas are twenty dollars a piece.”

  “Charlie here?” I duck under his arm and into the room, which is filled with college-age kids in various states of drunken stupidity.

  “He went out for another keg. He'll be back soon.” Richard gestures around the room. “Make yourself at home.”

  Clustered around the couch are two girls, both wearing shorts so short and tight they look like bikini bottoms with pockets. With them are two guys, both wearing stupid grins and beer-company t-shirts. One of them is blowing into a small device that's mostly hidden by his hand.

  “Is that a crack pipe?” I hiss at Richard. I've never actually seen one in person – back at school, most of the stoners I know stick to pot - but I have seen some on badly-written prime-time dramas.

  “What?” Richard laughs. “No, that's not a crack pipe,” he says loudly, walking over to the couch and tapping the guy on the shoulder. “She wants to see that for a second, pal.”

  The guy shrugs and hands it over.

  “It's one of those are-you-too-trashed-to-drive breathalyzers,” Richard explains, showing me the digital screen with the numbers .15.

  “I hope you called them a cab.” I hand the device back to Richard.

  He shakes his head, still snickering. “Oh, they know they're too wasted to drive. They're playing a game – watch.”

  He tosses the device back and all four of them fumble to catch it. Then they spend a couple minutes scrambling around the floor before one of the girls grabs it on her fifth try. They spend another couple minutes standing, then, one by one, they all walk from the couch to the bar to pour another drink.

  “I don't get it,” I admit. “And believe me, I've watched a lot of drunken party games at that sorority house.”

  “Yeah, this one's not as sophisticated as beer pong,” Richard manages to say with a straight face. “Basically, they're trying to see how drunk they can get without falling over.”

  Fortunately, Charlie finally walks back in. “Hey, everybody's out looking for you,” he says to me, dropping the keg in the middle of the floor and yanking out his cell phone. But after enjoying at least a couple beers already, his motor skills aren't a match for mine. I snatch the phone out of his hands, spin him around and march him out to the terrace, trying to compensate for his wobbling the whole way.

  “Whoa...what are we doing?” Charlie asks as I shove him out the sliding glass door.

  “We're going to have a little chat.” I shove him onto a patio chair. “About what Tiffany was doing with her phone last night, at the party.”

  “How should I know? She's on her phone all the time.”

  “You were sitting off in a corner with your arm around her, and she was staring down at her phone the whole time.”

  “Probably posting how awesome I am on her wall.”

  “I'm friends with her. She didn't post that.”

  He rolls his eyes. “I don't know. I wasn't concentrating on her phone.”

  “What did she say? Did she say anything about me, or the B Green 2 Make Green project, or getting her own show?”

  Charlie's eyebrows shoot up, after a few seconds' delay. “Did you talk to her earlier? She was trying to call you all day about it!”

  “About what?”

  “About that lady who called from GluedToYou, the one who wants to give you guys your own show, whether Green Day hires you or not.”

  “What?”

  He frowns. “You didn't know? Isn't that what this was about?”

  It's clear to me that I'm not going to get anything useful out of Charlie. “Yeah, that's it. Text Tiffany and tell her I'm here, huh?”

  He gets his phone out, and spends some time scrolling through the menu, too drunk to be terribly effective at typing on a four-inch touchscreen.

  “Let me help.” I slide the phone out of his fingers and text Tif in ten seconds flat.

  ***

  “I'm so glad we found you!” Tiffany exclaims as she walks in the door. She flings her arms around me like she just found her lost malti-poo. Even though I hate hugging, I hug her back, mostly so I can slide my hand into the outer pocket of her purse and snag her cell phone. It's up the sleeve of my bathrobe (I never bothered to change after leaving the pool) before she knows what happened.

  “Look, I told you, we're your friends no matter what,” Morgan says, forcing me to endure another hug as we move to one of the back bedrooms to talk. “We don't care if you're poor.”

