I hereby confess:
Politics is always personal.
It is a truth very rarely acknowledged that no matter how long you sleep, your issues are still there to smack you upside the head as soon as you get up. And so, ten hours later, I crawled my way up through oblivion to respond to the pounding on my door.
“What!”
“Amy, it’s Josh. Can I come in?”
“No.” He’d narrowly escaped having his face torn off last night, and only because I was too tired to do any tearing. I’d simply brushed past him on the way to my bed, closed the door behind me, and locked it. Mr. Phi Beta Kappa got the message.
But now he was back. “You’d better be decent,” he said, as he opened the door anyway and traipsed around the messy piles of my clothes. You’d think, after the stellar cleaning job the patriarchs did on Jenny’s room, they could have afforded me just a bit of the same treatment. Josh sat on the edge of my bed. “I brought you some orange juice.”
“I hate you mildly less.” I grabbed the proffered cup and went back to hiding under my duvet, drink and all.
“We need to talk.”
“I beg to differ.” I sipped at the juice. Wow. The first non-caffeinated beverage I’d had since I can’t remember when. And I was starved as well. “Unless, perchance, you also brought a bagel?”
I heard a wrapper crinkle. Okay, I hated all men sans Josh.
“Amy, it’s important.”
“It’s always important. It’s been important for weeks. I can’t take any more importance right now. I think I made that clear last night. What more do you want? I found the leak. I brought her to you. I uncovered a massive conspiracy. I brought you to that. I survived the fallout, even. I’m so done.”
“It’s about Lydia.”
I pulled the covers down. “What?”
“I got home really late, obviously,” Josh said. “But I had an e-mail from Lydia, and she asked to come over. I suppose all of the honesty about Rose & Grave opened the floodgates for her to talk about her own society experiences…. Amy, I’m really worried about her.”
“What do you mean?”
“How much has she talked to you about her society?”
I began wolfing the bagel. “Zilch. It’s verboten in the suite. Back last year, around tap, we argued about it a lot.”
“I’ve been getting the impression that whatever she’s involved in, it’s pretty intense.”
“More intense than Rose & Grave?” I asked, skeptical. “How is that possible?”
“I’m getting the idea she was hazed pretty badly.”
Oh. That. “I was a little worried about that after Initiation Night. When I came back, it looked like she’d been through a real ordeal. Her room was covered in feathers and cow blood. It was disgusting.” I wrinkled my nose, remembering. The whole common room had smelled like bile, and there was mud tracked all over the place. I thought the Rose & Grave initiation had been bad, what with all the being-shut-in-coffins and imminent-threat-of-drowning, but it was clearly nothing to whatever Lydia’s society had done to her. “It obviously wasn’t pleasant, but she seemed to weather it okay. Why the sudden concern?”
“The way she talked about her meetings—they’re brutal. Do you know she has to stand naked on a pedestal and recount her sexual experiences?”
I stopped chewing.
“Rules infractions are apparently repaid with corporal punishment.”
I blinked at him. “Like, she’s whipped?”
“Well, she must not have broken any rules, because I haven’t seen any marks on her. But can you imagine?”
“No! That’s terrible.” I’d dreamed up a lot of wild stories before I understood the truth about Rose & Grave, but I’d never imagined anything like that.
“She told me about one of the other members. He or she—she wouldn’t say—is on the swim team. They stick the society pin into their skin at practice.”
I put down my bagel. “Stop. This sounds horrible. Did you find out what society it is?”
“No, but I want to. I bet we have some sort of records on them in the tomb. I want to kick these guys’ asses.”
“I can’t believe she’d submit to stuff like that,” I said, but the truth was, I could. Lydia had always viewed society membership as a crowning achievement to her time at Eli.
“I bet it’s a newer society,” Josh said. “Maybe one of the reconstituted ones. They tend to be much more hard core because they want so badly to have the same sort of reputation as Rose & Grave.”
“That’s possible. Although really, who’d want Rose & Grave’s rep right now?”
He shrugged then became quiet for a moment. “I wanted to ask you last night why you disappeared.”
“Had to. I’d had enough. I was dead on my feet. What happened?”
“The room leads into a tunnel that empties out in a corner of the sculpture garden. So you were right all along when you said there was a secret entrance to the tomb.”
“Score!” I took a swig of orange juice.
“They’d basically scattered by the time we all made it out. Not that it matters. The confrontation was the important thing. I take it you had a couple of your own?”
