At three o’clock on Friday afternoon, Ben Edwards, a.k.a. Big Demon, showed up in front of the tomb in a white passenger van he’d borrowed from the athletic department.
“Oh, the class,” Odile remarked dryly as she hefted herself into the back. And you had to admit, it wasn’t as nice as the limos we’d been tooling around in before the membership had lost its funding.
We all piled into the van. The party consisted of the twelve new taps and Malcolm (who avoided meeting my eyes). Apparently, another car would be following later with five more D176ers. I sat as far away from George as humanly possible, but it didn’t seem as if he even remembered making out with me at the bar, let alone had any interest in picking up where we’d left off with more flirtation.
The two-hour trip down to New York City was as uneventful as one could expect from a clunky passenger van helmed by an inexperienced chauffeur trying to navigate the streets of midtown Manhattan on a Friday afternoon. In other words: an exercise in terror. We passengers were mostly spared, but poor Ben got the brunt of the stress. I’m sorry to report that he was never quite the same afterward and we were momentarily concerned that he’d spend our entire sojourn at the Eli Club cowering in the bathroom, twitching and calling out for his mommy.
Once we’d parked (and Ben had emptied the contents of his stomach on the parking garage’s concrete floor), we made our way to the Eli Club, which is located around the corner from Grand Central Station and shares the same Gilded Age architectural decadence. One by one, we shuffled through the cramped revolving door and were spit out ungracefully into an even smaller entrance foyer.
Elegant crown molding, gilt frames, and a sweeping marble staircase and carved mahogany banister defined the formidable lobby of the Eli Club. I’d heard that the establishment threw parties here for students doing summer internships in Manhattan, angling, no doubt, to gain new members once the interns became graduates. Looking about the premises, breathing in air softly scented with calla lilies, I could understand the draw.
This was the bloody, beating heart of Eli’s mystique. Rich, elite, old school. No wonder the Tobias Trust had chosen to house their offices here. This is exactly what they wanted Eli to remain, a nest of decadent gentleman’s clubs and all-male secret societies.
I glanced at my compatriots. Old school was out.
“Can I help you?” asked a portly gentleman behind the registration desk. A blue blazer easily two sizes too small strained over his girth. A patch with the Eli crest was sewn crookedly on his lapel. If I were the paranoid type, I would think the whole getup was new.
(The cool thing I’ve learned about paranoia is, once you’ve confirmed that they are indeed after you, it kind of dissipates.)
“Yes,” said Malcolm. “Suite 312. We have an appointment.”
The doorman looked blank. “I’m sorry, you must have the wrong building. We don’t have a Suite 3—”
Malcolm placed both hands palms-down on the countertop and stared at the man. “Look at my collar,” he said calmly. “Do you think I got this out of a cereal box? Do you think we all did?”
The man blanched as he took in our crew and their pins. “Just a moment,” he whispered, picking up a receiver on his desk. “Hello, sir. Yes, I understand what you said, but—sir?” He listened for a moment in silence. “Sir, they’re wearing the pins. I was always told that if they were wearing—that I shouldn’t—yes, sir.” He put down the receiver and looked in our direction without making eye contact with any of us. “Someone will be out shortly.”
And someone was—a slight, silver-haired man in a suit, who came within three feet of us and held out his hand. “Please remove your pins and come this way.”
Nobody moved.
“Those pins do not belong to you. They belong to the organization. As you are no longer members of—”
“That’s what we’re here to discuss,” grumbled Josh.
“I’m sorry,” the man said. “But I can’t let you in with those pins on.”
“And we’re not taking them off.” Demetria stepped forward. “And since I know it’s happy hour in the dining room upstairs, I’m sure you don’t want us to cause a scene that the barbarians might hear.”
As if to illustrate her point, the door revolved and out tumbled a trio of businessmen carrying gym bags and briefcases. Malcolm was giving Demetria the evil eye, but no one else seemed scandalized by her threat. If they were going to play dirty with our lives, we’d play dirty with their precious secrecy.
The man glowered at us, spun on his heel (Are you picturing a Nazi? Because you’d have it about right), and walked toward the elevators. “I’ll have to take you up in two groups,” he said.
I somehow managed to squeeze in with the first, which consisted of Malcolm, Demetria, Clarissa, Josh, Omar, and myself. Our escort sidled in and inserted a small gold key into an elevator lock beneath the buttons. Then he pressed the button for the top floor (which was not floor three, I’d like to point out).
