Stepping toward the hallway, Gwen turns. “Good night, you guys. See you early in the morning.” And there she goes down the hall, away from Sallie, and me, and what has turned into the most disturbing, cringeworthy night of our lives. Seriously, it’s as bad as accidentally forwarding a nasty email about someonetothat someone.
“What’s different this year?” Lilith asks Sallie, refilling her own glass. “I don’t remember you wanting to quit after last year’s Rush.”
“You know about the variable quota, right?” Sallie, very calmly, asks.
Lilith presses a hand to her heart. “There will be some tears this weekend.”
By the stoic look on Sallie’s face, one would never know how prescient Lilith’s words actually are. Sallie is a master of disguise. I, on the other hand, must be a dead giveaway. I’m flipping nervously through theGarden & Gun.I’d rather be having knee replacement surgery—and for me that’s saying something—than be sitting here in Lilith’s kitchen.
She spreads a cracker with one of the tapenades. “So how did the final round of Sisterhood go?” Then she takes a delicate bite, holding her hand underneath to catch the crumbs.
“Fine,” I say, in a breathy tone, even though it was anything but.
“We had to cut several legacies,” Sallie says. Okay, she’s preparing Lilith for the fall.
But Lilith doesn’t react. All she says is, “Surely that tramp, Amber Maples, got cut.”
“She got cut earlier in the week,” Sallie tells her.
“Do they still have the Pref rule?” She’s referring to Preference. If a girl makes it that far she’s guaranteed a bid. No matter what.
Sallie reaches for a slider before answering. “It’s not a guarantee that you’ll get your first choice, but yes—if a girl gets invited back to Pref she’ll get a bid.”
I can tell Lilith’s calculating all of this, because Annie Laurie was only invited back to three sororities for Sisterhood. This is a fact she has not sharedwith us, but as Rush Advisors we know all. With the exception of Alpha Delt, all the older Houses cut her. The other two who invited Annie Laurie back are newer sororities that Lilith would never want her joining in the first place. Apparently, and unbeknownst to Ellie or me, Annie Laurie was not well liked in high school. She had a zillion reference letters from Lilith’s lionizers, but none of Annie Laurie’s peers can stand her. How Lilith is keeping her cool right now is mind-blowing.
“What time does Panhellenic need the list in the morning?” she asks, casually. “Last year, if I remember right, it was sevenA.M.”
“It’s the same this year,” I say.
“Then I’ll have coffee and chocolate croissants ready for y’all by six.”
“Lilith,” Sallie says. “Please sleep in. You’ve been too good to us already.”
“Nonsense. This has been my treat, having y’all here.”
I find it very interesting that Lilith has yet to ask me which sororities Ellie has been invited back to. No doubt, she must be getting all of her information straight from Annie Laurie.
After Sallie and I have said our good nights we drag ourselves upstairs to our en suites. When we’re safely out of earshot, Sallie creeps into my room. “I swear,” she says, locking the door behind her, “if I live through Sunday it will be a flipping miracle.”
“Do me a favor?” I ask.
“Sure.”
“Please find a gun and put me out of my misery.”
Thank God for Sallie’s laugh. It cackles and she puts a little yell behind it. Hard to do it justice, but it’s about the only thing getting me through this Hell Week. “I took a week off work for this. Gwen did the same thing.” She squeezes her cheeks. “I workhardfor my vacations. I need to use that gun on myself… for being so stupid!”
“Five months ago, Lily Turner was a distant memory,” I say. “Now Lilith Turner Whitmore is ruling—I take that back—she’s ruining my life.” I stagger over to the bed, sit down on the edge. “And to think Ellie could have gone to UT.”
“Is it true?”
“Is what true?”
“About the dorm room costing each of you ten thousand dollars?”
I fall back, splaying my arms and legs out wide. “How do you know about that?”
“Uh, I think everybody knows about that. I guess Annie Laurie told Mary Crockett, who told her mother, and, well, you know how that goes.”
