Smart Tass Read online

  “Good evening, ladies,” she says as everyone—sorority sisters and pledges alike—turn to face her in the foyer that reminds me of something from Gone With the Wind with its grand staircase. “Welcome to the big night. I hope you’ve been reading your dictionaries because tonight is going to be prodigious!”

  She explains the rules for the competition. Each pledge is to drink one wine spritzer before each round of Scrabble. The pledges will play each other, one on one, until there are ten people left, essentially cutting the group down from forty.

  She continues, “Now, as you know, if you’re here tonight, it’s because you were asked to pledge. Your GPA meets our minimum requirements and/or you’re legacy with an impressive IQ. But,” she wags her finger, “Tri-Kappas must be able to think on their feet and show they have commitment. So let’s make some words, and may the biggest brains win!”

  I want to roll my eyes at the whole thing because plenty of intelligent people aren’t very good at this game; however, tonight isn’t really about words. It’s about winning. They only want smart women who are driven and competitive.

  “I’m so nervous,” Elle says as we line up for our first dose of watery chardonnay.

  I shrug. “My parents prohibited television in the house, so we played Scrabble a lot growing up.”

  “Tassie? May we speak with you in the other room?”

  Elle and I turn to see Lainey in her blue Scrabble shirt, standing with her sidekick, Jessica, both staring down their noses at me.

  I paste on a polite smile, but the uneasy flutter in my stomach tells me this isn’t good. “Uh…sure.”

  With all eyes on us, Lainey gestures for me to follow her into the living room, where the blue and white striped couches are pushed against the wall and small Scrabble stations are set up on TV-dinner trays. We go into the corner near a fake tree with pictures of the Tri-Kapps pinned to the leaves.

  “Tassie, we’re afraid we have to ask you to remove yourself from the running.” Lainey flips her blonde ponytail over her shoulder and crosses her scrawny arms. Jessica, the sorority VP and her evil twin—only brunette and shorter—follows suit.

  My heart makes a sad wave action. “Do you mind sharing why?” My brain is finding it difficult to come up with a valid reason. I’ve passed every pledge task with flying colors this last week, not that it even matters because I’m legacy.

  “We hold ourselves to a high standard, Tass. And given what we’ve seen, you’re simply not Tri-Kappa material. But I’m sure the Gamma Nus will take you.”

  Gamma Nus? That’s the cheerleader sorority. Their only requirements to get in are to be pretty and pretty horny for football players.

  This can’t be happening.

  “I don’t know what you’ve heard,” I say, “but I promise I have no interest in the Gammas or their meathead boyfriends.”

  “That’s not what we saw in the library. We were there?” Jessica sings like a question, so it sounds like she’s really saying “dumbass.”

  “Okay. Wait. That thing today was just some immature practical joke—”

  “Looked like you were enjoying it,” Lainey adds.

  “Enjoying it? I don’t think so. Actually, I take that back. I did enjoy it. I like sticking up for myself and not letting some gorilla in a human suit think he can humiliate me in public.”

  “Then what was with all that smiling and blushing?” she says, her voice filled with pomposity.

  “Well, he and I—we,” I stammer, wanting to make sure I explain this correctly, “we grew up next door to each other, but I assure you, Hunter Johnson has been the bane of my existence since I was six. I hate the guy.” Yes, there were moments when he didn’t behave like a complete asshole, but mostly he just tormented me. The torture ranged from egging my window once a month and TPing my house (Hunt always denied involvement, of course, but I knew), to calling me names and throwing half-eaten sandwiches at our “geek table” during lunch. And I really couldn’t count how many times one of his cheerleader girlfriends snubbed me in the locker room because my body isn’t worthy of Playboy Magazine.

  “You hate him. Really now?” Jessica asks with a smirk.

  “Yes. Hate. The guy is so stupid, he can’t even tie his shoe without looking it up on YouTube first.” That’s not exactly true, but this moment calls for hyperbole.

  I wait for Lainey and Jessica to see the light, but they simply stand there staring with disapproval Scrabbled on their faces.

