Pledged

by Alexandra Robbins

“No, seriously. We had to place overall. Maybe we got fifth in the other events and we just don’t know it.”

  “Third place overall . . . Epsilon!” The announcer tried to speak over the Epsilons’ cheers.

  “We’re either first or second,” Amy whispered in anticipation.

  “Overall Greek Week Runner-up . . .” The Alpha Rhos fidgeted throughout the announcer’s dramatic pause. “Beta Pi!”

  “We won!” Amy shouted. The Alpha Rhos, screaming and stomping as they hugged each other tightly, nearly drowned out the announcer’s confirmation that Alpha Rho and Delta Lambda had won Greek Week.

  At the next chapter meeting, the president congratulated Caitlin and her co–Greek Week Chair on their hard work. It would be much easier to convince next semester’s rushees to join Alpha Rho with the Greek Week trophy in the house’s entry hall.

  Whitney, the notoriously cranky senior, stood up. “I would just like to say that this week showed that you should never doubt the seniors,” she said. Annoyed, the underclassmen looked up sharply. “Seriously,” the sister continued, “in the future, trust that we seniors know what we’re doing.”

  DECEMBER

  The well-dressed sorority girl wears ironed or starched jeans, a jersey with Greek letters sewn on, a visor with Greek letters painted on, Greek jewelry, a headband, the most “in” sunglasses, a pearl necklace, expensive leather tennis shoes or penny loafers, and Lauren perfume. If it’s after hours, she’s donned her Lanz nightgown or a fraternity jersey and she’s still wearing her pearls.

  —Rush: A Girl’s Guide to Sorority Success, 1985

  Moral Conduct—Each member and pledge shall be responsible for her own moral conduct, realizing that her actions will reflect either credit or discredit upon her fraternity sisters. Behavior which brings discredit upon her fraternity sisters, the chapter or the national Fraternity may be cause for dismissal.

  —Pi Phi Forever, the “Membership Manual” given to new members in the 1990s

  DECEMBER 3

  AMY’S IM AWAY MESSAGE

  would’ve been better if all my girls were there

  ONE AFTERNOON IN EARLY December, the Alpha Rhos learned that they were having a Date Dash, which meant they had four hours to find a date. Caitlin called Chris. Amy wasn’t sure whom to take. And no one had seen Sabrina in days.

  As they got ready for Date Dash, Caitlin and Amy worried about Sabrina. “Okay, can I vent?” Caitlin asked, fastening an earring as she walked into the bathroom, where Amy was doing her makeup.

  “Of course, sweetie.”

  “Sabrina’s letting her professor influence her. She’s changing her whole frickin’ life because of him.”

  “I know it,” Amy said. “She said she doesn’t even want to go to medical school anymore. Now she wants to be a teacher like him.”

  “Everything’s changing.” Caitlin sounded sad.

  Amy nodded as she powdered her already ivory nose. “Ever since I knew her, Sabrina wanted to be doctor.”

  “She spent the night with him last night,” Caitlin said. “And she did more than kiss him. I asked her, ‘Where were you last night?’

  “‘In the city,’ she said.

  “‘Where in the city?’ I said.

  “‘His house.’

  “‘Where in his house?’ I go. ‘Did you sleep on his couch?’

  “She said, ‘Yes, that’s it,’ and laughed.” Caitlin sighed. “I’m going to have to be careful not to get too angry when I see her next.”

  “You’re right,” said Amy. “She’ll blow you off and say, ‘I’m happy.’”

  Caitlin anxiously wrung her hands on her sweatpants. “It’s not that he’s so much older than she is. They’re just at different points in their lives,” she said. “And it’s not that I don’t get to see her because she wants to spend time with her man. I can definitely understand that. But she’s changing her whole life around.”

  “I know. She’s even been late to chapter meetings—and she didn’t even come to tonight’s,” Amy said, and then her voice rose. “She told me that Alpha Rho is a waste of time. Why would she say that?”

  “I don’t know.”

  The other day, Amy told Caitlin, Amy and Sabrina had been shopping in a sunglasses store, where Amy had fingered a pair of purple-gold Guccis. She decided not to get them because she couldn’t justify the $150 price tag.

  “Why not?” Sabrina had asked. “You have the money.”

