The Way We Roll

by Stephanie Perry Moore

  I kicked my foot in the air. I banged on my car window.People must have thought I was out of my mind as well. But seeing this foolishness, I couldn’t hold it together.

  “I don’t even want to think about pledging. I’m calling my mom right now.” I reached in my pocket to get my cell.

  After I had explained everything to my mother, I got the third degree. “Malloy, what are you doing out this late at a party anyway?”

  “Mom, I know you’re in bed, and I’m sorry. I just came to the party with Mikey. Now I can’t go home because one of your Betas threw a brick through my window.”

  More sympathetic, she asked, “You weren’t in the car, were you, baby?”

  “No, Mom, the car was parked. I came out here and found it like that.”

  “So, wait a minute ... back up, Malloy. How do you know one of the Betas did it? It’s that cocky, popular guy you’re dating, huh? You took somebody’s boyfriend.”

  “Mom, how can I take somebody’s boyfriend?”

  “Malloy, don’t be silly. You know men say anything. I recall when that young man came up to the Beta conventionwith Mikey to see his girlfriend. Now, I told you earliertoday ...”

  I wasn’t even listening as she went on and on. Everythingaround me was such a blur. Torian and Loni were trying to tell me Sharon didn’t do this, but who else would have a motive to mess up my ride, freak me out, and leave me a crazy note trying to scare me away from Kade? It could be only Sharon. Was I the only sane one living in a crazy world?

  “Mom, I gotta go. I’m about to call the police.”

  “Malloy Murray, I’m telling you don’t do that. Let’s not make it a big deal. I’ll pay for the window tomorrow. Tell your brother to let you drive his car. You call me as soon as you get back to your apartment.”

  “Mom, I don’t even see Mikey anywhere around here. I have money in my bank account to pay for the window. That’s not even the point. The one who did this should pay for it, and I know who did it. Precious sorority sister or not, she is going to pay.”

  My mom yelled back, “Now, you listen here! You didn’t see anybody do anything. Calm your little self down. You shouldn’t have been out there this late anyway. I told you nothing good happens out late at night in them streets. Some lessons you just have to learn the hard way, and obviouslythis is one of them. Malloy, am I making myself clear? You hear what I am saying to you? This is over. No police. We will take care of it on our own.”

  “Mom, I don’t want to pledge, okay?”

  “And quit saying all that, too. You’re all hot under the collar. As soon as any little thing happens, you don’t want to pledge. That’s why you need to be in a sorority. So you can get some discipline and understand what sisterhood is all about.”

  “If sisterhood is someone coming over to my car and breaking it because they can’t have their little way, I don’t want to be a part of the sisterhood! It seems like a whole bunch of sisters from the hood, if you ask me,” I blurted as I hung up.

  I wanted to smash my phone through the window that was still in one piece—vandalize my own car, that’s just how frustrated I was from hearing my mom side with her stupid sorors. I knew we didn’t have the best mother-daughterrelationship, but I certainly wished she would have taken my side for once. I had thought we were gainingground. Why she kept standing up for those girls who wore lavender and turquoise was beyond me. When would her own daughter come first? As I listened to Loni and Torian tell the crowd to mind their own business and I looked at the crushed glass all over my backseat, deep in my heart I knew I would never get all my mom’s love unlessI was a Beta.

  “Come on, now, we just asked y’all to leave. You see she’s upset about her car, dang!” Torian yelled out.

  Though I was disappointed that my new buddies didn’t support my view that Sharon did this, I really appreciated the two of them having my back. Even if folks weren’t listening,they didn’t want me to be a sideshow. As I cried, they shielded my body from direct view.

  After I got myself together, I finally looked up and saw only Torian. “Where’s Loni? I’m sure she wanted to get away from this whole scene. I can’t blame her—you can go, too. I’ll be fine.”

  “No, no, she went inside to find your brother.”

