For the first fifteen minutes, I blithely convinced myself that I was just cleaning up. Then I spent a good quarter of an hour under the happy self-delusion that such discovery would assist me in tracking down my roommate. After that, I simply admitted the truth: I was damn curious.
Are you wondering why I wasn’t actively frantic?
THINGS I DISCOVERED
THAT CALMED ME DOWN
1) Lydia had taken the time to write down the phone messages before she left. Must not have been in too much of a hurry.
2) The first-aid kit we kept on the bookshelf hadn’t been touched. Must not have been hurt.
3) In one of the little puddles of blood, I found a chunk of ground chuck.
That’s right. Lydia’s society peeps had scared me half to death with a splash of raw hamburger. And hell if I knew what it meant. My society liked pomegranates. Maybe hers liked meat loaf. Or maybe the members had spent too much time watching The Ten Commandments and had decided to borrow the Semitic symbolism of smearing blood on a door to indicate who was in-the-know. Either way, Lydia would be in for an earful when she came back. Rotting hamburger in the common room? So not cool.
Round about the forty-minute mark, I heard the door to our suite open. My pin quest had stranded me waist-deep in the back of Lydia’s closet, methodically searching her winter coat pockets, where I knew Lydia kept her real valuables. But all I’d found were her emergency traveler’s checks, her passport, and her spare P.O. Box key.
Drat.
“Welcome to my bedroom,” she said dryly from the threshold.
“Lydia!” I launched myself at her. “Oh my God, girl, what have you been doing!”
She held up a plastic bag. “Mr. Clean.”
Undaunted, I pressed forward. “What happened here?” I asked. “The feathers, the dirt, the mess on the doorknob?”
No answer.
“There’s blood on the floor.”
No answer.
“Lydia! Talk to me.” I followed her back out to the common room. “I was so worried about you, when I came in and the common room…” I gestured weakly to the mess.
She mopped up one of the red pools with a wad of paper towels. “Well, I was worried about you when I came in and you were MIA.” She kept her face to the floor. “Feel like telling me where you spent the night?”
“Calvin College.”
She froze, there on the floor, then looked up at me. “Really?”
“Yes.” Not a lie. Not really.
She stood up and looked at me, a blush spreading across her skin. “Oh, Amy, I feel like such an ass. I thought—I’m sorry.” She shook her head. “What are you going to do about this? He’s a nice guy, you know.”
“Yeah.” And I was no longer just using him for sex. Brandon had now become my alibi. “He is. I’m a jerk.”
She hugged me, hard. “You’re not. You care about him. It’s not your fault that you’re a mess when it comes to men.”
“Hey!” I smacked her on the shoulder and she pulled away.
“Look, I feel awful that I’ve been letting all this society crap get in the way of our friendship.”
“I think we both have,” I replied, almost glad of the lie now, since it seemed to have broken whatever weird tension had blanketed our suite since that letter showed up. I just wanted to put this all behind me. Yesterday’s argument, the mess in the common room, the way I’d actually sunk to going through Lydia’s stuff—Oh! Of course I couldn’t find her pin. I’m such an idiot. She’s wearing the damn thing. I checked her out surreptitiously, but if there was a society pin on her person, she kept it as hidden as I did.
Well, good. At least we weren’t shoving our society memberships in each other’s faces then refusing to spill details. We had been putting the society stuff before each other. “Let’s not do that anymore, okay?” I suggested, trying not to get a better look at a flash of shine I saw above her jeans pocket. It was probably her pin, but I wasn’t going to be tempted. See? I could do this. “Let’s just…not talk about it.”
Lydia surveyed the mess, then eyed me carefully. “You know that’s going to be tough, right?”
I nodded. I knew. It would be the elephant-shaped puddle of blood in the room. I loved my relationship with Lydia, but now everything would change. Like us disappearing every Thursday evening instead of hanging out to do Gumdrop Drops. Like spending the night in a bed with your gay society big sib and not being able to dish to your roommate afterward. Like leaving your best friend out of what was about to become the most important part of your Eli career.
The phone rang and I picked it up without answering Lydia. “Hello?”
“Good morning!” my mother exclaimed. “You must have been sleeping pretty deeply not to have heard me before.”
My mother likes to play this game where she calls me early on Saturday and Sunday mornings, trying to catch me being not in my bed. You wouldn’t believe how many early breakfast meetings I’ve had in the last three years.
