Malcolm answered his door and I pushed past him, still sniffling underneath the hood of my Eli crest sweatshirt (gotta do something to hide the red nose). He handed me a box of tissues.
“You were almost unintelligible over the phone,” he said in a flat voice.
Tough luck for him. I hadn’t improved in the ensuing ten minutes. In fact, I hadn’t even been able to tell Brandon what had happened to me. It was as if there’d been some sort of post-hypnotic Diggers suggestion to keep me from talking of my plight to barbarians. (Really, at this point, maybe we could all start thinking that these conspiracy theories actually had some merit?) I’d abandoned him there, utterly oblivious about what had happened to me in the hour since I’d left him alone in bed that had the power to turn me into such a shocked, sniveling mess. I’d put the call in to Malcolm then ran out with little more than a choking good-bye.
“They—they—took my—job!” I managed to get out. “The patriarchs canceled my summer internship!”
“Yeah.” Malcolm sat down on his desk chair. “And you’re not the only one. The phone’s been ringing off the hook all morning. I’ve heard from half of the club.”
“You told me they couldn’t do that! You told me it was a bluff!”
“I was wrong. Not unlike I was about what they’d do if we tapped women. Sorry.”
“You’re sorry?” I spluttered. “My life is ruined and you’re sorry?!”
He shot me a look of disgust. “Ruined? Come on, Amy. No hysterics, please.”
“There are no decent internships still open this late in the spring. I’m going to spend the summer waiting tables somewhere and then I’ll never get a job at Glamour. That’s even assuming that Condé Nast isn’t a Digger.”
“As far as I know, Condé Nast isn’t even a person.”
“Good. At least I won’t have that hurdle to leap as well.”
“Okay.” He put out his hands, palms down. “Just take a couple of deep breaths and let’s talk reasonably about this.”
Ha! Reasonable had left the building round about the time Big Brother brought down the ax. “How do we know they won’t start in on the next of their threats? How do we know I won’t suddenly find out I have a D average and a drained bank account?”
“Now, Amy—”
“It was all true, wasn’t it? All those things you kept laughing about whenever I brought them up. The cops, the power—”
“The Nazi gold?” he added in a mocking tone. “No. That’s all in Switzerland.”
I gave him a withering stare. “Laugh it up. I’m the one who’s jobless.”
“Okay, yes,” he amended. “In retrospect, maybe some of it is true. Some. If only because the patriarchs are very powerful people, and powerful people tend to have some…leverage.”
I crossed my arms. “I want an apology for all that snickering.” And, while we were at it, for not standing up for me yesterday at the meeting. But I didn’t even give him the chance to formulate a response. I was too worked up. “And what about your job? Aren’t you being punished, too, same as the rest of us?”
“I was supposed to be working with my dad, so no. But now that’s in jeopardy, too, for other reasons. That’s what I first called you about this morn—”
“When you told me I was your second choice.” I threw my hands in the air. “My life is ruined and I’m not even supposed to be here!”
“Oh, puh-lease. Your life is not ruined. At the very worst, you spend a month not seated behind a desk for once.”
“Shows how little you know!” I snapped. “Without the proper undergrad internships, employers will throw my resume right in the circular file.”
“The Diggers can giveth and the Diggers can taketh away,” Malcolm intoned. “Once we get this mess with the TTA board sorted out, everything will get back to normal. You’ll be fine, trust me.”
“I don’t trust you. Not after what you told me this morning.”
Malcolm shot out of his chair so fast that it slammed back against his desk. “Would you shut up for one second? I’m in real trouble here, Amy. Not some little society snafu. Real trouble.”
I silenced, shaken out of my solipsism somewhat by the fact that my big sib could dismiss so lightly anything having to do with his society. He looked like he was about to cry.
“Good lord, Malcolm, what’s wrong?”
“I’ve been trying to tell you all morning. Genevieve Grady is out for my blood. I don’t know if it’s because I broke her heart or because I didn’t tap her into Rose & Grave.”
“Maybe a little bit of both?”
“She wants me annihilated.”
“And how does she plan to bring about this apocalypse?”
He dropped his head in his hands. “I got home late last night, and when I came in, she was waiting for me in the stairwell. Lurking! Obviously, when she saw you, she put it all together.”
