Pledged (6 page)

“You’re right,” Spencer groaned. “This is much better.” When he was nearly inside her, she pulled back.

“Do you want to?” he asked.

“No, we can’t do this. It’s wrong. If it’s going to happen, it’s going to happen when we’re sober.”

Spencer persisted. “Please? Pleeeease?” He pushed closer to her smooth, creamy skin.

“Don’t try to make me do stuff I don’t want to do.” She held up a manicured hand.

“Okay, okay.”

“Why can’t you wait a day?” she asked.

“What’s a day going to do?”

“A lot can happen in a day.”

“Like what?”

“I’d just rather this work,” Amy purred with her velvety southern charm. “I don’t want this to be a one-night thing.”

“So you do see this going somewhere?”

“I sure do.”

Spencer smiled and kissed her. “Me, too.”

But the next morning, Spencer only pecked Amy on the forehead and left without a word. Amy sighed and slid aside her frilly white drapes to glance out the broad, arched window at the sun-drenched State U campus, which was considered by many to host one of the best-looking student populations in the region. Guests would come from all over the area and pay the guest admission fee to the State U rec center for the sole purpose of watching girls in sports bras and hot pants sweat on the StairMasters. Gym attendance was such a given among sorority sisters that “gymming” had become a popular gerund, as in, “I need to go gymming if I eat this cookie.” Amy knew that if Spencer didn’t call her within the next few days, she would be at the gym, too. She tended to force herself to diet and exercise whenever things went wrong with a boy. Amy was no slouch, though. Her long, coal black hair, so shiny it looked lacquered, cascaded down her back in shampoo-commercial curls, and the former cheerleader had the kind of curves that made men flock to her at clubs whenever she shook her groove to what she liked to call “the ass songs.”

Despite her looks, Amy hadn’t had a steady boyfriend since her identical twin died the month before freshman year began. The pain had since subsided slightly, but back then Amy had felt as if she had lost half of herself, and she had wished she could have been the one to get leukemia instead. Her sister’s death left her as the only daughter in a house with three brothers and a meek mother. Her father couldn’t understand why a girl who had had steady boyfriends since she hit puberty—and who was so compassionate to everyone she met—would suddenly have trouble with boys in college. He bought her tickets to concerts, offered her limousine rides, and dangled expensive dinners to which she could bring potential boyfriends, but Amy usually ended up taking friends and sisters with her instead. The boys, meanwhile, would date her and they would sleep with her, but they were rarely interested in more. She hated when guys told her that she would “make the perfect girlfriend,” because no one seemed to be taking her up on it. Instead, they would spend the night with her and disappear. She hoped that wouldn’t happen with Spencer. She had spent too much time doubting herself because of her boy trouble, wondering if the constant attraction-then-rejection was because of the way she looked, the way she approached the situation, or the guys she chose. She had vowed that junior year would be different.

Amy cheered up quickly, though (her secret Alpha Rho name was “Mirth” for good reason), as she spotted her friend René waving at her through the window. Alpha Rho was not one of those sororities that frowned on sisters befriending non-Greeks, but René, a non-Greek, was still too intimidated to come inside the house. René had participated in sorority rush with Amy and Sabrina during spring of freshman year. On Bid Day, Amy and Sabrina were invited to join Alpha Rho while René was turned down by every sorority. René was furious with Amy, claiming that Amy wouldn’t be her friend anymore now that she had Alpha Rho. “How can you say you like me and are friends with me and that those girls in your sorority are so nice, but they don’t like me?” she accused. Amy was so upset at the prospect of losing one of her best friends that she considered “de-pledging,” or disaffiliating, from Alpha Rho.

René got over the snub eventually, after Amy assured her that she wasn’t going to turn into a different person because of her sorority membership. Amy became even more determined not to let the sorority change her when she noticed that the other sisters in her pledge class immediately began to cling to each other, ignore their non–Alpha Rho friends, and volunteer for additional Alpha Rho responsibilities. Amy preferred to ease into the sorority so it wouldn’t take over her life. As she patiently explained to René, “I want to make of it what I want to make of it and not let it make me.”

