Heart of Ice

sensible shoes.

Both knew that with true, undeniable adulthood holding them prisoner after graduation, the week between Christmas and New Year’s was likely to be the only chance they’d have to really catch up and hang out together until summer.

Chris Collier hadn’t seen Shali in a while, so when she flopped down on the couch next to Jenna and across from where he sat with Emily, all he could do was grin.

“I think doing hair would have been more fun than med school,” she announced.

“I like the pink highlights,” Emily said, from her place next to Chris on the sofa by the Christmas tree.

“Thanks, Mrs. Kenyon. Magenta is what I’m going for. I did it myself because, well, I just got tired of looking like everyone else.”

“You’ve never looked like anyone else, Shali,” Jenna said, peering up from her laptop, a wide smile on her face. “Not for one minute.”

Shali beamed. “It takes some effort to be me, that’s for sure.” She looked over at Emily and Chris. “Look so cozy, you two.”

“We’re good,” Chris said, resting his hand on Emily’s shoulder. “Doing our best.”

“That’s what my mom says. Do your best!” Shali saw her mother’s words as a rallying cry for mediocrity. She would never consider taking up the cause for “doing one’s best” if that meant life in Cherrystone and nothing more.

“How is your mother? I haven’t seen her for quite some time,” Emily said.

Shali looked at Jenna. Obviously, she hadn’t let the cat out of the bag.

“I thought Jenna might have told you.”

“You asked me not to,” Jenna said.

“I would have told, you know.”

“I know. But this friendship of ours would never survive if it was between two people just like you. One of us needs to keep a confidence.”

“I get that and I’m working on it,” Shali said. She looked over at Emily and Chris, enthralled by the Ping-Pong match that was the two young women’s disclosure. “Mom met a guy online. Texas, I think. She’s sure he’s the one.”

Emily looked at Jenna, but returned her gaze back to Shali. “I hadn’t heard.”

“Well,” Shali said, shifting her frame on the chair, “Mom never met a man who couldn’t charm the pants off her.”

“Shali, that’s not nice.”

“Not nice, maybe. But true.” She nudged Jenna to change the subject. “So what’s up with you? How’s it being the sorority nazi?”

“Let’s see,” Jenna said, pretending to look at an imaginary list. “I’ve just entered battle number two with the Beta Zetas at the University of Kentucky.”

“You get all the good schools, don’t you? Seriously, what’s going on with them?”

“Just a bunch of nasty and anonymous e-mails from the girls down there. They’re mad at me because they were caught holed up in the lounge smoking pot, drinking rum shots, and watching America’s Next Top Model—a marathon.”

“I love that show,” Shali said. “That’s what I should have been, instead of doing hair or being a doctor.”

Emily leaned closer to her daughter. Jenna looked at Shali, with a stern shut up now glance. “What’s going on, honey?”

Chris seemed more interested than alarmed. He knew that Jenna could handle just about any situation. She’d proven that long ago. But whether she holds a badge or not, a mom is a mom.

“Just a big mess, Mom. I’m getting e-mails that trash the president, a nice girl named Sarah Lee.”

Shali brightened. “Like the frozen cheesecake?”

“Yeah, like that,” Jenna said.

“Mrs. Kenyon, do you have anything sweet around here?”

“You know where the freezer is, honey.”

Shali got up for the kitchen and Emily, concerned about her daughter, moved into Shali’s spot on the couch. Chris, Emily, and Jenna’s eyes followed Shali out of the room.

“What are the e-mails about? And what’s the national office doing to help?”

Jenna laughed, but it was a laugh choked with sarcasm. “First of all, Nationals does nothing. They talk like they’re so concerned about the girls, their welfare. But all they care about is a smoke-free environment and diversity as long as you’re white.” She clicked on her laptop and read from her e-mails.

“Just so you know, the president here was drunk in her room earlier this week. Three sisters saw her. I’d give you their names, but I don’t want to be dragged into this mess.”

“It came from the same IP address as this one,” Jenna said, scrolling down.

“My father’s a lawyer and he says that he can make a case against the BZs for the way they’ve treated some of the girls here. Sarah Lee is a big liar and a whore. She’s not the kind of girl we want representing any of us here. She’s also bulimic.”

“Sounds pretty petty, Jenna,” Chris put in.

“Tell me about it. I wish I never took this job. Dumb idea.”

Shali came back in the room with a frozen Three Musketeers candy bar. She was so excited she looked like she’d won the lottery. “Mrs. Kenyon, you still freeze these. I love you!”

Jenna smiled at her friend, but resisted the opportunity to say something snarky about frozen candy bars. “I was telling them about those stupid girls back in Kentucky,” she said. “I’m dealing with a bunch of whiners who feel like the whole world is against them when they all drive BMWs and have spray-on tans.”

Shali took a spot on the floor next to the fire. “Tell them about your meeting last week. That sounded so fun.”

“This is good, I guess,” Jenna said, kind of enjoying the attention of her mother and her detective boyfriend. Or whatever he was. “I thought it would die down. You know, Thanksgiving, Christmas, the holiday season. No such luck. One of the girls called Nationals saying that someone peed on her pillow and cut the straps on all of her tank tops and bras.”

“Sounds very mature,” Chris said. “Aren’t these girls adults?”

“Age has nothing to do with maturity,” Emily said, doing everything she could not to land her eyes on Shali’s pink hair.

Jenna was on a roll. “So they had this big meeting. Everything is supposed to be secret, of course. No girl who is being admonished by the chapter or Nationals is supposed to speak of it to anyone. But Sarah Lee did. I got to the meeting place—a banquet room in the back of a pizza restaurant off campus—and I had to walk past at least two dozen BZs. They glared at me and said that I was being unreasonable.”

“Sounds like a Lifetime movie. You know the part, where the girl has to walk past all of her classmates that know that she was really raped by the quarterback with the shaved pecs and sexy stubble on his face.”

“Tiffany Amber in No One Heard Her Scream.”

“Yes. That’s how it felt. A very Tiffany Amber moment.”

Chris looked at Emily and Jenna. They clearly understood Shali’s reference to a TV movie. He didn’t have a clue, but said nothing. Admitting he didn’t know who or what Tiffany Amber was, would only serve to make him older than his fifty years.

And he wasn’t doing that.

“So, anyway,” Jenna went on, “enough of that tangent. The bottom line here is that Sarah Lee’s dad, the lawyer, threatened to take the BZs for everything they had if they didn’t fix the problem. He used words that made the national office shudder with fear.”

Chris, once more, looked puzzled.

Emily touched his shoulder. “This is a shot in the dark, but is it the you’re fostering a hostile learning environment?”

“Yup,” Jenna said, “the gold standard.”

“So what happened?” Chris asked.

“Nothing. Same as usual. The nice girls get bullied by the ones who have the loudest parents with the most