Pledged (11 page)

“I’m going home,” Olivia said, winking in response to Vicki’s “don’t leave me!” gestures. “You stay here.”

Vicki noticed William had left a message on her cell phone and scrambled off Dan’s bed. “I’m going with you, okay?” She turned to Dan. “I have to take Olivia home but, um, I’ll be right back.”

On the way back to the Beta Pi house, Vicki explained to Olivia that although she liked Dan, she was more interested in William. Olivia, insisting Vicki should date both of them, sent her in the direction of the Iota house, where Vicki ended up staying the night with William.

The next day, at Olivia’s prodding, Vicki called Dan to apologize. “Um, Olivia got sick,” she lied. “I’m sorry I didn’t come back.” Dan believed her, and was so understanding about the situation that Vicki felt guilty and agreed to see him the following weekend.

Moving On

OCTOBER 22

CAITLIN’S IM AWAY MESSAGE

“Is it worth it? Lemme work it.”—Missy Elliott

CAITLIN AND AMY WERE OUTSIDE GETTING SOME AIR AFTER
an Alpha
Rho chapter meeting when they ran into Taylor, who stopped to chat. Caitlin’s mood shifted from elation about a successful presentation she had given as vice president at the meeting to feeling ill at ease. The last time she’d seen Taylor—at the MuNu party—she hadn’t exactly been sober.

“Yeah, so the MuNu Date Party is next week,” Taylor said, brushing a lock of floppy hair out of his eyes.

“Really.” Widening her dark eyes innocently, Amy pretended she hadn’t known.

“Yeah. Hasn’t anyone asked you guys yet?”

Amy explained her confusion over Spencer.

“How about you?” Taylor turned to Caitlin. “What’s your deal?”

“I just broke up with my boyfriend and he was a frickin’ jerk,” Caitlin said lightly. “So I don’t trust guys right now. It’s a long story.” The three of them flirted until Taylor had to leave for a MuNu meeting.

Later, Amy and Caitlin discussed the situation. “Honey, I bet Taylor will ask you to his Date Party,” Amy said.

“Yeah, well, he hasn’t really expressed any interest in getting with me,” Caitlin said. “And he was very forthright about his reputation as a player. But yeah, I want to go to Date Party.”

“Taylor could totally take you,” Amy insisted. Caitlin went to her room to call her mother at their designated time. Her mother’s first question was whether she had seen Chris since they last spoke.

When Taylor got back from his meeting, he IMed Amy. “So. Your suitemate . . .”

“You should take her to Date Party, Taylor.”

“I hate IM,” Taylor backtracked. “Why don’t you just call me.”

Amy called. “If you ask her, she’ll say yes.”

“I never got that vibe.”

“Caitlin, Taylor’s on the phone! He wants to talk to you.” Amy was determined to make this work. She thought it would be good for Caitlin to see what it was like to go out with someone she considered a gentleman, for once.

“So I hear you wanted to ask me to Date Party,” Caitlin said.

“Actually,” Taylor replied, “I wanted to ask you to dinner first because I don’t know you that well.” Caitlin was impressed. She had underestimated him. They planned a date at a low-key restaurant for a few nights later.

The night of the date, Caitlin was nervous. She still wasn’t over Chris, even though they were only “fuck buddies” at the moment. It didn’t help that Chris came over the afternoon of the date, clearly rattled that Caitlin was going out with someone else. That night, he told Caitlin that during the week after their breakup, he had kissed another girl twice. Caitlin was heartbroken that he had moved on so quickly.

“No, wait,” Chris said, trying to console her. “The only reason I’m telling you this is because the first kiss I didn’t enjoy, and the second one made me realize I didn’t enjoy it because she wasn’t you,” he said. “I love you so much.” Before he left, he asked, “What are you going to do if Taylor kisses you?”

“Well, I don’t know, Chris. We’ll just see,” she said. “If I kiss him, I’ll probably be thinking about you anyway, but you made that decision for me. Look, everything that’s happening is your doing. If it was up to me, we would never have broken up.”

Caitlin wasn’t sure if she liked Taylor, but this counted as her first date since her breakup with Chris. “I really hope he doesn’t try anything,” she said to Amy, who waited with her, smoothing Caitlin’s ponytail as she fidgeted by the door. “I don’t think I like him like that.” But she tried to relax.

