Sorority

by Genevieve Sly Crane

  —Do you believe in any of it? she asked.

  —Any of what?

  —Is it worth lying for?

  —Yes, I said. I have no doubts.

  —It’s doubt. Singular. You have no doubt.

  —Are you actually sad? I asked her.

  She looked at the ceiling above her, unblinking.

  —Sometimes, she said. When I believe that it’s real. Are you?

  —No, I said. But I didn’t like her.

  I could see that she was struggling with liking my honesty or hating it. She crossed her arms over her body, like she was in her own coffin.

  —We were in love, she said.

  —I know, I said.

  —Everyone likes to act like they knew. But if they knew the whole time, why did we have to be so secretive? Why couldn’t you all be accepting? Why did we have to hide?

  —There are regulations, I said.

  —Society, and shit. And image. It’s all such a sham. Is that what you’re going to say? Did you think we were going to infect you?

  —No, I said. And then I had one of those moments, like I do in my meetings where I felt like I had something real to say. This is a moment for unity, I thought. Those had been good words. Sisters had liked them, and I liked saying them.

  —People just want to belong, I said. And sometimes we have to set up expectations so sisters can meet them. It makes people feel safe.

  —It’s all such a sham, she said again.

  There was no way to reach her, and I did not really want to anyway.

  I left her in Room Epsilon with the door open. I walked past Nicole’s apartment, through the halls to my room, where I lay in bed and thought of the consultant—Do you think I’m just here to be fucked with? Yes, I thought, that’s the point. That is how we pass time.

  14

  Autopsy Report

  COUNTY OF SPRINGFIELD

  DEPARTMENT OF CORONER

  AUTOPSY REPORT

  I performed an autopsy on the body of

  No.

  2008-013-46

  GLENN, MARGOT GRACE

  at THE DEPARTMENT OF THE CORONER

  in the city of Springfield, Massachusetts on 28 April 2008 @ 0900 HOURS

  From the anatomic finding and pertinent history I ascribe the death to:

  A) Due to or as a consequence of SUDDEN CARDIAC DEATH

  B) Due to or as a consequence of VENTRICULAR FIBRILLATION

  Other conditions contributing but not related to the immediate cause of death:

  A) METHYLENEDIOXY-METHAMPHETAMINE EFFECT

  B) BENZODIAZEPINE EFFECT

  Anatomical Summary:

  1. Toxicology findings (see separate report)

  a) Methylenedioxy-methamphetamine, alprazolam, and clonazepam identified in blood samples

  b) Methylenedioxy-methamphetamine and alprazolam identified in stomach contents

  2. Evidence of therapy

  a) Resuscitative abrasion-contusion of central chest

  b) Resuscitative fractures of sternum, right 3rd, 4th and 5th ribs, and left 4th and 5th ribs

  c) Resuscitative alveolar hemorrhage of lungs

  d) Resuscitative transmural hemorrhage of stomach

  CIRCUMSTANCES:

  The decedent is a 21-year-old woman who was found unresponsive on the bedroom floor in room Epsilon of her sorority house on April 25th, 2008. She was taken to Mercy-Pratt Medical Center, where she was pronounced dead.

  CONTENTS FOUND ON THE DECEDENT AT TIME OF DEATH/DISCOVERY:

  The decedent had one black denim miniskirt and one light blue pair of underwear that are urine-stained. The decedent had one gray bra and a dark red polyester blouse cut vertically in the process of attempted resuscitation. There is a vomit stain on the right shoulder of the blouse. There are no shoes or socks. There is no jacket. The decedent’s Massachusetts driver’s license and Bank of America debit card are located in the posterior right pocket of the denim miniskirt. The left front pocket contains a packet of cigarette rolling papers. All items are in a two-gallon plastic biohazard bag and will be returned to the parents at the conclusion of this autopsy by a social worker, most likely Joy, who will give them too many pamphlets.

