Leaving Brooklyn by Lynne Sharon Schwartz

Author:Lynne Sharon Schwartz
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Hawthorne Books
Published: 2011-10-21T04:00:00+00:00

IN MID-NOVEMBER THE sorority interviews were held at the apartment of one of the members. The custom was to dress up, so I wore a suit and stockings and high-heeled pumps like an aspiring corporation executive, though no such ambition could then have lodged in the heart of any girl in Brooklyn. I sat gingerly on a plastic-covered sofa in a living room carpeted in sky blue, and, with the other pledges, drank tea served with the tea bag, its little paper label on a string dangling over the rim of the cup. I didn’t know what to do with the tea bag, so I rested it on the edge of my saucer, where it dribbled an amber pool and slid into the center of this pool every time I lifted the cup. We were pretending to be ladies, to be our mothers, and a few sorority sisters were on hand, scrutinizing the way we managed our tea and cookies. Maybe the tea bags were left in on purpose, as a test. Most of the members were down the hall in the bedroom, where one by one the pledges would be summoned for interviews. After a while they emerged, limp, and slunk silently away.

My name was called. A girl led me to the bedroom door and before I knew what was happening, tied a scarf around my eyes. I heard jabbering on the other side of the door, but when I was led in it subsided to an absolute stillness, as our voices in the school auditorium were stilled by a warning chord on the piano. Sightless, I was guided to a hard straight chair. I must have been in the center of the room; I felt space at my back. I wanted to reach out to find a wall, place myself in relation to something firm, but I reined in the impulse.

“We understand, Audrey, that you want to be a member of Chi Delta Epsilon. Is that right?”

“Yes.”

“How much do you want it?”

“Well, I really do want to … I’m not sure what you mean by how much.”

“We mean, how far would you be willing to go for it?”

Each question came from a different voice, as if these were lines read from a script, and the voices were disguised—I couldn’t identify them. I kept turning my head in the direction of each voice; one was definitely behind me. Where could placid, reliable Susan be? Could she really be a part of this?

“Well, it depends …”

“Maybe if we ask you some questions… For instance, if the sorority asked you to dye your hair green, would you do it?”

“Dye my hair green? I don’t… If everyone else did, maybe… just for a while …”

“Do you mean to say you’re that much of a conformist?”

These were not the kinds of questions I had expected (hobbies, ambitions, favorite movie stars) or knew what to do with. There must be better answers, correct answers, if only I could figure them out.

“I didn’t say that.

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