“Interesting place to put a Suite 312,” I said aloud.
“Miss, there is no Suite 312.”
Now I did turn to Malcolm, who was clearly trying to hold back a smile. “That’s our Amy. Always gets to the bottom of things.” Malcolm put his arm around my shoulders. “Let’s go meet the firing squad.”
The top floor of the Eli Club housed what looked like a series of executive offices. Each one had a plaque indicating what organization was renting the space. The Dartmouth Alumni Club, the Eli Crew Team, the University of Virginia Athletic Endowment Organization. The door we paused at had no plaque, only a small white card affixed to the door that read, “Thursday 7–9 P.M.”
The other crew of juniors joined us. Jennifer looked pale, and was clutching her crucifix so tightly that her knuckles had turned white. I was sure that if she opened her hand, there’d be a little imprint of Jesus in her palm.
We opened the door and filed inside. The room was windowless, paneled in dark wood, and the ceiling had intricate gold leafing around the edges, but this hardly occupied my attention. Instead, I was too busy with the following:
1) Clarissa shouting, “Dad!” while Mr. Cuthbert, who I remember from that long-ago night at Tory’s, ignored her and poured himself another glass of water.
2) Poe, seated at the far end of the conference table, hands folded before him, face turned down. Beside me, Malcolm stiffened, and I knew that he hadn’t expected to see Poe there, either. Which meant only one thing: He was acting for the opposition. (I knew it!)
Mr. Cuthbert spoke. “Little Demon, the door, if you please.” Odile started, but Cuthbert shot her a disdainful look as the short man who’d worked the elevator moved to close the door behind us. After performing the task, the old “Little Demon” crossed to the long conference table before us and took his seat, leaving the dozen students standing in an awkward huddle by the door.
Step one accomplished. They’d succeeded in making us wait before them like children called into the principal’s office. But the campaign of intimidation had just started.
“Please sit down,” said another gentleman, who looked ridiculously familiar, though for the life of me, I couldn’t place him. He gestured at the empty seats, and we all exchanged glances as we saw the offerings. Not only were we being divided, we were being trivialized. The long, burnished wood conference table was surrounded by mismatched chairs. Some were leather, high-backed, and ergonomic, others looked liked they’d been swiped from the dining hall to fill out the table. The comfy leather ones were all occupied, and it was obvious we were to take the smaller, wooden ones, which were scattered amongst the patriarchs’ places. We fanned out and sat down on the low Windsor chairs. The tabletop reached my chest and I thought I detected a smile on one of my neighboring patriarchs’ face as Odile, on his other side, practically smacked her chin on the table as she sat down.
“Miss Dumas,” said the familiar-looking patriarch. “Do you need a booster seat?”
Odile, to her credit, didn’t take the bait. “Oh, no,” she said. “From this vantage point, I get a much better look at your boogers.”
Josh snickered.
“Do you find this amusing, Mr. Silver?” the man snapped.
“Yes, sir,” he replied. “I find it very amusing that you thought this little snafu was important enough to leave the White House for.”
Ah, now I recognized him. Kurt Gehry, White House Chief of Staff. He was a Digger? Explained so much!
Demetria cleared her throat and stood. “Well, since I don’t want to be stuck at the kiddie table for any longer than strictly necessary, let’s get to the point. We, the current members of Rose & Grave, are here to argue for reinstated access to the tomb on High Street.”
“And as a corollary,” Josh added, “we demand that you withdraw any suggestions you might have made to our employers about our work ethics, trustworthiness, and any other negative opinions you shared.”
There was a long spate of silence. And then Mr. Cuthbert spoke up. “No.”
“But you have no right to do this,” Demetria said.
“And you, Miss Robinson, have no right to be wearing that pin. You have no right to access to the Rose & Grave tomb, and indeed have no right to be addressing this board. The individuals who tapped and initiated you without the permission of the trustees have been stripped of their alignment with our organization, and therefore your initiation is nullified. Is that not correct, Barebones?”
Gehry nodded.
“You don’t have the power to kick us out,” Malcolm said quietly. “We’re the members. We control the choice of taps.”
“Interesting theory, but alas, the fact of the matter is that money controls the fate of the organization, and we control the money, not the seniors. If those in a position of power refuse to recognize you, you won’t be recognized. Your Political Science courses must have taught you that.”
“They taught me what became of history’s overblown dictators.”
Cuthbert chose not to recognize that little jibe, either. And, while he was at it, he also chose not to recognize the fact that his daughter was staring at him, openmouthed. “And where are your so-called brothers now, Mr. Cabot?” he said instead.
