Dirty Rush (13 page)

The next few seconds happened in slow motion, or at least that's how it seemed at the time. Unable to pull over and let
Olivia out of the car, and with no back windows to roll down, Jane's maternal instinct must've given her the brilliant idea to roll down the Cabriolet's convertible top.

So there we were, flying down the street at probably around forty-five miles an hour and down went the convertible top. Just as it passed over us in the backseat, Olivia stuck her head up into the breeze, and like a mermaid in a fountain spouting water, a stream of puke came flying out of her pursed lips. Somehow, gravity was kind to Steph, Meg, and me, because the spray's trajectory arched over the car and missed us completely. I'd never seen anything like it, and I hope I never do again.

“Okay, I feel a lot better,” Olivia said, as she wiped her mouth off with the back of her hand and tried to get her shit together. “Also, I hope you girls will all accept my deepest, most sincere apology for that behavior.”

“It's fine,” said Meg, who had already moved on from the puke to another furious bout of texting. I was in a state of shock, as were Jane and Leyla, so the rest of the drive is blurry. All I know is we got them there.

When we picked them up from the bar an hour-ish later to drive them all home, the three girls could barely talk, they were laughing so hard. Supposedly a Jäger shot had put Olivia over the edge again, but this time she managed to find Jenna Westerly's “heinous Michael Kors knockoff” and use that as a toilet instead.

And this was just the first night of DD.

T
he next night, Saturday, was not exactly as raucous as the first, but it was definitely bizarre.

After five round trips from the BZ house to the Alpha house, Jane, Leyla, and I were sent to pick up two seniors (whom I didn't know too well) from an apartment party in town on Windward Street, which seemed to be the street for apartment parties. Marley Cohen, the louder of the two sisters, had texted Jane to pick her up and seemed super anxious about it. Jane said she was using words like “immediately,” “dying,” and “ASAP,” but when Jane asked if we should call an ambulance, she responded with an “absolutely not.”

When we pulled up to the curb outside of the building on Windward, Marley and Samantha (Sam) Schroeder were waiting for us, sharing a cigarette.

“I'm smoking,” Marley said as she hopped in the front seat.

There was another eye roll from the queen of eye rolling, Jane, and off we went. Marley was probably the girl in the house with the most designer clothing in her wardrobe, the one who did the most drugs, and the one who was constantly flying on a private jet to somewhere overseas to visit her “boyfriend Günter.” I was always intrigued by her and to be honest, never really understood her position in this particular group of girls.

She turned the music down and took a long drag from her Marlboro Menthol.

“Let's go for a little drive. I need to regroup,” she slurred, “I need to get out of that party, that fucking party, that girl, this party for a sec . . .”
Marley was holding herself up as if she was completely sober, yet when she opened her mouth you could pretty much tell that she was off-her-ass wasted.

“What do you mean a drive? How far exactly are we going?” Jane looked dubious.

“I just . . . we're going to KFC,” replied Marley, who now had her six-inch heels up on the dashboard.

“As in Kentucky Fried Chicken? Or is that a frat I don't know about yet?” Jane said.

“Yoooooouuu are so funnnnyyy!”

“I know. Okay, no problem, where's the KFC?”

“It's an hour away,” said Sam, who was sitting in between Leyla and me in the backseat.

“Yeah,” agreed Marley, “the only twenty-four-hour KFC is an hour away in Edgewater. Besides, no one will recognize me there, so it's the only option. Oops.” She feigned a smile in Jane's general direction.

“Okay . . .” Jane huffed.

“And last I checked, you guys are supposed to drive us anywhere we need to go. Do I have the correct information, orrrr . . . what?”

Jane responded by not saying anything at all, she just got on the highway, which Sam instructed her to do, and she took driving orders until we got there. They were right; it was an hour at least. But they were also right about it being open at 3:15 on a Sunday morning. And not just the drive-thru.

Marley insisted that we join her and Sam inside, where we all got to witness them plow their way through an extra-large
bucket of fried chicken, a side of mashed potatoes and gravy, an order of mac and cheese, and biscuits.

