Actual Sorority Sisters

In fact I loved being at the sorority. It was everything I'd hoped it would be and more. There was laughter and camaraderie, a sense of purpose, people to discuss my ideas with, and a general bank of knowledge about college where I could learn from the mistakes of others. And I just had fun. As each day passed in that month, I knew more and more that I wanted to stay there. I hoped I'd made enough of an impact to overcome whatever roadblocks Lily was throwing up in my way.

So the month of culling passed in an absolute whirlwind. Each day, the tension grew greater and greater inside of me. Part of me wanted the month to just end so I could find out if I got in. Another part never wanted the month to end in case I didn't. But one month to the day after I received my invitation in my dorm room, Heather gathered everyone together in the dining room to make the announcement.

It was early afternoon and I was amongst the last into the room. It was Sunday, but I'd been studying at the library for a quiz I had the next morning. Now my stomach was tied in knots and I felt that I could barely breathe. I looked for my sister for some sign, good or bad, about what would happen. But she was standing next to Heather, looking very official and not giving anything away. The officers were standing in the back of the room against the wall. All of the other sisters were sitting at the tables. The freshmen, including me, were standing against the opposite wall, like we were waiting for an execution squad.

"Alright ladies, first and foremost I want to thank all of you for coming out this last month and it had really been a pleasure getting to know all of you. How about a round of applause for our prospective pledges?" Heather asked and the crowd instantly began to clap loudly and enthusiastically for all of us.

"Fortunately, the month long culling period is over. Unfortunately that means that half of you will not be returning. And I absolutely mean this, this years class was incredibly strong. We could have easily accepted 13 of 14 of you into the sorority if we had the space," Heather stated. The longer she spoke the more nervous I got. I looked at the other girls lined up on the wall with me. I saw the tension and anticipation in their eyes as well. I'd gotten to know a lot of them, I wondered if I got in, who amongst the people I now considered friends would be forced to leave. Then I shook my head, don't jinx it.

"Well, without further torturing you, let's get on with it," Heather said. We against the wall sucked in breath and groaned audibly. The sisters tittered. "I will read out the names in no particular order." And she started on the list. One name, then two, then three, four, five, six, seven, eight, and nine. Girls heard their names and then smiled ecstatically, but kept their cool, not wanting to rub it in as the other girls had their chances rapidly diminish. As each named was called, I felt more and more sure that Lily had done what she wanted. Just like her clubs when we were kids, she was going to successfully keep me out. Only this time, she really didn't have any right. I felt tears already welling in my eye.

"Our final pledge," Heather said, after giving the ninth girl a moment to bask in her excitement, "should really feel at home here. Not only will she have a new family in the sorority, she already has actual family in the sorority. Ellie Abood. Or is it Lizzie now?" My head was swimming. I was in. She'd called my name. I was in! I felt the smile spread across my face even before the full weight of the announcement. I was in! I looked up at Heather, who was beaming at me. I looked at my sister next. The voting had been public just before we'd arrived. She knew I was in. Now she wouldn't make eye contact with me. But she looked...scared?

But even I was thinking about that, the girls who were not selected (miraculously most of the girls I hadn't gotten close with) were slinking dejectedly out of the room. When they were gone, it was only the members of the sorority: old and new. Someone started to cheer and I joined in. Soon I was hugging the other girls in my pledge class and even the older girls were coming over and joining in the fun. After a few minutes Heather called the group to order. And we stood, all intermingled now, and turned to look at her.

"Well now that it is just the sorority, I want to welcome you all," she said and we cheered again, "As you know, we voted on this last night so we have been coordinating with the school authorities. All of your items have been moved from your dorm room to the sorority house during the day. If you tried to get into the dorms this afternoon and your key card did not work, that is the reason. Your room has your name on the door so please feel free to go upstairs and put your items away and meet your new roommates."

Some girls seemed almost out the door before Heather even had a chance to finish speaking. And I wanted to see my room as much as anyone else, but I spoke up briefly first, "What about Pledge Week? Do you have any information about that?" the other girls paused. Heather smiled at me.

