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  “Why?” I asked her.

  “Because of all the girls I’ve talked to that say they want to be Betas, you outshine them all. Their reasons for wanting to pledge are shallow. They say to wear the letters, to sport the colors, to try to get guys, I mean you wouldn’t believe some of the stupid stuff they say. And even though I know you are a legacy ... Yeah, we know,” she said, seeing the tension on my face.

  I wished I could have kept that a secret. I’d always heard mixed things about being the daughter of a Beta. Either that gave you an edge, or the chapter members would cast you out because they felt you were too cocky. I didn’t know what would be my fate if they found out so I kept it low key.

  “Your roommates are all trying to pledge something different, and yet you still want this. I saw you pushing a guy in a wheelchair the other day down the hall to class. Somebody else dropped their books and you were there to help them out. I don’t know. You have outstanding character. The character we need in our group. I’m happy you came to rush tonight. I’m glad the night after our party didn’t deter you.” I reached over to hug her and she backed away. “I’m not that glad. I’m not just gonna hand you my letters. You’re going to have to work for them. You ready to work for them, Hayden?”

  I nodded.

  “Cool.”

  I hoped it was.

  The next evening, I was home working on a paper for my psychology professor, Dr. Griffin. The dude was so rigid, he needed a female to loosen him up. It felt like school had just started and I was already weighed down with work. Then my doorbell rang, giving me the break I needed. “Come on, we gotta go!” a familiar voice said to me as I opened my apartment door and got yanked out of it.

  “Wait a minute. I don’t have my purse, my wallet or my keys. What’s this about?”

  “Okay, I’m Trisha. I’m trying to pledge Beta. We’ve been instructed to come and pick you up. You in this or what?”

  Now, I understood. I guess the crazy rollercoaster ride of pledging was on. I held up my finger to say one minute. Part of me was excited. At least this time I wouldn’t be around the crazy girls alone.

  “I’ll be at the car,” Trisha said.

  “Sounds good. I’ll be right out.”

  When I went inside to get my purse Chandra yelled out, “Hayden, who’s that at the door?”

  “It’s nobody,” I said quickly, truly not needing her to act like a parent.

  “I know you not going underground,” she said as I looked away. “All right, hard head. Don’t get your head smashed in.”

  “I’ll be back later. Don’t worry,” I said to her.

  “Take your phone!”

  “Alright, alright, I’m straight,” I said, as I opened the front door.

  “I’m writing down the license plate of this girl’s car. You don’t even know her!”

  I blew a kiss and she smiled.

  I went out to Trisha’s car and got in the back. It was tight. But I wasn’t going to complain.

  Trisha’s trying to pledge too. I mean how much trouble could I get in, really?

  When I got in the car with the other three girls, no one said hello. Maybe we all had knots in our stomachs.

  “I can’t believe you had to pick me up. It’s tight back here. I could have driven,” the plus-size girl sitting with me in the backseat complained as I strapped in.

  Trisha was driving and replied, “You can get out of my car and walk for all I care. But I’m the one with the instructions and directions. They said follow them completely and that’s what I’m doing.”

  The two of them argued back and forth. It was madness. One thing I learned from psychology class is how to analyze people. It looked like both Trisha and this other girl were strong people. Sitting beside Trisha in the front passenger side of the car was a girl who introduced herself as Kellie.

  I responded by introducing myself as well, and then said, “Hey guys, don’t we all want the same thing? If we’re about to walk into the lion’s den with the Betas, shouldn’t we all be on the same side?”

  “And she speaks,” Trisha said.

  “Yeah, how can you be at the rush and not try to meet anybody? I’m Bea, by the way,” the larger girl said to me.

  “That was the advice I got,” I said to them. “Listen and stay low-key.”

  “Well, the President, Edythe, likes me and she told me that I should have allies,” Bea said.

  Thinking about this I took a deep breath and said, “So, now we know that it’s not just what they tell one of us that matters. We now have to compile what they say to a few of us and decipher what it all really means.”

