It’s Always the Husband: the Sunday Times bestselling thriller for fans of THE MARRIAGE PACT

3

Jenny, you are literally a buzz kill,” Kate said, over the whir of an electric fan. She paused with the match an inch away from the tip of the joint.

It was Saturday night, and classes started Monday morning. The three of them were draped across the new furniture that overflowed the cramped living room of suite 402. Jenny’s father and brother had taken away the smelly couch and moved in a matching love seat and armchair upholstered in hot-pink suede. Kate immediately pronounced the new stuff “bourgeois,” yet proceeded to lounge on it all afternoon in her cami-pajamas, with a cappuccino in a cardboard cup from Hemingway’s perched on her bare stomach, talking on their shared room phone with some boy she knew from boarding school who was at USC now. (God, the phone bills the girl was racking up, that they’d probably have to chase her to pay, but it was impossible to stay mad at her.) The three of them were supposed to be getting ready to go out, but instead Aubrey felt marooned. They all did – weighed down by the heat, bathed in orangey-pink sunset that filtered through the skylight.

“Have it your way, then,” Kate said.

She sighed and blew out the match. Aubrey admired Kate’s delicate hands. Her chipped fingernails sparkled with sky-blue polish, and a spray of stars was tattooed on the inside of one wrist.

“I got all the way through high school without getting in trouble, and I don’t plan to start now,” Jenny said.

But there was no animosity in her voice. They were all lethargic, content to loll and idly chat. They’d been forecasting a thunderstorm, but it hadn’t come yet, and the air coming in through the open windows was heavy and wet.

“Just for argument’s sake, how exactly do you imagine we’re going to get caught?” Kate asked.

“That fan does nothing to cover the smell. It blows it out into the hallway. I’m not judging you. Smoke if you want to, but if you do it here and the RA smells it, I’ll get in trouble, too.”

“That Asian girl? She would never rat us out.”

“What does the fact that she’s Asian have to do with it?”

“Nothing. She’s some lowly biochem grad student. I could have her grant money pulled for looking at me the wrong way. Don’t you understand what kind of protection you get by rooming with me?” Kate said.

“Well, I don’t want that kind of protection. I don’t agree with it.”

“My, my, such an idealist,” Kate drawled.

“Hey, it’s after eight o’clock,” Aubrey said. “Shouldn’t we head out?”

They’d been through four deadly days of required orientation activities – team-building hikes, sexual harassment lectures, IT sessions where they learned to use Carly, the library’s research database. Every night there had been pizza feeds, and bands, and open houses sponsored by some dorm or club. But tonight the true debauchery began. The first fraternity parties. Frat Row would be lit up like Times Square, and packed with hunky upperclassmen cruising for the tender flesh of freshman girls.

“If Miss Priss here is even coming,” Kate said, but there was a note of affection in her voice.

“I’m thinking about it,” Jenny said.

Aubrey sat up and reached for her sneakers.

“No you don’t,” Kate said. “Only geeks show up this early. And you’re not going sober either. Not if you want to walk in with me. Where I come from, we pregame. Hold on a minute.”

Kate got up and flounced off to her room.

“Have you registered for classes yet?” Jenny asked idly, considering her manicure.

“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 up and down the line handing out red plastic cups. Occasionally they’d pull girls out of the line, leading to a chorus of “Pick me!” from those not chosen.

“This is disgusting,” Jenny said.

“Would you chill? Hold on, I see a guy I know from Odell. Let me see if I can get us in,” Kate said. She strode off toward a short, athletic-looking guy with a head of perfectly styled blond hair. He wore pink shorts and a navy blazer and looked straight off the yacht.