“Hey, Mom,” I said. “When did you call? Lydia and I were out shopping.” Lydia smiled indulgently.
“Oh. Well, that explains it.” My mother doesn’t press to uncover obvious lies. I bet she called at eight, before we could even be expected to be at the 24-hour pharmacy. She really doesn’t want to know the truth, she just can’t prevent herself from confirming her obscene fears. After all, I’m her baby girl. “So, are you studying hard?”
“You know it.” This is the Number Two thing she always asks. Sometimes I can follow a script for the conversation. I was so tempted to reply, No, but that’s okay, because my posh secret society guarantees me that I’ll ace my exams with the help of their decades’ worth of cheat sheets. But I couldn’t tell her anything about that. Not even my mom. Which meant that her Number Three standard question was going to be a bust as well.
And here it was, Number Three: “That’s good, sweetie. Have you been up to anything interesting lately?”
Does drinking pomegranate juice out of a human skull and swearing undying fealty to a shadow organization dressed in outlandish costumes count? “Um…nope. My life’s pretty much been the same-old, same-old.”
Lydia shook her head as she went back to scrubbing the floor. I tugged the hem of my shirt down over my belt loops, over the tiny gold pin that was already pricking my side.
Like anything would ever be the same again.
But we tried. After all, it was Saturday night, and spring, and we were two young, smart, single girls who knew exactly how to have a good time.
Which is how we found ourselves at eight o’clock that evening spread out on the sofa in T-shirts, pajama bottoms, and sweat socks, with a bottle of Finlandia Mango, a set of Eli-official “Harvard sucks, Princeton doesn’t matter” shot glasses, a bag of gumdrops, and Lydia’s DVD of Bridget Jones’s Diary. We were debating the rules of the game over the opening credits.
“How about we take a drink every time she lights up?” I suggested.
Lydia set about hogging the red gumdrops. “I don’t feel like getting alcohol poisoning tonight.” She popped a few in her mouth and chewed thoughtfully. “How about we take a drink every time they do a gratuitous, Hollywood-standards-are-out-of-control camera shot of Renée’s extra poundage?”
I shrugged. “That sounds more manageable. But…new rules for the sequel.” They really started milking the fat jokes in that one.
“Of course!”
It was a relief to talk about something other than secret societies. As we settled into our usual routine, my curiosity about Lydia’s society waned (it helped that, if she was wearing their pin, she kept it well hidden). I was still taken aback by the lengths that her group had gone through in their initiation. I would have thought Rose & Grave had the most elaborate, outlandish ceremonies, but then again, a newer organization might make it a point to take their traditions to new heights, each trying to outdo the ones that came before in a sort of secret-society pissing contest. Maybe I’d ask Malcolm what he knew about other organizations’ initiation rites and see if I could suss out who included hamburgers in their ceremonies.
Okay, so I was still wondering. Sue me.
Three shots later, Lydia and I were debating whether or not Bridget was making a fool of herself in those see-through office outfits, when there was a knock at our suite door. Lydia leaned over to open it and Brandon walked in.
“Is that dried blood on your doorknob?” he asked without preamble. Lydia and I exchanged glances and shrugged, while Brandon took in the coffee-table spread. “I don’t know if Willy Wonka would approve.”
“Nonsense,” Lydia slurred, pounding her fourth as Daniel successfully navigated Bridget’s oversized granny panties. “Candy is dandy, but liquor is quicker.”
I didn’t drink. This was about to get very sticky, and I knew I’d need every wit that hadn’t ceded to the considerable powers of mango vodka. I telepathed to Brandon my fervent desire that he not ask me what I’ve been up to this weekend.
“So,” he asked, taking a place on the sofa between us. “What have you been up to this weekend?”
Supposedly, you. So much for my psychic powers. Must be dulled by alcohol. “Maybe you can help us solve a debate,” I cut in, though Lydia was engrossed in the goings-on of Bridget and didn’t even appear to have noticed that the man I’d supposedly spent last night with seemed unaware of that fact.
“Shoot,” Brandon said, picking out a handful of green gumdrops from the pile. I watched him, wondering if he also had a thing for black jelly beans. And if so, why wasn’t I head over heels for him?
“We’re trying to decide if Renée Zellweger looks better as Bridget or as a stick figure.”
