#stadleter2017

[bambi-simmons]

NaNoWriMo 2017: The Ghost of Stadleter Hall

Adriàn Gallo-Benitez is a junior at BLU, the single most boring school in the state of Ohio, which is saying something. When he meets Beverly Houston and learns that the now-derelict freshman dorm, Stadleter Hall, is probably haunted, he finally has an idea for his travel writing project. And also a need for high-beam flashlights.

A few misadventures later, Adriàn discovers that the only really scary thing at BLU is his giant crush on his roommate, Liam, who already happens to be dating the bartender from that one hipster place. But that's nothing a search for a lake monster and a few late-night confessionals can't fix.

[bambi-simmons]

NaNoWriMo: The Ghost of Stadleter Hall (Preview)

Here’s a short-story preview I wrote when I was conceptualizing my novel for this year! It’s about two of my main characters meeting for the first time, and gave me a feel for writing in Adrián’s voice (spoiler alert: he’s obnoxious.)

Have you ever walked into a room and immediately, completely regretted it?

Like when you walk in to your first class of the semester and understand literally nothing on the syllabus, then remember you decided to take Intro to Ancient Latin because you thought it would be a smart way to cover both your writing and history reqs.

Or, like when Adrián Benitez walked into his first frat party and suddenly remembered why he had never accepted an invitation to a frat party before.

"I count three, no, five people in togas. This isn't even a toga party. What the fuck," he hollered into his phone, "get over here, dude, I'm too skinny and nerdy to make it through this on my own."

Liam, his roommate on the other end of the line, just laughed at him. Adrián rolled his eyes at Liam, both because he was being an asshole and because Liam could never understand the concept of being too skinny and nerdy for anything; he was like a half-Korean version of Thor. "I'm on my way. I can see the house down the road," he said.

"Well, hurry your ass up! Someone's going to try to haze me!" he yelled, and got an unconvinced, "okay, goodbye, Di," for his troubles before Liam hung up on him.

Adrián shoved his phone back in his pocket and surveyed the room again. There were Greek letters painted on pretty much every available surface, including some dudes' torsos. While it looked like they had a healthy amount of alcohol available, Adrián didn't trust these people not to spike something, so he was stuck waiting on Liam, who, as the only one of his friend who was 21, had stopped by the skeevy liquor store on the corner of Main Street and University Court to buy something drinkable.

The house was one of those grand old frat houses that looked like it deserved more than dirty boxers being dropped on the floor and freshmen losing their virginities in the bedrooms. Curved staircases arched up either side of the living room, leading to a railed-off hallway overlooking the crowd, and Adrián immediately worried that someone was going to fall over the railing at some point tonight. The bedrooms must've been upstairs, because he saw more than one eager-looking couple racing up them, trying to work out how to get handsy and not trip up the stairs at the same time.

Adrián was both disgusted and a little jealous, because no girl here would look twice at you unless you had a toga, at least three greek letters somewhere on your person, or a tattoo that said something untranslatable in Chinese. Perks of being a douchebag.

He leaned against the wall and lit his face up with his phone screen, rapidly texting his second roommate, whose main volley of skills included judging basic people and lamenting Adrián's decisions.

Cameron, it seemed, either wasn't awake or (more likely) was killing it in his new favorite MMO, so he didn't respond to Adrián's series of texts, which read, "I am full of regrets," "just saw a dude take a shot out of a girl's cleavage—impressed, but wouldn't that be sweaty?" and, "jfc man they have a hot tub. What percentage of it do you think is semen."

Oh, well. Cameron would think he was funny later.

Adrián supposed he should've maybe started talking to people, but he knew exactly nobody, and felt a little out of his depth even among the groups of new pledges, who all had this year's generic Greek Life shirts on and looked like they were trying way too hard to have fun.

The fifteen minutes until Liam opened the door and dropped a plastic bag with a bottle of rum and a two-liter of Coke into Adrián's hands felt like hours. But there he was, smiling that convincingly sure smile, warm hand patting Adrián on the back. "You're still alive," Liam said, like he was trying to sound surprised.

"Barely, dude. I think that last body shot nearly killed me."

"You were doing body shots?"

"Observing. And it was close to deadly," he said, clearing space on an end table so that he could set down the rum and coke and dig the way-too-fucking-many-pack of Solo cups out of the bag. "How do you want your rum-to-coke ratio?" he asked, "because I'm going to need mine about one-to-one to make it through this."

