Pretty in Plaid: A Life, a Witch, and a Wardrobe, or the Wonder Years Before the Condescending, Egomaniacal Self-Centered Smart-Ass Phase (16 page)

Of course my roommate Joanna got a bid there.

And she gained major points with me when she turned it down, opting to be a little sister at
the lesser
house because they were so respectful to her.

I became a little sister at my brother’s house. His is a small house with fun guys and I always have a great time there, but it’s not one of
the right
houses, either. Who knew that the politics of the Greek system would be more involved than some United Nations negotiations?

Going into rush, my assumption was every sorority would throw membership at my feet because I’m cute and I have lots of activities listed on the back of my rush card. I’m kind of devastated to realize no one
cares
if I was managing editor of my high school newspaper, or that I emceed the senior talent show. And the Miss Cow Town pageant? I should get extra credit for that. I was Miss Photogenic, after all. Girls should want me in their house, looking adorable in all those group huggy-huggy pictures pinned to their French bulletin boards, yes? Regardless of whatever big-fish status I finally earned in my high school, it definitely didn’t translate to college. Sorority rush has turned me into a guppy again.

Rumor has it that the more exclusive chapters like this one will only take girls whose parents are rich. Mine aren’t loaded, but they aren’t, like, white trash or anything. Heck, we went to Hawaii for my high school graduation and I got a pearl ring, too! Although we’re only middle class, my parents can afford my dues or else I wouldn’t be rushing in the first place. Why must my family be totally wealthy? And how come everyone’s so curious about what Dad does for a living? Shit,
I’m
not even sure.

Polly, a sophomore from my rush group, says she roomed with a girl last year whose father was vice president at Super-Huge Investment Bank. When her roommate went to parties, she told everyone, “My dad is vice president at Super-Huge Investment Bank.” She even hired a limousine to take her around during formal rush. And yet she eventually got cut by every sorority. How does that work? Maybe you’re supposed to be rich but not talk about it? If you’re not supposed to talk about it, then why does everyone keep asking?

We go around the room and say who we are and where we’re from. The first rushee asked is perched on the arm of the futon. She’s from the Chicago area. She’s got flaming red hair, Cupid’s bow lips, and an accent like Dan Akroyd’s. She says she’s from Barrington, which causes a few people to squeal and then play the hey-do-you-know? game. Another girl with streaky blond hair is from a suburb of Detroit called Grosse Pointe. Why is she so damn smug? The last rushee is from Baltimore. Other than me, not one person here is from anywhere in Indiana. I suspect I just failed another test I wasn’t aware I had to take, which is not fair. This is a
state
school—it stands to reason that some of us would be from
this
state.

The sisters field everyone’s queries about sorority life. Out of respect for their time, I don’t chime in with my own. I’ve already heard the answers to every single thing anyone could ask half a dozen times at other parties today. I know what the cold-air dorm is. We
all
know what the cold-air dorm is. I could write a thesis on the goddamned cold-air dorm. Brush your teeth, wash your face, put on your jammies, then walk up the stairs to your bed. You’ve been doing this for eighteen years, ladies
⁹⁹
—the concept is
not
that foreign.

Having exhausted any and all conversation about sleeping in a room with open windows, someone brings up the topic of fashion. Even though I read
Seventeen
and
Glamour
every month, I’m already thought of as the Jean Jacket Jackass in my rush group. I stay quiet for fear of not being a credible source.

The suburban Chicago girls are carrying plain tan purses by someone named Coach, Baltimore’s got a pricey-looking leather doctor bag, and Grosse Pointe is carrying what I swear she calls a . . . Lewie? Everyone nods in awe and I can actually see her stock rising with the sisters. What’s funny is Grosse Pointe’s bag is all brown- and mustard-colored, covered in the initials LV. It is the opposite of pretty. And I could have sworn her name was Natasha—why would she sport someone else’s monogram?

Seriously? Who the fuck is
Lewie
and why does he determine what sorority wants me? And
why was this not in the rush booklet
? I mean, everyone here seems to be following a set of rules I never saw! Did they get different books? How come I’m so unprepared? If I was supposed to be dripping in jewelry or carrying an expensive bag, couldn’t someone have told me? I could have borrowed stuff or faked it or
something
. All the rush booklet said was to be myself, but clearly that is not working because no one’s responded positively to the few things I’ve had to say. I wish my roommate Joanna was in this group with me. She’s genuine and charming and always finds a way to include me.

This room is so cramped that I’m practically sitting on one of the members. When I shift, trying to get some feeling back into my feet, I accidentally tap the sister with long white-blond hair. Her face is a study in contrast because she’s got black brows and piercing blue eyes, kind of like a gorgeous Siberian husky.

When I bump her, she spins her head around, whipping me with her hair. Her name is Janine and she’s cut me off almost every time I’ve spoken. Maybe she’s cranky because she’s hungry? She didn’t touch her ice cream cookie sandwich when we were downstairs having snacks.
¹⁰⁰
“So . . .” She squints at my rush name tag—a construction-paper playing card with
Jen
spelled out in tiny poker chips. “Um, Jean, who made
your
purse?”

I’m carrying an awesome woven-hemp Congo bag striped in all shades of pink, tan, and brown. When I went to Boston a couple of years ago, I walked through the Harvard campus and saw tons of preppy college girls carrying their books in bags like this. I figured if it worked for them, it should work for me.
¹⁰¹

“Oh, it’s Jen,” I tell her apologetically, like it’s my fault she screwed up my name. “I’m not sure who makes it. I got it at a Marshalls in Boston.” I’m so pleased to finally have a non-Indiana answer to share with the group. Boston is
way
more metropolitan than stupid old Barrington or Baltimore. “Best part? I only paid seven dollars!”

