Frat Girl

Chapter Two

Dear Cassandra:

Congratulations, I am pleased to inform you that you have been selected by the Stevenson Fund to receive the Stevenson Scholarship for Study and Research for this year. This scholarship was established to promote a lifelong practice of simultaneous scholarship and creative endeavors, because we at the Fund reject the premise that your career begins only after graduation or that academic pursuit should ever cease. The award value and other information about your scholarship are provided below.

We were very impressed by all you have done in your academic career, but even more by your potential for growth and future success. This is not simply a prize for what you have done; rather it is an investment in your future. The Fund provides you with a full-tuition scholarship in exchange for equity in any and all entities you create during your time at Warren University. Tuition will be granted each year upon the submission of a renewal application, and on the condition that you maintain a GPA of 3.0 or higher and keep on schedule with all projects.

Our goal is to help you make a difference in the world. We believe in your vision and leadership, and aim to grant you as much creative independence as possible, but there are certain criteria you are expected to meet.

With the help of a project coordinator at the Fund, Madison Macey, you will create a plan for the completion of your projects. But you must meet the deadlines you set for yourself or risk losing funding. The exception would be extensions you request with the help of your PC and that are approved by the Fund board.

Please fill out the attached forms as soon as possible, at which point the amount of your scholarship for one year will be sent directly to Warren University. It will be placed in your student account on hold status awaiting the completion of the first round of tutorials with your project coordinator and the creation of a preliminary four-year plan. Please send this to your project coordinator (address listed below) in two weeks’ time.

Congratulations, and best wishes for a productive and successful academic year.

Sincerely,

Rupert Jones

Vice President

Stevenson Scholarship Fund Board

I stare for the thousandth time at the letter that had changed my life. The result of an all-nighter, followed by the scariest twenty-minute presentation of my life. Then the waiting and checking the mail, and the waiting and the pacing, and the waiting. And then, one morning I opened the mailbox and the waiting had ended, and it was time for screaming and crying and calling my grandmother and getting absolutely obliterated on cheap champagne with Alex and Jay.

After reading over the letter for the umpteenth time, I fold it neatly and place it in my empty desk in my new dorm room. I want to hang it on the wall for inspiration like I’d done in my room at home, but I have to be low-key about the scholarship or people will ask what my project is. It’s the same reason there wasn’t a press release from the university, and why I didn’t get to attend the Fund’s banquet in New York City. I have a fake backup project about the experience of female athletes, but I’m not about to bring it up in conversation. Which honestly doesn’t make me much different from the other kids on scholarship in a land where most kids arrive at school in Audis and Teslas, if not by helicopter. (Okay, I’ve heard of only one person doing that, but really...)

I shut the drawer and turn to inspect my new home, a rectangular room with twin desks, wardrobes and beds. Everything I own is in duffel bags and boxes around me.

After all the movies I’ve seen about moving into college, heading off on your own, getting into your first apartment, taking on the big world with wide eyes, I expect...something.

But all I really feel is that it’s kinda stuffy. It’s like I’m waiting for all the deep, life-changing emotions to finally arrive. In the meantime, I’m just in a much too hot, nondescript room without air-conditioning on a late-summer afternoon.

The building is the oldest on campus, like two hundred years old, and it takes me a while to pry open the window. Doesn’t do much to affect the heat anyway.

“Pretty bullshit they don’t give us air-conditioning,” my roommate says, returning from the bathroom down the hall and slamming our door, disregarding the open door, open friendship rule they kept telling us about during orientation events.

Warren has a really strict roommate policy, forcing everyone to enter randomly so all the kids from elite schools don’t pair up and leave kids like me—who know zero of the two thousand other students in our year—stranded.

Which is how Leighton Spencer got stuck rooming with me instead of one of her ten close friends who also got in.

She’s a pretty, wiry track runner—“not here, in high school, but I could if I wanted to”—with a platinum-blond ponytail and a ten-minute answer about where she’s from that includes three European cities and the most selective boarding school on each side of the United States. And she scares me absolutely shitless.

“I started hanging some stuff up while you were gone. I hope you don’t mind.” I glance at my Christmas lights, Warren pennant and vintage Beatles poster. “If there’s anything you don’t like, I can take it down.”

