Frat Girl. Kiley Roache

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СКАЧАТЬ give someone this much grant money, they kind of want you to be able to produce something for them pretty quickly. Not like, I’ll get back to you when I learn how to code.”

      “Truuuuue.” Jay nods solemnly.

      We lie silently for a while.

      “Maybe Warren is too much of an old boys’ club to want a major gender project,” Alex says.

      “Maybe that’s why they need it,” Jay retorts.

      “They’re trying to get better,” I say. “They suspended that frat.” While I’d procrastinated, I’d read article after article about the controversy surrounding Delta Tau Chi.

      “Put them on probation,” Alex corrects. “And it’s just a PR move. There’s so much money in that frat, they’re not really changing anything.”

      “What’d they get in trouble for?” Jay asks.

      “They’re sexist, homophobic pigs.” Alex lights up a cigarette.

      “No, I mean—”

      “Creating a hostile environment for women.” She takes a drag before continuing. “There’s some rule with housing and Title IX. They had signs all over the house with sexist jokes on them.”

      “Signs?” he asks.

      “Yeah, they threw a party for International Women’s Day. Had signs over the kitchen about it being a woman’s true place, signs in the bathroom about period pain being punishment for being so bitchy, and don’t even get me started on the ones near the bedrooms.”

      “That’s repulsive.” I’d never heard the details; the articles I’d read said only that they’d been misogynistic. But Alex had been there. Well, there as in Warren. I doubt she’d attend some godforsaken frat party.

      Jay runs his hands through his jet-black hair, considering this. “I mean, not to defend the douche bags, but it’s not technically supposed to be an environment for women, right?”

      “That’s not an excuse.” Alex sits up.

      “I’m not saying I would make the joke. I think they’re assholes for saying it. But how can you get in trouble for creating an environment that’s unwelcoming to women when your charter is to be a boys’ club? I mean, no one would really know if a frat was a toxic living and learning community for a woman unless one tried living there.”

      “Maybe I will,” I say.

      I was just trying to make a joke before this conversation devolved into one of their ridiculous arguments, which always get way too heated, considering they always represent the far left and the farther left.

      For half a second they laugh politely, but then the banter goes on, fading to buzzing in my ears.

      I stare down at the street below, the street I danced down when I got my acceptance letter. I’d met the mailman at the curb for five days straight until finally, finally, that letter I’d been dreaming about arrived.

      I was ecstatic to tell my parents that their daughter was going to attend the most exclusive school in the country. I hadn’t even told them where I’d applied, not wanting to get their hopes up.

      I’d pictured hugs and tears. I’d pictured champagne.

      But I should’ve known.

      Should’ve known the response would be that there was no way they were about to spend that much money so I could get a piece of paper that would hang uselessly in my husband’s house.

      I told them not to worry, about the 100 percent need thing. But when the second letter came and it was time to go to the bank for unsubsidized loans and second mortgages, I should have known they’d say it wasn’t worth the trouble.

      I should’ve known my dad would say, between beers, “Hell, your mom didn’t even go to college, and she seems perfectly content.”

      And that my mother would nod and extol the virtues of 1950s-style housewifedom in the twenty-first century. The satisfaction of a life filled with aprons and diapers and Xanax.

      What my father doesn’t know is enough of the latter or a bottle of white wine will get her talking about how she always wanted to be a veterinarian growing up. “Coulda done it, was top of my high school class, you know,” she’d tell me between hiccups. “What am I now? Is this it?”

      I thought I’d study hard and do well and avoid her mistakes. I wasn’t about to get pregnant and married at eighteen. I hadn’t even stopped working long enough to have a boyfriend.

      But I should’ve known what was coming. I should have known years ago when my father went to alumni meetings to protest women being accepted into his alma mater.

      Hell, I should have known when I was seven, eating ice cream earned with straight As, and my father said, “You are so smart. It’s too bad you’re not a boy.”

      Or all those times he said he wished he had a son to carry on the family business (because apparently you can’t run a Chili’s franchise without a Y chromosome).

      Or to be a legacy in his stupid frat...

      “Oh my God! Ohmygodohmygodohmygod.” I scramble off the roof, back through the window and practically run to the computer, where I start searching, typing, printing.

      I work for fifteen minutes before I even sit down.

      I hear Jay and Alex climb back through the window but don’t look up.

      “What—”

      I hold up a finger, cutting Jay off. “Hold on—I don’t wanna lose my train of thought.”

      When I turn around, Alex has pulled the pages from my printer.

      “What is this? Delta Tau Chi?” Her eyes widen, and her excitement radiates from her as if her pink hair is made of fire. “Oh my God, you are not!”

      Jay just looks confused.

      “Can you really?” she asks.

      “As far as I can tell, there’s no rule anywhere. I think it’s just usually assumed or implied. But they’re on probation for telling sexist jokes, so what are they gonna do, kick me out of Rush when there’s no rule against it?”

      “Can someone please tell me what’s going on?” Jay says.

      “I’m joining a frat,” I say.

      “Not just any frat, but the douchiest frat on campus,” Alex interjects.

      I nod. “I’ll go undercover and write a personal account of real culture inside a frat house. Show how terrible and sexist they actually are, so no one can deny it anymore. End them.”

      “That’s crazy,” Jay says, but he’s smiling.

      “I think it’s simultaneously the best and the stupidest, riskiest idea I’ve ever had.”

      “That’s СКАЧАТЬ