  Dang, I thought, they really are good friends. I did need to find Mikey. Why he wasn’t out here, I didn’t know. When we were growing up, he could always sense my tears as they formed and always came to my aid without me callinghim. Not this time. In despair, I leaned over my vehicle.

  “Dang, what y’all looking at?” I heard Kade yell.

  When Kade came over to me, I rushed into his arms, and he held me tight. A part of me felt like all this was just a bad dream, but now, in his embrace, I was in a sweet slumber, and everything would be all right.

  “What happened? Did you see who did this?”

  “I know who did this!” I told him, feeling like the judge and jury.

  The crowd wasn’t going anywhere, because we were playing out a soap opera, and I really got folks talking when I popped my trunk and pulled out a crowbar. I wanted to bash Sharon’s head in. I’ve never been a violent person. I don’t fight, except for kicking Mikey’s butt over the years. But Sharon had crossed the line when she’d vandalized my property. If my mom wasn’t going to make her pay for it voluntarily, maybe a little blood would do me just fine.

  “Where you going with that?” Kade asked as he grabbed the crowbar from my tight grasp.

  “Give that back to me! I need to take care of business. It’s on now!”

  “You are not going to hit nobody. Did you see Sharon do this?”

  “What, you taking her side, too?” I said, getting all upset and defensive. “You’re just like my mom and my girls telling me I’m not sure. Dude, you should have stayed with Sharon.”

  “Listen, calm down,” he said as he pulled me close. “Baby, I want to be with you. Just because I don’t want you to fight her doesn’t mean I want to be with her. Come on, now, think logically on this one.”

  “Think logically. I’m trying to think logically. She’s going to admit she did this. I’m going to scare a confession out of her bony behind right now. You can get on my side and join me, or you can get the heck out of my way.” Because I was so angry, I shoved him to the side.

  “Kade done met his match with that one!” someone in the crowd hollered.

  “Kade, seems like you need to go back to the Beta!” somebody else shouted.

  Then a group of Betas was walking toward us. I was happy—Sharon was coming my way. All I needed was the weapon.

  “Somebody said you sayin’ I did this. Don’t be putting lies like that all out there,” Sharon said as she got up in my face.

  “Oh, so you think I’m scared of you?” I said, pushing her back.

  Some of her sorority sisters grabbed her, and Kade grabbed me.

  “Wait, wait, y’all, let me go. Let me go,” Sharon said to them before she turned to Kade. She was smiling at him. My man, with his strength, put me behind him. He started listening to her. I was breathing so hard I was about to pop.

  Sharon begged, “I need you, Kade. You don’t understandwhat’s going on with us. We have a deep connection.I just need to help you see it. I need your time. You got to talk to me.”

  Kade would not let me get around him. “We were just inside, Sharon, going through this. Come on. Please don’t make this end ugly. I’m with Malloy now.”

  “Malloy, Malloy—what can she give you that I can’t? You feel like you’ve used me all up, and now you want fresh meat? Well, I got a news flash for you. She’s no virgin.”

  I couldn’t believe he still kept holding me back from beating down this chick. She had crossed the line in so many ways already. Now she was all up in my personal affairs even more.

  Edging around Kade I said, “You don’t know me, and you broke the wrong car window. You better be scared.”

  “Are you threatening me, Malloy?” Sharon asked.


  “Please, Kade, let me talk to her,” Hayden said as she moved Sharon back. “Please let me talk to Malloy.” She added, “I can calm her down.”

  Because Hayden and I were working on our differences, I had no problem hearing her out. We walked over to the side. But Hayden just started talking trash. Like I owed Sharon a break. Hayden thought I was just gonna drop all this. Here I had thought she was going to apologize for her girl.

  “Are you kidding me? She broke my car window. And I am just supposed to drop it? She’s basically saying I’m some skank. Yet here you stand telling me I’m just supposedto move on from that? And then she has the nerve to accuse me of spreading lies about her? Whatever, Hayden,please get out of my way.”

  “You want to pledge. I’m trying to make that happen, but you’re not making it easy. Who in my chapter is going to vote for you? She was with us, Malloy. Sharon did not break your window.”

