Sorority Barbie
“Are we ever going to have the whole group here for a game night?” I asked, not even ashamed that my voice was a full on whine.
It was our third game night of the semester, a little over a month into the year, and we still hadn’t had a night that everyone could attend. Taylor wasn’t there, but that was nothing new. He only joined us when the games interested him and he didn’t already have plans; he was, after all, far more popular than any of the rest of us. Molly’s TA sessions weren’t always on Wednesdays, so we couldn’t just reschedule game night. At least she had made it to this one, but this time, Zac wasn’t there. He had been complaining about his huge research project for clinical psych all week, the one which I’d helped with the proposal for, so I knew he was busy. It still bothered me that he couldn’t take a break from it to play Fluxx with the rest of us, but there was nothing I could do about it. The more I whined about wanting him to be there, the more pathetic I looked.
Since he wasn’t there, though, I felt no need to hide my whining.
“Maybe after midterms,” Molly suggested. “At least I hope I won’t be as busy then… until finals.”
“Tell me about it,” Elijah said. “I don’t think I’ve seen Zac since last week, except for passing him on the way to the library.”
“I feel like it’s been even longer than that since I’ve seen him,” I said, unable to stop myself from pouting.
Everyone laughed, but I didn’t see what was so funny. I supposed they were just mocking me for my crush yet again. Peyton gave me a little shove and said, “Aww, poor baby. You should let your boyfriend know you miss him.”
“He’s not my—”
“Yeah,” Peyton cut me off. “We know. You think you would make it two seconds with him before you were running off to let us all you two were finally together?”
“Probably not,” I admitted. “And I know you all get sick hearing about him.”
“Not as sick as we get of you making puppy dog eyes at him all the time,” Elijah replied. “And the way he looks at you is almost as bad.”
Was he serious? There was just no way he could be serious. Zac didn’t look at me like anything special. For a moment, I just gaped at Elijah, waiting for him to admit he had been joking and that there was no way Zac felt anything remotely resembling what I felt for him. When Elijah didn’t say anything and just continued to take his turn at the game, I said, “You’re kidding, right?”
“Nope,” he replied. “You can’t tell me the rest of you guys don’t see it. Are we really all just acting like we don’t see how in love with each other Zac and Georgina are?”
I glanced at everyone, and they all just shrugged or sported blank looks. That wasn’t helpful at all. “Seriously, you guys?”
“I dunno,” Molly said. “He looks at you the same way he’s always looked at you. I never thought about it.”
“I think you guys are fucking with me,” I said. “If Zac looks at me any different than he does the rest of us, it’s because he’s trying to figure out why one of his guy friends has boobs. That is, if he’s even noticed I have boobs.”
“He might, if you did,” Peyton teased. We had made a pact that if it were ever medically possible, she would give me a cup size off her ample chest to add to mine, which filled out a B cup on a good day. A very, very good day.
Once again, everyone laughed at my expense, something I was all too accustomed to. At least Zac wasn’t around to hear them joking about my chest; although if he were, I supposed we wouldn’t have been talking about the way he may or may not have looked at me. The other person I didn’t want present for such a conversation was Bella, so of course the door opened and she walked in while everyone was still chuckling.
“What are we playing tonight?” Bella asked, and I was pretty sure I could detect a huge hint of sarcasm in her question.
“Fluxx,” Molly answered perkily. “It’s a card game with all these changing rules and combos and stuff.”
“Sounds complicated,” Bella replied, flopping down in the one chair we weren’t using.
She had her silly pledge badge pinned to her shirt, proclaiming to the world that she was on her way to becoming a Tri Delt. As stupid as I thought the whole Greek system was, I really hoped that Bella would be accepted. If she was, she would move into their sorority house and out of our suite. Even if they found a new girl to move in, I couldn’t imagine they could do much worse than Bella. Then again, there was that slob Peyton had to room with freshmen year…
“So,” Bella said, and I wondered if I had tuned her out, since she seemed to be in the middle of a thought. I paused, my cards in the air, while I waited for her to finish her thought. “There’s this huge party at the Tri Delta house this weekend.”
We all stared at her, waiting for her to say something that actually mattered to us. I wasn’t sure that Bella really understood that we had different priorities from her, and sorority parties were just not on our radar. Well, that wan’t entirely true. We all valued popularity in differing amounts. While I didn’t have any desire to be like Bella, I liked to imagine a world where I could still be me and that wasn’t a reason for me to be unpopular and ostracized. What made a vapid, future skin cancer patient like Bella more worthy of popularity than me? I didn’t understand it and I didn’t like it.
“Anyway,” she said, heaving a huge sigh, as though what she was about to say pained her dearly. “They have this thing where all the pledges have to bring as many people to the party as they can, and we get points for each person. I’ve got plenty, so it’s no big deal if you guys don’t want to go, but… a few extra points won’t hurt.”
