by S. L. Stacy
“Oh, I’m fine now.” I glance over to where Liz is standing by the TV cabinet. I felt her eyes on me, but when I catch her she quickly looks away. “I’ll tell you later,” I promise. “Look, it’s sweet of you to stop by, but we’re about to have a meeting.”
“Sorry!” Jimmy quickly stands up. “I was wondering why everybody was so dressed up.”
“It’s no problem. I really am glad you came. I just feel bad having to kick you out.”
He takes my hand as we walk to the door. “Anna also told me about your double date tonight,” he adds, waggling his eyebrows suggestively.
I scowl. “It’s not a double date. It’s an information-gathering dinner.”
“How romantic.” He smirks, but then his face grows serious. “I want to take you out later this week.”
“I’d like that.” He pecks me on the cheek, and I gently close the door behind him.
“Oooooo!” Tanya and a few of the other sisters sing at me as I join the circle they’re forming around the room.
“Shut up,” I mutter, but I’m still smiling and my heart flutters in my chest. To my left I clasp Tanya’s hand, and to my right, Carly’s. Victoria leads us in the secret ceremony with which we open our chapter meetings. Afterwards, everyone sits down in the chairs lined up in the middle of the room, and Victoria stands in front of us, getting down to business. One-by-one, she calls on each executive board member to stand and give pretty much the same report we gave her at the beginning of the week.
“Siobhan has a very important reminder,” Victoria prefaces when it’s my turn. I go into social-chair-mode, hopping to my feet and beaming with excitement.
“This coming Friday is our annual ‘Find Your Sister a Mister’ party!” I exclaim, and the room erupts in a flurry of snaps and cheers. “You only have one more week to find your big sister a date if you haven’t already! And if you’re like me and don’t have a little—no worries! Someone else in your family tree will set you up.” I look pointedly at Tanya. “All sisters and blind dates must be at the house at six. Promptly at six thirty, we’ll board a shuttle that will take us to the Riverfront Bar and Grill. There will be lots of great food, music, dancing—and then the shuttle will pick us up again at eleven.”
“Everyone must take the shuttle,” Victoria jumps in. “Due to liability issues no one is allowed to go separately.”
“Also, I need volunteers to help set up and decorate. Any takers?” A handful of arms go up in the air. I count ten and jot their names down.
“Thanks for volunteering, guys. Anything else, Siobhan?” asks Victoria. I shake my head and sit back down. “Great. Thank you for your report.
“Now, before we break: As Farrah announced a few days ago, we’re going to end chapter each week with a little bit of ritual practice.”
Farrah, who exercised unusual self-restraint throughout this entire meeting, rises and disappears into the kitchen. Chairs scrape against the floor as the rest of us get up, and we reform our circle around the room. Victoria hefts a massive, worn leather-bound book I’ve never seen before onto the podium and carefully peels back page after thin, yellowed page until she finds the one she’s looking for. Words printed in a miniscule serif font scuttle across each page like hundreds of tiny black insects.
She stoops again, this time resurfacing with a fistful of incense sticks, a diffuser and a translucent pink lighter. One swift flick of her thumb produces a dancing yellow flame, which she holds to the ends of the sticks. After letting them burn for a few seconds, she gently blows on them. The flames diminish, leaving behind a soft glow. Smoke curls from the smoldering tips. Shudders ripple through the sisters standing closest to Victoria, their faces turning a grayish green. They stumble toward the center of the circle away from the undulating smoke, hands clamped over their mouths. Their muffled shrieks of panic and disgust shatter the calm anticipation that has settled over the room.
“What the heck is that?”
“It smells terrible.”
“Really? I think it smells good.” Carly says it as though she’s done something wrong.
I like it, too—I’d even go so far as to say its blend of honey and vanilla smells enticing. A distant memory prods me in the back of my mind, but the conflicting reactions of my sisters to the aroma—or stench—filling the room consumes my attention. About half of the room is like me, Tanya and Carly, breathing in deeply and smiling with contentment, while the others gag into their hands.
