Sorority Sisters (17 page)

“No complaints,” Missy says, picking apart her roll.

We all eye Missy cautiously. She and Craig have been dating since they met in the Four-O last spring. I don't think Missy meant it to get serious, and I'm really not sure it
is
serious, but it's sure starting to look serious. Missy's a junior and Craig's a senior; they're old enough for it to get serious.

Aren't we all?

Suddenly, in the middle of our hasher starting to take away our plates, the lights are flipped off, the hasher makes a discreet exit, and one of the girls brings in a bouquet with a lit candle sticking up out of the middle of it.

Sighs and moans of excitement float through the room. At least twenty people turn to stare at me, their faces smiling. My stomach plunges down a few inches. I start to shake, my hands trembling and my knees knocking together a little. Until now, I thought knocking knees was a literary device. But, that literary observation aside, I feel sick. Sick at heart and sick soul-deep and horribly, physically sick.

It's not me.

It's not
me
.

The thing is this: when a Beta Pi gets pinned or engaged, a candle bouquet makes its way around the Monday Night Dinner dining room, girl by girl. Each girl takes the bouquet, the candle illuminating her face for a moment before she passes it on. Or blows out the candle. The one who blows out the candle is
the one
, the girl getting pinned or engaged. If engaged, the ring is slipped over the candle so everyone can admire it. If pinned, the guys from the fraternity are waiting on the front lawn to serenade her in front of us, watching her get pinned by her guy in front of all of us. It's the most romantic thing in the world. It's like something out of
Romeo and Juliet
, if their families hadn't been feuding and they hadn't, you know, died.

The candle passes from girl to girl, from one table to another, each girl's face lit by that warm yellow glow. Some girls laugh and get rid of the bouquet as fast as they can, passing it on like a baton in a relay; others linger over the bouquet, teasing us, dragging it out before passing it on. You get a feeling for these candle ceremonies. You get to know which girl is ready to get pinned or engaged. You date a guy for long enough, the relationship calm enough and happy enough that it's just the next logical step, then the candle ceremony feels nearly inevitable, like falling out of a tree. The yum-yum tree.

I'm the logical choice. We're so completely and perfectly the logical choice. Greg and I have been together for three years. He loves me and I love him. We're stable. We're happy. We're graduating in a few months.

And it's not me.

The bouquet is passed to our table, to Ellen first, who laughs and passes it on to Diane, who smiles at me, a smile that is a question, and then passes it on to Lee. Lee looks at the ring, makes a face that shows she's impressed, and then she passes it to Missy. Missy, her blue eyes sparkling in the light of that single white candle, looks at Ellen and grins, looks at me and stops grinning, and then she blows out the candle.

Missy. It's Missy.

There's a stunned silence that lasts for a few seconds, a few eternal seconds when I can feel every wondering and confused eye on me, and then applause and shouts of joy for Missy and Craig. Craig, who met Missy six or seven months ago in a bar. Craig, who
knows
he wants to marry Missy. Craig, who bought the ring and is ready to set the date.

“I thought it was going to be you,” Diane whispers to me.

I smile, a wobbly smile that won't hold its happy shape. My eyes are teary. I can't talk.

“You okay?” Laurie mouths to me silently.

I nod and smile harder, forcing my features to make a happy face.

“When are you guys getting married?” Ellen asks Missy, but I'm asking myself the same question. When are we getting married? I know the answer. I've known the answer for a long, long time. Maybe I've known for years.

When are we getting married?

We're not.

“We're thinking June of next year,” Missy answers. “His parents and my parents are negotiating now.”

Craig nailed her down, staked his claim, made it official, and is going to make it permanent.

In that instant, I hate Greg.

The ceremony over, the hasher gets back to business and brings out dessert: yellow cake with white frosting, kind of like a wedding cake.

I can't swallow a bite.

 * * *

I
still love you,” Greg says. “But I don't want to marry you. Not now, anyway. Maybe later. After I get a job.”

I start to cry. I can't help it.

