Yes. Kinda. It’s complicated. I’m jealous of some aspects, at least. Such as the ability to make out with someone without making it weird first.
“How come she can bang like twenty guys at once and I can’t even make out with one?” I complain.
“Because you’re different people,” Victoria says, her tone of voice suggesting duh. “People are different, it’s not a big deal.”
“You want to fuck your professor, she wants the whole frat to run a train on her,” Harper says. “Different strokes for different folks.”
I don’t think that’s quite what Margaret is looking for, but I take Harper’s point.
“I need more beer,” Harper announces, then points at Victoria. “You need more beer. And you need more beer!” she finishes, the last statement directed at me.
“Accurate,” Victoria says, and shoves herself off the couch. “Then we should go dance before the organ concert. Shake that booty, you’ll feel better.”
I let her help me off the couch.
“Okay,” I agree. “We’ll dance.”* * *I’m not a very good dancer. I know that, as a Latina chick, I’m supposed to have rhythm in my soul and salsa through life or whatever, but apparently I missed that memo.
I dance anyway, with Victoria and Harper. After a while, Margaret comes down, looking pleased with herself, and she dances too.
We dance with some guys. We dance without some guys. I have another beer and loosen up a little and don’t care that I’m not a great dancer.
We’ve been dancing for a while when Harper shimmies over to me, grabs my wrist, and shouts in my ear.
“It’s eleven thirty!” she says. “We gotta go.”
We collect Margaret and Victoria, say goodbye to some other friends, and then grab our coats before we leave the booming frat house. The cold night air feels good against my sweaty, flushed skin, and I pull my hair back into a knot as we walk.
“You make out?” Margaret asks.
“Nah,” I tell her. “Not my night.”
She flings one arm around me and squeezes me close, nearly sending both of us stumbling off the path, and we giggle.
“I still love you,” she says, overly effusive and definitely somewhat drunk, but I appreciate it and slide my arm around her waist, and we stumble to Scarborough Hall.
Scarborough Hall has one of the largest pipe organs in the United States, so every Halloween, the school organist puts on an organ concert.
Yes, we have a school organist. I think he’s a music professor in his spare time, though I like to imagine that his main job is playing organ concerts, which also happen at Christmas, Easter, and graduation.
The concert is at midnight, so every Halloween, a huge chunk of the student body stops partying, grabs some blankets, and goes and sits on the floor of a huge, Baroque hall that’s got a pipe organ at one end and portraits of old white men adorning the walls.
We get there in plenty of time and find a space near the front, at the end of the hall opposite the organ, which is situated in a loft above the front door. The lights are off, except for a few spooky-looking sconces, and we sit on the blankets that Harper remembered to bring, bless her.
“Did anyone guess your costumes?” Margaret asks.
“Everyone,” says Harper.
“A couple people, but they really liked it,” says Victoria.
I just sigh.
“I told you that you needed the beard,” Victoria says. “You just look like A Clockwork Orange meets Rocky Horror Picture Show without it.”
Even though I’m lying on the floor, I look down at myself: ankle boots, thigh-high fishnets, thrift store gray trousers cut off to make booty shorts, a half-unbuttoned vest over a pushup bra, and a blazer with a cigar in the pocket.
I’ve been slightly self-conscious all night, but I also saw a girl wearing nothing but a thong under a fishnet dress with stickers over her nipples, so by college standards I’m practically a nun.
“Yeah,” I agree.
Harper took the Fifty Shades of Grey idea and stapled paint swatches to a black outfit. Victoria spent all week creating a complicated getup that’s half poofy prom dress, half football uniform, and has fairy wings attached.
She’s fantasy football.
Margaret’s just wearing a miniskirt and a crop top. It’s not even a costume, though I did overhear her tell someone that her costume was “college girl.”
We wait for the concert to start and talk about nothing at all: which of the white men’s portraits on the wall looks grumpiest, whether hot dogs count as tacos or sandwiches, how many times per week you can eat cereal for dinner and still claim to be an adult.
Finally, at five ‘til midnight, the lights flicker once, warning us that organ music is imminent. Harper squeals and claps her hands, and Margaret laughs and tell her to simmer down. I sit up, leaning back on my hands, looking up at the huge golden pipes gleaming above the entrance to the hall.