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

by Jen Lancaster

  Having exhausted any and all conversation about sleeping in a room with open windows, someone brings up the topic of fashion. Even though I read Seventeen and Glamour every month, I’m already thought of as the Jean Jacket Jackass in my rush group. I stay quiet for fear of not being a credible source.

  The suburban Chicago girls are carrying plain tan purses by someone named Coach, Baltimore’s got a pricey-looking leather doctor bag, and Grosse Pointe is carrying what I swear she calls a . . . Lewie? Everyone nods in awe and I can actually see her stock rising with the sisters. What’s funny is Grosse Pointe’s bag is all brown- and mustard-colored, covered in the initials LV. It is the opposite of pretty. And I could have sworn her name was Natasha—why would she sport someone else’s monogram?

  Seriously? Who the fuck is Lewie and why does he determine what sorority wants me? And why was this not in the rush booklet? I mean, everyone here seems to be following a set of rules I never saw! Did they get different books? How come I’m so unprepared? If I was supposed to be dripping in jewelry or carrying an expensive bag, couldn’t someone have told me? I could have borrowed stuff or faked it or something. All the rush booklet said was to be myself, but clearly that is not working because no one’s responded positively to the few things I’ve had to say. I wish my roommate Joanna was in this group with me. She’s genuine and charming and always finds a way to include me.

  This room is so cramped that I’m practically sitting on one of the members. When I shift, trying to get some feeling back into my feet, I accidentally tap the sister with long white-blond hair. Her face is a study in contrast because she’s got black brows and piercing blue eyes, kind of like a gorgeous Siberian husky.

  When I bump her, she spins her head around, whipping me with her hair. Her name is Janine and she’s cut me off almost every time I’ve spoken. Maybe she’s cranky because she’s hungry? She didn’t touch her ice cream cookie sandwich when we were downstairs having snacks.100 “So . . .” She squints at my rush name tag—a construction-paper playing card with Jen spelled out in tiny poker chips. “Um, Jean, who made your purse?”

  I’m carrying an awesome woven-hemp Congo bag striped in all shades of pink, tan, and brown. When I went to Boston a couple of years ago, I walked through the Harvard campus and saw tons of preppy college girls carrying their books in bags like this. I figured if it worked for them, it should work for me.101

  “Oh, it’s Jen,” I tell her apologetically, like it’s my fault she screwed up my name. “I’m not sure who makes it. I got it at a Marshalls in Boston.” I’m so pleased to finally have a non-Indiana answer to share with the group. Boston is way more metropolitan than stupid old Barrington or Baltimore. “Best part? I only paid seven dollars!”

  Janine’s curled lip tells me everything I need to know. If Joanna were here, she’d have been socially savvy enough to stop me before I got to the Marshalls mention, but it’s too late. My fate in the best house is sealed and my status in the room morphs from “bothersome” to “nonexistent.” And I learn that in the big book of Wrong Things to Say During Sorority Rush, “I got it at Marshalls” surely ranks at the top.

  My ego is so bruised from rush that when it comes time to pledge, I accept a bid at a lesser house. They fought to get my interest, so I choose them knowing I’ll automatically be bestowed with big-fish status within the chapter. Yet I quietly resent my sorority for wanting me, because I didn’t want them.

  Even though no one at Janine’s house was nice to me, I wanted the girls in the best house to see that I was a diamond in the rough. I wanted them to look past my jean jacket and wide hair and Indiana residency to see that I was worthy of membership. I wanted them to take me in and turn me into someone better. I wanted to wear their letters to show everyone on campus that I was a part of something really special and exclusive. But they didn’t want me.

  Joanna’s sunny personality, good looks, and affable nature earn her a spot in Janine’s sorority. She plasters her side of the room with arrows and angels and takes to working wine and silver blue into her everyday wardrobe. She only removes her letters when we do laundry and she’s forced to wear something from her life before pledgeship. We remain good friends—great friends—even though she spends more and more time at her new sorority. I pretend I’m not jealous when boys who never gave her a second glance suddenly get interested when they see what house she joined.

