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“Yeah, she said you were cooking dinner,” he explained, as though he could hear my thoughts. “I got Thea on the phone and, well, we had a nice, long conversation.”
“Thea spoke to her, too?” My knees were knocking as I thought about all the things that my mom could have embarrassed me with.
“Yeah, it went on longer than expected, because Thea had a few questions about Alpha Delta Theta.”
“What kind of questions?” I was suspicious and wondered if that was what Thea was alluding to in her text.
“Well, she was looking into potentially joining.”
“What? Why? She knows what Rachel put me through. Why would she want to be part of it?”
“The main reason is because she wants a room. She's tired of living in a closet and this is the fastest root.”
“Even if it means living with Rachel? You know, when I went there last month, she treated everyone like they were her servants?”
He watched me freaking out. Granted, I didn't realize I was freaking out until I stopped talking and noticed my chest heaving.
“You finished?”
I nodded.
“She remembers everything, believe me. You also know Thea and her kooky tendencies?” I nodded again. “She also wanted to use this as an opportunity to take down the queen bee.”
“What did she do?”
He shrugged, squeezing my hand. “Nothing much. She just asked your mom a few leading questions, and maybe mentioned a few of the issues with the reputation of the school.”
I was putting the pieces together in my head, and Tanner was grinning as he watched me. “Is this your way of telling me that your sister snitched on the sorority's behavior to the most dedicated alumni?”
He raised his hands, shaking his head with a chuckle. So that was a yes, then. “My sister was a concerned potential pledge, and your mom is the number one alumni on the contact list to speak to.”
“She is?” I gritted my teeth. “She shouldn’t be doing any sorority stuff right now. She’s recovering from huge surgery.”
“Relax. She was on the list, but it stated that she shouldn’t be contacted until next year. The only reason Thea spoke to her at all was because she was with me when your mom called.”
“Here you go.” My mother placed two glasses of water on the table and then sat on the sofa opposite. “Was your flight, okay? Did your coach let you take the time off? Does your sister have any more questions about the process?”
She was peppering him with questions, but I didn’t give Tanner any time to answer. “Mom. Why are you doing things for Alpha Delta Theta right now? You’re supposed to be resting.” I asked my mom, and a wry smile formed across her lips.
She waved me off. “I was bored watching re-runs of the same sit coms we watched when you were little.”
“But you need to rest.”
“I am resting. Talking on the phone and discussing matters that are imperative to the survival of the sorority is important to me.”
“Don’t I know it?” I mumbled sarcastically.
“And since you want nothing to do with the process, it was nice talking to someone who did.”
“I still don't.” it came out before I could stop it.
“I know, and that's fine. To be honest, the only reason I encouraged you so hard to join was because I wanted you to see that there was more to college than just your textbooks. I was worried that you'd leave, and in ten years’ time you’d regret the fact that you'd never made a friend who you could look back on the years with.” She looked over at Tanner. “But after speaking with Tanner and his sister, I can see there isn't much of a problem there. What I don't get, though, is why you didn't tell me what a monumental bitch Rachel is.”
“Mom!” With my jaw slacked, I stared at her as though she was a new person. In a way, that was what it felt like. I'd never heard my mother swear in the twenty-one years I'd been on this earth, and to say that about one of her own sorority sisters felt foreign.
She shrugged her shoulder. “If I had known how unwelcoming she'd been, I would have taken her behavior to the board sooner.”
“You reported her?”
