Frat Girl - Kiley Roache

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two henchmen flop onto the bed. I take the desk chair.

      “Is this some sort of stunt?” Peter studies me.

      “No.” I stand up and straighten my dress, pulling on the short hem. “Um... I know this seems weird, but my dad was a DTC, and he always talks about it being the best time of his life. He didn’t have any sons to carry on his legacy, and he kind of raised me as a boy because of it, buying me video games instead of Barbies, and playing catch instead of going to the daddy-daughter dance.” From the DTC alumni websites, I know that the whole legacy thing is a huge deal. Like, if I was Chase Davis instead of Cassie, they’d be in big trouble for denying me a bid.

      I clear my throat, and they don’t jump in, so I continue. “I know that if I want to party in college I’ve got to go Greek...” Everything I know about Alex and life in general is counter to this, but one of the DTC frat members tweeted it once. “But I’ve always been friends with dudes more than girls, and, honestly, shotgunning beers and throwing amazing parties sounds a lot better than wearing pearls and baking cookies.”

      These aren’t all lies. It’s true that my dad was a DTC, but he would definitely not be a fan of me doing this. And I do happen to like a lot of things gendered toward men—beer, baseball, Call of Duty—although I also like boy bands, Nora Ephron movies and cheesy prom-posals.

      “Are there rules against it?” Peter asks the two boys on the bed.

      “No,” I interject, holding my head high. “I checked.” I smile to soften it. I figure the name of the game is to have enough alpha confidence to demand their respect but enough softness so as not to rub against their perception of how a woman should behave.

      The mission is to find out how living inside the environment of a frat house is for women, so when I’m inside I will be a woman, a real human person. I will be, as much as possible, “myself” as I would be if I wasn’t conducting this experiment, so I can get the most accurate result.

      But first I need to get inside.

      So, not unlike a lot of people here, I will lie my way through Rush. Hi, my name is Cassie, and I will be reading for the role of frat boy’s wet dream.

      It feels kind of gross, like I’m betraying my sex. Or like I’m playing a character out of some porno.

      But I remind myself of the higher cause, buckle down and silently repeat, like a mantra: pizza, beer, video games, boobs.

      After extensive research on Reddit and Urban Dictionary, these are the things I decided.

      I will be a size four but eat burgers and pizza.

      I will not be a bimbo, like the rest of those dyed-blonde, fake-tanned sorority girls. But I won’t be smart enough to threaten the boys’ ego or intelligence.

      I will be feminine looking but not stereotypically feminine.

      I will drink cheap beer like water.

      I will get fucked up, and seem to be queen of all drinking games, but somehow never be an emotional or sloppy drunk.

      I will like nerdy things like sci-fi movies but look more like gold-bikini Leia than the female equivalent of Peter Parker.

      I will be sexual but not. Always down to talk about masturbating or threesomes but never do either. I will be flirty and hot, but never have sex myself. Otherwise I risk being demoted from “guys’ girl” to “group-ho.”

      I will love sports and action movies. And I will know more about all these things than the boys do, even if I don’t always show it, so I don’t become a “fake guys’-girl,” which is the worst offense, because then they’ll know I’m just doing this so they’ll like me.

      And then there’s the most important part: to give no fucks.

      To be the kind of girl guys would let into their frat, you need to “not care what anyone thinks” and “do what you want,” while making sure what you “want” is to do everything in a stereotypically masculine way.

      The whole idea of this cool girl is to hollow a woman out to just her body—the part they see the most value in—and then fill her with the things they think are worth something.

      The title “one of the guys” is an honor. And it’s sexist as hell.

      I flutter my fake eyelashes and look up at Peter with a sweet, mischievous smile, like I’m considering sharing a secret with him and him only.

      On the inside, I’m trying not to vomit.

      “Well, in that case, I don’t see why not,” he says.

      The blond guy looks shocked. Baseball-cap guy is laughing his ass off.

      “You’ll have to earn your bid like the rest of them, but I don’t see why you can’t try,” Peter adds.

      The blond stands up. “She’ll mess with the rest of Rush, distract the other pledges.”

      Peter turns to me. “Don’t do that.”

      I laugh. “No problem.”

      “There’ll be sorority girls here, so just don’t draw too much attention to yourself, and the other rushees shouldn’t even notice.”

      I nod.

      “Good luck, pledge. Now get your ass back downstairs. It’s members-only on the second floor.”

       Chapter Five

      “One of the greatest hurdles for sociology is the Hawthorne effect, when subjects alter their behavior because they know they’re being studied. The effect referenced in the name comes from a study about productivity, when, as you might guess, workers picked up their pace when they knew they were being watched.”

      My Sociology 101 professor, an eighty-year-old woman in a navy pantsuit, slips off her reading glasses, and looks out to the class, an auditorium of freshmen (mainly) and seniors (more than there should be) who almost forgot they had to fulfill this requirement.

      “This is a bit like how cell phone usage might go down in this class if there was a team of scientists filming you instead of just a half-blind old bat at the front of the room. But then again, I still see, say, you there in the third row with the blue phone case.”

      Everyone shifts in their seats. The boy in question turns red, and a few people laugh.

      “Tell your mother I say hello. I do hope the only person you felt the need to contact during my class is the woman who brought you into this world. Otherwise, do put it away.”

      He sheepishly slides the phone into his backpack.

      “Now, where was I?” She puts her glasses back on. “Oh, yes. The Hawthorne effect. So now, knowing this, it makes sense to conduct some studies covertly, although, that of course carries its own array of risks...”

      The door in the back of the room swings open, but luckily, Professor Abbott is too engrossed in her notes to notice.

      I see someone walking down the aisle out of the corner of my eye, but I am too terrified of my tiny, fierce professor to look.

      “Excuse me,” a familiar voice whispers.

      My heart skips a beat as Jordan shimmies past the rest of the people in my row and settles into the seat next to me.

      I steal a glance. He’s fishing through his backpack for a notebook, so luckily he doesn’t see me staring. He’s wearing a checkered button-down and light blue shorts, impeccably dressed for a nine o’clock class. And he looks good, like so good I have a weird feeling in the pit of my stomach. I was hoping he wouldn’t live up to the memory I had replayed in my mind as I lay in bed the night before. But instead he’s even more beautiful than I remembered. I’m painfully aware of how close he’s sitting to me, scared I’ll give myself away, like he’ll hear

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