Pretty, Nasty, Lovely

by Rosalind Noonan

Genres: Coming of Age; Women's Fiction

Synopsis

Sisterhood has a price . . . Pledging to Theta Pi at Merriwether University seemed to offer Emma Danelski a passport to friendship, fun, and popularity. But the excitement of pledge training quickly fades, as does the warmth of her so-called sisters. What’s left is a stifling society filled with petty rules, bullying, and manipulation. Most haunting are the choices Emma makes in the wake of another sorority sister’s suicide . . . It doesn’t matter that no one else needs to know what Emma did, or how vastly different life at Theta House is from the glossy image it projects. Emma knows. And now, with her loyalties tested, she must decide which secrets are worth keeping and how far she’ll go to protect them—and herself . . . Praise for Rosalind Noonan’s Domestic Secrets “This suspenseful read is Noonan at her best. Fans will be eager to get their hands on her latest, and it doesn’t disappoint.” — Booklist “Noonan delivers another page-turning thriller whose deeply flawed characters draw you into a web of family secrets.” — Kirkus Reviews “Recommended for readers wanting stories of dysfunctional families, scandal, and violence that involve entire communities.” — Library Journal

Release date: August 29, 2017

Publisher: Kensington Books

Print pages: 304

Sample

It was over.

It had been a hellish night of blood and pain, but at last, it was done.

With hands clammy from sweat, I reached for the door to the basement lounge known as the “babe cave” and pushed in. In the eerie glow of orange jack-o’-lanterns and Halloween lights, suspicion filled the air as the small group of Theta Pi sisters stopped talking. The Rose Council had assembled, and all eyes were on me.

“You scared the shit out of me.” Courtney flopped back against the couch, her hair pale against the brown leather as she adjusted the silver cone cups of her “Material Girl” costume. “For a second I thought you were the cops.”

“Don’t be paranoid,” Tori snapped at her, combing through one of her blue-and-white pom-poms. She had spent the evening dressed as a Dallas Cowboys cheerleader, and it was hard to believe that her hot pants, tiny vest, and boots were still snow white considering the level of partying that must have gone down in the meeting room. “The police are never going to hear about this. Emma will make sure of that.” She folded her arms imperiously. “Right, Emma?”

Tori’s words were thick with accusation.

I nodded, struggling to swallow the bitter regret that clung to the back of my tongue. My eyes burned and every muscle in my body ached. How had I fallen into this? My evening plans for a costume party with dance music, pumpkin shooters, and drinking games had given way to a night of screaming and cursing, crying, and . . . and all that blood. I hadn’t expected that.

“I have to go back to my room.” What time was it? In the red haze of agony, I’d lost track of everything. The muted light peeking through the edges of the curtains on the small windows told me it was morning, and I knew I had a quiz and an assignment due, if I even made it to class. Right now even my most difficult sophomore classes seemed like trite indulgences compared to the trauma of the night.

But we had survived, my sisters and I. Every bone in my body ached and my muscles were screaming, but I had made it through the night. Now my body desperately craved sleep and solitude. “I’ll see you guys later.”

“Emma, wait.” Tori was suddenly at my side, guiding me back into the room. “Come. Sit.”

They sat me on a folding chair used for meetings, the bony chair strategically placed in front of the flat-screen TV. The hot seat. Although the sun had risen outside, the curtains were closed, and the only light came from Halloween decorations and candles.

Ritual candles, I realized. Who had gotten these out? The glow of votive candles cast peculiar shadows on the girls’ faces as they, the Rose Council of Theta Pi, sat facing me. Someone handed me a white taper.

The candle of truth.

My throat felt raw and dry as I squinted through the flickering candlelight, trying to find the door behind the pretty faces marred by scowls. Although Lydia’s vampire-dark hair fell over her eyes, I could feel the hot mess of emotion there. That girl was on fire. Or maybe the image of fire came from the red satin cape she wore—my Red Riding Hood costume. Had she stolen it, or had she asked to borrow it during the chaos of the night?

I couldn’t remember.

Tori’s beautiful mouth was a fierce slash of disapproval as she set her shimmering pom-poms in her lap. Courtney echoed the stern look just as she mimicked everything Tori did, same leg crossed, hands on hips, shoulders raised in that camera-ready pose.

