Handpicked

by Dani Oden

"We're not going to call the police. We don't need you around for the rest of the conversation."

  "Why not?" Lindy asked.

  "It's chapter business. It happened in our chapter room, we can't invite outsiders in there."

  "If you're not calling the police, what are you going to do?" Lindy asked.

  "We can't tell you," Sister President replied.

  "You can't be serious," Lindy said.

  "Why not?" I demanded.

  "It's official chapter business now."

  "But we just gave you information you didn't already know," I said, more confused than angry. "Aren't we involved now?"

  "And we appreciate it, but we've decided to keep everything confidential from this point on."

  "Confidential?" Lindy asked.

  "Yes," Sister President said. I wasn't convinced she even had a plan.

  "So, you're not going to tell us anything? We're just...done now?" my best friend said while I bit my tongue.

  Jenna spoke up, "Our official answer is, we will not be including you in the conversation tonight." She dared them to question her.

  “And you can go now,” Sister President said, her voice dripping with finality.

  Together, Lindy and I made our way to the door. With my hand on the doorknob, I turned back to the Exec Board. I expected them to be sitting still, staring at us like they had been for the last few minutes. Instead, they were all leaning into the center of the table, kneeling on their chairs and talking fiercely.

  Just before the door closed, Kayla called after us, "And tell Hannah we need to talk to her. Now."

  We found Hannah asleep on her closet room couch, just as Lindy predicted. Piles of clothes and an opened suitcase were lying at her feet. Lindy moved her legs aside and sat down on the last cushion, while I took the armchair across from them. Hannah stirred, stretching and smacking her lips. She sat up and made a sour face.

  "Should have brushed your teeth," Lindy told her.

  "Yep," Hannah yawned. I waited for her to apologize for her behavior earlier, but she didn't.

  "You missed a lot," I informed her. We filled her in on the conversation we'd had with Exec, and by the end of the story, she was totally awake again.

  "Wow," she said. "So, they didn't know about it?"

  "Nope," I said.

  "So it's not part of a ritual?"

  "Nope," Lindy repeated.

  "So, it was either, like, a rogue member, or someone else?" she clarified.

  "Something like that," Lindy said.

  "They want to talk to you, too," I told her.

  "Right now?"

  "I think so," I said,

  She sat back against a beige couch cushion and rubbed her temples. "I don't know how much else I can handle; this is so fucking weird."

  "Tell me about it," I told her.

  "So, they're still down there?"

  I nodded.

  "And I'm just supposed to go knock?"

  "Yes," Lindy said.

  Hannah stretched. "I'm sure it can wait until morning, right?"

  "Actually, it can't," Lindy said.

  "They were pretty clear about wanting to talk to you," I told her.

  Hannah stared blankly at the two of us, her eyes drooping and her shoulders slumping. She put a hand to her head and scratched just above her forehead. "I don't think I can right now. I'm too tired and I think I'm still drunk."

  Lindy and I watched in wonder as she sat up straight. "I'm just going to go to bed," she said, and staggered toward the hallway.

  We both protested but she went anyway, leaving us alone in her closet room.

  My best friend shook her head. “That girl,” she sighed. “What a roller coaster.”

  I couldn’t handle anymore conversations about stressful things, plus I was beyond thirsty. So, instead of answering Lindy, I stood up and announced, “I’m going downstairs for some water. Do you want anything?”

  “By yourself?”

  “That’s where the cups are.”

  “Are you sure?” She didn’t wait for me to answer. “I’ll come with you.”

  “Serious?”

  “Yeah, but I need to go to the bathroom, give me just a minute.”

  I shook my head at her. “It’s fine, I’ll just go. I don’t want to wait for you by myself.”

  She looked pained. “You shouldn’t go downstairs alone.”

  “But I need some water. And, I don’t want to sit here while you pee.”

  “But if you’re not back by the time I’m done…”

  “Call someone,” I said, too tired and thirsty to give in to my fear.

  As soon as I got downstairs, a wave of cool, fresh air greeted me. I poked my head around into the foyer and found the front door all the way open.

