Brimstone (40 page)

“The SAXis,” she said finally, “get what they want.”

I wanted to ask her what she meant, but she lengthened her stride, and short of breaking into a run, I couldn’t keep up.

The Sigma Alpha Xis had transformed their chapter room into a Parisian sidewalk café. Little round tables covered with checked tablecloths—each with a tiny vase of delicate flowers—filled the room, and on the wall was a mural of the Eiffel Tower. A street artist painted at an easel, and a mime wandered through the crowd. Accordion music played softly, and I swear I smelled baking bread. The transformation was so complete that it must have been accomplished with a lot of money, if not by magic.

I admit, the idea occurred to me. But really, if you had the ability to do magic, would you squander it to impress a bunch of college freshmen?

“Welcome back, Maggie.” I turned to see the president of Sigma Alpha Xi smiling at me. My brain supplied the name Kirby, which I remembered because it was like Furby, which was amusing only because she looked nothing like a gremlin toy. Except, maybe, that her smile didn’t reach her eyes, which were all business. I’d seen that a lot at these parties.

Kirby gestured to the woman with her. “You remember Victoria Abbott, one of our chapter advisers.”

“Good evening, Mrs. Abbott.” She wore another classy suit tonight, a hunter green that looked amazing with her complexion.

“Please, call me Victoria.” She smiled, and it did reach her eyes, just barely crinkling the corners. Her husband was quite young for a U.S. congressman—early forties—so his wife was probably about the same. She must moisturize like crazy, because she looked nowhere near that.

“Impressive, isn’t it?”

“Excuse me?” I didn’t think she meant her skincare routine or her designer suit.

She gestured to the room. “One of our alums is in graduate school for set design. She helped with the backdrops.”

“Very nice,” I said inadequately.

“And I believe you met Devon yesterday.” A wave of a slim hand indicated the painter with the beret. “She’s a fine art major.”

“Cool.” I was just full of brilliance tonight, but my brain was processing her knowledge of my social activities.

“I understand that you are an artist, too.” I looked at her, my expression blank, and she gazed back expectantly. Finally she prompted, “You’re a photographer?”

“Oh! Yeah.” That was the problem with lying; you had to actually remember what you told people. “I was on the yearbook staff in high school.”

Mrs. Abbott nodded. “I saw that on your Rush application. Are you thinking about continuing in photojournalism?”

Ah. Now I understood. She was feeling me out to see if I was the Phantom Rushee. At the other houses there had been a lot of questions about hobbies, but no one else had made the leap from yearbook photog to newspapers.

“I haven’t decided yet,” I told her, lying with the truth. My guard was up, but it was hard not to
look
as though I’d raised my defenses. “I’d like to take some pictures for the
Report
, see if I like it, but they don’t let freshmen on the newspaper staff. My major is English right now.”

“Oh? Are you a writer?”

The woman was like a terrier on a rat. My hole was getting deeper and she was digging in behind me. “I love literature. I’ve thought about being a professor, like my father.”

“Ah, yes. Dr. Quinn. He was a TA when my husband was in college here.”

I jumped on the opportunity to turn the subject away from me. “Did you meet at Bedivere?”

“Yes. We’re both active alumni. Your sorority will be a vital part of your lives during college, and for the Sigmas, it remains so well after graduation. We’re a special group.”

Her hand touched my sleeve, and I felt a tingle, not on my arm, but in my brain. I stiffened, and I thought about my psychic exercises for dummies, about putting up a shield between us. Whether it worked or not, I wasn’t sure, but there was no repeat of last night’s voyeur-vision.

“Sigmas form a close bond, Maggie,” Victoria continued seamlessly, as if she’d noticed nothing odd in my reaction. “You’ll see what I mean, if you decide to join us.”

Fortunately, she excused herself to introduce the skit, saving me from the most obvious response to that.

“ ‘Resistance is futile.’ ” A fraternity guy, slumped in his desk in the back of the classroom, read aloud from the latest Phantom Rushee report while we waited for Dr. Hardcastle to arrive. “ ‘All will be assimilated. Come into the light,
where all have shiny, shiny hair and many, many boyfriends.’ ” His buddies, all wearing some part of the Greek alphabet, laughed heartily. I wondered if they’d be so amused if the Phantom had been a guy rushing a fraternity.

