Sorority Sisters by Claudia Welch

dance.”
    â€œIt’s not a law in my state,” I say.
    â€œI’m from Chicago. It’s a law in Illinois.”
    â€œAn out-of-towner,” I say. “I should have guessed.”
    He pulls back and looks at me, smiling, his blue eyes twinkling. His arms are long and hard with muscle. His hips are narrow. His thighs are muscular. Okay, I can admit it. He’s a hunk.
    â€œYou’re a native. I should have guessed. Tanned, blond, blue-eyed, a real California girl.”
    â€œTanned? I’m fish-belly white,” I say.
    â€œIf you say so,” he says, tightening his grip, pulling me against him again.
    We dance a few turns, not talking. I can feel him against me, the hard press of him in his jeans, the soft pull of his T-shirt over the muscles in his back. James Dean. Marlon Brando. I hate that type. In theory, anyway.
    â€œIt’s okay to go back to your date,” I say against his neck. His hair is pure black and gleams in the floodlights aimed at the patio. “I don’t want there to be a problem.”
    â€œNo problem,” he says, looking deeply into my eyes. He’s kind of sexy. He traces a finger down my back, from my neck to my waist. I suppress a shiver. “When you need to get back to your date, let me know. Until then, I’m keeping you.”
    â€œWhat about your date?”
    He chuckles. “I guess I forgot about her. Bad, huh?”
    Bad, yes. The look in his eyes, that trace down my back . . . I feel shivery and alive. And scared.

Diane
    â€“ Fall 1976 –
    Doug Anderson came to the party. Not with me, of course, but with Jenny Van Upp, who has long blond hair and the cutest profile in three states. Jenny looks a little drunk. Doug doesn’t. I don’t know if that means he can hold his booze better or if he’s just the kind of guy to get a girl drunk, but there’s no way in hell I believe that.
    My date, Stan Jaworski and I are dancing. I completely gave up on Rob Thompson since Ellen seems to be doing fine with some guy in a white T-shirt. Where his date is is anyone’s guess, but I’m voting for the juniper bed. It’s seeing a lot of action.
    Stan keeps turning our bodies to the music, so after just a few shuffling steps, my view of Doug is gone. Doug is dressed in his navy whites. Doug takes my breath away. Doug is off-limits, but Doug, not knowing that, still takes my breath away.
    Stan does not take my breath away. I do not blame Stan for this; he’s cute, he’s nice, he’s a perfectly great guy, but he’s not Doug Anderson, Midshipman Temptation. I can’t have Doug, but that doesn’t change the fact that he’s all I think about.
    The music plays, we all shift with it, and my view of Doug and Jenny reappears. They’re dancing, and since Jenny is a lot shorter than Doug, her head is tilted back, her blond hair spilling down to touch his hands. She’s talking, smiling up at him, and Doug is smiling back. She looks very sexy, her hair cascading down that way, tickling the backs of his hands. My hair is long, but not that long, and besides, if I held my head like that, my ears would show.
    Doug has seen my ears.
    This is an important detail and one that I’m trying to forget. It hasn’t been easy, but I’m working on it. I think there’s hope I can push it out of my mind permanently. See, in ROTC no hair can touch the collar, not the top of the collar and certainly not the bottom of the collar. The guys all get really short haircuts and the girls either get really short haircuts or they wear their hair up and fastened securely, which means ugly and tight with an entire package of bobby pins holding it all in place. Naturally, my ears show. All the time. And then there’s the white hat. And the ugly white man-shoes. I look hideous in my navy dress whites. You can’t even imagine. I wish I couldn’t even imagine, but even I’m not that