I watch him as he signs in, laughing and smiling and chitchatting with the actives. Man-flirting, as I like to call it. Even from a distance, I can tell they like him. Of course they do; he’s the type of person who’s magnetic, who kills the first impression, makes it seem like he cares about you, even when all you’ve done is say hello.
He disappears into the house, and I shake my head, like I can physically scatter the thoughts of him.
Focus, Cassie, focus.
I walk down the block and decide to loiter for a bit so I don’t walk in right after him. Taking out my dead phone, I pretend to type.
Okay, if I wait any longer people will start to notice.
With a deep breath, I walk forward, beer-goggled eyes tracking me.
“Hi,” I say as I approach the sign-in table.
An athletic-looking boy with blond hair and a cutoff shirt highlighting amazing arms looks up, unfazed. “Tri Delts don’t have to sign in. Go ahead.”
“I’m actually here to rush.”
He looks at the other guy, a lanky white dude with a backward baseball cap, and back to me.
“DTC,” I clarify.
“Uh...okay.” The blond guy looks back to his friend, who shrugs. “Sign in here, I guess.”
They whisper as I quickly jot down my name and cell and check the legacy box. My handwriting is neat, but not too girlie. I don’t dot my i’s with a heart or anything like that.
I smile sweetly as I set down the pen and make a break for the front door before they can figure out how to stop me.
Inside is pretty similar to outside. Guys trying to impress one another while drinking beer that undoubtedly tastes like water at best and piss at worst.
I am the only female.
This could easily be extremely awkward, but I can’t afford to let that happen. I smile and walk forward, giving off an air of confidence I don’t really feel.
The first two rooms are furniture-less, and one has a giant fireplace with a composite photo above it of all these fuckbois in suits and ties.
Lipstick on a pig.
The next room is almost as empty, except for a large wooden bar piled high with thirty racks of the usual suspects: Pabst Blue Ribbon and a bunch of Lights—Coors, Keystone and Natural.
I grab a Natty and head back to the other room.
“Hello, everyone.” An older guy steps onto a makeshift stage at the far end of the room. There’s a slight ruffling sound as everyone turns to look. The boy smiles, and his blue eyes sparkle. “My name is Peter, and I’m honored to welcome you to the Delta Tau Chi house. I know some of you are still filtering in, and that’s all right, but I just wanted to take a second to say hello and hopefully put you at ease.” His eyes scan the room as he speaks, like he’s talking to each of us and none of us. “Some of you may understand the Rush process, but for others this may be new...” His eyes reach me, and he falls silent for a second. He looks at the floor, and shakes his head before looking up with a picture-perfect smile and beginning again. “Basically we’ll spend this week hanging out and getting to know you guys, and then we’ll vote and some of you will be asked to join us on a Rush Retreat this weekend. After that we’ll vote again, and those young men will be invited to pledge. If you have any questions at all, feel free to ask an active—that’s what we call current members. Thank you. Have a great night.”
He steps off the stage to light applause, and people return to their small clusters of conversation.
Do I walk up and introduce myself to someone? Or hang back and let them come to me, like I’m too laid-back to do the whole ass-kissing thing?
“Hey there.” I turn around to see a short but muscular guy. His hair is spiked, like he’s trying to pick up a few inches any way he can.
“Hi,” I say.
“I’m Jackson,” he says.
“Cassie.”
I switch my beer to my left hand so I can shake his with my right. “You a freshman?”
“Yeah.” He smiles, like he doesn’t know that answer should be given timidly. I nod and look past him, trying not to be rude, but knowing I should be talking to upperclassmen. I’m working right now; I don’t have time to chitchat.
“What’s that, a Natty Light? Interesting choice.”
“Thanks.” I give him a smile. “I’ve always thought that, of the shitty beer, Natty is the best. It knows what it is and owns it. It tastes like water, but who cares, you barely paid anything, and we all know taste’s not why you’re buying it.” I take a sip before continuing. “Now, other cheap beers, they put this fake ‘beer flavoring’ in, because it’s too cheap to naturally taste like beer. But that fake stuff is what tastes so bad. They should just admit what they are, an inexpensive, tasteless beer, you know?”
He looks at his own Keystone, his eyebrows drawing together. “I guess so.”
He starts to say something else, but from across the room I catch Jordan’s eye, and everything else fades to a blurry buzz. He sees me, too, and looks confused, if not kind of...heartbroken.
Do I go say something?
No, we just met. There’s no way that sad look in his eyes is about me, right?
Someone taps my shoulder. “Excuse me.” I turn around to see the boy from the stage. My blond friend from sign-in loiters behind him.
“So sorry to interrupt. I’m Peter Ford, chapter president. I was wondering if we could have a quick word.”
Whoops, already in trouble.
I nod and turn back to Jackson, raising my hand in a small wave before following Peter up the stairs.
He looks like he’d be president of a frat. Much better dressed and carrying himself with more confidence than the rest. Charismatic and handsome, the type of guy adults would say was going places but with a little bit of player still mixed in. Like the college equivalent of JFK.
“That was quite the analysis of beer,” he says as we climb the stairs.
