Chapter 5: Rush

Marilyn Grant felt that rush in ‘75 was even more artificial from the active’s end than the previous year’s had seemed when they were rushing her. You spoke to a rushee, got her name, found something about her, and passed her on to one of the sisters who had something in common. Sometimes, she was the one who had something in common.

“Marie was wondering what our response would be about the boyfriend she’s kept from high school,” said Selena. “This is Marilyn.”

“Well, having a boyfriend is no crime. Why did you think we’d object to yours?” Selena should know, by now, that Andy hadn’t been her boyfriend in high school.

“Well, I don’t really think he’s pledging a fraternity.” Oh, that explained why Marilyn was the sister to talk to.

“You know, we call each other sisters. That means family. You’ll get honest opinions, not always favorable, about your dates. But the decision is yours. My boyfriend isn’t Greek, and I got some honest opinions about him. He’s still my boyfriend, though, and sisters call him ‘Marilyn’s Andy.’ Some people want validation: ‘What’s your decision? -- Oh, that’s the right decision.’ whatever that decision is. You don’t get that in a sorority. On the other hand, you don’t give that in a sorority either. You don’t pat somebody on the back for pulling a boner, but they get to make their own decisions -- boyfriends or majors.” She hoped that was the right answer.

Another girl asked her about living outside the house. She was accurate with the facts, if not the impression she tried to make.

“A couple of girls are doing that this year.” Not mentioning that they were all seniors, that seniors were the only ones granted that option. “I can’t see it myself. You pay a parlor fee, anyway -- that’s money for the right to treat the house as your own for social occasions even if you don’t eat and sleep here. When you add that to dorm rent, you don’t save any money. And, really, you participate in only the most formal activities. My best memories of the past year are of being part of this group of women, memories that I wouldn’t have if I’d just been here for parties and meetings.”

When Brittany came through the door, she greeted her.

“Long time no see. Thinking of going Zeta?”

“Thinking of it. I didn’t know you were here. Is it true about you and Andy?”

“Depends what you heard. He’s sort of my boyfriend down here.” She worried about that. Those two had gone together. Would Brittany be jealous?

“Isn’t he the nicest guy?” Brittany said. Well, that wouldn’t be the house consensus, but Brittany didn’t sound like she was jealous.

“These few minutes are supposed to be about you getting to know us, and us getting to know you. Since I already know you, why don’t you tell me your intended major?” She did, and Marilyn passed her on to Stephanie.

The next day, however, she called Andy. She knew she should tell a little of the background of any rushee she knew.

“Surprise! I thought you were incommunicado this week.”

“I practically am. Saw Brittany last night, though. She said that you were the nicest guy.”

“Well, at least somebody appreciates me.”

“I appreciate you. But you were in her house, weren’t you? You were certainly in mine. Would you say hers was furnished more expensively, less expensively, or about the same as mine?”

“Huh? About the same, I guess.” Andy sounded far from certain. It probably wasn’t something he thought about a lot.

“But it was a house, not an apartment?”

“Sure.”

“Thanks.” That was as much as she could learn from him.

“You are more mysterious every time we talk,” he said. Good! Nothing kept a guy, especially a curious guy like Andy, interested more than a little mystery.

“A mystery who loves you.”

“And that’s the greatest mystery of all. I love you, too.” Which was one satisfactory message from a most unsatisfactory phone call.

“I knew Brittany in the United Methodist Youth Fellowship,” she reported that night. “Last night, she was dressed more formally than I’d seen her before, but I was dressed more formally than she’d seen me, too. I asked Andy, who had dated her, and Andy doesn’t honk from your driveway when you have a date -- he goes up to the door, inside unless you answer the door anxious to go -- about her house. He said, and I quote, that ‘I guess’ that it was furnished about as expensively as mine. That doesn’t mean much, but it is a house not an apartment, and we can be pretty sure it wasn’t a shack. After all, you have more to go on than we have for most rushees there.”

“But not a hell of a lot more,” Penelope said from in back. “If she’d been in my church group, I’d know how much her family was worth.”

“Well, that’s not the way my church operates. I wore my pearls to church once because I was going somewhere afterwards. And my mother -- not some socialist, my mother the alum state-board member -- said it was too much.”

“Anyway,” Rebecca said. Then she went on to the next name. Marilyn hadn’t met most of them, and she lacked the observational skills -- or prejudices -- that allowed some of the seniors to comment on someone they had only seen across the room while concentrating on someone else. She did speak on some of the others, including Marie.