And Violet, looking delicate and leggy in a fringed, beaded flapper costume, showered me with thick pity. “Bless your heart, but you’re a mess.” Hers was the voice of our rituals: soft, with a Southern lilt and firm backbone that shut down argument. “First of all, no one can ever know about this. Now we’re all going to swear an oath of silence. Swear on our loyalty and love to the sisters of Theta Pi.”

We all pledged secrecy, but I was the one holding the candle of truth. The vow would burn deep. “Can I go now?” I felt like a heap of sodden laundry, wrung out and abandoned when the owner found that all the dorm dryers were full. I was so exhausted I was beyond caring about the festivities that I’d missed tonight. “I’m so tired.”

“Don’t you think we’re tired, too?” There was condemnation in Lydia’s voice, stern and imperious, as she flipped up the red hood of the cape and scowled at me.

I wished I could simply rise from the center of the circle and slip out. Vanish in a curl of smoke beneath the door frame. Escape seemed so simple, but appearances were deceiving. Reality was twisted and thorny and complicated, and it kept me in that chair.

Now I belonged in this ring of fire. I had pledged this sorority, vowing to remain loyal and true forever. As the song said, I’m Theta born. Theta bred. And when I die, I’ll be Theta dead.

Death seemed like a restful option.

“I really have to go.” I handed the candle to Courtney, who blew it out and plunked it on the table without hesitation.

“Poor baby,” Tori cooed, with half-closed eyes that twinkled with blue glitter shadow. She looked way too good to have stayed up all night long. Had she sneaked off for a nap in the middle of everything? “You need rest. But before you go to beddy-bye, tell us, what did you do with . . . it.”

I squinted. “What are you talking about?”

“You know.” Courtney leaned closer, wincing. “The body.”

Those two words stole away my last ounce of energy and hope. This night had been the worst of my life, and it refused to end. “I didn’t . . .” I shook my head, not wanting to think about it anymore. “I left her there.” I pointed toward the room where I’d left the body wrapped in towels and tucked into a laundry basket, as if she were asleep. She had seemed too peaceful to move.

“Wait.” Courtney’s mouth dropped open. “You left it in the suite? That’s disgusting!”

Violet was shaking her head and Tori was getting all puffed up with indignation. “That cannot happen,” Tori said. “What if Ol’ Jan sees?”

“She’s not going in there.” Our housemother wasn’t in the habit of barging into girls’ rooms.

Violet stared as if seeing me for the first time. “Bless your heart, I don’t think you get the enormity of the situation. Look at me, Emma. Sweet pea, you’ve got to get rid of it.”

A wave of emotion crashed over me and I had to bite my lower lip to hold back the tears that formed when I thought of the baby—so tiny, with velvet mini-fingers—wrapped up in fluffy towels like Itsy, the doll I used to bathe when I was seven. “I couldn’t move her. She seemed so peaceful.”

“Oh, no. No, no. We will not have that thing found in Theta House.” Suddenly, Tori stood beside me, hustling me to my feet. “You need to get it out of here. Pronto.”

“I can’t.” I knew the baby couldn’t stay here, but I couldn’t bring myself to touch her again. “I can’t do this. Get someone else.”

“Like who?” Lydia chimed in, her dark gaze fixing on me like a leech. “Who wants to get stuck with that?”

I stared back at them, wanting to shrink away and disappear. After all I’d been through, how could they expect me to handle this horrible task? “Why are you ganging up on me?”

Violet gave a whimper of a sigh as she adjusted the skinny strings of her spangled dress. “Bless your heart. We’re just trying to help you.”

“You’re not thinking clearly,” Tori said.

That part was true. I was a hot mess.

Tori forged on. “We have bent over backward to help you. We’re like all ‘Go, Emma!’” she said, jiggling one pom-pom in the air. “But we can only do so much, and what would be the point of us jumping in to finish off what you started? You created this mess for yourself, and it’s your responsibility to clean it up. Get that body out of here. Now. Put it in a shopping bag or hide it in your laundry bag and toss it in a hole. Bury it deep or throw it in the ravine. I don’t care, as long as you get it out of here.”

It was a her. Didn’t they get that? And she was a living being. Well, she had been living a few minutes ago.

I was crying now. Silent tears, though I could feel my mouth crumpling in that pathetic frown that, Violet insisted, caused creases. “I can’t do this,” I murmured. “I can’t.”

“You can,” Tori said steadily, “and you will.”

“I can’t even . . .” I shuddered, hot and cold and dizzy at the same time. “Why do I have to do this?”