“More are coming.” (Damn Manhattan traffic!) Malcolm looked at Poe. “What do you have to say for yourself?”
Poe spoke at last. “I was always against the inclusion of women without the express permission from the board of trustees.”
“Poe informed us of your plan,” said Mr. Cuthbert, smugly. Thirteen pairs of eyes shot daggers at the dark-haired senior. No wonder they were using his society name and calling the rest of us Miss This and Mr. That. (Though, in retrospect, they should all be liable for fines for speaking society code names in the presence of people they’d deemed “barbarians.” Note to self: See if there’s a statute of limitations on those levies.)
“You jerk,” Malcolm said, staring at Poe with ice in his eyes. “What are you doing?”
Poe ignored him.
Josh tried to steer the conversation back to the point. “We would like to open a dialogue with you about your difficulties with the seniors’ choice of taps.” We had, in fact, spent several hours last evening configuring exactly the types of arguments we’d be making and who would be making them. Naturally, we left the bulk of the conversation to be handled by those in the group more used to formal debates—i.e., Josh and Demetria.
“We had no difficulty with the choice of you,” Gehry said, nodding at Josh. “It’s unfortunate that you were a member of an invalidated class.”
“And yet,” argued Nikolos, according to our script, “you never gave us the opportunity to denounce the females and pick new men to replace them.” He’d been very keen on making that point, if only, he argued, because it would make the patriarchs rethink their hasty plan. I thought it made him sound like a prick, but hey, to each his own.
“Would that have been an option?” another patriarch asked.
Nikolos shot a glance at Odile. “No,” he mumbled.
“You may think it’s a case of throwing the baby out with the bathwater,” said another, “but we feel it is best to start fresh with a class untainted by this…incident. The board has already selected a new list of taps from the remainder of the junior class.”
“Oh, that’s rich,” Malcolm snapped, and even Poe looked surprised to hear the news. “Who the hell are you going to get now, after all the other societies have picked them over?”
“That does not concern you, Mr. Cabot.”
I rolled my eyes. Yeah, like all that was left was a bunch of slobs? Come on, Malcolm. This was Eli University. There were plenty of superstars who weren’t in societies. They might even be planning to tap Brandon, for all we knew. (And good luck with that endeavor!) Just because you weren’t in a secret society didn’t mean you weren’t worthy. It could mean that you’d gotten into a fight with your ex-boyfriend.
“What’s your problem with women?” Demetria cut to the chase. “Rose & Grave has, in the last few decades, opened its tap list to minorities, foreigners, homosexuals, people of different religions, creeds, social standings—why not females?”
“It is no prejudice against women,” one of the patriarchs said, and proceeded to neatly sidestep all of our intentions. “We just don’t feel as if there is any reason to start tapping them. Rose & Grave is a fraternal organization, just like the pale mockery that is the Greek frat system infesting every campus in the country. The inclusion of females would permanently alter the makeup of the society and the character of its meetings.”
“It will turn us into a goddamn dating club,” another sniffed.
“I can already foresee the accusations of rape.”
“What the hell did you people do in there!” Malcolm blurted out.
“Nothing that would interest you, boy,” Gehry snapped.
Cuthbert said with finality, “The women can feel free to start any society they so choose. We will not interfere.”
Well, there went our script and all the best-laid plans of Josh and Demetria.
“You feel strongly enough about all this to sabotage our lives?” Kevin asked, deviating completely. “I lost my job in L.A. because of you wankers.”
“Right,” Josh added. You could almost see him trying to wrestle this back into his comfort zone. He’d need to work on his poker face a bit before graduating to televised debates. “Such behavior doesn’t indicate a simple disinterest in the fairer sex, boys. You care about this too much.”
“You misunderstand,” Cuthbert replied. “We merely do what we must to maintain the integrity of the organization. The seniors went behind our backs. They were punished, and the illegitimates warned about what we could do if they fought. If you fought. It’s a simple operation that has nothing to do with how the board feels about any policy. We do not tolerate any deviation from the oaths, and we strongly believe that to include women in Rose & Grave goes expressly against the mission of our Order, and therefore, all the seniors have violated the oath of fidelity. QED.”
Odile shook her head, and her long hair glistened. “It goes against the oath in your opinion. I happen to believe that the only way to make this society viable in the next century is to recognize that this isn’t a boys’ game anymore.”
