Sorority

by Genevieve Sly Crane

  • • •

  Or maybe she won’t disappear until a perfectly executed midlife crisis, complete with breast implants and the revelation that everything in her life that she resents falls on her spouse. A tidy solution that unravels two years later, living in a sublet in Des Moines, with the ugliness of her dissatisfaction waiting at her doorstep, disheveled and collared, loyal as a Saint Bernard that followed her stench through every forsaken hillside, trailing a noose behind him, whiskey sloshing in the tiny barrel on his collar.

  • • •

  It could be a tumor: pick a spot.

  • • •

  A seizure behind the steering wheel.

  • • •

  A bat caught in her chimney that bursts into the living room and scratches her tidily, so lightly that she doesn’t go for the shots. Now that’s a way to go, a real way.

  • • •

  Why, then, do we find her on the floor at the age of twenty-one? She’s been on her side a while, and her skin is punched in white and purple. Her eyes are matte, her mouth is open. Urine has released around her hips and is nearly dry, sticky and acrid. There is no blood.

  Deirdre found her after a late night at her sushi model job. Let’s rubberneck and follow her down the hall, shall we, a camera on her goose-bumped neck, a slow zoom when she turns the corner and makes a long sleepy trudge to her lover’s door (of course we know they’re gay, we’re not stupid), texting and walking, and then the agonizing search for her keys in her jacket.

  Everyone enjoys a sturdy Before and After. The change is so fast that time has to be double-slowed to see it absorb after she opens the door. It will take time for Deirdre’s eyes to adjust to dawn bleeding through the window before rods and cones register the body. Then, Deirdre’s brain, then sympathetic nervous synapses, then tingling in the marrow: the utter fact of her living knitted into her revulsion, her horror. Nobody remembers her screaming but all of us remember waking and finding the body, finding her with the body.

  And decades later, bumping down the hallways of untrustworthy memories, each of us feels as if we discovered Margot first, because in a way we did. It was as if we’d come across a shattered mirror, and each piece of her had winked at us, a variation on hair and smirk and rigor. We gripped at her doorframe as if she could reach out and clutch us to her chest. Come here, she’d whispered, and our own bodies turned toward her in recognition of our deadlines, long scattered and imminent all the same.

  13

  The Deposition

  -ELINA-

  April 2008

  I didn’t see Margot’s body. Amanda and Twyla woke me with the news. They both were crying, looking at me like, What do we do? I’d been president of the chapter for almost a full term, but my experience didn’t make a difference. It’s not like there was a section on this in our handbook.

  My room was far from Margot’s on the other side of the house. My first instinct was, Maybe we can move her somewhere else. But that wouldn’t do. Girls were already crying in the hallways.

  —Elina, what’s going to happen to us? Amanda wailed.

  —I don’t know, I said. Are we sure she’s dead?

  —She’s dead, Twyla said, and she sounded so flat that it had to be true.

  —Let’s get Nicole, I said. Twyla looked at me with relief, as if involving our idiot housemother might cause a complete revival. The three of us ran barefoot down the hall and tapped at her door. What if she wasn’t home? What if she failed to answer? Her apartment was near enough to Margot’s room that I recall waiting for her to open up and being disturbed by the fact that I was in the vicinity of a dead person. But maybe she wasn’t really dead, I thought. She could just be blacked out. She wasn’t in my pledge class, so it was hard to remember what kind of a drinker she was. Then Twyla got impatient and banged on the door with the heel of her fist like in the movies. Nicole opened up and stared.

  —We think Margot’s dead, I said.

  —You think she’s dead?

  —She’s dead! Amanda cried.

  Nicole grabbed something that looked like a rosary with a tassel from the door handle and hung it over her neck. She started rubbing at the beads. She was like the patron saint of old hippies, standing there in an ugly kimono.

  —How do you know she’s dead? she asked. Are you sure she isn’t just sleeping?

  —She’s dead, Twyla said.

