Hell Week Read Online Free PDF

you're enjoying Rush."

    "Don't you mean Formal Recruitment?" I replied. "Right. And are you?"

    I hedged my answer. "It's been very interesting."

    Another laugh. "How tactful of you."

    "How do you stand it?" I looked around the room at the blue and khaki members, the rushees in their sun- dresses and sandals. "Smiling and asking dumb questions all night?"

    "Wait until tomorrow. It's Skit Night."

    "Oh God." The groan slipped out before I could catch it. I hadn't meant to be that honest. This Devon was either genuinely disarming or very sneaky.

    "We all had to go through it," she said. "Think of it as a rite of passage."

    I could be sneaky, too, I guess. "What do you remember most from your Rush experience?"

    She smiled. "The friends I made. How overwhelming everything seemed, when you go through that door and girls are swooping down at you. Those dumb songs all the houses sing."

    "Is it easier on the other side? Except for the lame songs, I mean."

    "It can be stressful at some places. This is serious busi- ness. Most houses have to make a quota."

    "The SAXis don't?"

    "We keep a smaller membership. We're very selective, so our pressure is on finding the right girls, not just the right number."

    I must have looked surprised at her frankness because Devon laughed again. "It's not money or class or GPA . It's not easy to define at all. Our members just know when a girl is right, usually early on. And usually our pledges know when SAXi is right for them."

    Something about the way she said that: "just know." How many times had I described my intuition that way? I just knew things.

    "Did you `just know' that SAXi was for you?"

    I expected a flippant, canned answer. Instead she gazed at me for a moment, an odd sort of half smile on her lips. "Yeah." Her tone was uninterpretable. "SAXi sort of chooses us, Maggie. You'll know, too."

    I couldn't tell if she meant that as a good thing.

    "Hi, Devon." A new girl joined us--a young woman, really, with maturity and an air of command. "Are you going to in- troduce me to your friend? You've been speaking together for almost ten minutes."

    Devon's freckles disappeared into her flush, confirming that the reprimand hadn't been my imagination. I wondered if it was really the ten-minute monopoly, or if the other girl could read the exchange of information from across the room.

    "Of course," she said. "Maggie, this is Kirby, our chapter president. Kirby, this is Maggie. She's an English major, and lives at home."

    I glanced at her, expecting a smile or a wink, some hint at the shared joke. But with a smile that didn't reach her eyes, Devon took her leave, moving on in the rotation.

    "How are you enjoying Rush?" Kirby asked.

    "Well enough, thank you." I caught myself speaking to her like an authority figure, which was crazy and disturbing. She wasn't my president. "I was enjoying talking to Devon," I said pointedly. As a member came by with a silver tray full of glasses of lemonade, she snagged one and offered it with a napkin. "Have a drink?"

    I eyed the beverage as if the decorative twist of lemon might jump out and bite me. "This is my fourth party of the night. My back teeth are already singing `Anchors Aweigh.' "

    She smiled. "It's a little party trick. Gives you something to do with your hands."

    "In that case." I took the glass, mostly to get her to leave me alone about it. No wonder Devon had scuttled obediently on her way.

    "Now that we've been through the niceties . . ." Kirby gestured toward the wooden folding chairs set artfully around a cleared space. "Maybe you'd like to take a seat. We're about to have a short presentation on our philan- thropy."

    "How thrilling." If President Kirby noticed my irony, she didn't let it show. Hers was the gently imperturbable smile of a political hostess.

    I slouched into a spot next to Holly. The space contained a piano and a Chinese screen, behind which I could just de- tect movement. "Please God, don't let it be a