Secret Society Girl il-1

by Diana Peterfreund

  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,” Mal
colm 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’v
e 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.