Liam laughed, warm and loud enough that Adrián heard it easily over the music. "It's not that bad, Di. It's just a party. They've got a dance floor out back, I think." He beckoned for the bottle when Adrián was done filling half his glass with Captain Morgan's. Good rum may have been out there somewhere, but Liam was smart enough not to waste time tracking it down for something as stupid as this.

"Okay, cool, dancing, I can do," Adrián said, handing it over obligingly so Liam could make his own drink. "We gotta hide this somewhere so nobody steals it."

"I'll just ask Micah to put it in his room."

Oh, that's right. Adrián kept forgetting that Liam's younger brother was in this frat, even though that was kind of the whole reason they were at this party. He watched Liam stuff everything back in the bag, glance around the room, and then head in the direction of a huge group of people, one of which must've been his brother. Adrián hadn't met Micah, but he pictured him as a smaller version of Liam, maybe with slightly shorter hair.

He had enough time while Liam was talking his brother into housing their booze to finish his drink, not because he chugged it, but because Liam took for-fucking-ever. Adrián kind of wished that by the time Liam wandered back over to him, the whole thing would be winding down and they could chalk it up to another night of bad decisions and go to IHOP.

Not quite long enough. Liam walked back over, tipping his half-finished cup to his lips. "Micah put our stuff in his room. You wanna check out the dance floor?"

"Dude, yes. Finally, a use for my talents." Adrián tossed his empty cup into a trash bag that had been hooked over one of the door handles, and started for the glass patio door, Liam still laughing and following behind him.

"You know you could've met me out here," he said, but Adrián shook his head.

"No way, I needed at least one drink before this happens," he said. "It's for the social anxiety, not my dancing skills."

"Thanks for the clarification."

"Shut up, I'm trying." He pulled on the door handle and, when it didn't budge, realized he had to push it.

Outside was infinitely better than inside, because it was cooler and less humid, and there was more open air for everyone's sweat-smell to dissippate into. Adrián and Liam steered clear of the pool and extra-clear of the hot tub, because they weren't fond of soggy boxers and possibly-inseminated water. There were tiki torches set up around the perimeter of the fenced-in yard, and the combination of drunk people and fire seemed like a generally bad idea. But hey, people had been serving those shots on fire in bars for years, now, and nobody usually got injured.

Maybe it was the rum kicking in, but Adrián felt a lot calmer about the possibility of someone's hair being set on fire than he normally would've.

He dragged Liam over to a group of girls who looked like they'd already been approached by a bunch of the fraternity brothers, and weren't having it. Probably had something to do with either the painfully obvious spray-tans or the lame white-people attempts at dancing. Liam bent close enough that Adrián could hear him talking over the music in the background. "Put on some Shakira and you'd smoke those sons of bitches."

"I'm also fond of Rhianna's early stuff and the Backstreet Boys."

"Good to know your music tastes haven't changed since the sixth grade."

He shouldered Liam away a few steps. "You don't know me," he said, walking backwards into the crowd, ready to get down to—Ariana Grande? He thought? God, it was hard to hear the lyrics over the bass and the screaming.

This was the part where things were on the upswing for a bit. Adrián found himself a little more in his element, and sure, these weren't the kind of people he normally partied with—there was a distinct lack of weed-smell and nobody had their faces pierced up—but drunk people were all pretty much the same. And when he ended up lip-synching Don't Stop Believing with a group of wasted sorority girls and Liam Song, he was pretty sure he could easily have been at a party some guy in his Brit Lit class threw.

Except, if he was at one of those artsy kid parties, there'd probably be someone criticizing Journey and someone else trying to convince people this song was totally by the Eagles.

There was one girl who was totally into it, who let Adrián twirl her like she was an extra in Grease, not missing a lyric the whole time. It was kind of adorable—she was kind of adorable. Not the usual sorority girl type, either, she had gradiated brown-to-blonde twists pulled up into a pair of buns on either side of her head, standing out brightly against her dark skin. She was wearing a black T-shirt with her sorority's letters in bright pink, but she'd gone at it with a pair of scissors and turned the back into a pattern of artistic knots. She danced like she knew what she was doing, and it was probably made easier by the sneakers she was wearing in lieu of heels.

The song changed, and in the moment of silence between, Adrián stuck out a hand like he was trying to greet her at New Student Orientation, not a crowded frat party. "Hey! Adrián Benitez, nice to meet you."

"Beverly Houston," she replied, responding with a surprisingly firm handshake. "Beta Kappa Tau."

