Fraternity Housewife Ch. 02

The ABC House was off campus. Walking distance, but a fair hike. I was glad I had my little car and glad that I had the map. As with so many campuses built in cities, the place had expanded over the years and without a map I'm pretty sure I would have been lost.

No matter, I turned the corner and there it was.

It was an apartment house straight out of a 1940's Architectural Digest. Blonde brick and slightly concave with the wings of the building curving slightly around the driveway and front yard. Four stories high I could see by looking at the windows, with a full basement it was actually a pretty impressive structure. It would have fit in the older part of any city in America if it weren't for the big red ABC over the door.

I parked my car in the designated "ABC House Mother" spot and got out.

I had my purse with me, but that was all, as I walked up the three concrete steps to the big double front doors. I stopped and took a breath and, well, actually patted my hair back into place since there didn't seem to be anyone looking. I had on my interview "uniform," black on black. A black skirt, not too tight and not too high, a white blouse buttoned to my throat, and a black blazer style jacket. The pantyhose felt like they had my toes numb, my bra cut, and my feet, in the high heels, hurt. Other than that I felt just dandy as I took my first step into my new job.

I swiped my keycard through the fancy front door lock, heard the satisfying click, and walked in.

The front doors opened into what was now a Great Room. Looking at the layout it was apparent that this had once been the lobby for the apartment house. Now it was the common area with a half dozen couches of questionable origins, three card tables, a ping pong table off to one side, a full size pool table in the middle of the room, a foosball table and, of course, a monstrous flat screen television dominating one wall.

The sound was on and I could see two young men leaning forward on one of the couches and hear the sounds of a battle being fought in the cyber space of the television. I peeked around the corner and wasn't surprised to find a familiar battle going on. Call of Duty Black Ops 2 is fairly distinctive and I had spent too many hours playing it while I was sobering up.

I was just standing there, looking around, getting a feel for the place when I heard a voice say "Holy crap, look at that."

I turned and came face to face with an absolutely beautiful young man. I could imagine him dating the captain of the cheerleading squad and probably nailing her under the bleachers after the big game.

And such a grin he had. I knew that he had to practice it in the mirror and I still found it absolutely captivating.

"Are you the new mom?" he said, flashing that grin.

I held out my hand and said "Rebecca Morgan. Becky to the world."

He took my hand and surprised me by holding my eyes with his as he lifted it to his lips and kissed it. Not a little peck either. A nice kiss.

"And I am Aaron," he said, "President of ABC and all around nice guy. Come on, I'll show you around."

The tour was actually kind of fun. The place was big and amazingly well maintained. I realized that with a house full of young men (I actually thought of them as boys but, well, it IS college) I was going to have to do some whip cracking to get things cleaned up. But all in all it wasn't bad.

The basement, which I vowed to visit rarely, was the home of the utilities. A huge box that I took to be the furnace took up almost an entire room. A large laundry room with a half dozen washers and dryers, no two matching, took up another room. There were labeled storage lockers in another room and one was just a jumble of furniture of various vintages. One door was marked "Fraternity Business Only" and was locked with a ridiculously oversize padlock. I raised an eyebrow but Aaron just kept leading me along on the tour.

The first floor was the kitchen, the great room, a dining room with a huge table and a couple of dozen chairs. The great room, in turn, was occupied with a mixed bag of furniture.

Along the way we kept encountering young men. I was surprised at how, well, how polite they were. I assumed that they were all on their best behavior and I struggled to remember names. Thomas (not "Tom" I noted) and Wayne and Roger and Davey and a few others. It was July and there were only seven in residence at that time.

The three upstairs floors were laid out in a large very shallow "U." A central hallway ran down each wing with three individual rooms on each side of the hallway for a total of 12 rooms per story. Each room, in turn, was basically a two bedroom apartment with a tiny bathroom. One bedroom was a small "office."

I was doing the quick math as we walked and Aaron was doing an excellent tour guide imitation.

"So," I said, interrupting his monologue, "capacity is 36 then?"