I didn’t answer, and Josh, to his credit, didn’t spend any time saying “I told you so.” But I’d learned my lesson. Society incest is a bad, bad thing.
“The big question is who’s going to show up to the meeting tonight,” he said.
“You think they won’t show?”
“I’m afraid of what will happen either way,” Josh said. “Amy, you know it’s your turn to be Uncle Tony.”
I caught my breath. No, I’d forgotten.
“I talked to some of the others. I was surprised by the variety of opinions on the issue. Some of them thought we should simply forget the whole thing happened. Say it’s bygones and go on with our lives. Some think we should kick their asses out of the club for breaking the oath of fidelity.”
“What do you think?” I asked him.
“What do you think?” he replied.
I leaned back on my pillows. “I say fuck ’em all. I can’t deal with it anymore.”
He was very quiet. “Some people say they should be allowed to go on as they have been. That their little faction is no different than the Diggirls.”
I sat up. “That’s bullshit.”
“I’m just saying some people have said this.”
“‘Some people’ named Mara?”
He didn’t answer. Instead, he said, “So we can talk more later about Lydia?”
“Sure. I’ll see what I can get from her. But I’m warning you, she’s pretty tight-lipped about stuff like this.”
He nodded. “And a bunch of the, uh, ‘good’ Diggers are getting together before dinner to discuss the situation. Will you be there?”
I considered this, then started scooching back beneath the covers. “I’ll be there for the meeting,” I said at last. “I think I’ve devoted enough of my time to the Order of Rose & Grave for one week.”
“Ah, you forget.” Josh stood. “It’s Sunday now. Whole new week.”
Curses.
When I finally did arrive at the tomb, shortly before dinner, I was greeted almost as you’d expect: as a conquering hero by the “good” Diggers and with cold silence by the disgraced Elysians. Fortunately, I only had to bear a moment or two of the juxtaposition before Lucky showed up. The reaction she provoked was unanimous.
“Wow, so you do have the cojones to show your face,” said Angel, raising her glass. “I salute such extraordinary chutzpah.”
I was busy saluting such an extraordinary combination of foreign tongues. We convened in the dining room for the most awkward meal I’ve ever attended. Actually, “awkward” isn’t the word. Neither is “uncomfortable,” “intolerable,” “ill-at-ease,” “strained,” or even “torturous,” though really, dinner was defined by all of the above and more. It was tough to eat, what with the giant woolly mammoth of issues arm-wrestling the enormous King Kong of unresolved tension right there in the room with us. Hale had cooked salmon in what I’m sure was a scrumptious creamy dill sauce, but I couldn’t swallow a bite. Nobody met the eyes of anyone else, the room remained more silent than the Stacks at exam time, and Puck appeared to have been body-snatched, to judge by his utter inability to crack anything resembling a joke.
Not that I would have laughed.
Twenty-nine painful minutes later, I gave a little cough to get everyone’s attention. “Shall we get this show on the road?” I said. Murmurs of assent replaced the choked stillness, and we adjourned to the Temple. I started the meeting with the usual rituals, but skipped right past the song-singing and hair-ruffling part. Who were we kidding, really?
“Tonight, in lieu of the usual discussion of fines for minor rule transgressions, let us skip straight to the real issue.” I paused for effect. “What the fuck, people?”
Everyone looked at me. I shoved back the hood of my robe.
“Seriously. I spent the last few days running around this campus and a good portion of the tri-state area, trying very hard to hold this society together. I’m tired. I’m angry. And I want to know why I should keep bothering, other than the obvious reason that I swore I would. From what anyone with the sense God gave a goldfish has been able to gather, some of you aren’t happy with the current incarnation of the society—and some of you aren’t happy with the society, full stop. So what we’re going to do now, if it’s okay with everyone, is let each knight speak in turn on the following topics.” I counted them off on my fingers. “The existence of Elysion, the perceived failings of this year’s club, the recent leaks, and what, if anything, should be done about these things. Right to left. Go.”
I sat on the throne, folded my arms across my chest, and waited.
And one by one, people began to speak.
According to Thorndike and Angel—who, stop the presses, actually agreed with each other about something—we should ride the lot of them out of the tomb on a rail, including Lucky. Oath-breaking is oath-breaking, and they’d each committed some serious oath-breaking.