He glanced at the screen. “What does she usually look like?”
Men! You’d think they never read People. “Half of that.”
Brandon watched Bridget smile. “I think she looks pretty there.” And then he looked at me, his brown eyes very warm. “But, then again, I’ve got a thing for girls in publishing.”
I scooched my feet farther up beneath me and Lydia fired off warning glances from behind Brandon’s head.
“Amy, you’re falling behind.” She waved at me with the shot glass. “Brandon, if you don’t mind, we’re kind of in the middle of a game here.”
But Brandon was clearly in no mood to take a hint. He swiped the vodka and an extra glass and poured himself a drink.
“Be careful,” I said as he downed it. “The green ones don’t really go with the mango.”
“Blecch.” He grimaced and stared at the empty glass. “You know, I learned in my White Male Sexuality and U.S. Pop Culture class that one sign of masculinity is to drink only alcoholic beverages that are brown or clear.”
“This one’s clear…except for the gumdrops,” I argued.
He laughed. “I don’t take it seriously. Besides, I already screwed up. My favorite drink is an amaretto sour. Plus, I’m not entirely a white male.”
“My dad likes Bloody Marys,” Lydia said. “Which are red. Are you saying he’s gay?”
“Merely a metrosexual.”
“And what about wine?” she said, concealing a burp. “It’s purple.”
And until yesterday, every Digger in history had been male, and to the best of my knowledge, their official drink was bright pink pomegranate punch. The Order of Rose & Grave must have been very secure in their masculinity.
Either that or Brandon’s White Male Sexuality professor was very insecure in his. It was a toss-up.
I wondered what was going on in the tomb right now. Were the other new taps there, learning the ropes and bonding with one another? What was I missing out on?
I looked back at Lydia and Brandon, who were cracking up at Daniel’s spill in the lake. Not a thing. Just because I was in Rose & Grave did not mean I had to abandon my barbarian friends. Nothing had changed.
“Amy!” Lydia threw a gumdrop at me. “Stop cheating. Drink up.”
I returned my attention to my forgotten shot glass, where the orange gumdrop had begun to disintegrate. Nope, nothing had changed. Lydia could still drink me under the table. (Note to self: Never do shots with a girl from western New York. They’ve been drinking since birth.)
“Oops.” I tilted the glass toward my mouth, then dug the gooey gumdrop out with my fingers. Inelegant, perhaps, but judging from the look Brandon was giving me, he didn’t mind watching me lick melted candy off my thumb.
“Sidebar!” Lydia popped up from the couch, grabbed my arm, tossed a “We’ll be right back” in the general direction of Brandon Weare, and dragged me into her bedroom.
As soon as the door was shut, Lydia turned to me and said, “What do you want to do here? Do you want me to leave so you two can be alone? Do you want to go somewhere with him? It’s obvious the man didn’t come here to watch chick flicks with the roomie.”
No, he hadn’t, but if he was having fun doing it, why rock the boat?
I twisted my hair up in a frustrated ponytail and let it fall back to my shoulders. “I don’t know. I didn’t expect him to come around—”
“Please,” Lydia said with disdain. “It’s Saturday night and you’re sleeping together—regularly. You need to accept this, Amy. You aren’t accidentally tripping and falling into his bed. He’s not coercing you—”
“Don’t even say that!”
“—and after the first time or so, you can’t even use the oh-wasn’t-this-a-terrible-mistake excuse anymore. You’re having a relationship, whether you call it that or not.”
“I know.” I did know. Hadn’t Brandon said very much the same thing a few days ago at the Thai place? I’d listened to him that night about Rose & Grave, and that was working out fine, so maybe actually discussing and establishing parameters for our relationship would be a good idea, too.
And I’d always intended on doing just that, as soon as I reached a firm conclusion about what the parameters of our relationship should be. Because, to be honest, when one has been sleeping with one’s close friend on an average of once every ten days for the last two months, it’s a bit difficult to pretend that one is starting the relationship at the beginning.
We had a saying at Eli: Couples are either married or hooking up. Students showed the same intensity toward romantic relationships as they did toward every other facet of their existences. There was virtually no casual dating. If you were looking for sex, you wanted it to be easy and convenient, and not get in the way of your studies, art, or efforts to save the world. And if you were looking for love, you were willing to devote a large proportion of your conscious hours to the cause.