Janine’s curled lip tells me everything I need to know. If Joanna were here, she’d have been socially savvy enough to stop me before I got to the Marshalls mention, but it’s too late. My fate in
the best
house is sealed and my status in the room morphs from “bothersome” to “nonexistent.” And I learn that in the big book of Wrong Things to Say During Sorority Rush, “I got it at Marshalls” surely ranks at the top.

My ego is so bruised from rush that when it comes time to pledge, I accept a bid at
a lesser
house. They fought to get my interest, so I choose them knowing I’ll automatically be bestowed with big-fish status within the chapter. Yet I quietly resent my sorority for wanting me, because I didn’t want them.

Even though no one at Janine’s house was nice to me, I wanted the girls in
the best
house to see that I was a diamond in the rough. I wanted them to look past my jean jacket and wide hair and Indiana residency to see that I was worthy of membership. I wanted them to take me in and turn me into someone better. I wanted to wear their letters to show everyone on campus that I was a part of something really special and exclusive. But they didn’t want me.

Joanna’s sunny personality, good looks, and affable nature earn her a spot in Janine’s sorority. She plasters her side of the room with arrows and angels and takes to working wine and silver blue into her everyday wardrobe. She only removes her letters when we do laundry and she’s forced to wear something from her life before pledgeship. We remain good friends—great friends—even though she spends more and more time at her new sorority. I pretend I’m not jealous when boys who never gave her a second glance suddenly get interested when they see what house she joined.

Due to my own poor attitude, I don’t bond with any of the other pledges or sisters in my new sorority, thus all the rituals I so looked forward to feel flat and forced. When they invite me to drink Diet Coke on the portico, I decline. When they line up to study, I return to my dorm to hang out with Joanna or I call my friends Andy and Roni. I can’t be bothered with my sisters’ enthusiasm and I never wear their letters unless required. And when my thoughtless yet intentionally ungrateful actions get me tossed out prior to the May initiation date, I’m relieved rather than distressed.

The object lesson I take from rush is that it’s all about the right bag. Maybe it’s stupid and vain, but it’s the truth. So, the summer before my sophomore year, I make a vow to myself—I may not be in a sorority but damn it, I
will
return to campus with a designer bag. I will not, however, return to rush. My grades aren’t great and I’m not into facing that kind of rejection again.

I apply for jobs all over town the second I return home from freshman year. I could babysit for the neighbors, but that only pays a buck an hour. (Also, I hate their children.) I need more if I’m going to make my designer purse dreams a reality.

I look for work in the malls in Fort Wayne. I so want to land a position at The Limited, because if I do I’ll surely return to school with the right wardrobe. I come very close to getting hired there but the day before my final interview, I decide to trim my bangs so I’m tidier and more pulled together. Even though I’ve lived with curly hair for eighteen years, I didn’t take shrinkage into account as I wielded my mother’s sewing scissors. I showed up to my final interview with half an inch of fringe between my hairline and my forehead. Guess what? Regardless of how well she might sell Outback Red shirts, no one wants to hire Frankenstein.

My blue-collar town is full of people desperate for employment and I find myself losing out on gigs to those who can keep working come September. It takes almost a month, but eventually, with some fresh growth and bangs plastered flat by a bottle of gel, I’m hired on at a Subway franchise. In a scathing indictment of the local educational system, I get the job based on my ability to solve simple math problems on the application. No, I can’t add or subtract in my head, either . . . but I
can
fit a calculator into my Congo bag.

I’m not a fan of food service and I loathe the idea of spending the summer slinging sandwiches in an airless kitchen. Even though I’ve got a solid work ethic, there’s something particularly grueling about this job, namely, Tuna Day. Instead of my usual routine of searing off my fingerprints on a pan full of molten meatballs, scorching tender wrist skin on oven racks full of freshly baked bread, or losing a thumb tip to the meat slicer, on Tuna Day I take industrial-sized cans of StarKist and squeeze each bit of meat over and over again until every drop of oil and water is gone.

Do you
know
how much liquid there is in an industrial-sized can of tuna?

It’s like a clown car, only for fish juice.

Crush and press, crush and press, extract, expel, constrict for what seems like hours on end. No matter how much I try to angle the tuna juice away from my face when I squeeze it, I always manage to end up with an eyeful and spend the rest of the day squinting at customers like Popeye.

When the oily backsplash hits my cheeks, I sometimes forget and try to wipe it away with my forearms and the juice runs directly into my armpit. Don’t even get me started on trying to extract tuna-whiff from my skin. I spend two months reeking of low tide.

Even though my whole body aches after every Tuna Day, I’m confident it will be worth it when I finally run my (stinky, burnt) hands over the embossed canvas of a new bag.

Now that I understand their cache, I desperately want a Gucci, but they’re too expensive. Technically, I’ve never actually checked the price because they’re kept in a locked display case at L. S. Ayres. Anything under glass is out. In the farming community where I live, beef is king; people in Cow Town just can’t handle that much tuna.

I decide that Liz Claiborne would be a more than adequate substitution for a Gucci bag and my fingers tingle in anticipation of being able to run them over the raised triangular nubs pressed into the shiny vinyl. I debate all summer over which Liz bag is the Real Me. Whenever I go to Fort Wayne, I stand in the accessories department trying on every model. Am I more of a sunflower-yellow-square girl or a big-red-feedbag kind of person? Clutch or satchel? Tote or wristlet? I finally settle on a sweet little rectangular number in turquoise, just big enough to carry a wallet, some powder, a pencil, and a fifth of peach schnapps. Adding to its glamour and cache is a zipper placket and strap trimmed in
genuine
leather.

The high point of my summer comes when I hand the Ayres cashier a wad of ever-so-slightly tuna-tinged twenties. Once purchased and back at school, I feel like a movie star every time I carry it.