But gradually Amy sensed the pressure to “be more Alpha Rho,” even though she wasn’t entirely sure what that entailed. She had chosen Alpha Rho for its relative diversity compared to some of the other State U sororities, in which the sisters all majored in the same subject, had the same interests, or, like the rival Beta Pis, looked alike. The Alpha Rho house was more of a ragtag bunch, but the new pledges nonetheless tried hard to earn the older sisters’ approval. As the spring of her freshman year wore on, Amy became increasingly attuned to Alpha Rho politics and protocol. She learned the hierarchy of the sorority officers. She picked up on the Alpha Rho views of which sororities on campus were acceptable and which were not to be associated with, which fraternities Alpha Rho could be seen with for November’s Greek Week, and how Alpha Rho was in the process of “raising its status.”

Amy tried not to get caught up in those superficialities. She was just glad to be forming connections with a group of girls, which was the reason she had rushed in the first place. Joining a sorority, Amy had hoped, would provide a chance to build a new female support system. Joining a sorority, she hoped, would re-create a sisterhood.

Politics and Protocol

THERE ARE THREE STAGES OF SORORITY LIFE: ON BID DAY,
when a girl accepts her “bid,” or invitation to join a sorority, she becomes a “pledge” of that group. When she is initiated, usually after a several-week pledge period, the girl becomes a sister, or “active” member. When she graduates, she becomes a sorority alumna. As soon as students become pledges they have a mass of particulars to learn about the source of their new allegiance. One of the first lessons pledges learn is to respect the hierarchy of the house. Most sorority houses are managed by the sisters who comprise the executive board, or “exec board,” of the chapter. (A chapter, also referred to as a house, is a college branch of the sorority’s national organization.) These elected officers usually include a president, a vice president, and officers who monitor the house’s finances, public relations, scholarship, fraternity relations, standards, and pledges. Below these officers in the hierarchy, several girls serve as chairs of various committees. The social chair of a sorority is in charge of lining up frequent social events, usually mixers with fraternities. The rush chair leads the recruitment period, the song chair teaches the sisters their song collection and writes new songs for activities such as “serenading” (see the next chapter), and some sororities have an alumnae chair, a philanthropy chair, and others.

Sorority politics and protocol are a lot to get used to. As the girls moving into the house settle in, carefully arranging their rooms and belongings to reflect themselves, they also consider how to reflect themselves properly within the context of the larger group. This navigation of their housemates and their notions of their individual identities extends from room arrangement to social strategy. Within a sorority house, cliques form quickly, particularly when the newest pledge class initiated in the spring moves into the house in the fall for the first time. Amy watched her pledge class coalesce—and drop their non–Alpha Rho contacts—immediately upon entry into the sorority as they tried to gain favor with their new sisters. Even Amy, who was determined to maintain her current character, tried to, as she put it, become “more Alpha Rho.” This attitude, common among sororities nationwide, is an early step toward the process of assimilation into the group.

To help the new girls become acclimated, sororities traditionally assign each girl a Big Sister to assist her through the process. When a pledge gets a Big Sister, she officially becomes a member of a “family” within the sorority; the succession of Big Sisters means that a new girl could have a Big Sister and a Grand Big Sister (the Big Sister’s Big Sister). Often, as for Caitlin, there is a sense of kinship within a family that goes beyond the usual sorority sister relationship. (The relationships aren’t always permanent. A midwestern Tri-Delt told me how her sorority-diehard Big Sister disowned her after she decided to spend a semester abroad rather than run for a chapter officer position for which she was a shoo-in.)