Ah, so that’s why he’d told me the supposedly secret story behind my tap. Because of this—feud, or whatever.
“And then she dropped the bombshell.” Malcolm’s voice grew shaky. “She’s going to write an exposé in the EDN about being ‘Closeted at Eli,’ ” he made quote marks in the air and rolled his eyes, “and she’s going to make me Exhibit A.”
I made a face. “That’s so sleazy. Does she think she’s going to get into Columbia J-school by muckraking?”
“If my father reads it, I’m dead.”
I reached out and patted his arm. “Come on, what’s the chance that your dad or anyone he knows is going to read the college paper?” But even as I said it, I knew that wouldn’t be much comfort. The wire services watched our paper carefully, waiting for news of the children of the rich and powerful. If the article came out, it would be splashed all over.
Still, I wasn’t prepared for Genevieve’s coup de grâce.
“Pretty high.” Malcolm snorted. “She’s putting it in the commencement issue.”
And Malcolm was graduating. Ouch. “And you’re sure your dad would flip?”
“Like a gymnast.” He shuddered. “I know what he’d do to start. Kick me out, disown me, never speak to me again. What I’m more scared of is what he’d do next. The wrath of the patriarchs would be nothing by comparison.”
Now who was getting hysterical? “Okay. But you knew this had to happen eventually, right? I mean, maybe not in so splashy a way, but still. I thought you were just keeping it a secret so he didn’t pull you out of Eli before you could get your degree.”
Malcolm, however, said nothing, so I pressed. “How long were you planning on staying in the closet?”
“To be honest,” he replied in a voice saturated with sarcasm, “I’ve been so busy with keeping up my grade-point average, I hadn’t given it a lot of thought.”
“Well, start now. You can’t live a lie forever.”
“Yeah, but I can’t kiss my family good-bye, either. You don’t understand what it would be like, Amy. There’s nothing you want that would make your parents hate you.”
He had me there, I’ll admit. “So, what are we going to do?”
Malcolm took a deep breath, as if preparing himself for what came next. “She gave me an alternative.”
“Marry her?”
“If only it were that easy.” (Honestly, I wasn’t sure if he was joking.) “She says that she’ll drop the article on me if I provide her full access to the secrets of Rose & Grave.”
I let out a short bark of laughter. “Did you tell her that we can’t even get ourselves into the tomb at present?”
“Of course not!” He looked offended. “That’s not for barbarians to know.”
I considered bringing up the several dozen barbarians in the audience milling around High Street yesterday. Plenty of people already knew it. In fact, I’d be surprised if there wasn’t an article about the commotion in the Eli Daily News right now.
“I told her that Diggers don’t stoop to blackmail.”
“Oh, no?” I mocked. “That’s exactly what the patriarchs are doing to us!”
“Okay, fine. I don’t stoop to blackmail.” Malcolm lifted his chin momentarily, then slumped back in his seat. “But that doesn’t mean I could sleep last night. Oh, God, Amy, what am I going to do?”
Why was he asking me? Go ask one of the real taps. The smart ones. Josh or something. Or one of the seniors. I’m sure Poe could think up some way to have Genevieve disappeared for threatening a Digger.
Of course, since even the Diggers’ governing body had Malcolm on their shit list right now, that quarter was probably not going to be the most helpful providing means-by-which-to-threaten. Those resources were all tied up in making sure I had no summer job. “Who else have you told?”
“No one. I didn’t want to worry them right now, when we’ve got all this other stuff to deal with.”
“Then why come to me? Why tell me all of these things—some of which you’ve already said are supposed to be a secret.”
Malcolm looked down at his hands. “Well, I was kind of wondering if…you’d go out with me.”
“What!”
Malcolm rolled his chair forward and clasped my hands in his. “Amy, don’t you see, that would solve everything! If we told everyone you’re my girlfriend, then her article would come off as just her bitterness over our breakup. I could tell my dad that’s why she did it—which is kind of the truth anyway—and also that she’s all upset because I didn’t tap her. My dad would buy that. He totally would. Hell hath no fury like a woman scorned and all that.”
I looked at him in shock. “He wouldn’t think you were just pulling the same mustache trick or whatever?”
“Beard. And no. We’d make sure he didn’t. I can be very affectionate, and very convincing.”
Yeah. He’d been doing it for years.
