Free Sorority Sisters by Claudia Welch

hung up, and huddle in the center of an air-conditioned house.
    â€œI’m going to get the French dip,” Ellen says. “Screw the calories. I’ve earned them.”
    â€œDiane? What are you in the mood for?” Karen says.
    â€œHired labor,” I say. “Cheap.”
    â€œRemember, it’s a dry heat,” Ellen says on a cackle of laughter.
    Now that we’re in the house, it should be cooler, and it is, but the house is still hot because the damn door is open because every single girl who’s living in the Beta Pi house this year is moving in. Why we all have to move in during the same two-hour window is beyond me; if they had any sense at all, they’d schedule us in shifts, but then the house front door would be open for days, not hours, and that probably would make it all worse.
    Everything is worse. Just a hot, sticky mess.
    We get our room assignments; I’m in the back four-way with Ellen, Missy, and Pi, a room that overlooks the roof deck, hot as hell right now, and Karen and Laurie are in a four-way with Holly and Candy. I’m dutifully lugging my clothes up from the car when I bump into Karen in a narrow part of the second-floor hall and drop half the outfits I’m carrying, and the whole mess falls onto the floor. And that’s when I burst into tears.
    â€œDiane, what is it?” Karen says to me. “What’s the matter?”
    Damned if I know. I can’t stop crying long enough to figure it out. Before I’m required to figure it out, Karen has me in her arms and is leading me out onto the blistering roof deck, and that makes me cry harder, but she just sits me down on a chaise longue, her arms still around me, and she kind of rocks me, and all the while I’m sobbing like an idiot.
    â€œIt’s okay,” she says. “It’s going to be okay. I’ll move you in myself. I’ll do all the work, and you know how I hate work, and someday you’ll have to pay me back, big-time, with double-digit interest, but don’t worry about that now. Don’t worry about anything. It’s okay. I promise. It will be okay.”
    â€œDamn loan shark,” I say on a wet hiccup.
    â€œIt’s a living,” she says, holding me tighter, rocking me gently back and forth, her head pressed against mine. “Come on. You’re okay, right? It’s going to be okay.”
    â€œI’m not okay,” I say, wiping my nose on the hem of my shirt. “I fucked up, Karen. I totally fucked up.”
    â€œWhat happened?”
    â€œI washed out of the flight program,” I say. “I wanted to be a pilot, like Dad, and I flunked math, and I can’t navigate, and then I got sick in the A-4, or I almost got sick, but you can’t be a pilot if you can’t fly a dogfight without getting sick; never mind the fact that I can’t navigate worth shit. I did the Dilbert Dunker okay, aced that, and did the swim test and deep-water survival, but I got sick in the A-4. I’m not going to be a navy pilot.”
    I’m not going to be able to follow in Dad’s footsteps, not that Dad ever made a point of telling me he wanted me to shadow his career trajectory, but I had certain expectations that I would, and he must have had the same expectations, and now they’re toast.
    I flunked out.
    â€œBut you’re still in the navy. There are other things you can do, right?” she asks.
    â€œBut I’m not going to be a pilot,” I repeat. I’ve been repeating it to myself ever since flying over Arizona and trying not to blow chow all over the cockpit.
    â€œI’m sorry,” she says, running her hand over my hair, smoothing it down my back, pressing me into her side, holding me close.
    Mom and Dad didn’t do this. I made the story funny for Mom and Dad. I told them, “Math plus navigation multiplied by motion sickness equals not being ideal pilot material.” Then I laughed. Dad