Secret Society Girl il-1

by Diana Peterfreund

  “News flash, honey,” I shot back. “Women don’t like being used.”

  Malcolm stared at me for one long, silent moment. Then he stood up, threw his wad of towels down on the table, and walked out. Through the pane of glass in the front of the shop, I watched him cross the street and pause on the opposite corner, covering his face with his hands and taking several deep breaths.

  Good riddance. After all, it’s not as if the jerk had done me any favors recently. Well, he’d washed my clothes and bought me two breakfasts (like a Hobbit). There was that. But he’d also dragged me into a Battle of the Sexes that should have been over and done with a good thirty years ago, all because he needed a warm body to fill a slot.

  I didn’t belong in Rose & Grave, and that was that. There. Easy. Over. No more rubbing elbows with Clarissa Cuthbert and trying to keep the peace between Odile and Demetria. No more putting up with the condescension of that wretched Poe. Just leave them all to their little games and get back to the life I had before this mess started. Who needed a secret society anyway? I’d only joined because Rose & Grave was supposed to be so all-powerful and scary. But in truth, they were exactly like Brandon had characterized them: Paleolithic, in both outlook and influence. Hardly anything I’d heard about them was true, and on top of their utter lack of omnipotence, they had a seriously backwards perspective on gender equality.

  So, who needed them? Who needed rich old men trying to tell me who I was and could be? Who needed rich, young, gay—if closeted—men measuring my worth on a scale? Who needed any of them threatening my future? I had good grades, good friends, a great—if new—boyfriend, and a prestigious-sounding—if boring—summer job.

  Screw ’em.

  I dumped the mess of napkins and soggy breakfast in the nearest trash can and marched out of the shop, head held high. I was going to go straight home and tell Brandon he was right all along.

  But when I arrived back at the suite, the whiteboard hanging from our door had a note scrawled across it. “Call Horton, 911” with a number, and Lydia’s scrawled “L” beneath. Puzzled, I skipped waking up the boy in my bedroom and went straight for the phone.

  An assistant, sounding nervous, put me right through.

  “Oh, Amy,” said my future boss, her tone boding ill. “I thought your roommate left you a message.”

  “She left me a message to call you.”

  “Yes, well…” The woman trailed off, seeming to grow more uncomfortable with each passing second. “The thing is, Amy, we’re going to have to cancel your internship with us this summer.”

  The bottom dropped out of my stomach. “What? Why?”

  My future boss (No! No, not my boss now! My ex—future boss? My future contrary-to-fact boss?) hesitated. “Well, I’m not really at liberty to get into company policy right now, Amy. I can’t apologize enough for putting you in this difficult situation. I feel terrible, really—”

  “Tell me why.” You know how in books, they say, ‘Her blood ran cold’? So not just an expression.

  Good luck with your career.

  “I’m sorry. I’m not at liber—”

  “Give me a satellite view,” I insisted. “Budget cuts? Departmental shifts? Decided I’m not qualified to run the Xerox machine? Tell me. I need to know.”

  “Amy, I can’t—”

  “No!” I cried into the phone, probably shocking myself more than her. “You have to tell me why.”

  “I can’t tell you why.” Or she’d have to kill me, no doubt.

  “Does it…” I swallowed, composed myself, and began again, softly. “Does it have anything to do with Rose & Gr—”

  “I need to go now, Amy. Good-bye.” And she hung up.

  I was still staring at the phone, mouth agape, when Brandon, my sweet barbarian boyfriend, came out of my bedroom, rubbing his eyes. I must have awakened him with my screaming.

  “Hey,” he said. “Anything wrong?”

  Yes. Everything.

  13. Casus Belli

  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.