It was a really good rule, overall, and I wished other campuses had adopted it. It would do a world of good avoiding the wrath of Epsilon Eta Chis and their ilk. I sat across from the current Panhellenic Advisor, a skinny, perky woman with long, enviably straight blond hair and a knack for eye makeup. I made a circle with my thumb and forefinger. I nonchalantly put the circle over my heart. This was the part that was hard to hide in public. It’s just not a gesture that people do very often. The Panhellenic Advisor did the same over her heart.
We smiled at each other with big, goofy grins, the kind you get when happiness is too hard to keep bottled up.
‘BIG!’ I yelled, getting up from my chair.
‘Little!’ Amanda yelled back. That’s right, the Sutton College Panhellenic Advisor was not only a beautiful, smart Delta Beta, but she was my one and only big sister.
Now Amanda’s office showed some imagination in decor. Deputy Hatfield could take some lessons from her. The rug really tied her office together. You never would have guessed her office was underground. Every inch of the space showed true Panhellenic spirit, with pictures and postcards and posters all depicting the most fun times of sorority life. It was like I’d died and gone to heaven.
‘I can’t believe you’re here!’ She said after we’d hugged each other’s breath out.
‘When they told me I was coming back to Sutton, I could hardly stand not calling you,’ I admitted. ‘I wanted it to be a surprise.’
‘Total surprise! Last I heard, you were in Atlanta.’
‘For just a few days,’ I said. ‘Before that it was Jacksonville, then Austin, then Portland …’
‘So glamorous.’
I nodded, thinking of life out of a rolling suitcase, doing laundry every few weeks and sleeping on spare beds. My life was great but definitely not glamorous. ‘How’s your family?’ I asked.
Amanda tossed back her perfectly straight hair. ‘Fine, I’m sure. Mother is headed to Brazil this week with her new husband.’
‘Really …’ Amanda’s mother changed husbands like some women change their handbags.
‘My sisters are both pregnant. For the third time. Each.’ Amanda added.
‘So exciting! Do you just love being Aunt Amanda?’
‘Oh, yes,’ Amanda said flatly. ‘Have you heard anything new about the old gang?’
I told her how I’d run into various pledge sisters and friends around the country. It was one of the perks of my job. I was still the social butterfly of our Deb chapter, always meeting someone in every city after we’d scattered post-graduation.
‘How does Kelly Jo look?’ Amanda asked about a friend of ours that I’d just seen in Austin. ‘I heard she wasn’t keeping well.’
‘She’s twenty-eight,’ I said. ‘She looks twenty-eight.’
Amanda smoothed a hand over her hair, which made me self-consciously do the same with my growing-out bangs. ‘That’s a shame,’ Amanda said.
‘You look great,’ I said, totally sincere. ‘Not a day over twenty-two.’
Amanda was a year older than me, at twenty-eight and I thought she’d like to hear that.
She smiled, pleased with the compliment. ‘Can’t beat good genes and sunscreen,’ she said.
‘True,’ I said cheerily, knowing that if Amanda’s pore-less, glowing complexion was solely due to sunscreen, I was Angelina Jolie.
‘How long will you be in town?’
I lifted my hands. ‘Who knows? You heard about Liza McCarthy, right?’
Amanda nodded, a sheen of tears suddenly appearing in her eyes. ‘I’m just in total shock about it,’ Amanda said. ‘She was so young.’
‘So young,’ I agreed.
‘What’s going to happen?’ Amanda asked.
I gave her the update from HQ.
‘Whoa.’ Amanda leaned back in her chair. ‘That’s huge.’
‘That’s one of the reasons I came to see you. To formally introduce myself as the Delta Beta Chapter Advisor pro tem.’
‘I’m so proud of you,’ Amanda sniffed. ‘It’s so great to see your little sister succeed.’
Her words brought a mix of emotions that, to be honest, made me a little uncomfortable, so I just pushed them down and ignored them, like a good Delta Beta. No need to ruin the reunion party.
I changed the subject, so as not to face my anxiety. ‘I guess I need to do some paperwork with you?’
Amanda got right on the ball, as I knew she would, registering me with the college as a student advisor, showing me the Panhellenic policy, procedures and codes of conduct and going over the calendar of meetings and events of the next month.
‘Poor Liza,’ Amanda said, after we went over the plan for the Tri Mu Bowling Tournament the next weekend. ‘She really hated the Tri Mus.’
I nodded in sympathy. Every good Delta Beta hated the Tri Mus. ‘Did you know her well?’ I asked, wanting to be a good friend and support Amanda if she was overcome by Liza’s death.
Amanda wobbled her head. ‘Yes and no. She was great with the girls, of course, a real charismatic leader. But with the college staff, she was a little more standoffish. Maybe because she hadn’t gotten her doctorate yet.’ Amanda crinkled her nose as a sad thought occurred to her. ‘Maybe if I had told her I was a Deb, we could have been better friends.’
‘You were there for her,’ I assured Amanda. ‘She knew in her heart you were a sister.’
Amanda closed her eyes and nodded, accepting my wise platitudes. ‘How are the girls holding up?’
I thought of the still-red eyes and hushed voices at breakfast this morning. ‘They’re strong. They’ll hold it together.’
‘And what about you? How do you plan to do all this? Even a temporary gig is going to be tough.’
That was so like Amanda to ask about me. She was really thoughtful about other people. ‘I’m going to hold one-on-one’s with the chapter officers in the next few days, get status reports from everyone. Hopefully that will give me a good overview of the chapter. Plus, headquarters is sending me the financials to review.’
Amanda nodded at the plan. ‘Let me know if you need help with anything.’
An image of a gold badge and a cute guy popped in my head. ‘Do you happen to know Lieutenant Hatfield,’ I asked. ‘At the Sutton police department?’
Amanda pursed her lips. ‘He comes on campus every fall to do a dating violence prevention thing. Are you going to ask him out?’
I rolled my eyes. So typical of Amanda to go there immediately. Let’s just say that of the two of us, she could’ve been kind of slutty in college if she hadn’t been so discreet. ‘No way. He just seemed …’ I searched for the words to describe Hatfield’s odd behaviour the night before, ‘… a little obtuse.’
‘Really?’ Amanda asked with surprise.
‘Like, I don’t think he understood what sorority life was all about,’ I explained, thinking of his complete disregard for our rituals and his confusion that I would like to help comfort Liza McCarthy’s family, even if I’d never met them and barely knew her.
‘I get that all. The. Time. Unaffiliated people just don’t understand.’
‘Gosh darn independents,’ I said.
Amanda