Flip Flops

I told her I was wearing flip flops. I knew we had different definitions of the shoe after living together for a year.

It’s not that I really wanted her to look bad. It was more that I needed her to. I was up against genetics. She was an unnatural blonde who looked exceptionally natural, eyes the color of the first blue of the sky after the sun had risen. She had a petite frame and milky white skin that everyone called glowy instead of pale. A light dusting of freckles peppered her cheekbones; the cute kind, not the kind that coated your skin from too much sun exposure.

Freshman year, we were roommates but nothing more. We were two people who tolerated one another, because we had no one else.

We both watched the other girls in our class walk arm in arm through the campus quad, get into bars on campus with a fake ID, or by handing her number to the bouncer with a fluttering of their eyelashes. We watched them slip into Ubers wearing high heels and short skirts, their faces painted on.

We never had any of these experiences, which was what we had in common.

It was towards the end of the school year, when things were not looking up as my mother had promised, that I decided To Do Something About It. We were not going to be roommates sophomore year — we were both branching out to other girls in our programs who were in the same boat as us, the grass surely had to be greener — but in case it wasn’t, I had a back-up plan that I was kind enough to let her in on.

We would rush a sorority.

Rush happened the first weekend on campus, which would give us all the weekends going forward guaranteed friends and guaranteed weekend plans. We planned to meet by the Husky statue on campus before catching the bus from the Student Union to go up into the Greek Village. The road to the Village was largely uphill, and we couldn’t risk the sweat stains.

When I stood next to her for the first time since the spring, my tanned skin that I was proud of after layering on for the last four months of summer break all of a sudden looked leathered and worn. With my brown eyes and brown hair and olive skin and brown Tory Burch sandals, I was walking mud.

But it was at the Husky Statue I found the satisfying flash of panic splay across her face at her plastic white Old Navy flip flops next to my Tory Burch sandals. She scrunched her toes and gave her feet a wide-eyed glare, as if she were surprised the feet she was looking at were attached to her body, her unpainted toenails on display in a plastic straightjacket. She quickly corrected her face as she always did, but I saw the panic. I was thrilled, a low vibration feeling like it was pulsing through my veins. There was not enough time to go back to the dorm to change, exactly as I anticipated when I planned our meeting time.

Without another option, I boarded the bus with my Tory Burch sandals and she with her Old Navy flip flops, to begin what finally felt like the rest of our lives.

On the bus, aside from her hunched shoulders, she looked as delicate as a creamsicle, her pale skin on display from her butter yellow halter top and plain denim shorts. She was the type of person that could dress as plainly as she wanted; her face made up for the rest. If she was a stranger, which she almost was, I wouldn’t look at her twice if I passed her on the street. My white linen shorts and bubble gum pink tank top, but most of all, sitting next to her, accentuated all of my brown features. I dug my nails into my palm. I was still mud, even if she did wear Old Navy flip flops.

After signing in and putting on our sticker name tags, we stood in a single file line as we had done in grade school, outside of the house every girl dreamed to be let in to. With our last games being alphabetically similar, Cooke and Connor, we knew would be in the same rush group, and travel house to house together. I was glad I could keep an eye on her; to see how the other girls reacted to her.

As soon as the doors opened, I knew she didn’t stand a chance.

Their rush t-shirts matched the color of her butter yellow shirt, and she instantly looked like she was trying way too hard. With a quick glance around the room, I could only find one pair of Old Navy flip flops in a sea of designer sandals. I bit my lip to hold back the smile tugging on my lips.

Alpha Phi had a great philanthropy, but most importantly, they had the reputation for being the hottest girls on campus. They could get into any party or any bar they wanted, any party, any sporting event, or any other campus event I could think of. My assessment of the room confirmed what I already knew; requirements to get into this sorority included being hot, skinny, and confident. The panic she showed earlier gave me hope she lacked at least one attribute.

The rest of the weekend passed in a blur. Each day, the visits were longer, the groups were smaller, and the amount of houses we visited each day less. Each day we started in the front of bordeaux door of the Alpha Phi house.

She didn’t wear the Old Navy flip flops the rest of the weekend.

Before I knew it, we were done with house visits, the conversations, the constant smiling. We were sitting on our envelopes on the campus quad, the director of Fraternity and Sorority life on a stage talking to us potential new members, going on and on about the importance of Greek life and the positive impact we were going to make on campus. His speech was all that stood between us finding out what was written on the card inside of our envelopes, and what the rest of our college experience was going to be.

I knew the inside of my envelope said Alpha Phi. There was no other option. I would no longer have to stare at the ceiling of my dorm room on a Saturday night anymore, knowing she was doing the same in the bed across the room from me. I would meet a boy, I would get drunk. I would wear short skirts and heels, and be the person everyone else wanted to be with.

After I drowned out the voice from the microphone with my thoughts, I saw the commotion around me. All of a sudden, there was girls screaming, running to fling their arms around the girls who they would now call their sisters for life.

I frantically ripped my envelope open, searching for her with my eyes to see who she was hugging. Before I could spot her, she appeared in front of me, shaking my shoulders.

I got it, I got it! I got Alpha phi! she said, with her unnatural blonde hair and unnatural white teeth and naturally pale skin.

My stomach dropped. I think I smiled, I can’t remember. I pulled my card out of my envelope. It would be okay if we were sisters; there were plenty of girls in the sorority. We would both find our own people.

I looked down at my card and saw the words Theta Theta Tau, and my stomach felt like it fell out of my body and onto the freshly mowed grass below.

What is it? she asked, registering my face.

I didn’t answer, so she took matters into her own hands, which is something I liked to think she got from me. She read my card and nodded, handing it back to me.

They were my second, she said, before giving me the first genuine hug she ever had, and heading back over to a group of jumping, screaming, happy, Alpha Phi girls.

It wasn’t until weeks later when I saw her again. I was outside of our campus late night pizza place, bumming a cigarette off of a frat boy with one of my new Theta-acquaintances. I saw her hand the bouncer an ID card, and the slight shake of his head. I saw her whisper in his ears, and his eyebrows raise. I knew she didn’t have a fake. He gestured with his head to go in. She was wearing tall white heels and a short white shirt, and still the butter yellow halter tap. Her hair was cut, a bob that framed her face.

Every time I saw her after that, she was always kind to me. She always made it a point to say hi to her ex-roommate. More often than not, when I saw her, her arm was looped with the arm of another tall blondes, and she’d wave at me with her long fingernails.

I never saw her wear Old Navy flip flops again.