Authors: Claudia Welch
“You got me while I was trying to inhale,” Cindy says. “Unfair.”
“That's what you get for smoking,” I respond with a shrug. “Life lessons, Cindy. Pay attention.”
Cindy throws Missy's pillow at me. I duck and it lands at Joan's feet. Joan smiles, an unguarded smile, and picks up the pillow, tossing it back on Missy's bed.
“Let's see who else wants to go,” I say, running a brush through my hair. I'm wearing JAG Jeans that have been hemmed to perfection, that little silver emblem shining on my butt, and a light green sweater. And my diamond studs. I got them for Christmas from my parents, but I know my mom is the real Santa on this one. Diamond studs are the latest must-have, and a total of eleven girls in the house got a pair for Christmas, Karen and Diane included. Missy didn't bother.
“You go make the rounds. I'm not wearing white pants to Sammy's,” Cindy says, running out the door and down the hall to her room in the back five-way.
Joan clearly doesn't know whether to stay or go, so I say, “Do you need a wardrobe change?”
Joan looks down at her gray slacks and cream blouse. She's also wearing diamond studs, but she had hers before the Great Christmas Diamond Shower. In fact, Joan is the one who started the whole diamond stud craze.
“I wouldn't wear white,” I say, slipping on a pair of navy espadrilles.
“I'll meet you at the bottom of the back stairs?” Joan says. She acts like we're going to ditch her.
“Roger that,” I say. “You're driving, so don't leave without us. How many can you seat?”
“I have a Mercedes, two-door,” Joan says, walking down the hall to her room, a two-way three doors down from mine.
“Okay, we're good for five or six,” I say.
“You're only saying that because you called shotgun!” Cindy yells out from her room.
“Damn straight!” I yell back.
Joan laughs, a small, quiet sound. It's a good sound. Joan needs to lighten up. I laugh all the time and I've got Ed for a father. If I can laugh, anyone can.
 * * *
S
ammy's isn't too crowded, the line only five or six people long. Sammy's is an institution, as much a part of ULA as Sammy Spartan, even if it isn't on campus. Sammy's is on the corner of Beverly and Rampart, kind of a dive, but it's open twenty-four hours and is strictly take-out, though mostly we eat in our cars and not at the filthy tables crammed between the line and the parking lot. Will Joan's car survive? Yes, but not in its present pristine state. It is impossible to eat one of Sammy's burgers and not get it all over your hands, if not your shirt.
I'm thinking this as I'm standing in line, listening to Cindy talk about the guy she likes in her biology class; then I see Laurie leaning her butt against a car hood, trying to delicately eat a Sammy's burger. There's no way, but she's giving it her best shot.
“Laurie!” I call out, waving. Laurie jerks a bit in surprise, I guess, and straightens up. It's then that I see the car she's leaning against is Doug Anderson's car, Doug at the wheel, digging around in his glove compartment. Doug drives a blue Mustang in need of a wax job.
Shit.
This has to be an accident, right? Some kind of weird
I ran into him and we did
not come here in the same car
Bermuda Triangle of bad coincidence. There is no way Laurie is seeing Doug. Laurie is so damn polite that she wouldn't know how to tell Doug to get lost if he was asking for directions to the Land of the Lost.
That has to be it.
“Hi,” she says, walking over, tossing her burger into the nearest fly-swarmed trash can. “Did Colleen talk to you?”
“Uh-huh,” I say, trying not to stare at Doug, who is watching Laurie and watching me and smiling that
I am so gorgeous
Doug smile.
“I had the idea she was going to hit everyone,” Laurie says. “I thought I'd get a Sammy's to cleanse my palate.”
“Doug Anderson's your chaser?” I say.
“Not intentionally,” Laurie says, pulling on that ice queen coat she wears so well.
I'm shuffling forward in line, Joan and Cindy and Missy listening in on every word.
“Uh-huh,” I say. I don't want to think what I'm thinking, but I'm thinking it anyway.
“You drove?” I don't see her car. Laurie bought a car when she turned twenty-one.
“Yeah,” she says. “I'm over there.” And she points to a spot behind a white van. I guess I'll have to take her word for it.
“All by yourself?”
“Have you ever been to Sammy's all by yourself?” she asks, looking a little more reserved with every word.
Laurie has levels of reserve, from full tank down to what you think has to be an empty one, but Laurie is never running on empty with reserve. You think she's out and then, wham, another few whiffs still left that the gauge doesn't quite register. But you do. Laurie can do cool reserve like no one I've ever met. I don't actually mind it. No one does. In a lot of ways it makes her very easy to be around, all that reserve at her disposal, able to calm things down nearly effortlessly.
“No, never,” I say. “So what's up with Doug? Did you manage to dump half your burger on his car?”
