Pretty in Plaid: A Life, A Witch, and a Wardrobe

by Jen Lancaster

  Of course she was prom queen.

  Of course she was.

  I don’t ask if she was a cheerleader. I sort of don’t want to know. I quickly change subjects. “Do you want to go to a fraternity party tonight?” I might not be queen of anything and I never actually earned a crown, but I do know some boys and I can bring parties to the table.

  “No, thanks. I can’t. I’ve got to get ready for bed.” She grabs her shower caddy and heads to the bathroom.

  I sit back on my freshly made bed, smoothing out the wrinkles from the packaging. So I’m living with the prom queen and she won’t go to parties? Fabulous. All those positive feelings I’ve started to develop for this charming girl fly right out the yet-to-be-curtained window.

  Just then, she pokes her head back in the room. “But I can go tomorrow!”

  Hmm. There may be hope for her yet.

  I have my first opportunity to re-wear my white satin gown to a fraternity pledge dance fall semester. The campus dry cleaner hems it for fifteen dollars. My date is in my brother’s fraternity. He’s a junior and he’s really popular and he’s from a big city, so at first glance I’d worry he’s a bit out of my league. But we’re in the same French class and we both have a penchant for loafers. As class progresses, I help tutor him and we become friends. When I mention how much fun the dance sounds, he surprises me by asking me to be his date. And, seriously? He owns his own tux. How cool is that?

  We’re supposed to ride down to Indianapolis on the bus with all the other members, but my date gets tied up during a philanthropic activity92 and returns to campus late. We end up driving down ourselves. We’re not planning to stay over, but if my date drinks too much, then the plan is to crash on the floor in my fraternity big bro Andy’s room.

  I use Andy’s bathroom to change out of my khakis and loafers and into my dress. I’ve gained a few pounds since I wore this last due to drinks and fatty cafeteria food and not having my mother stand over me like the Butter Nazi. All the weight’s gone straight to my chest and . . . it works. When I step out into the main room, all my platonic French class date says is, “Ooh la la!”

  We totally kiss at the dance.93

  Later, I have to use his chest as a pillow when we go to sleep on the floor. All I can think as I start to drift off is that my mom was right about the dress. Ridiculous.

  Dying to Belong

  (Gucci Bag)

  One hundred sorority girls stand before me. They are blond and lovely and thin, and oddly, they all have the same nose. They spill out the front door of the mansion, shoulder to shoulder beside the whitewashed columns of the gracious old portico. They line the walkway almost to the street. And they are singing. Badly.

  Exhaustion plays across their chiseled features, but their beauty isn’t lessened by the lack of sleep. Rather, the delicate purple shadows that have resulted from spending the last fourteen hours affixing ten thousand tinfoil stars to the ceiling only serve to make blue eyes seem more azure. Pale skin looks porcelain, not pasty. Not having a moment to take sustenance results in bodies even more willowy than usual, a slimmer take on perfection.

  Still, the girls seem tired. And cold. And let’s face it, a bit pissed off at having to be tired and cold, standing in the inclement weather without benefit of coats, belting out a reworked Doobie Brothers song for the sixth time this weekend. They shake the mist out of their multihued blond manes and huddle closer together for warmth. Even under bulky sweater dresses and thick woolen kilts, there’s nary a hip or bulge to be seen. Oh, ladies, I muse. If only you had a little body fat.

  From where I’m standing, I see mouths curled into the kind of forced smiles that never reach the eyes. Voices reflect the strain of the weekend. Their collective utter boredom with the whole enterprise is patently obvious. To anyone who didn’t know better, this would appear to be a miserable group, sharing a singularly wretched experience. A stranger would never guess she was witnessing the very apex of campus life.

  And I’m here out front, being battered by sideways rain. Yesterday it was almost eighty degrees, but today it’s in the low fifties with a whipping wind that feels like it’s blowing right through me. Few places can boast the almost schizophrenic weather changes Indiana enjoys. My feet are soaked and I guarantee tomorrow I’ll be red-nosed and watery-eyed, honking into a handkerchief during the parties. Fantastic.