“He’d have her silly article,” Malcolm went on, “but also have us in front of him. He’d see me being straight with his own eyes. My dad’s really into personal verification.”
“Eww,” I said. “I sincerely hope you don’t mean what I think you mean.” Like, letting him find us in bed. Gross.
“Not unless it’s unavoidable.” He noted my stricken face. “Amy, that was a joke!”
I whipped my hands away. “No!” I stood up, tried to put as much personal space between us as possible. “Absolutely not.”
His face fell. “Amy, please. You don’t understand. If this happens, then my life is over.”
Or it was started. “Maybe this is a blessing in disguise? You won’t have to pretend any longer that you believe all your dad’s conservative Republican crap.”
Malcolm blinked. “But Amy, I do believe it. You know that, right?” (I so didn’t know that.) “Well, not the part about homosexuals and minorities, but the rest of the party platform. I am a Republican. Small government, free trade, go Army. I’m in the NRA, for crying out loud.”
“Oh.” Well, that put a different spin on it all. “You know, there’s a name for people like you.”
“Pink elephant?” He gave me a wry, lopsided smile. “Come on, Amy, please.”
“I can’t, Malcolm.”
“Please. I know you don’t think I deserve any favors right now. I mean, I brought you into Rose & Grave, and you lost your job. But things will get better, I promise. We’ll figure out this stuff with the patriarchs and then, well, you’ll be surprised at the kind of opportunities you’ll get out of this. Isn’t that why you joined?”
“You’re saying I owe you this for making me a Digger?”
“I’m saying you owe me this because of your oath.” He stood a little straighter. “I do hereby most solemnly avow, within the Flame of Life and beneath the Shadow of Death, to bear the confidence and the confessions of my brothers, to support them in all their endeavors, and to keep forever sacred, et cetera? Have you forgotten already?”
“No. And when the society starts treating me like a member, I’ll go back to keeping my promises.” Of course, even I knew that’s not really how it worked. At least, not if the new taps’ argument was going to be: We’re the society. We’re the active members. The current students. You’re just alums.
“I’m treating you like a member,” Malcolm said. “I’ve never done anything else. I’m your brother.”
“Malcolm, even if I wanted to, I couldn’t. I have a boyfriend.”
He gave me a look of disbelief. “What? Since when?”
“Last night.” I toed the throw rug with the edge of my sneaker, wondering exactly how much he knew about my interlude with George.
“So, clearly a very committed relationship,” he mocked.
I swallowed. “It’s not like that. We are committed, it’s just been a long time in coming. It’s—Brandon.”
“Ah.” He nodded in recognition. “Well, good for him for finally tying you down. You’re quite a catch.”
“Don’t be mean.”
“I’m not.” His expression softened. “You are. Why else would I want to date you?”
“Because the fact that I’m female makes me better fit for presentation than most of your lovers?” I scoffed. “Sorry, Malcolm. But I don’t buy that you have any great preference for me. I’m a woman, and I’m available. Same as the reason you put me in Rose & Grave.”
He sighed. “What will make you believe that I want you there, Amy?” He pointed toward the tomb that stood beyond the slate of the Calvin College wall. “Not as a warm body, but for what you have to offer?”
“What is that?” I raised my hands in supplication. “I fit a slot you desperately needed to fill.”
“Sometimes that’s how belonging works.”
“Not good enough.”
Malcolm was silent for several seconds. When he finally spoke, it was in a voice of despair. “So that’s just it, then? You’re quitting?”
“Going to cut my losses, yes.”
He turned away from me. “Then I really did make a mistake.”[5]
Since there wasn’t much to say after that little judgment, I left. Heading back to my room for the second time that morning, I wished (and this one’s a first, let me tell you!) that I could turn my brain off. Just for half an hour. My whole body seemed to buzz with thoughts. Every step brought with it increasingly gruesome forecasts of the consequences of my actions and bleaker visions of my future, which had heretofore seemed so 78 degrees and sunny, with a chance of perfection.
By now, Brandon would have hied himself off to class and I had a little over two hours to do my homework before section. But if you think I was actually going to get a crack at schoolwork, then you haven’t been paying attention. Apparently, one of the reasons societies tap folks with good GPAs is that once you’re in, school is the last thing on your mind.