Farrah returns holding a large bronze goblet and comes to stand beside Victoria.
“If the smell of the incense is bothering you, you may leave.” Even though their eyes bug out of their green faces, the girls don’t leave right away, just look at Farrah with uncertainty. “Please leave. You may wait outside.” This sends them racing for the door, squeezing out of it two and three at a time. The rest of us take a few steps forward to fill in the gaps left behind and tighten up the circle.
“Tanya, please lower the lights.” Tanya obediently reaches back and flips off a few of the switches to the ceiling lights. “I’m going to teach you a new ritual today. A very important one called The Guardian Ceremony.” Farrah gives the cup to Carly. “Each sister must take a drink from the chalice before passing it onto the next—”
“No! Don’t drink it!”
All eyes shift from Farrah to me. I’ve taken a few steps forward, my hand reaching for Carly, whose lips are paused on the metallic rim of the chalice.
I feel myself flush as I lower my hand. “Sorry. I don’t know why I said that.”
“It’s just water.” One look at Victoria’s patient, encouraging expression reassures me—well, almost. There’s still something odd about this ceremony. This must be what non-Greeks think we do—burn incense, recite oaths from ancient-looking texts and drink from ornate goblets.
“Drink of the nectar of Olympus to obtain strength of the mind.” Victoria’s strong voice rings out clear and commanding in the otherwise silent room, reciting a slightly different version of our motto as we pass around the cup. When it comes to me, I roll the cool water around on my tongue for a moment before letting it slip down my throat. I expect to feel different after drinking it, but it’s anticlimactic. I give an imperceptible shrug of my shoulders and neck, but everything seems normal, so I pass the cup to Tanya.
“Drink to obtain strength of the body. Drink to obtain strength of the heart.”
Eventually the empty cup returns to Farrah, and she sets it on the coffee table behind her.
“Now, please repeat after me.” We go back and forth—Farrah reciting chunks of the ceremony from memory, the rest of us repeating it, stumbling over the words as we struggle to recall what was just read to us. In my mind, I bring the segments together, and the resulting poem is bizarre and unlike any ritual we’ve ever done:
“Sisters we gather,
In answer to the call,
To fulfill our destiny
As guardians this side of the wall.
“Where the fabric wears thin,
And our enemy’s at hand,
We must thrust him back
Into his own land.
“We honor our legacy
And before the night is done,
Sisters past, present and future
Will unite as one.”
Again, I keep expecting something to happen—the floor to start quaking, Victoria’s book to start glowing, something—but after we say the final words, the room grows quiet and still. The book closes with a thump, and Victoria jumps and covers her mouth with her hand as if she didn’t mean to slam it that loudly.
“Thank you, ladies. That will be all for today,” Farrah tells us.
We stand there, hands linked, for a moment longer—everybody thinking that ritual practice couldn’t possibly be over. Although some confused whispers rumble around the room, nobody asks the questions we’re all thinking: What was the point? What’s the ritual for? Finally we disband and start folding up and putting away the chair
s. I check my phone—and it’s a good thing, too, because Anna texted me ten minutes ago to let me know she was here.
sorry we just got done. coming, I reply.
***
“Sorry,” I say again as I crawl into the passenger’s side of Anna’s truck.
“It’s okay. I wasn’t waiting for that long.” She turns the car back on and pulls away from the curb. Haunting orchestra music and the rich tones of a mezzo-soprano fill the car.
“What is this?”
“The soundtrack to ‘Faust,’” she explains. “We’re having auditions this week. I’m trying out for Marguerite. So, where are we meeting them again?”
“Isabela’s. It’s in Willow Park.”
“Willow Park? Isn’t that where all the rich people live?”
I shrug and search for it on her GPS. “It’s not far. Make a right here.”
Fifteen minutes later, we roll up to a tall iron gate at the entrance to a towering stone mansion.
Anna cranes her neck out of the open car window and gapes. “I hope this dinner’s on them.” A teenager wearing a black suit and navy blue silk tie strolls up to Anna’s window, and his smooth freckled face smiles.
