Sorority Sisters Page 3

  When they arrived at their apartment, Malena jumped out of the car. She couldn’t get out fast enough, and hoped for a quick good-bye. Ray had gone home over the weekend to visit his family, but had promised he would call her today, whenever he got back, and she didn’t want to miss his call. Phil opened the trunk and gave them their overnight bags. Dreading good-bye, he and Tammy stayed by the car and clung to each other. Malena and Anthony walked to the apartment door. She opened the door and dropped her bag in the doorway.

  “Are you okay, Malena?” Anthony asked.

  “I’m fine. Why wouldn’t I be?” she snapped. “Why are you always so concerned about me?” Malena was not a cruel person, but the thought of kissing Anthony good-bye made her feel uneasy. He was a good guy, however, and she hated that she felt that way about him.

  “I don’t know, I’m just wondering.” Anthony gave Malena a concerned look, then changed the subject. “Even though I’ll see you Friday, I’ll wish you good luck on your midterms and good luck with rush now. You seem to be on such a mission to be prepared that I know it’ll all be good.”

  Malena sensed sarcasm in his voice. “Anthony, I really am concerned about making sure my grades are stable before I go on line, because from what I understand, pledging has been known to damage GPAs. Don’t take it personally . . . we’ll make sure to have a good time Friday, because after Sunday I can’t be too sure about when we’ll see each other again.” Not wanting to break his heart, Malena figured she’d get through one more date with him before she went on line. After she crossed, she would tell him that with all the time they’d spent apart and with all of the changes she’d just gone through, she needed time for herself. She knew it was dishonest, but how could she possibly tell him that she’d fallen in love with somebody she barely knew, and that she didn’t want to see him again, and that all the time she’d spent with him meant nothing? She couldn’t bring herself to be that cruel. She’d give him time, while she was pledging, to realize he didn’t really care about her as much as he thought.

  “You know I want this for you just as much as you do for yourself, but one part of me really doesn’t want to spend all of that time away from you. You know I care about you, right?” His declaration chipped away at her conscience.

  “Yeah, I know you do.” She couldn’t bring herself to lie and say the same. “Thanks for being so understanding. I’ll see you Friday, okay?” They kissed good-bye. Anthony walked toward the car confused and Malena went into the apartment feeling guilty. She really liked Anthony. He wasn’t the greatest-looking guy, but he was sensitive and supportive and fun to be around. He listened to her when she talked about her dream of one day owning her own public relations firm. Even though he couldn’t really relate, he listened to her dreams of pledging and of one day being able to call somebody “Soror.” Malena’s biggest problem with him was that he was not a dreamer. He was content with his job in the military, and wasn’t concerned about going to school so he could move up the ranks quicker. He wasn’t even sure when or if he was going to leave the military, and what he would do with his life if he did. Although he had good qualities and values, he wasn’t the kind of man she could see herself marrying, or even having a monogamous relationship with. He was not the type of person who would be beneficial in helping her with her master plan to be both economically and socially secure.

  Malena walked into the kitchen and checked the answering machine, hoping to hear a message from Ray. There were five messages, and she couldn’t wait for Tammy to come inside, so she hit “play.” There was a message from Ray. He wanted her to go to a movie with him that was playing on campus that night. It started at nine.

  “Of course I will!” Malena responded to the voice on the recorder. “But what will I wear?” She grabbed her overnight bag and went to her room.

  While rummaging through her closet, she heard the front door open and close, then she heard Tammy checking the answering machine. After the last message, Tammy knocked on her door. “Can I come in?” she asked.

  “Come on.”

  “So you got a date tonight?”

  “Yeah, I’m going out with Ray. I’m just trying to figure out how to be casual and cute at the same time,” Malena said. She was shuffling through clothes, but nothing caught her eye.

  “What just happened with you and Anthony?”

  “Nothing, but I guess you’re so in love with Phil that you forgot about our little conversation when we were waiting for them to pick us up on Friday. I told you that Ray and I had something planned for Saturday night.