If a girl doesn’t invest enough time in August constructing a place for herself within her sisterhood, she can fall behind in the group’s kaleidoscopic bonding progression and, in some cases, never catch up. Many girls told me that when they devoted too much time to outside activities or academics during this period, by the time they were ready to prioritize the sorority it was too late. The cliques had already formed and they were branded an outsider, a tough label to overcome.

At her Texas school, Brooke was “terrified” that she wouldn’t know how to incorporate all the right things in order to fit in. To begin with, she was a redhead aiming for a sorority of brunettes. The sisters, who all shopped at the same upscale store, had flawless makeup and wore certain strappy sandals, short black skirts, tiny linen tops, and silver Texas jewelry. So Brooke started shopping at that store. “You had all these different girls who were very put together,” Brooke said. “They all looked perfect. You know when you see someone put together, it’s like she just came back from a great interview? They’d get dressed up, and they’d walk out of the sorority house saying, ‘Time to go rush the freshmen!’ and then find us and go, ‘Oh my gosh, how
are
you?’ in the kind of voice that told you that they knew they looked perfect. It was overwhelming.”

The urge to fit in can be so petrifying, especially at the start of the year, that the new girls often go to great lengths to blend in as quickly and seamlessly as possible. This explains the rampant eating disorders, the group piercings, and the similar hair color and dating patterns of sisters in the same sorority chapter. If they don’t make every effort to conform, the girls worry that even after being invited to join a sorority, they could be deemed unsuitable sister material and subsequently be cast out from the group.

As the beginning of the 2002–2003 academic year illustrated, some girls will do anything to avoid that pitfall. According to a private investigation, on an early September evening, two California State University students, Kristin High and Kenitha Saafir, participated in an Alpha Kappa Alpha sorority pledging activity with at least three AKA sisters and two other pledges. After running through sets of rigorous calisthenics on the sand at Dockweiler State Beach, Kristin and Kenitha, blindfolded and bound at the wrists, were led into fierce riptides and ten-foot waves, wearing all-black jogging clothes and sneakers. The girls, said their families, were already exhausted by the calisthenics and had lost sleep because they had performed chores for AKA sisters at late hours almost every night for the previous month. They had reportedly been locked out of their rooms, forced to act as “slaves” by braiding their sisters’ hair and other activities, and allowed sisters to throw paint over them. When police officers, summoned to the scene by a report of women screaming, arrived, they could see two bodies being pitched by the waves about fifty yards from the beach. They dragged Kristin and Kenitha to shore, but they were too late. The girls had pledged to their death.

Kristin’s family accused Alpha Kappa Alpha of engaging in “a cover-up” and filed a $100 million wrongful-death lawsuit against the organization, the country’s oldest African American sorority. The national AKA office claimed it had no chapter at that particular university; lawyers for Kristin’s family said that AKA has a citywide Los Angeles chapter. A preliminary Los Angeles Police Department investigation—the inquiry is ongoing—ruled the deaths accidental and unrelated to the sorority. The truth behind these conflicting details may never surface: when Kristin’s car was returned to her family, personal items, including a diary in which Kristin had recorded entries about the pledge period, were missing. But members of the Greek system have admitted both that forced calisthenics are a common ritual and that leading pledges blindfolded into the ocean, an activity that is intended to build trust as the new girls follow the sound of a leader’s voice, is a popular component of West Coast pledge periods.

Kristin’s mother, who, following Kristin’s death, founded the group Mothers Against Hazing, has asked Alpha Kappa Alpha to “stop these savage acts of passion in the name of sisterhood.” Whether these acts are out of passion or are seen within the sorority as a way to bind a set of girls motivated by a desperate desire to belong, the message of Kristin’s mother rings clear. Across the country, in hundreds of sorority chapters, thousands of girls are willing to do just about anything to fit in—and they do so, sometimes risking their lives, all in the name of sisterhood.

SEPTEMBER

The advantages of sorority life are not only immediate but can also reach far into your future. Who knows? You might meet your future husband on a blind date arranged by your big sister.