“You girls will realize very, very soon that other girls are actually not nice people. Like, do you get what I'm saying? I feel like no one's talking besides me here,” Marley proclaimed in between bites of a chicken wing that she was dipping in gravy.

She continued, “Okay? Girls fucking suck and when you are a fortunate, pretty, nice girl like me, then it's EXTRA fucking hard to meet nice people. Like I have trust shit.” She looked at Leyla, who was falling asleep in her seat. “You get it,” Marley said, putting a greasy hand on Leyla's arm. I just sat there sipping on the small Diet Coke that Marley had bought for us as a “thank-you.”

I guess earlier in the night, some girl from another house had called Marley skinny-fat, which she said, “was not something you should ever say to someone's face.” So she was eating her feelings at KFC on a Sunday morning, washing it all down with Red Bull and vodka from a flask. That night, I made a mental note to never use the term
skinny-fat
around any of these girls.

When we got back to campus and we were a few blocks from Marley's apartment building, I saw a girl walking alone out of the corner of my eye. She looked completely hammered, almost toppling over with every step, or I should say, with every skip. She was skipping down the street, barefoot, holding her platform wedges in her hand, her hair a tousled mess. It was actually hilarious. As we drove past her, I saw her smiling face. It was Kenadie.

“Ummmmm . . .” I said
under my breath as we passed her.

No one heard me over the Calvin Harris song that Jane had blasting on her car stereo. I felt bad that I didn't say something; we could've squeezed and given her a ride, I guess.

Not a very sisterly move, Taylor.

Oh well.

W
hen my phone rang at eight the next morning, I thought I was either dead or hallucinating. But I wasn't either of those things. I was just exhausted. The (roughly) five hours of sleep I'd had in the past seventy-two hours wasn't working out. Sleep deprivation was not my thing, but duty called.

Twenty minutes later, I was standing in the driveway of the BZ house with Jane, Leyla, and Kenadie. Somehow, Leyla looked far less tired and far less bedraggled than I did. Even Jane appeared to be holding it together, at least momentarily.
God, my life would be so much easier if I was addicted to Adderall.
Kenadie produced a sheet of paper from the back pocket of her skinny jeans and handed it to me.

“Okay, sluts, ya'll look so fucking pretty right now. But don't you dare think for one second that I won't cunt punt you if you lose this fuckin' piece of paper,” Kenadie said with a severity in her voice that I didn't know she had in her.

There was no way Kenadie had gone to sleep since I'd seen her drunk/belligerent/insane, skipping home at 4:30 in the morning, so I couldn't help but marvel at how put together she seemed.

“Enjoy the next eight hours of y'all's almost fun lives,” she added before walking back into the house.

“Ughh, what does it say?” Jane said as she grabbed what looked like a shopping list from my hands. Jane was over it. I mean, Jane's general disposition was normally “over it” or “almost over it,” but this was extra over it. This was verge-of-tears over it. Whatever she'd been doing to appear “okay” while Kenadie was standing in front of us had vanished the second she'd walked away. Seeing her like this was sobering and it momentarily distracted me from how deeply over it I was. I knew I had to keep my shit together if we were going to get through what I hoped would be the last “bitch” task of my increasingly miserable existence as a pledge.

“It's a fucking scavenger hunt,” Jane announced.

“Like on Easter?” Leyla asked.

“No, you dick, that would be an Easter egg hunt!”

“Oh . . .”

I read the note out loud.

SCAVY HUNTY!!!!!!!

TEAM TAY-TAY, J-MONEY, SEXY ASIAN LEYLA

OK miserable bitches (jk!), you're probably tired from last night, and we get it, but you're gonna have to complete the following TO-DO LIST before 6 p.m. this evening (No Cars Allowed). And please, please, please, pleeeeeeeease don't forget to HAVE FUN, YOU GUYS!