  Damn it, Hunt. I can’t allow him to rob me of this.

  “My mother was a Tri-Kapp,” I say, hoping to salvage this situation. “My aunt was a Tri-Kapp. Every woman in my family has a PhD and an IQ over one forty. Do you really think I’m going to waste my time on a dumb jock who can’t satisfy me in any way?” Because they can’t begin to imagine the pressure I’m under to make something of myself and that includes picking a guy my entire family will approve of. I’ve never found anyone remotely qualified, and I won’t make the mistake of bringing someone home who isn’t one of us. My older brother made that mistake once. Just once. The girl broke up with him the next day because she said we’d intentionally marginalized her with our dinner conversation regarding gene mutation. We didn’t do it on purpose. That’s just the sort of stuff my family likes to talk about. Fitting in isn’t easy. Not even for me.

  Jessica shrugs. “Some girls are suckers for big muscles.”

  Now I cross my arms. They’re being ridiculous to a point where I’m questioning wanting to be a Tri-Kapp, because a part of me—the grown-up part—can’t help but shake my head at the immaturity of this conversation. It shouldn’t matter who I date. I mean, weren’t we all about empowering women and using our collective brainpower for the betterment of humanity? So to place a value on a woman based on the perceived quality of her man seems astoundingly backwards.

  Not that Hunter is my man. I shudder at the thought.

  I open my mouth to give these two elitist snobs a piece of my mind, but then I remember that I’m not doing this for myself. I’m doing it because it’s expected of me. I’m a Summerset. Plus, there’d be the whole humiliation thing if I had to tell my parents I wasn’t accepted into the Tri-Kapps. Legacies are practically given a free pass during rush week. All I need to do is win tonight’s contest, something I’ve been training for since I could spell W-I-N-N-I-N-G!

  “Please,” I say, opting for a bit of groveling, which feels extremely painful, “is there anything I can say to convince you to let me stay?”

  Lainey’s brown eyes are void of sympathy. “I’m sorry, Tass, but the Alphas nearly burned down our house last year in one of their many stupid pranks.”

  The Alpha Phis are the football fraternity that our lovely Hunter is very likely pledging, and they are the sworn enemies of the Tri-Kapps. As I’ve already stated, Greek rivalries are completely ridiculous, but they are also considered a time-honored tradition.

  “And there was the break-in last night,” Jessica adds, nudging Lainey. “Someone stole all of our calculators while we were out collecting trash for Save Our Parks Day.”

  I hold back a laugh. “The Alphas stole your calculators?”

  “We don’t know for sure, but who else?” Lainey says.

  I can just see those ridiculous jocks getting hammered and coming up with the bright idea. “Hey, dudes! Let’s go break into the Tri-Kapp House, yeah, and steal their calculators. Har, har, har… Nerds won’t know what hit them.” Idiots. They’re too stupid to live.

  “So you see,” Lainey says, “we can’t have our good reputation soiled by allowing that human trash to publicly humiliate one of our sisters simply because she has a jock hang-up. Or fetish. Or poor judgment—whatever you call that despicable display of neediness we witnessed this morning.”

  Wait. “How can you possibly interpret what happened in the library as me being needy?”

  “Like I said, we were there.” Lainey shrugs. “We saw everything, including how much you loved that silly little banter
you had going on.”

  “That’s because it’s all she’ll ever get from a guy like that,” Jessica whispers loud enough for me to hear.

  “It really was nauseating how much she wanted him,” Lainey says to Jessica, as if I’m not even there.

  My mouth gapes open. “The only thing I wanted was to kick him in his footballs!” I can’t believe this. Hunter picks on me, and I get blamed for wanting him.

  My gaze shuffles between Lainey and Jessica. This situation has reached maximum ridiculousness, and I’m feeling genuinely upset. Dare I say, outraged. They’re so blinded by their hate for these Alpha guys that they’re blowing up this morning’s incident into a crazy witch hunt, the worst part being that I’ve just been demoted to lovesick nerdy puppy who’ll take a beating merely to please Mr. Football.

