Vampire U

I'd barely begun to unpack my things when the door rattled as someone tried to force a key into the stubborn lock.  I'd had the same problem a few hours earlier.  Like the rest of Romanus University in the heart of Baton Rouge, the women's dormitory hid its old, rickety bones behind a beautiful antebellum facade.  Polished wood and high, ornate ceilings looked great in the recruiting pamphlets I'd received in high school, but they don't tell you about the lack of air conditioning or the squeaky floors.

The cool night air was a blessing after the sweltering heat of the early September afternoon, but the small room's open window did little to alleviate the sweltering humidity that lay across the bayou like a sweat-soaked gym towel.  My hair had rebelled, springing up in an unruly mop of curls, and my old high school debate club t-shirt clung to every curve of my small round breasts, drenched in sweat after an afternoon of carrying up boxes from my beat-up old Honda Civic.  Fat moths fluttered around my head, drawn in by the light.  Some of them looked as big as bats, but I wasn't about to close the window and miss even the slightest breeze.

But despite the heat, it felt good to be here, away from home at last, free to pursue my journalistic dreams.  My SAT score hadn't been stellar - I'd crashed and burned on the math section - so I'd been shocked when Romanus offered me a full ride.  The small, private liberal arts school had been around since just after the Civil War, and even if it wasn't Harvard, I was smart enough to realize that journalism isn't exactly a path to tremendous wealth.  Getting a degree without a mountain of student debt would be quite an accomplishment.

Unfortunately, Romanus was best known as a party school, and I'd been nervous about meeting my new roommate.  We'd be sharing a small room for the next year, and I liked things quiet.  All I needed was some drunken sorority pledge staggering in at three AM and puking on my laptop.

So when Morgan Brewer finally figured out the wonky old lock and pushed the door open, my first impression gave me little hope.  I was expecting someone perky and outgoing - that had been clear in the few emails we'd exchanged.  But I wasn't expecting a bombshell.  My new roommate burst into the room like a tornado of Southern charm.  With almost six feet of curves softening her athletic frame, Morgan had the kind of body that belonged in dirty movies.  Platinum blonde hair framed a face just a bit too sexy to call cute, with eyes the color of honey and a big, sweet smile full of straight, white teeth.

That smile lit up her face, and she dropped her backpack.  "Dani!  It's so good to finally meet you!"  Her Texas accent was soft, but noticeable, and it made every word she spoke sound heartfelt.

Before I could correct her - my name is 
Danielle,
 not 
Dani
 - she bounded across the room and scooped me into a fierce hug.  I smiled and laughed despite myself, somehow disarmed by her guileless enthusiasm.  Unconsciously adjusting my glasses, I tried in vain to straighten my wild hair when she finally released me.  It was hard not to feel short and plain next to Morgan.

She plopped down on the bed across from the one I'd claimed - I'd unwisely picked the one furthest from the window before I'd realized how hot it was.  A soft breeze floated into the room, temporarily cooling my sweat-damp skin.  Morgan sighed and closed her eyes as she reached up to unbutton the last button on her light pink polo.  Even that modest neckline revealed an unfair amount of smooth, tanned cleavage, and I felt a pang of jealousy.

"You wouldn't believe how long it took my flight to get here from Dallas," Morgan said as she shifted on the bed and kicked out her long runner's legs.  "We sat on the runway for nearly an hour once we landed.  Thank god the flight attendants served free drinks, and they didn't card me."  She paused and blushed.  "Oh, listen to me ramble on.  How are you?  When did you get in?"

"A few hours ago," I said.  "Traffic wasn't a problem, so I got here faster than I thought."

Morgan's eyes went wide.  "You drove all the way here from Chicago?  That's wild!  My dad would be worried sick if I tried a stunt like that.  Farthest I ever drove was South Padre Island, and that was with three friends."  Her eyes drifted off to examine the things I'd hung above my bed, and she frowned.  "Who's that?  What's with the newspaper?"

