Heart of Ice

Chapter Thirty-two

Jenna set her alarm clock for 5 A.M., jumped from the bed, turned on her laptop, and headed for the private bathroom of the Beta Zeta guest suite. Despite the thumping of the stairs a few times during the night, she was remarkably refreshed and ready to tackle the issues that awaited her. She was there to get the house back on track. The chapter was in trouble or she wouldn’t be there. Occasionally, once popular sororities found themselves in a state of decline. One of the women in the national office told Jenna during her training that the decline experienced by a formerly top-tier house was sometimes due to the trivial.

“Fashion, dear. Dark-dyed jeans work today, but acid-washed or lighter colored jeans make those of us who know better want to scream,” said the woman, an attractive redhead with obvious extensions and green-tinted contacts. “We have a couple of, shall I say, problem houses. We started on that path and should have nipped it in the bud right away. But we didn’t and now we pay for it. The girls were nice enough, but they didn’t attract the correct kind of pledges and the spiral started.”

“I think I know what you mean,” Jenna said. “At Cascade, we have a house that no one calls by its proper name because a couple of the girls two years ago were on the chunky side.”

The woman talking from behind her mahogany desk nodded. “That’s right. That would be Ate-a-Pie, right?”

Jenna smiled a little nervously. It seemed peculiar that this fifty-something-year-old would know something like that. “Yes, Beta Pi.”

“We have to keep our chapters up to par, beyond par, really. As a national consultant, your job will be to be our eyes and ears. You’ll be the keeper of our ideals and expectations. You’re the one we’ve hired to stop the spiral and keep the quality of our southern region as it should be. No detail is too small. The way the girls dress. The GPA. The kinds of cars in the parking lot. All of it adds up to our Beta Zeta image.”

Jenna understood, though she felt the “keeper of our ideals” comment was not only stupid, impossible to do. She didn’t say so, but she knew the real reason was to keep the chapter dues flowing. A dying house is a cash drain. For all the talk about sisterhood, the Beta Zeta was a big business, too.

Remember, she told herself, this job is only temporary. Maybe when I’m a lawyer I can help some “chunky” girl sue a sorority.

Jenna looked around the guest suite and went into the bathroom. It was clear that the bathroom needed updating. It still had the orange-and-green daisy appliques of almost forty years ago. It also had an accent wall covered by a mod print by a designer named Vera.

It sure wasn’t Vera Wang. Just Vera.

As she let the water run over her, she picked at one of the edges of a daisy decal.

This could come off pretty easily, she thought, resisting the urge to remove it. God knew these girls needed help, but she was not there to help with their decor. She was there to save them from probation and the revocation of their status as a BZ sorority.

As she laid out her clothes for the next day—a “snappy professional” look consisting of a fitted pink blouse and black wool skirt, J. Crew—she replayed the conversation she had with Sheraton Wilkes before she went to bed.

“Of course,” Jenna had said, “you know that what we said is between us.”

“Yes, sister to sister.”

“That’s right. But not sister to sisters, if you get what I’m saying.”

“I can’t tell Midori?”

Jenna shook her head slowly and deliberately. “No. That’s the way it’s done. Nationals sent me to save you from being drop-kicked out of the system. It would be absolutely demoralizing if your girls knew that.”

“But wouldn’t they work harder if, well, they knew we were bottom-tier?”

“We’ve been doing this a long time. You aren’t the first to need a nudge in the right direction. If your girls knew, some—and maybe even the strongest girls—would leave. And we can’t have that.”

Sheraton seemed confused. “But they’ve taken the pledge. They can’t leave.”

“I like your attitude,” Jenna said, unsure if the girl standing in front of her was naive or a dream come true.

Sheraton smiled. “Thank you,” she said.

Must be naive.

Jenna ended the conversation reminding Sheraton that she’d have to be ready at 7:30.

“The day will be long,” she said, “but I think we can do it. Yes, we can!”

She rolled her eyes at the thought of her own inane words. She knew that she was doing the sorority gig to make money for law school, but it seemed pretty tasteless. If the BZ organization was in trouble, it wasn’t necessarily because its girls were not up to par. The whole organization needed to be Vera Wanged.

Jenna answered a knock on the door. It was Sheraton, dressed to the nines, holding a cup of coffee.

“Mocha, extra hot, extra shot,” she said, with a voice that Jenna could only describe as a grating chirp. “Just like you like it.”

Jenna looked surprised. “Thank you. How did you know?”

The girl beamed. “I Facebooked you!”

Jenna smiled at her. “Oh, I’ll have to add you as a friend.”

“Invite already sent,” Sheraton said, beaming. “Just log on and we’ll be able to stay in touch all the time.”

“Oh-my-God,” Jenna said, letting her vernacular drift not to Southern-fried, but to the kind of Valley-speak that still seemed to be the dialect favored by the young, blond, and educationally disinterested. “That’s awesome.”

She motioned Sheraton to sit on the daybed while they went over the PowerPoint presentation that the national office had provided. The first slide with its smiley-face art trumpeted the purpose of the meeting

IN IT TO WIN IT: RECRUITMENT MADE EASY.

“This looks amazing,” Sheraton said. “Very high-tech. Do you want me to make it go to the next slide? I’m a communication major.”

“I thought you said fashion merchandising yesterday.”

Sheraton made a face. “I did. But I’m not sure. I might go to medical school. I just want to help people.”

Jenna wondered for a fleeting moment how fashion merchandising fit into the category of “helping” people.

“Wonderful,” she said.

Jenna refocused on the images of the pretty and perfect—and a few of the less so for diversity’s sake—as they floated into view. The bullet points accompanying the images stressed sisterhood, the importance of a first impression, and how to ensure success when it comes to making sure the top girls pledge their sorority.

“I have to be honest with you,” she said turning to look directly at Sheraton. “This recruitment effort is crucial. We have to fill up every bed in this house. We have to ensure that we never have another incident like what happened last fall.”

Sheraton made a face.

Sad? Sorry? Regretful? Annoyed? It was hard to say.

“Oh, that. I guess that was pretty bad.”

That was, without room for argument, the understatement of the century.

Jenna knew the story well. Everyone did. It was the reason this particular BZ house was nominated by the university newspaper as the sorority as the “Girls Most Likely to…Do Anything!”