She flops on the plasticky blue mattress she’d claimed by the time I’d arrived, her Louis Vuitton luggage stacked around her, untouched. “It’s your half of the room—why would I care?”

“Thanks.” I clear my throat.

All my decorations are up, and all my shirts, pajamas, underwear and socks are placed in their respective drawers, by the time she eventually gets up to hang a rainbow of cocktail dresses in her wardrobe and starts taping Polaroids above her desk.

“Do you mind if I play music?” I take my speaker out of a box my mom labeled “Cassie’s dorm stuff” (so specific and helpful) and set it on the desk.

“If it’s not pop.”

Okaaay, then. I scroll past the boy bands and choose an indie alternative band I heard at Fountain Square.

She looks up as the first song starts. “I actually like this band. Where did you say you were from again?”

“Indianapolis.”

She turns back to her things.

I look at her pictures. Leighton vacationing in the Maldives, at home in Hyde Park, leaning on a balcony with the Eiffel Tower in the background, Leighton with three different boys in a series of repeating shots. There are also a bunch with a dark-haired girl, laughing candids, posed with her hand on her hip, meeting James Franco.

I think of Alex.

“Is she your best friend?” I point to one with the girl.

“No.” She scoffs. “I’m not friends with girls—too much drama. That’s my sister.” She rolls her eyes. “I mean, half sister. That’s why we don’t look alike. She’s at Dartmouth. Pi Phi.”

She stares at me for a second too long and then turns back to her wall, trying to figure out how to hang up her map from Urban Outfitters that still has the USSR on it. Edgy.

“First hall meeting!” someone shouts, knocking on our door. “Come on out, frosh!”

I open the door to see a tiny redhead ringing a cowbell and wearing a very bright T-shirt with a button that says, “I Frosh.”

A group of people are huddled awkwardly and silently in the hall. Leighton stands in the doorway, as if debating whether she should go outside for this at all.

“Welcome to Warren!” the overenthusiastic redhead says. “I’m your RA, Becky Scott. I hope you are all just loving meeting your roomies! I think we might just have the best hall ever this year, and I’m really excited to go on this journey with all of you! But first I have some presents!”

The presents turn out to be all the free shit Housing gave her, and soon I find myself with the weirdest assortment of objects I have ever held at once.

There’s a rubber duck with a mental health hotline number stamped on its butt to represent “Duck Syndrome,” the idea that the high-stress environment of an elite school combined with the Californian desire to seem chill creates a group of students who act calm on the surface but are paddling for their lives underneath.

Welcome to college, I think. That’s comforting.

Next come the rainbow stickers with the words This is an inclusive community! across them. And your choice of glittery or black ones that say, “Of Course I’m a Feminist.”

A muscular guy about the size of Hagrid from down the hall opts not to take one of these. “Those are who’s messing with my frat.”

“Aren’t you a freshman? How are you even in a frat?” My hand flies to my mouth—that was not in character.

“Yeah, but I’m a football player.” He looks at me like I’m stupid. Maybe I should’ve noticed his T-shirt, which also broadcasts this affiliation.

“All football players rush DTC,” he says.

“Oh.”

Next there were the condoms. I blush despite myself, used to my Midwestern Catholic school and the oxymoron that is Abstinence-Only Sexual Education, which is a little bit different from liberal California. I mean, this stuff shouldn’t be taboo; it’s a health issue. Still, I can’t bring myself to grab one in front of these people I just met. I feel like a bad feminist.

The football player has no problem taking multiple boxes. Classic. He’s my favorite type of antifeminist, the sexually prolific guys who don’t support gay rights and think the very women they fuck are “slutty” for being available. The hypocrites who are all right with the sexual revolution when it means they get laid but not when it means oppressed groups expressing their sexuality.

The meeting disperses, and Leighton is still in the doorway, apparently not wanting anything rubber, duck or otherwise.

“Hey, I’m gonna put this on the door, okay?” I say as I struggle to peal the backing off one of the feminism stickers.

She seems about to give another grunt of indifference, but then the words register.

“Yeah, no, I’d rather you not.” She wrinkles her perfect little nose.

“What?”

“It’s not a good look.”

“Yeah, I wasn’t sure about the sparkles, either. I could grab a black one?”

She just stares at me blankly, turning her head to the side so her blond ponytail swings.