“Look, she asked me about a high school boyfriend who wasn’t going to join a frat. I minimized the problem, like we all do for all problems.” After all, they wanted the girls to want them, even when they didn’t want the girls. “But, if you don’t want a pledge dating a non-Greek, don’t bid on her. She knows that she can stick with him. You can say you don’t think that boy suits her, but you can’t say that Zates don’t date non-Greeks. She knows better.” She referred to this much more briefly when she spoke about Sandra, another girl with a boyfriend who was thinking of not pledging.

At the end of the week, the meetings became serious. What bids were they going to make? Some were obvious, and -- because they were obvious -- they would have other bids and were, therefore, the least likely to choose Zeta. The questions became serious about some of the marginal ones.

“Look,” Rebecca pointed out, “last year we put out 40 bids and we only got 12 acceptances. We have to put out more bids this year.”

“That’s all very well for you to say,” Patricia responded. “For six months they’ll be pledges, you’ll hold your nose for the next six months, and you’ll go down in history as turning around the number of acceptances. Some of us will have to live with these guys for two years longer. If it’s Bonnie or an empty bed, I’d take an empty bed any time.”

“Tell the house board that.”

They finally agreed on 42 names. Marie and Sandra, the two girls with non-Greek boyfriends, were among them. The number of acceptances was a welcome surprise. 16 girls would be their new pledges, including Sandra and Brittany. They hauled a triple bunk up from the basement to the third floor. One of the pledge rooms would hold two full triple bunks.

“I’m a success, thanks to the rush committee,” Willa told her and Barbara. “54 occupied beds instead of 52 last year. The house board will give short shrift to any other complaints.”

“You know,” Marilyn said, “four to a room was crowded last year. I don’t know how they’re going to handle six. You could give the pledge class four rooms of four apiece and split up one triple. Send them to three of the doubles.”

“And get screams from nine women. I had four roommates, if not five, my pledge year. I survived.” And that was how it went.

To set an example to the pledges, she was in a blouse and skirt for her next movie date with Andy. This time they went to Bound For Glory. Andy found them a dark parking place off the main roads. There were more of these around Champaign than there ever would be around Evanston. For all that the campus was full of couples looking for the same thing, once you got off campus and out of town all you had to find was some trees among the corn fields.

When they were in the back seat, Andy helped her onto his lap with her right side towards him. They had a deep kiss before he began unbuttoning her blouse. He had a little trouble opening her bra with his left hand. Then the kisses were even better while his hand held her neck so possessively. His other hand stroked her tits or cupped one. He finally broke the kiss to ease her further away on his knees. Then he bent forward to kiss her right tit. When he sucked the nipple, a thrill ran through her. Her left tit was chilly, but she felt hot between her legs.

“Oh, Marilyn.”

“Oh, Andy.” She’d finally found a response to his habitual comment on any intimacy between them. After another long kiss, she straightened her clothes. They got back into the front seat, and he drove them back. He seemed to be going away from the light pollution at first, but they were on the highway going towards campus soon enough.

“Dad was right about me, you know. Even if he ignored me at the time.”

“Huh?” He was referring to something, but -- even if she’d been present -- she and his dad had been present together too often for that to be much of a marker.

“I did like sitting next to you, even in church. We don’t always have to be doing this, much as I enjoy doing this. I like being with you.”

“Yeah. That was fun.” And, as much fun as sitting together had been, the declaration to their old community that they were a couple had been even more satisfying. Probably that was where Brittany had heard -- maybe she’d even seen.

“Well, want to do that again? I could pick you up Sunday morning.”

“I don’t know. I tried out the campus ministry twice. Can’t say I was impressed.”

“Well, we have a car now. Much as Dad would hate having provided the means, we could go church shopping.” That sounded interesting. And Sunday mornings weren’t busy times around the house. She’d have to be back for Sunday dinner, though. Still, she could wear to chapter meetings what she wore to church with no problem. Still, his comments on his father weren’t encouraging. The man had wanted her for an ally, and she’d enjoyed the alliance.

“Why would he hate that?”

“Man has a bitter prejudice against church shopping. You attend your local church. Still, it wasn’t mentioned in the bet. This is my car now. He only pays insurance.” She suddenly saw that the totally reasonable Jim Trainor that she’d known was the controlling parent against whom Andy was rebelling -- if rebelling in a quiet, Andy, sort of way. If he’d had her parents for a week, he would see the advantages his father gave. Still, she was not a neutral observer; she was on Andy’s side, right or wrong. Anyway, they could try. That’s what church shopping meant, after all, trying things out.

“Want to?” Which was asking him a silly question. If he didn’t want to, he wouldn’t have asked. But another chance to see Andy every week was a bonus.