The man between us began scribbling. I looked down at his legal pad to see a page of hastily scrawled notes. The most recent read: “This is a co-ed world. Why should we not have a co-ed society?”
Did the students have allies among this crowd? And if so, why weren’t they speaking up? The man at my side held his jaw tight in check and scribbled away on his notebook, occasionally pressing the pen so hard that the ink made splotches on the page.
I placed my hand near his and he looked up, meeting my eyes for one moment with a look of stern encouragement, then turned back to his scribbles.
Yeah, right, buddy. If you ain’t talking, then don’t expect me to.
“As I have already mentioned,” Cuthbert said with a sigh, “we have nothing against the idea of women organizing a secret society of their own.”
“But that won’t work,” Odile said. “Part of the Digger draw is that it’s centuries old. It’s impossible for a women’s society to compete with that, since women were only admitted to Eli in 1971. Rose & Grave has its enormous network of cronies, its property, its multimillion-dollar endowment. Even if the first women at Eli had started a society, they’d only now, thirty-odd years later, have achieved the type of position in society that would be of benefit to the new taps. There’s no tomb, no island.”
“No atomic grandfather clocks,” I mumbled. The patriarch beside me gave me a curious, sidelong glance.
“Even Rose & Grave had to start somewhere.”
“Yes,” Clarissa scoffed. “With 19th century railroad barons and plantation kings. Russell Tobias and his cronies poured millions into the endeavor in the first decade, because they had the money to burn and a place in society already secured.”
“Then, perhaps, my dear,” Mr. Cuthbert said, “you should consider that route for you and your friends. That way, at least, I could be sure that my money was being well spent.”
Clarissa clapped her mouth shut.
“No, of course you wouldn’t want to go that route,” he said, his tone oozing sarcasm. “Because it would put a severe dent in your high-heel budget and your sunglass collection.”
Odile cut in again. “As I was saying, the society structure is something that takes years to develop. Eli opened its doors to women three decades ago. Even in the general population, it took a generation, but now we are considered to be equal to men.”
“Oh, honey,” Demetria muttered. “We need to talk.”
Odile ignored her. “Rose & Grave needs to catch up or fall into obscurity. You are shutting yourself off from a large market-growth potential. The people you wish to disenfranchise will be valuable members to this society.”
“The seniors made sure of that,” Josh said, clearly glad to be getting back on track. “They tapped a class that would appeal to you.” He pointed at Demetria. “Leaders.” At Jenny. “Captains of industry.” At Odile. “The rich and famous.” At Clarissa. “And legacies.”
Skipped right over me, I see. Poli-freakin’-ticians!
He looked at Mr. Cuthbert. “You’re fighting against your own daughter, sir.”
“With good reason, son.” He pointed at Clarissa. “You want to know my problem with women? This is it. She’s sitting right here. I know those boys didn’t make good choices, because look who they picked!”
Nobody moved. Nobody breathed. In fact, I’d wager a good percentage of our hearts stopped beating. Clarissa stared at his finger, her wide blue eyes unblinking.
“My daughter,” the man spat, growing a bit red in the face, “is a waste of a good credit line. If you only knew what I’ve done for her. If you only knew what I’ve gone through on her account…” He shook his head. “But of course you don’t. You wouldn’t even have gotten that in your files. We hid it so well. So goddamned well.”
Was he talking about how she’d gotten in off the wait list? Clarissa didn’t seem to think that was much of a secret. She didn’t have the least bit of embarrassment about it. However, she wouldn’t have been the first Digger to share a secret with me, understanding that I would never tell.
Though, to think of it, Lydia had been in the room, too.
“Daddy…” Clarissa whispered.
“What, Clary? You really think you’re capable of the kind of responsibility it means to be a Digger? You really think you have the strength, the mental fortitude?”
“Daddy, please! That was a long time ago!”
“Not long enough. Not nearly long enough.” He whirled on Malcolm. “You want to know what you thought was good enough for the Diggers, Mr. Cabot? Let me tell you about my daughter. Let me tell you all about her.” He leveled his gaze on Clarissa, who might have been made of marble. “She got into ‘trouble’ on us when she was fourteen. Fourteen, can you imagine that?”
I considered everything I’d thought of Clarissa Cuthbert since freshman year. Yeah, I could imagine that. And the truth was, a month ago, I’d probably have relished this little tidbit of info. But not now. Not now that I understood that her brusqueness was not snobbery, her style was not elitism, and her supposedly nasty remarks were just misdirected efforts at advice. I don’t know how it happened, but somehow my hatred had morphed into toleration, and thence into grudging respect. And now I realized something more: Clarissa was my sister.