"Worry about Pledge Week when the time comes. Trust me, you will have more than enough to keep your hands full then," The other upper classmen seemed to laugh. I wondered what the joke was, but by that time the other freshman girls were already filing out. I decided to quickly follow them.

Thoughts of pledge week were immediately cleansed from my mind as I bounded up the stairs to the second flight. The doors on the freshman side of the hallway were wide open. Some girls were already in their rooms. I glanced at each as I walked by, searching for my name. Finally, I found mine, the last one on the freshman side right before the bathroom. There on the door was my name and the name of my new roommate, Lori.

Lori was already inside, sitting on her bed. Our items were scattered about the room haphazardly, but my blankets were on one bed and hers were on the other. As I walked in she smiled brightly and jumped off the bed. She gave me a big hug.

"Oh my God Ellie, we did it! We are in!" she squealed. Her excitement was contagious and soon I was giggling and hugging her back.

I was extremely happy that Lori had been selected as my roommate. I had actually met her before the rush period started because we lived in the same dormitory. But I had really gotten to know her during the last month. She was just a lot of fun. She was deceptively smart, always making a funny comment that would take you a minute to get. She was also conscientious, remembering things that people liked and things that people didn't like. She made it a point to get involved where any tension existed in a room and trying to diffuse the situation. She seemed resourceful and loyal. A good friend. I was more than willing to share a room with her. Though really, I would have been happy with any of the girls who made it.

I think Lori was happy about the situation as well. As we broke our hug she looked like she was about to break into a dance at any second. Then she started to excitedly tell me about her ideas for the room. They came out in a torrent, Lori barely breathing as she spoke.

"So I was thinking that we should keep the bed that they put our stuff on because it really don't matter. I mean if you want to change we can, but I don't care. There is a closet for each of us, which is good because when we first toured the place I thought there was only one. I was thinking about putting my desk up against the window so that I can look out of it when I am doing homework. But if I do that, then the only configuration that will fit everything is if you put your desk against the other window. I mean if you don't want to do that, its fine we can figure something else, that was just my first thought. We can even try that and then change it later if it doesn't work for us. Oh, hey, what do you think we should do if one of us brings a boy back to the room? My old roommate and I were just working on that problem and..."

It was almost too hard to follow. Though I did think, as she spoke, that Lori probably wouldn't have any trouble luring a guy back to the room if she wanted one. She was absolutely gorgeous. She was slightly taller than me, around 5'5 and thinner, probably around 115 lbs. She had very long chestnut color hair and big grey eyes. She had a slightly round, but slim face with a very small nose, red lips, and a gentle chin. She had a classic sorority babe body with perky 34-B breasts, a flat tummy, a toned butt, and shapely legs. I had the feeling there would be a lot of socks on the doorknob this year. Or whatever signal she chose.

"So what do you think?" she finally summed up. I realized I hadn't heard quite half of her ideas.

"I don't know," I said honestly, "I am just too excited to think. I bet whatever we decide will be awesome!" She beamed even brighter and hugged me again. We started to unpack our things and put them away. Basically, we started to configure the room the way that Lori wanted. I had no problem with that. I was just happy to be here. Besides, Lori had a good eye for interior design. In a short period of time, things were starting to look very good.

About an hour after we went upstairs, there was a knock on our door frame. We both looked and I was surprised to see my sister standing there, "It's dinner time, everybody should come down for the big celebration dinner," she said warmly, but directly at Lori.

"Lily..."

"Sorry, need to get downstairs," she said brusquely and turned to walk away. I followed her out into the hallway. No one else was there, the rest of the girls already making there way downstairs. I reached and grabbed for Lily's wrist.

"Hey, wait," I said. Lily stopped walking, crossed her arms in front of her breasts and stared me down.

"What is it Ellie? Did you call mom to tell her I was mean to you? Is dad on his way up to give me a talk about treating my family the right way?"

"Don't be like that. This isn't like when we were kids," I said. I couldn't believe she still thought I was doing this because of her or in spite of her. She sighed and shook her head, looking less angry now but still upset.

