Affinity: Chapter 1 (partial)

Five friends return to a beach house in the middle of winter after their lives have been tragically altered.

Fear sat beside them, but they did it. They did it because it was a rite of passage that they were conscious of even in the moment. Five girls blindfolded at the top of a hill. They knew it was a hill because they climbed it in the dark guided by the hands and voices of the senior girls. The tipping point of hell week was the finish line for the freshman, for their survival of a month-long pledge to Sigma Eta Phi. West Woods High School had a long-standing tradition of sororities and fraternities even though by 1983 they were no longer sanctioned; two sororities and four fraternities withstood the test of time. 

The freshman wanted to become part of something even if it meant exposing their weaknesses. 

Instructed to dress like w****s, one looked more hideous than the other. The basic attire was revealing dance costume, in a pastel array of colors, fishnet stockings and high heels. At Elizabeth Cushing’s, whose parents were conveniently away for the weekend, the sponsor sisters pulled up their hair or moussed it out of control, adorned them with oversized hoop earrings, baubles for their wrists and necks, bright red lipstick and pink circles of rouge smeared on cheeks. 

Then, blindfolded and ushered into the back of a van, they were driven to an undisclosed location. They came to, what turned out to be, Rutherford Rock, a place where the sorority and brother fraternity, Gamma Phi Beta, hosted keg parties on Friday nights and played pick-up anything on lazy Saturdays. They found a spot out of plain sight where they wouldn’t be discovered by the cops on a routine drive-by. 

Waiting for them on that night were the brothers of Gamma Phi Beta. Elizabeth, the distinguished president of Sigma Eta Phi, loudly declared that each brother was to kiss a pledge. With his tongue, she directed, annunciating each syllable. The freshman had no idea who was standing next to whom; the five of them had not been friends before pledging the sorority, certainly not in they way they would forge a bond after this night. 

They stood, still, like pickets on a fence, the way they were placed, waiting for instruction. Riley, on the far right, assumed Helene was beside her because she reached out to hold her hand, reaching up high to find it. Julia knew she was right in the middle where she most often liked to be, but she wasn’t standing next to Riley who she’d known since grade school. Instead, Jules, the only one who was a legacy, stood next to her, and Ann Marie to Jules’ left. At first, the pledges thought Jules would get off easy but Sigma Eta Phi treated her like the peon she was, no different than the others. In fact, it just might have been what brought them together to form an allegiance against their upperclassmen oppressors. 

As the ritual got underway, they squeezed each others’ hands tight.  The brothers and sisters took turns cracking eggs over their heads and firing rotten tomatoes at them. Chocolate and maple syrup streamed down their faces, some seeping between the bandannas and closed eyelids while applesauce was creamed into arms and legs. The girls tried to stand stoic, though Julia bit her lip and Ann Marie later confessed she was the one who whimpered at the end of the line. Finally, the boys laid them down in the mud, rolling them down the hill, groping at their breasts and asses while dirt and grass and twigs stuck to the sheen of ichorous caul encasing their bodies. When they were done and the cacophony of their cheers ceased, the boys sped away in cars before their blindfolds were removed.

What commenced next would have been a lovely ceremony had it not been earlier marred by the traditions of the Greek life. The sorority sisters stood in a line before them, each holding a white candle. They recited words from a sage book that was passed down the line, welcoming the inductees into their sanctity. When Chloe Jasenski dropped them off at Helene’s house, she said in a sweet and apologetic voice, “Now, you are sisters.”

The look on Mrs. Lazarre’s face was one of disappointment, as they tip toed through the kitchen, down the hall and into the bath. Helene whispered something to her mother, then she left them well enough alone. It was the first night they spent together. Peeling their clothes off of one another and throwing them into a bottomless black trash bag. Taking turns showering in two’s, hot water streamed over one while the other cajoled the caked on food and earth from hair and limb. Mostly, they were quiet and introspective, feeling defeated and triumphant in unison. Once in borrowed T’shirts from Helene’s father, they phoned parents for permission to stay. It was out of the question that they separate on this night. In a circle of blankets and sleeping bags on the floor, Riley and Julia shared how they met when Julia was the new girl in school in first grade. “I coveted that shiny silver top she wore, and I swore we’d become best friends,” Riley shared. Helene and Ann Marie’s friendship was slower to come by. Although friendly to one another, they were gymnasts together for three years before they had an actual conversation. Helene couldn’t master the triple flip, so Ann Marie helped her train for it. Because Jules’s sister was an alumnus of the sorority, she was asked to pledge, but other than a typewriting class with Helene, she didn’t come into this as an ally to anyone.

From that night, they became inseparable. Often, on extended breaks from school, they were invited to the Kofaxes’ beach house. Julia’s family owned one passed down from her grandparents two blocks from the beach in Charlestown, Rhode Island. The Kofaxes welcomed the “freshman five,” as they affectionately came call themselves, since Julia was an only child and she craved attention.

Even though her birthday was in the dead of winter, Julia convinced her mom that a 16 ½ birthday at the shore with her new friends was better than a winter birthday at home on the actual day. For their first slumber party weekend at the cottage, they cemented their bond tanning at the beach by day, singing and dancing around the bonfire at night. One morning, they stole away early, in the dark, armed with a picnic basket full of food, to trek down to the beach to watch the sunrise in the salty air. This became a tradition for each trip they took to the shore. Sitting Indian style on blankets while eating breakfast, they waited for the sun to rise majestically over the water while they dreamed teenage girl dreams.