—Ready for Rush: The Must-Have Manual for Sorority Rushees!, 1999

Kappa Deltas should aspire to be popular with other groups, but never at the cost of personal reputation or group dignity. Note how many social invitations your chapter receives and how much fun your sisters have together!

—The Norman Shield of Kappa Delta, “the guidebook for all new members,” July 2003

SEPTEMBER 13

VICKI’S IM AWAY MESSAGE

dancing for boys. remind me why i’m doing this again?

IT WAS CLOSE TO
10 p.m. when the front doors to Beta Pi burst open and several dozen sisters, their hair loose down their backs, sashayed down the stairs into the glow of the streetlights. The ceiling inside the doorway was blanketed with balloons, and two vases of roses on the buffet bookended a poster reading Delta Lambda
Beta Pi. About a third of the sisters—the sophomores, including Vicki—were in little black dresses and strappy sandals, while the rest wore nice jeans and tight black tops. “Ready, girls?” rasped a confident-looking sister in a tube top; the question sounded less 1950s school mistress than 2000s dance queen. The sisters gathered closer together on the sidewalk and, at the instruction of the Tube Top, began stomping down the block yelling, “Beta Pi, Delta Lambda, Beta Pi, Delta Lambda” over and over again. Vicki shrank into the middle of the crowd, reluctantly muttering the chant under her breath. When they passed onlookers, Tube Top turned backward to face the throng and raised her arms almost evangelically as the girls’ chant grew louder. As they approached the Delta Lambda fraternity house at the end of the block, the girls became more and more boisterous. When the first of the girls reached the front door, a roar erupted from inside the Delta Lambda house. The roar crescendoed as the girls crossed the threshold, and it dissolved into cheers once the last of the Beta Pis stepped inside.

“Beta Pi! Beta Pi!” the boys shouted excitedly. It was no wonder; Beta Pis looked good in tight clothing. The sisters congregated in the front room, flipping their mostly blond hair and holding out their song sheets. As the girls launched into a raunchy version of Britney Spears’s “Slave 4 U,” changing the lyrics so they praised Delta Lambda, the older sisters pushed Vicki and the other girls in dresses to the front and made them dance for the boys in Delta Lambda.

It was only September, but the Greeks routinely began their anachronistic courting rituals far in advance of November’s Homecoming to ensure they wouldn’t get stuck with “losers” during the most important week of the year. Rather than seek out individual dates, entire fraternities were expected to woo entire sororities so that the fraternities and sororities could match up appropriately; the coolest or best-looking fraternity paired with its sorority equivalent, and so on down the line. For the Greeks, the week preceding Homecoming—known at State U as Greek Week—involved dozens of scheduled activities, from daily contests to nightly parties. Each sorority attended all of these events with its escort for the week: a fraternity, preferably of equal or better popularity, alongside whom the sisters would compete and celebrate. The fraternity-sorority teams at State U were judged by a group of supposedly impartial Greek students who ranked the competitors on their spirit, participation, and event results. They competed in intra-Greek athletic events such as Wiffleball and beach volleyball, Greek Olympics—which involved silly games like water-balloon tosses and Twinkie-eating competitions—a float-decorating contest, and the centerpiece of the week: a talent competition called Lip Sync, for which teams sewed elaborate costumes, built sets, and learned complex dance routines during which they would lip-sync to a popular song.

Unchained Melodies

BEGINNING AT ABOUT THIS TIME EVERY SEPTEMBER, SORORITIES
 across the country assess themselves as they evaluate the slightly
shifting hierarchy that determines their place in Greek life. (Some schools hold two of these event series: Homecoming in the fall and Greek Week in the spring.) If the girls’ social status is on shaky ground, they must aim to match up with one of the impressive fraternities to raise their stock. If the girls are on top, then they can choose either to match with an equally prestigious fraternity or to grant a favor to a struggling but acceptable fraternity that would benefit from matching with them. Or the sisters can pick their Greek Week escort entirely on the basis of the quality of gifts they receive from the suitors that week. The campus buzzes for weeks about which houses match together. Doing well at Greek Week means more than the huge trophy and championship shirts that are distributed at a ceremony or, in State U’s case, at halftime of the Homecoming football game at the end of the week. Winning Greek Week catapults a sorority up the hierarchy so that the group has its pick of the fraternities at mixers and at the following year’s Greek Week—unless the winner is a perennially unpopular group like State U’s designated “loser sorority,” which won Greek Week a few years ago only to find that no one cared.