  Now all of them were crying. I was still composed.

  —Let’s go, Nicole said, and ran toward Room Epsilon. Amanda and Twyla followed, but I couldn’t do it. I stayed at the doorway to Nicole’s apartment and called 9-1-1.

  —How do you know she’s dead? the dispatcher asked, like she was bored.

  Down the hall, the girls got silent and Nicole walked into Margot’s room. Deirdre was already inside. She was yelling. Nicole shut the door, then opened it again and stuck her head into the hall.

  —Who here knows CPR? she asked, and fat Ruby plunged into the bedroom like she’d been training for this moment her whole life.

  • • •

  It went like this: fire department, ambulance, cops. The walkie-talkie people. Yellow tape went up around our parking lot. I found a piece of it twisted around a birch tree many weeks later. I was told to order my sisters to their bedrooms until further notice. That was fine. I did not want anyone to leave before we were united on the story.

  A gurney rolled in. The brothers from Zeta Sigma gathered around the yellow tape and watched. They wore puffy jackets and hats and their faces were red, like pigs shoved into people clothes.

  —Is Margot dead? one of them shouted.

  —Yeah! Eva yelled from her upstairs window.

  —Fuck! a brother shouted.

  —I know! Eva yelled.

  —How?

  —Shut up, you fucking assholes! Ruby shouted.

  —Did she kill herself?

  Ruby pulled her head out of the window, broke the rules to stay in her room, ran down the hall, and grabbed me.

  —Tell them to fuck off in Norwegian, she said.

  —Why?

  —Because they’re scared of you and if you swear in a different language they won’t know how to respond.

  I hung my head out of her window.

  —Hey, President Swede! they yelled.

  —I’m Norwegian! I yelled back.

  —You’re missing the point, Ruby said.

  —Dra til helvete! I yelled.

  —What? one of them said.

  We shut the windows.

  We could still hear them through the glass, same question, Did she kill herself? But it was not really a bad question. Margot’s cause of death was tied up with our house’s endurance. If this were a fluke young-age thing like an aneurism then we wouldn’t be punished. An overdose would be another kettle of eggs. Papers would read, evil sorority drives sister to use insert drug that every college kid uses here.

  Eventually, the walkie-talkie people started leaving and took the gurney with them. Men in suits started coming in. College administrators. Social workers. All of them scrunched around the coffee table in Nicole’s apartment. I joined her. There was crying. I got teary eyes, and Nicole leaked the whole time. Her skin was starting to look like a plucked chicken. There was instant coffee. The men had fat fingers and typed notes into their tiny phone keyboards. They kept asking me,

  —Was she a drug user?

  —Was anyone with her?

  And I said I didn’t know her super well.

  —Weren’t you friends? one asked.

  —We were sisters, not friends, I said.

  They didn’t understand.

  Then the suited men stood in the front yard and spoke for a long time with two cops. Nicole and I watched from her window. By now the rims of her nostrils were raw. She kept dabbing with a hankie and I thought how strange it was that Margot was dead, a full body, and here was Nicole’s hankie, a tiny world of bacteria, alive.

  —You poor girls, she said.

  T
here was no nice way to ask if they were going to shut down our house, so instead I asked, What’s going to happen to us?

  She rubbed my back, palm up and down like she was trying to burp a baby.

  —You’ll suffer and heal, she said.

  Then Margot’s parents came and I cried in the shower, finally.

  • • •

  That afternoon the provost said we were not to be shut down during the investigation. I called a meeting in the Chapter Room. I wrote down what I wanted to say in nice language. I used the thesaurus in Microsoft Word. I said things like, This is an opportunity for unity, and Let us take solace in our sisterhood. By the time the meeting ended, I got a call that Nationals were coming on Monday. I spent the night telling each idiot sister to do a room check and hide their stuff. Someone took the bong out of the Pledge Study and stacked the paddles behind the washing machines. We vacuumed. Girls were still crying.

