If I Had Seen Her First

I met Mikhail Sokolov at a rush party my freshman year, and I think I knew even then that he would be a problem for me.

I didn’t need to attend the party, really. My last name was the only ticket I needed to earn a bid to join Sigma Theta Rho. A Calloway had participated in its founding, and I suspected if the fraternity ever shut down, a Calloway would watch over that, too.

My father was of the opinion that it would happen sooner rather than later. But he was bitter about a lot of things.

His toothless complaints about the fraternity’s growing reputation for partying had the unintended effect of making me curious. Up to that point, the only kind of “party” I’d attended was the kind where my job was to look perfect and be quiet, unless called upon to dance attendance on a business prospect or influential figure. When I was younger, this took the form of reciting an endless array of facts to impress the listener; as I got older and rote memorization no longer served, I had earned enthusiasm by parroting innovative disruption theory or the five forces or whatever management trend was winning the day.

I despised it. Empty words for empty people.

So I took to tucking a small paperback in my jacket’s inner pocket. I would hide in the bathroom for as long as I could get away with and live someone else’s life for a while. It hardly mattered what life: science fiction, murder mystery, any port in a storm. I developed a soft spot for knights and nobles in courtly dramas and, inevitably perhaps, tawdry bodice-rippers. My late grandmother’s long-untouched bedroom offered a years-long supply.

I didn’t bring a book to the rush party. It was supposed to be different, I just didn’t know how, yet.

My first impression was one of noise.

I listened to pop music on occasion, some rock, but only ever on my headphones or in my car. Hearing the sounds thumping out of massive speakers so loud that the walls themselves vibrated was a new experience, one I’d seen in movies and perhaps never considered real.

A couple of newly-made brothers, mostly sophomores, went around introducing themselves to us prospects. One man introduced himself to me as Jacob Choi, and the normalcy of the interaction put me at ease. A friendly but firm handshake, an easy smile, no demands. I told him my name, and he almost managed to hide the flicker of recognition at the sound of “Calloway.”

Almost.

After he moved on, I spotted a familiar face at the bar: Travis Montgomery, son of a business associate of my mother’s. “Travis,” I said in greeting, holding up a plastic cup of non-alcoholic beer in a sort of ironic toast. The stuff was terrible, and I gathered drinking it was a sort of hazing activity.

“Calloway!” He didn’t seem to mind the taste as he took a big swig, grinned at me, and threw his arm around my shoulders. “Fancy seeing you here,” he said. From his enthusiasm and slight drawl, I realized why the taste didn’t bother him. Whatever was in his cup was not non-alcoholic. I suppressed a grunt as he shook me in a sort of friendly gesture.

“Yeah, what a surprise,” I said, not quite able to mask the sarcasm. We had overlapping social circles and I had known that he was attending Crownbridge, of course. My mother had told me to cultivate him, if I could.

That’s what she always called it. She meant making friends, or she thought she did. But she said cultivating, like a garden.

I hadn’t thought about the possibility of Travis pledging Sigma, but in retrospect, of course he would. His parents were actors-turned-philanthropists, and our alumni rivaled those of any other major Greek fraternity. Plus, he was a social creature, and it was one of the most influential student groups on campus.

“You met the Russki yet,” he asked, taking another long sip from his cup.

“I doubt it, unless he’s Russian-Korean,” I said, extracting myself from his brotherly embrace.

“Ha!” Travis laughed like that was some great joke. “Nah, the Korean guy’s Jacob. Apparently he’s already House Steward. All organized and shit. No, the Russian, you’ll know him when you see him. Or hear him.”

I had no idea what that meant, but I expected I wouldn’t care for it. “Is he a pledge?”

Travis shook his head. “Nah, already a brother. Sophomore. His name’s Sokolov.”

That caught my attention. “Sokolov?” I tried to place the name.

“They call him the ‘god of party,’” Travis added with a wicked smile.

“Someone calls for Misha?” I heard a voice boom behind me. I turned to see a man who stood an inch or two taller than me, with dirty blonde curls and blue eyes. If he hadn’t been putting on a Russian accent more appropriate for a children’s cartoon, I would have guessed he was Scandinavian.

Travis laughed and held a hand out that Misha shook with enthusiasm. “Misha! I’m Travis,” he enthused, accepting one of those infernal back-clapping hugs. “Travis Montgomery.”