“Want me to pick you up at 10:15 Sunday?” he asked her.

“Sure.”

That would give them 45 minutes to find the place. By the time they were at that place in the conversation, they were parked outside the house. He walked her to the porch. She turned while he was on the lower step, and they had one last kiss. When she shut the door behind her, he turned and walked back to the car. The first floor of the house was nearly empty, and she went up to her new room immediately.

“Nice date?” asked Barbara.

“Very.”

“Andy?” asked Willa. She nodded.

“When am I going to meet this guy?” asked Barbara.

“Whenever.”

“He, as Marilyn said in a chapter meeting, comes to the door before a date. But, then, they walk.”

“No longer. He still comes to the door. He’s a gentleman. But, this year, he’s a gentleman with a car.”

“He has a car, Marilyn? How nice.”

“Yeah. Sometimes that clump of trees down the street got cold, or wet, or crowded.” Willa laughed. Barbara looked puzzled. “We’ll have to show it to you sometime. It’s the only privacy that pedestrians can get for a little good-night kiss.”

“Don’t let her fool you, Barbara. Her Andy is always willing to give her a good-night kiss on the front porch or even inside.”

“You’d think,” Barbara said, “she meant something further along in making out than a simple kiss.”

“Ha! You don’t know Andy,” Willa said. Marilyn was trying to treat this teasing to a dignified silence, but this was too much.

“You’re the one who doesn’t know Andy, Willa.” She stripped and put on her nightie, robe, and slippers to go down the hall for her night-time preparations.

“She takes it with good grace,” she heard Willa explain as she went down the hall. “I’ve been exaggerating, but her Andy is the ultimate boy scout -- dean’s list.”

They were both in their beds when she got back. She slipped into hers and was soon asleep.

Andy, in his suit, picked her up before church. They got there way early. The sermon didn’t impress her, and the hymns, to an electric organ, dragged. Still, being a couple was fun. On campus, they were a couple, but people knew her or -- less often -- knew Andy. The couple was Marilyn and her Andy. Back in Evanston, it had been ‘Oh those two whom we knew separately are now a couple.’ When they walked into a rural church, the congregation saw a new couple long before they recognized Andy or Marilyn. They agreed to try another church the next week.

On the way back, they compared schedules. Andy was taking American Lit, too -- Literature of the United States, to be formal. They figured that Wednesday afternoon, right after her class in American Lit, coincidentally, was a good time to study together. She’d try for the study room in her house then.

Just when they were starting to look like an all-work-and-no-play couple, Andy took her to the first university dance. They sat out a few fast dances together, but every time one of them danced, they danced together. Andy found them a nice dark spot afterwards.

In the back seat, they shared a deep kiss. With her blouse and bra open, she sat on his lap sideways. He stroked her tits while they had another deep kiss. While he sucked her right tit, his hand caressed her knee through her panty hose. She briefly wondered how far she should let him go up her skirt before she stopped him, but this was Andy. He didn’t go above the knee.

“Oh, Marilyn,” he said when they broke. “I love you.”

“I love you, too.” They had another long kiss after that declaration. Then, she put her clothes back together, and he drove her back. The kiss on the porch steps was as gentle and romantic as the kiss after church had been. And, late as they had been that night, they were a couple in another church the next morning. The singing there was better -- at least faster -- but the preaching was as dull.

The pledge period wasn’t as great a strain on the actives as it was on the pledges, but somebody had to supervise all those activities. The pledge committee couldn’t do it all. Marilyn was chosen to teach the pledges the Zeta songs. She was given a pitch pipe. First, she sang a solo, then she led the 16 in a choral rendition until they sounded like some of them knew it. Then she called on each pledge to sing a solo. Some, she noted the names, could produce something reasonable with nothing but the first note. Some couldn’t get the second note right having been given the first. Two couldn’t even duplicate the first note when the pitch pipe had given it to them.

She decided to delegate. She split the best singers into two groups and assigned each group to learn one song in the next three days. Each single decent singer was assigned one of the hopeless ones and told to get her to match a single note in that time.

Studying again with Andy was as pleasant as it had been the previous quarter. He picked her up after class and drove her to the house. Nobody else claimed the study room Wednesday afternoon. They put in a solid ninety minutes on the books. Then he put a chair where it blocked the door. He kissed her and lifted her onto the chair. He kneaded her butt while burying his face between her tits. She kissed his ears and the top of his head. When they broke off, he moved the chair back to the table.