Waiting for me in the veritable Grand Central Station of my common room sat Clarissa Cuthbert, in white Capri pants and a shimmery pink halter top. Silver hoops dangled from her ears and a pair of sunglasses the size of a small nation (and likely costing as much as said small nation’s GNP) perched on top of her smooth blond hair.
We really needed to start locking this door.
“Hi,” I said flatly. “Lost any jobs today?”
“You, too?” Clarissa asked. “Isn’t this ridiculous? I’ve been trying to get my dad on the phone all morning. His company does a lot of business with the marketing firm I’m supposed to intern at this summer. It’s how I got the job in the first place. I know he’ll figure it out. They can’t get away with this.” She took her cell phone out of her pocket, shook it, and checked the reception. “I wish he’d get out of this meeting, already.”
“Bully for you.” I sank into our weathered armchair. “How nice it must be to have strings to pull. I’m still screwed.”
Clarissa clasped her knees. “We’ll work it out,” she said, a determined gleam in her eyes.
“You might,” I corrected. “I’m out.”
She gasped. “But—but, Amy! You can’t quit!”
“Watch me. I don’t belong there, Clarissa. Malcolm told me how—how I got tapped.”
She gasped—again. “You mean, he revealed the substance of the deliberations?”
But I was through taking note of Clarissa’s freaky Digger know-how. Her father, clearly, had not been entirely discreet. “More like how they came about in the first place.”
And now she sat back against the chair and rolled her eyes. “Don’t tell me you’re getting all huffy about that student-paper chick.”
That “student-paper chick” had a circulation a thousand times mine. “Look, my very presence wrecks the argument that the seniors tapped ‘the best and the brightest’ in our class. ‘The model women.’ I’m not like the rest of you all. Don’t you get that? You, of all people?” I gestured weakly around our Goodwill-furnished suite. “In my dorm room.”
Clarissa laughed weakly and picked at our shoddy slipcover. “Oh, yeah, about that. Have you ever thought of subscribing to Martha Stewart Living?”
Ugh. Get out! What the hell was she thinking, just waltzing into my suite and making herself at home? Commenting on our furniture? Lord only knew what Lydia would say if she came in and saw us.
Right on cue, Lydia strolled in carrying a laundry basket. She reached inside and tossed a bottle of pop to Clarissa. “Sorry. They didn’t have diet ginger ale. I hope Diet Coke’s okay.”
Clarissa shrugged and handed my roommate a dollar. “Better than regular.”
I had my hands full trying to keep my eyes from gogging out of my head. Lydia opened her bottle of root beer, took a swig, and turned to me. “Want half?”
“What? Too early for vodka?” I asked, holding my hand out for the proffered pop.
Clarissa turned her attention back to me. “Did you know that I got into Eli off the wait list?”
“No!” Lydia exclaimed, looking up from the counter, where she was matching socks.
“Yep.” Clarissa lifted her chin. “And I’m a three-time legacy. My dad about flipped his lid. And then—oh, God, this is so embarrassing—he donated a Monet to the Eli Art Gallery.”
“That worked?” Lydia asked.
“I’m here, aren’t I?” Clarissa spared a look for the bringer of the Diet Coke. “I got in.” And now she turned back to me. “Off the wait list. Now three years later, it doesn’t matter.”
“To the person who didn’t get in because your dad worked his bigwig magic, it does,” I said.
Clarissa shrugged. “That’s not the point. I’m just trying to say that I’ve been an excellent student and in general a credit to the university. They’re glad I’m here. So I belong. Wait list or not, I belong now, and have since the moment I stepped on campus freshman year.”
I was beginning to grok Clarissa—she didn’t have the slightest clue how elitist her statements sounded, and she didn’t feel embarrassed about the silver spoon dangling between her lips, either. The wealthy kids could never win. They were either rich bitches who flaunted their money or trustafarian types who wore hand-me-downs and pretended they didn’t have any. Either way was abhorrent to the eyes of those whose wallets weren’t as fat. At least Clarissa was open about it. Tactless? Maybe, but definitely truthful. And less mean-spirited than I’d spent the last two and a half years believing.
“You don’t see anything wrong with manipulating the wait list through a timely application of priceless art?” I asked. Which, as it turns out, had a very particular and definable price. It was worth admission.
