Sorority Sisters

by Claudia Welch

  “Nope,” I say, flopping down on my twin bed. Our beds, both barely made, are covered in yellow rip-cord bedspreads. The drapes are white and held back with yellow-and-white plaid ribbon. The windows face the AG house. It’s not a pretty view, but Missy and I get a lot of pleasure out of staring at the AGs and saying stupid stuff we know they can hear. Usually, they glare and shut their drapes. It’s the little pleasures in life that mean the most. “I just got a private talking-to by Madam President.”

  “What could Colleen Larson have to say to you that she couldn’t shout out at lunch?” Missy asks, pulling out a white shirt from the closet, looking it over, and then crumpling it up and tossing it in her laundry bag. She continues the hunt.

  “Funny you should mention lunch. She was all over me about how we’re an ‘exclusive group of friends,’ ” I say.

  Missy stops rummaging in her closet and stares at me. “What?”

  “About how we—meaning you, me, Diane, Karen, Laurie, fill-in-the-blank—are making some of the girls in the house feel excluded.”

  “Excluded from what?” Missy says, throwing her butt on the bed and reaching for her cigarettes on the desk. She lights one up and leans against the wall, crossing her legs underneath her as she takes her first drag.

  “From . . . us,” I say. “Supposedly, we’re too exclusive. We’re an ‘exclusive group of friends’ and we make other people feel excluded.”

  “Well, hell, if they want to be included, join the party!” Missy snaps, her blue eyes sharp against her skin. Missy is very pretty, in a get the hell out of my way way.

  She was that girl in high school who every other girl was sort of afraid of and in awe of, and the girl all the guys followed with their eyes, even if their feet were too afraid to do anything. Honestly, I’m not sure what Craig and Missy see in each other; they’re so different. Craig seems so . . . sweet.

  You know what I mean.

  “That’s exactly what I said. I don’t think I convinced her. I also don’t think I care.”

  “And what’s she going to do? You’re graduating in three months. I’d love to know what she thinks she’s going to do,” Missy says, puffing angrily on her cigarette. “Does she think she can assign us seats?”

  “What’s going on?” Cindy Gabrielle says, coming into the room. Against all odds and the Hollywood code regarding zombies in movies, we’re turning Cindy back. She’s no longer an Omega, not to the bone. I don’t know how we did it, but we did. Score one for the Exclusives. “Can I bum a cigarette off you, Missy?”

  “You don’t smoke,” I say as Cindy plops down on the bed next to Missy.

  “I’m thinking of starting. It’ll make me look older and I won’t have to worry about getting carded,” Cindy says. Missy does not give her a cigarette.

  “Cut it out,” I say. “You’ve never in your life had trouble finding booze. Don’t start smoking. It ruins your teeth. Missy, show her your lousy teeth.”

  Missy grimaces, showing Cindy her teeth on command. Missy’s teeth are perfect, so as an object lesson, she’s a dismal failure.

  “Yeah, I can see how grungy they are. Give me a cigarette?” Cindy says with a grin.

  “You are such a mooch,” Missy says. “First booze and now cigarettes. Here’s one. The rest are on you. Welcome to the chain gang.” She hands Cindy a Newport and lights her. Cindy takes a tentative puff. Predictably, she coughs.

  “It’s like living in an opium den,” I say, opening the window wider. I see an AG across the way, changing her shirt. I move the window so that it catches the sun, reflected sunlight flashing her like a mirror. She turns, scowls at me, shouts something, and pulls the blind. “You don’t have to actually smoke it. Just hold it and look tough.”

  Cindy couldn’t look tough if she was riding the back of a Harley. She’s got a face like Tinker Bell with freckles.

  “What’d she say?” Cindy says, staring at the AG.

  “I missed it,” I say. “You know, she’s the one I saw knocking down some of our bikes last week. Just bumped a few on her way down the sidewalk and kept going, just turned around and yelled, ‘Sorry!’ Like that fixed anything.”

  “Guillotine! Guillotine!” Missy whines theatrically.

  “Or Sammy’s! Sammy’s!” I say, starting to smile.