And something clicks. “Leighton...are you not a feminist?”

She shrugs. “Are you?”

“Yeah...” I resist the urge to add “of course.”

“Whatever, just don’t put it on the door, okay? I don’t want any guys to see it and think I’m like that.”

Like what? Sure of your own inherent worth no matter what kind of reproductive anatomy you have? The type of person who’s for equal pay and against the human trafficking, abuse and inequality that so many women are victims of? Are you worried a sweaty frat guy might not like you because you think women in Pakistan should be able to go to school, or women in Saudi Arabia should be allowed to drive or there should finally be more Fortune 500 CEOs who are female than who are named David? Do you think you’ll seem bitchy and shrill if you support women voting or getting to go to college?

I think all this but just say, “I have to use the bathroom.”

Splashing water on my face, I think, I am so fucked.

If I can’t change the mind of a bright, athletic girl who has every reason to demand her accomplishments not be diminished because of her sex, how am I going to change the minds of a group that basically benefits from a patriarchal system?

I dry my face with shitty industrial-style paper towels and look in the mirror.

And I remember: I don’t have to convince them of anything; I just have to listen, record, write and publish, then watch their whole system go down in flames.

I throw the sticker in the bathroom trash and walk outside.

“Hey there!” a peppy voice says when I’m barely out the door.

That’s the thing about the first week of freshman year—people are dying to make friends. Especially at a school like this, where it’s incredibly rare to enroll alongside another person from your high school. Unlike Leighton, most people get dropped here, cut off from everyone else who used to define their lives, the single goal that guided them through high school—get into a good college—achieved, and have absolutely no idea what to do with themselves or who they even are.

It’s like they ooze desperation: I really want to know about where you’re from and your potential major that you will definitely not stick with. Love me. Please!

I’m not saying I’m not victim to the loneliness and anxiety, too, but when you’re about to embark on a complicated social experiment, you can’t really make legitimate friends.

For a lot of the students on this campus, the ones who introduce themselves with a suffix of Greek letters after their names, what I am about to do would be social suicide. The ones who will want to cheer me on are probably good people, too good for me to want to lie to them as much as I’d have to.

Which is why I’ve planned to make friends only within my frat (such a weird sentence still) and those who are directly connected to it (the sister sorority or whatever) and steer clear of lying to more people than necessary.

Still, I don’t want to be rude...

I step the rest of the way out of the bathroom and take in the pretty Asian girl with winged eyeliner and hipster glasses smiling at me. “Hey, what’s up?”

“Not to be weird but I heard what your roommate was saying. About the stickers. What bullshit!”

I smile. “Thanks. I’m just glad someone else thinks it’s crazy.”

“Where are you from?” she asks.

“Indiana.”

Her eyes light up. “No way! That’s so cute.”

“Thanks?” I say.

“Do you live on a farm?”

“No I, uh, live in Indianapolis. It’s the fourteenth-biggest city in America.”

“Oh, of course,” she says, waving her hand as if to dismiss the picture of me with pigtails going out to milk the cows she had started to conjure.

“That’s cool, coming to such a different place, though. I’m from SoCal, so it’s only a few hours away for me.”

I nod knowingly, even though I just recently learned that “SoCal” means Southern California and not, like, Very California.

We look at each other for a beat.

“I’m Cassie, by the way.” I reach out my hand.

“Jacqueline Wang. Jackie.”

And it’s silent again. “What are you majoring in?” I ask, hating myself for becoming one of the Eager Freshmen.

“Physics or CS. How about you?”

“Gender and sexuality studies.”

I brace myself for the They have that here? or What will you do with that? I’ve come to expect.

But she just raises her eyebrows. “Maybe you can bring back some books to educate Leighton, then.”

I decide one real friend can’t hurt.

But now the pressure of small talk is on. I look down at my shoes. I look back up. “Do you play any sports?”

“Yeah, climbing.”

“Like rocks?”

She turns her head to the side.

God, I am such an idiot.

“Uh, yeah,” she says.

“That’s so cool.”

“Yeah!” She smiles. “We should go sometime.”

“Yeah, that’d be cool.” I kick myself and hope she doesn’t think “cool” is the only word I know.

“...”

“...”