  My umbrella jostles into a hundred and fifty others. My group has been parading up and down Waldron Street all day, engaging in this ritual every hour on the hour. Now we’ve been herded together on the sidewalk in front of yet another mansion. We stand silently, listening, watching, and hoping desperately to belong.

  The air inside the house is a good thirty degrees warmer thanks to a smoky fireplace that roars and crackles and fills the room with mood lighting. I’m standing in what’s supposed to be the best sorority house on campus. I figured the inside of the best would be, I don’t know, fancier? Better appointed? There’s a haze of creosote in the air—maybe it could be better ventilated? And should there really be this many doilies in a dwelling occupied by women in their late teens and early twenties? I’m surprised at the chipped crown molding and the stained carpeting.94 Again, a casual observer would assume this is where women live at the end of their lives, not the beginning. Or a place where teens would wait out the rest of their unplanned pregnancies, idly playing Boggle and Jenga while watching Sally Jessy Raphael on a snowy black-and-white television until birth sets them free from their lacy mauve prison. The best? Is yet to come, apparently.

  Everyone in our rush group has been swapping rumors of the luxury that is living in one of these stately houses. There’s been talk of all the gardeners and houseboys and chefs and maids sororities employ . . . but apparently interior designers are out of the question. Earlier today I went to an event up in the hills of campus. The outside of the building was gorgeous—full of interesting angles and big panes of glass, built right into the hillside. When we stepped in, I saw nothing but wicker and shag carpeting and shiny silver geometric-patterned wallpaper. All that was missing were framed paintings of butterflies and Mr. Roper jumping to the wrong conclusion as he listened in at the door. I turned to one girl in my rush group and asked, “How far are we from the Regal Beagle?” She shushed me, replying, “What’s on the inside doesn’t matter.”

  Interesting.

  While I take in the fussy décor, one of the supermodels/members today serving as a party hostess greets me insincerely. She’s got straight, waist-length white-blond hair. It’s so silky I want to run my fingers through it in a nongay sort of way. Instead, I surreptitiously touch my own dark curls. Due to the humidity, it’s now two inches shorter and six inches wider than it was when I left the dorm this morning. I briefly consider gathering it up into a ponytail until I realize it would look like an enormous pompom stuck to the back of my head.

  The hostess demands I give her the jacket I have bunched up under my arm. I reluctantly hand it over. I’m not cold anymore—it’s just that I learned far too late today that one does not wear a jean jacket to sorority rush.95 How was I supposed to know? Our rush brochure said this was a casual round of parties. Cas-u-al. And denim is casual, right? Just ask Levi-Strauss. Formal rush doesn’t start until January. What we’re doing right now is supposed to be informal. I should get extra credit for following the rules to the letter.

  Unfortunately for me, there’s nothing informal about how the other rushees present themselves. They’re all in cashmere and pencil skirts, silk blouses and high heels, which, I would like to point out again, are not casual. In theory, my pin-striped capri pants, knockoff Forenza sweater, and white oxford should be perfect. They aren’t. And I was already slightly uncomfortable because I dropped my tube of concealer when I was getting ready and I’ve got a big flesh-tone splotch that I’m hiding under my faux pearls. Then I noticed my pant cuff had come unsewn so I fixed it with a quick staple. I thought I was employing a brilliant fix at the time, but now I’m second-guessin
g myself. I doubt anyone else here got dressed with the aid of office supplies.

  Seeing all these girls in their rush finery, I feel exactly like I did in fourth grade when everyone but me remembered to wear green on St. Patrick’s Day. Even Joshua Greenblatt, renowned nose picker and former paste eater, skated through on a technicality by virtue of the alligator embroidered on his shirt. I’m worried that any minute now my very Irish principal is going to come in and tap me with a shillelagh.96

  A different but also stunning blonde grabs the coats from the hostess and hangs them on a big metal rack in the front hallway before retreating into the kitchen. The scuttlebutt is that the ugly ones are stuck doing grunt work behind closed doors during rush. If the girl I just saw is what this house considers ugly, I may be completely out of my depth.

