My alarm rips through the room, and I want to kill everyone associated with DTC because they scheduled us to move into the house at 6:00 a.m.
The games don’t stop.
Peeling myself off the bed, I slip on a shirt and athletic shorts. The hot dude-like dream girl is dead; time for them to live with a real woman.
My stuff is piled in bags and boxes on the floor, but I decide to just bring one bag now, show my face at this ungodly hour to avoid the shot list, but do the real grunt work later.
I step over the rest and glance at Leighton, who is still sleeping soundly. It’s been real.
I grab my phone, and it lights up like a fireworks show. There are more alerts than I would’ve thought possible. Texts, tweets, Facebook messages, Snapchats. From my friends, family, acquaintances, unsaved numbers.
I scan a few but decide to answer them later.
The only one I open is from Sebastian. It’s the official pledge ranking, deciding who has to do extra pledge tasks and who’s excused or even invited to actives-only parties. I scroll down, and down and down. There I am, number twenty-five out of twenty-five. Lovely.
I pause in front of Jackie’s door, shifting my weight. I could knock, but she’s probably still sleeping and wouldn’t want to hear from me anyway. Even if she was willing, what would I say?
* * *
When I get to the house, everyone looks about as happy for me to be there as I feel.
“Let’s go, pledges! You need to be moved in before housecleaning at nine. Your names are on your doors.”
The first two doors I pass feature nomenclatures like Bambi and Man Tits, so I doubt I will find “Cassandra” on any of them.
Most of the pledges are placed three or four to a room clearly meant to be a double, but when I find the door with “Title IX” written in large letters, it leads to a single.
It takes me only fifteen minutes to unpack my first bag, and the bare mattress looks tempting. But no level of tired would convince me to sleep on this frat house bed before I douse it with disinfectant and get at least a mattress pad and my own clean sheets as a barrier.
As I close my door I notice the room across from me has a real name: Sebastian Elliot. Perfect. Clearly I’ll be getting special attention when it comes to terrorizing the pledges.
After five short trips, everything I own is officially in the frat house that is now my frat home. What a joke.
When I went to the room for the last load, Leighton was awake, if still in her silk pajamas.
She kind of just stood there for a minute and then wrapped her arms around me. I slowly raised my arms to hug her back, disoriented.
“I’ll visit soon!” she promises.
I just nod and grab the last box.
As it turns out, my room in the frat used to be a storage closet. I have a twin bed with a set of drawers underneath, and a simple desk and wooden chair. There’s a whole foot between the desk and the bed, so the chair can’t come out fully and I have to kind of slip in from the side. Luxurious.
But at least this room doesn’t come with a Leighton.
The desk has one drawer that locks, presumably for my computer, phone, headphones, cash and other valuables.
I fill it almost completely with all my paperwork for Stevenson, books about Greek culture and reports on fraternities.
I’m sitting cross-legged on the floor, unpacking my clothes, when someone knocks lightly on my open door.
“Hey, neighbor.” I look up to see Jordan leaning on the door frame. “Can I come in?”
I smile. “Sure.”
He steps inside, and due simply to its shoe-box size, we end up standing pretty close together.
“I see you’ve unpacked the essentials,” he says, picking up the bottle of tequila from my desk.
It’s the only thing besides my clothes that’s not still in a bag or box.
“I didn’t want the glass to break.”
“Of course.” He smiles, and his eyes sparkle. “We should break into it later,” he says, sitting down on my desk.
“Yeah, definitely,” I say. I stare at him for a second, trying to discern if the invitation was to join the guys in a classic night of drunkenness and brotherhood, or something more intimate.
I look away.
Get it together, Cassie. It’s tequila, not a fine wine. He’s suggesting a rave, not a romantic evening.
I reach for a bag, pulling it onto my lap and opening it. Unfortunately, it’s the one with my bras and underwear. I grab a single pair of socks and place them in a drawer, hoping he doesn’t see me blush.
“This is nice,” he says. I look up to see him checking out my room.
“It’s a bit small,” I say.
“Yeah, well, at least you’re not sharing a room with three other guys.”
“Very true.” I laugh, hoping he doesn’t notice that I set down a practically full bag and reach for another. Luckily this one is T-shirts. I grab a stack and shove them in a drawer. “It may get kind of lonely, though.”
Of course, that will be less because I don’t have a roommate and more because I’m the fucking feminist living undercover in a frat house.
“Well, I’m right down the hall, so you can come visit anytime.”
I open my mouth to answer, but before I can, another boy comes barreling in.
“C’mon, dude, we’re moving the furniture. We need you.”
“Oh, sorry, be right there.” Jordan slides off my desk. “I’ll catch up with you later, Cass.”
I nod and turn back to my boxes. I bite my lip to keep from smiling too big or, God help me, giggling at the nickname. T-shirts, sweats and underwear successfully in my drawers, I turn to the wardrobe.
Opening the door, I find a half-empty thirty-rack of Natty and a hanger bar slanting at a sharp angle.
I pull the beer out and stand on the floor of the wardrobe, so I’m basically inside it.