Bond’s stance was that we should give the lot of them a “right good titching.” Being a bit behind on Eton slang, it wasn’t until Soze gave me a meaningful glance that I realized that whatever it meant, it was the kind of behavior more often practiced by Lydia’s society than the Diggers. Bond also suggested we follow that up with several months of probation. Except he didn’t say “probation.” He said we should “gate them.” Same thing, apparently.
Juno said we should accept the new status quo (but still kick Lucky out). As Soze had intimated earlier, she saw Elysion as not materially different from the informal gatherings the Diggirls participated in. Others (and I include myself in that number), however, argued that the Diggirls weren’t keeping any secrets—especially about our existence—from the rest of the club, nor had we formed any kind of formal parameters or rituals for the group, like the Elysions’ red robes, nor would we exclude any knight who wished to join us at whatever pizza place/coffee shop/bar we were frequenting, nor were we doing anything that could be remotely interpreted as “skimming from the top” of the Tobias Trust, so that argument didn’t hold much water. Juno merely retorted that our tattoos were rituals of the oldest and most traditional sort, and just because Elysion had thought of the dedicated meeting space and special subtrust first didn’t mean the girls wouldn’t have come up with it later. It was her recommendation that, henceforth, all Rose & Grave initiates, depending on gender, be granted simultaneous entry into either Diggirls or Elysion, much in the same way that, until recently, female students at Harvard received diplomas proclaiming them graduates of Harvard and Radcliffe.
In a move that shocked pretty much everyone, including perhaps herself, Lil’ Demon agreed with many of Juno’s points. “Not the stuff about the Diggirls and the tattoos,” she was quick to add, “but I don’t think Elysion is the harbinger of doom we’re making it out to be. Yeah, it was a bitch move to do it all behind our backs, but so what? We caught them; it’s out now. At the risk of sounding like a walking stereotype, can’t we all just get along?” She added that she thought Lucky should be punished for her actions, but she was certain we’d be able to find a suitable penalty without resorting to dissolving anyone’s membership. “We can try that titching thing Bond mentioned.” (Quoth Soze: “Um, no.”)
Graverobber reiterated his old chestnut of funding, expounding on his argument that Elysion was the last great hope of the Rose & Grave of the past. (At this point, Thorndike began to argue that the Elysion of the past was the last great hope of the Third Reich, at which point I pounded the gavel a few times to get her to shut up and let Graverobber finish his speech, when what I really wanted to do was shout “Hear, hear!” and fling said gavel at Graverobber’s head.) He finished up by saying he was in complete support of Juno’s suggestion as long as they contained a provision to keep Elysion money with Elysion, et cetera.
Big Demon begged off financial analysis in favor of focusing his discussion on the problems he’d been experiencing in the club. However, he admitted, since its inception, Elysion had, for his money, been spending too much time talking about Rose & Grave and not enough actually doing all the cool bonding stuff. “Just once,” he said, “I’d like to spend some time in this society not talking about the state of the society. This is like a bad relationship.”
Kismet and Frodo both expressed dismay that they hadn’t been more well informed about the original incarnation of Elysion. “I’d probably have been loath to get involved had I known what the name stood for in Digger circles,” Frodo said.
Kismet concurred, but added that he felt their main sin had not been naming their subsociety after the earlier one, but rather, keeping their true purpose a secret. “Had we approached you openly,” he asked, “would we even be arguing about this now? What is your greatest complaint: that Elysion exists, or that it exists as a fait accompli?”
We all considered this in the silence that fell after his speech. Finally, Kismet elbowed Puck, who started as if he’d been dozing off. Perfect.
“Whatever you guys decide,” Puck said, still not meeting my eyes, “I’m cool.”
“That’s not sufficient,” I said.
And now, at last, he looked at me, his expression all casual and devil-may-care. “Of course it isn’t. ’Boo needs more. Well, I’m sorry, but that’s all I’ve got.”
I took a deep, calming breath. “You have nothing to say about your involvement in Elysion or your hopes for the future of the order?”
He tilted his head to the side, as if considering. “Nope. Can’t say I do. As you may recall, I’m not so involved that my heart will get broken if it all just…ceases to exist.”
Asshole. While I attempted to frame a calm response (not to mention keep an even expression), Jenny rose to her feet. The look she sent Puck bore the usual level of righteous hostility, but there was something noticeably different about its flavor. This time, she was angry on my behalf.
