Sorority Sisters (4 page)

“That he's to be avoided, sweetie,” Diane says with a half smile. “Any basis in fact? I'm going to warn you; I'll know if you're lying.”

“Because you've known so many tall, dark strangers?” Dave asks, leaning toward Diane.

Diane grins. “Because I'm such a great liar myself.”

It is then that Pete and the blonde join us. I'm not a great liar, but I can fake it as well as any girl. With a shifting of my weight and a smooth half step, I'm standing with my shoulder pressed against Matt's arm. In this exact instant, we're a couple, at least as far as Pete's concerned, or that's the hope.

“Pete!” I say brightly, my smile wide and surprised. “I can't believe it! It's so great to see you again!” I don't look at the blonde at his side, though is that a mistake? Do I look like I care too much that there is a woman on his arm, figuratively speaking, if I don't even glance at her? Yes, I think so.

I glance at the blonde, my smile fully in place, including her in my joy at seeing Pete. Really, I'm amazing myself; that one year I did student theater has yielded untold dividends.

I glance back at Pete, waiting for him to say something. Diane, Matt, and Dave have fallen silent, looking at Pete, and the blonde as well, I suppose. She's pretty, in an obvious sort of way. Actually, she's pretty in any sort of way.

I shift my weight again and lean my shoulder against Matt's chest for an instant. The room is crowded; that will be my defense if called upon to offer one. Thankfully, Matt doesn't seem to mind.

Girls' school has not adequately prepared me for this type of social warfare, the type involving boys.

“Laurie,” Pete says. He looks surprised, perhaps even shocked, to see me here. He casts a swift glance at the blonde, not
his
blonde, just the blonde. She's smiling tentatively at me, her glance casting over all of us. Pete ignores her to stare at me. Just me. I breathe the moment down and hold it next to my heart for just a moment, the duration of a breath. “I can't believe it.” He sounds like he can't believe it. He looks like he can't believe it. Unfortunately, it also looks like he might not want to believe it.

“Small world, isn't it?” I say. “How is your mom? Did she ever shake that cough?”

The blonde is smiling even more tentatively now and is looking at Pete as her smile fades into a pleasantly inquisitive expression.

“Uh, yeah. She did,” Pete says, shuffling his feet slightly, shifting his weight. At my side I can feel Matt shifting his weight, in boredom I assume. Things are moving too slowly. I have to move things along, but where and how, I don't know. I only know that Pete is here, that he's not alone, and that nothing is happening the way I dreamed it would.

“Let me guess,” Dave says. “Next-door neighbors?”

Pete grins in a sudden flash of humor and relief. I can sense his discomfort; I assume we all can. I had hoped for something else, something more enthusiastic and more flattering than this sense of awkward and uneasy discovery.

“Nope,” Pete says.

“Same tennis team?” Diane asks, watching Pete, watching me watch Pete.

“Not even close,” Pete says.

“Cousins?” the blonde asks.

She has a high voice. Not as high as Minnie Mouse, but higher than mine, a very feminine voice, very girlish. I can't do anything about that. I can't do very much about anything, it seems. I pull a cigarette from my pack, tapping it against the cellophane a few times. As I put the cigarette in my mouth, Pete gets his lighter out and lights me. He stares at me as I puff my cigarette to life. I stare at the glowing tip of my cigarette, eyes lowered, feeling his attention on me, feeling myself glow softly under it. When he lights his own cigarette, I lift my gaze to stare into his eyes as he continues to stare into mine. It takes only a few seconds, but this is the Pete I came to find. This is the intimacy I joined Beta Pi to find, but like all wonderful moments, it's over before I can fully inhale the joy of it.

“Not likely,” Dave murmurs, illuminating the brief intimacy of the moment.

Pete leans back, pocketing his lighter, his cigarette dangling from his lips. I take a drag of mine and then lift it away from my mouth, staring at Pete, smiling at him.

“Not cousins,” I say.

“This is like
What's My Line?
” Diane says. “I'm going to get a lousy score without some sort of help.”

“Animal, vegetable, or mineral?” Dave says, grinning.

“Male or female?” Diane counters.

“Living or dead?” Matt says.

