Clarissa steered us away from the nightclub Odile had chosen, into a smaller, more classic Eli bar. It enjoyed a reasonably healthy crowd of Sunday evening drinkers, but not so many that our group couldn’t find a nice, out-of-the-way table at which to commiserate. (See? I knew I could come up with a better use for that word!) The bar was split-level, with tables above, and a bar, dance floor, and stage below. We headed up to the top level, where the five of us squeezed into a brown leather booth. I found myself shoved between Demetria and Jennifer, who, with arms folded and a look of supreme disgust on her face, seemed to harbor a desire to be anywhere other than in a pub with the “Brotherhood of Death.”
Or Sisterhood of Death, as the case may be.
Curiously, Odile and Clarissa, though thinner than all three of us, seemed to fill the other side of the booth to capacity as well. Must be leaving room for their egos.
“First things first,” Demetria announced. “Let’s get some alcohol into Madame Tightass over here.”
“I don’t drink,” Jennifer responded, obviously in no doubt as to whom Demetria referred.
“Why ever not?”
“Well, to start with, it’s illegal. I’m only twenty.”
I ruminated on whether that made her holier-than-thou genius more or less tolerable.
“Never stopped me breaking into Daddy’s bourbon,” said Clarissa, signaling the barkeep from the lower level.
“Nor me,” said Odile. “But then, but the time I was seventeen, I’d already had a stint in rehab. What meth didn’t do to me, Miller Lite won’t.”
“Miller Lite?” I shook my head. “I need something stronger than that tonight.”
Clarissa grinned. “You bet.” As the barman approached, she laid three twenties on the table. “This is what I want,” she said, looking him carefully in the eye and twiddling with something at her collar. “You got pomegranate juice?”
He looked at the money, then at us. “Who are you girls?”
“We’re who you think we are,” she said simply. “312. Five of them. Straight up, please, and with a twist.”
We all stared at her, openmouthed, as the barkeep rushed—actually, jogged—away down the steps.
“How did you know?” I asked.
She smiled again and I noted that the thing on her collar was her Rose & Grave pin. “Membership, girls, has its privileges. And so does legacy. This was my daddy’s favorite bar when he was a Knight of D143. Stands to reason that they’d have the society drink.”
Now Demetria looked smug. “Fake it till you make it? Is that your strategy?”
“No,” said Clarissa. “But I do intend on enjoying the rights I’ve earned. Like Amy said, we’re full-fledged members of Rose & Grave, whether they like it or not. I, for one, am going to act like it.”
“Does that include terrorizing bartenders?” I asked.
She fluffed her hair. “That was a simple request, honey. I’d only untuck the terror if we were denied.” She settled back in her seat, then tilted her head to the side, studying Demetria as if seeing her for the first time. “You know, Demetria, I never noticed this before in your baggy shirts, but you’ve got a great rack. Have you ever thought about losing the kente cloth and going for something in a deep V-neck knit? I’m thinking coral, or maybe even peach, with your skin tone. I’ve got this sweater from BCBG—”
Demetria blinked at her and even Jenny looked shocked. “Let’s focus on the issue at hand. Making sure we keep getting the privileges of membership.”
“Yes, but do we even want to be members of Rose & Grave anymore?” I fingered the pin on the strap of my bag. Was it only two days ago that I’d received it? Already it seemed to belong to me. “They made it pretty clear that hardly any of them want us there.”
“I don’t care what they want,” Demetria said. “I already heard way too much about that. I’d rather hear about us. I want to know why each of you joined. I think that if we still believe the society can fulfill the reasons we first accepted the tap, then we should fight. If not—”
“Bail?” asked Odile.
Demetria nodded, and since it sounded like a decent plan, we all agreed. Demetria went first. “To me, it was a question of changing society from the inside. There’s a certain amount you’re going to listen to some black dyke from Pittsburgh, and then there’s the amount you’ll listen to her if she’s waving an Eli diploma in your face, and then, on top of that, there’s the amount you’ll listen—”
“If she’s got a phalanx of powerful Diggers backing her up?” I cut in.
“You got it, sister.”
“Do you really think that old-boys’ network will back you up, Digger or no?”
Here’s where Demetria started looking sheepish. “Not anymore. I’d hoped being tapped meant they were willing to listen to someone like me. Apparently, what it really meant is that they hoped they could make someone like me listen to them.”
To my left, Jennifer shuddered.