  EXTERNAL EXAMINATION:

  The body is identified by toe tags and is that of an unembalmed refrigerated adult Caucasian female who appears to be approximately 20 years old. The body weighs 114 pounds and measures 64 inches in length. Lividity indicates a right lateral recumbent position upon death.

  The body is young. The body is blue-eyed and has a long, sixteen-inch plait of straight black hair braided to the right side of the skull and secured with a purple elastic. The body has six bobby pins in the hair. The body has an excessive amount of black kohl around the eyes. The body has three ear piercings in each ear and is wearing one set of faux pearl studs in the lobes.

  The body has a four-inch bruise over its sternum that indicates an attempted resuscitation, most likely by Dwayne Ellison, the young medic who has hands like oven mitts. Dwayne has a dogmatic belief that he can bring bodies back if he compresses them hard enough. (NOTE: Someone needs to tell Dwayne that bodies are not walnuts; they cannot be cracked to unveil the meat of a soul buried within.)

  The body has a tattoo on its right hip, three inches by two and a half inches, of a dove holding an olive branch in a facsimile of Picasso’s work. The legs are shaved. The fingernails are short and painted in light pink polish. There is an oblong scar less than one inch long on the left knee. The soles of the feet are dirty. Three superficial puncture wounds approximately 1/4 inch each are located on the ball of the right foot. (NOTE: This is conducive to reporting that the decedent took off her shoes on the walk back to her residence during the early morning of her demise.) The toenails are painted light green. It is an unflattering color.

  The body has no right to be here. The body does not belong under my instruments. I submit to you, friends, a stupid body. Do not allow the undiagnosed arrhythmia to be an excuse. This body was a fool. This body had two parents: a father who will read this report in horror at the words lividity, rigor, abrasion-contusion and wonder if he could have done something—if he had taken her to a cardiologist and a youth group would this be different?—and a mother who will be inconsolable enough by the fact that this report exists. She will be unable to read the contents. This body is the reason why my insolent intern James will have to run the autoclave later. This body is the reason why I had to reschedule my annual physical for the second time. Nobody picks a convenient time to die in this godforsaken county.

  This body came from a fancy, mostly white overprivileged college up the road and is likely already the subject of urban legends about the dangers of recreational drug use, but more bodies will come over the years with the same affliction anyway, each of them with the faulty opinion that they are immune to the rules of mortality. This body will likely make the news because she is young and pretty and white.

  This body is another reason why I hope my daughter Maya gets into Notre Dame.

  This body deserved to be more than the parts on my table. The body had not fallen in slow-plodding adult love, or carried a baby, or seen a wrinkle, or paid a phone bill. The body is lost to all futures and now it lies here, cut down the linea alba, its pale organs shining, its hands slightly curled, its mouth agape at the horror of what it has done to itself.

  I affirm that all of the information above is true to the best of my knowledge:

  LaTisha Majors

  LATISHA MAJORS

  SPRINGFIELD COUNTY CORONER

  15

  Fisher Cat

  -STELLA-

  May 2008

  From a distance, the cabin was pretty, with little dabs of vines on the exterior and a green tin roof. This was according to Grant, handsome Grant, who was so good and so charming that I believed him. I believed him on the drive up when he told me about the time his father was struck by lightning and survived, and I believed him when he said that he once caught a flu
ke that came back to life on his cutting board hours later. I believed him when he said that he was going to be something more than his family’s HVAC business. Of course he was, how could he not be, with those cheekbones, with his thick hair that fell over an eyebrow without effort, dark as otters’ fur. There was something strange about his handsomeness, which I think, maybe, is true of all handsome people. In game shows when the host calls on an audience member they’re usually stunned—who, me?!—and their friend has to say—yes it’s you! get up there!—before the contestant runs up to stand under the lights and beam. That’s how Grant made me feel. I reached a hand across the gearshift and rested it on his leg, then regretted it. It seemed like a manly gesture. But he kept talking about the cabin, the fisher cats, the species of trees, and I drowsed a few times, stirring whenever the Jeep hit a rut or a branch reached out and dragged a limb against the side panels.