"Does everyone around here introduce themselves in Greek?" he asked, but the start of another pop song—Katy Perry this time—cut off the end of his quip. Wittiness wasted. Damn. He was only good for about one of those a week. Beverly laughed, but it was more at him than at his joke, and she grabbed his hand, pulling him back into the circle, and performing a surprisingly on-beat Charleston.

"Di!" And there was an arm around his shoulder and hey, who—? Oh.

Adrián glanced up to see a familiar face, but not one he'd expect to meet at a place like this. Isaac Washington was his favorite barista-slash-bartender at his favorite coffeeshop-slash-hipster bar, and he'd graduated last Spring, so Adrián had no idea what he was doing at any college party, much less an Omega-something-bullshit-Greek-party.

"Dude, what're you doing? Isn't this like, the most homophobic frat in the row?"

"They asked me to bartend for this thing," Isaac said, "and I had a night off and I like getting paid to do things, so."

"Then why aren't you, uh, bartending?"

He shrugged. "Some dude wearing their letters said he could do better, kicked me out from behind the bar, and started making up drinks that taste nasty, but they're wicked strong."

He gestured behind himself at the "bar," which was just a plastic patio table crowded with liquor bottles and plastic cups, with a cooler full of ice and a second cooler half-full of ice and half-full of beer underneath it. There was a guy behind it who was trying to flip two bottles of beer like a juggler, and who ended up dropping them both. They landed on the grass intact, and he moved on to pouring a drink from a height that mostly served to spill it everywhere.

Adrián shook his head. "Shit, man, I hope they paid you beforehand."

"Uh, hell yeah they did." He high-fived Adrián, then looked to his right at Liam, who was hugging Beverly? Did they know each other? Or was this just yet another benefit of looking like the lost fourth Hemsworth brother? Liam always did get all the girls, which was fine, he was a good wingman anwyways. He had this way of making Adrián sound really cool because he wrote poetry and spoke fluent Spanish. Never mind that he had only taken one poetry class, and had focused his portfolio mainly around themes of death, decay, and that one time he saw a rat living inside a dead raccoon like Luke Skywalker inside of that alien on Hoth.

"Who's your friend?" Isaac asked, and Adrián was forced to stop thinking about Hoth and dead raccoons.

"Oh. Yo, Liam. Liam!" When he finally got Liam's attention, he continued. "Isaac, this is Liam, my roommate. Liam, this is Isaac, he works at the Red Windrose."

"Isn't that the coffeeshop you keep trying to convince me to go to?" Liam asked.

"If you'd go with me, you would know that the answer is yes."

Isaac leaned over and said something to Liam that Adrián couldn't hear, but it, like most things, just made Liam laugh and smile wide enough to show his dimples.

The song changed again, and somehow, the three of them ended up in a crowd of sorority girls. Liam couldn't dance for shit, but he was cute about it, mostly sticking to cheesily exaggerated versions of the very few dance moves he knew. Isaac joined right in with him, but it was clear that his sense of rhythm was superior and his sense of humor was not.

Beverly bounced between the three of them, spitting out the lyrics to every song like she was the human version of Shazam. She clearly knew the other three girls they were dancing with, because she kept trying to drag them into her karaoke performance, but one of them was barely sober enough to remain upright, much less to remember all the words to Crank Dat. Adrián, however, knew his Soulja Boy, and although he didn't have it quite as perfected as Beverly, he could, at the very least, do the accompanying dance without even thinking about it.

The DJ continued to be eclectic in the weirdest ways, vascillating wildly between stuff from 2006 and 2016. But finally, he found a Walk the Moon song that wasn't Shut up and Dance, then Beverly pulled him in by both hands, and yes, this was starting to spell awesome night. She pulled him in close and somehow led him into twirling her into a pretzel twist, and the incongruity between her dance moves and the music blaring was charming.

Adrián had been roped into swing dancing enough times to know how to respond, and he was about to switch poses to the one—shit, he couldn't remember the name—where he'd have her back againt his chest and his arms around her, when something wet and, ew, warm? spilled onto his back.

It took him a minute to figure it out, but yep. Someone had just puked on him.

About par for this particular course. He swore at length in Spanish, most of it impossible to translate.

"Dear god, shit, that's disgusting," Beverly said, "ugh. C'mere, dude." She was giving the girl who was apparently the culprit (and who was now crying) a look that was equal parts grossed out and disappointed. "Come on, upstairs. We'll get  you cleaned up—and get her home, okay?" She addressed the last part to the girl's friends, who were standing on either side of her and patting her hair and holding her shoulders gently. Kind of like what Beverly was doing to him.