  Missy looks over at me, a smile spreading crookedly across her face. “You want to?”

  “I could eat,” I say. “And then, you know, we could toss what’s left at the side of the AG house.”

  We’ve done this before. It’s gotten to be something of a tradition.

  “Are we going to Sammy’s?” Cindy says. “I could really go for a Sammy’s burger.”

  “Missy! Missy Todd,” a voice calls down the hall.

  “You’re being paged,” I say.

  Missy gets up and stands in the doorway. “Yeah?”

  “Colleen wants to see you,” Joan Collier says.

  “Your turn,” I say to Missy. “Try not to leave bloodstains on the carpet.”

  “What the hell do I care? It’s not my room,” Missy says, walking back into the room to grab her ashtray.

  “Hi, Joan,” I say as Joan comes into view. Joan is a hard one to figure. I like her. She seems nice, but she’s very, very reserved. Her cousin, Cindy Gabrielle, is being de-Omega-fied, and even though Joan never followed her into the Land of the Omegas, she stayed close to Cindy. I’ve always felt kind of sorry for her. I’d hate to lose a relative to the Omegas. “How’s it going?”

  “Okay,” Joan says. “What are you guys doing?”

  “We thought we’d make a Sammy’s run. Do you want to come?” I say.

  Missy, on her way down the hall, sticks her head back in and says, “Don’t leave without me, okay? This won’t take long. If you hear screams, give me a few minutes to hide the evidence.”

  “Roger that,” I say. “Want to come, Joan?”

  Joan looks at me cautiously. Joan looks at everyone in the house cautiously. I’ve never been able to figure it out. What does she think she joined? Charles Manson’s splinter group?

  “Sure,” she says. “I guess so.”

  “Great. Who’s driving?” Cindy asks.

  “I’ll drive,” Joan says.

  “Shotgun!” I yell just before Cindy does.

  “You got me while I was trying to inhale,” Cindy says. “Unfair.”

  “That’s what you get for smoking,” I respond with a shrug. “Life lessons, Cindy. Pay attention.”

  Cindy throws Missy’s pillow at me. I duck and it lands at Joan’s feet. Joan smiles, an unguarded smile, and picks up the pillow, tossing it back on Missy’s bed.

  “Let’s see who else wants to go,” I say, running a brush through my hair. I’m wearing JAG Jeans that have been hemmed to perfection, that little silver emblem shining on my butt, and a light green sweater. And my diamond studs. I got them for Christmas from my parents, but I know my mom is the real Santa on this one. Diamond studs are the latest must-have, and a total of eleven girls in the house got a pair for Christmas, Karen and Diane included. Missy didn’t bother.

  “You go make the rounds. I’m not wearing white pants to Sammy’s,” Cindy says, running out the door and down the hall to her room in the back five-way.

  Joan clearly doesn’t know whether to stay or go, so I say, “Do you need a wardrobe change?”

  Joan looks down at her gray slacks and cream blouse. She’s also wearing diamond studs, but she had hers before the Great Christmas Diamond Shower. In fact, Joan is the one who started the whole diamond stud craze.

  “I wouldn’t wear white,” I say, slipping on a pair of navy espadrilles.

  “I’ll meet you at the bottom of the back stairs?” Joan says. She acts like we’re going to ditch her.

  “Roger that,” I say. “Y
ou’re driving, so don’t leave without us. How many can you seat?”

  “I have a Mercedes, two-door,” Joan says, walking down the hall to her room, a two-way three doors down from mine.

  “Okay, we’re good for five or six,” I say.

  “You’re only saying that because you called shotgun!” Cindy yells out from her room.

  “Damn straight!” I yell back.

  Joan laughs, a small, quiet sound. It’s a good sound. Joan needs to lighten up. I laugh all the time and I’ve got Ed for a father. If I can laugh, anyone can.

