“Trisha, you’re not the only one with problems, girl,” Bea yelled out in disgust.
“Yeah, I don’t even know how I’m going to pay my rent,” Dena replied. “I can’t believe that you put the wrong amount of money in the bank and forged my name on a deposit slip. Trisha, that messes up my name.”
Audria said, “We need the money back now, Trisha.”
“I don’t have it, y’all, that’s what I’m sayin’,” Trisha responded in tears.
“Well, we need to call the Regional Coordinator about this then,” Sharon said.
“No guys, no, you can’t call and tell on me. I will pay the money back. I promise.”
Most girls looked away. They couldn’t stand to face her. She went over to Bea, desperately seeking sympathy.
With distraught red eyes, Bea looked at Trisha and said, “You’ve become my girl. I’ve always had you and Hayden’s back on line and in my heart. The three of us have started to rap about everything. Maybe if you would’ve just come to us, Trisha, told us what was going on, we could have figured out a way to help you. But to just go into the account and withdraw the money, forging people’s signatures on stuff for your own personal gain, is just something I can’t accept.”
Bea sat down in a chair and bowed her head. I knew this was hard for her. She was right, Trisha was our girl. This was tough.
Bea stood and continued, “We got to report this or all of us could be reprimanded. That’s the same stuff that happened to Penelope and Edythe. They knew what happened to us on line was wrong, but they went with it. They weren’t strong enough to stand up against it, and now they’re suspended just like Keisha and the rest of them fools. Well, baby, I’m not losing my letters. I worked too hard to get them. I thought you did too. I can’t believe you did this. Dang!”
Then Bea got up and walked to the other side of the room. Trisha fell into my arms and sobbed even harder. I was so torn. I knew the right thing to do was to call the officials in our sorority right away to report all this. Yet, I also wanted to protect my friend. Either way, it was up to all of us to decide what to do, so we held a vote and decided to turn this in to Ms. Nixon.
I just hugged her tight and said, “We love you so much, and sometimes good people make bad decisions. Just because we’re not going to stand behind your actions doesn’t mean we’re not standing behind you.”
“But when you all turn me in, how is that standing behind me?” Trisha sobbed.
I touched her chin and said, “Girl, we are in college now. There are consequences for our actions. If you don’t study for a test you get an F, you take money from the sorority and we got to report it. That doesn’t mean we don’t love you.”
“Whatever, speak for yourself,” Dena called out.
“Dena, come on girl,” I said, hoping my soror would ease up from verbally kicking Trisha when she was down.
“No, because if I wouldn’t have caught the discrepancy, I could have been kicked out of the sorority, or worse, gone to jail,” Dena said.
She had a big point.
Trisha left my side and went to try and convince Dena to forgive her. “I’m sorry, Dena, I’m sorry. I just didn’t see any other way to help myself.”
Dena didn’t respond. I nodded to Bea, who went over to her cell phone and dialed Ms. Berry instead of calling the Regional Coordinator.
“You calling her now?” Trisha said, with a trembling voice.
“Yeah, we got to report this now. We can’t hold on to this information,” I answered, completely wishing I didn’t have to do this.
“This is going to ruin me. What if I go to jail? Please think about this,” Trisha pleaded, as Bea ignored her and dialed.
“There is some kind of infraction code the sorority has,” Sharon called out, remembering some of the information we had to memorize.
Sharon and a few others went over to find the discipline booklet and look up what was listed as a recommendation for this kind of offense. Bea came over and gave me the phone. All of this was so unfortunate. We’d just had Penelope, Keisha and all of the rest of our prophytes suspended. Now Alpha chapter was going to have more drama.
“So, your treasurer just got the checkbook and is already embezzling money?” Ms. Berry said to me.
“Yes ma’am,” I said, quickly wanting this whole conversation to be over.
Ms. Berry said, “Well, you know being chapter president, you also have to sign each of the bank statements.”
“One just came in. I was going to look at it, but I trusted Trisha had it under control. I have to do better.”
