Saving Ben (12 page)

“I like Maddie a lot. A whole lot, even. She just doesn’t excite me the way Emma does.”

I turned my head to the side so I could see him. “Are you and Emma a couple now?”

Ben furrowed his brow. “Depends on your definition of a couple.”

“I’m not talking about friends with benefits. I’m asking if the two of you are in a relationship together. You know, seeing each other exclusively?”

“Why is it that every time you start talking about Emma, your voice gets all squeaky? What exactly is your problem with her? I thought she was your friend.”

“Just because she’s my friend doesn’t mean I want her in a relationship with my brother. Do you have any idea how many date requests she gets every day?”

Ben’s body tensed and his face reddened. “That’s all in the past. We’ve been talking some heavy shit on the phone over the break. By the time school starts again, we’ll be . . . how did you put it? Exclusive.” He reached over and squeezed my hand. “Don’t worry, Kitty. Everything will be fine.”

“I hope you’re right on this, Ben. But if you get in over your head, which is a very real possibility, remember, I’ve got your back.”

“What about him?” she asked, jerking her head back to earth.

“Hello . . .” I leaned over in my chair, waving my hand in front of her face. “Ben is under the impression the two of you are in a relationship.”

“Why would he think that?” She swung her legs over the side of the bed and sat up, stretching her arms behind her head.

“Hmm . . . let’s see.” I tapped my chin with my finger. “It might have something to do with all the time you spent on the phone with one another over the break.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about, Kitty.” The tone in which she used my nickname was both snarky and condescending. “Ben and I are just friends.”

Emma’s unreadable expression—her soft smile and the matter-of-fact set of her jaw—scared the hell out of me. She was either lying or she’d innocently misled Ben. “He feels differently about you, Emma, and as a favor to me, as well as to Ben, I’d appreciate it if you’d come clean with him about Peter.”

“Since when are
your
brother’s delusions
my
problem?” she asked, removing her toiletries bag from her suitcase and disappearing down the hall.

And just who are you to call Ben delusional when you’re the obvious whack job?

I picked up the ceramic mug full of pens from my desk and hurled it at the wall over Emma’s bed. The three-week break from my roommate had given me the opportunity to put things in perspective and look at the situation with a fresh pair of eyes. As much as I’d been trying to give her the benefit of the doubt, it was clear Emma had some deep-seated emotional issues that made me fear for my brother.

While I was too preoccupied to worry much about Emma and Ben during the two weeks that followed, the process of sorority rush, of acquainting myself with the sixteen different sororities, at least gave me the opportunity to stay close to Emma. As far as I could tell, she had no communication with Ben whatsoever. He didn’t come flying through the door in a rampage over having learned about Peter nor did she disappear for unaccounted hours to be with him at his fraternity.

Being on display every night and having to meet new people at every turn are not my favorite things to do. By the time we got through to the third round, I was exhausted and had to rely on Emma’s enthusiasm to pull me through.

Ben’s advice about finding the right sorority that suited me played over and over in my mind. I tried for my mother’s sake, but unlike Emma, I just couldn’t warm up to the Chi Deltas the way I did to the Tri Betas down the street. I was torn between an allegiance to my mother and an allegiance to myself. Every night I felt more and more guilty watching as Emma shamelessly spread it on thick to every Chi Delta she met. She wanted to be one of them, and she made it clear she’d do anything to make that happen.

Somehow I made it through to the final night, the night before we were to submit our pledge cards, but I still wasn’t sure if pledging a sorority was something I even wanted to do.

“Are you waiting for someone?” Honey Mabry asked me when she saw me standing alone in the front hall of the Chi Delta house.

I nodded. “Emma. We were supposed to meet here about thirty minutes ago. Have you seen her?”

Honey glanced around to make certain no one could overhear her, even though we were the only two people in the room. “Then I’m guessing she didn’t tell you.”

“Tell me what?” A chill of imminent doom traveled my spine. “Did something happen to her?”

A group of rushees came barreling through the front door, bringing with them a blast of cold air. Honey grabbed me by the elbow. “Come in here for a minute.” She dragged me into the adjoining room, the formal room they called the parlor, and closed the door behind her. “Because of your mother’s history with this sorority, we gave Emma every consideration we could. Unfortunately, it wasn’t enough. I hated to have to do it.”

My stomach did a somersault followed by a backflip. “What exactly did you have to do?”

“First of all, please understand this is standard procedure for us when we have concerns.” Honey saw the impatient look on my face. “Okay . . . well, we did a background check on Emma.”

It took a minute for my brain to register what she was saying. “Hold on. Did you just say you conducted a background check? I thought Emma was rushing a sorority, not applying for a job in the CIA?”

“You’re so funny, Katherine.” Honey managed to fake a laugh. “It wasn’t
really
a background check. Only our version of one. In this case a cousin of a friend of mine who lives in Altoona and went to high school with Emma. You should be thanking me right about now. I saved your family a lot of embarrassment. If word had gotten out that your roommate’s father is in jail—”

“In jail? What’re you talking about?” I asked, trying to keep my voice steady despite the goose pimples breaking out all over my body.

Honey’s face was smug as she announced, “Emma’s father is serving five to ten for possession of heroin with intent to distribute.”

“There must be some mistake,” I blurted. “Her father is an English professor at Penn State Altoona.” As the words crossed my lips, it occurred to me that Honey might actually be right. Emma had lied about many things. Why wouldn’t she lie about her father’s occupation?

“Oh . . . he used to work there alright. As a custodian, dealing drugs to students out of his cleaning closet.” Recognizing my dismay, she softened a little and nodded toward the sofa. “Shall we sit for a minute?”

