“I got a right to be mad,” Abdul said. “I grew up in the ’hood. Your daddy’s a doctor. Plus, a fine jawn like you with some meat on your bones, you could get a man, easy, if you calmed yourself down and stopped talking back to men.”
Abdul leaned back and gave a smile.
“Talking back?” I shouted. “I am not a child! I’m grown! And this has nothing to do with you growing up in the ’hood! This has to do with you wanting a woman standing in front of a stove, barefoot and butt-naked, frying your chicken and dodging the grease.”
“Naw, that’s not it at all. You try getting stopped by the police every five minutes.”
“Where, Abdul? On your walk down to the corner to get some fried chicken?”
“You can’t get no chicken in Thatcher. There’s only the Rib Shack.” Abdul held out his hand, palm up, and Steve hit it loudly.
“You know what I mean, you goddamned male chauvinist pig!”
“Sister Garfield, please, let’s not get abusive.” Our professor’s voice was serene.
*
There weren’t many colors that Roz and I could wear to the Beta Alpha Beta spring rush. Other sororities on campus had their own colors. Along with being forbidden to wear Beta colors—orange and cream—we were barred from wearing the colors of any other sorority to the rush: no red, white, pink, green, blue, or yellow. I chose a belted gray dress, Roz a brown suit. We both wore black shoes.
Roz and I arrived forty-five minutes early in the faculty dining room. The rush was scheduled to begin at 7:30, but by 6:58 the Betas had already gathered. Each of the nineteen Betas wore orange outfits, like a human explosion of sherbet. Roz held me back, letting three others go before we went through the receiving line, shaking hands firmly. Then the line broke up, meaning it was time to mingle individually. My roommate left my side, and I stood there, veiled in awkwardness. I inched away when Tiffany approached but bumped into a Beta behind me; they’d tricked me with a maneuver from The Art of War.
“Hey there, Ailey.”
“Hello, Miss Cruikshank.”
She gave a grudging smile. As an aspirant, I couldn’t call a Beta member by her first name, something only a serious Beta potential would know.
“Ailey, if you were a fruit, what would you be?”
“I don’t like fruit, Miss Cruikshank.” This was the safest answer. Choose an orange—a Beta color—and you were in trouble, because you would be presumptuous. But you had to be careful when picking another fruit that could be associated with a different sorority. Apples were red and white. Or watermelons could be red. But they also could be pink, and there was the green rind. Nana was a member of the pink-and-green sorority; in one of her monthly letters, she’d asked if I wanted her to arrange things with her organization, but I hadn’t responded.
Tiffany’s features were small and even. Her hair was blow-dried and pulled into a low ponytail that grazed her shoulders. Folks on campus talked about how fine Tiffany was, but I couldn’t see it. She didn’t have a hint of color in her white complexion, and as thin and bony as she was, she resembled a hungry vampire.
“Ailey, do you know who Violet De Saussure is?”
“Yes, of course. Violet Elizabeth De Saussure was the daughter of Adeline Ruth Hutchinson Routledge, one of two founders of this esteemed institution of higher learning.”
“That’s it?”
“Um . . .”
I’d become tipsy with cleverness, and now I’d missed something. I racked my brain for additional Freshman Orientation information that Dean Walters had made us memorize. I recited in a rush.
“Okay, okay, Routledge College was founded in 1873 as an institution to educate African American women, though it went coeducational in 1922. Our college is aligned with the American Missionary Association, an organization founded in 1846 for the abolition of slavery and the spread of Christianity.”
“Nothing else?”
“Oh, wow . . . um . . . I don’t think so.”
Tiffany’s face shined with sudden righteousness. Her thin nostrils flared, and she cupped her hands around her mouth.
“Calling all sorors! Calling all sorors! This young lady does not know who Violet Elizabeth De Saussure née Routledge is! Can you believe that?”
The Betas turned in unison and descended. The unseen sister behind me placed her mouth next to my other ear and proceeded in a menacing shout: “Do you mean to say that you don’t know that Violet Elizabeth De Saussure née Routledge, along with fifteen other superlative African American women, known as the ‘Lilies of the Nile,’ founded the Alpha chapter of Beta Alpha Beta Sorority Incorporated on the campus of Routledge College on February nineteenth, 1912?”