“Silly boo.” Tori granted me a condescending smile, her teeth super white against her tanned skin. She leaned so close I could feel the heat from her body. “You know this is the consequence of your actions. This is what happens when you kill your baby.”

Eyes shut, Rory MacFarlane let his mind rise above the earth as he lingered in a meditative, foggy state. Slightly groggy, intensely happy. He could feel that the back of his jeans was getting wet. Cold, too. November chill, not snow chill. But that didn’t matter in the cerebral, honeyed glaze that bathed his soul.

If anything, the sensation amplified the sensory experience. Cold and hot, dark and light, yin and yang. Opposites and contrasts layered upon each other, swirling in one universe.

He smiled. At least his upper body was comfortable and dry in his Omni-Heat jacket, his head topped by a wool beanie. But his fingers rooted in something cold and damp.

Grass. Grass? Ha ha, not that kind. Real grass on the ground.

Slogging through the mist in his mind, he opened his eyes and realized he was lying on a patch of damp grass. Spread-eagle. Somewhere on campus.

“What the hell?”

“I know. Really skank.” Adam was hunkered down beside him, arms slung around his knees, all loose limbed and sleepy eyed. No sign of the joint they’d smoked, but Adam was too cautious to leave any evidence in sight. He was premed, needed to keep a clean record. Even in Oregon, where weed was legal, you could get jammed up for life if you were under twenty-one.

“I’m all wet.” Mustering the energy before it rolled away, Rory pushed himself up from the earth and slouched forward. He recognized the flat grassy knoll, park benches, and statue of Benjamin Merriwether at the edge of the clearing. Top of the World. People came to this campus hilltop to play Frisbee, picnic, stargaze, and smoke. “Did I fall asleep?”

“I don’t know. Did you?” Adam had a habit of repeating things when he was totally baked.

Rory dug in his pocket to make sure his cell phone was there. Yeah. The time glowed in bold white numbers against the dark screen saver of Rory’s graphic art: 1:43 a.m. But then it had been late when they’d headed out of the fraternity lounge, looking for fresh air and a break from the drone of normal. They were into the November crunch, the last gasp of the term before Thanksgiving sent them into preparation for finals. Rory had been studying for an economics test, trying to digest Keynesianism and macroeconomics while his brothers watched a late-night talk show, battled in a video game, and played cards. That was the curse of growing up in a large family: Rory needed ambient noise to feel at home. He studied best when a wall of sound freed his mind from present surroundings, but after a few hours, no matter what the content, the brain shut down.

He’d hit saturation when Adam cut out of the card game, looking for someone to kick it with. They had left Greek Row and headed across the bridge, away from the security guards who occasionally patrolled the residential areas at night. Although it had rained earlier, the sky was dark and clear now, a black ceiling over the silent campus. They had passed a stoned-looking couple and a family of deer that had stared at them from the bushes near Chambers Hall. The guys had walked right past and climbed the hill.

Now Rory was good and buzzed and tired, ready to crash. His mind was crammed with all the information it could take. He needed sleep, then coffee, then an hour and a half to spit out everything he’d devoured on the weekly economics quiz.

“You ready?” Rory stood up, swiping at the seat of his jeans.

“Yeah. Let’s head back.” Adam drew himself up slowly and took a few careful steps across the lawn. He moved in slow motion; Rory probably did, too, but there was no way to see himself. Sometimes when he was high he imagined himself hovering above it all, watching his body move and cataloging the words that came out of his mouth, as if they snapped into written dialogue bubbles in the air. Yeah, that was cool.

They crossed the lawn, pausing at the edge of the hilltop to take in the towers and lights of the north campus that filled the panorama below.

“Top of the World. You see that?” Rory said. “We’re lucky.”

On their left were the majestic peaks of Chambers Hall, and straight ahead were the rectangular towers of the North Campus Bridge, an ugly suspension bridge that served the campus well. Across the darkened ravine were the houses of Greek Row, the Craftsman-style structures from the old Merriwether estate. Beyond that were modern, square boxes of glass—university buildings that dotted the distant hillside. The darkness between buildings consisted of green things—boxwood hedges, jasmine bushes, tall cedars, and Douglas fir trees, some of them hundreds of years old.

The Merriwether campus was a balance of nature and architecture that seemed museum-like to Rory at times. His friends from home couldn’t believe it when he posted photos on Instagram. It was so picture-perfect he half expected a camera dolly to swoop down on the old mansions on Greek Row or the bridge over the falls or the windows of the old buildings sparkling like diamonds in the sunset.

