Uncle Root rose from the couch. It was time for more pie, and he would bring out more coffee for us youngbloods, but not for himself. It was mere hours before his bedtime. Even though I hadn’t yet gotten past my anger at David, I talked and laughed with them for another hour, until Uncle Root decided it was time for us to drive out to the country. David needed to visit my granny, and besides, the old man was missing his pecan tree.
*
I heard from Abdul only once, the summer after our freshman year, though I’d given him all possible contact information. One Saturday, he’d called the old man’s house, asking me to meet him at a motel close to the exit near Madison.
When I left the house, I’d lied to the old man that I was driving to Atlanta to spend the night with Roz. In the motel parking lot, Abdul asked for my half of the room fee. Then we spent the day making love, in between watching cable TV and eating cheeseburgers and French fries. Sunday morning, I drove back.
In the fall, there were changes, as our public relationship had shifted. Now Abdul acted sometime-y. When I did see him, he’d call me after midnight, to come to the apartment that he now shared with Steve. He and Steve no longer sat at the table with us in the refectory, and whenever I saw Abdul, I held my breath, waiting. Would he speak? If he did, would there be a smile? Or would he ignore me entirely?
Pat’s behavior had not changed, though. He kept sitting with Keisha and me in the refectory, smiling and making us laugh at his corny jokes. He and I kept meeting for our tutorial sessions in the library, and he still flirted shamelessly with me.
“Girl, you are so sweet. And beautiful, too. How come you’re still single?”
“I’m not. I got somebody. I guess.” I looked toward the stairs, nervous. I wasn’t going to mention Abdul’s name. In the library, the gossips hovered around each corner. They were worse than the rodents.
“Oh, that. But, girl, does that really count as a relationship?”
“Who wants to know?”
“I do.” He touched my head. Let his fingers drag back and forth. “Um. Your hair is so damned soft.”
I moved my head. “Pat, come on. You need to figure out these equations. You don’t want to fail this class.”
That fall, the Betas and the Gammas chose their new members. In the past the process had been called “pledging,” and had been a public spectacle. Applicants wore identical outfits that they were required to purchase. My sister Lydia had worn those years before, when she’d pledged. All told, my parents had paid twelve hundred dollars for Lydia’s fees. So much money in order for her to “cross the burning sands”—what the process of joining a Black Greek letter organization was called. Because of several legal suits that had been filed against the Betas and Gammas, “pledging” had become “intake,” and hazing was supposed to be out. However, the Betas and Gammas just moved into underground mode, as they began to abuse their aspirants.
When Abdul became a Gamma “Rock,” he stopped calling me for our late-night assignations. Pat was pledging Gamma, too; sometimes, when we met in the library, Pat was limping, though he claimed he wasn’t being physically hazed by the Gammas. It was early onset arthritis, he insisted. But I wasn’t fooled: I stuffed a cushion in my book bag and gave it to him to sit on.
And Roz became a secret Lily for the Betas. Like Steve and Abdul, she stopped eating at the table with Keisha and me. She sat on the other side of the refectory with the rest of the underground Lilies, who did not talk about their ambitions. I was decried as off-limits, since I had messed with Abdul and supposedly caused his breakup with an important Beta. Roz walked past me on campus as if I were invisible, looking forward intently as if she and the air had an exclusive appointment.
The Saturday after homecoming, the new Gammas and Betas “crossed the burning sands.” When we heard the cheers, Keisha and I came outside our dorm to see Roz and the six others in their orange sorority T-shirts. Roz’s line name was printed in white letters on the back: “Rapunzel.” When the Betas finished their short routine, she headed for me, her arms wide. She hugged me tightly, saying we were girls for life. And don’t be mad, okay?
The Gammas brought more excitement, when Abdul, Steve, Pat, and ten others gave their call throughout the yard. They stood like dark dominoes in a row, in their maroon-and-silver T-shirts emblazoned with their line names. They sang and stomped a few minutes, declaring their love of Gamma, but then they disappeared.
That night, while my roommates slept, I propped the door to our room open. At two in the morning, the hall phone rang. I ran to answer, nearly falling in my haste. It was Abdul. Come to the apartment, he whispered. He missed me, he needed me. I rushed back to my room to pack an overnight bag. It was filled with items that I’d leave in his apartment bathroom, to mark my territory. My blow-dryer and curling irons. A box of tampons. A bottle of nice lotion that men wouldn’t use, because guys didn’t mind being ashy. I remembered that Roz had told me that since Abdul and I hadn’t made a commitment, I should be careful going over there: I didn’t want to get a bad reputation. Yet I kept packing my bag.