  “Oh yeah, I see,” Bea said, “they’ll tell each of us something different and we gotta put it together to make sense of it. They’re forcing us to work together.”

  I nodded. This was going to be more work than I ever thought. Mind games were something.

  We pulled into the parking lot that Trisha had been instructed to go to. Four other cars were there waiting. It looked like people were in those cars. None of us in Trisha’s car wanted to exit.

  “So what, are we just supposed to sit here?” Bea said.

  No one had answers, so we sat. All of a sudden, my cell phone rang. I looked at it and saw it was Penelope. I answered.

  “Yes, I understand,” I said to her as she confirmed that we were in a parking lot with four other automobiles.

  She gave me twenty minutes to get everyone to a new location. But we had to be in uniform. Once I explained that to the girls in my car, we panicked, thinking there was no way that could happen.

  “They want us to go twenty miles from here, and be there in twenty minutes, dressed alike?” Bea said.

  “We’ve got to figure out a way to do this,” Trisha said.

  I stepped out of the car and motioned for everyone to get out of the other cars too. After I explained our task, everyone was talking at once. There was no way we could devise a plan. We lost two minutes just trying to figure the whole thing out.

  So I yelled out, “How many people got a few dollars on them? We gotta pass Wal-Mart heading out of town. Let’s get some white T-shirts. I think six come in a pack or something.”

  I looked around and tried to figure out what else we could do. I prayed, “Lord, this may seem crazy to you, but we all want to be successful. Help us figure this out. Please.”

  Opening my eyes, I looked at Bea. Her pants looked weird. I saw a tag. So I asked, “Bea, what kind of pants are you wearing?”

  “Girl, don’t laugh. I’m wearing my pants inside out.”

  “Why?”

  “That’s what a Beta told me to do,” Bea said.

  “Then that’s the ticket. It doesn’t matter what kind of pants we have on—as long as they’re inside out, they’ll be uniform,” I announced.

  Twenty minutes later we arrived at the University of Southeastern Arkansas campus. My stomach dropped worse than when I was on the wildest amusement park ride. I only hoped we could stay on our game.

  “We can’t just walk into an empty building on campus like this,” a girl, whose gold chain said Lanna, shouted out.

  I smiled. “Yup. We can. Line up. Shortest to tallest. All the lines I saw last year were that way, so they would expect us to enter correctly.”

  There were twenty of us. I was number ten in the line. When we walked into the room we couldn’t believe there were ten other girls from the host school lined up tight by height, all wearing nice black jogging suits. There had to be about sixty or seventy Betas scattered throughout. It was crazy. They even had scary music playing in the background, like we were in some horror flick. The Betas were practically salivating, ready to pledge our two lines together.

  “You guys couldn’t even be on time,” Keisha said, moving close to us and looking scarier than a witch.

  “I heard Keisha is the craziest of them all,” Trisha said from in front of me.

  “Who was that?” Bea was number eleven, so she was behind me.

&nb
sp; Trisha said, “She’s called the meanest Beta in the state of Arkansas. We’re probably about to get our butts kicked tonight.”

  “Who told the fat girl to come in?” Keisha said, as she pulled Bea out of the line and punched her in her gut.

  I couldn’t believe I was just standing there and doing nothing. Bea was tough though. She didn’t let out one moan.

  “Oh, so that’s not gonna do it. Then how about your whole line pay for me having to look at your bulging stomach? This T-shirt is too short.” Keisha turned and looked at her sorority sisters. “Y’all, because I’m looking at her big self, um, I want a cake. I want to see which of these two lines can get me a cake first.”

  The other ten girls got together and headed for the door. “But before you guys can do anything, I want one hundred push-ups, one hundred sit-ups and one hundred jumping jacks from everybody.”

  We huddled together. The other group was starting their push-ups. Already we were behind.

  “Sorry you guys, my fault. How we gonna do all this and beat them?” Bea said, looking down.

  I tapped her on the back as I said, “Well, can anybody draw?”