He continued his recitation: “ ‘Unfortunately for the Sigma Alpha Xis, my mother always told me that if it looks too good to be true, it probably is.’ ”

The guy one seat down snatched the paper away. “She ragged on the SAXis? Man. This girl has balls.”

Frat Man grabbed his newspaper back. “She’s got to rag on them all, dipwad. It’s like, equal time in the media or something.”

“That’s political campaigns, asshole.”

Our class, by the way? Media and Communication. This is your brain on testosterone.

“I wonder if she’s hot.”

“She’s probably some militant feminist lesbian.”

“Lesbians are hot, dude.”

Behold, the future broadcast executives of America.

My days had begun to bleed together. The last night of Rush was Preference Night, when the sororities invited only the girls they were prepared to give a bid. There were only two parties, so we—the rushees, I mean—had to narrow the choices, too.

Leaving Hardcastle’s class, I’d glimpsed Cole as I passed the journalism lab, but as per our secret agent code, we did not make eye contact or acknowledge each other. I headed to the library to do some work and check my e-mail, and found a message waiting.

The link was to a news article about the seedy underbelly of Greek life—drinking, drugs, hazing, promiscuity—and the media blackout on the whole Greek system. How, unless an event got onto the police blotter, no one really knew about day-to-day life on Greek Row. This was what Ethan Douglas at the
Avalon Sentinel
had been talking about when he said my article lacked anything newsworthy.

The thing was, the longer the Phantom’s opinions appeared in the
Report
, the greater the chance that I would be discovered. If I actually
pledged
a sorority—

My phone started vibrating across the table. I picked it up and leaned forward into the study carrel to whisper, “Hello?”

“It’s Holly. Can you come to my room? We need to do an intervention.”

“What?”

“The Deltas cut Tricia.”

“I’ll be right there.” I’d jotted down her dorm and room number and closed my laptop before I realized that I was treating this like a real emergency—which was the other danger of continuing my undercover work. Perspective could be a slippery thing. How easy would it be to lose it?

“I don’t understand!” Tricia sobbed as she sat between us on Holly’s bed in Sutter Hall. Her hands were full of soggy Kleenex, and her eyes puffy and red. “I did everything right. I studied the house and I got my hair done and I bought new clothes and the right kind of purse.”

“You did great,” said Holly, rubbing her back in a soothing rhythm. I looked at Tricia’s handbag, wondering what was so special. She’d dumped it onto the floor, along with her books, by the room’s built-in double desk. “They’re idiots. You’re beautiful and sweet.”

“Much too sweet for the Delta Delta Gammas,” I told her.

“I should have dyed my hair.” Miserably, she fingered one of her glossy brown curls. “That’s what the consultant said, if I wanted to go DDG.”

I had to speak up, because even undercover, there was only so long I could keep repressing my opinion. “If you ask me, you should be thanking your lucky stars that you aren’t stuck for the next four years with a bunch of skinny clones, making yourself sick and miserable to be someone you’re not.”

“But what am I going to do?” She lifted her tissue-filled hands helplessly. “How will I get to know people? How will I get anywhere in life? When I called my mom, she said now I’ll never find a husband!”

“Oh, for God’s sake.” My sympathy went a lot farther than my patience. Holly swiftly intervened before I could say something really unfortunate.

“Here.” She went to her bureau drawer and brought back an airline-sized bottle of vodka, handing it to Tricia. “Drink
this. Then you can lie down for a few minutes, and pull yourself together in time for the parties tonight. Those aren’t the only Greeks in the sea.”

Tricia made a brave face and unscrewed the cap. “You’re right,” she said, throwing back her shoulders and then throwing back the liquor, downing all three ounces in two deep swallows.

“Wow,” I said.

She gave a coughing wheeze, a relaxed smile on her face. “I feel much better now.”

Luckily, we were standing there to catch her when she slid off the bed and into careless oblivion.