Rites of Spring (Break)

by Diana Peterfreund

  Salt, who until recently had been little more than a crotchety nuisance in the eyes of my fellow knights, suddenly became a hero. His precautions and policies weren’t old-fashioned, unnecessary, and paranoid, but well reasoned, highly advisable, and deeply worthwhile. He was very much in his element.

  The males in the club did their best to calm down our half, cracking jokes about the perpetrator’s penmanship (or spray-canmanship), and, in George’s case, admiring his skilled application of that lowest form of humor, the dirty pun. When Jenny threatened them with her mangled keyboard, they backed off. Harun offered us—or at least one of us—his bed. Jenny responded with the hairy eyeball. Clarissa and I exchanged knowing looks. Something strange was going on there.

  Malcolm and Poe arrived, and the latter took one look around the room and marched back out. Fine. Who wanted him here? Who wanted him to even act like he cared what happened to her? Not me.

  Malcolm stayed to help us with cleanup, and Salt departed to look for clues. Our activities were punctuated with the following exclamations (each on repeat):

  1) “Who could have done this?”

  2) “When did they get in here? We were here all afternoon!”

  3) “Oh my God, my bag/dress/new Gucci!” (Clarissa.)

  Eventually, everything got back in (spray-painted) order, and the boys left us alone after an offer to stick around, “just in case,” was roundly trounced by Demetria for being some patriarchal, women-are-weaklings, anti-feminist bullshit. She was in rare form.

  “I can’t put up with this anymore,” she said, pacing across the painted floors. “I’ve had it up to here with Rose & Grave crap.”

  “This isn’t Rose & Grave,” Jenny said quietly.

  “Oh, no?” Demetria said, swooping down and grabbing Jenny’s twisted screen out of the wastebasket. “So you’re saying you haven’t seen any suspicious e-mails this time around? Aren’t keeping any secrets from the rest of us? Where’s your poem?”

  “That’s not fair,” Jenny said, then hesitated. “Actually, it’s fair. But no, no I haven’t, since you mention it. Give me back my screen.”

  “The Diggirls being targeted again?” Demetria went on. “Come on, people, open your eyes!”

  “There’s an easier explanation,” Clarissa said.

  “Lay it on me.”

  “It’s the people from the other island.”

  I ducked my head, but Demetria was on a roll. “Bullshit. It’s obviously little Mrs. Myers. It’s the same old bullshit it’s always been since we’ve been tapped. The patriarchs of this organization are a bunch of racist, misogynist, homophobic assholes.”

  “But Kadie’s not a patriarch,” I said. “She’s not even a Digger.”

  “That doesn’t mean she doesn’t know what’s going on around here. You should have heard her talking about Gehry on the boat this morning. Like he was some kind of maligned saint. I wouldn’t be surprised if he put her up to it.”

  “Gehry?” I said. “I hate the guy as much as the next person, but this so isn’t his style.”

  “Yes it is,” Jenny said. “Remember what he had his goons do to my room last year?” True. He’d had a guy break into my room as well.

  “But he’s hiding out here,” Clarissa said. “Hiding out and praying that he and his wife aren’t brought up on charges and that their kids don’t find out that their darling nanny’s been shipped back to Bolivia. He’s not here to start a war with us.”

  “But he is here, and we’re here…” Demetria argued.

  “The others are trespassing here…” Clarissa pointed out.

  Demetria groaned. “What the hell, Clarissa? You’ve been watching too much Lost. ‘It’s the others, it’s the others.’ It’s not the others. Occam’s Razor.”

  “Fine,” I said. “But Occam’s Razor does not explain why a bitch in a snit fit would be the accomplice of a patriarch who thinks as much of women as he does of barbarians. I think it’s Kadie, too—and her husband, if you want to go there. She was the one who called us dykes right before she ran off.” I pointed at the wall, where the word was still visible despite Kevin’s careful scrubbing. “And here it is again. Coincidence? I think not.”

  “And you’re all just going to ignore the possibility that Gehry, who not once, but twice has tried to destroy us, who has been known to send his lackeys to break into our quarters and destroy our property, is involved in this little escapade?”

