Candy walked slowly to the side of the sorority house. She was exhausted from her classes, and there was no way she would be able to navigate the grand stairway at the front. The rounded stairway that led to the columned entry and huge wrap-around porch was elegant, but it had no handrail.
She reached out for the handrail at the side entrance and considered turning around when the bitchy voice of her sorority president, Marie LaTour, reached her ears.
"Cand-ass, so nice to
see
you," Marie sneered as she loomed over the side entrance stairs. Her southern Louisiana accent made it almost sound like a genuine greeting.
"Yeah,
looking
good," one of Marie's ever present minions chimed in.
Candy looked up at the trio of blondes. They were almost interchangeable. Marie stood out only due to the dark eyebrows that gave away her obsession with the bleach bottle. All three bitches-from-hell had embraced the plain vanilla, Texas-girl look. They were lean, blonde and sure of their own superiority. Still dressed in their practice uniforms for the cheerleading team, their presence was salt in her wounds.
She sighed and allowed her good manners, ingrained since birth, win out. "Hey y'all. Good to see you too."
Candy ignored their less than subtle digs at her now damaged eyesight. Six months ago, she had also been a scholarship athlete on the cheerleading team. Five months ago, her highflying days ended when she was dropped during a practice. As a flyer, she knew the risks: broken arms and twisted ankles were common injuries in her sport. What she hadn't anticipated was hitting the bleachers with her head when she was dropped. The impact was so hard it had nearly blinded her.
She'd spent the summer cocooned at her family's estate near Dallas. Following doctor's orders she had rested, and rested, and moved as little as possible. In the end, she had regained her sight in her right eye, but the left was almost completely gone. She was still adapting to the loss of depth perception. She didn't trust herself to drive. Maybe by next summer she would be ready to attempt it.
In the mean time, she was making up her finals from last semester and trying to keep up with her classes this semester, so that she could graduate as planned with her degree in Biology. The injury meant the loss of her scholarship, and while her parents had money, she didn't want to abuse their generosity. So, she smiled at the girls who had failed to catch her and entered the cool open space of the home she would continue to occupy for the next year.
Marie grinned as she relaxed on the front porch of her house. She had everything she'd worked so hard to snatch. Her scholarship was safe and she was President of the sorority. No one in the house knew how close she'd come to losing it all last year.
She vividly recalled the conversation with her coach last spring. The coach had summoned her to a private office.
"Marie, what's going on with your grades?" Coach demanded without any greeting.
"I'm doing my best. The practices eat into my study time, but I'm sure I'm passing everything." Marie wasn't sure. This was the first semester she'd been unable to secure all male professors.
"Unfortunately, we aren't going to have the same funding next semester. I'm being forced to cut at least one scholarship due to the new budget. You're at the bottom of the team for grades. Fix it or you're going to be looking for student loans." Coach looked away, clearly dismissing Marie.
Marie was so mad she couldn't see straight when she left that office. It didn't matter that she'd worked her whole life to get out of the swamp. It didn't matter she would have to drop out without that scholarship.
She'd hated Candace Sinclair from the moment they met as pledges three years ago. Candace, or "Candy", was everything she wasn't - tiny, wealthy, brilliant and confidant. It was enough to make Marie want to vomit.
Marie only planned to injure Candy enough to make sure she wouldn't lose her scholarship. She had already been blowing her Accounting professor. She didn't have a clue how to bring up her other grades; those professors were all women. She was determined to get her business degree and her MBA. She was going to be fucking rich. Not just rich, fucking rich. She was never going back to the swamp.
Now, she was sitting on the porch of the sorority as its President. Her scholarship was secure. She had two semesters to finish and she'd managed to find the classes she needed all taught by men. She grinned an evil, satisfied grin.
***
Candy dropped her bag on her bed and fell down next to it.
"Hey girl, you ok? I heard your greeting from the witches of Eastwick..." Molly looked over from the desk where she was studying to peer at her roommate.
"I'm good. Just need a minute to pretend I'm a corpse. Then I'll be able to study again all night." Candy barely moved her lips to respond.
"You got another headache? I can get you some ibuprofen," Molly offered.
Molly handed her the tablets and a glass of water. Candy swallowed the medicine on autopilot.
"Did you decide on a costume yet?" Molly asked a few minutes later.
"I don't know if I'm going." The annual Halloween party the fraternities threw was a big deal on campus. Candy wasn't sure she was up to it.
"It's only two weeks away and Marie has commanded that everyone in the sorority must attend in costume. I can't believe that bitch got to be President. If you'd been here for the election, it would've been you by a landslide."
"I didn't realize it was mandatory. I'll come up with something." Candy completely ignored the reference to her missed election. She wanted to be the President this year, but it just wasn't meant to be.
***
The sound of her cell phone jolted Candy from her sleep. "Hello?"
"Candace!"
"Maximilian, do you have any idea what time it is?"
"Eleven, and I know you're still studying, geek!" her cousin Max teased.
"Well, I was, but now there's a drool spot on my lab homework where I fell asleep on it."