I glanced behind me at the framed headshot of Judith Miller - signed by the famous reporter who had gone to jail rather than reveal her sources - alongside a framed issue of the New York Times dated on my birthday.  I'd always thought they were cool, inspirational even, but the look on Morgan's face made me feel like a nerd.  I shrugged.  "Kinda lame, huh?  I'm a journalism major."

Morgan flashed a bright smile and pointed at the headshot.  "No, that's great!  Who is she?"

I tried to explain how Judith Miller had sacrificed to break an important story, but I could tell Morgan was only listening politely, so I changed the subject.  "So what are you majoring in?"

Morgan shrugged airily.  "Undeclared," she said.  "I think I need to find myself, so I'm going to take a light load.  I have to keep a 3.0 or I can't pledge, and that's going to take up a lot of time the first semester.  Do you know which sorority you're going to pledge yet?"  She leaned forward with interest.

I was speechless for a moment.  Was she humoring me, or did she really think the nerd in the glasses and the debate club t-shirt was going to be a gum-smacking party toy for frat guys?  I'd rather write gossip stories for the National Enquirer than join a sorority, but I kept my expression flat.  "I haven't thought about it much," I said.  That much was true, at least.

Morgan grew somehow even more animated.  "Oh, you've got to!  Rush week starts Monday, and you can only visit eight.  My big sister - my 
real
 sister, I mean - says you should pick your top three choices and..."  She prattled on, but I tuned her out.  My hopes for a quiet roommate who shared my schedule had just flown out the window.  Maybe I'd get lucky and she'd shack up with a boyfriend.

I made eye contact and tried to hold up my end of the conversation, but my thoughts drifted elsewhere.  I had my first meeting with the college newspaper's editor-in-chief tomorrow, and I knew I'd be competing with dozens of others for a spot.  I wanted to impress him, and I needed to spend a few hours poring over my high school portfolio.  Now that I was actually at Romanus University, much of what I'd written less than a year ago felt... juvenile.

"Dani?"  Something in Morgan's tone broke me out of my reverie.

"Yeah?" I said, not bothering to correct her truncation of my name this time.  Something told me that was a lost cause.

"Look at this!"  Morgan held out a paper airplane on blood red paper.  It wasn't like anything I'd ever seen before; it looked far too delicate to fly, but when I took it, the paper felt thick and heavy in my hands, like fine parchment.

"Did you make this?" I asked, admiring the delicate object in my hands. 

"No, it just flew in through the window."

I frowned and turned to the window.  We were on the third floor; sailing a paper airplane this high - especially one that didn't look the least bit aerodynamic - would be impossible.  I examined the plane more closely.  The folds were intricate and precise, and in truth, it looked organic - more like a bat than an airplane.  When I tugged at one of the corners, it unfolded like a flower, revealing a few lines of text inside, written in bold, flowing script:

DANIELLE ARCHER AND MORGAN BREWER

YOU ARE HEREBY INVITED

TO THE EQUINOX BALL

BETA HOUSE

FRIDAY NIGHT, DUSK

Seeing my name on the paper - and Morgan's - chilled me.  "You said this came in through the window?" I asked.  "Are you sure?"

Morgan nodded.  "I saw it fly in."

I hurried to the window and popped my head out to look down.  The sun had crawled below the horizon, and the sidewalk lay shrouded in shadow below the orange nightglow of city lights.  Nothing moved, and I almost didn't see the man standing in the shadows beneath a stately oak tree.  He was tall and lean, and although he looked young enough to be a college student, he wore a dark suit tailored to his athletic frame.

Tumbling locks of sandy brown hair framed an angular face with a narrow jaw, and he stared up at the window with a calm, patient expression.  When our eyes met, I felt the blood in my veins quicken.  In the gleam of a streetlight, his dark eyes made me think of the moon reflected in the bottom of a well, deep with the wisdom of someone far older.  He held me captive with his gaze, and my lungs forgot how to draw breath.  I wanted to reach out and touch his handsome face, and I leaned out and rose up on my toes as my body teetered on the window ledge thirty feet above the pavement.