"Actually, 33," he said. We like to keep at least one room per floor empty and, of course, there's your suite."

I smiled. "And where is that," I asked, "I'd kind of like to get my suitcase out and change out of this monkey suit."

The House Mother Room actually was a suite. A large bedroom and a separate office were the primary rooms. The bed, I noted, was a king size with a wonderful headboard with honest to God bookshelves built in. The office had an antique looking roll top desk. A third room sported a good sized flat screen television and an adequate stereo. I thought I'd have to upgrade that to accommodate my record collection (yes, records, actual vinyl).

Back in the great room I told Aaron that I'd be right back but I wanted to get my suitcase and start settling in.

He laughed softly and whistled shrilly.

"FRONT!" he yelled.

One of the guys sitting at a card table playing a solitaire game jumped up and trotted over.

"Yes Master," he said with a chuckle.

"Good boy," Aaron said, "now shag your lazy ass out to Miss Becky's car and bring in her suitcase."

I couldn't help but laugh at this little play.

He turned to me and I managed to pull the name out.

"Mark, thank you," I said, reaching into my purse and getting the keys out, "just a small bag in the trunk and please lock it up when you're done."

"Jawohl," he said snapping a Roman salute, or anyway what we see as Roman salutes in the movies, his right fist thumping loudly onto his chest.

And again I laughed and thought "I think I'm going to like it here."

I had settled in, well, unpacked the little bit of clothes in my suitcase, my toothbrush and toothpaste and deodorant, and was downstairs socializing.

I finally got the names straight. Aaron was the President, a business major that I figured after knowing him for no more than 15 minutes would eventually own a Fortune 500 company. He was that kind of a guy.

Mark, my erstwhile luggage carrier, was a political science major (yes, I rolled my eyes at that) and very personable. He was quick witted and had me laughing regularly as we talked.

Thomas was a pre-med student and SO serious he made me nervous. But when he laughed you couldn't help but join him.

Roger was going to be an engineer and was loaded with science and math. I told him I wouldn't be able to help him much unless he needed a history tutor.

Wayne looked so much like the caricature of a college jock it was funny. Big and blonde, good looking in that corn fed way that made you think Nebraska Football. But he wasn't. He was actually a literature major and surprised me with a Sonnet from Shakespeare.

Davey, always "Davey," was another business major but he looked so much like John Belushi's "Bluto" from Animal House that I couldn't take him seriously at first.

Finally, Andrew ("Drew" to the world), was a history major and I couldn't resist giving him a "high five" although I had to stand on my tiptoes to do it since he topped out at about 6'5".

"Okay," I said, after introductions were complete and I had all of them around the dining table, "how do things work around here?"

"Casually," Aaron said without hesitating, "very casually."

"How's that?" I asked.

We talked for almost three hours then. We had beers and then pizza delivered. And I was amazed at how, well, how adult these young men sounded. They handled their own laundry, divided cleaning chores, took care of the lawn and the pool and generally handled themselves in a more serious way than I had imagined.

"What else do you need to know?" Aaron asked as the conversation wound down.

"I'm impressed," I said, "and I'm pretty sure we're all going to get along fine."

He raised his glass in a toast and then I excused myself.

This was the first alcohol I had had in months and it was hitting me pretty hard. So I went to my room, did my nightly rituals of brushing teeth and hair, peeing, reading for a while, one final trip to the bathroom, reading a while more and dropping off to sleep.

The next month was sort of a "feeling out" period. With only seven in residence it wasn't crowded. I made it clear that I would make breakfast around 7:30 in the morning and if they were up I'd cook for them but I was NOT a short order cook. I actually enjoyed our breakfasts and generally had at least three or four with me.

And I found that I plain old liked these young men. I no longer thought of them as boys. They were bright and articulate. I laughed easily with them and found myself enjoying myself more than I had during my three years living in a vodka bottle.

I enjoyed beating them at their pool table and holding my own at the poker table. They consistently beat me at their various xBox games but the dart board was my domain.

It was fun.

My rare forays into "discipline" involved mostly saying "pick that up."

And then things changed.