  Something was hanging in the doorframe.

  I stopped short. It was skinny and flesh colored and hanging at about my shoulder-height fifteen feet in front of me.

  My stomach lurched, and I clapped a hand over my mouth, remembering what had happened the last time I found something flesh-colored in the middle of the night. Frozen in place and unable to catch my breath, I squinted, trying to tell what it was.

  It wasn’t moving.

  I took one tiny step forward to get a better view. Then, I took another. I slowly crept closer and closer until I could make out that it was a plastic doll, a Barbie, naked, hanging by a tiny shoelace noose. Her wiry hair was sticking up like she’d been electrocuted. Each limb pointed unnaturally in a different direction, and her head was angled as far to the side as it would go.

  There were black X’s over her eyes, and the words “IOTA BITCH” were aggressively scrawled on her tiny plastic torso.

  TWENTY

  After I screamed, Lindy came running.

  “Was that you? Are you okay?” she said, her voice shaking with panic. Her eyes darted around the room. “Why is the door open?”

  I pointed at the doll, unable to talk.

  “What is that?” she gasped.

  I could only shake my head.

  She got closer than I was able to, and reached out to touch it. “Iota Bitch,” she read, grimly.

  “That’s messed up,” I said, still trying to catch my breath.

  “Did you see anyone? Or hear anything?” she leaned her head out the door, glancing outside in both directions.

  “No, nothing, it was like this when I got here.”

  “I’m going to go get Exec,” she said. “I don’t think there’s anyone else around.”

  “Hurry.”

  “Don’t move,” she told me.

  While she was gone, I backed up against the wall to make sure nothing could sneak up behind me. I nearly jumped out of my skin when my head bumped into the edge of our composite, rattling the entire frame.

  Lindy and the rest of the Board thundered up the steps in a matter of seconds. “I heard Jill scream,” she was saying as they pushed the door from the stairwell open. “She found this.”

  They stopped short in the entryway, taking in the scene in front of them.

  “OMG,” Sister President breathed. She stepped forward first, running her finger over one of the legs. I cringed as she wrapped her fist around the doll and yanked, ripping the duct tape that held the shoelace down from the top of the doorframe.

  “Was the door open like that?” Tammy asked.

  I nodded.

  “Did you see anyone?” Kayla said.

  “No,” I answered.

  “Has anyone else been by? Is anyone even around?” Jenna started toward the dining room. She poked her head through the doorway and reported back. “It’s empty.”

  “There were a ton of people before we went downstairs,” Lindy said.

  “That was an hour ago,” Sister President reminded her.

  “So?” Lindy asked.

  “A lot can happen in an hour. Someone could have been waiting for everyone to go to bed.”

  “How’d they get the door open?” I asked.

  “Mayb
e they were here all along,” Lindy said grimly.

  Despite our protests, the Exec officers kept using the “official chapter business” line on us. They made Lindy and I tell our whole story three times, but all they shared was that they’d be making sure everyone was safe, and they were coming up with a plan. Facing another hopeless night without any clear answers, we retreated to bed.

  In the morning, the house was bustling and the bathroom showers were running nonstop. Upstairs, girls were padding around the hallway in their slippers, and downstairs they were sipping coffee in the dining room with no clue what had happened the night before. The breakfast table was ransacked, a sure sign girls were grabbing their food and heading to class like usual. The only hint anything strange had happened was the smudge of gray on the top of the door frame, where the Barbie had been taped.

  Lindy offered to go to the library to see if the Board was down there. I waited for her in the dining room, skimming the school.

  She reappeared after barely two minutes passed. "That was uneventful," she whispered, grabbing a chair at my table. Without asking, she reached for the mug of coffee I’d poured myself.

  "What did you see?" I asked quietly.

  "Not much," she said in between sips. "There was a sign on the door that said, 'Library closed - Chapter business’ and Tammy was sitting in a chair a few feet away. She was definitely standing guard but trying to make it seem like she wasn't."