Odell Academy was the fancy boarding school Kate had graduated from. In the few days they’d been here so far, Aubrey had learned more than she imagined possible about the world of East Coast prep schools, whose alums ruled the tables in Eastman Commons. The prep school kids were all beautiful, with clear skin and the right clothes, good hair and boisterous, confident manners. There was an established pecking order. The boarding schools were on top, places like Exeter and St. Paul’s, Andover, and Odell. The list went on; Aubrey didn’t know all the names yet, but she would. Then came the prestige day schools from New York and D.C., Philly and Boston. All the prepster kids knew each other, or at least, they knew of each other. Or maybe it was just that they all seemed to know one another, because they dressed and behaved according to the same mysterious rules, rules Aubrey was only beginning to realize existed. Oh, there were public school kids, too – but they didn’t matter. The kids from Stuyvesant and Bronx Science formed their own pale New York clique that people seemed to leave alone, even be slightly afraid of, but they didn’t get asked to parties. Then there were strivers like Jenny, who had everything figured out for themselves and pretended not to care. But Aubrey knew better, she saw through that pose, and she didn’t put on such airs herself. Kate and her friends represented the true Carlisle, and Aubrey would rather be a desperate tagalong scavenging their crumbs than be left out in the cold.

Kate hugged and kissed the guy in the pink shorts. After a minute, she turned and beckoned Aubrey and Jenny to come over.

“Smile,” Aubrey said, standing up straighter. She’d never met a boy like that one before – rich and preppy and handsome – and she wanted to make a good impression.

“You’re brainwashed,” Jenny said, but she went along eagerly enough.

Kate introduced them to her friend.

“Griffin Rothenberg. Call me Griff,” he said in a smooth baritone, taking Aubrey’s hand and smiling into her eyes. His warm touch gave her a jolt, but then he turned and did the same thing with Jenny. He had nice manners, that was all. Anyway, you only had to look at him to see how dazzled he was by Kate.

With a glance and nod at another frat boy, Griff led them around the velvet rope. Inside, they got caught in a bottleneck at the top of the stairs that led down to the basement, where from the sound of it, the party was in full swing. Aubrey laughed nervously as the crowd crushed against them from behind. There was no air-conditioning, and the air was a hot funk of perfume and sweat and alcohol, with an undertone of vomit. Aubrey grabbed Jenny, feeling unsteady on her feet.

“Crazy,” Jenny said.

The crowd surged forward and suddenly they were at the front. Aubrey saw what the holdup had been. A skinny guy wearing an orange bow tie – Carlisle’s color – sat behind a desk that blocked the stairs down to the basement, wielding an ink pad and stamper. Griff pushed them forward.

“Yo, Rothenberg. You gonna pledge ΣΣΚ? We’d love to have you, dude,” the bow-tied guy said.

“Planning on it.”

“I’m supposedly checking IDs, but you’re good. I know you.”

Bow Tie marked Griff’s hand with a stamp shaped like a beer bottle; then they bumped fists.

“Thanks, bro, and while you’re at it, stamp my girl Kate Eastman from Odell, no ID necessary,” Griff said.

“Kate Eastman. Remember me?” Bow Tie asked, looking star-struck.

“Uh –” Kate said.

“Duncan Treadwell. I roomed with your cousin Trevor at Milton, until he got kicked out. We met at a tailgate your freshman year at Odell.”

“Ri-ight,” Kate said, though it was obvious she didn’t remember.

“Trev, what a wild man. I was sure he’d get into Carlisle, but I guess that little mishap with the DUI nixed it.”

“Dead bodies are never a good thing on a college application,” Kate said drolly. She held out her hand for a stamp, clearly uninterested in continuing the conversation.

“I assume you are of drinking age?” Duncan asked.

“Since I was twelve.”

He laughed, and stamped her hand.

“My friends, too,” she said.

Aubrey and Jenny got their hands stamped, and the foursome made its way slowly down the stairs. The basement was low-ceilinged and dimly lit. Hip-hop music blasted from speakers as people crowded around a keg.

“This way!”

