He nodded.
“Why?” I blurted.
He thought about this for a minute. “Why are you with Jamie?”
Past tense, I almost said. “But you don’t believe in relationships.”
“Please, Amy. Don’t start in with any ‘why wasn’t it me’ stuff.” George laid his head back against the pillow. “I can’t take that tonight.”
“‘Why wasn’t it me?’” I repeated, baffled. “Did you forget the part where I ditched you last fall?”
He seemed to think about that for a moment. Those drugs must have him foggy after all. “Besides,” he said at last, “it’s so early. I have no idea where it’s going.”
“Welcome to a committed relationship,” I said.
“And when I graduate …” He tried to shrug, then grimaced in pain. “Did I tell you?”
“That you’re going to graduate? I figured.”
“No, did I tell you what I’m doing?” he slurred.
I shook my head and tucked in the edge of his blanket. “No.”
“Teach for America.”
I blinked at him. He was high as a kite. First a girlfriend, then bailing on Wall Street to be a teacher? Yeah, we’d laugh about this tomorrow.
“My mom will be … proud,” he murmured.
Hmm. Maybe he was serious.
“Amy?” George asked. His eyes were drifting closed.
“Yeah?”
“Don’t tell anyone.” His mouth went slack.
I smiled in spite of myself. “Don’t worry, George,” I said, and brushed the hair off his brow. “Your reputation’s safe with me.”
As George fell asleep, I stifled a yawn, then caught sight of my blood-spattered sleeve and frowned. What a mess. Back at the tomb, the authorities had rushed the profusely bleeding Blake into an ambulance and left the rest of us standing in puddles of blood, answering questions for almost an hour while the pain in George’s arm grew progressively worse. Finally, the police let Jenny take him to the hospital.
Michelle had spent the whole time huddled in a corner, her hands clasped before her, eyes as wide as if Blake’s body remained on the hall floor.
I knew exactly how she felt. I’d knelt in front of her then. “What happened?”
She’d squeezed her eyes shut. “I thought—you told me the initiation would scare me. So when there was a guy who talked like Blake—who put me in a room and talked like Blake—I thought that was part of the game. You guys know so many other things about me. Why couldn’t you know this?”
I caught my breath. “What kind of sick bastards do you think we are? My God, Michelle—”
“He’s what scares me,” she said. “Being trapped in a room with him is my idea of hell, not flaming tombs or winged monsters. Blake.”
“How did you realize what was going on?” I asked softly.
She’d ducked her head even farther into her chest. “He, um, wanted me to do something.” Something sexual, from her tone. “And at first, I couldn’t tell—I thought maybe this was just supposed to scare me more.”
Sure, why not? Jamie had tried to scare me in a similar way.
“Then I realized that this guy—this society guy, I thought—was dead serious. You know the stories you hear about Rose & Grave … they make you think all kinds of horrible things are happening inside.” She looked up. “But then I thought about you and Jamie … I’ve only known you for a little while, but I trust you. I can’t imagine you being a part of anything sick like that. I started to get a very bad feeling. Not fun scared or even scared scared. Just—”
“I know.” There was a special brand of terror reserved for people who found themselves alone and in the power of someone who wished only to hurt them. I’d felt it on the island. Michelle had been feeling it at regular intervals ever since her friends and her dean had turned their backs on her.
“So I pulled off his hood. I had to know, for sure. And when I saw it was Blake, I tried to run. I thought—Amy, I thought he was there on purpose.” She started crying anew. I tried to put my arms around her, but whatever comfort existed in my hug did not seem to transfer to Michelle.
Demetria and Jenny waited for me in the hall outside George’s hospital room. “Blake’s out of surgery,” Demetria reported to me. “The way he hit the knife—it didn’t go straight in, just sliced his back wide open. He had sixty-five stitches.”
I pressed my fist against my mouth. “I don’t understand. He was coughing up blood. I thought for sure—”
Demetria snorted. “Turns out he bit his lip pretty hard when he landed. That blood was from his mouth.”
“The main problem was the blood loss,” said Jenny. “But they gave him a transfusion, so he’s doing better now.”
“I’ve been at the police station with Michelle,” Demetria went on, “so she could file the battery charges. Hale came with us: One of the lawyer patriarchs said we should try to get Blake on burglary, too. When George gets out tomorrow, he needs to speak to the Prescott dean and to the police. We should expect Blake to file charges against him.”
“But George was trying to save Michelle,” I said.