  "They do that a lot. So she was just sitting there? Watching the door?" I asked.

  "I’m pretty sure.”

  Two seniors walked by our table, on their way to class. As soon as they were out of earshot, I leaned in. "I bet the hand is still down there. The doll probably is now, too."

  "I bet they're taking their sweet time figuring out what to do with them,” she groaned.

  I sat back against my chair, the wooden back hard against my spine. "I'm just so sick of feeling scared."

  "You’re starting to sound like Hannah.”

  Nervousness twitched in my stomach . “Have you seen her yet today?”

  “No, have you?”

  Wordlessly, we ran upstairs together to check on our friend.

  She wasn’t there. Her bed was empty, her closet cleared, and her laptop gone.

  "You don't think...?" I asked Lindy, my voice shaking at the thought.

  "No way..." she trailed off. “At least, I hope not. She packed. I’m sure she’s okay."

  She was indeed okay, according to the lone text Lindy sent while I was in class that morning. It simply read, Heard from Hannah. Sd she’s fine. Talk later. Despite that reassurance, I still didn't catch a single thing my instructor said. I walked back to the house for lunch deflated, refusing to let myself worry about classes on top of everything else. I would have to make time later.

  The cook was running a few minutes late, so a crowd of girls had gathered just outside the dining room. While waiting, they admired the selection of party fliers and exchange invitations lining the wall.

  “Aren't you seeing a guy in Nu Mu Chi? Tad?" Gina asked me, nodding at the invitation from their house.

  "How did you hear?" I said.

  "We live in a sorority," she told me, surprised by the question. "Word travels fast."

  "I don't know if I'd say we were seeing each other, but we've hung out a couple times." In his bed, I thought to myself.

  "Are you going to the exchange tonight?" Another girl asked from over Gina's shoulder.

  "I'm not sure yet," I answered, trying to play it off like I knew what an exchange was.

  "Well, if you do end up going, you should come with us," Gina offered, tucking some of her hair behind her ear.

  This must be what it felt like to be in a sorority without a hand hidden in the basement. Just girls chatting, playing with our hair, discussing fraternities, and making plans.

  "You guys are going to go?" I said, trying to be super-casual.

  "Yeah, those guys are so hot," another girl, Shelly, said. "Can you introduce us?"

  "I only know Tad, and Evan a little," I admitted.

  "Who's Evan?" someone asked.

  "Hannah's boyfriend," I said.

  "Oh my gosh, did you guys hear she left?" Gina interrupted.

  I opened my eyes big to fake surprise. "What?" I said, along with the other girls.

  "Her stuff is gone. She straight up ran away in the middle of the night."

  "How do we know it's not the same thing that happened to Cammie?" someone else said.

  "Well, her stuff's gone. She planned it."

  They spent a few minutes discussing how lame she was anyway, before turning the topic back to me and my connections at Nu Mu Chi.

  A few hours later, I found myself in a pair of the twins' tight jeans and a loose see-through shirt with a strappy lace tank top underneath. After hearing about the exchange, one of the twins, I'm not sure which, had forced her sexy clothes on me so fast I had no time to react. Then, she’d skipped away to cheer practice, leaving me too tired and unmotivated to do anything about it.

  As much as I wanted to see Tad, there was nothing I wanted to do less than fake my way through a night with my pledge sisters. It seemed like our entire class was going, since it was apparently common knowledge to everyone but me that an exchange was just a mini-party for the pledges of the two houses involved.

  Ultimately, Lindy and I agreed that it would be easier just to suck it up and go than stay behind and have to explain ourselves. So, we left with the rest of the girls, trailing behind two heavily made-up sophomores with aggressive blond highlights who identified themselves as the Iota Beta Social Chairs.

  "Chairs?" I asked Lindy.

  "Like chairperson," she translated.

  The Chairs led us to the front steps of Nu Mu Chi and instructed all of us pledges to wait on the lawn. They knocked theatrically, then ran down the stairs to rejoin our group.

  "I wonder what the theme is going to be," someone commented from behind me.

