Sorority Sisters

by Claudia Welch

  Doug is standing, facing the wide doorway to the foyer as I enter. He’s smiling. It’s a shy, sweet kind of smile that doesn’t match at all the image I have of him from watching him with Diane. He never looked like this with her. I don’t know what to think anymore about Doug. I’m holding my I feel no love for you ground with one toe, and it’s slipping. After his aborted pickup in the rain, he’s been gently hounding me, in the sweetest, most innocent, most ardent kind of way. Not in a creepy way at all. Being creepy would have helped.

  A sweet pursuit is the hardest to resist, and I don’t have any practice at all at resisting pursuit, not even the clumsy kind. Doug is the furthest thing from clumsy. But that’s part of the problem; he’s too good at this, too perfect, and that has my guard up. Plus, I can’t and won’t forget Diane. He destroyed something in her and she hasn’t been the same since.

  I really can’t believe he’s here, in enemy territory. And he is the enemy. We, as a house, have made his life as miserable as possible without breaking the law or inconveniencing ourselves. Things like crank calls. Things like shouting his name at the top of our lungs whenever we see him. I know that doesn’t sound too bad, but walking down The Row and having a girl’s high-pitched voice shouting, “Anderson! Doug Anderson!” is more than a little disconcerting, based on Doug’s reaction, you understand. He tucks his head down into his shoulders, turns a little red around the neck and ears, and picks up his pace. As torture, it seems to work.

  Since that day in the rain, he’s caught me riding my bike on the wide path that connects The Row to campus and kept me talking for a few minutes. Everyone, absolutely everyone, uses this path to get from The Row to campus; there’s no other way to get there, not to mention the eight or ten apartment houses along the same route. Talk about being obvious. Anyone could, and probably did, see us.

  Why’s he so interested in me all of a sudden? I’m not gorgeous like Diane, and if he could throw Diane out of bed, what could he want with me?

  Then there was the time he saw me on campus and stopped me to chat. At Sammy Spartan. Sammy Spartan is a huge bronze statue of a Spartan warrior nicknamed Sammy for some mysterious reason, and it’s located just outside Bowman Auditorium and at the main crossroads on campus. It’s kind of hard to be on campus and not walk by Sammy Spartan. So of course I was living in fear that someone would see us talking pleasantly together, Doug flirting, me trying not to flirt back, which accounted for my curt responses and lack of a smile. At least I don’t think I was smiling. I tend to smile a lot, even when I don’t mean to. I heard somewhere that people respond favorably to a smiling face; I think that’s why I got in the habit of smiling so much. It’s certainly not because I’m so damned happy all the time, Sammy Spartan and Doug Anderson being a case in point.

  Why is this happening to me? Has Doug made me some kind of test case? Because that’s what it feels like; like he’s doing this, paying attention to me, flirting with me, for some weird reason that clearly has nothing to do with my beauty or personality. Beauty? That’s obvious. Personality? He doesn’t know me well enough, especially since every time I see him I’m ready to run in the opposite direction.

  That’s all the bad stuff. The good part is that I’m so secretly flattered that I think I’m going to burst. This guy thinks I’m worth pursuing? Maybe I’m prettier than I thought.

  And it’s with those two reactions storming around inside of me that I smile, big surprise, and greet Doug.

  “Hi,” I say.

  “Hi, Karen,” Doug says. “I hope it was okay for me to just drop by?”

  “Sure,” I say, because, really, what else can I say? “Would you like to sit down?” I gesture toward the two or three sofas in the room. Doug picks the one with its back to the foyer wall; the one that no casual passersby will see. Smart move, Doug.

  I didn’t gesture toward the eight or ten chairs in the room. Smart move, Karen. We’ll be sitting side by side. Hey, he came to me, remember?

  We stare at each other for a few awkward seconds, or it’s awkward for me. I’m not sure Doug knows how to feel awkward. He’s just so ridiculously handsome. I can barely take a full breath. I don’t think I’ve ever been this close to someone so handsome. In fact, I know I haven’t.