  Trisha raised her hand. She went to her jean backpack and pulled out a drawing pad and showed us all some clothes she sketched. She even had colored pencils. The rest of us were amazed.

  I said, “Girl, you came ready. You’re so good. Okay, draw the prettiest cake you can think of. We need to break up in groups. Some of us do push-ups, some do jumping jacks, while the rest do sit-ups. Let’s put Trisha in the middle.”

  Fifteen minutes later, we were done. The other group had just left. Bea stood and went over to Keisha.

  Keisha said, “What? You just gonna hand me something and not address me?”

  Bea didn’t look her in the eye. “What am I supposed to call you?”

  “Big Sister Mean Machine,” Keisha said, as she rolled her eyes and neck.

  Bea said, “Big Sister Mean Machine, we’ve done our push-ups, our sit-ups and our jumping jacks, and here is your cake.”

  “Y’all may not be the coolest looking bunch, but y’all sure got sense,” Keisha told us.

  Edythe and Penelope, whom we hadn’t seen the whole time we’d been in the place, came up to us and smiled. We heard the cheers from the Betas, who wore Alpha chapter emblems. The Betas from University of Southeastern Arkansas were upset at the poor performance of their line.

  One Beta that was from the other school said, “Keisha, dog their tails out when they come back, embarrassing us like this. Give it to them.”

  Big Sister Mean Machine said, “Oh, you ain’t got to worry. No scrub trying to get my letters will be shown up that easily. We just asked them to think. If they can’t use their brains now, then I know they won’t be able to use them later.”

  I was so terrified. What was she planning to do? Surely she was all talk and no action, right?

  When the other girls came back with a cake from Publix, Keisha cut it and roughly stuffed a piece in each of their mouths, lightly pushing it back as far as it could go.

  Suddenly, we heard coughing. Bea hit me and pointed at this girl that was having a tough time. The pledge started choking, and the Betas got scared. They just fled the room. Girls from her line swarmed around her. Some chick from my line started praying out loud. Trisha and Bea ran over and got water from a vending machine.

  “I don’t know if I want any part of this,” Lanna called out.

  The looks on all our faces reflected our horror and confusion. Cries and screams echoed from the room. I think we all knew we weren’t supposed to be participating in this unsanctioned activity, and now we knew why. We were just starting this pledge stuff. How could the Betas just bail and leave someone choking? None of us were doctors. This was seriously brutal.

  5

  GIFT

  “We’ve got to get Katie to a hospital and get her checked out,” I said to all of the girls on the underground lines with me.

  Everyone stepped back to give her room. Trisha got on her cell and tried to call 911. A girl on her line rushed over and knocked the cell out of Trisha’s hand.

  “No, no. We can’t take her to a hospital,” she said. “The Betas would get in trouble and we would never be able to be on line.”

  I wanted letters, but not at the expense of someone dying. This was insane. Trisha shoved the girl out of the way and picked up her phone, ready to make the call.

  Thankfully, one of the girls on the University of Southeastern Arkansas line said she’d interned in a doctor’s office. She thumped the choking girl on her back, and all of a sudden the girl started coughing instead of choking. What a relief!

  “Yeah, I’m going to be fine,” the girl said to us moments later as her line sisters looked after her. “You guys have blessed me. You just don’t know. Thanks for not leaving me. I’m quitting this.”

  “Alright, well let’s get out of here,” Bea said to me. “Everyone from Western Smith round up. Let’s go.”

  Though the girl was fine, I was dumbfounded at what had taken place. The Betas had left without knowing she was going to be okay. What was I signing myself up for?

  I thought about Creed’s bruises. I so hoped Creed wasn’t experiencing any of this drama himself. I could only pray he was okay.

  Trisha came over to me and said, “Come on, Hayden, let’s get out of here.”

  “I know, but ...”

  “There’s no buts—we have to get out of here, her line sisters got her,” Trisha said as she grabbed my hand and we waved goodbye.