Demetria shrugged. “And Blake ended up stabbed in the back. I’m not saying they’ll stick, but George should be prepared.”
Actually, we all should have been ready.
The hammer fell the following morning. The phone rang at 10 A.M.—only five short hours from the moment I’d passed out in bed—calling me into the Prescott College dean’s office. When I arrived, the dean’s dour secretary gave me a once-over.
“Where’s George Prescott?” she asked.
“In—in the hospital,” I stuttered. “He had an accident last night.”
The secretary harrumphed, then picked up her phone to let the dean know I’d arrived.
Dean Oliver De La Roche beckoned to me from the door of his office. “Amy, come in.”
I entered, already formulating theories about what was happening:
1) Having been informed of last night’s debacle, the dean required a standard debriefing.
2) He wanted to know exactly what was going on with George’s arm.
3) I’d won some kind of award.
“I’ll be quick about this,” Dean De La Roche said.
He was a young man, a junior professor in the Music department. He lived with his partner, a budding violinist, in the dean’s apartment in Prescott and was known mostly for the fact that he liked to serve sushi at finals parties. College deans, for the most part, were judged by the student body on the basis of how hard it was to worm “dean’s excuses”—extensions and excused absences—out of them. De La Roche was middle of the pack where dean’s excuses were concerned.
“There’s an emergency disciplinary hearing scheduled for noon at the office of the Dean of Student Affairs, and since I’m to be acting as your advocate, I need to know your side of the story before I go.”
“What?” I said, confused. “You mean George, right?”
“Yes, I’ll be advocating for both of you. You’re the only Prescott students involved.”
I held out my hand, palm up. “Wait, why do I need an advocate? I was only a witness to what happened.”
Dean De La Roche consulted his notes. “You appear here on the list of Rose & Grave members.”
“I—” I reflexively reached down to cover the pin in my belt loop.
“It’s okay, Amy. I have an official list right here.” He held it up. A photocopy, but our official society roster. “It says you’ve been a member since spring of last year and that your society code name is Bugaboo. Is that correct?”
I can’t tell you that. “Yes.”
“And you participated in the initiation ceremony at the Rose & Grave tomb on High Street last night? You were inducting new members?”
I have to leave the room. I’m not allowed to talk about this. “Yes.”
“And you are aware, I hope, that hazing is expressly prohibited in the Eli Undergraduate Regulations for General Cond
uct and Discipline?”
“Hazing?” I spluttered. “We didn’t haze anyone! Everyone participating in the initiation knew exactly what they were doing …”
“According to the Connecticut hazing laws, implied or even explicit consent is not a defense against accusations of hazing, Amy.”
I had no idea what the Connecticut hazing laws were. I had no idea how to respond. I had no idea what part of the initiation could be considered hazing. Was it the part where we carried them around? The part where we made them drink the 312 out of the skull? The part where we shut them up in coffins? Oh, God. All of it. I bet it was all of it.
But everyone did this—everyone had, for years. The whole campus knew what society initiations were like. If the university had turned a blind eye for this long, what was making them persecute us now? Was it that they couldn’t ignore the existence of Initiation Night when the words appeared in a police report?
“I don’t understand,” I said. “I thought you called me in here to talk about what happened with George and Blake Varnham.”
“Precisely,” said the dean. “Amy, don’t you know? On top of the assault charges, Blake Varnham is prosecuting your entire society for hazing him during his Rose & Grave initiation.”
“Wait,” I repeated. “His initiation?”
“The hearing will determine whether or not the Eli Executive Committee must convene to have you all expelled.”
From: [email protected]
To: [email protected]
Subject: Need You
I don’t know if you’re checking e-mail, and if you are, I’m sure you’ve seen the explosion on the Phimalarlico lists, and already know what’s going on. I don’t know what to do. I’m so scared, Poe. Can they really expel fourteen of the most successful seniors in the graduating class a month before commencement?
Please advise.
Love you.
While the Dean of Student Affairs held an emergency disciplinary meeting with the college deans and the Varnham family lawyer, the Diggers of D177 convened at Clarissa’s apartment.
“How can he possibly have prepared a statement?” Josh asked, digging into the bag of bagels. “Hasn’t he been under anesthesia for the past few hours?”
“Why aren’t you more concerned about this?” I asked Josh. “My dean says Blake’s trying to get all of us expelled!”