“Yeah, you are going to have to do better. I’ll call the Regional Coordinator now. We will get to the bottom of this.”
Sharon came running over to me and said, “The booklet says that a person who steals money from the sorority will face a three-year suspension, a five hundred dollar fine, and they have to pay the money back.”
“Well, Trisha isn’t going to jail, right?” I said to Ms. Berry. “In the discipline code booklet, it gives a recommendation that’s much lighter than that.”
Ms. Berry said, “Yeah, but that’s just a recommendation. You’ve got to send your own recommendation to the Regional Coordinator that your chapter has signed off on, and I’ve got to send one too. Then she makes her own judgment on whether to take this higher, and with all the trouble that Alpha chapter is already in, with a whole twenty or so girls suspended, she may be willing to throw the complete book at Trisha. She’s in serious trouble. We won’t get a final verdict on what will happen till next semester. All this takes a while.”
Trisha saw the gloom on my face after speaking with Ms. Berry. She cried some more, as if our chapter wasn’t broken enough. Here we were again, with more drama. Could we ever recover?
A month later, Sharon said, “So you the one who told us we been partying too much, but now you drag all of us to the Pi Lambda Beta Valentine’s Day dance.”
“Having to go through all those hearings and stuff over everything with Trisha, I figured y’all needed to come out and relax and release all that pent up frustration.”
“Whatever,” Bea said, giving me an eye like she had me pegged. “Hayden, you just wanted to come because you been dissing your boy.”
Not wanting to entertain a discussion of her analysis, I said, “Dance, you guys, dance.”
There were so many other sororities all over the place. We were so out-numbered because we had lost all the old heads. I couldn’t even see my sisters when we split up. Then again, I really wasn’t looking for them. I was looking for Creed. Bea had it right. I didn’t want to try and find him by myself.
I missed my man. I had been so consumed with school and chapter drama, and catching up with my father, that I didn’t spend enough time with Creed. Because I knew he was frustrated with me, it just seemed easier to keep my distance, even though deep in my heart that was far from what I wanted to do.
“Hey Chandra,” I said to my roommate, as I bumped into her.
“Do I know you?” she turned and said to me sarcastically, letting me know I was no longer her favorite person.
“See, why are you trippin’?”
“I see you out at parties before I see you in our apartment. You’re that busy that you can’t call nobody and check on them, but now you gonna say, ‘Hey,’ all fake and phony. I should be leery of folks who treat me like you do.”
“What do you mean leery?” I asked, getting a little offended. We weren’t joined at the hip. Because I was busy didn’t mean I didn’t care.
“You’re saying hey like we’re tight. Like we’re cool. Like we got a bond, and we don’t have that. I’m going to treat you like you treat me. You don’t deal with me at all, so see ya.”
“Chandra, wait a minute,” I said, totally not wanting our friendship to be over.
“Just like you lost a good man, you lost a good friend. I know you think you and your sorority sisters are all tight and everything, but word is going around that one of them
took some money from y’all. If you left your wallet on my bed, I wouldn’t take any of your money. But you chose to have a bond with a thief over the one we already had. You’ve completely put me down now that you’re a Beta. Whatever girl, I hardly have time for it.”
“It’s not like that. Yeah, I got a lot of stuff going on, but you know I love you. I mean, I didn’t think you were going to take it so personally,” I said to my roommate.
“I didn’t think you were going to diss me severely. When your girls don’t show up you call me, but as long as they’re around you can’t manage to dial my number. I got severe issues with that,” she said before walking away.
“Wait, Chandra, what do you mean I lost my man?”
“Girl, I just saw him over by the restroom, hemmed up with some MEM, lockin’ lips in a serious way. I thought you were the one who called it off. Heck, you been spending all your time with them girls. I didn’t know if you swung another way or something.”
Rolling my eyes, I huffed, “Oh see, Chandra, you didn’t even need to go there with me.”