I didn’t have time for that. I had a publication to run, a grade-point average to maintain, exams to study for, internships to earn—and now, secret society meetings to attend.
“He’s a really great guy, Amy.”
She was beginning to sound like a broken record with this. If I didn’t know better, I’d think Lydia wanted to date Brandon. But she goes for power types, which Brandon Weare, for all his “greatness,” was not. Then again, what did I know? I was not exactly an expert when it came to romantic potential.
“And when it doesn’t work out,” I said with a sigh, “I’ll flake out on finals.” Lydia had to remember me after Alan. Had to remember Ben Somebody and how she practically had to coax me down from the ledge last spring. “I can’t risk it right now. I have too much on my plate.”
“How do you know it won’t work out?”
“It never has before.” I shrugged. “Besides, you know me. I always do something to—screw it up.” I just never knew what that was.
There was a knock on the door, and Brandon popped his head in. “You guys just missed a truly phenomenal scene.”
Lydia and I laughed. “Careful with these chick flicks, Brandon,” she said, “or your White Male Sexuality in America thingy will have more than amaretto sours to worry about.”
He smiled. “Okay. In truth, I was hoping you were doing some sort of girls-in-underwear pillow fight. Hollywood led me to believe that college was crawling with quasi-lesbian bedding battles, but I’ve had my eyes peeled for three years and I’m still waiting.”
That was more like a straight male.
“You’re looking in the wrong places,” I said without thinking. “You have to get tapped into the Society of Duvet & Sham.”
“Is that who tapped you the other night?” he rejoined.
I hesitated just a fraction of a second too long before blurting out a lame, “No.”
Uh-oh. Why did I have to open my big mouth? Did I have societies on the brain or something? Why didn’t I just laugh and say, “I’d tell you, but then I’d have to smother you”?
Brandon was waiting, Lydia was shaking her head, and I fingered the pin in my belt loop for moral support.
“Um, movie?” I suggested, pushing past him and back into the less complicated common room.
But my issues merely followed me there, then promptly erupted.
“Seriously, Haskel,” Brandon continued. “Is that where you’ve been all weekend? I wondered why you weren’t at your usual post at the Lit Mag office this morning.”
Lydia lost her grip on the bottle of vodka. It thumped once on the corner of the table and toppled to the floor with a seventeen-dollar-and-ninety-five-cent crash.
Crap. Crap crap crappity crap.
I snatched up a pile of Domino’s Pizza napkins from the top of the mini-fridge and tossed them onto the spill. The acrid scent of sublimating alcohol instantly blended with Lydia’s pine-fresh cleaning efforts from this afternoon. She wasn’t moving to help me and her mouth was set in a tight line, but whether she was angrier about my lie or the loss of her vodka was difficult to ascertain.
And then she snorted, mumbled “I knew it!” under her breath, and stomped back into her bedroom.
Yeah, probably angriest at the betrayal. (But maybe she’d get more paper towels.)
This wasn’t going to work. We could make up don’t-ask-don’t-tell ground rules about discussing our respective societies in the suite, but in the process, we’d be leaving out huge chunks of our lives. I’d told her I was at Brandon’s because it was easier than invoking the society brush-off. I didn’t want her to think I was lording my Rose & Grave status over her, since society prestige had always mattered more to Lydia than to me. And then, when we agreed not to talk about it, there seemed no point in saying, “You know how I said I was at Brandon’s? Well, I wasn’t, but I’m not allowed to talk about that.”
But maybe I should have. It would have been awkward, but at least it wasn’t a lie. How many more lies would we have to tell each other, just to keep to our society oaths? The Connubial Bliss reports seemed like a tell-all to our fellow knights. They may be great ideas for some of them, but I already had my tell-all audience, and she wasn’t a Digger.
I wondered what kind of promises Lydia had made about her own loyalties. I wondered what lies she had already planned.
Brandon joined me on the floor and began picking up the largest chunks of glass. “What’s the story here, babe?”
Babe. Like I was his girlfriend, and we exchanged endearments all the time. Those brown, puppy-dog eyes of his were searching mine in earnest now.
“Nothing.” I tugged down on the hem of my shirt. “I…can’t talk about it.”
“Not even to me?”