"You are still a kid. This just proves it," Lily spat back.

"I thought you would at least be proud of me. I mean I am your sister and I did what you didn't think I could. I was proud of you when you got in here," I said. My voice sounded smaller than I intended.

"I know you don't understand what you are doing and I know that you aren't trying to be selfish. But you are. And you just got in way over your head trying to impress me or something." She said. Not a threat because it wasn't angry. Just a warning. Then she turned and walked down the stairs.

* * * * *

We went downstairs after that and had a nice dinner. A chef hired from the sorority dues came by twice a day to cook (though we were allowed to cook too, if we wanted) and they made something really nice. All of the officers said something at the start of dinner to welcome us. My sister's comments were briefer than Carrie's or Heather's, but they were really lovely. I guess her role was to explain the history of the sorority, and she did so starting back in the 1920's when it started on our very own campus. The first sorority after the school began allowing women. But beyond just a stark history lesson, Lily made us understand how that history was now a part of us and that it was our history and tradition to. And how we had to protect those traditions. It was very lovely and I was so proud of her commanding speech, even if I was still incredibly upset with her. No one, including my sister, mentioned anything about Pledge Week.

After dinner, the freshman girls (including me) went back upstairs to finish setting up our rooms. Lori and I talked about school, the sorority, and what we expected from Pledge Week while we did the tedious work of fitting all of our doo-dads together in a pleasing fashion. Finally, around 12:00 we figured we'd done enough considering we had class the next morning. We crawled into our new beds and fell asleep.

I awoke with a start to the sound of crashing. It was like thunder or a car crash except it felt like it was inside of my head. It was so insanely loud that for a moment I forgot who I was and where I was. I shot up instantly in my bed and my eyes flew to the clock on the wall. 3:00 a.m. I searched around the room and finally saw, standing in the doorway, one of the senior girls. I thought her name was Shelley. She was holding a giant metal trashcan and smacking a large metal spoon against it. I could hear more people doing the same out in the hallway. Slowly, my mind started to figure out what was going on. Pledge Week.

"Alright little sisters," Shelley yelled out in her squeaky voice, "There is a mandatory meeting for pledges downstairs in the dining room immediately." I could hear other senior girls yelling in the other rooms.

"Oh God, what is going on?" I heard Lori say.

"No time to waste. If you aren't down in two minutes there will be a punishment," Shelley said like she hoped we would be late.

"Let me get changed," I said, my voice sounding like a croak. I was wide awake from the adrenaline, but still tired and confused.

"No time, wear your pajamas," Shelley said and then instantly slipped out the door. I looked over at Lori, she gave me a confused look and then grinned. It was actually kind of fun. We clamored out of our room. I was wearing a large t-shirt and a pair of panties. Lori was wearing an actual set of button-up pajamas with pink ducks on them. We saw other freshman girls stepping out of their rooms rubbing their eyes and looking dazed. Some were less decent than me. One girl, Kristen, was wearing a surprisingly sexy bra and panty combination. We all marched downstairs towards the dining room like zombies.

I was near the back of the crowd and couldn't really see what was coming ahead of me. Eventually, we all stumbled into the dining room. As I moved into the room I saw that the tables had been removed. The entire space of the dining room was open. All 30 girls in the upper classes were in the room, standing around the edges. They were all wearing long black robes with hoods and they were holding candles. I hadn't noticed in my sleepy state, but Shelley had been wearing one of those robes when she woke us up. She hadn't had a candle then, but I assumed another girl had held hers. Those candles were the only light in the room. My pledge class shuffled into the middle of the room, a little intimidated by the atmosphere. It was eerie in the flickering light with the robed and silent figures all around us. I felt more awake now.

As we reached the center of the room, the girls around the outside shuffled, spreading out so that they blocked all of the exits. We were completely surrounded. For a long time they just had us stand there in the unnerving light of the candles. All of the girls had their hoods up and their heads bowed so I couldn't tell who was who. There was no sound. I knew this was part of the Pledge Week and that they were making me uneasy on purpose. But it worked. I felt myself shuffling anxiously.