“Mon…gummery,” Misha sounded out, wrinkling his nose. “Terrible last name. Awkward to say. I am very lazy,” he said with a grimace that bore out the word. He shrugged himself loose with a casual grace I tried not to envy. He was wearing a t-shirt and artfully torn jeans, but I recognized them for what they were: stealth wealth. The ensemble was easily worth four figures. It confirmed my suspicions as I labeled him rich and rebellious, filing him away in a mental box.

That’s the sort of education offered in the house of Calloway.

He turned from Travis to me, expectantly, and I held my hand out. “Calloway. Adrian Calloway.” He didn’t so much as blink as he shook my hand, or when I resisted his attempt at a manly embrace.

If he didn’t know my last name, maybe he wasn’t who I thought he was.

“Very happy to meet you, Calloway,” he said, beaming. “Much easier to say than Mon…” He made a show of trying to get through the name before shrugging. “Mont…Mont-ee. Monty. Yes. You are Monty now,” he told Travis.

“Works for me,” Travis said with a shrug. Pledges take what they’re given. “Should we get another drink?” He gestured at Misha’s empty hands.

Misha’s nose wrinkled. “Only if you have real stuff,” he said, looking at our cups with obvious disdain. “Non-alcohol beer? Is affront to the senses. Even my babushka would spit on me from heaven.”

Travis and I exchanged a brief look, but where I wanted to roll my eyes, Travis hooted with genuine delight. “He talks like Boris from that old cartoon!” What I found suspicious, he found amusing, apparently. “Alright, gents, I’ve got a flask in my car. Lemme grab it,” he said, backing away. “And keep your mouth shut, Calloway. Gentleman’s honor!”

I waved him off dismissively. I didn’t care what he drank. I turned back to Misha instead. “So, Sokolov, was it? Any relation to Konstantin Sokolov?” I asked in a carefully neutral tone. That time, his smile twitched. “From…was it SKG? Sokolov…” I trailed off deliberately.

“Kapital Grup,” Misha finished for me nonchalantly. But I’d seen him blink, so I knew it was as put-on as his accent. “Sokolov Kapital Grup. Da, he is my father.”

“And he sent you all the way to Crownbridge?” I mused. “That’s…interesting.”

“No. Interesting, it is not,” Misha said flatly, looking around for something. “And neither is this party. I told them when I pledged, why no girls?”

I blinked, registering the obvious pivot, but not expecting the direction. “Because girls can’t rush fraternities,” I said, feeling absurd. Surely he knew that?

“Bah. Why not? Is twenty-twenty-three. Equal rights, yes?” There was a mischief in his eyes that tripped my internal alarm for trouble. Not danger. But trouble. “These clever Sigma men are distracted too easy by pretty girls? Sure, I understand this,” he said, nodding like it was sage wisdom. “But if Sigmas were truly clever, they would realize where women go, men follow. Is that way in Russia, and also in America. Is a universal truth.” He winked at me.

What an absolute boor, I thought.

Unfortunately, he was absolutely right about why Sigma doesn’t invite women to its rush events, so I had no angle to argue with him. How obnoxious. I excused myself as soon as Travis returned with his flask, made sure to meet the few key brothers I needed to ensure my bid went smoothly, and then left the party. Back at my dorm room, I exorcised the noise and sweat of the event by burying myself in a brainless novel with a dark knight and an enchanted princess.

In the subsequent three years, I learned a lot of information about my “brothers,” details I filed away for some distant future business, should it become relevant. But the Mikhail Sokolov dossier remained short and simple: He never smiles when he speaks of his parents. He onlysmiles for real when he speaks of his sister. And he hides his sharp intelligence beneath layers upon layers of a vodka-addled caricature. I think only I, and perhaps Jacob, really picked up on it. Travis saw the mask, but wasn’t inclined to try and see beneath it.

But that was all background information. Until Halloween.

It was my junior year, and I found myself experiencing a fit of melancholy as I embarked on the back half of my undergraduate career, one I couldn’t quite shake. Not even the trashy novels I hid behind the economics books and classics on my shelves distracted me.

So I had taken it upon myself to attend another Sigma house party, the first I’d bothered with after pledging. The writhing bodies inside didn’t appeal to me, but the fire pit outside did. I grabbed a bottle and a glass and brought them with me, dodging a couple of girls who tried to engage my attention and stepping out into the cool air.

Fifteen minutes later, I was standing next to the fire chatting with Elliott Parker—one of the only brothers I can have a real conversation with—when Misha ventured through the porch door, leading a girl. There was nothing momentous about that, other than the fact that she was fully clothed. But I hadn’t planned to care about it, rolling my eyes in annoyance when Elliott broke off our conversation to address her.