  While I wait to be escorted further, I scan the coatrack. Yeah, I’m definitely the only one here with a jean jacket. I look at the labels inside the other coats, which are all tailored wools and muted tweeds. I see Evan-Picone, Anne Klein, and Ann Taylor—did some girls’ moms get really fancy with the laundry pen when they put their daughters’ names in these coats or are those actual designers? I mean, certainly I’m a fan of Guess and Gloria Vanderbilt but I’ve never heard of these people. Are they important? Do they matter? Does it matter that I don’t know if they matter?

  I’ve always been a huge fan of certain pieces of clothing, not because of who made them or how expensive they were but because these pieces made me feel pretty. My Girl Scout sash is among my all-time favorite items, yet it couldn’t have cost more than five dollars. I’m wondering, has the equation changed? Is feeling pretty in what I’m wearing no longer enough? Does it have to have an expensive label attached to count?

  We gather in the formal living room, watching overly enunciated, wooden skits about the benefits of sisterhood. Um, ladies, you do not have to sell me on joining. I’m in—just say the word. On this campus, Greek life is everything.

  Everyone says I have to be in a sorority to have fun at this school. Sure, I’m a little sister at a fraternity and that’s been a blast, but apparently until I put on my own letters, I don’t know from fun. According to people in my dorm, it’s imperative to get a bid from the right house. I’m told if I get into a place without the appropriate status, I may as well not even bother. But what makes a chapter the right house? Or the best house? What gives them their status? Obviously it’s not the furnishings.

  One of my friends joined the wrong house at IU; its reputation on campus is as a home to a big bunch of dogs/losers. How can that be? One of the sisters was a homecoming princess. Another was the Little 500 queen. A third became the president of Panhel, the society that governs all the sororities. How are any of these girls considered losers? Especially when I’ve met some of them and they could not have been more friendly or outgoing?

  Still, I’ve seen plenty of my fraternity friends reverse their judgment of a girl based on her sorority affiliation. Sometimes the only difference between an average and an attractive girl (or vice versa) is two or three little Greek letters sewn on the back of a pair of sweatpants.

  All I know is I want letters of my own.97 I want common symbols like kites and keys and arrows to have a special meaning for me. I want secret handshakes and candlelit rituals. I want enforced study time where I have to sit with everyone at a big wooden table and tackle statistics homework. I want to wear my shortened prom dress to a dance at a midlevel hotel somewhere glamorous, like Indianapolis. I want to sip Diet Coke on a gracious old portico late at night. I want to be the pretty girl standing on a chilly porch, dreadfully tired of the whole rush ritual. Please let me in—I promise I’ll do a good job.

  Since I’m here in the best house, I want them to see that I’ll be a quality addition. I’m trying to be as engaged and enthusiastic as I can. I want to seem like I’m really, really into the skit, but I’m sitting too close to the fire. I keep losing focus because I’m hoping my sweater doesn’t melt and that I don’t leave a sweaty butt-print on the tile when I stand.

  Skits complete, our massive rush class is broken into smaller factions. Each group of five rushees is ushered into a different bedroom by three members. Except these aren’t bedrooms because there are no beds. In big sorority houses, all the girls sleep in bunks on the top floor in what’s called a cold-air dorm. The fire code requires a certain amount of fresh air when there are that many bodies in a room, so all the windows are permanently open. Pledges are in charge of going around to wake everyone up at appointed times, but since no one really trusts notoriously flighty pledges to do it right, everyone has a plug-in alarm clock. Plus each girl sleeps with an electric blanket, so all those cords combined with all the clock cords shoved into a few outlets seems like the real fire hazard to me.98 By the way, want to know what sorority girls don’t like to talk about during rush? Amps and volts determination. My guess is I’m not getting into Chi Omega.

  We’re led up to a room a third as big as my dorm room. Even though I can tell its occupants made an effort to clean up, this place is still cramped to the point of claustrophobic. Everyone must get ready in here because it smells like the perfume counter in a department store. The closet is stuffed so full the door won’t close and each of the dresser drawers appears to be bulging. How do four girls keep all their possessions in this tiny space? When sisters complained about how hard it is at the end of the semester when everyone has to swap rooms at the same time, I helpfully suggested a less-is-more approach in regard to personal belongings.

