Mean Sisters

by Lindsay Emory

  ‘The Chapter Advisor’s computer was destroyed last night,’ I said, feeling bad that Aubrey’s eyes shot open with alarm. It was a lot for a collegiate to take. ‘Someone broke in and tore apart the office.’ I reached across and patted her knee. She looked really worried. ‘It’s alright. I called the police and they’re sending someone to fingerprint the office. And Ty – I mean, Lieutenant Hatfield – took the computer to the IT department on campus to see if they could retrieve the files.’

  Aubrey covered her mouth with an audible ‘oh’ sound. ‘But everything’s going to be fine,’ I assured her. ‘They think they know who it was.’

  I wasn’t sure why I said that. I wasn’t sure that was even true. But I wanted to reassure Aubrey, who was taking this harder than I thought she would. It always made people feel better if they thought the criminal would be caught. ‘Hey,’ I said suddenly, ‘why don’t we just meet later about this stuff?’ I wanted to let her have a moment, but then I remembered something. ‘Besides, headquarters sent over a bunch of paperwork for me to review. I bet everything I need is in there.’

  Aubrey nodded, but then looked worriedly at me. ‘Are you sure? I really don’t mind. This is my job and I don’t want to let you down.’ Now she looked like she was going to cry. I thought it was sweet that this picture-perfect sorority sister was letting down her guard with me. That showed she trusted me. Now I was going to cry. I hugged her then, like she was the little sister I never had. My little sis status was a sore topic for me, but I never stopped searching for someone who would fill that spot in my heart. Right now, Aubrey St. John needed my guidance and I’d do anything to support her, even if that meant letting her off the hook a little bit.

  I felt a little emotional after Aubrey left. I remembered this particular side effect of living in the sorority house. So many post-adolescent hormones all muddled up together. It wasn’t just our cycles that got in sync. It felt like all our emotions did, too, like we were sponging off each other. Some women didn’t care for that, but as an only child, I relished the feeling of being connected. It was why I first signed up for the Sisterhood Mentor programme. I didn’t want to let those connections go.

  Today, as I started plugging back into the emotional ebb and flow of sorority life, I wondered if, as Chapter Advisor, I needed more distance. Maybe that’s why Liza McCarthy had lived in an apartment instead of in the Chapter Advisor’s quarters at the house. Speaking of which, I wondered if I should take advantage of those rooms during my stay here. The tiny hard twin bed in the guest room was only going to get smaller if this assignment lasted more than a few weeks.

  If I thought I needed a break after meeting with Aubrey, it was nothing compared to meeting with Callie. It is a truth universally acknowledged that the toughest job in a sorority chapter is maintaining standards. As S&M director, Callie not only dealt with every infraction of every rule, but she couldn’t talk about it because she was sworn to secrecy. The only person she could talk to was, you guessed it, the Chapter Advisor, who, at the moment, was me. Awesome.

  Two hours later, Callie had unburdened every little piece of dirt that she was wrestling with, ranging from academic dishonesty (my conversation with Jane about history papers had been good background info) to just general bad behaviour. Really, you’d think modern girls would know that a man who will leave you for your sister is no man at all. Throughout the conversation, I kept hearing Ty Hatfield’s mocking voice from the night before, asking if I sent girls to their rooms without supper. I could see why people might laugh at sorority standards. I could see why our expectations of behaviour might seem archaic. But in the world of sororities, reputation was everything. It was what sustained you; it was the very basis of recruitment. Without a good reputation, you might as well be independent.

  When Callie finally took a breath, I decided it was a good time to let her know about the break in, especially since the only thing I’d identified as stolen was under her purview. When I broke the information to Callie, she seemed stunned. ‘But that’s confidential,’ she said. Her voice was flat, her eyes accusatory.

  ‘I know,’ I said, feeling really bad that this breach had occurred under my watch. ‘But the police are having someone come in and fingerprint–’

  Callie gasped, clutching her hand. ‘But I have a key! I go in there all the time!’