Not to my mom, not to Lydia, not to the boy I was sleeping with…“Not to anyone.”
“That’s silly. My freshman counselor—he was in Book & Key and he had it on his resume, plain as day. And Glenda told us both when she got into Quill & Ink. You can say if you want.”
“That’s Quill & Ink.” How would I know what the rules were elsewhere? I wasn’t even totally clear on mine yet. I just remembered the words of my oath. I had most solemnly avowed never to reveal, by commission or by omission, the existence of, the knowledge considered sacred by, or the names of the membership of the Order of Rose & Grave. Pretty much left out resumes.
He paused. “But…you are in a secret society.”
“I can’t tell you that.”
“That means you are, otherwise you’d just say no.”
“That’s not true!” I pushed back on my heels and wadded the soaked napkins into a ball.
“Yes it is. Watch: Ask me.” He folded his hands.
I sighed. “Brandon, are you in a secret society?”
“No.” He grinned. “See?”
I rolled my eyes.
He took the napkin out of my hands and lobbed it into the trash can. Three points. “Now watch this: Amy, are you in a secret society?”
Just say no.
It shouldn’t have been that hard. But I didn’t, because the truth of the matter, as I now realize, was that our pat little phrases, our I can’t talk about its and our I’d tell you but I’d have to kill yous are a society member’s way of bragging without breaking the oath of secrecy. I was proud that I was one of the first women ever to be tapped into Rose & Grave. I was bursting at the seams to tell all my friends—only, I wasn’t allowed to.
In short, saying “no” meant dismissing it, but saying “I’m not allowed to talk about it” meant…
Nyah, nyah, I know something you don’t know!
Only, did that count as omission?
Brandon held out his hands as if in presentation. “See?”
I stood up and said coolly, “Don’t be ridiculous.” On-screen, Bridget was making a fool of herself over something or other, but I’d lost my taste for her antics. Movie Night was over.
And Brandon and I were left alone. We continued cleaning up the mess, and then Brandon said, “You know, Amy, it’s okay if you are. I know all that stuff I said the other night might lead you to believe that I disapprove of societies, but if you want to be in one, I won’t be unhappy.”
“So glad you approve,” I snapped. “I don’t need your permission to do something, Weare. Not even if we were dating.”
The contrary-to-fact construction cut him right to the bone. “No.” He threw the last wad of towels into the trash and rubbed his hands together with finality. “Though I’d hoped you’d solicit my opinion.” He took one last look at the TV screen. “I think I’m going to take off.”
No, Brandon, don’t. But I didn’t say it out loud. I didn’t go over and touch him on the shoulder and turn my face to his and kiss him. Though I should have. Because he’d always been really great to me, and because Lydia was right, I owed him a definition.
And maybe an apology. “Brandon,” I began, but got no further, as there was a knock on the door.
Brandon, being the closest, opened it, and there stood George Harrison Prescott in his many-zippered jacket. Unlike me, he’d given his Rose & Grave pin a place of honor amongst the zippers. The gold hexagon shone like a beacon in my eyes, but it might have blended in with the rest of the metal to someone who wasn’t looking for it.
“Hey, Amy!” he said brightly. “I’m glad I found you at home.” He looked from me to Brandon and back again, and obviously hadn’t gained admittance to Eli entirely on good looks and legacy. “Am I interrupting something?”
Yes, I thought.
“No,” Brandon said. “I was just leaving.”
“Cool.” George stepped aside, as if to give Brandon passage into the hall. “Get your shoes on, babe. I want to show you something.”
Brandon noticeably flinched at George’s casual “babe.” I think I might have, too. My friend-with-benefits (benefits that might be revoked, if this sort of scene kept up) turned to me, but his brown eyes showed no warmth. “Are you going into the office tomorrow?”
I nodded.
“Okay,” he said. “See you then.” And then he left, trading places in the room with George. I heard the entryway door open and shut behind him. Well, I’d thoroughly screwed that one up, hadn’t I?
“Amy,” said George Harrison Prescott. “Is that dried blood on your doorknob?”
Somehow, I convinced George not to start out for the tomb (since that was his purpose in coming over, to pick me up for a late-night jaunt to Rose & Grave) until after I was sure Brandon had made it home. The path to the Diggers’ tomb was identical to the quickest way back to Calvin College, and I didn’t think that shadowing his steps would make this whole evening any less awkward. But explaining the situation in language and decibel that would be unidentifiable to Lydia (who was still in a huff and her bedroom) did not prove the easiest prospect.