Jenny tugged on the hem of her shirt and began. “I don’t know if I’m supposed to talk during this, and judging from what most of you have said, I’m pretty sure how this is going to pan out where I’m concerned. To be honest, I can’t blame you. I made promises to Rose & Grave, and I broke them. And I’m very sorry. I’m sorry because I now realize how much it’s hurt you—not only due to what you’ve gone through this week, but also because I think all the concern over the last month has definitely contributed to the lack of…cohesiveness in this year’s club.” She turned to Big Demon. “I’m so sorry for usurping your C.B. night. I feel especially bad because you’re not only my brother, but before all of this, we were barbarian college mates. I should have made a point to become better friends with you.” She turned back to the group. “And I know this sounds selfish, but I’m mostly sorry because I know I’ll never have another chance like this. I should have realized it when, even as I was leaking info, I found myself picking and choosing what I’d let go of. I should have realized it meant that I didn’t want to do it. I loved Rose & Grave, even if I wasn’t willing to admit it. So now I am, and it’s too late.”
She sat down to resounding silence, and not the good kind, either. The Inner Temple began to feel every bit as uncomfortable as the dining room had. And then Tristram Shandy stood.
“I haven’t said anything yet. In fact, I haven’t really said much of anything all semester. I’ve felt pretty left out, to tell you the truth. Juno was the only other Straggler who actually made it into the society, and she was instantly gathered into the bosoms of the other Diggirls.”
Angel let out a little, snorting laugh. “Instantly?”
“Bosoms?” Thorndike added.
I raised my gavel in warning.
Shandy went on. “I’ve listened to you all make your arguments, and you’ve given me a lot of food for thought, especially about the idea that we can go on in this manner—Elysion for men, Diggirls for women. But in the end, I think it’s bullshit.” He crossed to the pedestal near where I sat and took down the book of oaths. “I don’t know if it was any different when I was initiated in Saudi Arabia, but I’m pretty sure my oath of fidelity said the same thing yours did: to place above all others the Order of Rose & Grave. As far as I’m concerned, that means above other societies as well. The very idea of subsocieties within the Order goes against the principles we swore to.
“Elysion does not represent me. Never has. And I won’t be a part of it, because as far as I’m concerned, its very existence is a mockery of the type of brotherhood we’re supposed to be creating. There’s not supposed to be a hierarchy within the club. That’s why we pick a new Uncle Tony every week. That’s why we vote on everything. We speak as one voice. It’s my understanding that our predecessors did the same when they chose to tap women. Why would we denigrate their efforts by splitting off into groups—the people who are girls, the people who are boys….” He trailed off. “What happens to the people like me who don’t want to be part of any subgroup?” He sat down, and once again, silence reigned. This time, however, I think it was because we were all shocked that Shandy, always so silent, had come up with the best argument of all.
Okay, then. “I suppose we all might want to take a few moments to think about—”
“Wait,” said Lil’ Demon. “You haven’t said what you think.”
What I think? What I think. Oh, where to start! All I’d been doing was thinking about this, all I’d been doing was fighting for it—for far too long—and I still had no answers. Hiding under my duvet began to seem like a permanent solution. “I think this club hasn’t been living up to expectations. I think I’ve devoted a ton of time and energy to it. I think we’ve all been hurt and disappointed by what’s happened ever since we joined. We lost jobs, we lost friends, we lost who knows what else. So there’s got to be something keeping us here anyway. It’s not the money, it’s not the networking, and it can’t only be Hale’s cooking. I think one hundred and seventy-six years’ worth of patriarchs would be devastated if we let it go to pot. But I think if we don’t, as a group, make a decision about the next step, then we’ll go down as the worst club—and possibly the last club—in all of Rose & Grave history.”
I lifted my shoulders and then let them drop as the words sank in my own ears as well as those of everyone else in the Inner Temple. “And I think I’m tired of having this argument. I’ve been tired of it for at least a month, and I’m not the only one. If we can’t get past trying to figure out where this society is going and actually start taking it there, then we might as well give up. Right now—and this may be my sleep deprivation talking—I’d almost be willing to take the position of Puck over there. ‘Fuck it. I don’t care what happens.’” He looked up at me, and actual surprise registered on his features. “But I do care. I just don’t have an answer. I suppose I think we should do whatever is best for the society we’ve been swearing to uphold. But I can’t decide that on my own, and I don’t know if we’re ready to decide it as a group.” I stood. “So I propose the following: We adjourn this meeting and go home. We all know what our options are, and where each person stands on the issue. For the next few days, we’ll try to come to some sort of agreement about where to go from here. And if we can’t, then I say we make Thursday’s meeting a time to admit we’re hung. At which point, we’ll vote to disband, and the Club of D177 will be no more.”