The drinks arrived in tall, frosted martini glasses and Clarissa slid them along the table. “Just take a sip, Jenny,” she instructed.
Odile tasted the concoction, then smiled in appreciation at her seatmate. “Well, I can’t say I had any explicit motive for joining like you did, Dee. To me, it’s one more exclusive party. If I’m a Digger, I’m a VIP to that many more people.” Her tone was completely unapologetic, and so sincere I wasn’t even sure if I could feel offended.
Clarissa blinked at her, shocked, I was sure, at being out-snobbed. She turned to the other side of the table. “I’m a legacy,” she said. “Of course I was going to join if given the opportunity. It would be like not attending Eli. I’m a Cuthbert. We’re Diggers. Period.”
Jennifer traced the rim of her glass, then dipped her pinky in the liquor and sucked on it before responding. “Same as Demetria, I guess. Change the Diggers from the inside out.” She looked at me as if satisfied she’d provided a good enough answer. “And you, Amy?”
They all leaned forward. “Yes, what about you?” someone else asked.
Whence the curiosity? My reasons—such as they were—were no better than the rest of theirs, and “My friend-with-benefits told me to stop thinking so hard” didn’t seem like particularly strong motivation. I shrugged. “It seemed the right thing to do. It’s”—my voice dropped to a whisper—“the most powerful society on campus…in the country. Networking galore. Um, are we sure this place isn’t bugged?”
“Bugged?” Clarissa asked. “By whom? The special Digger police you were talking about earlier?”
Don’t tell me—another conspiracy theory. “Can someone please provide me with a list of what about Rose & Grave is true and what is false?”
Clarissa laughed. “The second I get one, I’ll share it. But you have a point. The walls have ears. Malcolm would be telling us—”
“Discretion!” we all said in unison, lifting our glasses and laughing. I stared down at the 312. It looked like a cosmopolitan that had spent too much time listening to death metal. The bubblegum pink coloration had turned bloodred and almost opaque. I could hardly see the spiral of lemon zest at the bottom. I tasted it. Tart beyond the telling, with a kick of sweetness at the backside that couldn’t have been simple syrup. I couldn’t detect the alcohol at all. It didn’t taste precisely like the “blood” I’d drunk at initiation, but I imagined that for the Digger hoping for a little kick in the faith, it would serve as a reasonable reminder.
“Do you know what they put in this?” I asked Clarissa.
She winked at me. “It’s a secret.”
Everyone rolled their eyes. I glanced over at Jennifer, who seemed to be making inroads into hers despite her protestations. “So you and Demetria seem to be the only ones with real reasons to be members,” I said. “Do you still want to be?”
“My resolve remains as firm as always.” Jennifer took another sip.
“My reason doesn’t strike you as valid?” Clarissa asked.
“No more than mine does,” I replied. “And let’s not even talk about Odile.”
Odile polished off her drink. “It works for me, which makes it perfectly good. We don’t need to get as noble as these two chicks. If we want to be in the”—she lowered her voice—“thingamajig for selfish reasons, then who’s to tell us we can’t? Doesn’t mean they won’t benefit from the association as well. They help us along, we’ll be the best little members they can ask for. That’s my philosophy anyway.”
And it was tough to have a problem with that.
“Yes. Who cares why we joined?” Clarissa said. “The point is, if we were tapped, then we obviously deserved it, and we should get the rights and privileges associated with it, no matter what kind of genitalia we have. If Odile wants to join merely to get lobster for dinner every Thursday night, then that’s her business. Not theirs. What the—thingamajigs—get out of it is having the great Odile Dumas as a member.”
“And that’s pretty freakin’ cool,” said Odile, signaling the bartender for another 312.
Demetria rolled her eyes.
But I couldn’t be so flippant. It was pretty cool. They were lucky to have Odile Dumas as part of their in-crowd. It definitely gave the old-boys’ network some 21st century Hollywood cred. And Demetria, who, one step at a time, was going to change the world. I definitely couldn’t imagine a cogent argument against Clarissa. Not only was she a legacy, but as soon as she was back on the New York socialite scene, she’d practically run the city. And Jennifer Santos would be the next Bill Gates. That left only…me.
Where did Amy Haskel come in?
Clarissa’s phone—well, it went off, since “rang” is probably not the appropriate term for the bubbly sound effects issuing from her cell.
She glanced at the display. “Uh-oh, girls, it’s George.”
Okay, I admit it: pulse sped.
She flipped down the mouthpiece and carried on a quick conversation. Five minutes later, the rest of the junior taps arrived.