“I’m not alone,” I whispered, after a quick trip into my room to change into an outfit more George-worthy. I crooked a thumb toward Lydia’s closed bedroom door.
He nodded. “So let’s go over to the tomb,” he said loudly, “see what’s happening.”
My eyes widened. “I’m. Not. Alone,” I hissed, gesturing more strongly.
He grinned now, and his eyes sparkled behind the matching copper-rimmed glasses. “Why, Amy Haskel,” he said in mock reproof, “I had no idea you were such a wild woman. How many boys do you have hidden in your suite this Saturday night?”
I rolled my eyes and pulled on a pair of shoes. Leave it to George Harrison Prescott to equate everything with sex. “No, you priapic hornball. My roommate. Ixnay on the Iggersday.”
Now it was his turn for an eye roll. “Yeah, like Lydia doesn’t know Pig Latin.” He threw his arm around my shoulders and herded me to the door. “Let’s go.”
Actually, Lydia knew real Latin, too. She had been a Classics major for three semesters. And “priapic hornball” was a bit redundant, though with George, it wasn’t overstating the case. At the entryway door, I stopped him.
“Here’s the thing, George. That guy who just left? He’s in Calvin College. So we can’t just follow him down to Rose & Grave or he’ll know what we’re up to.”
“Please,” George scoffed. “Do you really take any of that secrecy stuff seriously? Besides, it’s a free campus. You and I can go wherever we’d like.”
I planted my feet. “I do take it seriously! We took oaths. Doesn’t that mean anything to you?”
He looked at me and blinked. “No,” he said at last. “I have to say it doesn’t. If there were a train coming and I had the choice to save my mother or some random Digger, I’d pick my mom, no matter what stupid oath of fidelity or fraternity or whatever it was that I took in front of a bunch of jerks in costume.”
When put like that, it was hard to disagree. “But there’s no train here,” I argued. “You’re just talking about it to be a punk.”
He laughed then, a look that suited him even better than the serious one he’d copped a moment ago. “That’s the truth. Okay, we’ll wait a minute, since your secret’s so precious to you.”
The way he said it made me feel childish for obeying the society rules. And then I remembered his antics from last night. The metal and glass, the sulfur. “Look, if you hate all the trappings that come with Rose & Grave, why did you join in the first place?”
He pushed open the entryway door and escaped into the night air. “Didn’t really have a choice, there,” he said. “My dad was kind of insistent.”
I remember what some of the other new taps had said before George’s entrance last night, about how he’d been dragged in kicking and screaming. And then I thought about how I’d watched him as he stood there in front of the tomb, lighting matches and struggling with himself. I stopped George under an arch with his last name engraved in huge letters on the cornice.
“Your dad is a Digger.”
“You met him. Uncle Tony?” He raised his eyebrows.
“Oh.” I hadn’t known the identity of the character who’d sworn me in. (Though I’d found out at the mansion last night that “Uncle Tony” was the official title for the parliamentary leader of every meeting. Some organizations have chairpersons; Rose & Grave has uncles—and now maybe aunts as well?) “That’s kind of cool, though, that he was the one in the ceremony. Like father, like son, you know?”
He snorted. “Yeah, exactly like that.” He kicked at the cornice and stuck his hands in the pockets of his jeans. “Let’s go.”
A bunch of jerks in costume. Okay, Haskel, swift on the uptake. Apparently, George Harrison Prescott was not a big fan of his father. I followed him through the Prescott Gate and down York Street toward Calvin College, now wildly curious to hear the family dirt. We rounded the corner of Hartford College, and suddenly George yanked me back into a stone alcove and clapped a hand over my mouth.
“Shush!” he whispered in a breath that tickled the nape of my neck. “Your boyfriend stopped for pizza.”
The alcove was damp and the stone felt gritty beneath my hands, but, pressed up against George Harrison Prescott, I hardly noticed. He slowly released his grip, sliding his palm down my chin and over my throat and collarbone.
I don’t think I need to remind you what a smooth operator this kid is. My legs actually quivered.
“He’s not my boyfriend,” I whispered over my shoulder.
Glare on George’s glasses revealed nothing in his eyes. “Good to know.”