  Due to my own poor attitude, I don’t bond with any of the other pledges or sisters in my new sorority, thus all the rituals I so looked forward to feel flat and forced. When they invite me to drink Diet Coke on the portico, I decline. When they line up to study, I return to my dorm to hang out with Joanna or I call my friends Andy and Roni. I can’t be bothered with my sisters’ enthusiasm and I never wear their letters unless required. And when my thoughtless yet intentionally ungrateful actions get me tossed out prior to the May initiation date, I’m relieved rather than distressed.

  The object lesson I take from rush is that it’s all about the right bag. Maybe it’s stupid and vain, but it’s the truth. So, the summer before my sophomore year, I make a vow to myself—I may not be in a sorority but damn it, I will return to campus with a designer bag. I will not, however, return to rush. My grades aren’t great and I’m not into facing that kind of rejection again.

  I apply for jobs all over town the second I return home from freshman year. I could babysit for the neighbors, but that only pays a buck an hour. (Also, I hate their children.) I need more if I’m going to make my designer purse dreams a reality.

  I look for work in the malls in Fort Wayne. I so want to land a position at The Limited, because if I do I’ll surely return to school with the right wardrobe. I come very close to getting hired there but the day before my final interview, I decide to trim my bangs so I’m tidier and more pulled together. Even though I’ve lived with curly hair for eighteen years, I didn’t take shrinkage into account as I wielded my mother’s sewing scissors. I showed up to my final interview with half an inch of fringe between my hairline and my forehead. Guess what? Regardless of how well she might sell Outback Red shirts, no one wants to hire Frankenstein.

  My blue-collar town is full of people desperate for employment and I find myself losing out on gigs to those who can keep working come September. It takes almost a month, but eventually, with some fresh growth and bangs plastered flat by a bottle of gel, I’m hired on at a Subway franchise. In a scathing indictment of the local educational system, I get the job based on my ability to solve simple math problems on the application. No, I can’t add or subtract in my head, either . . . but I can fit a calculator into my Congo bag.

  I’m not a fan of food service and I loathe the idea of spending the summer slinging sandwiches in an airless kitchen. Even though I’ve got a solid work ethic, there’s something particularly grueling about this job, namely, Tuna Day. Instead of my usual routine of searing off my fingerprints on a pan full of molten meatballs, scorching tender wrist skin on oven racks full of freshly baked bread, or losing a thumb tip to the meat slicer, on Tuna Day I take industrial-sized cans of StarKist and squeeze each bit of meat over and over again until every drop of oil and water is gone.

  Do you know how much liquid there is in an industrial-sized can of tuna?

  It’s like a clown car, only for fish juice.

  Crush and press, crush and press, extract, expel, constrict for what seems like hours on end. No matter how much I try to angle the tuna juice away from my face when I squeeze it, I always manage to end up with an eyeful and spend the rest of the day squinting at customers like Popeye.

  When the oily backsplash hits my cheeks, I sometimes forget and try to wipe it away with my forearms and the juice runs directly into my armpit. Don’t even get me started on trying to extract tuna-whiff from my skin. I spend two months reeking of low tide.

  Even though my whole body aches after every Tuna Day, I’m confident it will be worth it when I finally run my (stinky, burnt) hands over the embossed canvas of
a new bag.

  Now that I understand their cache, I desperately want a Gucci, but they’re too expensive. Technically, I’ve never actually checked the price because they’re kept in a locked display case at L. S. Ayres. Anything under glass is out. In the farming community where I live, beef is king; people in Cow Town just can’t handle that much tuna.

  I decide that Liz Claiborne would be a more than adequate substitution for a Gucci bag and my fingers tingle in anticipation of being able to run them over the raised triangular nubs pressed into the shiny vinyl. I debate all summer over which Liz bag is the Real Me. Whenever I go to Fort Wayne, I stand in the accessories department trying on every model. Am I more of a sunflower-yellow-square girl or a big-red-feedbag kind of person? Clutch or satchel? Tote or wristlet? I finally settle on a sweet little rectangular number in turquoise, just big enough to carry a wallet, some powder, a pencil, and a fifth of peach schnapps. Adding to its glamour and cache is a zipper placket and strap trimmed in genuine leather.

