It’s Always the Husband: the Sunday Times bestselling thriller for fans of THE MARRIAGE PACT. Michele Campbell
“I thought we had until the end of next week,” Aubrey said, sinking back down onto the sofa.
“Not if you want to take anything popular,” Jenny said. “Popular classes fill up early. Tell me which courses you’re thinking of, and I’ll tell you if you should worry.”
“I don’t know. Maybe Renaissance Painting. Or Literature of the Outsider – I heard the prof for that is really amazing. Oh, and French New Wave Cinema, or Eastern Religions. There are so many.”
Jenny frowned. “What do you do with courses like those?”
Kate came back, carrying a bottle of tequila and three paper cups.
“Courses like what?” she asked.
“Aubrey’s thinking about taking Renaissance Painting and a bunch of other floofy stuff,” Jenny said, smiling.
“Floofy?” Kate said, and laughed. “You’re too much.”
“You’re saying those courses aren’t practical,” Aubrey said. “I get it, but why come to Carlisle if not to study things that inspire me?”
“Um, to get a job after?” Jenny said.
“What a bore,” Kate said.
“Spoken like a girl with a trust fund,” Jenny said.
“I swear, you are prejudiced against me, Jenny Vega, but I forgive you. Hey, I have an idea. I’ll take Renaissance Painting, too, Aubrey. Then you can come to New York over break and we’ll go to the Met and look at the paintings in the flesh,” Kate said.
“Do paintings have flesh?” Aubrey said.
“Nudes do.”
They laughed, pleased with their own cleverness. Kate sloshed a generous amount of tequila into each cup, releasing a bracing sting of alcohol into the steamy living room. Jenny made a face, which was a reaction to the smell of the alcohol, but Kate took it as a comment on her invitation.
“Don’t be jealous, you can come to New York, too,” Kate said, thrusting a cup at Jenny. “It’s my personal mission to loosen you up. Once you’re properly blotto, we’ll go out and get you laid.”
Jenny gave a snort of laughter and rolled her eyes, but she took the cup. Heavy drops spattered the skylight, and Jenny got up to lower the window sash. They spent the next hour drinking tequila and doing each other’s makeup. Or rather, Jenny and Kate did Aubrey’s makeup. Aubrey was missing the girly gene. She’d never been interested in the mall, or the cosmetics counter, never learned the tricks that made a girl attractive to boys. She was blessed with a tall, willowy figure and symmetrical features, but she was plain and rabbity-looking to her own eyes. Brows and lashes pale to the point of disappearing, lank hair, a shy manner. Her roomies transformed her. At their direction, she opened her eyes wide, sucked in her cheeks, puckered up. The tickly feel of the brushes on her face, the smell of alcohol on their warm breath, made the whole experience seem surreal, or maybe that was the effect of the tequila. When she looked in the mirror, Aubrey didn’t recognize herself. They’d made her beautiful, with dramatic eyes and lovely cheekbones.
By the time they stumbled out of Whipple onto the Quad, the rain had stopped, and it had cooled off considerably. The sky was indigo, the air smelled sweet, and Aubrey felt like a new person. She also felt a raging headache coming on, but she didn’t care. She’d borrowed a cute pair of cutoffs and a sexy top. Her new look made her brave, and what better thing to do with that feeling than go flirt with some frat boys?
Kate had a list of parties ranked in order of prestige. It was important to be seen at the right ones.
“The frats control social life on campus,” Kate explained as they picked their way between puddles. “When you rush a sorority this spring, what the frats think of you will be made known, and it matters. Not for me, I can get in wherever I want. But for girls like you with no connections, having the guys think you’re a cool girl, fun at parties, that can make all the difference.”
“Oh please, what year is this, 1954?” Jenny said.
“In 1954, there were no women at Carlisle,” Kate said.
“Exactly. You’re a throwback, Kate. If I rush a sorority, which I haven’t decided, it’s because I want to network. Not ’cause I give a crap what some mentally deficient frat boy thinks of me.”
“Don’t listen to her. She’ll spoil your fun,” Kate said.
“Such fun,” Jenny said. “These are the sort of places girls go into and they come out covered in bodily fluids.”
“Sounds like a good time to me,” Kate said.
They’d reached the far end of the Quad, and cut through Eastman Commons, which still smelled of the sauerkraut that had been served with dinner. On the other side of Eastman lay Dunsmore Avenue, a wide street that ran between the Main Quad and the Science Quad, and was open to vehicle traffic. The sidewalks on both sides of Dunsmore were lined with rowdy, drunken students heading to Frat Row. At the corner of Livingston Street – the official name for Frat Row – the crowd spilled over. Students were ignoring the red light and walking between cars to get to the parties faster. Drivers who honked were answered with cheerful fingers and strings of expletives. Kate stepped off the curb, pulling Jenny with her.
“C’mon, don’t be a dweeb.” They ran across the intersection, dodging cars and laughing.
“It’s like you think I never jaywalked before,” Jenny said, on the other side. They were all breathless.
“That’s exactly what I think,” Kate said.
“You prob’ly think I’m a virgin, too.”
“Aren’t you?”
“No,” Jenny said. “Not that it’s any business of yours.”
“I’m your roommate, it is my business,” Kate said. “Anyway, you brought it up. Let me guess, some socially conscious Mormon boy from your leadership camp, tall, skinny, glasses?”
“Mormons don’t do premarital sex,” Aubrey piped in. “I know because there are a lot of Mormons in Nevada.”
“It was a guy from my high school,” Jenny said. “A hockey player,” she added, to get a reaction out of Kate.
“A hockey player, seriously? No way! You never mentioned him.”
“I’ve hardly told you my life story.”
“Where are you hiding him? I want to see a picture. Spill, this instant.”
“We agreed to cool it after graduation. You know, give each other space.”
“That’s big of you. No guy moves on from me, not if I can help it. They die first, of grief.”
Aubrey was relieved when the crowd got so thick that they had to drop the conversation to concentrate on maneuvering. Kate would have interrogated her next, and she didn’t want to admit to being the only virgin in the suite. Everything she did and said was wrong enough already.
Kate steered them toward the Sigma Sigma Kappa house, which supposedly had the hottest parties on Frat Row. A wedding-cake white mansion with a porticoed entrance and graceful balconies, ΣΣΚ was the grandest and most beautiful of all the grand and beautiful frat houses lining Livingston Street. It was known as the elite frat, with the richest boys, who had the best cars and clothes and connections, and were by far the most likely to end up at investment banks after Carlisle, with everything that entailed for their potential husband status. They were also considered the handsomest, although Delta Kappa Gamma, the jock frat, gave them a run for their money. Really, it depended on your taste, Kate said; they were all screwable, just in different ways.
The ΣΣΚ front lawn teemed with girls dressed to the nines waiting behind a red-velvet rope to get into the party. Guys in colorful shorts and shirts walked