  • • •

  Three women with the same haircut had been flown in: the vice president, the head chapter consultant, and the president of Nationals, who had, by far, the worst face job I’d ever seen. They were dressed like former beauty pageant ladies turned judges, you know, with the pencil-skirt-suit-jacket combination and blouses in different shades of pinks. Each one of them wore the opal pin with the Greek letters. They were calling it an informal deposition. My understanding of deposition would mean that it could not be informal, but no one seemed to care about the contrariness. It was annoying.

  Our meeting was in the Chapter Room. Someone had put out a tablecloth and a bouquet of our house roses. This made things look pretty and it hid the graffiti carved into the wood, stuff like kyra sucks a chode or fall ’04 best of the best.

  —Elina, we’re here to give you the benefit of the doubt, the president said. We are your sisters, and your word has value to us.

  —Thank you, I said.

  Legs uncrossed and recrossed and the tannest woman, the vice president, clicked at her pen over and over until I wished I could reach over and take it out of her hands.

  —Tell us about Sister Margot Glenn, the president said.

  —She was a good sister, I said.

  —A good sister, the president repeated. Can you expand on that?

  I wanted to say, not really, because I’d only hung out with her a few times. She was not in my pledge class, and she was one of those sisters that was a little skanky. She liked arguing. She was a snoop.

  —She was really nice, I said. One time, I ran out of quarters for the dryer and she helped me. And she was good at making rushes feel welcome during recruitment.

  —“Rushes” is inappropriate language, the president said. Her eyelids were so big I could see eye shadow even when she tried to open wide.

  —Please bear in mind that rushes are to be referred to as Potential New Members.

  —I apologize, I said. English is my second language.

  It was an easy excuse. I don’t even dream in my first language anymore, and when I last spoke to my grandparents I felt like we were talking on laggy Skype even though we were in the same room.

  The women were unimpressed.

  —Can you tell us about what happened on Friday morning? the chapter consultant asked.

  —We found her in her room, I said.

  —We? said the chapter consultant. Who’s we?

  —A lot of us saw her before the ambulance came.

  —Who called the ambulance?

  —I did.

  —Ah, the vice president said. That’s very good. Good initiative. Was anyone in with Margot when she passed?

  —I don’t know, I said. Maybe Deirdre. I don’t know.

  —Deirdre who?

  —Ah, said the vice president. She nodded and jotted something in her notebook. I wondered what she knew.

  —Deirdre is her best friend, I said.

  —Who had been with her that night? asked the president.

  —I don’t know, I said.

  —You don’t know.

  —No.

  Glances were traded so swiftly that it was as if they had practiced. The chapter consultant was getting impatient. I thought about what her life must be like. She probably drives a black Escalade and has au pairs for her Ritalin babies. Stupid woman. The consultant turned toward the vice.

  —Go get Deirdre, she said.

  The vice nearly ran from the room.

  —Do you think I’m here just to be fucked with? the consultant asked.

  I had never seen such a pretty woman over forty say fuck. The president looked offended.

  —Joyce, the president began, I would like you to keep yourself composed while we discuss with Elina—

  —Your chapter is in serious jeopardy, do you understand that? the consultant said.

  —Yes, sister, I said.

  I thought dumbly about how these women reflected exec boards in every chapter. The president had to be sneaky plus steely plus attractive. The vice had to be demure. The pledge mistress (or in this case, the consultant) had to be a bitch. Four hundred chapters across the country, all the way to the top, this was how it went.

  —This death has struck a chord with all of us, the president said.

  —I agree, I said.

  —It wouldn’t do to withhold information, she said.

  —I agree, I said.

  —It wouldn’t do, say, to deceive us about goings-on in the house. We know you want to reflect well for Nationals. That is truly admirable. But in this room, we need to be transparent about the activity of your sisterhood.

  I didn’t say anything.

