GIRLS OF LEAST IMPORTANCE by K.K. Fox

It wasn’t like you think. Charlie Todd was one of the most popular candidates going through Rush that year, even with a limp and a useless hand. We tried not to stare, but her left arm was lifeless, paralyzed, and her hand curled at the end like a comma. She hit her head in a car wreck just before high school. We heard it from Brea Loveless who knew her before it all happened.

That year, we held seminars at Rush Retreat about the importance of diversity and acceptance on the University of Tennessee’s campus. The school was pressuring Panhellenic to be more open, but our sorority was ready. There was a mixed girl going through Rush, and not only was she gorgeous, but a lot of girls didn’t even notice she was any different from us until we pointed it out. We hoped a Muslim girl might apply, but they usually stuck to International Club, and we couldn’t do a Greek mixer with a club. But we asked the AKA girls to choreograph our step routine for the Panhellenic Dance-off last year, and we felt really good about that.   

The University of Tennessee had fourteen Greek sororities, but there was an unofficial top four. The Zeta Thetas, or the Zluts, were local Knoxville girls. The Chi Omicron Phis, or the Chi Babies, were all cotton money from Memphis. The Eta Eta Etas, or Eat Eat Eats, were chubby rich girls from out of state. And the Kappa Omegas, or the Knock Offs, were Nashville private school girls who couldn’t get into Vanderbilt. If those four wanted Charlie Todd, then the rest did, too. And since Charlie Todd was from Nashville and her younger sister was already a Kappa Omega, they acted like Charlie was theirs. But we knew the rumors—that Mamie and Charlie weren’t even close. That Mamie didn’t want her sister around in high school, so she wouldn’t want her in college, either.

They used to be close, or so Brea Loveless told it. She said they were once almost like twins, laying hands on each other’s arms like they were extensions of their own. Access to each other’s minds so that they didn’t need words. But something changed in the accident—Charlie did. Mamie didn’t have any injuries, but she got fat and quit the color guard. We heard it straight from Brea.

Since Charlie was the only special needs girl going through Rush, she basically had her pick. She didn’t need a wheelchair, but we all had ramps and elevators in our sororities because our houses were new. Tennessee used to have this law that if seven or more women lived in a house, it was considered a brothel, an old law never struck from the books. But donors speak louder than old laws, so UT finally let us build Sorority Hill, just like Fraternity Row. The frat houses were outdated, filthy brick boxes from the 70s. But the sorority houses were state of the art, totally accessible for the handicapped, and decorated with the principles of feng shui.  

During Rush, the candidates came to our house for three different rounds. When Charlie showed up, she was wearing jeans and a pink gingham top. It was a little informal next to all the sundresses on the other pledges, but we still guided her to a wingback chair that faced the party—total privileged status. Girls of least importance had to stand in the middle of the room. We knew which candidates needed more attention and gave the others a passing hello because we only had so much time. It just wasn’t possible to love everyone equally. 

The mixed girl, Nicole, and Charlie came through the same party that round, which meant we had to buzz back and forth between them. We needed to keep Nicole and Charlie’s undivided attention so they didn’t have time to look around. Or think. We needed them to choose us.

“They could have put them in different groups,” Mindy Thompson said. “That makes the most sense.”

Nicole was a rising freshman from Knoxville, and so she was friends with all the Zetas. We had a lot of work to do. We showed her our median GPA was higher than the rest of the sororities’ and that our house was the smallest on Sorority Hill only because it was first. Our Nationals built us a house when the other sororities had to raise funds locally. They weren’t strong at other universities like Alabama, Ole Miss, or Texas. Not like us. We preferred being a sorority whose national presence mattered more than one single chapter in Knoxville. We told her we were part of something bigger and more important with lots of different kinds of people.

“Do you ever do anything with the other chapters?” she asked. 

“If you see another sister in public, you do a secret sign. If she sees you, she does it back.”

“Oh, so then do you introduce yourself?” she asked. “Like is that how you meet each other?”

“Well, no,” we said. “You just smile at each other and keep going.”

“Then why do it?” she asked. Every time we saw someone in a T-shirt with our letters at the airport, we made an O with our fingers and thumb and held it over our heart hoping the girl would notice. If she did, she would do it back, and we had that thrill of a mutual secret. 

“It’s fun to show each other we’re the same,” we said.

Nicole looked down at her hands and picked at her nails. They were unpolished and short. A biter.

“So you like being a part of the same club.”

“Exactly,” we said. “Who doesn’t?”

*

As a rising junior, Charlie was an unusual candidate. She was a year older than her sister, waiting until after Mamie joined a sorority to do so herself. We gave most of our pledges to freshmen because they could invest a full four years in the chapter. Becoming one of the best sororities was about consistency and lower turnover, but including someone with a disability would show just how inclusive we were, unlike everybody else.  If we wanted the chapter to survive, we had to show the world that we weren’t just shallow, pretty girls who threw great parties. We were open-minded; we were inclusive. Anyway, no two people were completely alike, so really, we were all the same in that. 