  The high point of my summer comes when I hand the Ayres cashier a wad of ever-so-slightly tuna-tinged twenties. Once purchased and back at school, I feel like a movie star every time I carry it.

  I love this purse with a singular passion.

  For five months.

  Until Janine sails into my organizational communications class the first day of second semester sophomore year with a tiny Gucci binocular bag swinging from her shoulder.

  My own new purse emboldens me. I’m good enough to talk to this girl. I’m fun and relatively smart. (Smart enough to at least do stuff like carry a calculator because I’m aware of my limitations.) More important, I’m in touch with my ability to work hard enough to turn dreams into reality. If I’m not her sister, that’s her loss. I speak right up. “Hi, Janine,” I say.

  Her arched black brow practically disappears into her hairline. “Do I know you?”

  “Yeah, you do. We met during informal rush last year and you live down the hall from my best friend Joanna. I’m Je—” I start to say.

  “Jean Jacket!” she interrupts. “Of course!”

  They seriously need to update those fucking rush brochures.

  I’d placed my winter coat and the Liz on the empty chair next to me in the lecture hall when I got in a few minutes ago. I scramble to grab them as Janine claims the seat, but I’m not fast enough. She picks up my bag with two fingers and wrinkles her pert nose with a small moue of disapproval. “Yours? Ew.”

  I nod and take it from her, stuffing it under my seat. I want to punch her in her surgically altered nose. I want to grasp a handful of her glossy hair . . . and then yank it so hard I leave a bald patch. But I’m too stunned to act because I never realized people like this existed outside of a Revenge of the Nerds movie.

  Why did I want her as a sister? This bitch is exactly why sororities get a bum rap in the first place. She’s the kind of person who perpetuates the idea of right, lesser, and best houses.

  I’d like to say I take her comments in stride, chalking up her attitude to too much peroxide and not enough calories. But my hubris has a first name . . . and it’s not J-e-a-n.

  The attached note reads simply, “Sending under protest—I predict this is going to end badly. Love, Mom.”

  Nice try, Mom.

  I wad up the piece of floral stationery and toss it in the trash. Then I tear open the envelope to reveal the Big Kahuna, the Holy Grail, the piece de résistance. There it is, my ticket out of here. Measuring in at only 3⅛ by 2⅛ inches, this tiny jewel of a card with the winking hologram of a dove may well change my life.

  I return to my room and plop down on the bottom bunk, leaning against the gray-green cinder-block wall. My roommate Lisa and I are stuck in the worst dorm on campus. I spent all of last spring assuming I’d live in my sorority house, so I never bothered with housing registration. Once I was booted, I figured I’d move into the extra room in my friend Roni’s apartment across from my brother’s fraternity. How convenient would that be? If the guys did something like set another couch on fire in the street or throw coffee cups at cop cars, I could be there in a minute to witness it!102

  Then, right before I returned to campus, my parents vetoed my proposed living arrangement and the only place left was the loser dorm. Lisa was assigned here because she’s from Florida and didn’t know any better when she filled out her form. She arrived with nothing but a trunk full of sweaters. She’d gotten the book about Indiana’s punishing winter, but never learned about its August heat and stifling humidity.

  Lisa looks up from her homework and I tell her about Mom’s note. We laugh and roll our eyes. Moms. They don’t know anything .

  My new credit card arrived at my parents’ house a while ago but my mother refused to send it to me until she couldn’t take my whining anymore. I’d applied solely because the company was giving out giant candy bars for filling out the application—Hershey’s with Almonds! It never even occurred to me that a penniless college student could get a card, let alone have the opportunity to abuse one. Sure, I like spending money, but I’m used to earning it. Purchasing something on credit is a totally foreign concept to me.