  “Oh Malena, I’m so sorry. I totally forgot.”

  “Don’t worry about it, everything’s okay. I guess I’m just not cut out to juggle two men.”

  “But you’ve done such a good job for . . . how long has it been, two and a half, three months?” Tammy joked.

  “Yeah, about three months too long. It’s time to go ahead and let Tony go. I’m beginning to feel guilty. I’m truly beginning to fall in love with Ray. Anyway, after I cross, if I’m accepted, I’m gonna have to somehow break up with him. I faked it all weekend, but to be honest there’s nothing there.”

  “You mean you faked it during sex?”

  “No, I mean I faked enjoying his company. We didn’t have sex.”

  “Really.” Tammy seemed surprised. “So what did he say?”

  “He said he wasn’t going to force me to do anything I didn’t want to do. And he didn’t. He just held me all night.”

  “He is a good man, you know.”

  “I do. That’s what makes it so hard.”

  Both Malena and Tammy saw the breakup coming all along, but they enjoyed their couples weekends, and hated seeing them come to an end.

  “I’m one year short of graduating. I want to try to work on building a strong relationship with Ray,” Malena expressed.

  “I thought you said he wasn’t ready yet.”

  “Well, he wasn’t at first, but I think he’s beginning to think about settling down. He graduates this spring and already has a job lined up with a good company downtown. The only thing left to do is get engaged, right?”

  “Malena, like my grandmother always says, ‘Don’t count your chickens before they hatch.’ The relationship is still new. Also, don’t forget, Tony’s ready and willing to marry you. All you have to do is say the word.”

  “You think so?”

  “You don’t see the way he looks at you. He’s put you on a pedestal. And according to Phil, he does nothing but talk about you nonstop. He even said he could see himself spending the rest of his life with you.”

  “Stop making me feel guilty. I think Ray could be the true love of my life. I need to break things off with Tony so he can go on with his life and find someone who will be able to love him back. He deserves that. I’m just gonna have to be woman enough to tell him Friday.”

  “What? Friday? No. I think you should wait.”

  “I don’t know. We’ll see.” Malena had already made up her mind, but she didn’t want to continue the discussion. “So do you want to go to the library for a few hours? I’ll figure out what to wear for my date later.”

  “I guess so,” Tammy said. “Just let me get my study sweats on.”

  After studying at the library and grabbing a bite to eat, Malena and Tammy arrived at their apartment exhausted. They walked through the door, and each went toward her separate room. The apartment was sparsely furnished with bits and pieces of used furniture they had collected from their families and friends. They had individual bathrooms attached to their bedrooms. Malena walked straight to her room, dropped her book bag, and went to the bathtub. She ran hot water and poured bath beads under the running water. She was going to soak in her bath and decide what she would wear tonight, and how to make sure Ray remained in her life, even while she was pledging. She was also going to go over her plan to somehow break things off with Anthony.

  She became totally relaxed while immersed in the warm bath. She had already decided what
to do about both Tony and Ray, and was on to daydreaming about what she would name her future PR firm and who her clients would be. She dreamed of representing Jim Carrey, Michael Jackson, Madonna, and Dennis Rodman. “Maybe they’re a little too outlandish,” she thought out loud. “Maybe I’ll deal with milder personalities like Michael Jordan, and Brandy, oh yeah, and Angela Bassett and Whitney Houston.”

  Tammy knocked on the door and interrupted her dream. “Ray called while I was on the phone.”

  “Why didn’t you tell me?”

  “I’m telling you now! I was talking to my mother when he called. Anyway, he said he’ll be here to pick you up in thirty minutes.”

  “What? How long ago did he call?”

  “Oh, about five, ten minutes ago,” Tammy responded nonchalantly.

  “Great!” Malena yelled and quickly got out of the tub. There was no way she’d be ready in time.

  She rushed, applying makeup and dressing simultaneously, and made herself presentable by the time he knocked on the front door.