“And that was just the start. Clearly not satisfied with whoring around, her next little trick was to develop a so-called eating disorder to get our attention. She’d binge on junk food then take laxatives. That was a fun six months of my life. Got so bad we had to send her away for a little while. Nice little place in the country that beat it right out of her, didn’t it, darling?”
Tears the size of vodka shots were now rolling down Clarissa’s cheeks. Demetria’s mouth was open. Jennifer was holding her cross so tightly, I expected that any moment she’d be afflicted with stigmata of the palm. Odile looked—bored. The rest were transfixed by Mr. Cuthbert’s outburst, with the exception of Poe, who just stared at his hands.
I could only picture what life must have been like for a teenaged Clarissa. Scared, clearly confused, obviously looking for attention. I wondered what it had taken to “beat” Clarissa’s brush with bulimia out of her. Judging from the look of malicious glee on Mr. Cuthbert’s face, it hadn’t been pretty. No one would envy her wealth if they saw the price she’d paid for it.
“And then, of course, the cover-up. We couldn’t let the universities know why our precious little girl had missed half a semester of eleventh grade, now, could we? Had to hide it. Had to lie. Had to fake all kinds of documents to make sure her record was spotless. Good thing I was a Digger, or we wouldn’t have had the connections we needed to handle it. And even that wasn’t enough. The little tramp needed our help again to get into Eli. And you think she’s good enough to be a Digger. And she can waltz in here like she has the right to. This organization is better than that. It’s better than the likes of her.”
Clarissa’s head drooped in defeat, and something inside of me snapped.
“Shut up!” I stood up so quickly that the cheap wooden chair went flying. “Shut up, shut up, shut up!” Maybe it was my oath, or maybe it was just my humanity, but I wasn’t listening to a second more of it. “What kind of father are you? What kind of person are you? You can be disappointed in your daughter, you can be angry with her, but to say such terrible things about your own flesh and blood to a roomful of people? You disgust me, Mr. Cuthbert.”
And now everyone was staring at me. Amy Haskel, who didn’t have any excuse at all to be in Rose & Grave, except that I had a mouth that wouldn’t stay closed if my life depended on it. The man at my side was giving me a look that said, Finally.
“She’s your daughter. You’re supposed to love her. You’re supposed to support her. You don’t think she deserves to be in your precious little secret society, but the way you just acted proves to me that you have grossly misunderstood what it means to be in Rose & Grave.” I took a deep breath. “Because since the second I was tapped, Clarissa has treated me like a sister.” I thought it had been elitism, but I’d been wrong. In Clarissa’s eyes, we’d just finally had something in common, a wedge to use to get our friendship on a roll. “We may have had our differences in the past, and I’m sure as hell not about to admit I agree with half of what she says, but she’s been loyal, and kind, and considerate of me since the second we showed up in the same tomb. That’s your daughter, Mr. Cuthbert. That’s the young woman you raised.”
I paused, but no one seemed ready to chime in. I looked at Clarissa, who now had her head buried in her arms. Her slim shoulders were shaking with sobs.
“And she really, really loves Rose & Grave. More than any of the other taps in my class, she’s understood what it means to be a Digger. Because you taught it to her. Aren’t you proud of that? And she couldn’t wait to show all of us. A few months ago, we’d never even acknowledge one another on the street, but now, in Rose & Grave, we have the chance to get to know one another, and to actually belong to something really big. And Clarissa embraced it. This means the world to her, can’t you see that? She worked her butt off in school, and she was tapped by the Diggers, and maybe, just maybe, she finally did something that would make you proud. Something that would make you respect her the way you so clearly don’t. Because you give your respect to the Diggers, and not to your daughter. Have you thought of that?”
Mr. Cuthbert swallowed.
“No, you haven’t. You’ve forgotten entirely that the Diggers are supposed to be a family, because you can’t even treat your family with the respect you’d give a stranger on the street. That’s what being a Digger is? That’s the kind of person who ‘deserves’ to be in the society? That’s what you mean by a loyal, fraternal order? That’s bullshit. Even Poe”—I pointed at him. Even that double-crossing, two-timing, malicious, sexist pig—“even Poe told me that he’d support his brothers, even if he disliked their decision, because they were his brothers, and Diggers stick together. And you somehow talked him out of that. Talked him into breaking his oath of constancy. So now who is forsworn? I’ll give you a hint: It’s not us.”