“The letter
E
,” Blondie says.

Pete looks at her. “That's hangman, not
What's My Line?
, Beth.”

Beth the Blonde. Beth gives Pete a quizzical look, followed by a sheepish one, followed by a comical one. Each look as it passes fleetingly over her face is adorable. She's cute in a Barbie Dream Date sort of way. I suspect that most guys prefer the Barbie Dream Date way over any other. I'm afraid my way might be poetically tragic.

“Animal,” I say, smiling at Dave. “Definitely female. Definitely living.” I take a short drag of my cigarette, staring at Pete through the rising smoke trail. “And the letter
E
works, Beth. You all win. Congratulations.”

“This is a horrible game show,” Diane says. “I don't even know what I've won, and I still don't know what I know. But as long as I won, I guess I can be content with that.”

Dave chuckles and says, “Behind door number one, a brand-new refrigerator.”

“What's behind door number two? I don't need a refrigerator,” Diane says.

Beth giggles and leans into Pete. His arm wraps around her casually, comfortably. They've been together before. She's not tonight's pickup. I look at Matt. He's not actually my pickup; I suppose I was hoping it would look that way.

“Behind door number two is a mystery box,” Dave says. “You take your chances.”

“A guy standing in front of a mystery box, urging me to take my chances,” Diane says, shaking her head at him playfully. “Such a cliché, Dave. I wish I could say I'm shocked.”

Dave laughs, a bark of laughter that lights up his dark eyes. I gaze at Pete. Pete isn't laughing. He's looking at me. I smile at Pete. I ignore Matt.

“I met Pete last summer,” I say, breaking into the laughter like a brick through a window. “In Michigan. We had fun, didn't we?” I say, looking at Pete.

“American Woman” is playing on the stereo now, the hard beat of the music pushing against me like a wave.

Beth isn't smiling anymore. Neither is Pete. As to that, neither am I. Diane shifts her weight slightly, moving closer to me, and says, “I've never been to Michigan. What do you do for fun there?”

“Sail,” Pete says.

“Get hammered,” Dave says.

Shut up, Dave. You're movie-star handsome, but shut up. This has nothing to do with
you.

“You can do that anywhere,” Diane says, waving Dave off with a flick of her fingers. “In fact, I'm sure
you
do that everywhere. So, you were in Michigan sailing?” Diane asks Pete. “What were you doing in Michigan, Laurie? Sailing or getting hammered?”

Falling in love.

“Some sailing,” I say, still staring at Pete.

I can see Beth is getting more uncomfortable as she becomes more unsure of where this is going, or maybe she's uncomfortable about where this started. I don't want to hurt her. I just don't want her to exist, not for Pete and not for me.

Was I sailing with Pete? That's the question everyone wants to ask, and I almost wish someone would. I glance into Beth's eyes. She looks confused, maybe even afraid. I know the feeling and I don't wish it on anyone, not even Beth.

Look what you're doing to us, Pete.

“Where did you meet Pete, Beth?” I ask. “Sailing?”

It sounds like a slap, once the words are out, but I didn't mean it that way. Where did she meet Pete? When? Yesterday? Last year? Did she meet him after Mackinac or before? That's all I really want to know. I want it to be after. I want it to be that Pete, having lost me once I left Mackinac, stumbled into a brief, meaningless relationship with Beth. I want him to have wanted me and, upon not finding me, to have found next to nothing with Beth.
But I'm here. Find me again.

“No,” Beth says, looking at me, and then at everyone else. “Pete and I went to high school together.”

I feel the floor heave beneath my feet. Melodramatic, maybe, but that's exactly what I feel. I lift my cigarette to my mouth and take a calming drag; my hand isn't shaking. That's good.

I'm okay. I'm doing okay. I'm fine.

Beth came before me. Okay . . . so what? It doesn't matter. He left her and he found me. We had something last summer, brief but wonderful. We had something and I left, but I'm here now. That's going to make all the difference. It has to.

“High school sweethearts?” Diane says, looking brightly at Beth, and then looking at me, not so brightly, moving closer to my side, edging against Matt. “That's so sweet.”