  “I heard you and Greg broke up,” Doug says.

  I’m not sure how he could have heard this, or where, but whatever.

  “We did,” I say, maintaining eye contact. Just admitting it, the words rolling around inside my mouth, is painful. Greg didn’t want me. What is wrong with me? Someone opens the door to the house and runs up the stairs, a voice calling out to her as she passes the trophy room, and I look down at my fidgety hands.

  “I’m sorry,” Doug says. “You went out for a really long time, didn’t you?”

  “We did,” I repeat. What an awkward conversation. Why is he dragging me into it? It seems cruel.

  I look deeply into his eyes and see blue eyes shining with concern and genuine interest and not a grain of cruel intent. He looks as innocent and as lovely as sunshine. As usual.

  “What happened?” he asks, and though his eyes don’t change, I feel something shift. I feel it like I feel an aftershock, even though nothing falls off a wall or splits cement. I felt something.

  My guard goes up, like closing a gate or pulling up the drawbridge, something physical like that, something seen.

  I smile and say, “Nothing major. Not everything lasts forever.” Maybe nothing lasts forever. Maybe that’s my problem. I believe in happily ever after.

  “I’m sorry,” he says again.

  I can’t believe it, but Doug might actually be boring. You really can only get so far on a pretty face, not that I wouldn’t like to give it a try.

  “Look, I’m going to be really honest and just say what I came to say,” he says. “I’d like to take you out.”

  He’s looking at me earnestly, sweetly, you know, the look he reserves for me. I never saw him look that way at Diane. Diane got devil-may-care sexy. I get sweet. Why?

  I’ve been dating a long time now—that’s obvious at this point—and when you factor in all the boyfriends and all the guys on the side and all the pickups, and I mean that in the most innocent way possible, well, that’s a lot of guy experience under my belt, figuratively speaking. So, having said all that, there is something so seriously off about this guy. He’s too smooth and his approach is too practiced. I don’t feel pursued. I feel targeted. And that’s not the same thing at all.

  What it means is that this isn’t about me at all; this is all about him. If there’s one thing I know, it’s that when a guy is falling for me, it’s actually supposed to be all about me.

  I nod slowly, still smiling. I’ve really got to work on that. “You do?”

  He smiles, and my breath catches in my lungs. Honestly, I feel a little dazzled.

  “I really like you, Karen. I want to go out with you.”

  Is this how it started with Diane? Did he dazzle her? Did he I’ve only got eyes for you her?

  Diane. I’ll never forget what he did to her. He broke her heart. He mangled her spirit. He used her. She’ll never forget it, and neither will I. She deserved better. And so do I.

  Again, the seismic shift . . . The earth I’ve been standing on my whole life shifts under my feet, and everything looks different. I feel different. Doug is still staring dreamily into my eyes; he hasn’t changed. But I have. Everything feels different, even though nothing has changed.

  “I don’t think so,” I say.

  His smile fades and his earnest expression ramps up. It hits me that I’m watching a virtuoso performance by a master performer. He’s not experienced at rejection. For just a second, I almost feel like laughing.

  “I’ve wanted to go out with you for a long time, but you were with Greg. When you guys broke up, well . . .” He smiles shyly, his bl
ue eyes so beautifully earnest. “I thought that, you know, we could spend some time together, get to know each other. Go on a date.”

  Every word he speaks is killing something inside me, and building something inside me, something new, something that wasn’t there before. I don’t want him, no matter how he looks or what he says. For once, for the first time, what I want matters to me. Not what he thinks about me or whether he, the universal he, wants me or not. Just me. What I want. What I think.

  I have the right to say no, no thanks, not you, not now, not ever.

  And I’m not going to do anything that might hurt Diane. I know this would hurt Diane. I also know she would deny that it would hurt, but that only makes me want to protect her more.

  “I’m not going to go out with you,” I say. I’m not smiling, and because everything is different now, it’s easy.