"Careful!" Morgan said behind me.  She gripped the waist of my shorts, and when she gave me a gentle tug, I snapped to my senses and straightened up.  "Sorry," she said, jerking her hand away from my waistband.  "It looked like you were going to fall out!"

My head felt muddled.  What had come over me?  But the image of those deep-set eyes was burned into my memory.  I turned back to the window again, careful not to lean out this time.  When I looked down at the sidewalk, he was gone.

Still, no one could have sailed that airplane all the way up to our window and hit it with any accuracy.  I poked my head out - carefully this time as I felt Morgan hovering behind me, wondering if I had a death wish - and looked at the rooms to either side of ours, but the windows were closed and the lights were off.  Feeling foolish, I craned my neck up toward the roof.  The moon shone down, pale and harsh, but the slate roofline appeared unbroken.  I tried to imagine someone rappelling down from the steep gables above, but the idea was absurd.  I slid the window shut and latched it, then turned back to the room.

"How the hell did he do that?" I muttered, but Morgan wasn't listening.

"Beta House!" she squealed.  She held the unfolded sheet of crimson paper with the reverence of a museum curator holding an original copy of the Constitution.  "Oh my God, Dani!  We're invited to a party at Beta House!  Can you believe it?"

A couple of freshman girls getting invited to a frat party seemed far more likely than the impossibility of that paper airplane flying into our room.  In fact, it seemed as natural as spiders spinning webs to catch flies.  "Some frat?  What's the big deal?"

Morgan looked at me as though scandalized.  "Dani, Beta's not just a frat.  It's 
the
 fraternity at Romanus University.  They've been here since the school was founded.  They're the most elite, most exclusive group of men on campus.  To get invited to one of their parties on the first day...  we're not even in a sorority yet!"

And some of us intend to keep it that way. 
 I kept my opinion to myself, though.  Even though we had nothing in common, Morgan seemed like a sweet girl.  There was no sense in alienating her on our first day together.  "I don't think I can go, Morgan.  That's right at the end of the first week of classes, and I'm taking a full load.  If I don't get off on the right foot..."

Morgan sprang up from her bare mattress.  "Are you crazy?  We 
have
 to go.  Beta House parties are a Who's Who on campus.  This is our ticket to whatever sorority we want.  What better way to end Rush Week than to show up there?"

I snorted in surprise.  She might have her priorities ass-backwards, but Morgan apparently had a shrewd mind, at least for sniffing out the social hierarchy.  "I'll think about it," I said.  "There's no RSVP on that, so nobody's going to get their feelings hurt if I don't show up."

"Please, you've got to come!" Morgan said, taking my hand and squeezing.  Suddenly, I saw something vulnerable beneath the beautiful facade.  "I don't know anyone else here yet, and I need a friend."

Is that what we are?
  I felt heat rise to my face.  With my shy nature, I'd never made friends easily.  Was it as simple as Morgan made it seem?  Just open up and accept someone so different from yourself?  Despite our differences, the idea that a beauty queen like Morgan wanted to be my friend flattered me.  I knew we'd drift apart once she found her lifelong bosom sorority sister buddies, but I felt good in that moment.

"I'll try," I said.  "But it depends.  I'm trying to get a spot on the school paper, and the competition is tough.  If I need the time Friday, I may have to beg off."

"It'll be fun!" Morgan said, hearing only what she wanted and flashing that amazing smile again.  "You'll be glad you went."  She went back to staring at the red invitation, and I went back to unpacking my boxes.  The young man I'd seen outside kept slipping into my thoughts.  Was he one of these Betas?

"The Beta Equinox Ball," Morgan said in a dreamy voice, then mumbled, "What's an 'equinox' anyway?"

"It's a day of the year when day and night are equal," I said, wondering how Morgan had made it through high school science classes.  "Since this is fall, this Friday's equinox is when the sun starts to set earlier and the nights start getting longer."

Something thumped against the window and fluttered off into the night.  It sounded too big to be a moth.