  “I’m going to say it’s unlikely,” Clarissa said. “He’s pretty much been a shut-in, hasn’t he?”

  “The perfect cover!” Demetria paused. “Or maybe he sent his son…”

  I rolled my eyes. “Yeah, that guy would win Father of the Year. ‘Here, son, now I’m going to teach you the fine art of vandalism.’ Besides, I hung out with Darren this morning. He’s a nice guy.” He would not be wrecking my stuff after our dart game.

  “You just want to see Gehry, Demetria!” Clarissa exclaimed. “It all makes sense now. You’ll blame him if it means you can drag him into the daylight and grill him about everything they haven’t covered on CNN.”

  “What, are you sympathizing with that asshole now?” Demetria asked, turning on her.

  “No, but I’m beginning to wonder if you’re happy this happened. You’ve perked right up with all this drama.”

  Demetria gave her a look that said, Bitch, please. “And you don’t want to think that your future Junior League co-president is capable of destroying your stuff. Would blaming this on Kadie wreck your debutante sponsorship?”

  Clarissa huffed. “That’s so unfair!”

  “I’m with Amy,” Jenny said, straining to steer us back on topic. “Kadie was clearly angry at us back there on the lawn. Let’s go get her. I’m thinking full-scale interrogation. Bright lights, Scotch tape on the eyelids…She’ll cave like an undercooked soufflé.”

  “Kadie wouldn’t have had time to pull this off,” Clarissa pointed out. “This kind of damage took more than a few minutes.” And more than a few paint cans.

  “Well, if she didn’t act alone…” Demetria was persistent, but we all ignored her.

  “And again,” Clarissa said happily, “we return to the others.”

  “No,” Jenny said. “Whoever did this knows who we are. I say it’s Kadie. I say we go all Micah Price on her ass.”

  “You would,” Clarissa said. “You seem to have gotten over him just fine.”

  “Yeah. He was a jerk. Your point?”

  “Nothing,” Clarissa said, with an expression that indicated butter would have no business melting in her mouth, as she returned to scrubbing paint off her purse. It was very clearly not nothing. And Jenny knew it.

  “If you have something to say, Angel, say it.”

  “Two dollars,” said Demetria and I in unison.

  Clarissa looked up from her work. “It’s nothing, really. I’m just wondering if it’s the best idea in the world to rebound with a fellow knight.”

  “I have no idea what you’re talking about.”

  “Sure you don’t,” Clarissa said. “But Amy’s got a broken heart, too. You don’t see her hooking up with another Digger.”

  I blushed furiously at this, but no one guessed the true reason.

  “Amy’s already had her taste of society incest!” Jenny cried.

  “What, so we each get one? Is that how it works?” Clarissa said. “By my count, I’m the only person here who hasn’t tried out the merchandise. Maybe my dad and Kurt Gehry were right. Rose & Grave is turning into a dating club!”

  “Whose business is it who I fuck?” Demetria asked from her corner. “And, by the way, it wasn’t even sex. It was just a couple of kisses—but that’s not the point.”

  “Yeah? Tell us why Odile’s not here, then,” Clarissa said. “Maybe because it would be too awkward to stay here with you.”

  “I don’t know. I’m hardly her keeper.” Demetria seemed to reflect upon how this might sound. “And you aren’t Jenny’s, Clarissa. She could do a lot
worse than Harun. And has,” she added under her breath.

  Jenny looked appalled. “I really don’t know why you keep saying that. I’m not dating Harun.”

  Clarissa threw her hands up. “Amy, you tell them. Tell them what a mess it becomes.”

  Oh, it was a mess all right, but not the way Clarissa thought.

  “Or doing anything else with him, for that matter,” Jenny went on, though no one seemed to be listening.

  Clarissa kept pressuring me. “Tell them how you’re always fighting with George.”

  “Oh, yes, do tell us everything about George,” Demetria said sarcastically. “Tell us what you did to keep your sordid little affair out of his C.B.”