Grunting, I pull on the higher side of the bar. It screeches and slides down half an inch.
Well, then.
There’s a light knock and the sound of the door opening.
“Hey, you’re back.” I step out of the wardrobe and perch on the edge of the bed.
But it’s not Jordan.
Bass looks confused. “How’s unpacking going?”
I swallow. “It’s all right.” Why is he really here?
He makes himself comfortable, sitting on my desk like Jordan did.
“Do you need something?” My voice is high.
“Just trying to get to know my pledges.” He picks up the tequila, inspects it and then sets it back down.
He peels at the sticker on my laptop: “Of Course I’m a Feminist.” I’d put it there the first night of school, just to prove a point to Leighton. I’d forgotten about it.
“Interesting...” He doesn’t look up at me.
“Hmm?”
“Feminist, huh?” This time he does look up.
I swallow and nod. “Uh, yeah.”
“Brave to set foot here, let alone accept a bid.” He tilts his head in a way that sends a chill down my spine.
He starts opening and closing my drawers.
“Can you not?”
His hand is poised over the locked one. “What? Don’t want everything to be out in the open, then don’t move into the house.”
He seems to have forgotten about the last desk drawer and crosses to my dresser, pulling a red lacy bra out of the top drawer, as if to prove a point.
He throws it at me. “Buy something push-up for events. If we’re gonna have a bitch in DTC, she’s at least gonna be hot.”
I stare at the lingerie in my lap as the door slams.
What the hell have I gotten myself into?
My phone rings.
Taking a deep breath, I brace myself and hit the green answer button.
“Hey, Mom.”
“I’ve been trying to reach you all morning, sweetie.” Coming from her, the last word sounds more like a slur than a term of endearment. In classic Midwestern fashion, her words sound nice until you catch her tone.
“Sorry.”
“You sound hoarse. Are you hungover?”
“No.” I mean, not really. “I’m just tired, Mom. I’ve been up since six.” I walk over to the window, looking down at the boys below as they lug their things into the house.
“And yet you haven’t had time to answer any of my emails?” She means texts, but there’s no point in correcting her.
“I’ve been unpacking.”
“Right, into your frat house.” It’s clear that in her mind, prison would be preferable. “Speaking of, darling, I was watching Fox News this morning, and they were calling you a crazy feminist, which is ridiculous, because I know I raised you to be a lady and I don’t want California changing you.”
“Yes, Mom, don’t worry. My opinion on feminism hasn’t changed.” I’m just as radical as you didn’t know I was when I lived at home and pretended I was a good little passive Catholic girl.
“Now, tell me—do you find yourself attracted to girls? Because I read this article the other day, and—”
“No, Mom, I still like guys. And feminist is not the same as lesbian.” Not that it would be bad if I was a lesbian, although she would undoubtedly think so.
“Okay, I just wanted to check. Your grandmother will be calling me any minute, and she will not be happy. Think of the stress you’re putting on her poor heart.”
I wonder if one day I can call my own daughter to tell her that her behavior doesn’t comply fully enough with my vision of appropriate gender roles, continue the tradition.
“Well, good luck with that, Mom. Tell Grandma I love her, talk to you soon. Loveyoubye!”
I hang up and set my phone on the windowsill. I’m only halfway through a box of books when my phone buzzes again. This time it’s only a text.
Alex: turn on channel 10
I pound down the stairs and into the TV room. Two actives are chilling with their feet on a coffee table that looks like it’s lived a hard life.
“Can I use this?” I point to the television, which is currently off.
They shrug, and I click the remote.
I’m not used to the channel lineup here, but as it turns out, 10 is MSNBC. A woman is speaking ardently while a scroll runs across the bottom of the screen that says, “No, Fox, she is not a feminist.”
“I’ll tell you, Bob, when I said I wanted to see more women in heavily masculine environments in Silicon Valley, this is not what I had in mind. A young, traditionally beautiful girl moving into a frat house? I doubt they picked her for her ideas. This is not progress.”
“So are you saying this move is antifeminist?” Bob asks.
She blinks at the camera. “Those are your words, not mine, but I would definitely not describe this Cassandra Davis as a feminist. In fact, if anything, she is a classic straw man feminist. Demanding things we don’t even want. Equality doesn’t mean you let us into your misogynistic organizations. It means you get rid of them.”
If only they knew. That’s what I’m trying to do.
I shut off the TV. Not exactly what I’d dreamed of when I thought I would be on TV for my research one day.
“Don’t listen to that bitch,” one of the actives says.
“Yeah, it’s chill that you’re here.”
My heart starts to swell.
“Shit, be proud you aren’t feminist enough for them. No one likes a shrew.”
Well, that took a turn. I walk back to my room and plop down on my just-made bed.
This is not how I wanted my life to be. I’m one of the people who should be on TV saying the kinds of things that newswoman was saying, not living with people who think feminist and shrew are synonymous.
I get up and lock my door, then pull out my computer.
As soon as I’m logged in to the secure site, I start furiously recording every detail I can remember.