“Not really,” she replied. “It’s entirely possible that the donation did nothing, and I would have gotten in anyway. Besides, the ends in this case justify the means. I wanted to get into Eli, and I did. And once I was in, I showed them what I could do.” She leveled a meaningful look at me. “So there.”
“ ‘So there’?” Lydia asked. She’d stopped folding. “You’re going to sit here in the suite of two people who got into Eli on our own merits—who might not have gotten in had there been more Monets to dispose of, and say, ‘So there’?”
“Would you drop it about the frickin’ painting?” Clarissa snapped, whirling to look at Lydia. “It’s got nothing to do with my performance since. And no, since you asked, I’m not going to apologize for doing what I could to get in. You can’t tell me that every hour you spent candy-striping at your local hospital or whatever other volunteer work you did to pad your application was given out of the kindness of your heart.”
Lydia bit her lip and looked down.
“I thought not.” Clarissa flicked back a strand of her hair. “I’m just more honest about what I’m going after. You may have liked changing bedpans, but that’s not why you did it. My father may have been glad to add to Eli’s art collection, but he had other motives as well.” And she looked at me. “I said it last night at the bar and I’ll say it again. Intentions are nothing. Methods are nothing. Results are what matter. Now, are you in or out?”
Lydia gathered up her laundry. “You guys just went way over my head,” she said hurriedly. “And, if you don’t mind, I think it’s best that you stay there. I’ll be in my room, rereading Kant. To, um, cleanse my thoughts.” A second after the door closed behind her, I heard the not-so-muffled strains of rock music emanating from her stereo. She was even doing her best not to listen in. Now she decided to respect the bounds of society secrecy. Now, when I was ready to forget the whole mess.
I dropped my head into my hands. “We don’t all think like you, Clarissa. In fact, I think it’s safe to say that most liberal arts students have been taught Machiavelli with a decidedly negative slant.”
“I must have missed that lecture.” And still, the same penetrating stare. No wonder I’d thought she was an unmitigated bitch. She was aggressive, outspoken, ambitious….
“They’re fools for denying you, Angel,” I said, and the invocation of her society name didn’t even make her flinch. “You’re a Digger to the core.”
“Natch.” She winked. “And now, the question remains: Are you?”
I didn’t answer. “Historically, what do they do if people quit?”
Her eyes glinted. “You of all people should know this, Amy. We grind their bones to make our bread.”
I smiled in spite of myself and Clarissa leaned forward and covered my hand with her slim, manicured one. “Come on. You know you want to be a part of that.”
“I’m sorry,” I replied. In this, Brandon had not been correct. “I have to think about it.”
And think I did. For the next few days, I concentrated on little else. Certainly not the commencement issue of the Lit Mag (even Brandon spent most of our office hours flirting, as if making up for lost time), nor focusing on my classes, though I was once again consuming WAP in earnest. With Reading Week nigh and no access to the tomb’s library, I couldn’t afford to dawdle.
I was miserable. As I’d expected, there were no fabulous, heretofore unclaimed internships waiting for me to stumble across at the Career Center, and an e-mail to my old supervisor at the Eli University Press went unanswered. In an attempt to circumvent what I suspected might be one of her concerns, I sent the following:
Pursuant to last, I wanted to assure you that I am in no way connected to that organization nor any activity that might upset aforementioned group. Thanks and look forward to hearing from you.
—Amy Haskel
To which I received:
Amy,
I’m sure I have no idea what you’re talking about.
(Just drop it, okay?)
Yours, etc.
You may wonder why I confided none of this madness to Brandon. I have no reasonable excuse. I think, on some level, I still believed in that oath. Besides, who knew if my revelation might drag him into the shitstorm as well? I did tell him that I’d lost my internship, which prompted a brainstorming session resulting in a list of twenty-five new places to query about a summer job and some half-baked notion that I’d follow him to Hong Kong, where he was working as a consultant, live in the garret he was renting, and write.
It’s a testament to my low level of rationality that I actually considered this.
Lydia, of course, was no help at all. In fact, I was pretty sure that my so-called best friend, despite her diligent application to Kant, spent much of the week gloating over the way my society experience had obviously gone south. Let’s just say that not once during my week of despair did she offer me a gumdrop and a shot.