  I made a face. I wasn’t sure how that was going to work. ‘I’ll ask Ty – Lieutenant Hatfield – how they know whose fingerprints are whose.’ I waved my hand as I thought through it. ‘You know? It probably won’t matter. They’ll probably just fingerprint the weapon that was used on the computer.’

  Callie still looked pale and shocked and it was time again to give another hug to yet another traumatised college student. I hoped it didn’t sound heartless of me, but I couldn’t wait until we’d figured out what caused Liza McCarthy’s death. Then, maybe, we could start to recover.

  As I was working through yet more platitudes about time healing all wounds, I heard the blessed sound of the Delta Beta dinner triangle. ‘Dinner! Time for you to go!’ I shot up out of the chair, put an arm around Callie and walked her to the door. When I shut the door firmly behind her, it was the first time I’d ever been glad to be alone in a Delta Beta chapter room.

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  Banging my head against a table felt better than most of what I’d been through today. I went ahead and banged with abandon at the table where Casey and I were having dinner at El Loco Taco, the best Mexican joint in Sutton.

  ‘Be careful,’ Casey said. I felt his hand on the back of my head, stilling me for a moment. Something slid across the table. ‘There. Didn’t want you to get salsa in your hair.’

  Casey was a true friend.

  ‘This is so not like you, Margot.’ Casey sipped from his margarita, one of four on the table. It was happy hour and margaritas were two for one so I had ordered four. ‘You love Delta Beta. Your blood is gold and black.’

  ‘It is,’ I said mournfully. ‘But this Chapter Advisor stuff is intense. I never realised how the girls just kind of stick a knife in their heart and bleed every single emotion on top of you.’

  Casey quirked an eyebrow. ‘Sounds lovely.’

  ‘When I’m here as Sisterhood Mentor, it’s different. I’m temporary. I’m fun. I’m interesting. I’m not, like, their therapist.’

  ‘I don’t know,’ Casey mused, dipping a chip into the salsa from which my hair had been saved. ‘Sounds kinda juicy.’

  Oh how juicy it was. And because I knew Casey would love it, I started spilling the tea. Starting with the S&M tea.

  ‘God, I love girl drama,’ Casey sighed when our dinners were brought out.

  ‘It’s interesting, all right,’ I admitted. ‘I’m sure there will be more when we have this hearing on Saturday. Oh and the mixer on Friday night.’

  Casey’s eyes lit up, like only a gay sorority sister would. ‘Who are we mixing with?’

  ‘Alpha Kappa,’ I said.

  ‘I’m your date, of course.’

  I laughed. At social events, being Casey’s date meant that we walked in the door together and then three hours later he found me and we walked out together. It was more attention than a lot of my dates gave me. I never got mad about his behaviour, though. He was a bona fide social butterfly and found it impossible to stay in one place for longer than sixty seconds. Ninety seconds, tops.

  A familiar dark head caught my eye. ‘Amanda!’ I shouted at the woman walking four tables away. I’d know that superb posture anywhere. She turned and that’s when I saw that she was holding hands with the gentleman she was walking with, something she immediately dropped as soon as she saw me. Or maybe he dropped her hand. It was hard to tell.

  She waved and smiled and came over to our table. I quickly introduced one bestie to the other, trying to ignore Amanda’s smile drooping a little when she heard that Casey worked with me at HQ. I resolved to let her know later that no one would take her place in my heart, not even my gay work
husband.

  ‘Join us,’ Casey urged, with such perfect manners and enthusiasm I wanted to kiss him. ‘I’d love to hear all about what Margot was like in college.’ Now I wanted to kick him.

  Amanda waggled her eyebrows implying all the stories she could tell. I wanted to remind her about that vow of silence we’d taken about all the things we did that summer. ‘I can’t,’ she said sweetly. And then I looked at Mr Hand Holder, just settling into a booth on the far side of the restaurant. She blushed when saw what I was looking at and we shared a secret, meaningful look. You better tell me all the details later, I telepathically ordered her. Promise, she swore back.