  “Is it because of Diane?” he says. He doesn’t look earnest or sweet anymore; he looks frustrated and a little angry. “Because if it is,” he says, without waiting for my answer, “you only know her side, not mine. All you Beta Pis have got the wrong idea. I don’t know what Diane told you, but she has her version and I have mine.”

  I’ll bet he does. I don’t care about his version; I know Diane and I know what happened.

  “Did you have sex with Diane?” I say. And without waiting for his answer, because the look on his face confirms it, I say, “That’s all I need to know. I’ll never go out with you, Doug.”

  He looks really angry now. He acts like he’s never been turned down before, which actually may be true. Why did I ever think this guy was good-looking?

  I stand up. He stands up. I’m not giving him much choice.

  “You don’t know anything about me. You don’t know what happened,” he says.

  “I know what I need to know,” I say.

  “Do you think you’ll change your mind?”

  I look at him, at the blond perfection of him, and a small part of me can’t believe I’m saying this, let alone thinking it, but I say, “No. I won’t.”

  It’s true. It will stay true as long as I live. I will never care that this guy wanted me and I will never regret turning him down. I don’t want him.

  I feel like I could fly.

  Ellen

  – Spring 1978 –

  There are the Omegas, and then there are the rest of us, the nice people of the world. Yes, I’m one of the nice people. Don’t act so surprised. Since I had this figured out after a year in the house, getting called to the president’s room was a bit of a shock. What could she have to say to me? I wear underwear every day, don’t I?

  Colleen, the current president, isn’t alone in her room. Kim, the vice president, is with her. Kim and Colleen are both juniors and were both in my pledge class. We’ve never been close, but we’ve never been enemies either, even though Colleen and I were usually at odds during Rush voting. I don’t remember how Kim voted.

  “You wanted to talk to me?” I ask.

  Colleen nods and motions for me to sit on her bed. She’s sitting on a chair near the window; Kim is sitting on a chair pulled up to the desk, ready to take notes.

  Shit. Notes? What the hell?

  I sit on the bed and say, “What’s going on?”

  “Ellen, I wanted to talk to you about . . . well, about what it means to be in a sorority,” Colleen says. She looks uncomfortable, like she has a stick up her butt.

  “No kidding,” I say.

  “If you could just sit and listen to what I have to say, without interrupting me,” Colleen says, giving me a hard look. “This is important.”

  “Sorry,” I say. I didn’t interrupt her, but things probably look a little funky when you’ve got a stick up your butt.

  “People join a sorority to make friends,” Colleen says, looking at me in stern superiority. “The girls who pledge this house want to feel like they belong to something bigger, like they could be something greater than they could be on their own. We all have to remember that, to work together and individually to make sure that everyone gets what she wants out of Beta Pi. We’re all sisters here.”

  “Uh-huh,” I say, nodding fractionally to show her that I’m listening and not interrupting.

  Colleen glances at Kim. Kim blushes a little bit, shifts her gaze to me for an instant, then drops her gaze to the pad on the desk, clicking her pink Bic pen. Colleen looks back at me.

  “Do you agree?” she asks me. “You agree that that’s what we’re doing here? Trying to include everyone? Make sure everyone has a chance to be a part, a real part of Beta Pi?”

  “Sure,” I say, shifting my weight on the bed.

  “I’m glad to hear you say that,” she says. Whenever anyone says that particular phrase, you can bet that you’ve been led into some kind of verbal trap. Ed’s been pulling it on me since I could talk. “There’s been some talk about you and your friends—”

  “Like what?” I say, interrupting her, breaking free of the trap. “Who do you mean?”

  Colleen squirms on her chair and sits forward, looking a little aggressive. “You know who I mean. You and Karen and Laurie. Diane Ryan. Missy and Lee. Holly. Candy Chase. You’re so exclusive. You’ve become an exclusive group of friends, and that makes everyone else feel cut off and left out. It’s not what a sorority is all about.”