“Wellll... I gotta go,” she says, breaking the silence. “I wanna finish unpacking tonight, because I plan to fill an entire wall with postcards. But come by my room later!”

I smile and wave and wonder if I should take her up on that offer, if I can take her up on that offer. I debate if I should call my project coordinator to get approval first. And then I hate that I even thought that.

Approval for a friend, what am I doing?

Chapter Three

Like a typical freshman girl, I’m spending my first night of college trying on outfit after outfit, making countless trips to the hallway to look in the full-length mirror.

But unlike a typical freshman girl, I am not obsessing over my outfit for the first day of class. I picked that—a white boho blouse and olive shorts—in about 2.5 seconds.

I am probably the first girl in history to spend her first night of college obsessing over what to wear to fraternity Rush. Not exactly the trails I thought I’d be blazing when I was seven with a poster of Sally Ride on my wall or when I was fifteen and carrying one of Gloria Steinem’s books everywhere I went.

But I keep the endgame in mind: one year of investigative journalism in a frat, and I renew my funding. I get to go to college at the best school in the country, and I get three more years of gender-related research funding toward what I really want to do, whether that’s the wage gap in American tech or women’s education in the Middle East.

Setting the winning outfit on my desk, I recheck the pile of syllabi I printed out earlier for my classes tomorrow.

I glance at the clock: nine thirty. Leighton left to meet a friend a few hours ago with no indication of when she’d be back and a clear indication that I was not invited.

Which is fine, it’s not like I particularly want to be friends with her, either. But it would be nice to at least be civil with my roommate.

I walk down the hall to find Jacqueline’s door open but her room empty. She wasn’t joking about the postcards. Half of her back wall is covered in photos of far-off cities. The photos end in a jigsaw shape, with the rest of the wall blank. On the floor I see painter’s tape and a pile of even more glossy postcards.

There’s also a poster of a girl stepping off the curb onto a New York street, empty after the rain. It’s dark save for the city lights, reflected on the wet pavement, blurry like they’re running together. Her back is turned, and all you can see is her wavy hair and her arms raised like she’s dancing or celebrating.

For a second, I can see my life if I were a normal student. I would want to befriend people like Jacqueline, to sit around in her art gallery of a dorm room, talking all night about books and movies we love and places we want to visit. I could introduce her to Alex—they would love each other. We could go for late-night burgers in Alex’s beat-up Saturn and see concerts in the city.

Music erupts from a room down the hall. A gem that combines “bitches,” “money,” “ass” and “pussy” with the sound of...maybe Transformers having sex?

I can’t see the listener, who apparently also doesn’t believe in “open door, open friendship,” but a large sign on the door reveals that he’s number 82, Duncan Morris.

My Hagrid-size frat “brother.” Fabulous.

I return to my room, slamming the door. I turn the lock and grab my phone, dialing Alex’s number furiously.

“Hello!” her voice rings with joy.

“I miss you.”

She laughs. “I miss you, too. How are you? How’s your dorm? How are you liking college? Tell me everything!”

“Eh, it’s okay. I’ve spent most of the day unpacking my room.”

She laughs. “Fair.”

I stare at the window, at the dark outline of a tree.

“How’s your roommate?” she asks.

“Um, she’s okay, too.”

“Just okay?”

“Yeah, I mean she hasn’t been mean to me...but she ‘doesn’t like to be friends with girls.’” I do my best Leighton voice.

“Ew.”

“I know.”

“Fuck that shit.” There is a clattering sound on the other end of the call, followed by laughter. Alex giggles before seeming to remember our conversation. “Um, how’s your room, minus the slightly unhinged person living in it?”

“Fine. Pretty small. The beds are uncomfortable, so I think I’m gonna get one of those topper things.”

“I did that last year,” Alex says. “What’s nice about the house is we can get whatever furniture we want because it’s owned by the alumni and not the school. Also we can paint the walls!” Her voice gets higher and louder. “I think I’ll do one black and then write quotes in silver Sharpie.”

“That’s gonna look awesome.”

“I hope so. Or at least that it turns out better than any of the paintings I did this summer. What a bunch of train wrecks.”

“Oh shut up. That one of Jay’s dog was MoMA material, and you know it.”

We both laugh. I lie back on my uncomfortable bed and close my eyes, and it almost feels like home.