“Amazing,” Rory said aloud.

“What?”

“Where we live, dude. It’s a beautiful patch of the planet.”

“That it is.”

Right now the campus was still and dark, like a model train village with the low-wattage lights twinkling. Even in the vise grip of pressure, Rory could still recognize the natural beauty that surrounded him. He wasn’t one of those ungrateful morons who trashed the place and then flunked out mid-semester.

Something sounded from the direction of the ravine, like the harsh cry of a crow.

“What was that?” Adam’s eyes grew round.

“Someone on the bridge?” Focus narrowing, he squinted toward the flicker, an object moving in front of one of the bridge lights.

A large bird? Something flapping near the deck of the bridge.

No, not a bird. A person.

The breath left Rory’s lungs as the small commands were barked in the air. A girl was mad at someone. Who? No one answered. The only voice was hers, lashing the air. Was she talking on a cell phone? “You promised. You promised.” The words traveled through the emptiness over the ravine, as if amplified by the surface of the water.

“Did you hear that?” Adam asked.

Rory lifted one hand to shut his friend up, and Adam hunched his shoulders as they listened. She was raging now. Growling. She was pissed, but her words were muddled.

Adam’s face went pale. “Is she going to jump?”

“She’s probably thinking about it.” A sudden rush of adrenaline told him this was the real deal. Shit. Alarm shivered up his spine, but it would be hard to shake the buzz.

“We need to stop her,” Adam said, voicing the obvious.

Rory stared hard, wishing he could close the distance between himself and the distraught girl. He wanted to fly through the night like some superhero, be on the bridge now, hold her back. Sure, he could run to her, but that would take precious minutes, far from an instant intervention.

Something moved again on the deck of the bridge. A large bird flapping its wings in front of the dull amber light.

“She’s pacing,” Rory observed. “She’s on the edge.” Stalling? A rumbling of hope in Rory’s gut urged him forward. Maybe he could get to her, talk with her. “But I don’t hear her crying anymore.”

“Is that a good sign?” Adam asked. “Do you think she—”

Rory was already running, tearing down the hill, legs pumping like pistons as though someone’s life depended on him to rescue them. With each breathless stride he pushed himself harder.

Get there. Get there. Get there.

He raced ahead frantically, knowing that, by all standards of logic, it was probably too late. Too late, but he had to try.

On our campus, when the lights of emergency vehicles flashed over the landscape from the access road leading down to the ravine, it meant only one thing.

“Another suicide.” Angela Newton squeezed the straps of her backpack as dismay shadowed her beautiful light-brown face. “There’s an ambulance down there now, and look at all the searchers. You were right. They think someone jumped.”

Earlier, as we’d walked to our Monday morning class, we’d seen some orange traffic cones and yellow caution tape roping off a small section of railing at the center of the bridge. Angela had thought maybe they were going to do repairs, but that sick feeling in my stomach didn’t ease as I spied the sheriff’s SUV near the bridge and a second police vehicle on the access road to the ravine. Cops did not come out for bridge repairs.

While we’d been in class, the small police presence had blossomed into a full-blown crime scene with flashing lights, rescue crews, and spectators. Now I knew my instincts had been dead on. Someone had jumped from the cordoned-off spot on the bridge.

We stopped at a juncture in the footpath to stare at the panorama. Students stood three deep on the North Campus Bridge, while college staff, cops, and paramedics lined the street. Across the ravine, on the flattest treeless portion of the riverside drive, two media vans sat with their antennae projecting up toward the sky. This portion of the picturesque river canyon that crisscrossed our campus—a tear in the land filled with rock, trees, and a few spectacular waterfalls—was now overrun with invaders, rescue workers in shrill orange vests who dotted the landscape.

This was not going to end well; it never did.

I glanced behind me, wishing I could return to the nineteenth-century cafés of Manet or the amazing dotted landscapes of Seurat. Someone else’s life, some other time and place. But no. The lift I’d gotten from viewing slides of colorful impressionist paintings in art class began to drain away, giving way to the chilly November morning. A shudder rippled through me. When I’d awakened that morning my most pressing issue had been trying to avoid my former boyfriend at an upcoming party that his frat was throwing. That seemed so junior high compared to this.

“How do you think they found out this time?” Angela asked.