To Caitlin’s relief, when Taylor brought her back home, he only leaned over in the car and asked her if she’d like to go to Date Party. When Caitlin got to her room, she took down her IM away message. Immediately, Chris called, livid with jealousy, and insisted she tell him everything about the date. During the next week, Chris slept over at the house every night. As she and Chris reconnected, Caitlin realized that she had accepted Taylor’s invitation to the Mu Zeta Nu Date Party mostly because she wanted to go with Amy and Jake, not because she was interested romantically in Taylor. She had too much of a history with Chris to give up on him easily, and besides, if her mother discovered Caitlin was seeing a fraternity boy, she would be furious. Caitlin was already tempting fate by returning to her pre-rape relationship with alcohol and marijuana.

Hoping to be honest with Taylor, Caitlin IMed him: “Look, I’m in a complicated situation. So let’s just go and have a good time. I still think it’ll be fun.” She decided she might as well get to know him as a friend. Date Party season was just beginning, and she would need dates to all of the Alpha Rho functions. If it worked out with Taylor, she would have someone to take other than Chris, whom many of her sisters didn’t approve of. They agreed that Chris was extremely attractive, came from the “right” type of family, and could not have been a more caring boyfriend after Caitlin was raped. But sometime during the previous spring, the Alpha Rhos had sensed a change in him and became convinced that he treated Caitlin differently than before. Despite the obvious chemistry between Caitlin and Chris, her sisters constantly told her she was pretty enough to do better.

Barraged

OCTOBER 27

AMY’S IM AWAY MESSAGE

o no! Date Party! now accepting applications from all gentlemen who kno how to have a nite of fun ;-)

A FEW DAYS BEFORE MU ZETA NU’S DATE PARTY, AMY
ATTENDED a s
mall birthday gathering at the MuNu house for Priscilla, the girlfriend of her close friend Greg. As usual, Amy was at the house as Jake’s date. Jake usually didn’t look or act gay unless he was with his more gregarious gay friends, but with her flirtatiousness, Amy was good at keeping him in check, just in case.

A Gay-Lesbian e-mail petition for peace in the community had spread around the campus. A group of MuNu brothers huddled around a computer as they read through the list of names, assuming that anyone who signed the petition was officially coming out. Suddenly, the boys came across Priscilla’s name on the petition. Delighted, they sashayed around the room, singsonging, “Priscilla’s a dyke! Priscilla’s a dyke!” Jake said nothing.

“A friend of mine is lesbian,” Priscilla said. “She asked me to sign to show my support, so I did.”

Amy looked at the MuNu brothers dancing around the couch. “Wouldn’t y’all sign the petition if you had a gay friend and he asked you to?” The brothers looked disgusted.

“I would,” Greg said.

“I wouldn’t,” Spencer said, and laughed.

Amy silently seethed for Jake, whose hand she grabbed and held tightly.

As the conversation shifted to money, Nathan, the brother who had date-raped Amy, lay down on the couch next to her. Stiffening as his leg grazed hers, she chattered to mask her discomfort and happened to mention a pair of shoes she planned to buy on a weekend shopping trip.

“Oh, with the credit card that Daddy pays for?” Nathan smirked. Amy was sensitive about financial issues. It was true she was well off—she was one of the wealthiest sisters in an already affluent sorority. But she tried not to let her money shape her personality, and for the most part she succeeded; because of her unpretentious attitude, most people were surprised when they found out that Amy was incredibly rich.

“Nathan, who pays for
your
room and board?” she retorted.

Nathan looked pleased to get a rise out of Amy. “So, babe, are you staying over here tonight or am I going over to your place?” he asked.

Amy’s smooth skin flushed with anger. Instead of admitting that he had date-raped her, he pretended they had an ongoing flirtation. Spencer rescued Amy by calling her into the kitchen. As she walked away, Nathan called after her, “Let’s have sex now. You know you want me.”

“So,” Spencer said when they were alone in the kitchen, “what’s with you and Jake?”

“Oh, bless your heart, nothing’s going on.” Trying not to laugh, Amy patted his arm reassuringly.

“Well, then, what’s going on with us?” he asked.

“You tell me.”

“I don’t want to lose your friendship, but there’s something more going on here,” Spencer said.

“Okay.”

“But it’s complicated,” he insisted.

“Why is this so complicated?”

“I just don’t know what to do,” he said.

