Remy fought the urge to bolt as she was ushered into numerical order outside the Beta house. She was starting to feel nauseated. She was unlucky number thirteen, of course, but she supposed it was better than whatever poor freshman got stuck with number sixty-nine. Still, the whole ordeal made her nervous. She'd never been judged so openly nor felt such a pressure to please complete strangers. As the doors opened and the girls began filing in the house, she reminded herself that she was here on a mission. It seemed to calm her nerves.
The girls inside the house were all wearing different colored, flowered skirts with the same white Beta-Kappa tank tops and bracelets. Remy briefly wondered if she'd have to match the hundred or so other girls in the house if they selected her.
"Try not to look so horrified." A feminine voice whispered in her ear. Remy turned to see a blonde girl in the Beta uniform. The Beta linked her arm through Remy's and led her upstairs.
"Sorry," Remy said, forcing on a smile. "I'm just nervous about this, you know?"
"Don't worry about it. I was nervous about joining Greek life too." The blonde rubbed her arm. Remy started to feel more at ease, despite being about 90% sure that this Beta had never once felt intimidated in a room full of girls.
"How did you choose Beta?" Remy asked, trying to sound as thoughtful as possible. She wanted to smack herself for having to pull out one of House's back up questions when she was only about a minute into the tea party.
The Beta laughed sweetly, and Remy began to wonder how much control she actually had in recruitment. It was starting to seem more like the sororities were picking freshman than the freshman picking sororities.
"I'm from just outside of Chicago. A lot of girls from my high school are in Greek life." She began to explain. "So, I wanted to be in the house with the least amount of them."
"I was not expecting that." Remy smiled.
"I wanted college to be a new leaf. I was pretty shy in high school and kind of nerdy. Everyone was pretty closed-minded in the town I grew up in. I felt like college was a chance for me to find a place where I felt like I belonged." She explained, pushing open the door to her room at the end of the hall.
"This is twice the size of my dorm room." Remy was in awe.
"Being the president has perks." The blonde smiled. She shut the door behind them and held out a hand. Remy noticed the emerald while shaking the Blonde's hand. "I'm Allison Cameron."
"Remy Hadley." Remy responded, unconsciously fingering the necklace from House as she realized just how planned out this situation was. House had recently turned off all the privacy settings on her Facebook and updated her favorite movies and books. Remy was now seeing most of the titles on Allison's bookshelves. It seemed like Allison had manipulated sorority recruitment, and House had manipulated Allison's matching strategy. It appeared House might finally have the upper hand.
"Your necklace." Allison whispered leaning in towards Remy's chest. Remy felt the hair on the back of her neck stand up. She'd noticed upon walking in that Allison was cute, but now she was close enough that Remy could smell her perfume and see just how blue her eyes really were.
"It was my grandmothers." Remy said, self-consciously playing with it.
"It's just like mine." Allison's smile widened, and Remy felt herself blush.
"Here, take a seat." Allison pulled out a chair at the table set with tea and scones in the center of her room. Remy sat down, noticing the view of the back yard from Allison's open window. A few girls were seated out there having tea. Remy wondered if having tea with the president meant she was specially selected or if it was just House's special matching tricks.
Allison sat across from her and poured two cups of tea. "Thank you." Remy smiled, dropping a brown sugar cube into the cup. "My mom used to take my brother and I out for tea when I was younger." She reminisced.
"Your brother must have loved that." Allison chuckled.
"Yeah, we stopped going about the time he started middle school." Remy looked into her tea. Allison chuckled and Remy put on a fake smile. Her brother entering middle school was also right around the time her mother got too sick to take her and her brother out.
"How much older is your brother?" Allison asked.
"Five years." Remy answered, "Just old enough that we never overlapped at school."
"Consider yourself lucky. My brother and I are two years apart. I think I drove him crazy." Allison offered Remy the plate of scones. Remy took one, House's orders floating through her head.
"Does he go here?" Remy asked.
"No, thank god." Allison laughed. "That would be just what I need, my big brother reporting back to my parents from college."