  FOUR

  Tiara Johnson worked on her letter of intent for two days. She was frustrated and knew she would need help to make it exceptional. But she couldn’t ask just anybody for help. Rhonda was her only logical solution. She looked around her dorm room. There were posters of her favorite entertainers hanging on the walls, including the love of her life, LL Cool J. She loved her room because she didn’t have a roommate for the first time in her entire life, and she was able to decorate it however she chose.

  She got up from her desk, stretched across her bed, and called her Big Sister. Although it was late, she had to call. Tiara had been working on her letter of intent for all night, but couldn’t seem to get down on paper what she really wanted to say. Becoming frustrated, she figured her Big Sister, Rhonda, could help her out before she lost her mind. She would make it up to her another time. The phone rang four times before Rhonda answered.

  “Hello!” said the groggy voice.

  “Rhonda, you just gotta help me! I know it’s late but I ain’t gonna be able to get no sleep till I finish this letter.”

  “It’s ‘I’m not going to be able to sleep,’ Tiara. And what do I just have to help you with?”

  “You’re right, but I won’t be able to sleep until it’s done. I want it to be perfect, flawless. They won’t accept nothing that’s not above average. You know that.”

  “Tiara . . . never mind.” Rhonda was going to correct Tiara’s grammar again, but she decided to let it slide this time. Although Tiara had made her Big Sister promise she would stop her every time she “butchered a sentence,” it was late at night, Rhonda was tired, and Tiara seemed too excited to care about using a double negative in her sentence structure. Instead of nit-picking, she decided to ask Tiara what she was so worked up about this late at night. “What? Who? Tiara, who are you writing to, and why is it so important that you wake me up at one in the morning to help you complete some letter? As a matter of fact, why don’t I call you from work tomorrow?”

  “No! Rhonda, you don’t understand. I’m working on my letter of intent to become a pledge and eventually a member of your ‘distinguished’ sorority, but I cain’t . . . I mean, I can’t manage to find the words to make me sound distinguishable enough to be accepted or even considered. I know what I wanna say, but I don’t know how. Maybe I’m tryin’ too hard. Rhonda, please stay up and help me. I will be forever grateful. I’ll wash your dishes for you the next weekend that I’m home. I’ll take Freeman out for a walk to the park, and you know how much I hate walking Freeman in the park. He barks too much. And Rhonda, I’ll even—”

  “Okay, Tiara, I get the picture. I’ll help you, because if I don’t I know you’ll keep me on this phone all night begging for my help. It will be a no-win situation either way.”

  “Thank you, thank you, thank you! You’re the greatest Big Sister in the world. I’m so glad that I was matched with you.”

  Tiara never knew quite how to thank Rhonda enough for everything she had done for her since they were matched up through the Big Brothers Big Sisters program back in Gary, Indiana. She was instrumental in shaping Tiara’s young adult life, and it was because of Rhonda’s intervention that she was in college, and in her dorm room, and writing a letter to become a member of what Tiara considered the greatest sorority in the world—the same sorority of which her Big Sister, Rhonda, was a member. She looked up to her Big Sister, and wanted to follow in her footsteps and someday “be somebody.” She also planned to one day be a Big Sister to a little girl and positively influence her life the way Rhonda continued to influence hers.

  “I know I’m great, but I do expect you to keep your promise and visit me when you come home. I realize you are a big-time college sophomore now, and coming home to visit your Big Sister may cramp your image, but I’d better be the first person you visit,” Rhonda joked, her voice still groggy. “Now let me hear what you’ve written so far, and we’ll go from there.”

  Tiara read her letter to Rhonda. It did not sound bad. There were a few grammatical errors, and Rhonda helped her rephrase and rewrite important points so the letter flowed smoothly, but the core came from Tiara. Rhonda was proud.

  “I’m really impressed with your letter and your reasons for wanting to join the sorority. You’ve also nicely laid out your intentions to positively represent and help the sorority uplift the community. You have done a great job.”

  “You really think so?”