“I’m just saying you lost your boy.”
And then she was gone for real. I didn’t know if she was pulling my chain just to annoy me or what. However, I walked to the restroom where she said she had seen Creed. I stopped dead in my tracks when I saw him with gorgeous Tammy Knight, the MEM chapter president. I was stunned by their display of affection. His tongue was in her ear.
Part of me wanted to slide in between them and say, “Excuse me, what the heck is going on? Get your crusty, yucky lips off of my guy.” But seeing how much he was enjoying himself, I knew I would be embarrassed. If I couldn’t even make Chandra understand that though I had been absent, it wasn’t because I didn’t care, I knew there was no way Creed would understand. I guess that’s what hurt the most, because even though I wasn’t with him, it wasn’t like I was dying to get with another guy. He was so into Tammy, he didn’t even realize I was standing there.
Lord, where did I go wrong? I asked.
I couldn’t take it anymore, I had to find Bridget. When I spotted her, she was with some of her other MEM friends, but I didn’t care. I tugged on her arm and pulled her over to a corner.
“Ouch,” she said, hitting my hand. “What’s going on? Why you want to embarrass me like that?”
“How you gonna let your president get with my man?”
“Everybody has been teasing her for a couple weeks because she likes underclassmen, but she said he was the hottest thing on the line and she just wants him.”
“And you didn’t tell her he was with your roommate?”
“We’re roommates? Myra, Chandra, and I haven’t even had dinner together lately. We have all been in our own separate worlds. You have been too. I figured that if you were doing your job, Tammy wouldn’t be able to take him, and if she did catch him, you wouldn’t want him anymore. I stayed out of it. You’re a big girl. Why would I get in all that mess and cause more drama?”
“Because I thought you were loyal to me.”
“Like you would help an MEM over a BGP, girl please,” Bridget said to me, shoving me aside. “Plus, Tammy is my prophyte. What was I going to tell her?” she said, hoping I’d understand her plight.
“I guess that’s just it, Bridget. Anything would’ve been better than nothing. Thanks for staying out of it. I lost the only guy I ever cared for.” I could not hold back the tears from dripping down my face.
She shrugged her shoulders. I guess we were just at that point in our relationship where it was clear things weren’t what they used to be. Not only had I lost Creed and Chandra, but it looked like Bridget too.
As I walked away from Bridget, Dena came over and grabbed my arm. “Girl, you’ve gotta come see this.”
“I’m ready to leave. I want to get out of this place.”
“No, Bea’s about to fight.”
“What!” I said, emotionally not able to take another thing.
“Yes, and with your man.”
I was so confused. “I don’t understand.”
“Come here, come on.”
Dena took me back around the corner where I had seen Creed with Tammy.
“You suppose to be with my homegirl and you gonna be with this chick,” Bea said to him.
“I know you not about to put your hand all up in my face,” Tammy said, sporting an ultra sheer pink mini-dress.
“It is an unspoken rule—when a man is taken, all the rest of the folks in sorority land stay back. You don’t want the war to be on, now do you?” Bea said to Tammy fearlessly.
“Girl, looking at you and your oversized behind, I don’t think any of my sorors would have to worry about you taking their man.” Tammy lifted her nose at Bea. “And if your girl was doing her job, this one wouldn’t be free for me to take in the first place.”
“Come on, let’s get out of here,” Creed said to Tammy.
“No, you hold up,” Bea said, pushing him back.
“Wait a minute now, you need to get your hands off me. I ain’t trying to hit no girl, but dang, Hayden had her chance. She was more into working with y’all than she was into keeping me happy. So I’m staying out of the way. I found someone who can manage running a chapter and giving me love,” Creed said harshly.
Just hearing all that hurt so bad.
“Yo’ drunk behind need to go sit down and think about what you talking about,” Bea said, as she got a whiff of his breath.
He was drunk? It didn’t matter, I knew when people were intoxicated what they really thought came out. Creed was hurt and he wasn’t waiting anymore. I put him to the side for two months and that was two months too long.