Thursday night, after dinner, Lydia dressed in faux society wear (the dark hoodie and jeans she’d so roundly ridiculed me for donning the week before) and flounced out our door, waggling her fingers at me with a too-bright “Toodleoo!” (Okay, maybe I’m exaggerating just a bit, but honestly? You couldn’t miss the smug.)
I sublimated a pout and settled in with my books. If only I’d been tapped by Quill & Ink, none of this would have happened. My current tragedy was entirely due to Malcolm’s mistake. If he hadn’t screwed over Genevieve, he’d never have been forced to tap me. And then I’d be in a minor but respectable literary society. And I’d have a job. And I’d be fine.
Of course, I could have declined the Rose & Grave tap. I could have stood there in the bathroom, surrounded by boys in robes, stared into that candle, and told them what they could do with their black-lined envelopes. I could have even left the initiation early, before I’d taken any oaths.
But I hadn’t done any of that. Because I wanted to know what it was to be a Digger.
And now, I thought, rousing myself from this short period of self-doubt, I knew that it sucked.
I nodded to my textbook, reassured that my decision was correct, and uncapped my highlighter. Madame Rostov, you’ve been warned.
The phone rang.
Ever full of distractions, my life. Oh, the agony. Was it any wonder this stupid book had not been read? I lunged for the phone, crossing my fingers that the caller was a) Brandon, and b) bearing pizza.
“Amy Maureen Haskel?”
Uh-oh. “Yes?”
“We’re calling to inform you that should you choose to pursue this matter any further, we will be forced to broaden our attack to your parents’ employment and/or position in their community.”
“Wait!” I said. “I’m not pursuing anything—”
“Good evening.” And then, of course, click.
Bastards. They wouldn’t even let me explain myself. And the killer thing about being harassed by a clandestine cabal is that they aren’t even listed in Information. Forget about *69, too. There’s no way to get in touch with these guys to tell them that you’re no longer part of the rebellion.
And, as long as I was questioning their methods, what was with the whole “parents’ employment and/or position” crapola? Was that a scripted call? Were they giving everyone the same line? Making sure their bases were covered just in case our folks were of the leisure class? They should have cast their net wider. “Your parents and/or other familial figures of importance.” George, for instance, probably wouldn’t be too peeved if his dad was brought down a peg or two.
Seriously, if I were leading an intimidation campaign, I would not slack off with a mail-merge threat. Every single one of the insubordinates would receive their very own, personalized coercion. Amateurs.
I shook my head. I had no experience in this, and yet would have handled the whole situation with far more aplomb.
I was two pages farther along in WAP before the significance of that thought hit me. When it did, my distraction caused me to color an entire page in Day-Glo pink.
I’d make a damn good Digger. A much better Digger than any of these sexist patriarchs. Those qualities I’d been noting in Clarissa? I had them, too. They’d be so lucky to have a girl like me on their side. I’d kick the ass of anyone who got in our way, and I’d do it in 21st century style. They had no idea how much they needed that in their back-assward, stuck-in-the-1830s little organization.
It wasn’t like I was asking for so much in return, either. A slight career nudge here and there, a lobster dinner or three, and a grandfather clock. I wouldn’t even insist upon atomic.
Anyway, the point was, I deserved my membership in Rose & Grave, and I wasn’t going to let a bunch of old-fart octogenarians tell me otherwise.
A few moments later, wearing my own dark hoodie, I marched out into the night. I even knew where I’d find them.
Clarissa’s apartment was in the posh building in town. The one with the doorman and the marble foyer. Where other off-campus dwellers scraped by with dorm-rate rents and closet-sized living spaces (that weren’t, unfortunately, cleaned by Eli janitorial staff, nor lardered by Dining Services), people of the Cuthberts’ ilk kicked back in pricey lofts situated oh-so-conveniently above a chichi bar/restaurant that would not look out of place on the Upper West Side.
I buzzed C. Cuthbert.
“Yes?” I heard voices in the background.
“Hey,” I said. “It’s Amy. Let me in.”
Silence, and then: “Password?”
Was she kidding me? But then I realized that she was asking for more than that. She wanted commitment. This time, however, I had coffins full of it.
“Password, boo.” George. I imagined all eleven of them all crowded around the intercom, waiting for me.
The image made me smile. “Three, one, two.”
The door buzzed open.
It’s actually not Balzac, but Edmond Rostand. The confessor should really be brushing up. What ever would the Diggers say?