  “Honey, I’m not going to waste it,” Amy replied.

  “I’m sure your father will pay for them.”

  “No, he wouldn’t. He only splurges to help me pay for dates,” Amy had said, taking offense.

  “She’s never ever been like that before,” Amy said to Caitlin. “And she’s already listing the holiday gifts she wants to get her professor—two hundred dollars’ worth of clothes that she can’t afford.”

  Caitlin wearily rubbed her forehead. “Look, I’m not going to attack her. I’m going to hear her side,” she said. “But it makes me question her. Because if she’s being so sketchy, then is she really at the library tonight like she says, and that’s why she’s missing Date Dash, or is she hanging out with the professor? I have no reason to doubt her, but if she’s going to be sketchy, like, ‘I know what I’m doing, leave me alone,’ then I wouldn’t be surprised if she’s not at the library.”

  “She swore off guys all semester,” Amy groused. “She said, ‘They’re awful and I hate them.’”

  Date Dash turned out to be a fairly typical Alpha Rho evening out. The sisters and their dates were carded on the way into the bar by a harried-looking bouncer who didn’t bother looking at the IDs flashed in front of him as he slapped over-21 bracelets on at least a hundred wrists.

  “I can’t believe I got in!” one sister blurted a few steps beyond the checkpoint. “I’m only eighteen!”

  Once in the room, which contained a bar, a dance floor, disco lights, a sushi station, and a few funky suede couches scattered in a neon-lit corner, everyone headed immediately to the bar, except for Grace, who knew she could dance, and Whitney, who thought she could. Other girls’ dates leered over their drinks while the two gyrated together on the dance floor. Caitlin and Chris immediately found a loveseat in the darkest, most remote corner of the room, and collapsed on it. Amy and her date drank and mingled.

  Amy and Chad, a low-key non-Greek senior, had hit it off and seen each other almost every day since Amy gave in and let her Big Sister set them up after Homecoming. But because Amy was determined not to ruin the progression of something that seemed to be working, she calculated that it would be too overwhelming to ask Chad to Date Dash. She planned to ask him to Formal and didn’t want him to think she was coming on too strongly. Not wanting to take a male friend, who might make Chad feel threatened, Amy had cautiously decided to take a girlfriend, figuring that at least she could drink, dance, and people-watch like the other sisters. Still, some of the sisters raised eyebrows at the pair of girls.

  “Unbelievable,” Whitney had said to Amy earlier when she glanced down the Date Dash Invitation List. “Some of the sisters are actually taking girls as their dates tonight. I mean, what’s wrong with these girls that they can’t find dates?! Some of the sisters are just bringing each other!”

  Amy rolled her eyes. “Maybe people’s boyfriends, or the guys they wanted to take, couldn’t go on such short notice.”

  “But they had four whole hours to find somebody! There are sooo many guys at this school. Anyone who can’t find a guy to go is retarded.”

  “What difference does it really make, Whitney, if they want to take girls?”

  “Anyway,” Whitney tossed her hair, “you obviously don’t have to worry.” She glanced at the name—Sam—next to Amy’s. “At least you found a guy.”

  “Honey,” Amy tried not to laugh, “Sam is a girl.”

  Whitney sniffed.

  Amy and Sam danced with their first and second drinks in hand, joining the half dozen or so gir
ls—most in jeans and skimpy tops, some backless, a few in sundresses—who were on the dance floor already. The rest of the crowd was either eating sushi on the couches or shoved over on the side of the bar where the partygoers could watch the dancers and pretend to have deep conversations. It took half an hour (roughly three drinks) for the mass to shift from the bar to the dance floor. By eleven, dates were making out while freaking to a Christina Aguilera song and six girls had migrated to the DJ’s platform, where they humped each other single file, one arm holding out a drink and the other grasping the girl in front of her. (Amy referred to this particular human configuration as “the booty train.”) By midnight, Caitlin and Chris hadn’t moved from the loveseat.

  When the DJ played Missy Elliott, a girl came over to Caitlin to try to drag her to dance. “Come on, Caitlin, you love this song!”

  “Maybe later,” she replied. Chris sat expressionless, Caitlin on his lap.