Diane can't tell, can she? No one can tell that I feel sick, a cold wave of nausea rolling over me.
No one can tell.
I take another drag and push the message down into my lungs and out through my pores.
No one can tell.

That's the important thing, to never show weakness and never show vulnerability. If no one can tell you're hurt, then you're not hurt. A blow only counts if it makes you bleed, and I'll never bleed.

I take another breath and make sure my face displays a pleasant expression. I do all this like a nurse checking a pulse, a detached examination of my outward signs; this is how I know I look normal, controlled, calm, politely interested. That's all there is to this moment; that's all I will allow this moment to be.

But his high school girlfriend? When he went to an all-boys' school in New England?

“I thought you went to Exeter?” I ask Pete politely, just a simple way to keep the conversation going, nothing beyond that. Certainly nothing that could ever break my heart or crush my romantic illusions. They weren't illusions. I've never indulged in illusions.

“Oh, Pete told you about that?” Beth answers for him. She looks a little suspicious. Pete looks like he wants to crawl into a hole. I know what I look like. “He only went there for his last three years. We both went to Henry James High School before that. We started dating our freshman year. The Sadie Hawkins dance.” She smiles and presses herself against Pete's length.

She asked him out first. It's a crumb and I gobble it up like a starving mouse.

“Wow,” Diane says, her voice anchoring me to the moment, keeping me present in the conversation. I need it, and I appreciate it. The cold waves of nausea are still rolling over me, my skin prickly and clammy at once, but my hands don't shake. My civilized walls are fully in place; it's only my heart that silently trembles. “You guys have been dating for . . . how long?”

“Over six years,” Beth says, smiling up into Pete's unsmiling face.

Bastard.
The word slips past my barriers, making a lie of my careful civilization. I'm not civilized in this moment; I'm a barbarian queen knifing an interloper. But Beth isn't the interloper; I am. Pete made me one, against my will and consent.

Bastard, bastard,
bastard
.

“Wow,” Diane says softly, looking at me, her dark eyes soft with sympathy.

“You go to ULA?” I ask, dropping my cigarette into my beer where it floats darkly. How long before it sinks? How long before my cigarette disintegrates? My cigarette floats proudly, intact. Matt takes the cup from my hand and gets rid of it all.

“No, I go to Pepperdine,” Beth says. “I don't even have a car. When Pete can get a car he picks me up and brings me to parties like this. I love it. Don't you?”

I look into her pretty blue eyes, heavy with clumped mascara, and smile. “I do,” I say, shifting my gaze to Pete. “I just love it.”

A touch on my arm breaks the spell and I stop counting the beats of my heart. I turn away from Pete, glad for any excuse to do so.

“There's a problem,” Karen says in my ear, her breath brushing my hair. “Cindy Gabrielle. Joan Collier thinks she went upstairs with a guy. She's drunk.”

I look at her; then I look at Diane. Diane catches my look and, saying something that makes Dave York laugh, presses against me, her body flush against mine.

“What's up?” Diane asks softly.

“Cindy Gabrielle is upstairs with a guy,” I say, my mouth near her ear.

“If the pledge trainer finds out . . .” Karen says, her voice trailing off. It doesn't need any further explanation. “Joan's her cousin. She's worried.”

“And this is not a one-man job,” Diane says. “‘Once more into the breach,' or whatever the hell that quote is. Shakespeare?”

“It sounds like him,” Karen says.

“Where's Joan?” I ask. We're making our way across the crowded room, trying to look casual. It's not that hard. I assume people will think we're looking for a bathroom. As to that, it's not a bad excuse to use when we find Cindy.

“Waiting at the bottom of the stairs,” Karen says, and on the heels of that, I see her. Joan, also in my pledge class, looks grim and a little scared.

“Come on,” I say, walking past Joan and leading the way up the stairs; I'm glad for this sudden mission, the barbarian queen with her knife drawn. It's noisy up there, the party having spread. We're not going to be alone, which isn't such a great thing when you're looking for a lost pledge.

“Hey, girls. Lost? Need a guide?” a guy says from the top of the stairs. He's barefoot and wearing faded jeans. I keep my head down and refuse to look any higher than that.

“‘A three-hour tour,'” Diane singsongs.