  “Oh, so she was with you all night?” I asked, knowing it wasn’t the truth.

  “I mean, not all night, but she just went to the bathroom,”Hayden said as I shook my head, knowing as close as the parking lot was, Sharon needed only a little time to destroy my car.

  “It doesn’t take long to grab a brick and throw it through my window. I watch CSI. I’m going to take my car to the police station and get her prints. That way, when they come after her tail with a warrant, you, Kade, and my mom will all stop being on her side. She broke my window, and that’s a fact.”

  I still wanted to hit Sharon—until I got away from Hayden and I heard the last part of her conversation with Kade. She kept pleading for another chance. I’ve never seen a girl lose it so bad and be so desperate to try to hold on to a man. The two-hundred-fifty-dollar deductible I’d have to pay to get my window fixed paled in comparison to all the broken emotions I saw Sharon reveal.

  “All right, so you gonna drop this now?” Kade said to me as he and I walked back into the building. “You see she can’t take no more.”

  “All right, fine. Where’s Mikey? I need to get his car and go home.”

  “I haven’t seen your brother. Your friend was looking for him, and that’s when she told me where you were. Mike’s gone.”

  “We can take you home,” Torian cut in, Loni by her side.

  “I would take you home, baby, but I got to see the trainer at five in the morning for rehab. Gimme your key, and I’ll drive your car over to Mike’s place.” Kade gave me a puppy-dog face, and I knew I needed to go with my friends and just call it a night.

  “Come on, Malloy, let’s get out of here,” Loni said as she rubbed my back. “I know you’re tired.”

  “Call me tonight, baby. It’ll be all right,” Kade said beforehe hobbled over to my car.

  When I got in the backseat of Loni’s car, I laid my head down. It was pounding something fierce. All I had been trying to do was enjoy my time with my guy at a party, and that couldn’t even go well.

  “Girl, I know how you feel,” Loni said, surprising me.

  “If it would have been me, I probably would have wanted to whoop up on her, too.”

  “We just couldn’t let you go down like that,” Torian chimed in.

  “It’s obvious Kade likes you, though,” Loni said as she kept her eyes on the road.

  “Yeah, he really does,” Torian said. “And he’s a hottie!”

  “What are y’all talking about?”

  “The way he broke up with Sharon for, like, the fourth time in front of all them people? He tried to be nice to her, but she just wouldn’t let up, being all clingy on him, grabbing on his shirt, trying to kiss him.”

  “She was doing all that?” I asked.

  “Yeah, while you were talking to Hayden, she was showingthat maybe she was loony enough to mess up your ride. She whispered some other stuff to him we couldn’t hear. It appeared she was trying to tell him anything she could to hold on to him. But the fine brother wasn’t buying it. He was completely into you,” Torian said, turning in the front seat to give me the scoop.

  “What did you do to hook him like that, girl?” Loni teased.

  “I don’t know. I just wasn’t letting him play me. Trust me, though, if I knew he was going to be this much trouble—peoplebreaking my car window and stuff—I never would have gotten back with his behind.”

  The two of them looked at each other and laughed. I was serious, though. Why women couldn’t just walk away gracefully when a man was through with them was beyond anything I could conceive.

  “Yeah, you would have gotten with him,” Loni said.

  “Yeah, you would have,” Torian agreed.

  “Okay, maybe I would have.” I laughed as I thought about Kade.

  We stopped at a nearby Waffle House—the only place open at three in the morning—and got a bite to eat. Torian and Loni thought my headache would go away if I put a little something in my stomach.

  Once we were settled in our booth, Torian asked, “So, Malloy, you were saying Loni and I would do anything to pledge. You don’t feel that way?”

  “No, I don’t feel that way. Now I really don’t know if I’m going to go through with that at all. If a person must lose their own identity to become a slave to somebody else—and allow reason to just go out the window—no, I don’t want a part of that. I’m too strong-willed. Somebody will get killed in the process.”