I shrug. “I like to party, but I’m also a huge nerd, what can I say?”
He laughs. “Well, welcome to Warren Greek Life,” he says, spreading his arms.
And for the first time, I feel a small bit of hope that I might actually like it here.
We reach the top of the stairs and pass a calendar that features a photo of a different topless model every month. August’s is licking a popsicle in a way that...well, let’s just say it wouldn’t be the typical way someone might enjoy an ice-cream treat.
Aaaaaand my brief feeling of hope is gone.
Peter gestures for me to enter one of the bedrooms. The blond and baseball-cap guys follow, and finally Mr. President himself. He closes the door behind him and crosses his arms.
I glance around this room. Luckily there are no sexy calendars, just an American flag and a Warren ROTC poster. The rest of the room is pretty minimalist: navy bedding and a desk stacked with books and a large protein powder container. It’s a very boy room.
The two henchmen flop onto the bed. I take the desk chair.
“Is this some sort of stunt?” Peter studies me.
“No.” I stand up and straighten my dress, pulling on the short hem. “Um... I know this seems weird, but my dad was a DTC, and he always talks about it being the best time of his life. He didn’t have any sons to carry on his legacy, and he kind of raised me as a boy because of it, buying me video games instead of Barbies, and playing catch instead of going to the daddy-daughter dance.” From the DTC alumni websites, I know that the whole legacy thing is a huge deal. Like, if I was Chase Davis instead of Cassie, they’d be in big trouble for denying me a bid.
I clear my throat, and they don’t jump in, so I continue. “I know that if I want to party in college I’ve got to go Greek...” Everything I know about Alex and life in general is counter to this, but one of the DTC frat members tweeted it once. “But I’ve always been friends with dudes more than girls, and, honestly, shotgunning beers and throwing amazing parties sounds a lot better than wearing pearls and baking cookies.”
These aren’t all lies. It’s true that my dad was a DTC, but he would definitely not be a fan of me doing this. And I do happen to like a lot of things gendered toward men—beer, baseball, Call of Duty—although I also like boy bands, Nora Ephron movies and cheesy prom-posals.
“Are there rules against it?” Peter asks the two boys on the bed.
“No,” I interject, holding my head high. “I checked.” I smile to soften it. I figure the name of the game is to have enough alpha confidence to demand their respect but enough softness so as not to rub against their perception of how a woman should behave.
The mission is to find out how living inside the environment of a frat house is for women, so when I’m inside I will be a woman, a real human person. I will be, as much as possible, “myself” as I would be if I wasn’t conducting this experiment, so I can get the most accurate result.
But first I need to get inside.
So, not unlike a lot of people here, I will lie my way through Rush. Hi, my name is Cassie, and I will be reading for the role of frat boy’s wet dream.
It feels kind of gross, like I’m betraying my sex. Or like I’m playing a character out of some porno.
But I remind myself of the higher cause, buckle down and silently repeat, like a mantra: pizza, beer, video games, boobs.
After extensive research on Reddit and Urban Dictionary, these are the things I decided.
I will be a size four but eat burgers and pizza.
I will not be a bimbo, like the rest of those dyed-blonde, fake-tanned sorority girls. But I won’t be smart enough to threaten the boys’ ego or intelligence.
I will be feminine looking but not stereotypically feminine.
I will drink cheap beer like water.
I will get fucked up, and seem to be queen of all drinking games, but somehow never be an emotional or sloppy drunk.
I will like nerdy things like sci-fi movies but look more like gold-bikini Leia than the female equivalent of Peter Parker.
I will be sexual but not. Always down to talk about masturbating or threesomes but never do either. I will be flirty and hot, but never have sex myself. Otherwise I risk being demoted from “guys’ girl” to “group-ho.”
I will love sports and action movies. And I will know more about all these things than the boys do, even if I don’t always show it, so I don’t become a “fake guys’-girl,” which is the worst offense, because then they’ll know I’m just doing this so they’ll like me.
And then there’s the most important part: to give no fucks.
To be the kind of girl guys would let into their frat, you need to “not care what anyone thinks” and “do what you want,” while making sure what you “want” is to do everything in a stereotypically masculine way.
The whole idea of this cool girl is to hollow a woman out to just her body—the part they see the most value in—and then fill her with the things they think are worth something.
The title “one of the guys” is an honor. And it’s sexist as hell.
I flutter my fake eyelashes and look up at Peter with a sweet, mischievous smile, like I’m considering sharing a secret with him and him only.
On the inside, I’m trying not to vomit.
“Well, in that case, I don’t see why not,” he says.
The blond guy looks shocked. Baseball-cap guy is laughing his ass off.
“You’ll have to earn your bid like the rest of them, but I don’t see why you can’t try,” Peter adds.
The blond stands up. “She’ll mess with the rest of Rush, distract the other pledges.”
Peter turns to me. “Don’t do that.”
I laugh. “No problem.”
“There’ll be sorority girls here, so just don’t draw too much attention to yourself, and the other rushees shouldn’t even notice.”
I nod.
“Good luck, pledge. Now get your ass back downstairs. It’s members-only on the second floor.”