“Shit. Do you have to do that?” Greg says. He looks around in grim embarrassment. We're on University Avenue and it's two o'clock and it's Tuesday and we are not even close to being alone. A girl with chin-length brown hair and a red skirt rides by on her bike; she gives me a sympathetic look and then gives Greg an accusing one. I appreciate it.

I sit down on the curb and bury my face in my arms.

“I said I still love you,” he says.

Big deal.

I look up at him, wiping my nose with the back of my hand. “I love you, too. I thought we were going to get married. You told me you wanted to marry me a month after we started dating. Didn't you mean it?”

“I did. I just don't . . . I think we should wait.”

“For what?” I wipe my nose again and then wipe my hand on the back of my pants.

“I'm not ready. It just doesn't feel right. You can feel it, too. I know you can.”

If I can, I don't want to admit it now. I haven't wanted to admit it for months, maybe years. But I love him. I love Greg. Even now, as he's breaking up with me, he still loves me. That has to count. That has to mean something.

Why doesn't it mean that we're going to get married?

“Come on,” he says, holding a hand out to me. I sniff and take it. He pulls me into his arms and I sob against his chest. “I'll walk you back to the house.”

 * * *

I
'm not sure what to do now. I've had a boyfriend”—and a second on the side every now and then—“since I was twelve. I don't like being without someone to love and without someone to love me; I feel amputated,” I say.

“You'll be fine. It's only been a few days,” Ellen says. Laurie doesn't say it. Diane doesn't say it. Of course not. Ellen doesn't know what it feels like to be cut into chunks. I hope she never does.

“I guess,” I say, sitting on the floor of my room, shaking the dice for our backgammon game, the smell of popcorn strong in the air.

“You just need a date,” Ellen says. “Want me to set you up?”

“No!” Laurie says before I can open my mouth. I let the dice fall out of the cup. “No offense, Ellen, but that guy you set me up with was either on parole or on his way to do a bank job. What did you ever think we'd have in common?”

Ellen winks at me. “I told him you were loaded. He sure liked you.”

I move my backgammon pieces, not really thinking about the game. Ellen shakes, rolls, moves, and kills me. Game over.

“Let me set you up with one of my guys,” Diane says. “At least they've passed a background check.”

“Which one?” Ellen says before I can open my mouth. I keep shaking the dice in my cup, the sound hopeful somehow, as if things can still roll out okay, that you can win if you just keep shaking the dice.

“Rob Thompson,” Diane says immediately.

“Isn't he the guy you set me up with last year?” Ellen says. “The one who ignored me all night at the Halloween party?”

“He's matured,” Diane says. “He's a junior now.”

“I'm too old for him,” I say.

“Does he have a crush on her?” Laurie asks, scooting me over so she can take my place at the backgammon board, facing off against Ellen. Ellen is the queen of backgammon. She could hustle backgammon and live like royalty. I lift myself onto my bed, looking out the window at the side of the AG house. There's nothing going on. I'm not used to having so much time on my hands. Without typing Greg's papers and doing his dishes, the hours crawl by.

“I don't know,” Diane says. “A date's a date. He can crush on her later.”

“Too young,” I say, still staring out the window, my shoulders resting against the wall.

“Russ Bromley,” Diane says. “He's such a doll. And he's a senior, so you won't be cradle robbing.”

“I had a class with him last spring,” Laurie says. “He's cute, Karen. You should go out with him.”

“Why don't
you
go out with him?” I say, looking at Laurie. It's a rotten thing to say, and I regret it instantly.

“If he asked, I would,” Laurie says quietly.

“Well, he hasn't asked me either, so we're in the same leaky boat,” I say.

“You could thumb wrestle for him,” Ellen says, moving the backgammon pieces into the starting position. “Best two out of three.”

We all laugh and the mood in the room lightens.

“It's only been a couple of weeks,” I say. “I'm just not in the mood to date yet.”

“Okay,” Diane says, “but after Christmas break for sure.”