  As soon as we stepped out of the building, it was darkness. I was so angry, if I had seen one of those Beta Gamma Pi girls, I might have had to stuff something down their throats myself. Then all of a sudden bright headlights were shining on us. The Betas hadn’t left after all.

  “What are we supposed to do?” one of the girls called out.

  Bea said, “We’re going to get in our cars and leave. Do them like they did us. When it all goes down they don’t want to get their hands dirty. What kind of mess is that? Come on, y’all don’t stop, don’t stop.”

  But before we could get into our cars, Big Sister Keisha Mean Machine got out of her car and said, “I see you guys got some medical experience in your blood. Well, that’s good. Since you’re so crafty and can work everything out, I’m going to give you a present. We told you at the rush that your packets were due in a week. They better be to us in three days. See ya!”

  She got into her car and left. Eight other cars sporting Beta Gamma Pi tags roared out of the parking lot one after another.

  One girl said, “How am I going to get my packet together that quickly?”

  Looking at our bewildered faces, most of us didn’t know what we were going to do. The way the Betas had handled the trouble they created should have made us all nervous enough not to continue, but it seemed like we all wanted this so bad that no one was running to tell.

  We all went back to Bea’s place, since she lived alone, and started working on filling out the questionnaire. Most of my stuff was lined up. I had to have a recommendation letter from a Beta who had been active for three consecutive years; since my mom was the president of her chapter and pretty much knew every Beta in the state, I had all kinds of surrogate aunts willing to write my letter. I felt bad when some girls said they didn’t know anybody. Betas weren’t like any other sorority where you could call up a favor letter. No, they were real particular, especially the ladies from the alumnae chapter. If they didn’t know you, they weren’t writing anything for you. You also had to have a letter of recommendation from a public service organization.

  Bea asked, “Hayden, you think the people you worked with will write mine?”

  With a syrupy sweet expression, I shook my head. I took working in the community seriously. Whether I became a Beta or not, I wanted to give back. My roommates and I had been serving others all last year when we were freshman. Every Thursday after school we were at the local middle school working
with at-risk girls. So getting my service letter wasn’t an issue either. Since my grades were good, getting my transcript wasn’t a problem.

  Trisha said, “If I got the grades, I barely made it. I might have to get mine altered.”

  “I don’t understand,” I said to her.

  “People do it all the time. They get somebody in the registrar’s office to change a few grades to get their GPA up. I think I need higher than a 2.5.”

  I said, “Well, if 2.5 is the requirement then they should vote you in.”

  “What? Are you kidding me?” Bea cut in. “These girls are ruthless. They’re looking for anything they can to eliminate us. Even if your packet is the best one they have seen, if they don’t want you they’ll find a way to kick you off.” Even after knowing this, we all continued working on our packets late into the night.

  The next evening, Creed and I went to the movies. When he called to see me, I had to take him up on it. Just being with him gave me comfort. I couldn’t talk about what I’d been going through with anyone, but when he embraced me as we watched the flick, I could tell he understood.

  “Hayden, you’ll be okay,” he leaned over and whispered in my ear. “Know that I think about you every day.”

  We were both exhausted, but the touching we did in the dark spoke a million words. The brother cared for me. And thankfully, the Pi’s hadn’t killed him.

  When he dropped me off back at my place, the kiss he planted on my lips soothed my soul better than a cup of hot chamomile tea. I knew we wouldn’t see each other often while pledging, but we put some gas in our tank of love to carry us for a while.

  Five days after the horrific choking incident, I was sitting in front of thirty Betas for an interview. My mom had prepped me: “Wear a suit. Don’t look too jazzy. Don’t go in there with your face bland, throw on just a bit of makeup, smile after each question, but don’t look too confident or cocky. Wear neutral colors, no red, no pink, no purple or blue.”

  My interview was going well. I answered five questions in a row. Every time one of them asked me something I was there, ready with the answer. But when the advisor stepped out of the room you would have thought a barracuda had just attacked me or something.