  “I figured he just ran out of time and Amy ended up on the cutting-room floor,” Jenny offered.

  Hey, how did it get to be Bag on Amy Hour? “Guys, please,” I began.

  “Yeah, guys, please,” said a voice at the door. We all looked up to see the object of our conversation standing there. “It takes two to tango. And if you wanted to know something, all you had to do was ask me.”

  “George—” I started.

  But he wasn’t going to listen. He crossed the threshold and walked right by me. “I was never one for secrets. It’s Amy that likes to keep them, isn’t that right?”

  I didn’t respond.

  “But let me tell you, Jenny, since I also have firsthand knowledge.” George crouched beside her. “Society incest is a really, really bad idea. Just keep that in mind.” And then he straightened. “They’ve called an emergency meeting to deal with the raid. All knights to the tomb. That’s what I’m really here to tell you. But if you’d prefer to discuss my sex life, God knows I don’t need to go to another one of these stupid meetings.”

  And, as I stood there, basking in a supernova of mortification, the others gathered up their things and departed. It was obvious that George and I needed a moment alone.

  He turned to me as soon as they were gone. “You want to tell me what I just walked in on?”

  “We’re just stressed because of what happened.”

  “If you ask me, this is entirely too much stress for Spring Break.”

  “Well, no one asked you.”

  “Why don’t you just tell them it was you and Jamie on the beach today?”

  For a second, I choked. There it was, right out loud. No more innuendo from Mr. George Harrison Prescott. He’d recognized us, and he’d probably recognized what we were doing as well.

  “Why don’t you tell them?” I chose the offensive. “For someone who hates keeping secrets, you’ve sure got a lot of them.”

  “You still don’t get it, do you? I like you, Amy. We’re supposed to be friends. I don’t want to fight with you. I don’t want to cause you any pain. And you don’t want anyone to know how you spent the day, clearly. Understandably! So I’m not saying a word.” He shook his head. “It’s like you want me to be mean. You want that, go talk to your new boyfriend.”

  Understandably? “He’s not my boyfriend, and he’s not mean.”

  “He’s a jerk,” George said, incredulous. “Have you forgotten? Jeez, you do know how to pick ’em. You’d have been better off with me.” George took off down the stairs and broke into a jog to catch up to the others.

  I dropped to my bunk, breathing as if George had punched me in the stomach. Everything was moving too fast. George was right. This was supposed to be my vacation, and here I was, fighting with my friends, fending off yet more attacks, and getting involved with a guy I’d made a point of avoiding for months. I should have just stayed at Eli and let Dragon’s Head finish me off.

  The only time I’d felt remotely relaxed this whole trip had been in Poe’s arms this afternoon, and even George, who never had any compunction about hooking up, knew that was a mistake. Not that it mattered; it was over now. The whole thing had been ill-advised, on both of our parts. Whatever there was between Poe and myself, it was built on antagonism, not affection. Not even lust.

  Well, okay, a little bit of lust.

  But that was the point Clarissa had been trying to make. Like it or not, I was on the rebound. The last thing I should be doing is jumping into a relationship with a guy I’d never even liked. Was I trying to prove something? To Brandon? To myself?

  I gathered what was left of my self-possession and walked back to the compound. The light had changed during the time I’d spent in the cabin, and the sun lay low in the sky. Twilight was coming soon. One full day down, five more to go. What a trip this was turning out to be.

  Because of the heat in the tomb, all the members eschewed robes in favor of street clothes. Between the Hawaiian shirts, folding chairs, and sound of crickets beyond the flimsy doors, it was tough to approach the proceedings with the same air of sobriety and importance we maintained in New Haven.

  And yet, we called the meeting to order. There weren’t enough chairs for all of us, so the seats mostly went to the more senior patriarchs. Beyond that, it was first come, first served.

  Poe stood by the far wall, right next to the china hutch. I stood where it was least likely for my eyes to fall on him. I had no interest in spending the next half hour constantly checking to see if he was glancing in my direction and getting depressed if he wasn’t.

  No more boys. What a waste of my time. I kept deciding that, and then kept falling back into the trap. But this time, it would stick.