There’s something to be said for a dramatic exit. And actually speaking the words aloud added an especially nice touch, in my opinion. You thought the silence was pretty intense before, you should have heard it after my little decree. Or not, as the case may be.
We’d been pussyfooting around the issue all evening. I was just the one who actually put words to our worst-case scenario. Figure out how to make this work or be the ones responsible for waving good-bye to two centuries of tradition. Boom.
Plus, it’s the truth. I’d devoted enough time and energy to the dramas of Rose & Grave. If we couldn’t get it together, maybe we should give up. Even if it meant going on hiatus and letting the patriarchs pick a new class (who, I’m cynical enough to predict, would undoubtedly be all male) for D178.
I closed down the meeting and vamoosed, disrobing and departing the Inner Temple before I could be roped into any more conversations or debate. And I wasn’t going to sign into my Phimalarlico account tonight, either. I’d given plenty to the society in the last few days. If it couldn’t stand without me for a few hours, then maybe it didn’t deserve to stand.
This time, as I left the tomb, no one followed me back to my college. (As if George wanted to get anywhere near me!) I anticipated a blissfully peaceful Sunday evening. Even Lydia would be busy with her own society meeting.
But as I turned onto York Street and Prescott College came into view, I caught sight of a familiar figure passing through the gate and turning toward College Street. It was Lydia, carrying her bag. What was she doing out here? She must be way late for her society meeting.
I began walking after her, keeping a safe distance. This was the perfect opportunity to discover what society she’d actually joined. I’d simply follow her right to the door of her tomb.
But instead of leading me to any tomb I knew of, she turned into Cross Campus and headed for the library. I followed her into the building and watched her make a beeline for the elevators in the back. As soon as the doors closed behind her, I rushed up and watched the number display. Floor seven. Freshman year, I’d heard rumors of a society that actually met in a secret room in the library stacks, though I’d never learned which one it was. I hopped in the next elevator. How hard would it be to find the entrance to the tomb in the Stacks? There wasn’t anything up there but reading rooms and bookshelves. Of course, I’d recently been taught a lesson about how well a society could hide its rooms, if necessary. I’d have to keep an eye out for any suspicious-looking mirrors.
The elevator reached the seventh floor and opened onto a hall lined with doorways. Most were inset with panes of frosted glass, though a few of those panes had been covered up by layers of paint or even, in one case, pieces of wood. I held my ear against each door. Nothing. I touched the metal doorknobs. Still cold.
Maybe the entrance was actually in the Stacks.
At Eli, there are two different types of people: those who study in the Stacks, and those who don’t. I’ve been known to do a bit of reading or even a problem set or two in the public reading rooms on the ground floor, but hang out for hours in the Stacks? Not on your life. Endless, silent rows of bookshelves, each illuminated by fluorescent bulbs controlled by individual electric timers. Going into the Stacks meant turning the dial, waiting until the light flickered into sickly life, and then rushing down the row, hoping to find the book you needed before the clock stopped ticking and the light went out. There was nothing freakier than wandering through these dusty rows and wondering, if something was to happen to you up here, how long it would be until someone needed a copy of The Passion of Perpetua or was interested in a little light reading on the life of Hildegard of Bingen. For instance. There were indeed study carrels to be found in this bibliographic wasteland, though I couldn’t imagine the type of person who would frequent them. There’s a decided difference between peace and quiet and fearing you’re the only person left on Earth.
Or maybe I’d just been traumatized at an early age by the poltergeist librarian in Ghostbusters.
Whatever the cause, I remained on high alert as I picked my way through the abandoned floor. Most of the rows were dim, and I didn’t turn on any lights, fearing discovery. When I reached the end of the row of shelves, I turned right and headed toward the interior wall. Any secret room would likely be found along that end. Of course, all I could see before me was a row of study carrels, each as abandoned and forlorn as everything else in this desolate fortress of learning.
“Amy?”
I froze. There, seated behind one of the tall wooden dividers of a cubicle, sat Lydia. Her bag was open on her lap, and she hadn’t even gotten out her highlighter yet.
“Amy, what are you doing here? Don’t you have your meeting?”
I just stared at her, openmouthed. “Don’t you have yours?”