Shannon, a recently graduated West Coast Delta Zeta, remembered this time of year fondly. During Shannon’s tenure, several weeks before Home-coming, fraternities would call the Delta Zeta president and tell her they wanted to invite the sorority. As part of the courting process, each fraternity sent representatives to bring gifts and entertainment to the sorority. In front of the sorority membership, the men had to sing songs, read funny poems, or perform a skit, and bring ice cream or extravagant floral arrangements. Usu-ally the Delta Zetas would have quite a few of these offers to sort through. But if a fraternity they considered beneath them courted them, they would laugh. “As soon as they left,” Shannon said, “we’d say, ‘Oh, how cute that they asked us. How sweet and pathetic. There’s no way in hell we’re going with them!’ We would pick the fraternity by how cool it was, not by the gifts we got.”

“Serenades” are a popular form of this kind of courtship: the fraternities are expected to sing to the sororities and vice versa. Some sororities take this opportunity to adopt a sweetly teasing tone, as do the girls who serenade with “Pink Pajamas”:

I wear my pink pajamas in the summer when it’s hot,

and I wear my flannel nightie in the winter when it’s not,

but sometimes in the spring time and sometimes in the fall

I jump into the covers with nothing on at all.

Don’t you wish that you could be there,

Don’t you wish that you could be there,

Don’t you wish that you could be there,

In the spring time and the fall
(clap, clap)

With nothing on at all
(clap, clap)

I’m sure we’d have a ball
(clap, clap)

With nothing on at all.
(clap, clap)

Other groups opt for a more delicate, ladylike tone, such as that of an Alpha Sigma Alpha chapter’s serenade:

Take me up to a fraternity house,

take me up to your room.

Buy me some beer and vodka too.

Get me drunk and I’ll surely screw you,

for it’s grunt, grunt, grunt goes the Alpha Sig as the [fraternity name] shoves it in.

For it’s one, two, three times a night, thanks for getting me laid!

Many sororities and fraternities use similarly sexual songs—the more  boisterous, the better—and incorporate suggestive gyrations into the routine.

The Courting Fiasco

SEPTEMBER 14

AMY’S IM AWAY MESSAGE

longest meeting ever

AT STATE U, ALPHA RHO WAS ON SOLID GROUND THIS YEAR.
Last year
the sisters had done Greek Week with Delta Lambda, always a fairly strong house. This year, the girls expected to be courted by multiple groups, so they weren’t surprised when Omega Phi, a decent fraternity, stopped by on Monday with a rose and a note for each of the 130 sorority members. On Tuesday, Zeta Sigma came over and spelled out “Zeta Sig craves A-Rho” in protein bars on the patio. By the time the boys left, they had also hung sloppily sketched posters saying “Zeta Sigma wants Alpha Rho!” on the columns in front of the house. The girls were delighted—house chatter all week revolved around the two fraternities vying for their attention.

Most of the Penthouse girls were rooting for Omega Phi. Fiona, the Penthouse gang leader, had a boyfriend in Omega Phi who was always visiting the room. Bitsy, the pierced Pent, constantly reminded her sisters that she had recently hooked up with an Omega Phi who was “so incredibly hot.” Even Charlotte, the president, had a crush on an Omega Phi. As a result, Omega Phi was quickly becoming known as the “hot” house. Sabrina, Amy, Caitlin, many of the juniors, and the girls living outside of the house were leaning toward Zeta Sigma. Zetas’ gifts were, as the sisters described with their preferred adjective, “
fab
ulous.”