“We’ve been looking for you everywhere,” said George, shoving into the Odile-Clarissa side of the table and winking at me. “The meeting kind of broke up the second you left.”
“But I see you didn’t leave with us,” snapped Demetria, reluctantly scooting over to let Josh and Greg pile in. Kevin took the remaining seat next to George (really not a lot of space on that side) and Benjamin the basketball player (Big Demon, like Little Demon, was a name given to a tap of a particular size) pulled up an end table and a few chairs for himself, Omar, and a very disgruntled-looking Nikolos (a.k.a. Graverobber).
“Well, at first we were all in shock,” Benjamin said, settling in and waving at the bartender. “Though not as badly as the seniors. I don’t think anyone had ever just walked out of a—”
“Thingamajig!” the girls all yelled.
“—meeting before. Nobody knew what to do.”
“So we all just sat there, staring at one another,” Kevin added.
“Until we realized that we wanted to cast our lot with you all,” finished Greg. “Where are the bloody drinks?”
Bloody was right. I slid over the rest of mine and he knocked it back.
“He wanted to ‘cast his lot with us,’ too?” I asked skeptically, pointing at Nikolos.
The men were saved from answering when the bartender arrived, looking scandalized. He did a quick head count. “Where are the other three?” he asked.
“Abroad.” Clarissa handed over a credit card. “Start a tab.”
“They know us here?” Josh asked.
“Oh, honey,” said Clarissa. “We’ve even got an official drink.”
Several hours and at least five rounds of 312s later (perhaps we should have moved to pitchers), the dozen new taps at the table were in possession of darkly stained lips and had proceeded to hammer out a plan of action.
“What I still don’t get,” Kevin, one of the few naysayers left in the group, said, “is why this is our responsibility rather than the seniors’.”
“They’re short-timers,” Demetria explained. “In a few weeks, they’re out of here and the closed tomb will be our problem. It doesn’t matter so much to them.”
“It does if the patriarchs carry through with their threat,” I said. “I heard that guy talk to Malcolm this afternoon. He said they were going to ruin his career.” And mine.
Clarissa snorted. “I’d like to see them try. That man is a governor’s son. He’s plenty well connected without the help of—thingamajig. Besides, you really think the patriarchs want to make themselves an enemy like that?”
“They’ve got plenty of allies without the likes of Governor Cabot,” I said, thinking of my pillow talk with Malcolm and his stories of his father’s prejudice. To be honest, Malcolm probably did need the help of the Diggers if his dad was the only alternative.
And Poe’s words wouldn’t leave me. I have a resume to update. If I were you, I’d do the same. Poe might be a jerk, but he was a smart jerk, and seemed to know more about the Diggers than anyone else. Why shouldn’t I trust what he said?
But when I shared my fears with the rest of the group, they just laughed.
“They aren’t Big Brother, Amy,” Clarissa said. To her credit, Clarissa hadn’t made one remark that might be construed to be within the vein of slumming all evening. Then again, maybe I was no longer persona non grata now that I had crossed the ranks into Digger. Still, chick was growing on me.
Add it to the list of things I would not be telling Lydia.
“That’s not what I’d always heard,” I said.
“That’s not what you’re supposed to hear,” said Josh. “Half of the power comes from the mystique. You’re told that, um—thingamajig—owns half the city, and you look in awe upon any twenty-one-year-old who has managed to join the ranks.”
“But what about the Presidents? Why are they always members?”
“Always, or occasionally?” Josh smiled. “Remember, we’re culled from the best and brightest at Eli.”
“Supposedly,” Nikolos added in a growl.
“Why wouldn’t some of those people end up being leaders? That’s why they were chosen.” I sensed a certain personal bias in his tone. “It stands to reason that if there are budding leaders here, the society will sniff them out. But the country’s not fixing the vote.”
Demetria snorted. “I’ve seen some stuff that would make you think otherwise.”
Josh turned to her. “You and I are going to have to have a conversation about how the electoral college works.”
“Later!” cut in Odile. “Right now, we’re talking about the patriarchs.”
And on it went. We’d move a bit farther into the realm of “getting somewhere,” only to be sidetracked by personal differences and petty squabbles. I still wasn’t sure we’d sold either Nikolos or Omar on the idea of fighting back, and even Benjamin looked like he could go either way. Nikolos appeared to be remaining with the group only under duress, Omar watched the entire proceedings in stony silence, and Benjamin seemed as if he was waiting to see where the chips landed before making a choice.