“Can we hang out tonight?” My voice is weak.

“I wish, but there’s a mandatory event at the house. Bonding activities or whatever. I’d invite you to come along, but it’s all rituals and secrecy and stuff.”

“Yeah. I understand.”

Although the members of DTC might not realize it, Warren housing and social life do not live and die by the frats.

While there are fourteen houses with ancient letters on them, there are far more without.

Some are ethnic themed: French House, Black House, Native House, Casa. Others are “learning-living communities” organized by major.

The remaining houses are the lit clubs. Alex lives in one of those.

And let me tell you, they could not have created more Alex-y housing if they tried.

The five lit clubs range in hipster level from Urban Outfitters to basically a commune.

The house members are connected by a “literary fraternity” so they can have official events together. All of them practice free love, “mind-opening” drug use and vegetarianism to different degrees.

Alex lives in what I’m already sure will be my favorite. Most people at Dionysus spend meals and homework time fully clothed, but there’s definitely lots of house-cest to go with the communal stall-less showers and sleeping rooms. Like, there are no bedrooms, just rooms to hang out in and a giant screened-in porch with forty bunks and hammocks.

Not totally my speed, but better than dorm life with Leighton. “Can I just come live with you instead?”

Alex sighs. “I wish. But hey, at least you don’t have to live in the land of freshmen for too long.”

“Yeah, but then what? I move into the land of assholes and creeps?”

“Aw, c’mon, Cass—they’re just people. Not all Greeks are evil, you know.”

“We’ll see about that.”

I hang up the phone and sigh, searching my room like something to do or a new friend might appear.

On my first night of college, I go to bed at ten o’clock.

* * *

All throughout my first day of classes I can barely focus. As soon as the last one ends I run back to my dorm to start getting ready.

I shower and put on a lot of makeup, but nothing too bright or dramatic. I want the boys thinking I’m not wearing any, that I’m supercool and not at all vain. Idiots.

I put on a short, tight but simple dress made of T-shirt material, the type of dress a guy would pick out for a girl. I don’t want to wear anything that looks girlie or frilly, but I need to look hot. The fun, sexy party girl who you forget is a girl except for when you think about fucking her.

After slipping on red-and-white high-tops, I plug in my straightener. A ponytail would be too tomboyish. And curling my hair would look like I tried too hard. (Boys don’t understand that all heat tools take the same level of effort.)

While I can’t seem too much like a girlie-girl, I also don’t want to seem like one of the boys, because then I’ll lose out during Rush to real boys. To these misogynist dickwits, I will never be a better man than a man. So I need to use my assets. I need to be like one of the guys, but with boobs.

It’s disgusting.

I check the campus map three times before I leave. I can’t show up with it—looking like a stupid freshman will be an automatic loss of Rush points or whatever it is.

“Hey, Cassie, where are you headed?” My RA, Becky, pounces as soon as I make it to the lobby.

“Out.” I push through the old, heavy doors.

Well, I’ve been on campus about a day now so it seems about time to cement my social group for four years. I make my way toward The Row, winding between palm trees and sandstone buildings. There are a few other people out and about, but mostly campus is pretty empty.

A large fountain that looks like a demented tree sits empty, turned off because of the drought. Am I supposed to pass that?

I try to remember the tour I took when I arrived on campus.

Okay, yes, I definitely passed the math building before, although all the academic buildings do kind of look the same.

I glance around.

Shit, I definitely did not pass this weird modern art statue before. I would have thought it looked like a giant bug and laughed for sure. I would never have forgotten that.

There’s no way I’m not going to be late now. Fuck, fuck, fuck.

Why’d I have to go to the biggest freaking campus in North America?

I pull out my phone. Please, please, pleeeeeasse. Oh, cool, it’s at 20 perc—

And it died. Awesome. I live in Silicon Valley, but that won’t stop my iPhone from jumping from twenty to zero whenever it feels like it. I fight the urge to throw the $600 piece of hardware at the weird ant statue.

“Are you all right?”

I turn around.

The beautiful boy in pastel shorts and a white polo button-down looks at me with concern in his eyes. Wow, those eyes. Deep brown in a way that held mysteries, but lined with the most beautiful, long eyelashes. I’ve often heard people say that since girls wear mascara, good eyelashes are wasted on a boy. I respectfully disagree.