Laurie smiles and says, “I was working my way closer, but I think he was getting suspicious.”
I laugh. It's an effort.
Doug is off-limits. Doug is Diane's bad news and that makes him
our
bad news. Doug is a total shit and he deserves to be pushed off a high cliff. We all know this. This doesn't require discussion. Since it doesn't require discussion, it's impossible to find a way to discuss it. Especially at Sammy's. Especially with Doug sitting right there, looking at us.
“I'd better go,” Laurie says. “I have a midterm this week.”
“Yeah. See you later,” I say.
We sound stiff with each other. I hate that, but there's nothing I can seem to do about it.
God, Laurie, not Doug Anderson. Please, not Doug.
L
aurie
â
Spring 1978
â
In the most innocent way imaginable, I'm spending time with Doug Anderson. How it started, I can't quite remember, possibly because it's such an innocuous relationship that it can't have an official, memorable starting point. Somehow, I just found myself talking to him and then seeing him more often, and he's kissed me. It was an innocent kiss, nearly European, and completely spontaneous. I was devastated instantly, but after thinking about it, I've decided there is nothing to feel guilty about. Diane and Doug were long ago. We're all graduating in a few weeks. Everything that happened in college, all these bonds, these fragile and ephemeral relationships, will disappear like smoke the second after we receive our diplomas.
There will be no Doug and Diane in July, no solid memory held firmly in place by a houseful of Beta Pis. It will all be as smoke, too inconsequential to last.
I'm sitting on the floor of my room this semester, the three-way that I'm sharing with Karen and Diane, smoking a cigarette and looking out the window, thinking all this through for the umpteenth time, when I see them coming.
“Rho Delts!” I say, starting to laugh. This is the end of all this, the bittersweet, wonderful end.
“What?” Karen says from her desk. She's typing a paper for one of her classes. I think it's her twenty-ninth paper this semester, literally. “What about them?”
“Can't you hear them?” I say.
In the next moment she can. The Rho Delts are doing a panty raid on us. They charge the door, which is locked, hollering like the average American male eager to get his hands on feminine underwear, and they start grabbing girls on the sidewalk in sort of a hostage-style takeover, trying to get someone to key them in.
It's silly and scary all at the same time.
The girls in the house start screaming and running around, filling water balloons to drop out of windows on male heads, and since my room has the big window right over the front door, it doesn't take more than a minute before my room is filled with girls and dripping water balloons. It's complete pandemonium and I love every minute of it. The only problem is that someoneâI think it was Joanâknocked my ashtray out the window while she was leaning over to drop a balloon.
“Sorry!” I yell.
“Sorry!” she yells.
They're not taking
sorry
in the heartfelt way in which it was rendered. Men are such barbarians.
“Here, get out of the way,” Missy says, elbowing her way to the front of the pack by the window, throwing three or four pairs of bikini underwear out the window to the guys. There's a general sound of male appreciation at that.
“Way to make them work for it,” Ellen says just before she heaves a massive water balloon over the windowsill, only to have it split and break in her hands before she can launch it.
“I don't mind giving it away,” Missy says.
“No, really?” Cindy says. “Hi, Tim!” she shouts to the guys below.
“Tim? Tim's out there?” Diane says, pushing her way to the front. “Tim! Get the hell out of here! You've got enough pairs of Cindy's underwear!”
“Oh, my God! I can't believe you said that!” Cindy squeals. “That's not true!” she shouts out the window.
I'm not sure if she can't be heard over the uproar below or if the guys just don't want to hear that kind of disclaimer. I'm inclined to think it's the latter.
Matt Carlson is standing on the front lawn with his fraternity brothers, smiling at the general mayhem. Matt catches my eye and we smile at each other. I might actually miss him. I know him well enough to be glad to see him every time I see him. I think I'll ask him to the last party; he'd be a fun date. It would be too awkward to ask Doug.
I look around, down to The Row and the snarl of foot traffic our panty raid is causing, at the girls in the house screaming and laughing, at my friends pressed around me, these girls who were strangers three years ago and who are now my closest friends.
I'm going to miss this. I'm going to miss all of this.
One of the guys gets a fire extinguisher and starts blasting it through our mail slot. Some of the guys yell at him to stop, but not too many. Most of the girls start yelling at the guys to stop, opening the front door to do so.
They rush in, shoving past the girls in the foyer, rushing up the stairs, girls screaming more shrilly now, the pounding of heavy male feet, the slamming of doors up and down the hallway as girls try to barricade their rooms shut.
Cindy laughs and rushes out into the hallway.
Joan leaves the room, walking calmly into the melee.
Ellen rushes out, yelling at the Rho Delts to get the hell out.
Karen smiles and keeps typing.