Finally, one hooded figure stepped forward, then the figure on either side of her stepped forward towards us. We backed up instinctively, but couldn't move too far. The figure in the middle threw off her hood, "Good evening ladies. Welcome to Pledge Week!" It was Heather.

"Welcome," all of the other girls intoned at once. The two figures on either side of Heather removed their hoods. Carrie and Lily looked at us now. As though that were a cue, all the other girls threw off their hoods, exposing their faces. But they continued to stand at the sides, silently holding their candles and staring at us. I was still nervous and I could feel the tension of my fellow pledge class members. The whole experience was (purposeful) disorienting.

"I will be passing around three bowls. These contain slips of paper. Please take one piece of paper from each bowl but do not open it," Lily said solemnly. She then took a bowl from another girl and passed it to someone in my pledge class. She repeated this two more times. Eventually, the bowls came to me and I took one of each, clutching it closely in my hand.

Now Heather began to speak again. As she did, she started to pace around us, in between our tight and nervous circle and the broader circle around us. She spoke rhythmically and evenly, "Everything leading up to today has been preface. Rush. Culling. These were the easy parts of your initiation into the sorority. And also the boring part. The next week will be the period during which you will really become a member of the sorority. It will be difficult. It will be confusing. It will change the way you think about yourself and about your sisters. And it will be fun," Heather returned to where she had spoken first and smiled devilishly.

"Allaya Waters!" Carrie called out seemingly out of nowhere. Allaya, a girl in my pledge class, flinched away from Carrie's words. She looked around nervously, afraid she'd done something wrong.

"Yes?" she asked.

"Open your three pieces of paper and read what they say," Lily demanded. Allaya's eyes were as big as saucers and she swallowed hard, but nodded her head.

"Um... okay," she said fumbling with the papers, "My papers Shelley Cooper, Kim Stern, and... Alex Bukowski." She had named off three sorority sister's names. We were confused as to what that meant.

"You have read the names of your Big Sisters for Pledge Week. One sophomore, one junior, and one senior," Heather explained, "These Big Sisters will be yours for the rest of your life. But for this week they will be more than that. They are your guides and also your masters. If you have any questions, you may consult any of your Big Sisters. In exchange, you are completely under the control of your Big Sisters. Anything they may ask of you, you must perform. From the most mundane to the most difficult. Refusal to follow the directive of a Big Sister constitutes ground for immediate expulsion from the sorority. Further, there will be organized activity later in the week with your Big Sisters."

"Ellie Abood!" Carrie called out. There was no pause between the end of Heather's explanation and the start of the Carrie's cry. They were clearly well rehearsed and it gave an intimidating aspect to the whole endeavor. Hearing my name affected me in the same way it had affected Allaya; I was shaking all over.

"Open your pieces of paper and read the names of your Big Sisters!" Lily called out, but not looking at me.

"Yeah, uh... Adrianna Hall, Mandy Cohen, and....Lily Abood," I said. There was an audible gasp around us. The girls around the outside circled murmured amongst themselves. I saw Lily shaking her head.

"No, we need a re-pull," she said frantically. The mock gravity in her voice dropped now, she sounded almost panicked. Heather was still smiling.

"Silence!" she called, staying in character. Then she turned towards Lily and hissed, "There are no re-pulls. That is expressly forbidden by the by-laws. You know that."

"Yeah, but this isn't a normal situation," My sister said. I couldn't believe that she was so angry with me that she refused to be my guide. Hell she was allowed to boss me around for a week; I figured it was her dream come true.

"Yeah I don't know Heather," Carrie whispered now, sounded very unsure. This surprised me. Carrie had always struck me as Heather's toady.

"Even if I wanted to change it, I cannot," Heather said.

"I demand an immediate vote for an exemption from the by-laws," My sister said.

"Parliamentary procedures are not allowed for use in modifying Pledge Week ceremonies. If you want to change the rules, you need to petition to the national organization. Their next meeting is in August," Heather stated. The pledge class and I were totally confused. The girls around the outside were still whispering.