  Casey and I resumed our Mexican food pig-out session and, after two and a half margaritas (Casey shared his, against his will), I was almost back to feeling like the confident, always-positive Delta Beta extraordinaire I was. The restaurant cleared out some and I had a better line of sight to Amanda’s table. Her date was an older man, stern and professorial looking, which probably made sense given that Sutton was a small college town. Probably about 75.6% of the population worked for the college in some respect.

  I watched their body language when Casey got up to use the little boy’s room. They knew each other well, it was clear, but I’d have to think about some way to let Amanda know that he didn’t seem as into her as she was into him. I couldn’t put my finger on it, but if I had to define it, Amanda seemed a little … desperate. Which made me sad, because usually Debs are the pursued, not the pursuers.

  I was glad that Casey had driven his car to the restaurant when I got up. My body could not handle two-point-five margaritas like it used to. I had a second reason to be glad that Casey was driving when I got the call that my presence was requested at the police station. Immediately.

  *

  On the way over, I had to update Casey on my previous visit to the police station.

  ‘Margot, no one gets accidentally arrested.’ He sounded like he didn’t believe me. Which was strange, because never in a million years would I exaggerate.

  ‘Can you please just focus on the important things?’ I was going over the progression of events that he would need to carry out in the possibly likely event that I was accidentally arrested again. ‘One more time.’

  ‘Yes, yes, bail money, ATM, blah blah blah.’

  ‘And what’s my PIN number?’

  ‘The year Delta Beta was founded, duh.’

  We pushed through the front doors of the police station. Like before, it was very quiet. I suddenly saw why I got so much attention from Captain Hatfield. He didn’t have anything else to do with his free time. I wobbled a little going through the door. Luckily, Casey was there to take my arm and straighten me out.

  That was when Hatfield entered the front office, holding a double cheeseburger wrapped with paper and dripping with secret sauce. He stopped dead in his tracks, glaring at me like I interrupted his evening. Then he glared at Casey, who was being a gentleman and making sure those two-point-five margaritas didn’t cause another incarceration.

  ‘What do you want?’ Ty growled with his jaw locked in very John Wayne-esque impression.

  ‘Charming as ever, Captain Hatfield,’ I said.

  ‘Lieutenant Hatfield,’ he corrected me.

  Whatever. I ignored that. ‘You called me.’

  ‘I didn’t.’

  ‘Someone did.’

  ‘Not me.’

  I looked at Casey for some back up and to make sure El Loco Taco wasn’t putting something hallucinatory in their margaritas these days. He nodded back, knowing what I was asking silently.

  I pulled my phone out of my bag and showed him the caller ID. ‘Satisfied?’

  Hatfield groaned. ‘Our assistant. I told her to call you tomorrow.’

  I looked around the empty station. ‘You have an assistant? For what?’

  Casey elbowed me.

  ‘Who are you?’ Ty asked Casey, a note of challenge in his voice. Police officers were so weird when they didn’t know everything.

  ‘This is Casey. He’s with me,’ I explained bluntly, suddenly pissed off that I was called down here for no reason.

  ‘Should she come back tomorrow?’ Casey used his debonair, impossible to resist voice. Maybe he wanted to smooth things over with Hatfield. Maybe he thought he had a chance. I was interested to see if he did.

  ‘She’s here now,’ Ty said flatly.

  ‘What’re ya eating?’ I asked, my attempt to smooth things over. In response, Ty crumpled the remainder of the burger and paper bag and threw it in the trashcan. Well then.

  Ty was back in his polo shirt and khakis, which I had decided wasn’t my favourite look on him. Thanks to two-point-five margs, I didn’t hide the fact that I was checking out his butt as he went to the desk to get something. That earned me another elbow from Casey. Whatever. I knew Casey was doing the same thing.

  But then I was caught when Ty turned around and his eyes met mine. I had a flash then, a realization that I had known him, once upon a time. The tequila just wasn’t allowing me to put the pieces together. Right when I thought I had something, it slipped through my fingers.

  ‘How do we know each other?’ I asked, wobbling a little. Casey tightened his grip on my arm.

  Ty shrugged, a little too studied, a little too on purpose, before he held up a pad of paper. ‘Fingerprint guys are coming on Saturday.’