Thursday night, she got the entire group of pledges to produce a decent version of three songs. The solos from the worst singers were as hopeless as before. She figured that all of them had had some sort of training -- music classes, church, sing-alongs. If they hadn’t learned then, she wasn’t going to produce any great miracles this quarter. She did assign the last two songs to her separate groups of good singers.

Sunday, Andy took her to First Methodist, Urbana. They both felt it had been the best of the three they’d sampled.

“Let’s keep shopping, though,” Andy said. That was fair. He looked up the churches, found the routes to the more rural ones, and checked on the hours. Besides, being a new couple was still fun.

“Sure ... If you enjoy sitting with me, you have another opportunity.” He wriggled his eyebrows at her, which meant taking his eyes off the road in a frightening fashion. Well, the car kept going straight, and she shouldn’t nag. “You could take me to the home football games.”

“So I could. The first one is in six days. Do you want to go?”

“I feel like I’m begging for a date.”

“When the reality is that you have a dense boyfriend.”

The weather was warm. Andy was agreeable to sitting with the Zate pack. They could bitch all they wanted about a non-Greek boyfriend, but when they sat with their boyfriends, it was with the fraternity -- not with the Zates. Lisa and Diane asked her for rides back, and Andy agreed. He let them out at the house. Then they rode further for a short session of kissing. It was still bright day, though, and they didn’t go very far.

Still, that was farther than they went the next day after church. Somehow, the Sunday noon goodbye kisses were only on the porch and chaste enough that Mom wouldn’t have objected to seeing them -- Hell! Dad might not have objected. In the first place, it was shortly after noon. In the second place, they had just come from church. Despite how she’d behaved one time in Evanston, she didn’t think that making out was a proper after-church activity. And, as far as she could tell, Andy preferred to keep their making out to private places in the dark.

Indeed, their intimacies were advancing, or standing still, on parallel tracks. Every evening date, movie or dance, Andy’s hand was going further up her skirt. He wasn’t pushing it -- she never felt the need to resist when she was with Andy -- but he was slowly getting bolder and she was getting more excited every time.

After the study dates, they would make out. Except for his hands on her butt, though, it would all be above her waist. Mostly, with her standing on a chair that blocked the door, he would kiss all over her tits and suck on her nipples. When the weather turned cold before the next football game, she had an idea. Actually, considering that the pledges were expected to attend every game and the bus service to the stadium went all over campus after they got on, she had two ideas.

She decided to take a blanket to wrap around her and Andy. She felt a little sorry for the six pledges crammed into one room, and she -- after asking Andy’s permission -- invited 3 of them along. She suggested that they bring a blanket, too. Brittany was one of the three.

“Andy,” she said. “I recognize the car, but I didn’t know it was yours. I thought it was your family’s.”

“It was,” he said. “Dad gave it to me.”

“For making dean’s list,” Marilyn added. The bet was more complicated than that, but Andy had won the bet and made dean’s list with the same grades.

“Boy,” said Robin, “I wish my Dad would give me a car for making dean’s list.”

“Honey,” said Janet, “I’ll give you a Rolls-Royce if you make dean’s list.”

“As if you could afford a Rolls-Royce.”

“As if you could make dean’s list.” All three laughed at that.

“I’ll bet,” Brittany said, “I was in this car before you were, Marilyn.”

“Yeah,” Andy said, “but this is your first time in the back seat.” The three of them were sitting on two blankets in the back seat while she shared the front seat with Andy.

When they got to the stadium, she had the pledges sit together. She and Andy sat directly behind them. She had planned out the blanket. She was wearing jeans, a university sweatshirt, and her parka. She told Andy to wrap the blanket over his shoulders like a Superman cape and then sit down. That dragged the blanket on the ground, so he took a lot of folds around his shoulders and tried again. She stood in front of him, he opened the blanket and lifted her onto his lap. She crossed her arms and grabbed the blanket. By simply pulling, she wrapped it around them. She was warm soon enough and got one hand free long enough to unzip her parka. He was nuzzling her ear before the teams were on the field. When his hand stroked her front, it easily parted her parka. He cupped her left tit through the sweatshirt and found that she wasn’t wearing a bra. Soon, both hands were at the bottom of the sweatshirt and slipping inside. His hands were like ice, and she shivered.

“Sorry,” he whispered in her ear. He pulled his hands down.

“No, don’t.” He clenched his hands into fists, then wiped them against one another. When he put them against her skin again, she found that these actions hadn’t made them much warmer. Still, she wanted them, cold or not, on her tits. The chill wasn’t the only thing that made her nipples stand out. They spent the rest of the game like that -- watching and cheering the action with their heads outside the blanket, making out like mad with their bodies and hands inside the blanket.