If that weren’t enough, Amy’s father called when she got home. He was trying to get her together with the son of one of his friends, whom she disliked. When she mentioned she was going to Jake’s Date Party, her father grew angry.

“I know you think it’s all fun and games, but I’m really sick of hearing about a different guy every week,” her father said. Until she came to college, Amy had always had steady boyfriends. This was the longest she’d gone without a boyfriend, and her father wasn’t pleased.

“It’s just Jake! He’s gay, Daddy!” she argued. That didn’t help.

“I think you’re pushing straight guys away. You hide behind your gay friends.”

“Daddy, I’m trying.” She told him the chronology of what had happened with Spencer.

“You must have done something wrong,” said her father. Amy burst into tears.

AT THE ALPHA RHO CHAPTER MEETING THE NEXT
night, Charlotte, the president, told the girls the date and place for December’s Formal, and then added nonchalantly, “We’re having a great Date Party pretty soon.”

In addition to casual socials and mixers, Alpha Rho sisters had one Date Party—which was like a semiformal—one Formal, and one Date Dash each semester. For Date Dashes, sisters were notified four hours in advance that they would have to find a date and clothes for a party at a bar or club.

The sisters flipped their sorority calendars.

“When is it?” Normally the girls got at least three weeks’ notice so they had enough time to cozy up to a potential date before springing an Alpha Rho function on him.

When Charlotte told them, the Alpha Rhos squawked: “That’s too soon!” “I can’t find a date!” “My boyfriend just broke up with me a week ago! Who am I going to take?”

The girls continued to grumble after the meeting about the short notice—this was more like a Date Dash than a Date Party. Within ten minutes, many of the sisters had put up IM away messages reading versions of, “If you want to go to Date Party, tell me!” The Alpha Rho Date Party announcement had left the girls hyperventilating about how to find an acceptable date in a short period of time. If she could just have one more weekend, Amy thought, maybe she could work things out with Spencer in time for Date Party. The sisters told her to wait and see how the MuNu Date Party went, because she was sure to see Spencer there.

Inside the Meetings

MANY SORORITY GIRLS CONSIDER THE HUNT FOR DATES TO
various sorority events and activities an exhausting process. Not only do they have to find people to go with them in the first place, but they also often carefully weigh the acceptability of a potential date because the date reflects on the sister and the sisterhood. In some cases, as in Brooke’s house, in order to gain the sorority’s approval he must be an acceptable boy from an acceptable fraternity.

This aspect of sorority life frustrated Amy in particular. She was already having rough luck on the boyfriend front—and now, faced with numerous date events, she felt that her inability to keep a guy interested was being rubbed in her face. She tended to panic before Date Parties if she didn’t have a date lined up far in advance. A couple of weeks before one date event, I asked Amy, who was still dateless, how she was feeling. Usually chipper, Amy was the most discouraged I had seen her yet. “It’s so stressful, and there’s even more stress for me because I don’t like to ask boys out. I guess I’m old-fashioned and traditional that way. It’s so much easier for girls who already have boyfriends,” she said. “I have the pressure to find the perfect date. I’ve already spent too much time crying over dates.” I asked her why she didn’t let her sisters set her up. “Because if they didn’t need to be set up and if they could meet someone normally, why can’t I?” she said. Amy was determined to fix whatever was wrong with her so that she, too, could meet someone “normally.” She was convinced that losing some weight would solve the problem.

Another huge sorority time drain is the meetings. There are usually weekly executive board meetings for the sorority officers, rush meetings before and during recruitment, weekly pledge meetings during pledge period, and occasional house meetings for the sisters who live there. Some chapter officers attend weekly Panhellenic meetings with the campus Panhellenic adviser and representatives from each of the other national sororities at the school. These pale in importance, however, compared to the weekly chapter meetings, which are sorority sacred ground. Every sorority holds these chapter meetings, governed by parliamentary procedure, which essentially are informational sessions that update the girls on national and local sorority news, business, and plans. Several girls deliver reports, and votes are conducted on important issues. In many houses, like Alpha Rho, there is one “formal” chapter meeting a month, during which the sisters come dressed in “badge attire” and are expected to behave sedately in a chapter room lit by candlelight. At informal meetings, the sisters like to do each other’s hair and often arrive in their pajamas. At both kinds of meetings, sisters in most sororities are instructed to snap their fingers when they agree with something said.