George, it should be noted, played footsie with me under the table.
Which wasn’t to say he was devoid of input. In fact, it was George who first came up with the idea of approaching the patriarchs on their own turf.
“Where does the board of trustees meet?” he asked, twirling his glass on the tabletop.
“New York Thity,” Clarissa said through a mouthful of nachos. (We’d decided to eat. I was pleased to see that the rail-thin Clarissa in fact did.)
“Then let’s set up a meeting with them. A real one. Not running up to them in the street in the middle of their demonstration like a couple of schoolkids. They’re businessmen. We’ll treat them like that. Boardroom, coffee urns, and all.”
I excused myself to go to the restroom. A couple of schoolkids? Is that what Malcolm and I had looked like this afternoon? No wonder they’d dismissed us so easily.
In the bathroom, I spent a long time looking in the cracked, rusted-out mirror above the sink. There was probably a line forming outside, but I didn’t care. Who was I kidding, in conference with these other Diggers? I was chock-full of outsider conspiracy theories that were beginning to sound increasingly ridiculous every time I uttered them in the company of people who actually had a clue what they were talking about. Line up all of them, all of their astounding accomplishments, and then look at me. What did I have to offer next to these superstars? I belonged in Quill & Ink, not Rose & Grave. If the patriarchs had an argument to make against the female taps, the weakest link to attack was…me.
The door burst open, revealing a gang of drunken sophomores. “Omigod,” said one, rushing in. “I gotta pee so bad!”
I barely made it out of the way.
Back in the narrow, dark corridor that sloped upward to the split-level body of the bar above, I paused. Maybe I should call it a night. I wasn’t adding anything of substance to the proceedings, and I doubted my presence would help them achieve a moment of brilliance. At the phone booth, I stepped up on the stool and peered over the split level through the railing at the booth where the other new taps sat. Josh and Demetria were in a heated debate about something, Benjamin was tapping his feet impatiently on the floorboards (got a perfect view of that from my vantage point), and Odile and Nikolos appeared to be in the midst of a discussion decidedly not about the society—unless there was important Digger lore to be found in her cleavage.
“Hey, boo,” said a voice behind me. “What are you doing?”
I started and nearly tottered off the stool. George steadied me with hands on my thighs.
“Careful there,” he said as I stepped down onto shaky legs, mindful of the four and a half 312s I’d consumed.
“You shouldn’t be using that name,” I said, trying to catch my breath and failing. Wasted effort with George Harrison Prescott around. “Not outside the confines of a society function. I’m afraid I’m going to have to fine you two dollars.”
“What name?” He stepped a little closer, pinning me between the phone booth and his body.
“You know. My society name.”
“Oh,” he said softly. “That’s not what I said.”
“What did you say?” I tilted my chin up in defiance.
“Boo.” His eyes glinted copper behind those glasses. “Just ‘boo.’ It means sweetie, honey, my girl. It’s a hip-hop endearment.”
I swallowed. My girl? Play it cool, Amy. “You’re not hip-hop.”
“My darling boo,” he said, “I’m so very, very hip-hop.”
And though I’d been imagining this moment for quite some time, the only thing I could think of as he kissed me was that the Yellow Pages were jabbing me in the spine.
And then, as if he knew it, he slipped his arms around my back and cradled me against him in a manner that chased all thoughts of telephone directories and patriarch battles right out of my head. Oh, yes, the man was hip-hop. “Player” was the term I was looking for, but my mouth was too busy to form the word.
There was a whole mess of reasons I shouldn’t have been doing this, but for the life of me they were hard to recall with George Harrison Prescott’s tongue in my mouth. He tasted like pomegranate juice and—I finally recognized the other ingredient. Honey.
Okay, Amy, focus. You had a list. What was it?
WHY YOU SHOULDN’T MAKE OUT WITH GEORGE HARRISON PRESCOTT
1) Oh, boy, are you in public right now.
2) George has a list of female conquests as long as the phone book he’s protecting you from.
3) I didn’t want to have to remind you of this, but you do have a rather unfortunate history with one-night stands.
4) Have you forgotten entirely about a very sweet young man named Brandon?
5) He’s now in the same society as—Oh my God, he has his hand up my shirt!
One flick of the wrist and my bra snapped open. In the hallway. Surrounded by drunken sophomores who’d be sure to tattle it around and a few feet away from a whole table full of fellow Diggers. Who knew what would happen if they saw us making out like a couple of—
“Schoolkids,” I whispered, pulling away.