  “I am not some pathetic little thing who follows around the football captain from her old high school, letting him use her as his personal fun-time urinal cake…” Great. Now I’m not making any sense either. “I have way better taste in men.”

  The two stare with cocked eyebrows as if to say, “Sorry. Not buying it.”

  “Wow.” I place my hands on my hips. Now the only thing I want is to prove how incredibly wrong and stupid these two are. Yes, my pride has been triggered, and I can’t help but want to defend my honor and intelligence. Yes, I realize it’s a sore spot for me, but everyone has them. Everyone. And mine is this: Being called stupid—directly or indirectly.

  “You think I can’t get a dumb guy like Hunter Johnson if I wanted? His only requirement is that you know how to giggle and you tell him how big his arms are.”

  About to speak, Lainey shakes her head. I know she’s going to show me the door.

  “Fine! I’ll prove it,” I say, cutting her off before she has a chance to end it before I’ve achieved vindication. And no. For the record, I will not be joining this fascist sorority.

  An image of my frowning mother slaps me across the face. She’s shaking her head of short brown hair, refusing to say a word as I break the news. I mean, not a week goes by without someone in my family—cousins, aunts and uncles included—announcing a mind-blowing achievement to share. “I was nominated for a Pulitzer for my work on irrigation.” “NASA wants to know if I’ll consider heading up their new project on thermodynamic rocket propulsion.” Then there’s me: “I couldn’t get into a sorority because my neighbor made fun of me in the library.”

  Ugh! I have to get into the Tri-Kapps.

  “Prove it?” Lainey laughs. “How?”

  How. How? “I’ll show you how easy it is to get a guy like him. Then I’ll make him endure public humiliation.”

  Lainey and Jessica are no longer smiling as the room fills with pretty, preppy women awaiting further instructions, staring expectantly in our direction.

  Lainey cracks a sadistic smile. “You can stay, Tass.”

  “What! No. Kick her out,” whines Jessica. “She’s a scummy Alpha slut.”

  Lainey holds up her hand to silence her minion. “She may play tonight.” Lainey looks at me, glaring harshly. “If you survive the Scrabble-thon, you will get one week to show us we’re wrong about you. But I want to see that Alpha boy groveling at your feet. We want to see him publicly decimated. Got it?”

  I swallow down the lump of doubt gathering in my throat. I can do this, right? I mean, all I need to do is dress like I have an IQ of a baked potato and pretend my self-esteem is hinged upon getting a man’s approval.

  How hard can that be?

  As for Hunt, I’ve endured thirteen years of his inane bullcrap. He’s made my life a living hell. It wouldn’t be completely unreasonable to teach him a lesson, one that’s long overdue.

  I look up at Lainey. I can practically taste victory already. “Got it.”

  She gives me the nod. “Off you go then. Table five. Let the games begin.”

  CHAPTER THREE

  “You’re not really going to do this, are you?” Elle asks the next evening, eyeing me over her history book, her back propped up against her headboard.

  I swivel in the full-length mirror glued to the closet door on my side of the world’s dreariest dorm room—gray carpets, white walls, brown furniture—that we’ve attempted to spruce up with a pink shag rug and a poster of Einstein wearing a tiara. I have purple floral-themed bedding and Elle has all orange. Yes, we love our girly things, despite what people say. Honestly, I think it’s the number one stereotype I hear—smart girls are not feminine. That we don’t like girly things or wear makeup or skirts or watch romantic movies. Not true. Some do. Some don’t. Everyone’s different. But it’s never made sense to me that just because you dream of giving cold fusion to the masses or want to be the queen of terraforming on Mars, that you’re instantly not a woman or can’t be sexy?

  Pig soap!

  I completely embrace my femininity and hope to work with my mother on her cure for cancer. That or a cure for jockism. There’s probably a recessive caveman gene responsible for the unique combination of narcissism, dim wits, and large biceps.

  “Yes, I am doing this,” I say to Elle, checking out my pale legs. “Do you think I should get a spray tan tomorrow?” It’s too late to take any action tonight because the party at the Alpha House started at seven. It’s already eight, and I want to be sure to get there before Hunt’s locked and loaded his hookup for the evening.