At that moment, I was not thinking about Brandon walking home outside. I turned fully to George, reassured by the darkness, and put one hand on his shoulder—low on his shoulder, because he was George Harrison Prescott, and I couldn’t help myself. “Tell me why you didn’t want to join Rose & Grave.”
“Tell me why you did.”
I shrugged. “It seems like a good idea. Huge network, cool tomb, free champagne.”
He pulled away from me and sat on a low stone bench. Beneath his jacket, George was wearing a beat-up oxford dress shirt over a fading, cracked vintage concert T. I couldn’t make out the band, but he was working the look like a latter-day James Dean. “My mom and dad are divorced. She went to Eli, too. And she was the last of a dying breed of hippies and old-school feminists.”
“She burned her bras?”
“She didn’t own any.” George crossed his arms. “The seventies might have been over, but she wasn’t about to admit that. My dad was in his ‘rebel against his upbringing’ phase when they met. She was rebelling, too, don’t get me wrong. And she and my dad just kind of…used each other.”
“That’s terrible.”
“He made her think she could change him, she made his Brahmin parents really angry. They disagreed on everything, which must have meant that the sex was nuclear.”
Um, TMI.
“The marriage lasted for about thirty seconds after I was born.” George shrugged. “When I was little, I thought they broke up over my name. Isn’t that stupid? But it was the only disagreement they ever shared with me. Dad wanted me to be a Third. Mom caved on the George part, but gave him one parting shot with the Harrison. Like the Beatle. Cute, huh?”
I’d always thought so. “Where did you grow up?”
“Split time,” he replied. “Mom’s a social worker in Connecticut. Dad, of course, stays in Westchester. They think of each other as amusing now. Dad finds it funny that Mom still wants to save the world, Mom thinks it’s hilarious that Dad became exactly the kind of man he used to hate his father for being.”
“I’m sorry.” For lack of anything better to say.
“And I’m a conduit.” He laughed without mirth. “They come to drop me off or pick me up at one of our houses, take one look at each other, and boom.”
Boom?
George filled in the blanks. “Until about five years ago, they used to fuck regularly.”
What, and leave little Georgie standing in the kitchen? “What happened five years ago?”
“Dad got married.” George stood, checked the street. “Now it’s only semi-regularly.”
I dropped to the bench, too shocked to speak.
He looked back at me, grimaced, and raked his hand through his hair. “I have no clue why I’m telling you all this. Guess the Digger bonding thing is starting already.”
Like Malcolm. “The Digger bonding thing where you tell your brothers all your deep dark secrets?”
“Yeah. Or my sister, in this case. At this rate, I’ll have nothing left for my C.B.”
I stood. “I have a tough time believing that about you, George.” I stood very close to him in the confines of the alcove. Perhaps too close.
His eyes widened behind his glasses, as if he was surprised to hear his reputation thrown back at him. Yep, definitely too close. He put his hand up to mine. And palm to palm is holy palmer’s kiss. If he were an English major, I would have suspected he’d done it on purpose. Maybe he had. Unlike with Brandon, I couldn’t read George at all.
TWO THINGS HE MIGHT BE THINKING
1) Oh, look, it’s Amy. She’s cute and smart and funny.
2) Oh, look, it’s a girl in a dark corner. Haven’t done her yet.
I took a breath. “The coast is clear now, right?”
He nodded, slowly, and we spilled out into the relative brightness of sodium streetlights.
As we walked down the slate-lined alley between Hartford and Calvin Colleges, we said very little. George, I think, was still shell-shocked over his own gut-spill and I was busy contemplating if I should reciprocate. But what should I say? My parents were happily married, and rarely fought about anything more serious than whether to hire the kid down the street to cut the lawn or do it themselves. That would go over well. Or should I share something darker? The time last year that I slept with a boy whose name I can’t remember? Would that make me sound like a slut?
We hit High Street and turned toward the tomb, still in mutual silence. The gate was closed, and George held it open for me—after we both checked to see that no one stood on the street. “Guess no one is inside,” he said, referring to the gate-position code.
We were about to find out why.
He jogged up the front steps to the main entrance and froze. When I arrived a moment later, contemplating how dangerous it would be to hang out inside Rose & Grave alone with George Harrison Prescott, I was similarly struck.
The doors had been chained and padlocked together.