  “That's a lie,” I say. “Just because you enjoy making a profit doesn't mean you're poor. Some poor people I used to know in my old hometown are just trying to make a buck off me.”

  “Right.” Tiffany and Morgan both nod, and I can tell they don't believe me. That's okay, I'll deal with this mess later.

  “Tell me about this lady who called from GluedToYou,” I say instead.

  Tiffany's eyebrows pop up. “It's so exciting, Shade! She loves us – all of us, you, me, Morgan, Richard, Matt, Charlie – and she loves the B Green 2 Make Green idea. She wants us to stream doing the same thing back at school in the fall – even if Green Day doesn't hire us as interns. She doesn't even care that we haven't hit our twenty-thousand on each vid yet – she says when they see the numbers climbing rapidly, sometimes they skip that step and make an offer. She's overnighting us some paperwork – it's a contract, a real contract! We have to get a lawyer to look at it and sign it by next week!”

  “Did you hear back on your Green Day submission yet?” Morgan asks. “You sent it in last night, right? After the...trial period?”

  “Yeah, I got an auto-answer saying they're considering all applications.” This doesn't interest me too much; it is, after all, an unpaid internship. The only reason I was interested was in the hopes of getting a better job after graduation. But my real goal has always been fame and fortune, and it looks like that might happen with GluedToYou now.

  “Can you do the show without me?” Richard asks, and we all look at him. He shrugs. “I'm not really into being in the spotlight.”

  “I guess so,” Tiffany says. “We can always blur your face if you're in our scenes. Mostly Ms. Haines, from GluedToYou, wanted to give me and Shade a contract, since B Green 2 Make Green was our thing. And she says we don't have to stick to a budget when we get back, we just have to keep saving and making money by recycling and reusing. So we can all go back to our trust funds now that the bet is over!”

  “Hey, that reminds me,” Richard says. “I lasted just as long as you guys did. Does that mean we all won the bet?”

  We all look at each other. “He did go around living like a rich person,” Morgan admits. “And we all managed to solve our problems without throwing money at them – we even dealt with Biff without paying him off!”

  “I think we should win just for that,” Tiffany adds, as a new idea starts forming in the back of my mind.

  “But I had to deal with the whole hooker scandal, and I managed to get through it without telling anyone the truth abou
t my financial situation,” Richard argues, shooting me a look. “I deserve to win.”

  “You got through it with my help,” I say. “Not all rich people have a smart friend hanging around to bail them out. Look how many celebrities and rich heirs get arrested every day, despite having money for bribes.”

  “Those people are actually guilty,” Richard says. “I got caught in a mess thanks to my other friends.” He looks pointedly at Matt and Charlie.

  “But that's a problem rich people have to face,” Matt says. “Your friends convince you to throw a big party, they bring hookers, or worse, drugs, and you get blamed because you bankrolled the party. Don't you think that's ever happened to our friends at the fraternity? It has, several times.”

  “And sometimes bribery-ry backfires on rich people,” Charlie adds, still slurring his words a little.

  He's not wrong though. “Yeah, that's how some of them get arrested. They meet a cop who'd rather make a statement than collect a payday,” Morgan says.

  “I guess we did all hold up our end of the bet,” Tiffany says. “Why don't we compromise? We fund the student loan payoff nonprofit, and Richard stops making fun of the rich?”

  Richard sighs. “I can't change how I feel. There are still a lot of entitled rich people, and I'm not going to stop making fun of them. But I promise not to lump you guys in with them in the future, okay? I will only criticize rich people who actually deserve it. And I really won't see you guys the same way again. I used to think you were just like all the other entitled rich people, but you're not.” He looks around the room, at each of us, his eyes lingering on me a little longer than anyone else. “Entitled rich brats would have caved, and you guys didn't. So from now on, you all have my respect and I won't criticize you or your lifestyle again. I also won't assume any other rich person is a jerk unless I know him or her personally.”