Fluff 😍
#30. “First Date” feat. Beccarena 🤍
May 2006
“Thanks for staying with me,” Becca told her as they climbed the stairway to the attic.
Serena climbed each step slowly. If she had learned anything from her history with Becca, it’s that Becca had the power to make her trip over anything. The stairway to the attic was narrow and Serena feared she’d face sudden death if she fell and not just a busted lip like she did on the main stairway.
“I’d rather be here than at the party,” Serena responded, hoping she didn’t sound too desperate. “I mean we went to two parties last week, anyway.” Good save.
Serena was three weeks away from the end of her freshman year, which meant she was also three weeks away from being separated from Becca. More than anyone, Becca had helped her survive her first year at Columbia and her first year of sorority life. Becca had chosen her to be her Lil during the Big Sis/Lil Sis reveal and Serena was on cloud nine knowing that meant the two of them would be spending more time together. She’d think of any excuse to be with her, so when Becca was chosen to host the 50-year reunion for Phi Delta’s class of 1956, Serena immediately volunteered to help with the party planning.
It was difficult to focus when everyone else was at the house, so they opted to stay in on a Friday night when the rest of their sisters were out at a frat party. She had seen photos of what the sorority house and the girls who lived there were like in the ‘50s. It was a decade of elegance and refinement in the Phi Delta house. These women didn’t wear neon tank tops and short shorts in their college days like Serena, Becca, and their sisters did, which made Becca want to plan a party that would impress them and make them proud of the legacy they had left behind.
With one week left until the party, they already placed an order for the food and desserts and bought the decorations. All they needed was the right music. They wanted music from the ‘50s, the kind of songs that the alumnae would have heard when they were at parties or hanging out in the sorority house or while slow dancing with their dates at the annual Phi Delta formal. An iTunes playlist would have been easier, but Becca wanted an authentic sound that could only come from records.
The attic was well-maintained and not the typical dark, dusty attic that Serena imagined it would be. No one stayed in the attic and they never held any meetings there, but the attic housed mementos of decades past, so it was kept clean and organized as a sign of respect for the sisters who came before them.
Becca headed straight to the old record player and the collection of records on the shelf nearby. While she thumbed through them, Serena found a box of mementos in the armoire. There were sorority pins and photographs from the 1950s and, as Serena looked at them, she realized that so much about the sorority had changed yet so much was exactly the same. The clothes and hairstyles were different, but she imagined the conversations they had in this house were exactly the same. They talked about love and broken hearts, final exams and what classes to take, and their dreams for the future. She imagined them staying up all night to talk and listen to music like she did with Becca.
“Beck, come here! Come look at these!”
Becca was in the middle of putting a record on the record player. “I love that scratchy sound of the record player.” She walked over to Serena and put her arms around her waist from behind. “What’s this?”
Serena showed her a strip of black and white photographs that looked as if they were taken in a photobooth. There was a picture of two girls smiling and then two with silly faces followed by the last one－Serena’s favorite－a picture of the two of them kissing. “I guess it takes all kinds.” Serena flipped the strip of photographs over to see the writing on the back. Beverly and Shirley, Coney Island, 1956. “They’re cute, aren’t they? Do you think they were a couple? If so, I hope they stayed together after college and went on to have successful careers and a cute place in Greenwich Village. Do you think they’ll be at the reunion?”
“Serena,” Becca giggled. “It’s moments like this that make it obvious you’ve had a Hollywood upbringing. You have the wildest imagination.”
“You have guys bringing you flowers and practically begging for you to go out with them. I don’t have a boyfriend or a girlfriend,” Serena pointed out. “All I can do is live vicariously through other people.”
Becca gave her a quick, sympathetic kiss on the cheek. “Your grandma Caroline was in Phi Delta around this time, right? Have you ever looked through her pictures and other stuff?”
“She pledged in 1948 at Notre Dame,” Serena said nonchalantly. “It was cool that she and my mom gave me their pledge pins at Presents and were part of the ceremony, but I never really took an interest in any of it before joining. It’s all just something I’m forced to do.”
