Rush continues to pass without a hitch. When the first weekend and the first round of cuts comes out, I’m one of the few who receives an invitation to the Delta Tau Chi Rush Retreat. Luckily, the email invitation also mentions that the members of Pi Beta will be joining us, so hopefully I will be able to continue inconspicuously, or, at least, less conspicuously than if I was the only girl.
When I was at Catholic school, “retreat” meant three days at a sleepaway camp, holding hands, praying, lighting candles and sharing secrets.
I have a feeling that’s not what we’ll be doing.
It’s six thirty in the morning and cool, because the sun hasn’t burned off the haze when we line up to get on the buses. They’re big yellow ones, rented from the local elementary school.
Four actives are loading countless cases of beer through the handicap entrance in the back.
I spot Jordan as I’m climbing on board, and I instinctively smile and raise my hand to wave.
He looks away.
Jordan hasn’t spoken to me since that day in Sociology. He always comes in late and sits as far away from me as possible. I’m not quite sure what I did. I mean, I get we’re competitors now, but that doesn’t seem like a reason to treat me like a pariah. We could both end up here, and then what?
So maybe he isn’t mad. Maybe he isn’t anything.
That’s not only more likely; it almost seems worse, that he isn’t mad but just doesn’t care at all.
Which is fine, I guess. It gives me the chance to stay focused, to play my role perfectly.
I lose him as we pile on the bus, me sitting near the Pi Betas but still with the DTC guys.
“This is so much better than our house retreats,” a bottle blonde with a blue Pi Beta tank stretched across her white-bikini-clad, fake-tanned breasts tells her friend.
“I think we just went to get our nails done my year,” her brunette friend answers.
“Ugh, you are so lucky.” She flips her hair. “We sat in the house basement, where we had to recite some weird poem, and then we passed around a candle and told first-kiss stories.”
“Oh my God, I remember that!” a girl behind me yells. I turn instinctively. She has bright red hair and porcelain doll features.
A sorority with a white girl with brown hair, a white girl with red hair and a white girl with blond hair? Now that’s what I call diversity.
“Good thing we do ours after Rush,” the blonde says. “Otherwise I would have been, like, fuck this shit.”
The brunette nods in agreement.
The blonde turns toward me, leaning across her friend. “I’m sure yours will be a lot better.”
“I’ll make sure of that,” the redhead says. She pops up from her seat behind me and leans on the back of mine. “I’m Pledge Mom!”
Suddenly I’m surrounded by Greek letters and hair bows. The smell of tanning lotion and cheap beer is making me nauseous.
I open my mouth to explain, but the words elude me.
“Hey, I’m so sorry, cuz this is so rude of me, but what’s your name?” Blondie asks.
“Cassandra Davis. Cassie.” The words stumble out. I should explain I’m not pledging, but how do I?
“Cool! I’m Kelley, I’m the new president.” She splays a French-manicured hand over her heart. “My apologies, I’m still getting to know all our little babies.”
“Oh, I’m not a—”
“Oh! Are you the girl who transferred from the Cal Alpha chapter?” The redhead practically bounces up and down with every word. “I didn’t mean to call you a frosh.”
“My brother goes to Berkeley, too!” the brunette adds.
“No, I go here.”
Kelley nudges her friend. “Katie, don’t be rude.” She leans over her to me again. “Welcome! She just meant, like, you used to go there.”
“No, I’m a freshman, I’m just—”
Something changes in her eyes. The pageant sparkle drops out of them. “Wait, you are a Pi Beta pledge, right?”
“Uh, no.”
They look at each other, their heads turning exactly in sync, like they share one brain.
The blonde purses her lips and turns her head to the side. “Not to, you know—but, um, who invited you?”
“The guys,” I say. Not a lie. I was actually invited quite formally, with a letter slipped under my door.
The one behind me sits so quickly the cheap bus seat makes a weird swooshing sound.
The others shrink away from me, back into their own side of the aisle.
“Classic DTC—Warren girls aren’t hot enough for them,” the brunette tells Kelley.
Like I can’t hear them.
“Always on to the new blood.” Kelley cuts her eyes at me. “It happens every year with Rush. The upperclassmen always warn you, but the sophomores never listen. The events become all about the hot new girls, and the actives end up standing there like, hello, we’re still here. At least it used to be our littles, though. Now they’re just shipping in girls to fuck.”
Ew, ew, ew.