Griff led them through a warren of rooms, all jam-packed with students standing around, or dancing, or making out on the ratty old couches. The floors were slick with spilled beer. The smell of it reminded her of her childhood: her father had been a drinker. Aubrey picked her way carefully to avoid slipping. Finally they reached a room that ran the length of the back of the house with French doors that opened out onto a stone patio. It was packed, too, but the air was less putrid. A card table in the corner held several large bowls of bright orange punch. Griff ladled drinks into plastic cups and handed them to the girls. The punch was sickeningly sweet, but had the virtue of being cold. Aubrey’s raging headache disappeared with the first gulp, and she drained her cup quickly. A guy stepped up and refilled it for her.

“Thanks!” she said, glancing wistfully after Kate and Griff as they moved toward the French doors.

“You a frosh? Or as we prefer to say, fresh meat?”

“Yeah, I live in Whipple,” she shouted. And just like that, she was talking to a cute boy. Not Griff-level cute, but cute enough.

She didn’t quite catch his name – Brian? Ryan? He was a junior, from Tennessee, majoring in business administration, and played lacrosse. He had a nice body, a boyish grin, and reddish-brown hair. They shouted questions back and forth for a while, and by the time she looked up, Aubrey realized that her cozy little group was nowhere in sight.

“I should probably find my friends,” she shouted over the music.

“Forget them.”

“They’ll be worried.”

“They’re too drunk to remember your name.”

“No, really.” The punch on top of the tequila was going to her head. The room had started to spin some time ago, but she was just noticing it.

“Fine, they’re over this way,” Brian/Ryan yelled, and took her hand. She let him pull her along even though she suspected he didn’t actually know where they were, or even which friends she was talking about.

He led her into the darkest of the rooms. The couches and floor and pool table were covered with writhing bodies. Brian/Ryan shoved a couple of people aside and pushed Aubrey down into the corner of a creaky old sofa. Then he straddled her, pinning her to the sofa, and took her face in his hands.

“You’re not half-bad-looking, you know,” he said.

She couldn’t help laughing. “Thanks.”

He leaned down and pushed his tongue into her mouth. Aubrey thought about resisting, but at that same instant she was overcome with a wave of nausea, and had to concentrate completely to stop herself from hurling all over him. Unleashing a stream of vomit onto a frat boy would render her a social pariah from the start of her Carlisle career, so better to not make any sudden moves. The room went momentarily black, and Aubrey’s head lolled back, which Brian/Ryan took as an invitation to yank her tank top aside and squeeze her boobs. The sharp pinch brought her to her senses, and she sat up fast, smashing her forehead into his nose. He yelped in pain. Aubrey seized the moment and shoved him off her, running for the patio with her hand over her mouth. The next thing she knew, she was on her knees in the dirt, spewing orange Kool-Aid vomit into a bush, hunkering down behind its branches to hide herself from view. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw a figure detach from the crowd on the patio. Aubrey’s vision went blurry, and when it cleared a moment later, Jenny stood over her, holding her hair back.

“It’s okay, let it out,” Jenny said. “You’ll feel better.”

“Everybody saw,” she said, her face wet with tears and snot.

“Nobody saw, I promise.”

“There must be fifty people standing there.”

“Every one of them’s blind drunk.”

“You’re not.”

“I’m the exception. Don’t worry. Nobody cares.” She stroked Aubrey’s hair.

“I must smell like puke.”

“It’s a frat party. Everyone smells like puke. Here.”

Jenny handed her a Kleenex, and Aubrey wiped her mouth.

“Still, it wouldn’t be a bad idea to be more careful in the future,” Jenny said. “Didn’t your mom ever tell you, don’t drink anything a boy gives you in a red plastic cup?”

Aubrey laughed weakly. “My mom isn’t much for giving advice.”

“Well, you have me now,” Jenny said.

It was true. Aubrey couldn’t believe her luck. Through a stroke of good fortune, she’d found the perfect roommate combination – Kate to get her into trouble, and Jenny to get her out.

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