“Triple date?” I say. “Fix up Laurie, too, and then I'll go. We'll all go. Someplace ritzy. Like Sammy's.”

Laurie snorts.

“Laurie?” Diane asks.

“You're sure about the background check, right? I don't want to end up as the getaway driver in a jewelry heist,” Laurie says.

Ellen throws a piece of popcorn at her. It hits Laurie on the forehead and then drops into the hole of her crossed legs.

“Two points! And a rim shot, too,” Ellen says.

“You don't need any extra points,” Diane says. “You're the only one of us with a steady guy. How's it going with Mike?”

“Okay,” Ellen says. “Grad school's going fine.”

“When's he going to graduate?” Laurie says.

“He's not sure,” Ellen says. “It depends on if he can get the classes he needs or not.”

I exchange a look with Diane, who's sitting on the floor against the bed opposite mine. Mike Dunn was an undergrad for five years and now he's in grad school. Just when is this guy going to get out and get a job? Of course, it's one of Mike's friends who is the bank job guy, so I'm not actually disposed to trust him. Ellen is. I still can't figure that out. She didn't even like the guy that much, and suddenly, mostly because he worked at it so hard, she's in love with him and it's serious. Or it looks and sounds serious. Looks can be deceiving, can't they?

“Okay, hold on,” Diane says. “I'm setting you two up, but who's setting me up? I'm not asking one of the ROTC guys, you know. So where does that leave me?”

“Walk down The Row in a pair of shorts and a halter top,” Ellen says. “That should take care of it. I'll bet you have half a dozen offers within fifteen minutes.”

“I'm not arguing that I'd get offers,” Diane says. “It's what kind of offers that I'm wondering about.”

“Really? You're wondering?” Ellen says. “What's your GPA again? Two point stupid?”

“About that,” Diane says. “Why? You only hang out with smart people?”

“Obviously not,” Laurie says dryly.

I look back out the window again. It's a little after four o'clock. Dinner is in two hours. I fly home to Connecticut in nineteen days. I'll spend two weeks with my parents in the snow, the yellow house looking like a broken egg on a thick white dinner plate; once I'm home I'll tell my mom Greg and I broke up. She'll try not to jump for joy and recount all the reasons she was right about how wrong he was. My mom will take me out to lunch, shopping, and a movie, or some combination of all three for most of the two weeks I'm home. I'll see a few old high school friends and we won't have much to say to one another. They have new friends; I have new friends.

I take a shallow breath that I fully intended to be a deep breath. I started shaking when Missy blew out the candle at Monday Night Dinner, and I haven't really stopped since then. I feel shaky all the time, my own private little earthquake that won't stop. All the foundations are cracked and broken; college didn't turn out the way I wanted it to. I have an education, but I don't have anyone. I wasted three years on the wrong guy; it's the worst mistake I've ever made. I'm graduating in a few months and I don't
have
anyone.

Empty, hopeless time runs in front of me, mocking me.

“It'll work out,” Diane says to me. “It takes time; that's all.”

Dinner is in two hours. I fly home to Connecticut a handful of days from now.

Little bites. I just have to look at my life in little bites, one thing at a time. Graduation is months away. I don't have to think about that now.

I don't have to think about Greg anymore.

I'm just going to have to be happy about that. I'm going to just flat-out be thankful that I didn't end up married to a guy who was happy to use me as his personal whore, maid, and tutor. I thought I'd meet my husband in college. I didn't go to college just to find a husband; I'm not some “getting her MRS degree” joke, but I did just sort of basically expect to meet him here. Where will I meet him now?

Of course, college isn't over yet. I could still meet someone. Or maybe even get back with Greg.

I loved him.

I still do, I think.

I turn away from the window. There's nothing out there. It's not like Greg is going to come over and beg for me back, is it? I might have thought it was a possibility at first, but if he came right now, I wouldn't take him back. I'd talk to him, sure, but he'd have to say just the right things. I'm not even sure what the right things are anymore. He told me he loved me, and that's always been the only right thing a guy had to say. That, and he thought I was pretty.