  "There's a theme?" I muttered, glancing at Lindy, who shrugged.

  Two guys in matching white t-shirts pulled over preppy pastel button-up shirts opened the door just enough to slide through. "Are these the lovely pledges of Iota Beta?" one of them said. He was clearly trying to sound seductive but it came across more predatory.

  "Yes, they are," Social Chair One giggled.

  "We haven't told them a thing," Social Chair Two added.

  "Not a thing?" the second guy asked with fake surprise. "Well, they're in for an experience of a lifetime!"

  Lindy and I rolled our eyes at each other. She had already sworn she was only going to stay long enough for people not to question her.

  They opened the door a bit more, introducing a half dozen or so more guys in matching white shirts, each holding an armful of them.

  "T-shirt theme?" Lindy scoffed, unimpressed. A girl on the other side of her turned and sneered at her bad attitude. "Oops," Lindy snickered, laughing under her breath.

  Just as I was about to dismiss the idea of standing around in matching shirts as ridiculous, the overhead lights inside the Nu Mu Chi house went out, and a black light came on. Neon letters on their shirts began to glow, allowing us to make out words written in sloppy handwriting. Iota Beta are pledges hottttt, their shirts read.

  "Damn it, you jackasses," one of the guys who'd opened the door said. "Parker, Baxter, switch spots."

  Two guys moved, allowing us to see to the display in its entirety, Iota Beta pledges are hottttt.

  My pledge sisters began swooning as if it was the most romantic thing they'd ever seen. The social chairs stepped back, clearing the way for us. "Ladies, enjoy your highlighter exchange," they purred, waving us on.

  Inside, we were handed t-shirts and shepherded into what I think was their dining room. There were tables and benches pushed up against the wall and it smelled faintly of sausage. More black lights were on, giving a bluish glow to the thirty or so guys who were already inside, their highlighters ready t
o go. Within seconds, my pledge sisters donned their shirts, accepted drinks, and allowed the excited Nu Mu Chi pledges to start writing near but not quite on their boobs.

  "Seriously?" Lindy scoffed. Both of us looked down at the shirts in our hands.

  "Where's Tad?" I wondered aloud.

  "I'm sure he's here somewhere," she said. "Do we have to do this?"

  "People will notice if we don't," I told her.

  "Ugh."

  "I know."

  We slipped the t-shirts over our cute party tops and accepted purple and blue highlighters from a nearby boy. Lindy and I followed each other around the room for a few solid minutes, highlighters positioned in our hands. Someone had turned on low music, adding to the energy of the room. I haphazardly reached my arm out and swiped at the sleeves of people around me, making sloppy slashes. Lindy stabbed her marker sporadically, dotting people. Under the black lights, the highlighters glowed on everyone's shirts, and messages like the ones on Valentine's heart candies were visible all around us, like "UR HOT" "NICE ASS" "SEXY" and many, many phone numbers. No one seemed to notice when Lindy and I moved to the side of the room and capped our highlighters.

  Tad found me after a few minutes. "Hey," he said smoothly. I greeted him back, and he ducked his head down toward us. "How do you like exchanges?"

  I shrugged and smiled at him. "We'll see."

  He smiled and put a hand on the small of my back. "Are you guys going to stick it out?"

  "For a little bit. We need to keep up appearances."

  "I'm going to go find Gina. If anyone knows how late this'll go, it's her," Lindy offered.

  After she walked away, Tad asked, "Things okay at the house?"

  I wrinkled my nose at him and shook my head slightly.

  "Evan told me Hannah left. What happened?"

  He led me to a far corner of the dining room, where I gave him a brief summary of the previous twenty-four hours.

  "That's wild,” he said when I finished. “So if your Exec officers didn’t know about it, who did it? Someone else in the house?"

  I shook my head at him. "We don't know."

  He leaned in and pushed my hair away from my ear with his hand. When he spoke, he was so close I could feel his warm breath tickling down my neck and into my shirt. "This is going to sound forward, but I meant what I said; if you need a place to stay, you can always come here. You know that, right?"