“Good evening, and welcome to Isabela’s European Cuisine at the Willow Park Hotel. I can take your, uh—” his eyes give her banana yellow pickup truck the once-over—“truck for you, Miss.”
“Oh! Yeah, sure.” Anna and I get out, and she hands her keys to him. “Thanks. I feel like a redneck,” she adds as we watch the valet take the truck around back. We gaze up at the Willow Park Hotel. The architecture reminds me of a castle and of another mansion my family and I toured once in East Laurel, my hometown’s posh neighbor—the style is called Elizabethan revivalist, I think. The floodlights on the manicured lawn cast a romantic glow over its glittering granite face and stained glass windows. Two young ash trees stand guard on either side of the concrete porch steps. Climbing the stairs, we pause for a moment on each step to look around and take in our grandiose surroundings. One of the heavy black doors is propped open, and the faint strains of violin music drift outside.
In the foyer, our shoes hit white marble tiles. A crystal chandelier dangles from a soaring ceiling, and colorful tapestries decorate the pale gold walls. Behind an oak wood podium stands the host, wearing a tuxedo and maroon bowtie. His piercing black eyes regard us expectantly from behind the round, wire-framed glasses perched on his prominent nose. Anna and I walk up to him.
“Hi, we’re meeting someone here,” I tell him. “The reservation is under Jasper Hart.”
He looks down at his leather-bound notebook, light from the chandelier glinting off his smooth, bare head as he shakes his head. “I’m sorry, we don’t have a reservation under that name. What time is the reservation for?”
I glance at Anna in confusion. “Seven.”
He scans the page again. “The only reservation we have for seven is for a party of four, under a Dr. Eric Mars.”
I stand there speechless for a minute, staring stupidly at the host and his fastidious reservation booklet. “That has to be them,” I say finally. He nods and motions for us to follow him, but hesitates when I tell Anna, “Come on, let’s go.” I sigh and turn to leave, but I don’t hear the click of Anna’s silver shoes behind me.
“Why?” she wonders as she adjusts the straps of her sea foam green dress and combs her fingers through her long, silky brown hair.
“Because we can’t go on a double date with my teaching assistant and a professor.”
“He’s not my professor. And anyway, like you keep saying, it’s not a date.”
“Anna!” I call after her in a loud whisper, but she ignores me, practically skipping as she follows our host into the dining room. I scramble to catch up with them.
Chapter 15
Unlike the reception area, which was opulent but had the cold, impersonal feel of an art museum, Isabela’s is surprisingly small and intimate. Art deco sconces cast pale white light along the burgundy walls. The only other light comes from the garnet red candles encased in round glass jars at the center of each table. The rich reds along with the polished dark wood of the floors and furniture create an atmosphere of dark romance. A string quartet plays with soft ardor in the back right corner.
The host leads us to a table tucked away in the back. Jasper sprawls languidly on the side that faces us. Dr. Mars sits across from him, so I can only see the thick jet black hair of the back of his head. Jasper sees us coming and stands, pulling out the chair beside him so that I can sit down. Dr. Mars does the same for Anna.
“It’s nice to see you both again. Outside of class,” Dr. Mars adds with a broad smile at me. There’s a bottle of uncorked champagne on the table and four already filled glasses. I pick mine up and take an unladylike gulp. I can already tell this is going to be the most awkward dinner—ever. It fizzes on my tongue, cool and sweet and tinged with an unusual flavor, like honey or something. Like steady, liquid magic, it twists and spreads throughout my body, soothing my frayed nerves.
Jasper leans into me to whisper, “You look lovely.” His warm breath and the way his lips briefly brush against my ear send a shiver of excitement down my spine.
“Thanks. You don’t look so bad yourself.” Even in his usual black dress pants and white shirt, Jasper looks like he’s about to walk the runway at Fashion Week. A gold pin winks at me from his shirt collar. “You’re wearing your badge?” I groan almost in disgust. He starts and glances down at the miniscule gold shield as though he forgot it was there. “You Sigma Iotas take badge attire so seriously.”