  * * *

  Sammy’s isn’t too crowded, the line only five or six people long. Sammy’s is an institution, as much a part of ULA as Sammy Spartan, even if it isn’t on campus. Sammy’s is on the corner of Beverly and Rampart, kind of a dive, but it’s open twenty-four hours and is strictly take-out, though mostly we eat in our cars and not at the filthy tables crammed between the line and the parking lot. Will Joan’s car survive? Yes, but not in its present pristine state. It is impossible to eat one of Sammy’s burgers and not get it all over your hands, if not your shirt.

  I’m thinking this as I’m standing in line, listening to Cindy talk about the guy she likes in her biology class; then I see Laurie leaning her butt against a car hood, trying to delicately eat a Sammy’s burger. There’s no way, but she’s giving it her best shot.

  “Laurie!” I call out, waving. Laurie jerks a bit in surprise, I guess, and straightens up. It’s then that I see the car she’s leaning against is Doug Anderson’s car, Doug at the wheel, digging around in his glove compartment. Doug drives a blue Mustang in need of a wax job.

  Shit.

  This has to be an accident, right? Some kind of weird I ran into him and we did not come here in the same car Bermuda Triangle of bad coincidence. There is no way Laurie is seeing Doug. Laurie is so damn polite that she wouldn’t know how to tell Doug to get lost if he was asking for directions to the Land of the Lost.

  That has to be it.

  “Hi,” she says, walking over, tossing her burger into the nearest fly-swarmed trash can. “Did Colleen talk to you?”

  “Uh-huh,” I say, trying not to stare at Doug, who is watching Laurie and watching me and smiling that I am so gorgeous Doug smile.

  “I had the idea she was going to hit everyone,” Laurie says. “I thought I’d get a Sammy’s to cleanse my palate.”

  “Doug Anderson’s your chaser?” I say.

  “Not intentionally,” Laurie says, pulling on that ice queen coat she wears so well.

  I’m shuffling forward in line, Joan and Cindy and Missy listening in on every word.

  “Uh-huh,” I say. I don’t want to think what I’m thinking, but I’m thinking it anyway.

  “You drove?” I don’t see her car. Laurie bought a car when she turned twenty-one.

  “Yeah,” she says. “I’m over there.” And she points to a spot behind a white van. I guess I’ll have to take her word for it.

  “All by yourself?”

  “Have you ever been to Sammy’s all by yourself?” she asks, looking a little more reserved with every word.

  Laurie has levels of reserve, from full tank down to what you think has to be an empty one, but Laurie is never running on empty with reserve. You think she’s out and then, wham, another few whiffs still left that the gauge doesn’t quite register. But you do. Laurie can do cool reserve like no one I’ve ever met. I don’t actually mind it. No one does. In a lot of ways it makes her very easy to be around, all that reserve at her disposal, able to calm things down nearly effortlessly.

  “No, never,” I say. “So what’s up with Doug? Did you manage to dump half your burger on his car?”

  Laurie smiles and says, “I was working my way closer, but I think he was getting suspicious.”

  I laugh. It’s an effort.

  Doug is off-limits. Doug is Diane’s bad news and that makes him our bad news. Doug is a total shit and he deserves to be pushed off a high cliff. We all know this. This doesn’t require discussion. Since it doesn’t require discussion, it’s impossible to find a way to discuss it. Especially at Sammy’s. Especially with Doug sitting right there, looking at us.

  “I’d better go,” Laurie says. “I have a midterm this week.”

  “Yeah. See you later,” I say.

  We sound stiff with each other. I hate that, but there’s nothing I can seem to do about it.

  God, Laurie, not Doug Anderson. Please, not Doug.

  Laurie

  – Spring 1978 –

  In the most innocent way imaginable, I’m spending time with Doug Anderson. How it started, I can’t quite remember, possibly because it’s such an innocuous relationship that it can’t have an official, memorable starting point. Somehow, I just found myself talking to him and then seeing him more often, and he’s kissed me. It was an innocent kiss, nearly European, and completely spontaneous. I was devastated instantly, but after thinking about it, I’ve decided there is nothing to feel guilty about. Diane and Doug were long ago. We’re all graduating in a few weeks. Everything that happened in college, all these bonds, these fragile and ephemeral relationships, will disappear like smoke the second after we receive our diplomas.