Everyone just stared at me. Poe looked—well, if possible, he looked paler than usual. Utterly thunderstruck, in point of fact. Good. After all, for someone so society-obsessed as Poe, it must suck to be forsworn.
I barreled on, ignoring his little revelation and subsequent breakdown. Cry me a river, you arrogant ass-wipe. “And it’s not the seniors, either. And it’s not the patriarchs who helped them with the initiation. Are you hunting them all down, too? Mr. Prescott? The others? There are patriarchs on our side. You’re going to have to overhaul the entire alumni to weed us all out.” The patriarch beside me shifted slightly in his seat, and I took a deep breath. “I admit that I don’t understand how all of this works,” I said, and cast another glance at Poe, who was staring down at his own trembling hands, “but I would like to know how many of the patriarchs actually agree with this board.”
“Sit down, Miss Haskel,” said the Chief of Staff to the President of the United States, and that stopped me cold. I collected my chair and fell into it, breathing hard.
What the fuck had I just done?
Poe looked up, tightening his hands into fists. “She’s right,” he said simply.
Kurt Gehry placed a reassuring hand on Poe’s arm. “Son…”
“No, she’s very right.” He looked at Malcolm. “I’m so sorry, Lance.” He looked near tears. “I lied to you. I can’t believe I did that. You’re my brother.”
“It’s okay,” Malcolm said.
But my diarrhea of the mouth was obviously contagious. “No, it’s not. Don’t you see? You don’t even have to be here.”
“Poe, shut up,” Gehry said, this time with steel behind his words.
“And I should have told you,” Poe blabbed on. “But I didn’t want to piss them off. And I agreed with them. I thought the girls were such a bad idea. I told you so, too. Girls—well…” He ducked his head. “It doesn’t matter.”
“It does,” said another patriarch. “It’s a date-rape case just waiting to happen.” He eyed Odile warily as if she were about to cry sexual assault there at the table. The other patriarchs were still in shock from Mr. Cuthbert’s outburst. Mr. Cuthbert himself looked like a deflated red balloon. Clarissa still hadn’t lifted her head from the table.
“But I kept you in the dark.” Poe’s voice trembled, but he pushed through. Every sentence fell like a gavel. To him it must have been more like the blade of a guillotine. “All this week, when you were planning, I’ve been telling them everything, and not telling you the one thing you needed to know—”
“Stop talking.” Gehry’s voice had gone high-pitched and desperate.
“Because the thing is, this board—”
“Stop. Now.”
“They’re just the board.”
“Stop talking, Poe.”
“If you’re looking for permission, you don’t need theirs. You need the trustees at large. And every single alumnus, every patriarch on the planet, is a trustee of Rose & Grave.”
Gehry’s face turned a lovely shade of magenta that almost matched Demetria’s hair. “Shut up this instant or I swear on Persephone that I’ll make you pay.”
But Poe’s resolve had reached terminal velocity. “And we can ask them directly. Do a mail-in vote. Hell, do a call-in. I have all the info back in my room at Eli. If they vote us in, if they vote in women, there’s not a damn thing the board can do about it.” Poe paused, looking around the room at the taps gathered there, as if seeing them for the first time. His eyes settled on mine for the briefest of instants before turning back to Malcolm. “And Lance, I think they will.”
The patriarch beside me slid his legal pad in my direction. I looked down at the message scrawled there.
Good job, Bugaboo. Well played.
From there, the meeting degenerated into chaos. Kurt Gehry went hysterical. He was shaking his fist in the air, swearing on everything that was holy that we “little girls” would rue the day we took him on. His face was the color of a ripe eggplant. I wish CNN had been there to capture it. It was hilarious. At last, three patriarchs had to haul him bodily from the room.
Mr. Cuthbert proceeded to get sick into a large potted ficus plant, and George and Odile decided that it was the perfect time to dance a tarantella on the top of the conference-room table. (I didn’t know it was a tarantella at the time. Odile had to explain it to me later. I have no idea how George knew the steps.) Jennifer grabbed a box of tissues from the corner and began comforting Clarissa, who appeared to be making a speedy recovery (especially after watching her dad lose his lunch). Malcolm and Poe hugged for a long time, long enough to make me start wondering what exactly it was that Poe had against girls, and the patriarch Little Demon, wringing his hands and looking quite out of sorts, finally kicked us all out.
We whooped and hollered all the way down to the ground floor of the Eli Club and exploded onto Manhattan en masse.