  By two, several of the sisters had passed out across the room, while Amy and Sam were still double-fisting Long Island Iced Teas on the dance floor, laughing about other sisters’ dates. There was one date who had been to every Alpha Rho function Amy could remember—but with a different date each time. She referred to him privately as “the Alpha Rho manwhore.” Amy and Sam laughed even harder about the sinfully unattractive fraternity brother who was Whitney’s date.

  Escaping

  DECEMBER 3 (NIGHT)

  SABRINA’S IM AWAY MESSAGE

  out with mike

  DECEMBER 4 (MORNING)

  SABRINA’S IM AWAY MESSAGE

  out with mike

  DECEMBER 4 (NIGHT)

  SABRINA’S IM AWAY MESSAGE

  out with mike

  SABRINA WASN’T AT THE LIBRARY.

  The last week had been one of the best weeks of her life. The day after the Starbucks meeting, Sabrina was relieved that Mike showed a movie in class, so she didn’t have to worry about looking at him. She was so determined not to be conspicuous that she didn’t so much as sneak a glance at him throughout the entire class period. She didn’t think the other students had noticed how often she had been meeting with Mike, but she didn’t want to take any chances. (She had canceled plans to take Mike’s class in the spring.) When they went out after class to talk in an off-campus diner, Mike gave her some pictures of himself that Sabrina had been staring at dreamily ever since.

  The secret that Sabrina was keeping from everyone was that she had spent most nights this week at Mike’s place. Because Amy and Caitlin didn’t visit the Penthouse—Sabrina usually went to their rooms—they didn’t realize she was missing at night. The girls in the Penthouse assumed she was working at the restaurant or studying at the library at night, and because she was an early riser, they also assumed she had left the house before them in the morning. It was a shame, Sabrina thought, that she had to hide her feelings and experiences from her sisters, who were supposed to be her support network. But she couldn’t risk certain sisters discovering her secret. If they did, they could have her brought in front of the chapter’s Disciplinary Board. Even worse, they could get Mike in trouble for dating a student. In Alpha Rho, dating an older man, let alone a professor, was considered taboo. But because so few Alpha Rhos had made the effort to get to know Sabrina, most of them would never guess her secret.

  Sabrina relished going to Mike’s as an escape from sorority life. At Mike’s, an entirely separate, clandestine part of her life, she didn’t have to worry about the daily dramas that beset the houseful of girls. And she could temporarily forget the barrier that sat unbudged between her and her sisters, the one that sharpened into focus at unexpected times, like when Amy had considered buying the Gucci sunglasses. Sabrina wasn’t jealous of Amy or the other sisters, most of whom were ostentatious about their wealth while Amy was more subtle. But sometimes her sisters’ inability to relate to her left her feeling isolated. Her sisters were largely spoiled girls who had had everything handed to them throughout their lives. They had no understanding of what it was like not to have food on the table or to anguish that their parents wouldn’t be able to pay the rent.

  Mike understood. He had been there, he had worked his way out of it, and already, he had told Sabrina he was in love with her. He had even given her a key to his apartment and cleared out some of his dresser drawers for her. (She guessed they weren’t waiting until December 23 after all.) Sabrina was elated but overwhelmed as she tried to digest how her first—and, she hoped, only—adult romance had progressed so quickly. She supposed she could slow it down if she wanted to, but she wasn’t sure what she wanted, or how to balance this relationship with the rest of her life. A few times she had already backed out on plans with sisters, even Caitlin, because she didn’t want to leave Mike’s apartment. It wasn’t that sorority activities suddenly seemed juvenile now that she was dating a thirty-six-year-old. She wouldn’t have minded going to Date Dash or to Formal, which was in a couple of weeks. But she was upset that she couldn’t go with the date she wanted to take. Sabrina had briefly considered asking Mike to Formal. None of the other sisters knew who he was, and he had such a youthful look that he could pass for a grad student or one of her older friends from home. But she could only imagine the kinds of questions the sisters would throw at her about this new face. Mike told her to take someone else, but Sabrina had no interest. It was, however, getting increasingly difficult to hide from her sisters the real reason she didn’t have a Formal date set up by now. Maybe she would take Beth. Or maybe she wouldn’t go at all.