  There will be no Doug and Diane in July, no solid memory held firmly in place by a houseful of Beta Pis. It will all be as smoke, too inconsequential to last.

  I’m sitting on the floor of my room this semester, the three-way that I’m sharing with Karen and Diane, smoking a cigarette and looking out the window, thinking all this through for the umpteenth time, when I see them coming.

  “Rho Delts!” I say, starting to laugh. This is the end of all this, the bittersweet, wonderful end.

  “What?” Karen says from her desk. She’s typing a paper for one of her classes. I think it’s her twenty-ninth paper this semester, literally. “What about them?”

  “Can’t you hear them?” I say.

  In the next moment she can. The Rho Delts are doing a panty raid on us. They charge the door, which is locked, hollering like the average American male eager to get his hands on feminine underwear, and they start grabbing girls on the sidewalk in sort of a hostage-style takeover, trying to get someone to key them in.

  It’s silly and scary all at the same time.

  The girls in the house start screaming and running around, filling water balloons to drop out of windows on male heads, and since my room has the big window right over the front door, it doesn’t take more than a minute before my room is filled with girls and dripping water balloons. It’s complete pandemonium and I love every minute of it. The only problem is that someone—I think it was Joan—knocked my ashtray out the window while she was leaning over to drop a balloon.

  “Sorry!” I yell.

  “Sorry!” she yells.

  They’re not taking sorry in the heartfelt way in which it was rendered. Men are such barbarians.

  “Here, get out of the way,” Missy says, elbowing her way to the front of the pack by the window, throwing three or four pairs of bikini underwear out the window to the guys. There’s a general sound of male appreciation at that.

  “Way to make them work for it,” Ellen says just before she heaves a massive water balloon over the windowsill, only to have it split and break in her hands before she can launch it.

  “I don’t mind giving it away,” Missy says.

  “No, really?” Cindy says. “Hi, Tim!” she shouts to the guys below.

  “Tim? Tim’s out there?” Diane says, pushing her way to the front. “Tim! Get the hell out of here! You’ve got enough pairs of Cindy’s underwear!”

  “Oh, my God! I can’t believe you said that!” Cindy squeals. “That’s not true!” she shouts out the window.

  I’m not sure if she can’t be heard over the uproar below or if the guys just don’
t want to hear that kind of disclaimer. I’m inclined to think it’s the latter.

  Matt Carlson is standing on the front lawn with his fraternity brothers, smiling at the general mayhem. Matt catches my eye and we smile at each other. I might actually miss him. I know him well enough to be glad to see him every time I see him. I think I’ll ask him to the last party; he’d be a fun date. It would be too awkward to ask Doug.

  I look around, down to The Row and the snarl of foot traffic our panty raid is causing, at the girls in the house screaming and laughing, at my friends pressed around me, these girls who were strangers three years ago and who are now my closest friends.

  I’m going to miss this. I’m going to miss all of this.

  One of the guys gets a fire extinguisher and starts blasting it through our mail slot. Some of the guys yell at him to stop, but not too many. Most of the girls start yelling at the guys to stop, opening the front door to do so.

  They rush in, shoving past the girls in the foyer, rushing up the stairs, girls screaming more shrilly now, the pounding of heavy male feet, the slamming of doors up and down the hallway as girls try to barricade their rooms shut.

  Cindy laughs and rushes out into the hallway.

  Joan leaves the room, walking calmly into the melee.

  Ellen rushes out, yelling at the Rho Delts to get the hell out.

  Karen smiles and keeps typing.

  Missy folds herself next to me on the floor and we light up together, looking out at The Row, the lovely smell of cigarette smoke coiling around us.

  “I didn’t expect all this when I joined Beta Pi,” I say. Missy blows smoke rings and looks at me, brows raised. “I never expected to feel so at home.”

  “It’s been great, hasn’t it,” Missy says, “but I was hoping for great. What are you going to do now?”

  All I know for sure is that I can’t go home.

  “I’ve applied to law school,” I say. It’s not because I’ve always dreamed of the law; it’s because I have the grades and it will take three years and that’s another three years taken out of my hands.