  “Didn’t you take pictures of the destruction?” one of the patriarchs asked. (For the record, Gehry was not present, despite the summons for all society members to come to the tomb.)

  “Why?” Clarissa was asking. “Do you plan to call the cops and file an incident report? I thought we kept barbarian police out of society matters.”

  “As proof that what you say happened was what happened.”

  A good eight jaws dropped.

  “Half a dozen people here can tell you exactly what it looked like,” Clarissa scoffed.

  “If you’d gotten your butts over there, you could have seen for yourself,” Kevin added.

  “Your club seems to get into an awful lot of trouble,” said Frank Myer, husband of the much-maligned Kadie. “How convenient is it that intruders broke onto the island and only mangled your stuff?”

  “That would be awfully convenient, wouldn’t it?” Jenny asked. “Because if it wasn’t them, I can think of one barbarian on this island who owes me a new laptop.” She dumped the remains of hers onto the table, letting mangled bits of plastic, wires, and screws clatter around and roll off the edges.

  “Are you accusing my wife of something?” Frank replied. “Because to be perfectly honest, she would have some choice things to say about your behavior to her this afternoon, after we were so good as to let you use our boat.”

  “Settle down,” said another patriarch. “Nobody is accusing anyone of anything.”

  “Speak for yourself, old man,” Demetria said.

  “He said, settle down,” Poe said in a voice that commanded the room’s attention. “This is not the way that knights of Persephone address one another, on Cavador Key or off it. Now, it’s clear that someone vandalized the women’s cabin this afternoon, sometime after the knights returned from their snorkeling trip. I surveyed the damage right after we discovered it and it’s extensive, not only to the island’s property, but also to the knights’ personal effects. We need to find out who’s responsible.”

  “Easier said than done,” George said.

  “Furthermore, our position on barbarian visitors is very clear. They are here by invitation of the society only. If they are at any time making a knight feel uncomfortable, they will not be allowed to remain, no matter what another knight or patriarch might say about it. That’s what our oaths demand.”

  “Fine,” said Frank. “We’ll leave tomorrow. With our boat.” A few of the other patriarchs looked stricken by the prospect of losing access to the yacht. (Didn’t bother me.)

  “You’ll do what you need to do,” Poe said. “Whether
that’s leaving or making it clear to your barbarian wife that she needs to show more respect to her hosts. All of them.”

  This was being said in front of patriarchs twice his age. Who were listening to him. I stared in shock at Poe, but Malcolm hardly looked fazed. Was this how it was back when Poe was secretary of D176? Had people just shut up and obeyed him when he spoke? No wonder he couldn’t stand me when we met. I’d never treated him with anything approaching this level of respect.

  Poe was still talking. “I spent the last two hours going over every inch of this island, looking for any evidence that we had visitors. I didn’t find anything new from the earlier sweep that D177 did. But there are signs. It makes sense that only the women’s cabin would have been affected by a raid. It’s isolated from the others, and it was empty this afternoon, while the central compound was filled with people. The only other vulnerable area would be the guesthouse, and I spoke to the inhabitants there.”

  “You can say his name, you know,” Demetria grumbled.

  Poe ignored her. “They saw nothing unusual. But at least one knight saw strangers on the island early this afternoon.” He nodded to Clarissa, who looked vindicated. “I also spoke at length to Saltzman, who is prepared now to give a report of the recent barbarian activity on the island, as well as lay out what he feels are necessary precautions until we get to the bottom of this.” He motioned to Malcolm, who tapped thrice, once, and twice on the door to the tomb. Salt entered.

  Now I was trying to catch Poe’s eye. Intruders on the island? What was he playing at? He knew as well as I did that Clarissa hadn’t seen anyone but us on the crescent beach. And yet, he was going to indulge in this whole fantasy of visitors?

  Was he trying to placate Frank? That didn’t make any sense, given what Poe had just said to him about keeping his wife in line. And yet, Poe had no reason to lie. Deny, maybe, but to promote the “intruders” idea? It was Kadie, naturally. We all knew it.