On Wednesday, Omega Phi sent over tubs of gourmet ice cream and boxes of popsicles. Zeta Sigma delivered a gorgeous bouquet of two dozen red roses, which the sisters proudly displayed in a Waterford crystal vase just inside the front door. For the girls in the house, it was like the captain of the football team and the student body president fighting over who would take them to prom. Well, not quite—Omega Phi and the Zetas were probably more like the baseball captain and the vice president. But the brothers were nice, the gifts were flattering, and the girls were tickled by the attention.

By Saturday, the girls were jittery with excitement because of circulating rumors that they were going to be serenaded that night. Sororities were allowed to serenade fraternities first to invite their courtship, but Alpha Rho hadn’t bothered because the sisters didn’t think they needed to. If a fraternity serenaded them, it meant that the boys were officially asking Alpha Rho to match with them for Greek Week. If the girls sang back their chapter’s official serenade—whether right away or later on at the fraternity house—it meant they accepted the offer. The vibe was that the house was split pretty evenly between the Zetas and Omega Phi, so the decision would come down to a vote in the house that evening after the serenades. The arguments about the two houses were growing so heated that Amy expected a blowup at the vote meeting that night.

At 9:15, Amy beamed and excitedly grabbed another sister’s hand when she heard the Zeta brothers chanting: “Alpha Rho, Alpha Rho” from a block away. Fraternity serenades at State U, as at many schools, consisted of crude rewritten lyrics about sex, smoking, and drinking, sung to the tune of a nonmelodically challenging pop song. To a Justin Timberlake song, the Zetas sang the lewdest lyrics Amy had ever heard—something about going down on the sisters—but the girls laughed and clapped along. Sometimes for the sisters, these serenades were like watching an embarrassingly bad episode of
American Idol
(featuring contestants reeking of beer), but the Alpha Rhos never laughed at the brothers as long as they made an effort. In this case, the Zetas were a good group of guys, friendly and funny, and though they couldn’t hit the notes, they were clearly excited and sang happily about how attractive the Alpha Rho girls were. Flattered, the Alpha Rhos responded with a rousing cheer for Zeta Sigma.

About an hour later, dozens of Omega Phi boys chanted at Alpha Rho’s door until Charlotte let them in. Inside, they clustered around the TV room and handed a cute, inexpensive necklace to each girl. Delighted that all of her sisters now had matching accessories, Amy began to ponder voting Omega Phi instead.

After Charlotte quieted the crowd, one brother formally stepped forward. “I am the president of Omega Phi.”

Charlotte, cool and confident, her neck straight beneath her carefully arranged pearls—the symbol of refined sorority sisters everywhere—stepped forward. “I am the president of Alpha Rho.”

Another brother stepped forward. “I am the Greek Week chair of Omega Phi.”

Caitlin and her co–Greek Week chair stepped forward. “We are the Greek Week chairs of Alpha Rho.”

The group clapped as the officers stepped back into the crowd. Omega Phi finished the presentation by singing Omega Phi lyrics to a Limp Bizkit tune. The brothers marched out in unison to the girls’ cheers.

Afterward, the house had a meeting, attendance mandatory. The girls had a huge decision to make: they knew the fraternity they chose would affect how much fun they would have during what was supposed to be the most enjoyable week of the year—and how much of a chance they would have at winning the top Greek honor at State U. First, the song chairs taught the girls the song they would use when they went to the fraternity house and indicated their acceptance by serenading. It was their traditional song: sweet, Daddy’s-girl lyrics about love under the stars.

Then came the drama. The girls, about equally divided, started to compare Zeta Sigma and Omega Phi.

A senior cleared her throat. “Let’s not rule out Delta Lambda.” The younger sisters were perplexed. Some of them snickered, thinking it was a joke. They had just done Greek Week with Delta Lambda last year.