  ‘Saturday?’ I repeated the word like it was some kind of big hassle, like that was my day for biking and picnicking and listening to concerts in the park. In reality, I’d be doing what I normally did. Saving a Delta Beta chapter and watching Law & Order.

  ‘Would another day work better for you?’ His manners were too perfect. I knew he was putting me on.

  ‘No,’ I said, matching my obsequious tone to his. ‘Saturday will be perfect. I’ll be expecting the fingerprinters.’

  My tongue had trouble with that made up word. Ty looked at me sharply again.

  ‘Have you been drinking, Blythe?’

  ‘Did you just call me by my last name?’

  ‘Answer my question.’

  ‘Answer mine,’ I sassed back. Casey squeezed my elbow hard. I was not as padded as I looked. ‘Ow!’ I glared at him and then transferred my glare to Officer Hatfield. I was not deterred by either man.

  ‘I can’t believe you called me all the way down here just to tell me the fingerprinters were coming.’

  Ty threw his hands up. ‘You were accidentally summoned.’

  Casey’s eyes met mine. See? I said with my eyebrows.

  ‘Since you’re here, do you have anything else for me?’

  He had some nerve. ‘No,’ I snapped. ‘You?’

  ‘No.’ His answer was clipped.

  Two could play that game. ‘Fine,’ I said.

  ‘Fine,’ he managed between gritted teeth.

  Then I turned around and left, Casey quick on my heels.

  We were halfway back to the Deb house when Casey had the nerve to say, ‘He likes you.’

  I rolled my eyes. It was just my luck that the only guy who might ‘like’ me was also someone who wanted to arrest me every chance he got.

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  I had to get out of the house. I was going stir crazy with not much to do. The Chapter Advisor’s office was still closed off, waiting for the fingerprinters, so I couldn’t do chapter work in there. I called Casey and asked him to meet me at the house so we could dig into the paperwork that HQ had sent over, with the added bonus that I could use his brawn to help me get settled in the Chapter Advisor’s apartment. He had a conference call with HQ until lunch over some hazing incident in Colorado. I was surprised by that. Coloradans seemed way too chill to haze anyone. Hazing took a lot of effort, in my experience.

  So I broke a rule and tiptoed into the office to retrieve Liza’s sociology papers. I was 85% sure that Hatfield would never notice they were gone. Speaking of rude police officers, I remembered the previous night perfectly. It had only been two-point-
five margaritas, after all. Just enough to make me forget myself and taunt a sworn officer of the law. The thought of Ty Hatfield made me strangely uncomfortable. Something about him put me on edge and it wasn’t just his piercing blue eyes that both pissed me off and made me want to confess to something. Anything.

  On campus again, I felt the romantic tug of my alma mater, the memories of late nights and late mornings, group studies and cute fraternity boys at the Java Jimmy food cart. The nostalgia made me stop and get a double shot iced latte, for old time’s sake, before heading into the J. Quincy Adams building.

  I figured the best place to start was the sociology department offices, which were easy to find. I introduced myself to the receptionist and, with the gravest voice I could muster, quietly said that I was returning some of Liza McCarthy’s papers to the department. That got her all jumpy and nervous. She hustled off, saying she was going to get someone for me, which was all well and good, but the box of books was very heavy and it was hard to hold them and drink my iced latte.

  Soon enough, the receptionist called me back to an office and introduced me to Dean Xavier, sociology department chair. Interestingly, he was also Amanda’s hot professor date from the night before. I dropped the box and stuck my right hand out quicker than gossip could fly through a sorority house. ‘I’m Margot Blythe. How very nice to meet you.’

  ‘Dean Xavier,’ he said as he returned the handshake.

  This was interesting. He invited me to sit down and as I did, I studied him closely. I had been right at El Loco Taco. He was older, maybe late forties or early fifties, but still in good shape, with salt-and-pepper hair and a prominent-yet-handsome nose. Thin, wire-framed glasses didn’t detract from very intelligent brown eyes. Or maybe it was the glasses that made the eyes seem intelligent. Chicken, egg.