  “You can’t be serious?”

  “Well, I’m not risking skin cancer simply to impress a guy.” I hike up my black skirt so it hits mid-thigh. “I think I need something shorter that screams I’m easy.”

  “No. I meant this stupid bet with Lainey and Jessica.” Elle sets her book in her lap, her brown eyes frowning in a way that reminds me of my mother.

  “Why not? I passed the Scrabble test.” Can you say Q-U-I-X-O-T-R-Y for three hundred and sixty-five points? “And they insulted my intelligence. Not to mention, I’m not allowing that meathead to ruin yet another stage of my life.”

  “Don’t you think this is a little extreme?”

  “Absolutely. But sometimes a girl’s just gotta take a stand.” And for this girl, it was about bleedin’ time.

  “What’s the story with you and this guy anyway?”

  “I really don’t want to talk about it.” I hate thinking about Hunter because once I start, I can’t stop. There’s too much baggage there.

  She shrugs and props up her book on her lap. I can tell by her flat lips she’s disappointed that I won’t share. I also know she doesn’t have many friends back home in her small town and she’s a genuinely nice person. We actually requested each other as roommates through the online roomie finder. It helps match like-minded people so you don’t end up with a person who’s only into screwing and beer pong when you’re trying to graduate with honors. Elle and I hit it off right away during our phone interview. She reminds me of Rachel, my best friend back home in The Woodlands, a suburb of Houston. Rachel got into Harvard. Yes, I am jealous. But more than anything, I miss her.

  Which is why you need to make new friends.

  I sigh, walk over to my bed across from Elle’s, and take a seat. “Hunter Johnson is my neighbor who picked on me since the first day of school. He’s partly to blame for my less than perfect GPA.”

  Elle lowers her book again. “What did he do?”

  I fold my hands neatly in my lap. This is difficult to talk about because I’d promised myself that I would leave the past behind. Coming here to Austin U was supposed to be my fresh start.

  I clear my throat. “The short version is that we played together when we were little. Our mothers both worked and our fathers did, too, so Hunter and I went to the same daycare. Our parents helped each other out with carpooling and stuff. But then kindergarten started and so did his utter hate for me—the uncool nerdy girl.”

  Elle’s round face crinkles up as if she were about to get a shot in the arm or something equally unpleasant. “I don’t know if I want to hear this. Sounds too close to home.” />
  I can’t lie. It was pretty painful. That first day of kindergarten, my mom dropped us off. Hunter had on his Iron Man shirt, and I clung to my Harry Potter lunch pail. We walked in together, and I’d felt comforted having my best friend by my side in this new place. I remember standing there, taking in the big room with desks clustered together and lots of strange faces. Hunter simply walked up to a boy and jerked his head, as if to say “Hey, wassup?” Then they began playing. As for me, I was too shy to simply walk up to the other girls, who looked so pretty with their flashy barrettes and expensive shoes. I’d worn a plain tee, jeans, and sneakers. No frills. My mother didn’t believe in all that, which could be the reason I like clothes so much as an adult. In any case, I felt more comfortable with Hunter—my friend—so I tried to join in on an awesome game of Lego car racing. Hunter took one look at me and said, “You can’t play. You’re a stupid girl.”

  I don’t think I will ever forget the sting of his rejection—being shoved aside by someone I thought cared about me.

  But life went on.

  I made a few new friends—geeky like me—and Hunter and I still carpooled together since it was easiest for our moms. He kept to himself, playing with whatever portable video game thing his parents had bought him, me reading whatever book I was trying to master in the Magic Tree House realm. When we’d get to school, Hunt would always make sure to say something mean to me in front of his friends so everyone knew that while we rode in together, we were not friends.

  Eventually, my mother caught on that Hunter and I were not “getting along,” as she put it to his mom, who refused to discipline him or teach him manners. Years later, I’d come to realize that the poor lady was terribly shy and rarely spoke up to anyone, including her bossy rude husband, who worked in construction.