BID DAY WAS the best day of rush week. All of the hard work and toil and tribulation we went through, it all came down to that life-changing moment—when twenty new pledges were dropped off in front of your sorority house and ran, screaming and crying, into the arms of the virtual strangers who would instantly become their best friends. It’s not as weird as it sounds.
I woke up in a strange position on my couch, with drool pooled on the Delta Beta T-shirt quilt that someone—hopefully Casey—had tucked around me. Casey was nowhere to be seen, and after I brushed my teeth and retied my hair back into a more orderly ponytail, I opened the door of the chapter advisor’s apartment into a new world.
The sun was shining. Women were laughing and giggling and running with baskets of sorority gifts and mason jars of flowers and Starbucks cup carriers.
God bless them so hard. Aubrey pulled to a stop outside my door and handed me a Venti cup. “Special delivery!”
I would have kissed her if my mouth hadn’t instantly planted itself on the coffee lid.
After the first shot had gone down, I was able to ask her. “What’s going on?” She lifted her hands to the grand stairwell, where a giant, hand-painted, bid-day banner was hung, bright with jungle animals. “We’re just waiting for the pledge list to finish their cards and name tags. Everything’s done!”
Wow. “Really?” I asked in a mix of admiration and guilt. They’d all been working so hard while I had slept until almost noon, not caring about anything sorority-related for a good eight hours.
Aubrey seemed to always know what I was thinking. “Well, we had a lot of help from your assistant. The chapter couldn’t have gotten this all together without him.”
Casey. I smiled and looked for him in the crowd of women. There he was, giving posing tips for the innumerable pictures that were going to be snapped today. How lucky was I to have a best friend who was not only excellent at organizing events but generous enough to share his techniques for photogenic perfection?
The next two hours flew by in the bustle of giddy activity, and I couldn’t help but be lifted and encouraged by the women around me, who couldn’t wait to welcome new sisters.
The buses came, the pledges flew out into the Delta Beta open arms, and it was like everything was all right again. Like no one had ever died or been arrested. I knew that this was the true strength of our sisterhood, our resiliency; but somehow I found myself standing back from it all, an observer for once instead of jumping into the bouncing, squealing mass.
I felt a person come up beside me—Sheila DeGrasse. The expression on her face told me that I wasn’t the only one in a slightly more somber mood today.
“Happy bid day,” I greeted her.
Sheila pressed her lips together in a half smile. I knew she had to be thinking of Shannon Bender, so I put my arms out and dragged her into a tight hug.
When I let go, we both took a step back and stared. Did we just . . . Did that . . .
Sheila took a deep breath, then said, “Thank you.”
So I had hugged a Moo. It was weird, maybe, but in the moment it had felt like the right thing to do. “Of course,” I sniffed. “That’s what Debs do.”
The smile that appeared on her face now was tentative, but true, and even the most hard-core Delta Beta could appreciate when the first tenuous bonds of friendship had been extended.
“How’s your pledge class?” Sheila asked.
“Amazing,” I assured her. “We took the best baby bees on the block.”
“Panhellenic frowns on calling new members, ‘babies,’ ”
God, she couldn’t help herself. “Are we really listening to anything Panhellenic says anymore?”
Sheila snorted. “Good point.”
“Where are you off to next?” What did a rush consultant do between rush seasons?
“I’ll be in Florida,” she said, and while the words were casual, there was something in her tone that made me look at her more closely.
“What’s in Florida?” I asked.
Sheila lifted her shoulders vaguely, and I decided not to push. After the past week, I should probably let some secrets of rush consultants remain that way.
“What about you? What do you have planned for this semester?”
I paused but decided that I could be honest with Sheila. We’d gone through a lot together this week. “I am resigning my position here at Sutton.” The statement sounded completely reasonable to my ear though my gut tightened at the thought. Still, what else could I do? Any advisor who gets her chapter thrown out of rush was honor-bound to fall on her sword.
Sheila stared at me for a moment, then said, “I doubt that. But if you do ever leave, give me a call. I might have something for you.” Then she turned and started walking off.
“In Florida?” I shouted at her back.
She turned and gave me a mysterious smile, then returned to the Tri Moo bid-day celebration, where I’m sure they were very happy about their perfectly adequate new pledges. I gave myself fifteen more minutes to enjoy the party; then I had a very difficult phone call to make to the Delta Beta president.