Malcolm and Poe excused themselves from the group almost immediately and caught a Metro North commuter back to Eli in order to get started on the patriarch vote. “We’ll do pro/con arguments,” Malcolm said to me, and I had no doubt who’d be providing the “con” perspective. “There are about 800 alums, though, so it might take a bit of time. I’m calling the guys who never did show up and telling them to get their asses back to school to help.”
I wondered idly if they’d get the tomb reopened before my Russian Novel final in two weeks.
Clarissa treated us all to a lavish dinner at an uptown steak house on her father’s AmEx gold card. “Use it before I lose it,” she said, signaling for another bottle of bubbly. It’s safe to say that no one felt the least bit guilty ordering the surf n’ turf.
“I have to make a phone call,” Jennifer blurted out before the sliced tomatoes arrived. She rushed off, and when she returned, ten minutes later, it looked as if she’d been crying. However, no one could get her to open up.
“Tender nerves all around,” Demetria said, patting her on the shoulder. Jennifer took a deep breath and actually directed a smile in Demetria’s direction.
“It’s been a long day,” she admitted. “And I feel like…everything’s changed.”
“I hope it has,” Kevin said.
Clarissa clinked her glass with mine. “Thanks so much, Amy.” Her smile didn’t quite reach her eyes. “I can’t tell you how much that meant to me. But, what was that bit about not liking you before you were tapped? I didn’t even know you.”
I bit my lip. “You knew me well enough to—never mind. It’s in the past.”
“No, tell me.”
“Galen Twilo. Freshman year.”
She narrowed her eyes. “That loser? I don’t think I’ve spoken to him in years. Do you know he stole my BlackBerry to buy pot?”
“Do you know he slept with me and never spoke to me again?”
She grinned broadly. “Then you had a lucky escape, my friend. That guy is such a little prick.”
“Having seen it, I’m inclined to agree. But at the time, I overheard you say he was ‘slumming’ with me.”
Her mouth turned into a little pink O. “I didn’t. Did I? My God, what a bitch move!” She put her drink down, and enveloped me in a hug scented with Chanel and tears. “Now I’m really grateful that you stood up for me. Lord knows I hadn’t done anything to deserve it.”
“You had.” I hugged her back. “You’re my sister now. We shouldn’t be held responsible for stuff we did as teenagers. We’ll just stick that bit in the vault along with all—”
“The other crap my dad was talking about?” She smiled mirthlessly. “I hate the girl I used to be, Amy.”
I met her eyes. “Good thing she’s not around anymore.”
“I don’t know about that.”
“I do,” I replied. “Because I’ve been looking for her since initiation, and I haven’t seen her once.” And I had. I’d been so ready to judge Clarissa by everything I knew about her, rather than who she actually was. Maybe, if Clarissa could change, then a centuries-old society could as well.
After dinner, Clarissa paid the check and all the girls, true to form, took to the bathroom as a group. “I can’t believe they wanted us to give back the pins,” Demetria said, admiring the way hers flashed in the mirror.
“Yeah, but you weren’t about to let go,” I said. “I think we’d have swallowed them or pinned them straight to our bodies before handing them over to those assholes.”
“It’s too bad they aren’t permanent,” Odile said. Four pairs of eyes met in the mirror.
Jennifer exited the stall. “Hey, guys,” she said, heading toward the nearest sink. “What’s the plan now?”
“Absolutely not.” Jennifer folded her arms across her chest.
“Come on, Jen,” Demetria said, tugging her into the tattoo shop. “I have seven, and they hardly hurt at all.”
Jennifer planted her feet on either side of the doorway and resisted the larger girl’s efforts. “They aren’t safe. You can get hepatitis.”
Odile rolled her eyes. “Please. This is where Ani Di Franco goes. You wouldn’t believe the strings I had to pull to get us in here. It’s perfectly clean, and more important, über hip.”
“You know,” I said, “if she doesn’t want one, she doesn’t have to—”
“Oh, no you don’t, Amy,” said Clarissa. “All for one and all that. We’re Diggers forever after tonight.”
The much-illustrated tattoo artist eyed us warily. “What are you chicks, some kind of girl gang?”
“Something like that,” Odile said, putting the finishing touches on her sketch and sliding the paper to him. “There. In black, red, and green. Put the numbers underneath.”
“How big?”
“Small as you can make it,” Clarissa said. “As Malcolm says…”
We all punched our fists in the air. “Discretion!”