That was when I took a better look and realized I recognized her. Or rather, her costume, with its approximated gold-and-flower circlet across her forehead.

Ozma of Oz.

I had loved those books as a child, the way they threw mundanity out the window and replaced it with matter-of-fact, almost surreal fantasy the likes of which is rarely seen in the genre today. And since I was looking again, I couldn’t help noticing that the girl was as lovely as the character was described in Baum’s stories. Like a real queen of a fairy realm.

Between the bookish costume and Elliott’s familiarity, she was surely in some literary major, maybe theater. I suppressed a flicker of quiet envy. But she was standing next to Misha Sokolov, which meant that whatever her taste in books, her taste in men was suspect.

Elliott, however, was clearly curious about the mismatched pair, dragging me along as he followed them. I drank my wine and considered if I should just leave, increasingly agitated by these invaders into my space. Even if the space was technically an open backyard at a party house.

When Misha called her a “fairy princess” again, I couldn’t help snapping a correction. The girl had just described being abandoned at this three-ring circus by her friend and then she’d been set upon by its rowdiest ringleader. The least he could do is get her damn costume right.

She looked up at me then, and I don’t consider myself to be moved by mere appearances, but even I had to admit—her face, lit by the fire and etched in delighted surprise, was striking. I inclined my head and vaguely wished I had Misha’s flair for the dramatic so I could bow over her hand, just for the fantasy of it, like in one of my hidden books. A knight greeting a beautiful foreign queen.

Misha dragged her attention to himself with some banter, but she yanked me back into the conversation with a pointed rebuke. And then she argued with me.

This girl dressed as the infinitely benevolent and patient queen of a fairy country argued withme.

Not even my professors argued with me.

“If the only way you judge adaptations is by accuracy, then I’m sorry you’re missing out on so much,” she was saying. “Adaptations can be ‘inaccurate’ and still have value, and to think otherwise is—it’s so reductive.”

My impression of her locked into place, the gossamer fairy becoming a flesh-and-blood woman. One with a passion for storiesand a willingness to fight like they mattered. One who didn’t bow to the superiority I projected like a shield, even without my name attached.

One who didn’t fit in any of my mental filing boxes.

But she was sitting next to Misha, who was staring at her more intently than I had ever seen him look at anything that wasn’t a bottle of vodka.

Elliott dragged me away then, citing a message from Jacob about a drunken nitwit trying to get into my bedroom. I suspected it was a trick, but wasn’t willing to risk my sanctuary over it. I couldn’t be sure, but I think I was right. I usually was.

Except, apparently, with this girl. She’d stumped me, and somehow made it no big deal.

Emma. Her name was Emma.

When I glanced into the backyard a little while later, she and Misha were already gone. I took care not to think about where, or for what purpose. Instead, I went back into my bedroom and barricaded myself against the festivities outside.

I settled into my comfy chair, the one I’d taken a smaller bed just to have room for. But instead of reaching for one of my paperbacks, I sat with hands empty, my mind providing its own stories for once.

I pictured how the rest of that conversation might have gone, had I been able to finish it. Crafted some clever retort that escaped me just then. Would she have been annoyed? Impressed? Or would she have dug in, like me, unable to resist the need to pull stories apart and see how they worked?

I wondered what would have happened if I had bowed over her hand, even knelt and pledged myself to her service. Would it have flattered her? Left more of an impression than the big, loud Russian man who would no doubt bed her and move on like he’d done a hundred times? And I wondered the most about what might have happened if, instead of Misha, I had seen her first.

Author’s Note

SURPRISE BONUS ADRIAN CHAPTER!

Early on I called him a prick, and he is. But I love Adrian just like I love all of my CBU kids. Emma surprised him almost as much as she surprised Misha. I also wonder what would have happened had she met him first. I think she and Misha would still have connected, but she might have given Adrian a shot; there aren’t a lot of guys who are willing to challenge her and have the grace to keep trying after realizing just how smart she is. An alternate timeline where she met Misha because she was dating Adrian sure would have been messy…😏

FUN FACT:

Misha used to play up his accent a lot harder. I actually had a version of the draft where he would talk about himself in the third person, which pops up a lot in silly Russian stereotypes—it’s not a real thing and doesn’t make sense for Russians speaking English, but there was a part of me that liked the idea of Misha so explicitly distancing himself from his persona. But it was absolutely overkill (thank you to my kind sensitivity readers for telling me!), so I dropped it except for a couple of very specific uses, like when he said “Misha is still Misha” back in chapter 12.

What do you think? Was this a treat?