Sorority Sisters

by Claudia Welch

  “Just wanted to get this on tape for you,” Laurie’s voice says from behind the camera.

  “It’s not tape! It’s a disk!” Megan says in annoyance. One of the girls chuckles, the one with really big, fake boobs.

  “Sorry. Right. Disk,” Laurie says, tightening the focus on the camera, showing us Megan in all her youth and anger and misdirected frustration. Megan looks wonderful, of course, even in her teenage rage; she has a lot of Ellen in her, the same hair, the same tendency to freckle, the same full bust.

  The view of Megan around the pool fades out and then fades in to a picture of Ellen at the beach with Laurie, both of them propped on their elbows, lying on their bellies, their bikini tops outlining the shape of their breasts like an old Playboy cartoon.

  The music is “If I Only Had a Brain,” from The Wizard of Oz.

  Pi starts laughing. So do I.

  “What’s so funny?” Diane says. “I don’t get it.”

  “Why’s this in here?” Megan asks.

  “Think about it for a minute,” Laurie says, motioning for Diane to put the tape on hold.

  “I wish I had a brain,” Diane says. “Maybe then I’d know what’s going on.”

  Megan’s face clears in understanding and then she looks embarrassed. “Oh,” she says.

  “What?” Holly says.

  “I wanted my breasts done,” Megan says in a muted voice. “For a graduation present. Mom and I had a fight about it just before my friends came over.”

  “You mean, made bigger?” Diane says. And then she starts laughing. “What is it with these Olson girls, never happy with their boobs? It has to be genetic, some sort of mutation, right?”

  “You know your boobs are just the same size as Mom Number One’s, right?” Pi says. “And you know that she hated her boobs because she thought they were too damn big, right?”

  “Could you please stop calling Ellen Mom Number One? I really don’t like being referred to as Number Two,” Laurie says.

  “Luck of the draw, McCormick,” Pi says.

  “Anyway, you, with the same boobs, think yours are too small,” I say. “What does that tell you?”

  “I know,” Megan says, “but—”

  “No buts,” Laurie interrupts her. “What was too big in 1976 is too small in 2001? That’s nonsense. Don’t fall for it.”

  “You’re a beautiful girl,” I say. “Don’t let anyone make you think you’re not.”

  “Hear, hear,” Diane says, nodding.

  “Let’s finish this tribute,” Pi says. “I’m out of popcorn.”

  Diane hits play again and we all snuggle into a cozy position, the bittersweet moment of seeing Ellen again and her own, and our own, self-loathing pushed behind us.

  The next video clip is of Megan onstage in her high school’s production of Guys and Dolls (she played Adelaide and really rocked it); the video is of her singing “Take Back Your Mink,” and it segues beautifully into her being given the mobile home in Malibu.

  “That was amazing! How did you do that, Pi?” Candy says. “I didn’t know you were that good.”

  “Gee. Thanks,” Pi says.

  “It’s the irony of the juxtaposition that I love,” I say.

  “Yeah, I’m all about the juxtaposition,” Pi says.

  “Anybody else notice how it sounds dirty when Pi says it?” Diane says.

  The music becomes “California Girls” by the Beach Boys, and Megan is standing with her Olson grandparents at Paradise Cove, Laurie next to her. They’re on the road that’s in front of the trailer, the ocean in the background, a bed of red geraniums in the foreground. Mr. Olson, Ed, stands stiffly next to Laurie and Megan, looking both grim and worn down by life. Life will do that to you. He looks at the camera and says, “This was Ellen’s favorite place, and since she’s gone, I think you should have it.” He hands the key to Laurie, who gives it to Megan. They both look at him, and at the camera, and then Megan grins and waves at the camera (Gammi) and the camera goes dark.

  “You’d never know, from looking at that, that I bought the place from him,” Laurie says. “Of course, he might have been able to get more if it had actually gone on the market.”

  Megan chuckles and lays her head on Laurie’s shoulder.

  The next scene is of Megan’s high school graduation. “Pomp and Circumstance” is playing. We’re all there, of course. We’ll always be there. Megan’s name is called and she strides across the stage, picking up her diploma, a big smile on her face as she walks back to her seat.

  Megan Olson McCormick.

  The music shifts to Alice Cooper’s “School’s Out for Summer,” and Pi is filming Megan, Laurie, Diane, and me walking around the ULA campus not long after Megan got accepted in March. It’s changed since 1978. It looks prettier, cleaner, more organized, and there are more buildings. It seems to have grown, spread out. The video shows us, like the old broads we’ve mysteriously become, pointing out all the changes to Megan.

  “This was never here!”

  “They built a new bookstore!”

  “That fountain never worked once, the whole time we were here.”

  “This street is closed to traffic now?”

  “Megan, that was my dorm! That’s Birnhaven. I was on the eighth floor.”

  “You were in Birnhaven? So was I!”

  “Me, too! I had no idea! I wonder if we ever saw each other in the cafeteria. I gained five pounds my first semester, all on mac and cheese. Megan, step away from the mac and cheese!”

  “We had to have seen each other there, but how would we have met? There were—what?—two thousand women in that dorm? This was back when they had women’s and mens’s dorms, kid, the dark ages.”

  “No, there’s no way we could have met in the dorms, not unless we were roommates.”

  “What floor were you on?”

  “Sixth.”

  “I was on the fifth. What time did you eat dinner?”

  “Bigger than a bread box. How the hell am I supposed to remember that after all these years?”

  “Somebody’s getting cranky about her Alzheimer’s diagnosis.”

  The camera follows Megan as she walks across the quad, looking at the massive sycamores, smiling back at us as we follow her, these women who’ve been with her from the start, who’ve loved one another and loved her for as long as she can remember. I know this is what Ellen wanted for her. I know we’ve done our best for her. For them both.

  I also know that, in giving Megan to Laurie, Ellen gave Laurie exactly what both Megan and Laurie needed.

  The sunlight hits Megan’s hair, and in a brief second of profile, she looks exactly like Ellen. I feel my heart stop, and then I smile, the bittersweet joy of this day washing through me. I have a lot of bittersweet days now.

  Megan is a freshman at ULA and today, an hour from now, we’re driving her down to campus for Rush. We’re all going, of course. She’s ours. Whether she pledges Beta Pi or not, that’s her choice; she’s a Beta Pi legacy, but if Beta Pi doesn’t suit her, we won’t care. She’ll find her way.

  After all, she’ll always be an Exclusive.

  Readers Guide for

  Sorority Sisters

  by Claudia Welch

  Discussion Questions

  1)Why do you think the author chose to use alternating voices? Which character do you identify with the most?

  2)Each character, to some degree, feels her self-worth is determined by what a man thinks of her. Do you think this is a true reflection of life as it was then or is now?

  3)Do you get the sense that the sisterhood bonded these women or do you think they could have befriended each other independently of the sorority?

  4)Do you think the women ever recovered from the emotional scars their past lov
es caused them?

  5)Laurie ponders: Does a true bad boy know he’s bad? Isn’t he just being himself? What do you think?

  6)Karen’s mother is the most loving and involved of all the mothers represented, yet she reinforces the message that girls are judged by their appearance. Was this kind of her or cruel? What was her motivation?

  7)Laurie’s decision to date Doug created tension within the group. How would you have treated Laurie and the situation if you were Diane? If you were Karen? Have you ever had a man impact your female friendships in this way?

  8)Which character surprised you? Which character disappointed you? Which character did you feel most sympathetic toward?

  9)What kind of portrait do these women paint of a sisterhood? Does it resemble what you know or believe to be true of sororities?

  10)What do you think keeps these women (and their families) so close years after their days in the sorority house?