  “Of course I do. You’re really turning into a pretty great young lady, yourself,” Rhonda commented. It was true. Tiara Johnson had really matured from the sassy little girl she’d met during their first encounter. Tiara and her social worker met Rhonda at a restaurant so they could become acquainted for the first time on neutral ground, but their first meeting didn’t go so well. Tiara was a very bitter little girl and had expressed, without sugarcoating her feelings, that she was not a charity case and didn’t “need no Big Sister telling me what I need to do!”

  But Rhonda was determined to make the union work, although she wasn’t sure what she had gotten herself into by bringing this loudmouthed, uneasy, attention-starved child into her life. But somehow over the years Rhonda helped to transform a scared caterpillar into a beautiful butterfly. She exposed Tiara to nice restaurants, plays, museums, and the importance of pampering and loving herself. They went to church together on Sundays and read and discussed the Bible and other inspirational books and tapes, like Susan Taylor’s In the Spirit and Deepak Chopra’s The Higher Self. From her relationship with Rhonda, Tiara learned how to see herself where she wanted to be and not where she was.

  She learned how to dream, and with Rhonda’s help Tiara dreamed herself right out of the tiny three-bedroom apartment that housed her, her mother, and five brothers and sisters, and into the college of her dreams. Now Tiara was attempting to dream herself into Rhonda’s sorority, which was a big step for someone with her background.

  Tiara grew up in one of the roughest projects in Gary, Indiana. Victims of depressed urban life, only some of her classmates managed to graduate and attain blue-collar jobs, and even fewer went to college. However, she knew of many girls in her high school graduating class who were stripping or selling their bodies to make a quick dollar, or were on crack. Several of her male classmates were coerced into selling drugs or illegal firearms. Others were either dead or in jail.

  Her mother now dated a drug dealer, and her three youngest siblings all had different fathers. Unemployed, her mother barely kept a roof over their heads and seemed more interested in playing the numbers and chasing after men than she was in her own children. Tiara had overcome a lot, but despite her unfortunate childhood, she felt lucky and blessed to have the opportunity to experience a better side of life here at school.

  “I hope your sorors feel the same,” Tiara said with hope in her voice.

  “I’m sure they will. You have a great chance. Just think positively, say a prayer, and wear something nice to rush. By t
he way, what’s this year’s theme?”

  “Exclusive Pink Plush Rush.”

  “I guess my sorors are running out of creative ideas. But I’m sure that when you’re accepted, you’ll help jazz things up.”

  “I gotta be accepted first.”

  “You will. So, Miss Tiara Johnson, are you still giving the men in your life a run for their money? Or better yet, have you found somebody special yet?”

  “You know that some things never change. I’m never gonna let a man have my mind, even if it means I gotta be single for the rest of my life. Some of the girls on this campus are so ‘gone’ over their boyfriends that their lives revolve around them. They cain’t even think without asking their men how. It’s like they live to serve.”

  “You’re so harsh.”

  “I have to be. Their men have been seen going to visit other women in dorms all over this campus. And when they finally decide they’re tired of being accused of cheating, they leave with no explanation. Then those dumb girls go cryin’ to their so-called friends and the next thing you know everybody on campus be talking about their asses until somebody else gets dumped and they have something new to gossip about.”

  “Watch your mouth, Miss Thing. I thought you were working on cleaning that up.”

  “My bad, sis. You just hit a subject that pisses me off and I can’t be held responsible for my words. I’m working on it. Anyway, I refuse to live like that, even if it means not having a man. So, what’s up with that?”

  “You mean the relationship thing?”

  “Yeah, why do women seem to be the only ones catching he . . . heck from the brothers? And why do the brothers act like they could care less?”

  Rhonda and Tiara both knew what Tiara was really asking. She was still trying to figure out why her father left her mother, Tiara, and her two sisters. Tiara never forgot how good things were before her daddy left her mother for a white lady. Polly was her name. She was a thin, stringy-haired blond, poor white trash home wrecker, as far as Tiara was concerned. How dare she come and break up their family and take her daddy away from her? Before her daddy walked out on them, they actually lived in a house. It wasn’t in the best neighborhood, but it was a house.