“Yeah, same,” Becca let go of Serena so she could look through other mementos stored in the armoire. “My grandma pledged at Ole Miss in 1951 and my mom in 1974. They wanted me to go there, too, and continue the tradition but like－if it’s between New York and Oxford, Mississippi－I think the choice is obvious.” Becca grabbed an embroidered sweater from the armoire and put it on over her tank top. “In the South, the sorority you’re in practically dictates your social standing and they’re known for being exclusionary. I mean, some of my grandma’s sorority group photos are with the confederate flag. Grandma still flies that flag from her plantation-style house. My dad is like half white and half Argentinean and I came out with an olive skin tone. I bet you can guess how well that goes over at Grandma’s garden parties.”
“Not very well?”
“Nope, but I’m way hotter than her friends’ granddaughters, so screw ‘em. Or should I say bless their hearts?” Becca said in a fake southern accent that made Serena giggle. “I’m just so glad that I grew up in LA where shit like that just doesn’t fly.”
Becca’s family lived in Bel-Air and Serena’s in Beverly Hills. They had grown up three miles from each other and, ever since she found this out, she had imagined what their lives would have been like had Becca not gone to boarding school in Switzerland and gone to school locally like Serena did. But at least they had each other now and could spend most of the summer together.
“What are you doing this summer?” Becca asked and Serena wondered how long she had zoned out while fantasizing about the two of them sitting poolside or going to the beach. And Becca in a bikini.
“I’m spending July in London with my grandma Maggie,” Serena responded. “I’ll be home in June and August, though. We should hang out.”
“Can’t,” Becca shrugged. “I don’t spend summers at home. The less time I’m around my family, the better. A friend of mine has a flat in Ibiza. I’m going to spend the summer with him.”
“Oh,” Serena continued to flip through the stack of photographs in an attempt at hiding her disappointment.
A slow song started to play, a song from the ‘50s that encompassed everything Serena was feeling and she wondered what it would have been like to live back then and slow dance to this song or dedicate it to someone on the radio.
“May I have this dance?” Becca asked and Serena could feel her face getting redder by the second.
“Me?”
“Is there anyone else in this room?”
She expected the two of them to joke around and try to dance the way they did in the ‘50s, but that wasn’t what Becca had in mind. She held Serena close－as close as she possibly could. She could smell Becca’s Ralph Lauren perfume and feel the softness of her hair. It was the perfect song with the perfect girl. She had never seen anyone more beautiful and she doubted she ever would.
Serena wasn’t sure if it was the song or the pictures of their two sorority sisters kissing or maybe a combination of both, but she cupped Becca’s face in her hands and delicately kissed her lips. They were even softer than she had imagined and she would have kept kissing her had Becca not pulled away.
“Serena…”
“I’m sorry.”
She wanted to turn around and go downstairs, but she felt herself being pulled in by Becca. “Don’t be sorry. I just need to know if you got carried away or if you meant it.”
“Does it matter?” she felt a knot form in her throat when she thought about the guy Becca would be spending the summer with. “I know you’re spending the summer with him.”
“He’s a friend,” Becca reassured her. “His girlfriend lives there, too. There’s absolutely nothing going on between me and him. I like someone else.”
Before she could ask who it was, Becca pressed her lips to hers. The kiss was passionate and possessive and Serena knew it sounded like a cliche, but afterward she felt like it took her breath away.
“I’ve been wanting to do that for a long time now,” Becca confessed before kissing her again. “You know how…Republican…my family is. They’d disown me for being with a girl, so I can’t－”
“Beck, I get it,” Serena interrupted to save her from having to say it. “And it’s okay.”
“I love you. I really do.”
Serena knew it meant she loved her but she could never officially be with her. “I love you, too.”
She didn’t know what hurt more－unrequited love or having Becca’s love without getting to be with her.
Before bringing the records downstairs, Serena took one last look at the two girls in the picture. Seeing them happy and in love filled her with hope that she’d also get to experience that with Becca someday. I hope you two are still together and I hope the same can be said about Becca and me someday.
Tagging: @imaginaryoperagloves @kit-kat-kate @myfriendscallmeandy @noitsnotshortformildred