  • • •

  It had been a lot, you know, on our house. It was nobody’s fault and I never would have wished to be somewhere else but a break from them was in order, we were tired, over a month of sadness was heavy on my sweet girls. Twang and Deirdre and Ruby took it hardest, I think. She was their family. In the real world families fall apart in this sort of situation but our girls stayed. They’d darkened but they stayed. Twang stared at corners when she thought no one was watching her, like a ghost had pulled up a chair. And poor Deirdre, she stopped drinking and quit her job and spent the last month of the semester sleeping in her room. I’d leave plates of food on her desk and she’d say thank you from the bed and nothing else. Ruby was furious all the time.

  —All of you are too young to suffer through this, the minister had said to us after the service, which was kind but not consoling, not really.

  But Grant was consoling. The sisters hadn’t gone next door to Zeta Sigma for three weeks after Margot died, but he hadn’t seen anyone else. He’d waited for me. He was the one who suggested the cabin when classes ended, this place his big brother owned north of I-95, with a skylight cut in the tin roof, and a woodstove and a big bed, he said.

  I’ve always been a romantic thinker so I had this image of me in an oversized red flannel shirt, legs for him. Grant stoking the wood, and rain on tin, and sleeping on his chest while he stroked my hair. All of these images were possible, inevitable, even. It was the best time with him, the time before either person says love but each is earning the letters for it, one at a time. So my sisters mourned and I mourned and drifted a little, thinking about what to pack, what to wear, how to cover my black eye, and then felt guilty that I didn’t feel guilty enough about these plans, while in the moment around me my girls suffered.

  The road was too narrow for the Jeep; we walked the last half-mile. I wore jean shorts even though it was chilly, a navy sweatshirt that was too long at the arms, aviator sunglasses, and my hair carefully braided in two, so that later, when I undid it by the fire, it would shake loose in fairy-tale waves. The two of us walked through a spiderweb. Grant swatted it off in one smooth motion but I could feel it pinned in my hair, even after three swipes, like an invisible veil.

  —Poor thing, I said. We’re home wreckers!

  He grabbed my hand with a surge of affection.

  —You know what I like about you, Stella? If you saw a mouse, you wouldn’t climb on a chair. You’d find a way to feed it.

  —I always liked Stuart Little, I said.

  —Who?

  But we were at the clearing. The cabin sat in the middle, next to a covered woodpile. The outhouse was farther. I followed him up the steps to a narrow screened-in porch. The holes in the screens had been lovingly patched, and there was a fresh coat of yellow paint around the sills and doorframe. A burner and propane tank sat in the corner. He gestured to it.

  —Your kitchen, my darling.

  —Divine, I said.

  There wasn’t a lock on the door, just an eye hook catch. It worried me, but not enough to say something aloud. I quieted myself by poking around the cabin. Everything I touched, Grant commented on, mansplaining it to me as if I were a child. He showed me where the flint was, and how to turn the vents open on the woodstove, and where he kept the washbasin, the extra bedding, the newspaper and kindling. He hung the shotgun on its rack over the table and put a box of bullets by the drainage sink. Months ago, we’d fired some practice rounds into the deep tract of woods behind Zeta Sigma, spattering tree trunks with our shaky shots. I’d asked him then if what we were doing was legal, and he’d told me yes, as long as the cops didn’t get called.

  He took me outside to show off the water pump. He explained about the red tint in the water, how it was good water, don’t worry, full of iron and manganese.

  —Water, Helen, water! I said.

  —You’re just so damn funny, he said. Really. You’re a barrel of laughs. His face shifted. Take off your sunglasses, he said.

  —No.

  —I want to see it in the light, he said.

  —Why?

  —Just take them off.

  I obeyed.

  —I bruise easy, I said.

  —Poor kid, he said, and held me close, pressing my face into his collarbone. I won’t let it happen again. I swear on Helen’s water pump.

  And of course I believed him.