As it turns out, “small as he could make it” was about an inch square, and despite all of Demetria’s reassurances, the damn thing hurt like hell.
“That’s because you’re getting it on your spine, girlfriend,” Demetria called out from her chair, where Manhattan’s second-hottest tattoo artist was mapping out a small hexagon in between the tribal markings already gracing her upper arm. Apparently, Odile’s connections got us double-teamed.
I took a deep breath and looked at Clarissa, who, shirt off, was standing before the mirror and admiring the freshly colored tattoo on her shoulder blade. “Right where my Angel wings would be,” she said. Clarissa hadn’t moved a muscle as the ink was sliced into her flesh, as if the pain of the needles was nothing compared with what she’d already experienced today.
“Okay, do it again,” I said. The infernal buzzing started up and I could feel it in my teeth. A million bee stings formed the shape of the seal of Rose & Grave low on my back, and I squeezed my eyes shut—not that it helped, since I couldn’t see what they were doing anyway. “How many of these have you done?” I asked the guy, hoping it wouldn’t distract him. Since it wasn’t distracting me any, I figured I was safe.
“None so cool as putting a coffin on Odile Dumas’s breast,” he replied. “I gotta get a picture of that for the website.”
I squeezed my eyes shut. “Yeah, well, I don’t know if that’s a good idea. This is kind of a secret.”
“What do you mean?”
Odile leaned in, her scarlet hair arranged to cover her braless chest. “Have you ever heard of Rose & Grave?” she asked the guy.
“The secret society?” His eyes widened.
Odile smiled and put her finger to her lips.
The buzzing stopped, and the man pulled the tattoo machine away from my skin. “You guys aren’t, like, going to have us killed when we’re done here, are you?”
Clarissa tilted her head to the side. “Hmmm, that’s probably a good idea. What do you think, Lil’ Demon?”
Odile ruffled the man’s hair. “No, but we might dictate what it is you’re allowed to tell Page Six.”
When Demetria was finished, Jennifer asked the artist to take her into the back room, and she returned half an hour later, her eyes watery, and refused to let any of us see her tattoo. “It’s um, private,” she said, eyes downcast.
“That girl,” Demetria whispered, “has more secrets than any five Diggers.”
“I bet she’s really a big kink,” Clarissa added. “These religious chicks often are.”
I was twisted, the better to see my new tat, which the artist was smearing with Vitamin E as he explained to me what to expect from my first few days of being inked. I glanced at Jennifer, who was popping M&M’s (to restore her blood sugar post inking) and laughing with Odile. I touched my skin, which was swollen and tender where the seal had been embedded in my flesh. “We’ll find out when we start the meetings, I guess.” Those C.B.s were guaranteed to be a hoot.
Clarissa beamed. “Yes, and I’ll finally get the equality of hearing some of your secrets. You already heard all of mine.”
Odile joined the group. “Well then, let’s even the playing field. We’ll all tell a secret. I’ll start.” She took a deep breath. “I don’t want to go back into the industry after graduation. There, I said it.”
“Okay, I’ll play.” Demetria ducked her head. “I’m…kind of into John McCain.”
Jennifer chewed her lip for a few seconds, then whispered, “I don’t always agree with my pastor.”
I tried to sit up, grimacing when the tattooed area ached with every move. “I’m writing a novel,” I admitted.
Clarissa laughed. “And here we all thought you were going to tell us if George is a good kisser!”
I turned as red as the skin around my tattoo. “Since when is that a secret?”
“Just teasing,” Clarissa said. “To the Diggerettes!”
Demetria grimaced. “Oh, no, that’s wretched. I’d rather all the usual Gothic shit they say. You know, the whole Sacred Seal of the Holy Order of the Knights of Persephone blah blah blah.”
“That’s not it,” Odile said. “It’s the Flame of Life—”
Jennifer sighed and flipped her braid back. “And the Shadow of Death,” she said, rolling her eyes.
Tonight, however, I could take a few extra capital letters. After all, we’d earned them. We’d taken on powerful, intimidating men, and we’d beaten them. My back stung, and I thought of the ink soaking into my bloodstream, becoming a part of my soul. I lightly traced the numerals that were sketched beneath the seal. “Yours in 312,” I murmured. Tonight, we’d become something more, for instead of the ubiquitous 312 inscribed beneath the symbol, the five of us had 177 etched into our skin. The first Rose & Grave class of women. The ones that changed it all.
We were Diggers, and nothing would ever be the same.