  Pretty sure the Thetas aren’t asking me back, either.

  A couple of the rushees get to sit on the futon under the eaves, but because I’m wearing pants, I’m stuck on the ground. Again. Between the eight of us and the futon, we cover every available bit of floor.

  When I try to sit Indian-style, I notice the top of my knee-highs inching past my stapled pant cuffs. This has to be another faux pas, so I fold my legs up underneath myself, wedging my calves under the lip of the futon.

  I’m approaching this rush business all wrong, I can tell. I wish I knew how to do it right. I memorized the rush brochure, but given the jean jacket fiasco, that obviously wasn’t the best plan. I’ve since learned other girls in my rush group spent their summers getting recommendation letters from sorority alumni. Because of these letters, lots of them were invited to pre-rush barbecues and teas, so they’re going into these houses having already made valuable contacts. I haven’t known one person.

  Some of the rushees have the advantage of being friends with the sorority members because they met as little sisters at the right fraternity parties. I came close to getting a little sister bid at the prestigious Alpha Chi Rho house. They asked me back a couple of times. However, I took myself out of consideration when I had to leave the final picnic party early because I’d gotten my p-e-r-i-o-d and I was not about to participate in the wheelbarrow races.

  Of course my roommate Joanna got a bid there.

  And she gained major points with me when she turned it down, opting to be a little sister at the lesser house because they were so respectful to her.

  I became a little sister at my brother’s house. His is a small house with fun guys and I always have a great time there, but it’s not one of the right houses, either. Who knew that the politics of the Greek system would be more involved than some United Nations negotiations?

  Going into rush, my assumption was every sorority would throw membership at my feet because I’m cute and I have lots of activities listed on the back of my rush card. I’m kind of devastated to realize no one cares if I was managing editor of my high school newspaper, or that I emceed the senior talent show. And the Miss Cow Town pageant? I should get extra credit for that. I was Miss Photogenic, after all. Girls should want me in their house, looking adorable in all those group huggy-huggy pictures pinned to their French bulletin boards, yes? Regardless of whatever big-fish status I finally earned in my high school, it definitely didn’t translate to college. S
orority rush has turned me into a guppy again.

  Rumor has it that the more exclusive chapters like this one will only take girls whose parents are rich. Mine aren’t loaded, but they aren’t, like, white trash or anything. Heck, we went to Hawaii for my high school graduation and I got a pearl ring, too! Although we’re only middle class, my parents can afford my dues or else I wouldn’t be rushing in the first place. Why must my family be totally wealthy? And how come everyone’s so curious about what Dad does for a living? Shit, I’m not even sure.

  Polly, a sophomore from my rush group, says she roomed with a girl last year whose father was vice president at Super-Huge Investment Bank. When her roommate went to parties, she told everyone, “My dad is vice president at Super-Huge Investment Bank.” She even hired a limousine to take her around during formal rush. And yet she eventually got cut by every sorority. How does that work? Maybe you’re supposed to be rich but not talk about it? If you’re not supposed to talk about it, then why does everyone keep asking?

  We go around the room and say who we are and where we’re from. The first rushee asked is perched on the arm of the futon. She’s from the Chicago area. She’s got flaming red hair, Cupid’s bow lips, and an accent like Dan Akroyd’s. She says she’s from Barrington, which causes a few people to squeal and then play the hey-do-you-know? game. Another girl with streaky blond hair is from a suburb of Detroit called Grosse Pointe. Why is she so damn smug? The last rushee is from Baltimore. Other than me, not one person here is from anywhere in Indiana. I suspect I just failed another test I wasn’t aware I had to take, which is not fair. This is a state school—it stands to reason that some of us would be from this state.

  The sisters field everyone’s queries about sorority life. Out of respect for their time, I don’t chime in with my own. I’ve already heard the answers to every single thing anyone could ask half a dozen times at other parties today. I know what the cold-air dorm is. We all know what the cold-air dorm is. I could write a thesis on the goddamned cold-air dorm. Brush your teeth, wash your face, put on your jammies, then walk up the stairs to your bed. You’ve been doing this for eighteen years, ladies99—the concept is not that foreign.