“What’s your major?” we asked, and Charlie said it was interior design. We thought that sounded feminine. She was a talker, which was great, because it can be hard to think of things to say with girl after girl after girl. As Charlie talked, she pulled on her paralyzed hand with the other one, stretching out the stiff fingers and massaging the wrist.

“Does it hurt?” we asked, and she said she was supposed to wear a brace, but she didn’t like the way it looked. We all could understand that.

“Beauty is pain,” we laughed. We couldn’t wait for lunch.

*

That night, whispers spread from house to house. No one was supposed to have any contact with pledges outside of the Rush parties, including real sisters like Mamie and Charlie Todd. However, a Rho Chi said she saw Charlie and Mamie go into Gus’ Good Times Deli together and that Mamie hugged Charlie as they stood in line to order. 

“That’s against the rules,” we cried. We heard the rumors, that they didn’t normally hang out. That they weren’t close. This felt like Mamie trying to make up for lost time, trying to win her sister over only to get her into her sorority. Mamie had her whole life to be nicer to her sister. We weren’t supposed to talk to the Rho Chis either, but everyone broke that rule, and everyone knew everyone broke that rule, so that was different.

“Just because they’re sisters doesn’t mean they have to be in the same sorority,” the Rho Chi said. “They’ll always be sisters.” 

“That’s it,” we said. We knew exactly how to convince Charlie to leave hers.

*

During the next Rush party, Charlie arrived in a pencil skirt, white blouse, and kitten heels. She looked like she was going to a job interview, but some of the freshmen were showing too much cleavage, so Charlie looked classy by comparison. And if she joined our chapter, there would be plenty of time for style advice.

She wobbled in her heels as we guided her to her seat. This was the round where we performed a show about our chapter, a skit passed down since the early 90s. We had a mermaid who looked like Ariel. She floats about trying to figure out where she belongs. She finds her sorority home in a chapter filled with all kinds of other sisters: mermaids and humans and sea creatures. The skit emphasized our tradition of diversity.

“You know,” we said to Charlie. “Ariel could have gone to the sorority with all the mermaids she already knew, but that’s not what finding a sorority is about.”

“I love the costumes,” Charlie said, smoothing her tight skirt with her right hand as if it, too, were a fin.

“You’ll find all kinds of people in our chapter,” we said, just as we practiced. “Your friends will always be your friends, and your family will always be your family.” We let this last part sink in for a moment. “Joining a sorority is about finding the right place for you.”

“Everyone I’ve met during Rush has been so nice,” Charlie said. “I’m not used to it. It’s like I suddenly have something that other people want.” 

“Not suddenly at all,” we cried. “We just want you. And we sure hope we will see you back here for Preference Night.”

“Oh, yes,” Charlie said. “Preference.”

After the party, and after we closed the door behind the last candidate, we thought through what Charlie said. Would she cut us? Would she come back? Only the Chi Babies had cut Charlie so far. That sorority would cut a girl just so the girl couldn’t cut them first. They were afraid of rejection, of risk. But how else do you become sisters?

*

When we got the list of returning candidates and Charlie’s name was on it, we clapped and squealed. Apparently, she had chosen Eta Eta Eta, Kappa Omega, and us as her top three. We couldn’t believe it. We were bummed that Nicole had cut us, but we knew the Zetas were hardcore rushing her since she’d gone to high school with half of them. She must not have cared the Zetas weren’t progressive, not like us. Maybe she was as predictable as any other girl.

The Kappa Omegas still had the best chance of getting Charlie because they had her sister, but we were determined to make her think twice. She arrived on Preference Night wearing a lacy mint green dress that stopped just below her knees, an awkward length, as if she had gone into her mother’s closet and picked one of her dresses. Her shoes were flats, no more heels this time, so no worrying about her turning an ankle as we crossed the room. We gave Charlie the best seat in the house, at the front but to the side so she could see the rest of the desirable candidates around her. They would all have a front row view of Mindy Thompson, our soloist, who would sing a moving song sure to make them all cry.

Every candidate had one of our sisters sitting at her feet, talking to her about the sorority and how excited we would be to have that candidate run through our door on Bid Day. Kat O’Donnell sat on her knees in front of Charlie where she could touch Charlie’s knees and hands like they were old friends. Kat was the best sister for the job, because she pledged a different sorority than her older sister. Granted, they went to different colleges—not like Charlie and Mamie Todd. But it was our best chance to convince Charlie she didn’t have to pledge a sorority out of obligation.

“I thought a lot about my decision,” Kat said, who raised up on her knees, leaned in to Charlie. “But I knew when I met these girls that this was the place for me.”