  “Exclusive? An exclusive group of friends?” I say sharply. “Really, Colleen? I’m the snob?” Now I’m leaning forward, my elbows on my knees, my eyes staring her down. She holds my stare, looking almost as angry as I am. It’s a fake. No one is as angry as I am right now. “Who was it who fought for Debbie Brown? She was a little chunkier than Jenny Van Upp liked. She got dinged. I had an accounting class with Debbie; she’s a great girl and would have made a great Beta Pi.” I stand up. I’m so mad I can’t sit still anymore. Colleen and Kim stay where they are. “I’m exclusive? Because the way I remember it, Missy and Laurie and I, and all the rest of the exclusives, were the ones who liked the girls no one else seemed to like. Exclusive? Hell, you want to be friends, let’s be friends. That’s about as exclusive as we get. How the hell is that exclusive?”

  “You all sit together at lunch every day,” Colleen snaps.

  “Anyone who wants to sit with me at lunch, can. Come on over,” I say, cutting her off. “I had lunch with Kim just yesterday. Right, Kim?” Kim doesn’t say anything. Kim is keeping her head down. “There aren’t any rules and there aren’t any barriers with us. If you want to call somebody out for being exclusive and driving a wedge into the house, call out the Omegas.”

  “That’s what I’m talking about,” Colleen says, looking at Kim for backup. Kim’s keeping busy by looking busy, her pen flying across the paper. “You’ve created this division, calling another group of girls Omegas. What does that even mean?”

  “Remember Cindy Gabrielle? Remember how she was on Bid Day?” I say. “See what she turned into? She started staying out all night, sleeping with anything that moved, was drunk half the time, forgot how to wear underwear, and would barely talk to anyone who didn’t do the same. So we call it going Omega. I can’t even remember when that got started, but that’s all it means.”

  “And your group of friends is any different?” Colleen says. Kim looks like she wants to run out of the room, crying.

  “Colleen, you don’t know what the hell you’re talking about. Karen barely drinks. Laurie barely leaves the house. Diane is so busy with ROTC shit that she barely has time to sleep. Yeah, we hit the Four-O when we can. But we’re all different, and we’re all good with that.”

  “According to your description of what it means to be an Omega, Missy Todd should be one. Why isn’t she?” Colleen says. She really does have a stick up her butt. It’s hard not to do her a big favor and pull it out and beat her with it.

  “That’s my whole point,” I say ho
tly. “We’re not exclusive. You want to hang with us, you’re in. It’s that uncomplicated. Yeah, Missy could have gone Omega, but she’s not excluding anyone and neither are we. We hang together because we want to be together, with anyone who wants to be with us. Hell, there is no us. It’s just . . . us.” I walk to the door, my hand on the brass knob. “Kim, are you sure you got all that down? ’Cause if that’s it, I’ve got nothing left to say. Is that it, Colleen?”

  When Colleen just stares at me, her mouth open, I say, “Great. Thanks. Have a nice day. See you at lunch, huh?”

  And then I walk out. Verbal trap, my ass.

  “You’ll never guess what just happened,” I say, coming into my room, one of the second-floor two-ways I share with Missy.

  “You finally picked a dress for the wedding,” Missy says, her arm buried in her closet, shoving hangers out of the way.

  Oh, yeah. Mike and I are getting married. The candle ceremony was last week. I wasn’t sure I wanted the candle ceremony, but Mike was for it, and it was great. I must have a secret romantic side hidden under all my ruthless common sense.

  I’m marrying Mike Dunn.

  I’m still trying to figure out how that happened. He was always there, and I got used to him being there. And when he wasn’t there, it bugged me.

  He makes me laugh. He turns me on. He knows he turns me on, and that makes him laugh, and that bugs me and turns me on at the same time. He drives me nuts half the time. It’s crazy, but I love it.

  Mike drives Ed nuts most of the time, and I really love that. Ed and Mike, two bulls in a tight pen and Mike’s the young bull. Of course Ed hates him. I really love that.

  I can’t believe I’m getting married; half the time, it seems so unreal. The wedding is in late June. I’ll be a June bride. I’m working hard to get a tan for the wedding. No way am I going to be a pasty bride.