Remy raised an eyebrow. It was good to know that Allison, little miss tea party, wasn't quite the goody-two-shoes she appeared to be. Remy took a bite of the scone while trying to think of what to say next. Her nerves were starting to show up again.
"So, tell me about yourself, Remy." Allison crossed her legs and took a sip of tea. Her blue eyes focused squarely on Remy.
Remy took a sip of tea to wash down the scone. House had not warned her about such broad questions. "I'm pre-med, but a history major." Remy started. This was usually a conversation starter, except among other pre-med students aware of medical school's appreciation for diverse majors.
"I'm an English major, pre-med." Allison nodded, "what pre-med classes are you in now?"
"I passed out of the intro chem courses and the school actually gave me some credits for my IB classes, so I got to skip into p-chem and anatomy." Remy said, wondering if she was coming off too much like a braggart.
"Must have been more than some credits." Allison smirked. "I'm a junior and I just took p-chem over the summer."
"There wasn't much for me to do growing up other than study. I was also a bit of a nerd." Remy smiled. She fought the urge to mention that schoolwork was the only excuse her father would ever except when she was avoiding visiting her mother, and she was never interested enough in boys to get too distracted. She didn't know why she felt the weird need to confess all her secrets to Allison. Perhaps she actually was looking for a group of sisters.
"I hope you've been able to have some fun in college." Allison responded. Remy wasn't sure how to answer. House had warned her against talking about partying or relationships, not that she had much to share on either side.
"It's definitely fun, but I still don't quite feel like I've found that right group of friends." Bingo, Remy grinned. "That's why I signed up for recruitment. I thought it would a good way to expand my horizons."
"Oh definitely." Allison leaned closer to the table. "We do a lot of fun things. We have mixers, we have girls' night in, and we always make teams for the local marathons. It's comforting to have all these girls behind you because almost always there will be at least one girl who wants to do whatever you want."
"That sounds amazing." Remy took another bite of the scone, noticing that she was halfway through her time at the tea party and nowhere near finishing the food. "I was kind of worried it would just be a big group of girls clubbing every night. That isn't really my scene."
Allison seemed to like hearing that. "I feel the same way, but it is fun to let loose every once in a while."
"Amen to that." Remy finished her tea. Allison seemed to like that answer too.
"Can I tell you a secret though?" Allison poured Remy and herself another glass of tea.
"Go for it." Remy went for another sugar cube.
"Sometimes when we have events here and I'm feeling a little overwhelmed, I sneak onto the roof to get some air. There's a nice view of what's going on, but no one can really see you from the roof unless they know to look." Allison confessed. Remy felt comforted that even someone as socially perfect as Allison could feel awkward at parties.
"I've definitely shown up to a party and then slipped out for a few hours before coming back." Remy laughed. If her friend were drunk enough, they would assume she'd been there all along.
Allison laughed and took her hand. "That's brilliant."
Four cups of tea, two scones, and video presentation downstairs of the Betas having fun and doing charity work later, Remy was feeling far more relaxed than she had felt walking in. Besides for the extreme need to pee and the fact that she was crammed in a room of identical girls and being identified by a number, Remy felt pretty good.
After the video projector was shut off, Allison stood up to address the room. "Hi girls, my name is Allison Cameron, and I have the pleasure of being President of Beta Kappa. On behalf of all one-hundred and fifteen Betas, I'd like to thank you all for coming to our tea party." The room erupted in applause and Remy wasn't sure whether to join in or roll her eyes. But before she knew it the applause was over and Remy watched as the girls around her were picked up by various Betas and led out.
Remy stood up as she saw Allison winding her way through the room to find her. "Thanks for talking to me. I really liked getting to know you." Remy said.
"I'm glad I got paired with you." Allison smiled back, and just as they were approaching the door she leaned in and whispered into her ear, "tell House I say hello."
Remy gulped, she tried to say something back, but they were at the door and girls were lined up behind her to get out. Allison waived, and Remy walked back towards her dorm in a strange haze of confusion. Did she know or was this just a casual way to point out that they had mutual friends? Maybe Allison still did have the upper hand.