  For the past month, Mom’s been in a lather about the potentially stupid things I might buy. For all her forbidding, she’s actually the one who inadvertently planted the seed for what I’m about to do. Lisa mimics, “I predict this is going to end badly!” as I make the decision to skip all my afternoon classes. Then I slip my new VISA into my Liz bag and head out on my mission.

  A thrill courses through me.

  This is the greatest day of my life.

  This is almost better than winning the lottery, or getting a bid from every right house on campus.

  I feel almost illicit as the woman in front of me opens the display case.

  Oh, yes. I’m about to join the very best sorority, the most exclusive group of girls. Nope, I won’t be lording about in harps or anchors or skulls. Instead, my pledge pin will be covered in locking Gs. That’s right, I’m about to become the proud owner of a Gucci purse.

  The first bag I inspect is the little binocular-case-looking one Janine has. I’d be too obvious if I came in with her exact same bag, wouldn’t I?

  Hey, how much did she spend on this thing anyway? I gasp when I look at the price tag and my whole body quivers. Whoa. I knew it would be a hundred—I just didn’t know it would be that many hundred.

  For the record, neither Andy nor Roni supports this little endeavor so they wouldn’t come with me. Roni says there will always be mean girls ready to make others feel bad about themselves. Showing Janine I can accessorize, too, proves nothing. Andy says I should suck it up, move on, and stop skipping class. Joanna doesn’t know what I’m planning, but I get the feeling she’d not be behind me, either.

  If I could let my vendetta go, I would. I wish I didn’t feel like Janine had everything over me—she’s in the best sorority, she’s thinner than I could ever be, she answers more questions right in class, and she’s got the coloring of a purebred sled dog. I hate her and yet part of me still wants to garner her approval, if only to have the chance to be the one who does the rebuffing.103 A Gucci purse may well be the key.

  So . . . why do I feel like I’m drowning here in the middle of the accessories department at L. S. Ayres? Why can’t I catch my breath?

  I picture Andy and Roni’s sincere faces, imploring me to walk away. Then I imagine the surprise on Janine’s face when I arrive with a better bag than hers. I’m so torn.

  My ego’s saying go for it, but my gut’s telling me this is dumb. The worst part is I wonder if my mother wasn’t on to something, because here I am, credit card an hour out of the envelope, and I’m about to spend what it would take me a whole summer of part-time minimum wage to earn. That’s an ocean of tuna juice.

  I look at a few other styles. I want them all so much. However, I can’t bring myself to pull the trigger on this transaction. Yeah, my pride is injured but not two hundred and fifty dollars’ worth.


  I thank the clerk and tell her I like everything, but I’m not in love. I’m about to back away from the counter when she says, “Wait! We just got a new one in. Let me grab it.” Moments later, she returns with a big white cloth bag with drawstrings and the Gucci logo in the center. “Here we go.”

  “It’s cute,” I say, examining it from all sides. “Although a white bag isn’t that practical for me. I’d get it dirty pretty fast and I don’t like the handles—they’d dig into my shoulder.”

  “Ma’am,” she replies patiently, “this is the dust cover.”

  Okay, then.

  She opens the drawstrings and pulls out a football-sized bag. Rectangular but still rounded, this is small enough to wear to a party, but big enough that I could stuff an address book and some sunglasses in it. And maybe some gin. I marvel at the buttery leather lining that’s inside104 and run my hands over the jaunty green and red cloth strip dividing the two zippy pockets on the outside. The strap is long and leather and adjustable with a shiny buckle.

  I stammer, “I . . . I . . . I can’t.”

  “Want to take it for a spin?” the clerk asks.

  Tossing Liz on the floor, I step over to the full-length mirror. The moment I slip the Gucci bag over my head and tuck my arm through the strap, I am transformed. I am taller. Thinner. My skin is clearer. My eyes brighter. My hair less fuzzy.

  I am magnificent.

  My mother’s voice, which has been riding shotgun with me since the second I opened the mail today, suddenly disappears and all I can hear is Do it, do it, do it.