  Keeping in Line

  DECEMBER 5

  VICKI’S IM AWAY MESSAGE

  will someone please get me out of here?

  VICKI’S ROOMMATE SITUATION WAS GETTING WORSE, THOUGH she didn’t believe it could be possible. For instance, Morgan’s “eccentricities,” as Vicki politely referred to them, were becoming increasingly aggravating.

  Morgan, who considered herself to be even more drop-dead gorgeous than she actually was, tended to flaunt her Barbie looks. When she walked into a bar, she sashayed in as if she were the most beautiful creature ever to enter the room. After a night at the bar a couple of weeks before Formal, one of Morgan’s male friends sent her an IM to that effect.

  “u r the hottest girl ever,” he wrote. “damn ur a babe.”

  Morgan told Vicki about the message. “Vicki, I’m thinking about putting that in my IM away message, what do you think?”

  “Um, sure, why not,” Vicki answered. “I’ve done stuff like that.” When one of Vicki’s friends IMed her that she was “a total cutie,” she had proudly posted it at the bottom of her IM away message for a day.

  “Yes, but this is different from yours,” Morgan insisted. “It’s cute when you do it, but guys know I know how attractive I am.”

  Morgan frequently hinted that certain other sisters’ looks weren’t up to the Beta Pi par. Once Morgan picked up a miniskirt from the floor of the gentleman’s parlor, examined it, and scowled.

  “Laura-Ann, is this yours?” Morgan asked, holding up the skirt.

  “Nope.”

  Morgan looked perplexed. “But it’s a medium!” she said, as if Laura-Ann was the only sister who could possibly require a medium. Vicki made a mental note not to leave out the size-large sweatpants she had just bought.

  While the younger members of the house looked up to Morgan and had elected her Alumnae Liaison, the older girls whispered about how they disliked her. They didn’t appreciate her tendency to talk about herself and her male prospects in the television room for twenty minutes straight. They didn’t like the way she used her position as a chapter officer to encourage the house to set up pre-games only with fraternities that had a brother she wanted to date. Vicki and Olivia agreed with the older girls. Because Morgan had several moles (“beauty marks,” Morgan called them) on her ultrathin body, Vicki and Olivia privately referred to Morgan as “Spotty.”

  But Vicki didn’t have enough energy to dwell on Morgan’s appearance obsession because it was beco
ming even more unbearable to live with Laura-Ann. Laura-Ann was regularly leaving cigarette butts on the floor near Vicki’s bed. She and Olivia confronted Laura-Ann about the cigarettes because the girls had a “No Smoking in the Room Except in Emergencies” policy.

  “Oh my God, Laura-Ann, clean those up,” Olivia said.

  “They’re not mine.”

  “Well, I don’t smoke cigarettes,” Vicki said, “so they’re not mine.”

  “And Morgan and I don’t smoke that brand,” Olivia said, “so they’re not ours.”

  Laura-Ann walked out in a huff.

  The last straw came a few nights before Winter Formal, when Vicki was seeking advice from a friend from home about William, who would be her Formal date, though her interest in him was flagging. Olivia and Morgan were in bed, and Laura-Ann was puttering around the room, so Vicki went into a sitting room down the hall. She was five minutes into her call when she heard a rustling noise outside the door. She opened the door just enough to spot Laura-Ann crouched on the floor of the hallway, her ear pressed up against a vent.

  The Beta Pis had discovered earlier that week that they could hear each other’s conversations through the vents. One of the sophomores had been alone on the phone in her room when she mentioned one of William’s attractive Iota brothers. That night in the kitchen, a junior repeated the conversation, word for word, as she made fun of the girl to the other sisters.

  “She said she wanted to ‘tap that ass!’” the sister howled. “I heard it through the vent!” Since then, the vents had become popular gathering spots. But because few of the girls in the house were awake at this hour, it was clear to Vicki that Laura-Ann was specifically trying to listen in on her conversation.

  Sure enough, a few minutes later, Laura-Ann barged into the sitting room, interrupting Vicki, who was still on the phone. “I heard you curse and talk about staying over and smoking pot at a fraternity house.”

  Vicki looked at her in disbelief. “So?”

  “So you’re not representing Beta Pi the right way.” Laura-Ann sat down directly in front of Vicki and stared at her.