“What?” George looked at me, pupils dilated, stained lips wet and inviting.
“You said I acted like a schoolkid when I confronted the patriarchs this afternoon.”
He laughed. “That was you? I didn’t know. I wasn’t there, just heard about it later.”
I remembered when he’d shown up at the meeting. He’d probably had his report from Poe. The jerk. Figures we wouldn’t have come off in glowing terms.
George traced his hand down my back. “Oh, Amy, that takes balls. Very sexy.”
“Balls are sexy?”
“Women who act like they’ve got them are.” He leaned in again, but I stopped him.
“George, what about the meeting?”
“Pretty much over. We’re going to New York next Friday to present our case to the patriarchs. Josh et al. are setting up the parley. Benjamin is getting a van.”
“And the seniors?”
“We decided to present ourselves as full-fledged Diggers, not the newbie taps who need seniors to babysit us.”
That made sense. “Amazing that everything came together the second I left for the bathroom,” I said ruefully. See? They didn’t need me.
“Why do you think I came to find you? It’s no fun up there without you.”
“Right, because I’m the joke.”
He looked puzzled. “Hardly. You knew everything about the backstory today, understood the whole argument, even before we did. The seven of us are here tonight because we don’t want you girls to be second-class citizens. Come on, boo. We need you there, too. You’re going to write our manifesto. You’re the writer in the club after all.”
This time when he tried to kiss me, I let him. Right. The writer of D177. What were a few mistaken beliefs in overblown Digger mythology compared to that?
His whole body was pressed against mine, squishing me into the phone booth. He was standing between my legs, and there were all sorts of things happening below the waist that had no business happening in a bar, even on relatively non-crowded Sunday nights.
Apparently, George thought so, too. “Let’s get out of here.” His voice was little more than a warm breath in my ear. I nodded and stumbled after him.
“The bill?”
“I think between the heir to Greece, Madame Hollywood, and Miss Park Ave., they’ve got it covered. We’ll get it next time.” He grabbed my hand. “Come on.”
As the cool air on the street hit my face, my thoughts began to clear. What was I doing? I was leaving a bar with George Harrison Prescott. I was…going home with George Harrison Prescott. And my bra was open under my shirt.
We walked back and he swiped his ID card at the gate to Prescott College while I struggled to put my underclothes back together. My memory banks concocted an elaborate montage of wet-haired breakfast partners I’d seen George saunter into the dining hall with over the past three years. I did not want to be one of those chicks.
You don’t have to be. Just go back to your room afterward and come down with Lydia.
No! That wasn’t the point. I’d done the one-night-stand thing. I hated it. And that was with a stranger. This was George, a person who lived in my building. A person I’d have to see, if not every day, then at least twice a week at society meetings. Society incest. Bad idea.
At the door to my entryway, George started kissing me again. Lord, it was nice. Like a whole piggybank full of copper pennies and sex appeal.
“George.” I hated myself at this moment. “I can’t.”
He took a breath, as if he’d been waiting for this. “Okay.”
“Don’t you want to know why?”
He stepped back, the smile and shrug slipping into position. “Nope. If it’s me, I’m not in the mood to hear it, and if it’s you, I’m not going to be the one who helps you figure it out. But, boo,” he added, ducking behind me to refasten my bra as easily as he’d undone it at the bar, “I’m not going anywhere, and I like having you around. You know what I mean?”
I nodded, afraid to speak for fear I’d take it back. I pulled the bra down until my breasts popped back into the cups. George watched, clearly amused.
“You’re really something else, Amy.”
“So are you,” I replied. “You act so differently with me than you do when you’re with the other Diggers.”
He laughed and put his finger to his lips. “Shhh. That’s our secret.”
And then he hopped down the stairs, strolled over to his entryway, and was gone. For a few seconds, I thought about hurrying after him and throwing myself into his arms, admitting that I’d made a terrible mistake.
I’m lucky I didn’t.
Instead, I trudged up to my door, where I noticed that Lydia had cleaned off the last traces of dried whatever-it-was on the doorknob. Finally. And, just think: I had actual classes tomorrow afternoon. Actual reading to do. Actual—I don’t know, schoolwork. At college. Imagine that.
Probably a very good thing I wasn’t getting laid tonight.
I opened the door to my suite and stepped inside.
Brandon Weare sat on the sofa, his hands full of roses.