Jasper relaxes back into his chair and smirks. “You do your best when you look your best.”
We peruse the menu as Dr. Mars asks us about our majors and hobbies. The menu doesn’t offer anything earthshattering but is outlandishly expensive. Our server returns to the table to take our orders. I’ve decided on the wedding soup for an appetizer and filet mignon. Jasper orders a house salad and the rack of lamb, Anna a Mediterranean salad and Eric grilled salmon almondine. After our waiter leaves to put in our orders, Anna resumes talking about the auditions for Faust.
“Well, good luck—or break a leg, I guess I should say,” Eric tells her. “When is the actual performance?”
“There are four scheduled for the second weekend in October,” Anna says.
“I’ll have to mark that on my calendar. Our students always put on fantastic shows. And you’ll make a beautiful Marguerite.”
Anna blushes and chokes on her champagne. “I have to get the part first,” she mumbles into her glass.
Other than these uncomfortable moments—well, they make me uncomfortable, Anna relishes every word of Eric’s excessive compliments—dinner is not as bad as I had feared. Mostly we make small talk between bites of food. My filet mignon and side of cooked squash and zucchini melt in my mouth and are worth every penny. Well, as long as someone else is paying.
Jasper dabs the corners of his mouth with his white cloth napkin before setting it on the table. “I’d like to take a walk out in the garden before we leave,” he announces. “Does anyone want to join me?”
Eric shakes his head. “I think I’ll stay here and see what’s for dessert.” He flips to the back of the menu, but I can’t help wondering if his words have a double meaning.
Anna looks like she might say yes, but one sideways glance from Eric impels her to pick up a menu as well. “Dessert sounds good.” Jasper turns to me, eyebrows raised in expectation.
“Sure.” I guess this will be our time to talk in private.
“We’ll be back shortly,” Jasper says, standing and offering me his arm. I hesitate before taking it. We pass the string quartet on our way to the back door. Jasper holds it open for me, and I walk out into the courtyard first, the door closing with a gentle click behind us.
“It’s beautiful out here,” I breathe. Japanese lanterns float above us, bobbing in the breeze and shining like miniature suns against the night sky. They cast a magica
l glow over the cobblestone pathway and surrounding garden, which blazes with the colors of late summer: orange mums, goldenrod, bright yellow black-eyed Susans and red coleus.
Where the path forks, we pause at a grayish white sculpture of a sinewy man and voluptuous woman—they’re both naked, of course—embracing each other, their faces twisted in agony as they peer between the bars of an ornate domed cage. With one hand, the woman reaches up to caress her lover’s face; she grasps the bars of their enclosure in desperation with the other.
I place my hand against the cool, chalky stone. “This looks really old.”
“It’s just made to look that way,” Jasper says. I drop my hand, feeling pretty silly. “There’s a brochure inside which talks about the sculptor,” he explains so I know he’s not patronizing me. “It’s a series of statues made especially for the hotel—‘The Lovers of Olympus.’”
“Ares and Aphrodite,” I read, the names carved into the granite base of the statue. I raise my hand as though we’re in class.
Jasper looks at me strangely but goes along with it. “Yes, Ms. Elliot?”
I lower my arm. “What’s their story, Mr. Hart?”
He chuckles and stands beside the sculpture, gesturing to it while he lectures. “Well, Zeus forced Aphrodite, goddess of love and beauty, to marry Hephaestus, the ugly, crippled god of fire. During their marriage, Aphrodite is unfaithful to him a number of times. One of her affairs is with Hephaestus’s half-brother, Ares.
“When Hephaestus finds out, he tells Aphrodite he’s going to be gone for a few days, but he sets a trap for them—an enchanted net that drops on Aphrodite and Ares when they’re in bed together, exposing their affair to Hephaestus and humiliating them in front of all the Olympian gods.”
“That’s kind of sad,” I say, looking again at her outstretched hand. When Jasper looks skeptical, I elaborate, “I mean, I know Aphrodite was adulterous and all, but it would be hard to be married to someone you didn’t love.”