“No thanks. I’m fine.”

“All right, then.” She straightened her back and flung her hair over her shoulders. “Has Emma ever told you how she spends her summers?”

I shook my head, even though I’d heard Emma complain many times about not getting paid for helping her father in his office at the university. Another lie. She couldn’t possibly have been working for him if he was locked away in prison.

“She works as a nurse’s aid at the retirement where her mother is a cafeteria worker. You roommate changes bed pans.”

I already knew part of this to be true, so the rest of it came as no big surprise. “So what? I admire her for working to put herself through college, so she can have a better life.”

“Look, Katherine. Her summer job isn’t the issue here. Emma lied, which doesn’t cut it at an institution that was founded on its honor code.”

I was shaking with anger, not only at Emma for putting me in this position but also at Honey for being so smug. I wanted to smack the smirk off Honey’s face and poke her twinkling eyes out. “Is the honor code the only thing you’re worried about? Seems to me it might tarnish the sacred reputation of this great sisterhood to have the daughter of a jailbird as a member.”

“We’ve always protected our own, Katherine, all the way back to when your mother was a sister here. I’m pretty sure
she
wouldn’t want her alumni friends to know about this.”

“Is that a threat?”

Honey shrugged. “I mean, the idea that your mother would recommend such an undesirable for membership . . .”

“But how could she have known?”

Honey stared at me, hard, her eyes full of hate. “Maybe her daughter should’ve figured that out for her.”

I knew if I didn’t get out of that room soon, I might seriously hurt her. I turned to leave, but when my hand reached for the doorknob, she grabbed my arm to stop me.

“Because your mother was once the president of this sorority, we’re obligated to take you,” she said as if I were some kind of stray animal. “You’re a good girl, Katherine—a little misguided but I think your heart is in the right place. We can get past this.”

“I wouldn’t belong to this sorority if it were the only one on campus.” I swung the parlor door open, grabbed my coat from the foyer, and stormed out of the Chi Delta house into the bitter winter night.

Ignoring the sleet stinging my face, I marched down the street to the Tri Beta house. As subtly as I could and as quickly as I could, I let them know their sorority would be first on my bid card. With tears blinding my eyes, I slowly made my way back to my dorm by taking baby steps in the crunchy grass to avoid the slippery sidewalk.

Fortunately for her, Emma was not in the room when I got there. I locked the door behind me, flung myself on my bed, and buried my face in my pillow. I sobbed and screamed and pounded my fist in a full-fledged temper tantrum. After a long time, maybe twenty or thirty minutes, I rolled over on my back. I was calmer and focused, but still mad as hell, mostly at myself. The thing that hurt the most was the truth in what Honey had said. I was the one responsible for bringing Emma into our home, and for months, I’d watched her manipulate my family. Because she had everything in common with my mother that I lacked, it was easier to listen to the two of them talk than to have to make conversation with my mother myself.

What the hell else is she hiding?

I reached for my computer. I doubted Emma realized that, as system administrator, I could change her password and sign onto her user account anytime I wanted. Under normal circumstances, I would never have violated her privacy, but these were not normal circumstances.

I went straight to her Facebook account where I discovered she had quite the following. The number of friend requests and pleas for dates was substantial. Out of her whole list of friends, there was only one boy I didn’t recognize as a student at UVA. His name was Peter. Peter Packham. Despite his nice dimples, I had to wonder what kind of parents, with a last name like that, would name their kid Peter.

Her inbox was full of love messages from Ben, the most recent received at 6:05 p.m. that evening, inviting her to come over and hang out with him.

I changed into jeans and a sweatshirt before heading back out into the winter night. The sleet had turned to snow, but because I was wearing my gumshoes, I was able to run all the way to Ben’s fraternity house. I burst through the front door and dashed up the stairs, only vaguely aware of the loud music coming from the back room. I pounded on Ben’s door repeatedly. I was about to give up and look elsewhere when he answered.

“What’re you doing here?” he asked, his face flushed and his eyes glassy.

“Looking for Emma,” I said, standing on my tiptoes so I could see past him. “Is she here?”

He placed both hands on the doorjamb, filling the doorway with his body, blocking my view of his room. “Now is not a good time.”

“Move,” I said, grabbing a hunk of skin under his arm and pinching him as hard as I could.

“Ow!” He jerked his arm back. “Damnit, that hurt.”

“Sorry,” I said as I scooted past him.

Ben’s was the largest of the single rooms in the fraternity house. In addition to his bed and desk, he had enough space for a small This End Up sofa and matching chair. Emma was sitting dead center in the middle of the sofa, wearing my new purple dress, the one I’d wanted to wear earlier but couldn’t find.

Ben squeezed past me, and without bothering to offer me a seat, he sank down to his chair.

“I went to the Chi Delta house looking for you,” I said to Emma. “I thought the plan was for us to meet over there at nine.”

“Rush is over for me.” Her eyes darted around the room until they came to rest on Ben. “I told him everything.”

“You told him about Peter?”

“Yes, Katherine,” she snarled. “I told him about Peter. Are you happy now?”

“And you’re okay with this?” I asked my brother. “I mean, two weeks ago she announced to me that she was in love with her ex-boyfriend, yet here she is with you. Fourteen days is not a long time, Ben. I hope her love for you is more lasting.”

Ben ran his hands through his hair. “This is really none of your business, Kitty.”

“It is my business, Ben. You’re my brother and she’s playing with you like a wind-up Kewpie doll.”

Without realizing the irony in his actions, he stood and began pacing in circles in the small space between his chair and me.

“Stop talking about me like I’m not here,” Emma screamed.