I want to defend myself but don’t even know where to begin. That I’m not trying to sleep with them. That I’m not even trying to be friends with them. That I’m just trying to exposed the fucked-up-ness of a system that has these girls saying stuff like that.
We used to be the whores of this frat, and now what are we? Just the madams?
So much for sisterhood.
They’re part of an organization that’s supposed to lift up women, not pit them against each other, and for what? To get the attention of some spoiled undergrad drunk off his ass and threatening to fight everything that moves, knowing Daddy can cover the legal fees?
I turn silently to face the front of the bus.
The doors finally close, and people start to pass the beer around. Some DTCs fiddle with the radio for a bit, struggling to get anything but static.
Music erupts from the speaker just as the overloaded bus lurches forward.
I chug beers and take shots of Fireball like a pro at eight in the morning as we head down the 101.
Someone yells something about shotgunning, and I stand up.
Someone else hands me a can of Natty.
“Does anyone have a key?” the guy in front of me asks. He has coifed hair and is wearing expensive brand names, even though we’re all dressed for the beach.
“Here, like this,” I say. I hold up my can and use my canine tooth to make a hole, just like Alex showed me once.
His eyes go wide like quarters. “Did anyone else see that?” he asks, turning around to address the crowd.
“Do it again!” he says, handing me his beer. I laugh, a feminine, sly laugh, not at all like my naturally loud, brash one.
I do it again, this time with an audience. After I bite it, I make the whole bigger with my thumb carefully so not to cut it, and then lick the beer off.
“Yes, that’s my Cassie! Killin’ it!” Marco yells from the front of the bus.
I blow him a kiss.
“All right, let’s do this,” I say, handing the boy his beer back.
I don’t need to look at the girls to know they’re seething. I catch myself smiling. God, their game is messed up, but it’s pretty damn thrilling to beat them at it.
The alcohol starts to go down easier, and soon we’re all standing and dancing, and the world is a swirling, beautiful, bright place. God, day drunk is the best.
The music cuts off in the middle of a song. Some people sit down; others just stand there, drunk and confused.
A skinny black guy in a Warren baseball cap stands at the front of the bus, a radio-style microphone in his hand.
“Aaaaattennnnntion, passengers. So, we’re currently experiencing some technical difficulties, by which I mean Carter tripped over the aux cord when he went to throw up in the trash can that he—” our unofficial cruise director looks down “—seems to have missed anyway. All right, cool. We’re working on getting the radio back, but in the meantime, this is DJ Chase coming at you. Here’s ‘Trap Queen.’”
And then he not only sings every single word, but also mimics all the little electronic sounds.
Everyone kind of looks at one another, and then there’s a silent agreement to roll with it.
We stand and dance again, and I can’t stop laughing at Chase imitating Fetty Wap’s voice, and how ridiculous and fun this shit show of a bus is.
They get the music back on after Chase’s fifteen minutes, and everyone claps as he stands on his seat and bows. The bus driver starts to yell at him in Spanish, and he sits down sheepishly.
The shotgunning guy turns around. “What’s your name again?”
“Cassie,” I say, over the music.
“Sebastian.” He shakes my hand.
“So how are you liking Pi Beta?”
I open my mouth to answer, but before I can, a shrieking sound rips through the bus. I turn around to see a member of Delta Tau Chi standing on his seat and urinating outside the window.
What he doesn’t seem to realize in his apparent bliss is that the pee is coming back in the window a few rows back and spraying on a couple of traumatized Pi Betas in a rainbow of ruined designer bikinis. They scramble out of their seats, squealing.
“OMG, Vivian, that’s your boyfriend! Do something!”
A petite blonde pushes through the aisle.
“The motherfucker’s interned for NASA. I can’t believe he doesn’t understand that his pee will catch the wind.”
The music cuts out, and Chase is back on the loudspeaker. “Attention, Mr. Harris, please sit down and refrain from urinating further until the bus has come to a complete stop.”
We finally arrive at the beach, and there actually is a lot of peeing in the bushes by the guys and, God bless, a few girls who squat in the parking lot.
The guys unload the kegs, and when someone says we forgot cups, I get a fabulous idea.
That’s how I end up doing a kegstand in a bikini as thirty people cheer me on and count (fifteen seconds, not bad for my first try) until I shake my head and am helped back to the ground, half laughing, half coughing.
I’m playing this role better than I ever thought I could.
And then something weird happens.
I realize I’m having real, genuine fun.