  “Yeah, and I got a feeling it wouldn’t be you,” Torian said.

  “Exactly,” I replied, knowing I would never put up with foolishness. “Hazing, hitting me, and mentally abusing me—they can have it. They’ve been known to do it tons of times to past lines, and I know they have intentions to do it to us.”

  “I wish I could have some of your stamina,” Loni said.

  “Girl, you are not no pushover yourself. I saw you turningdown them guys in there dancing tonight.”

  “Yeah, coming at me with bad breath, falling all over themselves all drunk and stuff, and one guy had a joint in his hand. Well, what do they think I am?”

  “Weak, like most of the women at a party trying to get with anybody. Torian, you’re strong, too.”

  “What are you talking about?”

  “Taking on that whole crowd, telling them to get back. “

  “It wasn’t like they listened.”

  “Yeah, but it’s not like you backed down and stopped trying to get them off my butt.”

  “What you expect us to do, girl? We care about you. What went down was unfortunate. Money is too hard to come by nowadays. Who has it to waste on replacing a window? I just hope it wasn’t Sharon,” Torian said.

  The two of them talked so sincerely about how they cared about me, and knowing they were also women of strength, maybe we could all be true buddies. UnfortunatelyI didn’t know what having good girlfriends felt like. Someone other than a relative who just wanted to try to make it better ... that was somebody I wanted to be down with. Someone that would have your back on principle. That was a real bond.

  7

  BLEAK

  It’s funny how a week can make things so much better.I now had my car back and fixed. I was becoming quite close with Torian and Loni. I could really hang out with them. Fashion was my thing, so I noticed they both had unique styles. They didn’t just wear store-put-togetheroutfits. That was a sign we could be cool.

  Kade and I had it going on as well. Though I hadn’t seen him since the night of the party, we’d talked multiple times every day. My classes were still a breeze. Sirena had been really helpful to me as well, fixing the best dinners and snacks that helped me while I studied. Yeah, my life was good.

  If I only could have gotten my mom off my back about the whole pledging thing, I would have been great. Packetswere due the next day, and I hadn’t even looked over mine since I’d seen my mom. I was going to see my mom at the national-organization headquarters right outside Little Rock because my godmom, the First Vice President, was in town. And my mom kept bugging me to bring my new buddies by to see Beta Gamma Pi’s official space.


  “Oh, wow, this place is more gorgeous than on the Web site,” Torian said as she stepped into the entrance when we arrived.

  There was a marble hallway that stretched out many feet in front of us. Hanging from the thirty-foot ceiling was a lovely crystal chandelier. The soft, dim lighting provided a relaxing ambience. It was quite a breathtaking place. I’d been here countless times before, but I’d never stopped to appreciate the view. But I didn’t feel like I wanted today to be any different. Being stubborn I said, “It’s all right.”

  “Come on, now, Malloy, ‘its all right’?” Loni teased. “This place is special. All these pictures on the wall of past and present leaders makes me feel like I can fly to my dreams and do anything.”

  We walked past the turquoise-colored carpet in the founder’s room. I couldn’t get Torian and Loni to move past the door. They seemed to breathe it all in as if it were air. Finally they moved, and we headed to the room with the purple carpet. It was the National President’s office.

  “Oh, my gosh! I can’t,” Torian said, stopping just shy of us going in.

  “Girl, please. Mom, were here!” I called out—like I had absolutely no home training or etiquette. I shoved Torian into the room. Loni hit me on the shoulder. They were really way too into this.

  Loni leaned over and whispered, “You know you’re wrong for doing that. This is a big deal to us.”

  “Yeah, to you,” I said. I felt like someone was forcing me into something. “Girl, I do not want to be here.”

  “It’s so crazy. So many girls across the country, trying to pledge Beta Gamma Pi right now, would kill to have their mom as the National President, and here you are. This is your real life, and you have no appreciation for it. Absolutely crazy to me,” Torian said melodramatically.