They were eyes that made me want to trust him, even though we’d never met. I was transfixed by him.

I cleared my throat. “Yeah. I’m just late, lost and my phone died.”

“Where are you going?”

“Rush.”

“Oh, me, too! I didn’t know sorority Rush was happening now, too.”

It’s not. Actually, it happened before school even began. “Um...”

“Well, I’m not sure where The Row is, either, but my phone’s at fifty percent, so you can come with me.”

He smiles, and I melt.

I know I should stay focused, but I really do need help...

“That’d be great. Thank you.”

He reaches into his pocket and pulls out his phone. Ooohhh, he has nice arms, too.

Shit, he’s looking at me. Act normal, Cassie.

I make myself smile and probably look like a serial killer.

He looks from his phone to the path in front of us and then back again. “Okay, I think that it’s...this way.”

“That’s not very encouraging.” I laugh. “But I guess it’s better than what I have.”

He smiles. “That’s fair.”

“Lead the way.”

We walk in silence for a minute, just the sound of our footsteps. I try to think of something interesting to say.

“So what classes are you taking?” he asks.

“Rhetoric, Intro to Gender Studies and Sociology 101.”

“Oh, I’m in that one, too!” His eyes light up.

“Really?”

“Yeah. I was really excited about the description, but today was kind of boring.”

“Oh my God, I know. But hopefully it will get better.”

“I have faith.” He checks his phone again, and we take a right.

My red-and-white high-tops kick up dust from the dry California ground. By the main buildings, the lawns are still well watered and manicured. But back where the students live it’s all cracked ground and sparse dry grass.

“I feel like I’m gonna look so sweaty and gross,” I say. “And I hate that I have to care, because of how superficial these things are.”

He turns his attention from his phone to me. “I think you look really great.”

I laugh. “I wasn’t going for that. I’m just trying to have an objective conversation.”

He tilts his head to the side. “What do you mean?”

“Like, I’m a confident person. I’m not fishing for compliments or needing you to say that. I have eyes and a mirror. I understand the difference between good hair days and bad ones. Me being made-up and my makeup melting off.”

“I didn’t think you weren’t confident. I think you objectively look good.”

“Well...” I glance away briefly. “Thank you.”

“Even if your makeup is melting off a little bit.” He reaches out and brushes a stray eyelash off my cheek. “But now you get to make a wish.”

My whole body feels like a live wire. Our eyes lock and I’m scared to look away, for the moment to end, but also I’m scared if I don’t I will make it weird and—

“Continue on Galvez Street.” Siri, the third wheel I’d forgotten about, ruins the moment.

We both look away, and I try not to giggle as we proceed forward. The silence turns from sexually tense to awkward.

He clears his throat.

I look at him.

There’s a pause.

He doesn’t look up from the path when he says, “Um...do you wanna exchange numbers? So we can talk about sociology and stuff?”

My heart picks up. “Yeah, sociology and stuff.”

He hands me his phone, and I type in my number, checking it three times. I go to text myself his name and...

“I just realized, I don’t know your name.”

A movie-star smile spreads across his face. “Jordan Louis.”

“Cassandra Davis,” I say.

He reaches out to shake my hand. “Very nice to meet you, Ms. Davis.”

We hold hands and eye contact for a second longer than we probably should.

I can feel myself blushing and look down quickly to hide it. “Um, here you go,” I say, handing back his phone.

“Thanks.” He examines his screen for a second. “Hey, it seems like we’re pretty close...well, I mean to where I need to be. Hopefully I’m leading you in the right direction.”

“Where are you rushing?” I ask.

“DTC.”

“Yep, that’s right near where I need to go.”

But my heart sinks as I say it. Because even though I have no right to be emotionally invested in this person I just met, he’s tall and has pretty eyes and a heart-melting smile, and he was my knight in shining armor, and now odds are I’ll have to spend the next year lying to him. Which sucks. I should tell him—no, not about the project, just that I’m rushing DTC, too, that we’re now competitors, and even if we both got in, anything between us would be incredibly complicated. But part of me just wants a little bit longer where he’s just a cute boy and I’m just a girl he’s flirting with. So I fake a smile.

We arrive at the house, the letters looming over us.