Sorority Sisters Read Free

my family is what you’d call tall.
    Maybe that’s why the guys didn’t seem all that impressed with me. I’m wearing a long dress that doesn’t really fit me and certainly doesn’t show my figure off. I pay a lot of attention to what I wear. I figure most girls do, but I’m really inspired not to look like Quasimodo.
    I wonder how my picture is going to turn out.
    A photographer took a picture of each of us before Presents started, standing in our white gowns, holding a bouquet of white and yellow flowers, standing on the stairs leading from the foyer to the second floor. It’s going to look like a bridal photo.
    The symbolism of that is hard to shake.
    What is a sorority? A marriage mart? Brides for sale?
    Not at all what my mom had in mind. I don’t think.
    I want to get married. It’s not that. I’ve wanted to get married since I first realized that men and women got married. I think I must have been about five. I’ve had a boyfriend since the second grade, not the same one, obviously, but one right after another, and sometimes more than one at a time. I don’t go into a relationship intending to cheat; it just happens.
    Considering that my intentions are good, I’ve never felt overly guilty about it. I’ve never gone out with a guy who was dating someone else. That’s a firm policy and I don’t break it. It’s just that when a guy pursues me like I’m the last word on womanhood, it’s hard to resist. Plus, the old relationship was on its last legs; we were both getting bored or lazy. It was time to move on. That’s what I’ve decided, thinking about it as often as I have.
    I’ve been dating Greg Hall since November of my freshman year and I haven’t cheated on him. That’s if you don’t count Christmas vacation when I went back to Connecticut and went out a few times with my old high school boyfriend. You’d also have to ignore the two—no, wait, three—dates I went on over the summer. With three different guys.
    I was home for three months! What was I supposed to do with myself for three months? Besides, two of the guys were just accidents. I never even saw them again after meeting them while out with my high school friends. According to my mom, what Greg doesn’t know won’t hurt him. Since I was in Connecticut and he was in Washington, it didn’t hurt him.
    I love Greg. I do. I want to marry him and he wants to marry me.
    So, we’ll get married after we graduate. And I’ll wear my own long white gown and carry a bouquet that doesn’t remind me of scrambled eggs.
    The house is quieting, the sounds of female voices subduing, hushing, as the pledges leave. Not all sorority sisters live in the house, and no pledges do. I live in an apartment over a few blocks and two blocks behind the house, just off of Adams, about ten minutes on my bike. It’s dark now and I’ll be riding fast. In fact, I want to leave with the bulk of the throng, no matter where they’re going. There’s safety in numbers, which they make a point of telling you at freshman orientation.
    â€œThanks again,” I say, handing Holly the dress on its hanger. “I really appreciate it.”
    â€œNo problem. I’m glad we could make it fit,” she says.
    We walk back into the hallway together, a big crowd of pledges at the door, laughing as they walk into the night.
    â€œBye,” I say. I don’t want to leave alone. LA is no place to be alone.
    Holly smiles and waves, already walking up the stairs to put her dress away.
    I hurry down the brick steps, find my bike, unlock it, relieved to see that others are unlocking their bikes, struggling in the dark to see the dials, going by feel alone. We ride down The Row together, not talking, not knowing one another, but somehow bound together by Presents, by virginal white gowns and a scrambled-egg bouquet, by having just pledged a sorority