"Where the hell are we going to go?" he asked, plucking at the hem of his shirt and trying desperately not to think about what was on him. "I feel like all the bedrooms are, uh. Occupied."

"Nah," she shook her head. "My boyfriend lives up here, and I've got his spare key."

She led him to the last door on the left, and as soon as she unlocked it, he tore his shirt off and held it as far away from himself as physically possible. "Oh, god," he said, frowning at the smell. Like vodka and death. "I'm. This thing's tanked."

Beverly chuckled awkwardly from the bathroom and reached underneath the sink, tugging out a plastic bag and a washcloth. She tossed the bag to him and he deposited his shirt into it and tied it as tight as it could go. Thank god he hadn't decided to change out of the three-dollar thrift store Avengers shirt he'd been wearing. Beverly ran the washcloth under the sink and handed it to him. "Gimme that, I'll throw it in the dumpster out back. It won't be the only puked-on thing in there," she said, "clean yourself off real quick, I'll be back."

Adrián scrubbed at his back until his skin went red, borrowing some of what must've been the boyfriend's soap. When he was convinced he smelled more like Old Spice than puke, he rinsed the washcloth clean and draped it over the basin of the sink. He could hear the door opening again and he stuck his head out the bathroom door. "Bev?"

"That's my name," she said, handing him one of a pair of Coronas she'd grabbed from downstairs. "Nothing got on your jeans?"

"Nah, it was a controlled incident," he replied, taking a swallow of the beer. "Thanks for everything."

"Eh, that's what I do. I keep controlled incidents, well, controlled, for the BKT's." She toasted him before tipping back her bottle and draining almost half of it.

"Oh, so you're like, their damage control, or whatever."

"E-yup." She set the half-empty bottle on one of the two desks in the room. It had a picture of her pinned on the corkboard above it. "Listen, not sure if you feel like wandering around all shirtless, but you can totally borrow one of Micah's shirts."

"God, yeah, I'm way too hairy to be walking around half-naked like some kind of Sasquatch—wait, Micah?" he asked, as she started digging through the drawers. "Like, Micah Song? Is that how you know Liam?"

She came back with a plain black T-shirt and held it out toward him. "Yeah, Liam's his brother. This is gonna be a little big, but hey, it's better than nudity." He pulled it on and took a seat at the desk chair, while Beverly sat cross-legged on the bed, pulling her phone out of her back pocket. "Melissa says she's super sorry, by the way."

He shrugged, because, again, he'd kind of expected tonight to be a trainwreck. "Don't you kind of have to, like, go down there and continue controlling damage?"

Beverly shook her head. "Those three were the only Betas here. I technically didn't even have to come to this, since less than ten of our girls were here. I just came because I wanted to hang out with Micah, which, well. I decided not to watch him lose at pool." She leaned back on the bed, readjusting the pillows like she lived there. She was probably there often enough to do that.

Adrián finally got a chance to look around the room, and found that it was basically an explosion of fraternity letters and Burning Lake University memorobilia. Pennants on the walls, throw blankets in BLU red and black, and at least eight BLU lacrosse team photos. "Oh god, your boyfriend plays lacrosse?" Adrián groused, because every LAX guy he'd ever known wore polo shirts every day and didn't even need the athletics scholarship to pay tuition.

"Nah, his roommate does. Bit of a douche."

"Probably because he fuckin' plays lacrosse."

That made Beverly laugh, and Adrián officially decided he was going to be friends with her, because she was a good dancer and she had a poor opinion of lacrosse. "So, how do you know Liam?" she asked. She kicked her shoes off, and Adrián noticed she was wearing mismatched socks.

"He's my roommate," Adrián said, "has been since way back when we were baby freshmen and lived in the dorms still." Granted, that had been like two years ago.

Beverly leaned over to grab her beer off the desk. "Hah, well, my boyfriend's still a baby freshman. I've survived to junior year, though."

"And may we make it through to senior year. And graduation."

She toasted that, and downed the rest of her beer. "So, what dorm were you guys in?"

"Martin Hall," he said, "me and my best friend almost ended up in Greenwood, but thank <i>god,</i> we got offered an option to switch to a triple in Martin." Greenwood Hall, and its sister dorm, Stadleter Hall, were known for thin walls, mouse problems, and the constant and pervasive smell of feet. Adrián took another drink of his Corona, glanced down at the bottle, and realized he still had way more left in it than Beverly did in hers. Probably because he didn't really like Corona.

"Oh, come on," Beverly said, "I was in Stadleter Hall, it wasn't that bad. Just a little haunted."