I went over to Bea and said, “Girl, thanks, but this ain’t your fight.”
“If it hurts you, I’m in it.” She hit my back.
My eyes were teary—this was truly affecting me. Creed licked his lips and faced me for the first time that night. Knowing that I knew he had moved on, he didn’t appear broken.
I collected all the strength I could muster and uttered, “Bea, he’s where he wants to be. I’m cool with that. I don’t want no beef with the MEMs. Tammy’s right. She couldn’t take what was really mine.”
“But Hayden, all you do is talk about Creed. You dragged us here so you could be with him. You wanted tonight to be the ...”
I placed my hand over her mouth and said, “Come on, let’s go.”
Creed attempted to follow me, but Tammy held him back. Alcohol or not, broken heart or not, it was right for us to be apart. Dena and Bea took me into the ladies’ room.
Unable to stop the tears, I said, “I’m not going to let this get to me, y’all. I’m fine, it’s okay.”
“Dang girl, I know we’re high maintenance, but you can’t be losing your guy,” Bea said, getting me a tissue.
“Yeah, Creed was the hottest thing on that line. Shoot, he’s smart too. Everybody’s talking about him. We been telling everybody he was yours and nobody made a move.”
“I appreciate the loyalty, but we’re all young, trying to find our way. I’m just a sophomore in college. What excites me today doesn’t hold my attention tomorrow. Obviously, that’s the same thing going on with him. Good riddance, you know. How would it look for the Beta Gamma Pi president to be crying over some dude? Tah, whatever,” I said to them, going to the mirror and wiping my face.
Bea came over and looked at my reflection. “Ain’t nothing wrong with letting us know you are hurt. Yeah, you are the leader, but you’re human.”
“I hear you girl, but I’m alright.”
I walked out of the bathroom and was surprised to bump into Butch, my former boyfriend, who also happened to be a Pi.
“Dang girl, that dress is fitting you mighty fine. I love you in lavender. Can I have this dance?” he said, almost drooling.
“Yeah,” I said, not really understanding why I let the jerk usher me out onto the dance floor. He slid his hand from my back to my bottom. Though I tried to tug away, he eased me
back to him.
“I knew it was only a matter of time before I got you back in my arms,” he said, with breath so bad I personally wanted to run to the drug store and buy up every bottle of Scope to give to him.
The song couldn’t end soon enough for me. When I tried to pull away, we both saw Creed’s eyes plastered on us.
Creed came onto the dance floor and said, “What’s all this? You letting him touch you all out here and everything.”
“You can’t have your cake and eat it too, Creed,” I said.
“Yeah, step back, man,” Butch told him.
“Man, take your hands off of her,” he said to Butch.
“Everybody in here knows you just dissed her. Everybody is out here looking. Don’t get jealous because I got what you really want.”
“Oh, so it’s like that, Hayden? For real?” he had the nerve to ask me.
With Butch’s hand on my waist, I placed my hand over his, smiled and said to Creed, “Is that a problem?”
13
BREAKDOWN
Looking at my grades, I freaked. “I don’t know what I’m gonna do, Bea. My mom is going to kill me!”
“Parents don’t see progress reports, girl.”
“I know, but two Bs and two Cs? She was ticked off when I went from a 4.0 to a 3.6. I gotta get it together.”
“You get your head out of that rituals book, wake up and start studying some school books, you’ll bring your grades up. Everybody’s been telling you to multitask, but you don’t, Hayden. It’s like you’re taking this president thing so seriously. I’m your first vice and you won’t even let me help you do anything.”
“Alright, alright. It just seems like ever since I took office, we haven’t been able to stand on our own two feet. If we’re not knocked down to our knees, we’re hobbling around on one leg, trying to act like we got it all together.”
“I still can’t believe you convinced the chapter sorors to do outside fundraisers to help Trisha pay back her debt.”
Work What You Got Page 12
