Ellie, Annie Laurie, Bailey, Tara, Hannah, and Claudia—all wearing identical yellow Greek Day T-shirts—come rushing in. Ellie holds the hem of her shirt. “Whatever makes you say that?”
Everyone laughs.
Hannah and Bailey lift their legs and touch their matching Nike tennis shoes together. “Great minds,” they both say at the same time.
“Jasmine and Carl may come to dinner with us tonight,” I say.
Tara’s hand flies to her chest. “I thought you knew we canceled Volta.”
I shake my head. “Why?”
“My Gamma Chi said there’s a good chance we might be at Weir Hall till nine or ten tonight.”
“Depending on your schedule, you might wait in line three hours to rank,” Bailey adds. “We’ll have to eat at different times.”
At the end of every Rush day we’ll be ranking our bottom three sororities. I know that from Rush Orientation.
“I wasn’t going with y’all anyway,” Jasmine says.
“And why not?” Ellie asks, with a hand on one hip.
Jasmine mimics Ellie, puts a hand on her own hip. “Because Carl couldn’t get enough of all y’all.”
“Whatever,” Hannah says. “Carl hasn’t seennothin’yet.”
“We better go, y’all,” Tara says, looking at her watch. “We have to be there in twenty minutes.”
I start to grab my phone from the nightstand when Ellie puts her hand out to stop me. “Remember? No phones allowed.”
“Oops. Almost forgot.”
“Wait.What?” Jasmine asks. “Y’all can’t take your phones?”
Annie Laurie pulls hers out of her bra. “No one is gonna tell me I can’t bring my phone.”
“You go, girl,” Jasmine says, and they give each other a high five.
No one else comments.
THIRTY-FOUR
CALI
After taking the steps down from the ninth floor—the line for the elevator was ridiculous—we have to get in another line. It seems like a thousand of us are making the trek up the gargantuan flight of stairs from the Martin parking lot to Rebel Drive. It’ll take a little longer to get to the Grove this morning with all of us walking over at the same time.
When we crest the hill, not far from the back of the Union, I can already hear the chatter, and when the Grove is finally in view I literally feel like pinching myself, because the moment I’ve been living for is here. The Grove looks like a giant sunflower field, with thousands of girls clustered together in yellow shirts—their cheery faces beaming in the sunlight.
I had heard there would be this many—the largest Ole Miss Rush ever—but seeing everyone congregated together isinsane. I’m not exactly sure, but it seems like blondes have the majority—with a smaller percentage of brunettes and a tiny spattering of us redheads. Every now and then I spot a black girl sticking out like a raisin in a bowl of milk, but Jasmine was right. Not many.
Sarah’s arm is high in the air, and she’s waving at me when I walk up to our designated spot: the far right corner of the Union steps. She’s wearing the cutest purple Gamma Chi T-shirt, khaki shorts, and leather flip-flops.
“Hey, girl. How are you?” she says with that sweet voice of hers. Instantly I feel my muscles relaxing. Her bubbly personality and sparkly eyes remind me of one of the reasons I wanted to join a sorority in the first place. When she wraps her arms around me, I’m reminded of her kindness. During Rush Orientation she made it a point to give every one of us in her group private time, to divulge any fears we had about the process. I never told her my biggest fear, but I still felt like the luckiest person on earth to have gotten her as my Gamma Chi.
“Honestly? I’m nervous,” I tell her. “But I’m super excited at the same time.”
She reaches out, takes both of my hands in hers. “Please don’t be nervous. It’s all gonna be fine. We have thirteen sororities on this campus and they’re all looking for great girls like you.”
“Aww, thanks, Sarah. I know there’s a House for me. I’m just… I don’t know…nervous.” A part of me is dying to explain the reason for my fear—that I don’t have a pedigree and I’m just a girl from a tiny town where people don’t belong to sororities or fraternities—but I don’t. She wouldn’t understand.
