Stop thinking about it.
The last thing I want to do Friday night is go out, but I promised Asha I’d go with her to a frat party, and I kind of owe her for last weekend. However, she’ll ditch me the minute Spencer appears, and I’m not going to brave it alone. “How the hell are you going to wear a toga with crutches?” Matt asks.
“I’ll figure something out,” I say, shifting the phone. It’ll be easier than wearing the usual heels, skirt, and barely-there-top combo anyway. “Please come.” Matt doesn’t answer. “Bring Andrew too.”
“He’s got plans.”
Bummer. Andrew would make things more fun. “We can leave early,” I say, changing tacks. “Please?”
“Fine,” he says grudgingly. “But we really can’t stay late. I have StuCo in the morning.”
“Deal,” I say, not even gloating. “We’ll meet you there.”
*
I wait forever at the bus stop and finally manage to take the transit over to Asha’s. She lives in the worst dorm, on the farthest edge of campus. The parking sucks, the food’s gross, the bathrooms are disgusting, and I am so freaking jealous I can barely stand it. One more year. Just one more year and I can have my own crappy dorm room on a campus far away.
She’s already several drinks ahead when I get there. “You gotta catch up,” she says, handing me a watered-down tequila mixture that’s supposed to be a margarita. “Have a Drink on Me” blares from the speakers. I sip when AC/DC commands and Asha tries not to jab me with safety pins as she arranges my bedsheet into a toga. She looks pretty, draped in one of her mom’s saris.
“Does your mom know you’re wearing that?”
“Ha,” Asha says. “No, and don’t spill anything on it or she’ll kill me.”
My sheet literally pales in comparison—it used to be floral, many bleachings ago, but now it’s mottled and ugly. “Where’s your roommate?”
“She’s never here,” Asha says, taking the pins out of her mouth. “I don’t think she likes Spencer.”
“What? Why?” Everyone likes Spencer. He is the definition of nice. Polite, kind, quiet, and completely in love with Asha.
“I don’t know. I think she’s a racist.”
I snort. “Maybe she just doesn’t like the nonstop sexfest.”
Asha pokes me on purpose. Everyone knows she and Spencer screw like rabbits—except her parents, who are pretty traditional. Her mom wants Asha married as soon as possible, and her dad … well, her dad is the answer to “who doesn’t like Spencer?” Mr. Chavan got over the fact that Asha dated Spencer in secret for their entire sophomore year, and he claims to be over the fact that Spencer is black instead of Indian. But now that Asha stayed in Big Springs to be with him for college, Spencer is back on Mr. Chavan’s shit list.
Asha claims she’s here for the well-respected social work department, but that doesn’t make her dad any happier. Her older siblings are an oncologist and an engineer, and Asha, as the baby of the family, is supposed to complete the trifecta of success. Preferably as a surgeon. Lawyer, like her dad, is also acceptable. But what she really wants is to start a nonprofit and save the world, like Matt.
I’m just going to save myself and major in business. “Did you drop that statistics class?”
She steps back to examine her handiwork. “Yeah, but I’ll have to make it up at some point.”
“Ugh.” The chorus comes around again and I gulp from my mug.
“You ready?” Asha asks, looking for her keys.
“I think.” I tug experimentally at my toga and its hundred thousand safety pins. That sucker is going nowhere. “I hope this party blows less than the last one.”
Asha laughs, a little higher and sillier than when she’s sober. “You’re not looking for another round with Carson Tipton?”
My pulse spikes, sending lukewarm margarita straight to my head.
She fake punches my arm. “The dude has a Confederate flag license plate, Raychel. What were you thinking?”
“Good question,” I say, and drain my mug.
MATT
I told Raychel that Andrew had plans, but he cancels them when he hears about the toga party. He takes forever to find a sheet, finally wrapping himself in an old one with Sesame Street characters, and by the time we find a parking spot, then walk all the way from the parking deck to the frat house, I’m sure we’ll be late.
But we still beat the girls to the party and have to stand on the lawn waiting for them, watching a crowd of costumed kids walk, or stagger, inside. Finally Spencer the Friendly Drunk shows up and we go inside to escape the heat. He offers his flask to everyone in sight, but I turn him down. When the girls finally show up, they’re already stumbling, and the smell of tequila washes over me as Asha rests her forehead against mine. “Hiiii, Maaaattt.”
Well, this should be fun.
Raychel hugs Andrew. “Nice toga,” she says, looking him up and down, then turns to me. “Where’s yours?”
“He’s a modern Greek,” Andrew says. “Banker type.”
“I said I’d show,” I say, “not that I’d dress up. Where’re your crutches?”
She points toward the door, where they’re leaning against the wall. Andrew passes her Spencer’s flask and before I can argue, she takes a swig, shuddering. “Oh, that’s disgusting.”
Great, we’re mixing liquors tonight too. “You’re not drinking on painkillers, are you?”
She rolls her eyes and takes another swig before handing it back. “Thanks, Spence.”
“No problem.” He puts it in his pocket, just in time for Asha to make an attempt at swallowing his entire face, glasses and all.
Wonderful. “Don’t you have to work tomorrow?” I ask Raychel.
“Not until noo-oon,” she says, poking my arm. I bite back an angry reply. All week, she’s been furious that her hookup with Carson is the topic of conversation, but it’s not stopping her from another weekend of public debauchery.
A girl in a toga made of plastic wrap comes over to Andrew. “You want to dance?”
He looks at us, grinning, and Raychel waves him away. When he’s lost in the crowd, she leans over to talk into my ear, and gestures at Spencer and Asha. “Let’s give them some privacy,” she says, vowels long and slow.
The ridiculous hormonal part of my brain wishes she’d bite my earlobe.
Instead I half carry her to a corner, where she slumps on a sticky couch. Her laurel wreath crown, which looks suspiciously like it’s made from the holly bushes outside Asha’s dorm, slips and catches in a tangle of brown waves that change color with the DJ booth’s flashing lights. Red, yellow, green, back to red, flashing like a strobe. She stares at it without blinking.
“Tequila, huh?”
Her heads lolls toward me. “How’d you guess?”
“Asha had margarita breath.”