Missy folds herself next to me on the floor and we light up together, looking out at The Row, the lovely smell of cigarette smoke coiling around us.
“I didn't expect all this when I joined Beta Pi,” I say. Missy blows smoke rings and looks at me, brows raised. “I never expected to feel so at home.”
“It's been great, hasn't it,” Missy says, “but I was hoping for great. What are you going to do now?”
All I know for sure is that I can't go home.
“I've applied to law school,” I say. It's not because I've always dreamed of the law; it's because I have the grades and it will take three years and that's another three years taken out of my hands.
“Cool. When will you know?”
“I heard. Yesterday, in fact.”
“Is it a secret or something?” Missy asks with a smirk.
“No, I just . . . I don't know. I guess I don't want to think about it until I have to. I have a lot to do. I'm putting it off.”
“Good plan.”
“Do you really think so?” I ask. Because it doesn't sound like it to me; it feels like a fall back to the trenches, a
cover my ears and hide under the covers
move.
I have a trust fund. I have nowhere I need to be, nowhere I need to go, no one who needs me to be with them or to go where they go. I'm just making it all up as I go along.
“Sure. That's what I do,” Missy says, stabbing out her cigarette. “What else can you do?”
“No life plan? No great strategy?” I ask.
“Life laughs at plans, McCormick. Haven't you figured that out yet?”
I guess I haven't.
Diane
â
Spring 1978
â
The theme of this party, the last party for the seniors, is to dress as what you're going to be doing five years from now. I'm wearing fatigues. I look
so
pretty. I can't wait to see the photographs.
For this party, I brought Dave York for two reasons: he's adorable and he's funny. I can relax with him. We've spent a lot of shared hours in the Four-O together, swapping drinks and stories. Oh, and another plus for Dave: he's not ROTC.
I guess it goes without saying that all the ROTC guys know about Doug and me, and what happened, and then what didn't happenânamely, us becoming a couple. It was awkward for a really long time, which was hardly surprising, but the guys were cool about it for the most part. I got through it, but I don't want to go through it again. Ever. Navy guys and my love life have
got
to stay separate, just like they've stayed separate since Doug kicked me out of bed.
Yes, that's how I think of it. And, yes, it still hurts like hell.
Something's going on between Laurie and Doug, something that she wants to keep a secret but isn't quite a secret. They've probably gone out already, knowing Doug. I should tell her she should avoid Doug like the plague, but she won't listen to me because Doug has that effect on girls. They just don't want to say no. Trust me, I'm an expert.
The party, the final Beta Pi party for me, is at Stephanie Haynes' house. Her house is in the hilly part of Beverly Hills, so parking is a bear, but the house is gorgeous. It doesn't look that big from the street, big enough, but not huge, but when you go inside, the house just opens up and there's a big pool overlooking what looks like an endless forest, which we all know is impossible in LA. Stephanie's dad is a big name at one of the studios and her mom was an actress in the forties. They probably bought this house for forty thousand dollars in 1950.
“They're running low on vodka,” Dave says, bringing me my drink as I sit on the diving board. “If you want more, you'd better hurry.”
“Is this some sort of male thing? How to get a girl drunk in twelve easy lessons?” I say.
“Are you telling me you'd need twelve lessons to learn how to get drunk?” Dave says.
“Dave, that is not even close to what I said. I think I just got you drunk in one easy lesson.”
“I didn't pay tuition for this class.”
“You can take it pass/fail.”
“You are not making any sense at all.”
“That must mean it's time to switch to scotch.”
“Diane, that part I understood,” Dave says, chuckling.
He's a fun guy. Why couldn't I have fallen in love with him?
Okay, no. No. No. No. I'm not going to think that, not anymore. And especially not here, with Laurie just across the pool from me, sitting on the edge of the pool, her feet on the steps in the shallow end, Matt Carlson at her side. You can do that when you're wearing shorts and a cute Hawaiian shirt and Jap flaps. Me, I'm wearing combat boots. They're black. I look like a mushy G.I. Joe doll.
“You're a brave man, coming out with me looking like this,” I say to Dave.
“You're nuts,” he says, shaking his head and looking around at the crowd.
“What? You had a thing for G.I. Joe when you were a kid?” I say.
“Nah,” Dave says, looking down at me. “I was all about Barbie. Taking her clothes off . . . watching her stiff-leg it around, naked . . .”
“God, you are one sick puppy,” I say, laughing.
“Hey, a guy's got to get experience somewhere.”
“Poor Barbie, so defenseless.”
“Yeah. That's what made her so perfect.”
“I am officially throwing up now,” I say, standing up to shove him away from me. I'm laughing, so it kind of spoils my harsh and highly justified rejection of his Barbie mangling.