  Later, when he went out to pee, I put some water on the stove and snooped around our bags. In my backpack: some apples, some Ramen, some jerky, some Xanax, some clothes, some bug spray, Walden, and makeup, hidden in a corner pocket. In his: shotgun shells, and carabiners, and protein bars, and condoms, and a pile of clothes.

  I heard him on his cell phone through the flimsy walls, a swelling rise and fall of sound. He came in frantic.

  —My mom’s locked out of her house, he said. I have to go.

  —I’ll come with, I said.

  —You’ve already got the water boiling, he said.

  —I can turn it off.

  —She’s an hour away, he said. It’s a boring drive. I’ll be back by dark.

  I didn’t push it because we were new still, and maybe it was too early for me to meet his mother, which was disappointing but understandable. So I stayed. I watched the back of his dark head bob out of the clearing, his hands in his pockets. Later, thinking back on how abrupt it was, I would replay this scene and feel completely foolish. But at the time I believed him.

  As soon as he left, silence flooded. It drowned my ears with an endless ring. I had expected to hear sparrows, cicadas, squirrels. Things living and dying. It was warm still, but I lit a fire in the woodstove, hoping that the crackle would override the ring. It didn’t. I sat at the round wooden table with a kerosene lantern by the bed. It was difficult for me to imagine Grant sitting there. He was smart, but not bookish. He carried his intelligence around like an awkward rucksack, stashing it on the backs of chairs and forgetting it under barstools. I sat at the table with my copy of Walden, my eyes scudding over the words about minks and muskrats, reading the same lines until they didn’t make sense anymore. I started thinking about all of the things, the less romantic things I would say to Grant when he got back, the things I should have said about last week on the drive up. I would say those things and then we could move on to bare legs and flannel.

  • • •

  All I could think of was the night I met him, back in January, when my pledge class had gone out with our older sisters and I’d tumbled through the door drunk and blissful and crazy for my girls: Margot’s long gorgeous braid, and Twyla’s funny punch lines, and Shannon’s ability to boot and rally, twice, and keep on partying. We careened into the sticky basement of Zeta Sigma, Michael Jackson remixes playing, brothers in hoodies and snappy T-shirts, lobbing awful shots at beer pong, and Grant found me in the corner and pressed a dime into my palm.

  —That’s what you are, kid. A perfect ten.

  —Did you know dimes are ninety percent copper? I said, and his brothers laughed so hard that I felt in on the joke while Grant grinned at the complete failure of such a phony pi
ckup.

  —What an ass, Margot said at my shoulder, but it didn’t matter. He was gorgeous, he was mine.

  Later, I followed him up to his bedroom and he kissed the insides of my wrists, the divot at my collarbone, kisses that were even and tender and hard to find in someone his age.

  • • •

  At dusk it was dinnertime for bats; they dipped low and lifted again, searching for meals I couldn’t see. I watched them and knew, with sudden and awful accuracy, that Grant wasn’t coming back. I did not call him. I would not be that girl. I should say now that this is not a story where I will have an answer for where he really went or why he left. Maybe he was ashamed when he saw my eye in the sun, or maybe I said something awful that I can’t remember blurting, or maybe his mother truly was in trouble and what he found at home was so distressing that he couldn’t bring himself to talk about it. All I know is that afternoon was the last time we spoke, and by September, when I saw him with his brothers on campus, we would pretend we didn’t know each other at all.

  I cried ugly tears that no one saw and then I got to work. I pulled stacks of wood for the night. When I bent down, I could feel the blood surge in my eye. My nose ran. A chipmunk regarded me suspiciously from the other end of the woodpile.

  I pumped a pitcher of reddish water, poured it over the roots of my hair, pumped another pitcher, soaked my face. Later, as my hair dried, I would absorb the smell of smoke and grit from the cabin and feel purified.

  Night came. That cabin wasn’t large, but it took nine tapers and the kerosene lantern to keep from feeling the dark. Cold air slinked in from the crack under the door. I added a log to the fire and curled myself into bed.