Noah is going to kill me! Alexandra Rollins thought as she hurried across the quad toward her dorm. For the third time this week she was late to meet her boyfriend--and now she was late on a Saturday night, no less! Ignoring the painful stitch in her side, she dashed across the wide stone steps of the library and ducked into a shortcut between the administration building and the bookstore, both of which were closed and dark.
As the pale pink stucco walls and red-tiled roof of Parker Hall came into view, she checked her watch. Forty-five minutes late! Even worse than the last two times. Pushing her coppery waves out of her face, she raced up the sidewalk and into the dorm's brightly lit entrance lobby. No sign of Noah Pearson anywhere.
"Come on!" Slapping the elevator button in frustration, she looked at the numbers. Evidently someone was holding the door open up on the sixth floor.
Too impatient to wait another second, she darted into the stairwell. "Noah is a great boyfriend," she reassured herself as she began her climb to the fourth floor. "He'll be cool about this. He'll understand. He always does. I'll call him and explain as soon as I get to my room . . .
if I ever get to my room," she added, leaning heavily against the railing as she made her way up the last few steps to the fourth-floor landing.
Although the number four was missing from the stairwell door, Alexandra had no doubt she was on the right floor. She could have found it with her eyes closed, as if she'd honed in on home base by sonar. The fourth floor was the noisiest floor in Parker Hall.
The moment she burst from the stairwell into the hallway, her ears were assaulted by the sounds of screams, gunshots, and crashing glass. Alexandra rolled her eyes with disgust. Cheri Beinveni, who lived in the room right next door to Alexandra, was a horror movie fanatic. The eerie sound effects from her beloved teen slasher movies, always played at maximum volume, had become Parker Hall's fourth-floor sound track.
"Turn that thing down!" Alexandra yelled as she passed Cheri's door--just out of principle. Complaining rarely did any good. As a film student, Cheri considered the daily video blood fests to be her homework. Everyone on the floor had become so desensitized to the sounds of murder and mayhem that Alexandra figured they could all be massacred in their beds and no one would even think for a second that the chaos was real.
Leaning against her own door, she dug to the bottom of her book bag for her keys. Through the flimsy wood she could hear her roommate, Trina Slezniak, talking.
Oh, great, she's on the phone, Alexandra silently grumbled. How could she call Noah and apologize if Trina was hogging the line?
But as she stepped into the room she realized that wasn't going to be a problem. There was Noah, dressed in his best suit and tie, pacing up and down the narrow space between her bed and Trina's like some caged animal in a zoo.
"Hi, you guys!" Alexandra flashed her most disarming smile. "Wow, Noah, you look handsome tonight." She tossed her book bag onto her desk, yanked open her tiny closet, and began to rummage for her olive green sweater.
"Trina let me in to wait for you," Noah yelled over the rising crescendo of organ music from next door. "I suppose
you were expecting me to wait downstairs in that dreary, lonely lounge for another hour or so."
Uh-oh, she thought, noting the strain in his usually soft voice. He wasn't just trying to be heard over the next-door noise. No, he was definitely hopping mad.
She glanced in Trina's direction, hoping for some support. Trina simply gave an embarrassed shrug and jumped to her feet.
"I'm gonna go ask Cheri to turn that mess down," Trina mumbled. She skittered out of the room like a scared rabbit and slammed the door behind her.
Alexandra turned back to Noah, a contrite look on her face. "Sorry I'm late, but it was unavoidable."
"It always is lately." The racket from next door stopped suddenly, making Noah's words sound even more harsh and loud.
Alexandra poked a finger in her ear and jiggled it. "Whew! Thank goodness Trina was able to talk some sense into Cheri for once. That horrible noise was about to drive me crazy and I just got here. I can imagine how you must be feeling."
"Can you?" he asked crossly. "I seriously doubt that."
His tone reminded her that she still owed him a big explanation. "I was at Theta house," she said, pulling out a floral skirt and holding it up to see if it matched the sweater.
"Like I'm surprised! " Noah leaned against the open closet door. Even though he was slightly taller than Alexandra, his position allowed him to stare accusingly at her, eye to eye.
Alexandra looked away. "It was an important meeting. Attendance was mandatory, and I couldn't get away early. The new pledges were being introduced and--"
"Oh, that explains everything!" Noah lifted his hands and dropped them helplessly. "I can easily understand why you forgot about
me, then. How can a poor guy who is using his one and only day off work to take his girlfriend to a sold-out production of
Phantom of the Opera possibly compare to a juicy gossip fest about some new sorority sisters?"
"I can't believe it. You're actually jealous."
"No." He took the skirt out of her hands and dropped it over the back of her desk chair. "I'm just fed up, Alex. Theta Alpha Theta is not the beginning and the end of the earth. Contrary to what you might believe, there's a whole world of experience outside that Victorian house of ill manners."
"Ill manners?" She tossed back her hair, stuck out her chin, and met his gaze. "I'll have you know, Thetas have
perfect manners. We happen to be the most elegant, prestigious sorority on campus--"
"Save it for the pledges, Alex. I'm not interested in hearing your 'Theta-is-the-best' propaganda. It's all you talk about anymore."
He rolled his brown eyes upward. "Sorry, Noah," he mocked in a prissy falsetto, "I can't have dinner with you this evening. It's noodle night at the sorority house."
"Pasta night, Noah. It's pasta night."
He held out a limp-wristed arm and cocked his hip to one side. "Sorry, Noah, I can't meet you at the Red Lion. Alison and the girls think coffeehouses are tacky. Not the right
image for a Theta!"
"So you suddenly hate sororities?"
He scowled. "No, I don't hate them at all," he replied in his natural voice. "I think sororities are fine for meeting people and making friends. They're great for creating a homey atmosphere and sense of belonging for kids far away from home for the first time. But they aren't the be-all and end-all of existence. If you were doing something worthwhile with your sorority, I might overlook being ignored . . .
occasionally. But really, Alex--teas? You spend all your time at initiations, dinner parties, fashion shows, and . . . and . . . nail-painting marathons." He wiggled his fingers in her face. "Everything they do is shallow and superficial. I hate to say it, but you're becoming more like Jessica Wakefield every day."
Alexandra chose to ignore that remark. Jessica was the identical twin of her ex-best friend, Elizabeth Wakefield. And except for being Thetas at Sweet Valley University and having gone to the same high school, she and Jessica had nothing in common-- absolutely nothing. Biting the inside of her cheek to keep from screaming, she slammed the closet door and yanked the skirt off the back of the chair.
Get dressed, Alexandra, she silently commanded herself.
Don't let Noah snare you into his gripey mood. He'll cool down soon, and everything will be OK."Don't pretend you're the one who's being mistreated here," Noah warned.
Turning her back on him, she stepped on the heels of her tennis shoes and slipped them off, not bothering to untie the laces. Without a word she padded silently across the floor in her socks.
Noah followed right behind her, lecturing the whole time about how her friends were corrupting her. He was so close that when she stopped suddenly, he crashed right into her.
"I'm going out to the bathroom to change clothes," she announced in a steely voice. "Are you planning to follow me?"
He backed off a step and ran his hands through his shaggy, dark blond hair. "Don't bother changing."
"Noah, it won't take me three minutes."
"It's too late, Alex. This whole night is already ruined. Even if we left right now, we'd still miss the first act!
Phantom of the Opera has been the school's biggest production of the year, and tonight is the last night. You knew how much trouble I had getting these tickets, not to mention how much they cost me."