“Usually someone sees something in the river.” The splash of bright color in the river that turned out to be a jacket. The doughy raft of a floating body. “Unless the jumper leaves something behind on the bridge. The guy that jumped from the Stone Bridge left a pile of neatly folded clothes on the bridge wall.” I would never forget the photos of his clothes folded beside a coiled belt and running shoes lined up like two sleeping cats on the bridge. Like a monument to everyday life. Maybe it was freaky, but I had studied those things in newspapers and online articles. Images and details. I needed to know the truth, the awful facts, before I could let it go.

I thought of the police tape on the bridge this morning. “The jumper probably left something behind on the bridge. That’s probably why it was marked off this morning.”

“That’s right. Maybe it was a suicide note.” Angela coiled a braid around two fingers. “Most of them leave a suicide note, right?”

“Notes are found in only a small percentage of suicides. Something like one out of six.” She was asking me because I was a nursing major and my sisters thought I was their resident expert on all things medical and psychological. While I was getting pretty good at articulating muscles in the cadavers we dissected in the lab, my knowledge of suicide came from my own research. I’d been somewhat obsessed since the crash that killed my mother and sister. “The cops didn’t find notes for the three suicides on campus this year,” I added.

“That seems so sad,” Angela said forlornly. “To kill yourself and not leave behind a hint of what was bothering you.”

“It’s always sad,” I said as we stared down at the rescue workers. A slight man wearing an orange vest and skullcap was raking through the tall weeds in the riverbed with a heavy white object like a giant comb attached to two ropes. What would he find there? A wallet? Some discarded condoms and cigarette butts? Or worse. I imagined the giant comb making a dull thudding sound as it hooked on a body. “I can’t watch this.”

“Oh my God.” Angela grabbed at the sleeve of my denim jacket. “Those are divers in the river. They must have seen something. Oh, for sure there’s a body in the water. I can’t deal with this shit.” She let out a breath. “Do you think it’s the real deal?”

“Looks like it,” I said, feeling myself withdraw from the cool November morning.

That familiar defense system rose within me as I braced myself for the inevitable bad news and sorrow that would sweep through the campus. Steel doors slammed shut as the cold front settled in my heart. The news would be tolerated in public, tamped down until a later time when I could panic in private.

“Why does this keep happening here?” Angela asked. “This is how many this year?”

“This will be the sixth since January. The thirteenth in two years.”

“Unlucky thirteen.” Angela tugged on her braids again. “We’re living in Suicide Central.”

“Not according to statistics, though it feels that way.” I turned away from the river, trying to regain equilibrium by staring at the staunch concrete towers of Chambers Hall. I had read that the number of suicides at Merriwether was on par with other universities of its size with approximately 12,000 students. The thing that made it so obvious on our campus was the method, using one of the five bridges to launch into the afterlife. When someone jumped from a bridge, their death was more of a spectacle than someone who overdosed or slashed their wrists on another campus.

“When I toured this campus with my parents, we thought the river running through it was spectacular, like some western resort,” Angela said. “We didn’t know about the suicide problem. I guess that’s a good thing. My parents probably would have sent me somewhere else. That would have sucked.”

“I can’t imagine being here without you, boo.”

Angela was probably my best friend in Theta Pi. There’d been an instant bond during rush, helped along by the fact that neither of us were really classic fits for sorority or Merriwether culture and we both desperately wanted to fit in. Unlike the average upper-middle-class Merriwether student, I was the daughter of a poor musician, working my butt off in the nursing program, making ends meet with a scholarship and the savings of two jobs I’d held down during a gap year. After losing my only sister and moving a lot in high school, I wanted a place I could call home for four years.

Angela had been drawn here by her boyfriend, Darnell, a center on the basketball team, after she realized that her “mixed race” status brought her a chilly reception at most of the colleges on her wish list. Even here at Merriwether, a female student had sized her up at orientation and asked, “What are you, exactly?” And Angela had answered, “Um, a person?” Half Iranian and half African American, she had a dark, exotic mystery about her that made some people stare in curiosity. I thought it was kind of cool to turn heads, but sometimes she got annoyed and sneered the gawkers away.

We were staring into the gorge, where two boats were churning through the water and a group of the searchers had been signaled to come over to the riverside. If they found something, I didn’t want to be around to watch. Vivid images like that were hard for me to shake; I knew that much about myself.

“Looks serious down there.” I turned away. “I can’t. I don’t want to be part of the sick audience.” I kept my gaze straight ahead on the bridge brimming with people who’d come out to watch the recovery effort. We had just left our Visual Arts class—an early-morning hassle, but an ea. . .