“Hand me the mascara,” I said to Audrey, staring into her eyes and checking her eyeshadow. Beyond the door, I could hear the muttering of the audience and the shuffling of frantic feet behind the curtain. The show was almost on and in my opinion, Audrey was less than half ready. Audrey turned her head slightly and looked at the mascara bottle which was, by all rights, mere inches from both of us.

“Um, it’s right there,” She said. “Can’t you just-“

“Hand me the mascara, pledge,” I said, putting as much emphasis on the word as I could. “You’re not special, Audrey. If you’re going to be a Gamma Alpha Tau girl, we’re going to treat you like every other pledge in the house. You sure that’s what you want?”

Audrey reluctantly reached onto the table and picked up the black bottle. I snatched it out of her hand and placed my other hand on her forehead, pushing her back slightly in her chair and bathing her face in the dull yellow light emitted from the vanity mirror. Carefully, I held the mascara wand beneath her left eyelid, making sure to press the bristles against the lashes.

“Blink,” I ordered. She did. Her eyelash ran through the brush, dousing it in mascara. I moved the brush over slightly and said it again. “Blink.”

“Tiffany, I can do this myself,” She protested as I leaded in further, drinking in the utter discomfort that was more than defining her appearance now.

“No you can’t,” I said firmly. “You suck at eyeliner and mascara, we both know this. Blink.”

“Are you guys about done in here?” Melissa poked her head into the dressing room door.

“Yep,” I called back. “Just need to finish her mascara.”

“Alright, I need Audrey out here at the beginning, um, Tiffany you’re on in act two, you know your lines, right?”

“Uh yeah, the barricade thing,” I nodded, still doing my best to concentrate on Audrey’s eyelashes. The girl was a mess. Both of them.

“Yeah, the barricade thing,” She confirmed. “Get Audrey out here.”

“Moving as fast as I can,” I said offhandedly as Melissa disappeared into the hallway.

“Tiffany my neck hurts,” Audrey complained. I was still pushing back on her forehead.

“What year was Gamma Alpha Tau founded?” I demanded, smirking at her.

“What?” She asked, a bit fearfully.

“What year was Gamma Alpha Tau founded, pledge?” I asked again. Her eyes darted around the room, I could feel pressure from her forehead as she tried rather futility to squirm out of my grasp.

“Um..eighteen…ninety…six?” She asked, staring up at me.

“Eighteen ninety-seven,” I snapped. “Get it right. Gamma Alpha Tau, what does it stand for?”

“I um…I…”

“Two minutes!” Melissa called out from the hallway.

“Um?” I demanded. “Is that your answer? Did you just join for the pillow fights, or do you want to actually learn about our house? Come on pledge, speak up, I can’t hear you.”

“Um...Grace…Accutity…um…I…uh…”

“Come on,” I hissed. “It’s one word, it can’t be that hard.”

“Ten…tenacity,” Audrey said the correct word, finally. “Grace, Acuity, Tenacity-“

“Why?” I demanded.

“What?”

“Why does it stand for that?”

“I…I don’t know,” She admitted. I moved forward a little bit, practically straddling her lap and moving my face within an inch of hers.

“Because,” I said, allowing my hot breath to sear across her face. “In your life you must be beautiful, but you also need to be precise, alert, and ready to handle everything that comes your way. You need to be ready to perform and come out on top. What’s our mascot?”

“The…the lioness,” Audrey spoke correctly once again. I smiled a bit.

“Because the lioness embodies everything that Gamma Alpha Tau stands for. Beautiful, graceful, but ready to strike. Are you ready to strike, pledge? Probably not, but you will be.” I moved my hand away from her forehead and allowed her to climb out of the chair, watching her mount unsteady feet. “Now get out there, and perform. Do us proud, be a GAT girl.”

I literally smacked her on the ass and pushed her toward the door. She looked back at me almost fearfully. I almost grinned.

“Hey,” Aleah said, walking through the door. She must have just passed Audrey in the hall. “How’s our new pledge doing?”

“Hopefully in fear for her life,” I shrugged. “I’m not treating her any difference from the other girls.”

“Good,” She nodded. “So um, I forgot to tell you, we need to get a letter out to the athletics department, they want us to do a flag football thing with the other houses. You’re the external VP now, so…”

“Yeah,” I said, rolling my eyes a bit. “I definitely am. We also have that telethon, the fundraising event. Director Madson doesn’t want us to stay in the house, he’s setting up a bunch of table in the gym, and phones, and stuff. God I hope it won’t be televised.”

“I hope not either,” She laughed a bit. “Look um, after the play, tonight, we were planning on throwing a party, are you in?”

“Will there be wine?” I asked, half jokingly.

“Yeah, and beer, and boys, the usual,” She laughed. “We’re going to invite DAM over.”

“You mean DEM?”

“DEM is too snobby,” She snorted. “I want to get in trouble tonight.”

“The pledges can wait on us,” I laughed. “Make Audrey go through her paces, at least.”

“Yeah about that,” Aleah said. “If we have her working the party we need to keep an eye on her. She doesn’t know how to say no and I don’t want some DAM guy dragging her off. I mean, we know she likes girls and…we can’t have some guy sticking his hand up her skirt. Can you imagine?”

“Jesus, yeah,” I nodded. “I can keep her occupied, make her stay near us at all times, that should do it.”

“Just don’t torment her too much,” Aleah instructed. “I don’t want Ms. Trace to catch wind of us hazing her.”

“I think our actual hazing days might be over,”I sighed. “It’s too bad, I really wanted to mess with her.”

“Not true,” Aleah corrected me. “Hell Week is coming up, and Ms. Trace is off at Panhellenic.”

“We can’t put Audrey through Hell Week,” I laughed. “We can just like…send her over to Tri Pi to do pledge stuff.”

It was true, sometimes we loaned pledges to Tri Pi to do yard work; there was always PLENTY to do over there, from chlorinating the pool, to cutting the lawn, power washing the side of the house, it was a never-ending cess pool of manual labor and Sakiya was always happy for the help.

“No,” Aleah said, her eyes narrowing. “If she wants to be a pledge in this house, she’s going to go through the same things all the other girls do. Look, Tiffany, I’m pissed, okay? She went behind our backs and got placed with us on a COB. We didn’t have a chance to review her application or ding her out. I’m not saying we would have but I would have liked to have the option, you know?”

“I get that,” I agreed. Outside I heard the play starting, the opening number ‘Look Down’ was belted out loud and clear. “We could…just try to go easy on her though, right?”

“Nothing easy about being a woman,” Aleah shook her head. “She’d better learn that right now. Alright, I’m going to get out there into the audience. Um, break an arm, or whatever.”

“Leg,” I corrected. “Break a leg.”

“Right,” She shook her head and exited the dressing room. As she did, I caught a brief glimpse of a young girl, maybe eight or nine years old rocketing past the dressing room, an older girl close in tow trying to wrangle her. I hated kids.

“Makayla!” The older girl hissed. “Get back here!”

“My name is Michael!” A distant, squeaky voice shouted. “I don’t want to play stupid Eponine!”

Right, the younger Eponine. Whatever. Was this a theater or a petting zoo? I grabbed the folds of my dress and prepared to exit the dressing room. Before, I didn’t really want to do this, but now I had to admit I felt a little bit exited. I smiled as I walked through the door, it was our big night, I guess. I wish I’d known what was coming after.