“I’ve met so many, it’s kinda hard for me to tell them apart,” Charlie said, and she looked around at our candles, our flowers, our balloon arch with a microphone stand. The entire patio smelled of gardenias, both in the vases as centerpieces and the perfume we sprayed all over the tablecloths. Next to Charlie was a teacake with her name scrawled across it in icing. Charlie took a big bite, and our stomachs rumbled. Usually, the candidates were too nervous to eat much of their teacakes, so as soon as they left the party, we swarmed the tables, scarfing up their leftovers before clearing the plates and setting down new cakes for the next party. We were both hungry and concerned watching Charlie eat her cake with her one good hand and lick her fingers. An appetite was never a good sign.

“You know,” Kat said. She was about to deliver our final whammy for winning Charlie over. “My sister got to pick her own sorority. Why shouldn’t I have that opportunity, too?”

Charlie chewed the remainder of the teacake in her mouth while nodding. Then she swallowed. “Well, I guess it’s the one time you actually can choose your family.”

Kat’s mouth fell open a little, and we all stopped breathing. Kat sat back down on her heels, flustered. Then, Mindy started humming under the balloon arch with a hand to the microphone. She looked at her feet while the speaker played a Steven Curtis Chapman song. She swayed with the intro and opened her eyes on the first piano note.

Mindy was good at this. As a senior, this was her last Preference Night. We fretted over who would do it next year. A freshman would be best, someone who could deliver the same performance for three straight years. Our Rush process had to be honed for results. Sure enough, the girls near the front dabbed at their eyes with their napkins, their uneaten teacakes in our periphery. One pledge near the back was in full sobs, and we felt bad, because she was just a seat filler. Not every girl can get a bid, but empty seats look bad, so unlike Chi O we kept a few around who were easy to vote out. Some of the seniors were crying genuine tears and hugging each other, as this was their last Preference Night before their last year of date parties and chapter meetings before going separate ways into the world. But Kat O’Donnell turned on the water works like we knew she could. She looked up at Charlie as a few tears—but not too many—slipped down her cheeks. She squeezed Charlie’s curled hand between her two. With the other hand, Charlie finished off her teacake, crumbs landing on her pooched belly as she relaxed in her chair. She probably couldn’t work out very well with her condition, but we could help her understand nutrition when she was eating meals in the house with us. She took a sip of punch.

At the end, Kat walked Charlie to the door last. We all reached out, tapped Charlie’s shoulder, waved goodbye. We used her name. 

But when we closed the door, Kat O’Donnell broke down in real sobs, sinking into a nearby chair. We crowded around her, petting her head and offering her tissues.

“What’s wrong?” we asked, and Kat looked up, mascara streaking down her face that was crumpled in an ugly cry.

“I didn’t choose my family,” she said.

*

The next morning, we got our list of confirmed pledges. We scanned for Charlie’s name first and slumped when we didn’t see it.

“That’s okay, girls,” our Vice President of Membership said as we stood in the chapter room holding hands in a circle while wearing matching pink Bid Day shirts. “We tried our best. Just know it’s not our fault.” 

We stood on the front lawn and faced the courtyard where the next generation of pledges were barricaded behind curtains of crepe paper ribbons. On the Rho Chi’s count, the pledges burst through the streamers and ran full speed to their new homes. We greeted them with hugs and squeals and matching T-shirts.

Charlie couldn’t run, so she limped along last, shuffling toward the Kappa Omega house. We knew it. We just knew it. They had her actual sister; we could never compete with that. It was so unfair. We spent all that time on her for nothing.

Our new class of pledges bounced around us, blond highlights flying about. We couldn’t help but look over their shoulders as Mamie met Charlie between the courtyard and the Kappa Omega lawn. They stood inches away, but they didn’t hug. Mamie was saying something, then put her face in her hands like she was crying. Charlie moved forward and wrapped the one arm she could around her sister. They stood like that for a minute, and it looked sad, and for a brief moment we wondered if maybe Kappa Omega had not given Charlie a bid after all.

But then Mamie took Charlie’s good hand in her own, and they walked back to the Knock Offs, who all started swinging their right arms with fists in the air, singing their sorority song: Drink a toast! To the Kappa O’s! The greatest girls I know… 

Charlie joined them, swinging her arm, too, her fist in the air, certain and proud. The KO’s swarmed her with their ponytails and tears. We watched her until we couldn’t, until she blended in to the crowd and became a Kappa, too.  They were all moving the same direction at the same time in the same way. 

That’s when Kat O’Donnell clapped her hands and stomped her right foot. We stomped along as our new pledges looked at us with wonder, so happy that we chose them, as if we would never choose anyone else. We would never choose differently. And so we circled them, everyone crying and laughing and hugging, and we sang louder and louder so the other sororities could hear us. So that our own voice was unmistakable. We sang so that they would know just how happy we were.