“You're throwing up? Already?” Karen says, walking toward the diving board across the pool deck.
“It's not what you think,” I say. “It's Dave and his sick Barbie fascination. It literally made me sick. Well, almost. Give me a minute and I'll make it literal.”
“Anything I can do to help?” Dave says. “Barbie had this red velvet cape and Iâ”
“It was velveteen, you moron,” I say. “God, why am I helping him? Stop. Just stop with the Barbie debauchery.”
“Wait,” Drew, Karen's date, says. “A red cape. I'm seeing it. What else?”
“Okay, that's it,” I say. “We are officially entering Barf City.”
“What is it with you? Did you get a job at Mattel or something?” Karen asks Drew.
Drew is a senior, not in a fraternity, and is nice-looking in a scruffy, Italian sort of way. “No, but as the home of Barbie . . .” Drew says, his voice trailing off suggestively.
“Why don't you two get a room so you can have privacy to play with your Barbies,” I say.
“You make it sound so dirty,” Dave said with an offended look.
“What sounds dirty?” Cindy Gabrielle says, joining us at the diving board. Cindy, since she's not a senior, can wear whatever she wants. She apparently wanted to wear white pants, a pale gold silk shirt tucked in, and a gold braided belt. She looks great, I have to say. She got a Dorothy Hamill cut a year or so ago and it really suits her. Her eyes look enormous and her neck is about as thick as a number two pencil.
Cindy is working her way back from being an Omega. It's a beautiful thing to see. Joan Collier has been working on her, and since Joan is hanging with us more, the Exclusives, we've been working on her, too. Oh, yeah. We've taken that set-down about being an
exclusive group of friends
and run with it. We're now calling ourselves the Exclusives. It's pretty funny. Not what Colleen expected, I'm sure.
“Barbie,” Karen says.
“Barbie's not dirty. I played Barbies all the time and there's nothing dirty about it,” Cindy says, a puzzled look on her face.
“Play it with Dave,” I say. “You'll be scarred for life.”
“You played Barbies?” Cindy's date asks Dave.
Cindy's date has longish, blondish hair and a nice tan. That's all I know about him.
“This is Rob Gottschalk,” Cindy says, introducing him. “We're in the same accounting class.”
We all nod or say mumbled hellos, eager not to get in the way of Dave's response to Rob. This should be good.
“I played
with
Barbie, if you get what I mean,” Dave says, grinning.
We all look at Rob to see if he'll get it.
Rob grins and nods. He gets it.
“I vote for an official change of topic. Before I hurl. Who's with me?” I say.
I raise my hand. Karen raises her hand. Cindy hesitates, looking at Rob, then at Dave.
“Cindy, you're with us,” I say. “Raise your hand.”
She raises her hand, laughing.
“Okay, that passed. No more Barbie talk,” I say.
“It was three to three!” Dave says.
“Beta Pi party, Beta Pi home-court advantage. You lose. Try not to be a baby about it,” I say, grinning at Dave. He's such a fun guy to party with.
“Fine,” he says, shaking his head. “I need a refill to buoy my incredible grace in losing. Anyone else?”
“I have always heard that Rho Delts were great at losing. All that practice, I guess,” I say, deadpan.
It goes on as parties do, mixing and mingling, talking and teasing, drinking and laughing. Stephanie's parents had greeted us all at the door, but they've made themselves scarce since. Her mom looks like an aging movie star, still pretty and casting a glamorous shadow.
Everyone is here tonight, every Beta Pi, and I find I can't stop looking at them all, memorizing faces, remembering moments between us. It's over. This is the last party, the last Beta Pi event.
The music changes.
“Oh, my God!” I say. “They're playing âBrick House'! Let's go!”
“Brick House” is one of the best dance songs of all time. It's way better than “Stairway to Heaven,” with all those weird tempo changes. If the Beta Pis have a theme song, and we actually do but it's too sweet to be our
real
theme song, it's “Brick House.” Whenever it's played, we go nuts and dance like we're on
American Bandstand
mixed with
Soul Train
.
Every Beta Pi is already dancing, arms up, hips moving to the beat, laughing and dancing with one another,
for
one another. I jump right in, howling my happiness, pulling Karen along with me. We're laughing and dancing to the most chauvinistic song ever recorded, but who cares? You hear it and you've got to dance.
The guys are dancing with us, sort of. But really, it's just us, just the Beta Pis, dancing to our favorite song at the last sorority party we'll ever attend.
“Photog! Photog! Take our picture!” I yell. The photographer dutifully obeys and the flash lights us up for a second, the moment captured.
The only thing left to do, to end the night perfectly, is to hit Sammy's and throw Sammy's burgers at the side of the AG house. We'll take Joan's car.