It was amazing how Bella could say words that seemed harmless yet still offend me. She clearly didn’t actually want us to go to the party. If we did, she would have to claim us as her friends, and I was sure she didn’t want to do that under any circumstances. All she wanted was to get the most points and get into the sorority.
Luckily for her, we all wanted her to get into the sorority too, because the sooner she did, the sooner she was out of our suite.
“Sure,” I said, surprising even myself with how cheerful I sounded. “I’ll go. I dunno about everyone else.”
They all murmured vague promises to go that didn’t sound that cheerful, but Bella hardly noticed. She gave her trademark little clap and squealed. “Great! And Georgina, you’ll have to let me dress you this time. You’ve got to look good for a Tri Delta party.”
With that, Bella scampered off to her bedroom. I couldn’t help wondering why I had been singled out. Bella didn’t seem to care so much about giving the other girls makeovers, but she was always making those little comments about my appearance. Just what was it about my looks that bothered her so much? I knew I was nothing special to look at, and pretty awkward thanks to the red hair, but I didn’t think I was as much of a disaster as Bella kept implying. Yet the more she implied it, the more I found myself wondering if she might have a point.
Thanks to Bella, I was in a bad mood for the rest of the game of Fluxx and I decided to call it a night early while everyone else was still hanging out and talking. After brushing my teeth and changing into my pajamas, I decide to chance giving Zac a call before I went to bed. I hadn’t seen him since that morning and I didn’t like it. I hated going even hours without seeing him, and I didn’t care how pathetic that was. Even on the days when we didn’t see each other, which were rare, we texted and called.
Settling into my bed and pulling up the covers, I found Zac’s number in my contacts and pressed call. He was always near the top of my recent calls, whether because I had called him or because he had called me, but it seemed like recently those calls were becoming less and less common. The phone rang a few times before he finally answered.
“Hey, George.”
That nickname again. Always that nickname. I didn’t mind it so much when we were younger and I was a tomboy, but now… I sighed. “Hey, Zac.”
“What’s up? You’re lucky you caught me. I think I passed out on my keyboard for a second there. But this lab report is done, finally.”
“So that’s why you ditched us, huh? For homework?” I teased.
He chuckled. “Yeah, something like that. So why aren’t you partying it up?”
“Not much of a party,” I replied. “We were just playing Fluxx, but I got sleepy.”
It wasn’t entirely a lie but it was close enough. I had this strange feeling that Zac hadn’t really been as busy as he implied, anyway. I tried to brush that feeling off. Why would he skip game night unless he had a good reason? And what reason could he have besides homework?
“Anyway, Sorority Barbie came in and kinda ruined the night for me,” I continued.
I could have sworn Zac’s eye roll was audible. “What she did do this time?”
“She didn’t really do anything; it’s just that she wants us all to go to this party so she can get points or whatever,” I said. I decided not to mention the part about her offering me a makeover yet again, because I knew Zac wouldn’t understand that. He would probably try to make excuses for her, too.
“Oh, are you going to go?” He asked. “I think I probably will.”
“Seriously? Wait, did Bella invite you too?” A huge pang of jealousy stabbed me in the chest. When did Bella talk to Zac? Why would he go to the party just because she asked? Sure, he thought she was hot, but couldn’t he also see how awful she was?
“I ran into her earlier today and she mentioned it,” he said. Something about his answer seemed very, very vague and I didn’t like it.
“Well, I guess I’ll see you there,” I replied, pouting, but hopefully not so much that he could hear it in my voice.
“We can all go together,” he said. “I mean, if you guys are going to go. I know Tay is.”
Of course Taylor was, I wanted to say. If Taylor hadn’t already gotten into Bella’s pants, I was sure it was just a matter of time. If Taylor wanted a girl, he usually got her, and Bella didn’t exactly seem hard to get.
“Yeah, I guess,” I replied with a sigh. “I mean, since I know you’re going, at least I’ll know somebody there besides Bella. And I guess everyone else is gonna go, too. Anything to help get Bella out of here.”
Zac chuckled a little at that, but I could tell his heart wasn’t in it. “Well, now that that’s decided, I’m going to go print this lab report out and then get some sleep. Hopefully I’ll actually wake up in time to turn in it tomorrow.”
“Good luck,” I replied. “I’ll see you tomorrow at lunch, right?” I knew I sounded needy, but I couldn’t stop myself.
“Yeah,” he said. “See ya tomorrow, George. Goodnight.”
“Goodnight,” I said softly, then ended the call.
I set my phone on the windowsill next to my bed after making sure my alarm was set. As I rolled over and tried to fall asleep, I couldn’t help feeling like something was very different about that phone call. Something was different about Zac and our friendship, and I din’t know what.