1. Run to the Safeway and buy a condom and a cucumber, lube, ex-lax, and a dozen organic eggs (Please provide receipt.)

2. Completely hollow out the eggs and place them back in the carton. (Save for later)

3. Instagram a photo of all of you standing in Yardley Fountain, naked. (you can cover up nips and puss with your hands if you feel that that's necessary)

4. Go to the Alpha house. (Front door code is 6-1-7-1-0.) Each one of you has to go up to a rando and make out with him. (photo proof )

5. While you're at Alpha, retrieve Kenadie's charm bracelet that she left in Will Boyle's room on the second floor last weekend because she wants it back but she does not want to ever see that boy's acne-battleground of a swine face ever again.

6. Collect pee and cum from an Alpha brother by any means possible. You will not be judged. (please provide photo of the brother holding both “specimen” cups)

7. Return to the house with all collected items and proof.

“Well fuck,” I said, almost to myself.

“I can't do this shit right now. I'm calling my mom,” Leyla said quietly.

“Ley.
No. We are doing this, and we're doing this together,” I said. “I'm not gonna let you quit now. I'm pretty sure that Meg told me that when you get to the scavenger hunt, you're on the home stretch, so just hang in there.” I put on my bravest face to encourage her. “I can hollow eggs unnaturally fast. My mom is crafty as balls so all I'll need is a safety pin and I'm good.”

“Thank God,” Jane said. “My mom's an alcoholic mess who doesn't know how to boil an egg let alone hollow one out. That was honestly the only item on this list that was stressing me out.”

“Well, that's good then, I guess?” Leyla said, clearly confused as to what the appropriate response would be.

The three of us stood there, looking at one another.

“Well, let's do this,” Jane said. “They want us to have fun, so let's fucking go have fun.”

Safeway was actually hilarious. The Sunday-morning vibe at a grocery store was something I'd never experienced. Young dads with baby strollers, grandmas, and a very extensive and diverse array of obese people. We raced around and picked up the items on the list, and since nothing embarrassed Jane we nominated her to walk through the checkout counter and pay for the ridiculous items. Leyla and I stood back and watched as Jane casually and comfortably laid out the cucumber, lube, laxative, eggs, and an
Us Weekly
, which I guess she wanted for herself. A really creepy checkout guy immediately started flirting with her.

“This looks like a good time,” said the clerk through his gray teeth.

“Oh yeah? What do you mean?” Jane replied with a salacious smirk.

“Jumbo cuke, lubricant. I get off in twenty or so . . .”

“Ohhhhh, right. I see. Yeah, I get what this looks like, but I'm actually into girls. So, I'm just gonna go home and lube up this huge, thick cucumber, and then I'm gonna stick it inside of me, like up to . . . here,” Jane indicated nine inches with her hand, “and then my sorority sister Taylor over there,” she said, now pointing to me, “is gonna insert these raw eggs into my ass one by one, while my other very hot, very vulnerable sister, Leyla, drinks this whole bottle of laxative and then shits all over my . . .”

“Okay. We've gotta go,” I said, running over to Jane. “Thanks for your help, sir.”

The clerk and his mullet definitely weren't as offended as they should have been. I took the bag out of his hand, grabbed Jane by the arm, and headed for the exit.

“You're a crazy person, Jane.”

“They told us to have fun!”

We walked the mile back to campus and headed straight to Yardley Fountain, which was directly in the center of the Quad. The Actives had thoughtfully picked a task that involved us being naked, in arguably the most public place on campus, in November. And to make it more fun, they wanted us to post our exploits on social media. We knew there would be little to no traffic around the fountain this early on a Sunday and our plan was to wait until there was no one in sight and then strip and
get the photo done in less than a minute. I'd texted Jonah and told him to meet us at the fountain so he could snap the shot of us and he'd begrudgingly accepted.

“Jonah's five minutes away,” I let them know as we approached Yardley.

“Couldn't we have just asked another girl to do this?” Leyla asked.

“He's gay. Gay trumps girl in these types of situations,” Jane explained. “The last thing I need is some random-ass bitch silently judging me as I stand in a freezing fucking fountain.”

“Jonah's gay? I thought he was your boyfriend, Tay,” Leyla said, bewildered.

“Ley, you are legit the most special girl I know. Like, there are some extra special girls in this bunch, but you're special as fuck. And I say that in the most complimentary way possible,” Jane said as she starting taking her clothes off.