know,” Dan said. “I sort of get the appeal of a frat. Everyone wants to feel like part of something.”
“Sure, but what’s the point if you have to pay your way in?” Jordan snorted.
“We should hurry up,” Abby said. “It looks like most people already dropped off their stuff inside.”
“Yup, we need to blend in,” Dan said, following her and Jordan into the big blob of high school students pushing their way into Wilfurd Commons. A knot grew in Dan’s stomach as he realized just how many student chaperones were there to keep an eye on them.
He tightened his grip on his bag, eyeing the chattering high schoolers with suspicion, even annoyance. Over the summer, making new friends had been one of his top priorities; now, he wanted to do everything in his power to avoid it.
“Don’t worry about your friend there.”
“Hm?” Dan hadn’t noticed he was staring, but apparently he was—at Abby. She was walking close to her host, and the two girls were laughing as if they had known each other much longer than ten minutes. Abby just had that way with people. Dan strained to hear what they were giggling about. “Oh, I wasn’t worried.”
“Really?” His host, Micah, lifted a thick, dark eyebrow and clapped Dan on the shoulder. “’Cause you look plenty nervous from where I’m standing.”
“We’re, um, sort of dating, that’s all,” Dan said. He and the other prospective students—“coolly” called “prospies”—were being marched back across the academic side and down the short road that led to the dormitories. Paired off with their hosts, most of the students were busy getting to know their campus buddies for the next few days, no one more so than Abby.
“Hey,” Dan called, waving to her. A few steps ahead, she smiled and tossed back a quick twiddle of her fingers.
“Who’s that?” he heard her host say.
Abby’s response was too soft to overhear.
“I think your girl is busy,” Micah said gently. “Don’t sweat it, man, you can catch up with her later. Do you two go to the same school?”
“Not really,” Dan said. “I mean, no, no, we don’t. We actually met over the summer at the program they have here.”
“Really? Well, come on now, that’s great. So y’all just couldn’t get enough NHC? Had to come back?” He chuckled, and even his laugh seemed to have a Southern accent. Dan would almost guess his host was exaggerating the effect in an attempt to be funny or something, except that Micah didn’t seem like the type to be ironic, as far as Dan could tell.
“We met Jordan there, too,” Dan explained, pointing, half trying to rope Jordan into the conversation. Jordan didn’t appear to be warming up to his own host, Cal, with anything resembling enthusiasm, despite Cal’s previously hyped good looks. It couldn’t help that Cal seemed to be doing all the talking. “The three of us sort of became inseparable,” Dan said, unable to keep a note of pride out of his voice.
“Think you’re keen to apply? I don’t mean to be nosy, but when you intern for the admissions office it kind of comes with the territory,” Micah said. They were passing back by the frat houses now. Dan wondered which one was missing a pledge.
Dan redirected his attention to Micah, still unsure whether his host was making fun of him or not. Who said “keen” in earnest, anyway? Well, Dan supposed maybe Micah did, with his neat, modern glasses and a goatee that he reached up to rub every time he spoke. “Maybe. I’m mostly into history and psychology—do you know Jung? Yeah, him—but I have a few different interests. I still have to see if NHC is a good fit.”
“You should talk to Professor Reyes in the Psych Department. She’s running a senior seminar in the old asylum on campus, but I have her right before for Psych 200. I can ask her tomorrow if she’d let you sit in on a session,” Micah offered.
Dan tried to think of something to say, but his mind blanked.
“The asylum’s called Brookline, but you probably read about it already this summer,” his host continued amiably.
“Yeah,” Dan said. “I’ve heard of it.”
“Damn it.” Micah snapped his fingers at the host walking next to him, a short boy with scraggly red hair. “We got stragglers already. Grab that prospie before the frat boys eat her up.”
The redheaded boy responded without question, peeling off from the group and trotting over to a girl who was caught up in conversation with a little huddle of fraternity brothers clustered near the sidewalk.
“Don’t want you folks wandering off,” Micah explained lightly. “’Specially not to any frat parties. Those things get out of hand fast. We’ve been complaining to the new dean about their parties, even made a petition. I think this year a few houses will get their charters yanked.”
“Who’s ‘we’?” Dan asked, his eyes roaming across the front lawns of all the frat houses. Some of them had yards that were littered with trash.
“Reasonable folks,” Micah answered directly. “You’d know what I meant if you went here.”
“I bet,” Dan replied. He pointed his thumb over his shoulder toward the way they’d come. “We saw a guy passed out near some gravestones. He didn’t look too good.”
“Sig Tau douche bags can’t hold their liquor. Sorry, pardon my French. Just don’t like those guys. They’re always throwing ragers and one kid or another is getting alcohol poisoning. It’s a damn disgrace. Like I said, we’ll make sure they get gone this year.” Micah motioned to the same redheaded boy who had collected the wandering prospie. Out of breath, the boy jogged up to them as they continued their way across campus. “Dan here says there’s a Sig Tau pledge passed out near the cemetery. Get someone to check on him, yeah?”
“Sure,” the boy said, nodding eagerly. “As soon as we—”
“No, Jimmy. Now. We got prospies all over the place—trying to set an example here. Don’t want them thinking we’re just a bunch of drunken morons.”
Jimmy nodded so hard Dan could hear his neck crack.
“Wow,” Dan said, watching Jimmy trail off behind the group. “Are you like head host or something?”
“Who? Me?” Micah laughed, throwing back his head. “Nah, nah … We just like to keep things orderly is all.”
It struck Dan as more than orderly, but he wanted to disappear, not call attention to himself, so he nodded politely and kept his eyes forward.
“Hey!” Abby dropped back to walk next to him, bringing her host with her. “This is Lara. Lara, this is Dan. She was just telling me about this art installation she’s working on for her semester project.”
“Oh, cool.” Dan reached across Abby to shake the girl’s hand. She was short, only just clearing Abby’s shoulder, and her dark, glossy black hair swung back and forth, cut into a severe wedge around her face. “Nice to meet you, Lara.”
“Seriously, I can’t wait to see her installation,” Abby raced on. “It’s a mixed-media room with statue pieces and music and live models. She’s going to take me to check it out tomorrow!”
“Actually, it’s an auto-destructive critique of the masks we wear as people of color to erase our heritage and become white,” Lara said in a flat monotone. She was either a master of deadpan humor or deadly serious. Maybe all college students just spoke a different language.
“That … sounds complex,” Dan said.
“Complex.