  —When I was in college, the president began, our chapter threw a party one night where someone managed to bring a horse up to the second floor. It climbed the steps beautifully and spent the night pacing up and down our hallway during our party. Unfortunately, horses are terrific at climbing steps and not so satisfactory at getting down. We had to call the fire department to get it out. What a mess! But those were different times!

  She laughed at her own story, but her face muscles didn’t move and her mouth hung open in a strange circle.

  —How did they get it out? I asked.

  —I don’t remember, she said wistfully. Plywood, I think.

  —Is there, to the best of your knowledge, any illicit drug use in this house? the consultant asked, and the president looked at her sadly, trying to say with her eyes that the story she just shared was meant to change the mood so that I, the silly chapter president, would be superenchanted, you know, and more willing to talk about my house’s violations.

  —I do not allow drug use in my house, I lied.

  The president leaned in and placed a hand on my forearm.

  —Are you from America? she asked.

  —I was born in Norway, I said. But I’ve been an American for most of my life.

  —Your English is impeccable, she said.

  I nodded.

  —Isn’t Norway the one with the wooden shoes?

  —That’s Holland, I said.

  Both of them needed a good smack.

  —My apologies, the president said.

  —I am not here for her biography, the consultant said through her teeth.

  We were quiet.

  —Elina, my dear, the president said, your sister is dead. Her parents have ordered an autopsy. There will be an investigation. Any drug use that is traced to this house could lead to its immediate disbandment. However—

  Deirdre stumbled into the room, the vice trailing behind her. She wore a pajama top and a pair of boxers. She was shaking.

  —Oh. The president breathed, and somehow dead Margot did not seem so mythical anymore, not when we were staring at Deirdre’s blotchy face.

  —Oh, you dear girl, the president said. She stood, and Deirdre crumpled into her pink blouse and wept.

  —There, there, the president said. What a shame. What a shame.

  Why do Americans repeat themselves when they’re sad?

  Deirdre let the president h
old her. The vice bunched up her hands. The consultant watched them carefully, like she was looking for mistakes. The president sat Deirdre in her chair and stood behind her with a hand on her shoulder.

  —Now this is true sisterhood, she said to us. Look at this girl. This is true friendship. Her devotion shines even in her loss. My dear girl, know that your sister is in heaven with the angels.

  I know it was sad and everything, but god, if Margot had been alive in that moment, I would have killed her myself. What a bitch. What a stupid, selfish bitch. In Oslo, people who kill themselves do not get rewarded with angels. My cheeks were blushing.

  —I can see how distressed you both are, the president said. It’s a terrible business, and I’m so sorry to have to have these discussions with either of you, but we have to know, Deirdre, what did Margot do before she died?

  —I don’t know, Deirdre said. I was working.

  —You work nights? the consultant asked. I could almost see her thinking: stripper.

  —I work for a caterer, Deirdre said. The party went all night and we weren’t dismissed until four. Then it was a long drive home.

  —You poor girl, the vice cooed.

  —So you don’t know where she was, the consultant said.

  —I don’t. But I just got off the phone with her dad.

  Deirdre wiped her eyes with her palm. Her inhales were making her chest tick and shutter. I could not tell if she was suspending us on purpose or not.

  —Yes? the consultant said.

  —The coroner found a heart defect, she said. Isn’t that ridiculous? Her whole life, and she never knew it, and it kills her in her sleep? It’s so—

  —Abnormal, the president said. That poor girl.

  They were gone within ten minutes.

  • • •

  I went to Room Epsilon. They had stripped the bedsheets. Deirdre lay on the mattress without tears.

  —What was it really? I said.

  —It was a defect, she said. A defect, and a shit ton of Molly, and some other shit, too.

  I did not want to stay. I did not want to sit on the edge of the mattress and pet her and make her cry again. I was so tired of all the crying. So many girls were sniffing through the house with tissues balled in their hands. If they were truly sad then there was nothing I could do to fix it. If they were just following a trend then I didn’t want to encourage it and let it continue. It could be a sad thing in church, or alone. The rest of it was just a display.