Josh rolled his eyes. “Have you read the Connecticut statutes on hazing? I have, and let me tell you, he’s got an uphill job trying to prove that we were doing anything remotely like that. No one at the tomb even knew he was there until he openly assaulted Michelle in front of a dozen witnesses. This isn’t going anywhere.”
“But my dean said it, too,” Jenny piped up.
“The only thing he’s got going for him is a battery charge against George.” We all turned to look at George, who was fast asleep on the couch, his cast-encased arm sticking up like a flag on a mailbox. “And that’s going to fall under ‘defense of others’ pretty neatly.”
“What about Michelle?” I asked.
“She was at the Strathmore dean’s office this morning,” said Greg, another Strathmore resident. “I didn’t really get to talk to her. I was too concerned about the possibility of my Fulbright being revoked.”
“I should call her,” I said. “In fact, we should all call our taps. What are our plans for finishing the initiation?”
Odile put down her cup of coffee. “We’ve only got three more who need the final steps of the initiation. Blake had truly crappy timing.”
“Well,” said Nikolos, “he could hardly get hold of Michelle after she’d taken her oaths.”
“How did he get hold of her at all?” Kevin asked. “How did he get into the tomb?”
“Who knows?” said Clarissa. “With all the people bustling in and out yesterday, maybe he just sneaked in.”
“Sneaked in?” Jenny repeated. “But it’s the Rose & Grave tomb. Who can just sneak in and out at will?”
Clarissa shrugged. “Lots of people have, over the years.”
I remembered the meeting on the quad, remembered the scene in the hall last night. “Maybe,” I began, my voice shaky as I considered the implications. “Maybe he had help?”
You wanted a Bugaboo? You got her.
“From whom?” Kevin asked.
I took a deep breath. “From his best friend. Topher.”
THE TRAITOR INTERROGATION:
12 STEP METHOD
Step One: Invite Topher Cox, a.k.a. Achilles of D178, into the tomb of Rose & Grave. Verify that he comes alone.
Step Two: Array knights not currently suffering from severe bone fractures in a semi-circle in the Inner Temple, dressed in full society regalia: robes, hoods, candles obscuring our faces.
Step Three: Let Hale lead initiate inside. Direct him to sit in chair and begin trial. Ask him if he ever betrayed the Order, either before or after taking oaths not to.
Step Four: Ignore his denials. Ask again.
Step Five: Inform initiate that certain knights had seen him colluding with his longtime friend and current Barbarian Enemy #1 on previous day. Coincidence? We think not.
Step Six: Observe initiate’s wormy little upper-crust expression melt into terror as he wonders which of the stories his grandfather told him about Rose & Grave are actually true.
Step Seven: Listen as initiate continues to prevaricate. Make threatening noises.
Step Eight: Watch initiate break down and admit to gathered audience that he had informed Barbarian Enemy #1 of his fellow tap’s presence at a Rose & Grave tap party, and had wondered aloud to his friend if we were considering tapping her. (Initiate adds that he had considered it highly unlikely.)
Step Nine: Receive further intelligence that initiate identified one Miss Amy Haskel as a member of Rose & Grave to Barbarian Enemy #1.
Step Ten: Determine manner of Barbarian Enemy #1’s entrance into tomb on Initiation Night. Confirm that initiate had no knowledge of this event. Let him promise up, down, and backwards that this is the case.
Step Eleven: Remind initiate that the word “secret” exists in the phrase “secret society” for a reason—even when it comes to close, personal barbarian friends. Remind him, also, that oath violations are punishable offenses. Remain vague on nature of punishments. Try not to exchange glances with fellow knight who may be dating your roommate and who shares with you an inability to keep your society a secret from her.
Step Twelve: While preparing to administer a punishment to initiate, receive cell phone call from college dean summoning you to the Office of the Dean of Student Affairs tout suite. Learn that you have become a party of particular interest to the case. Appeal to the aforementioned fellow knight dating your roommate for his legal guidance. Leave before the fun stuff starts.
“Do you think he was telling the truth?” Josh asked me along the way.
“Yes,” I said. My nerves tightened with every step closer to the Eli Dean’s office. “Michelle has already told us how Blake could get into her apartment, how he stole her stuff, how he managed to vandalize the car of one of her T.A.s. We broke into Micah’s apartment last fall. We broke into the Dragon’s Head tomb this spring. Is it such a stretch to imagine that Blake sneaked in, with all the hustle and bustle this Initiation Night?”
Josh had to concede the point as we headed up the stone steps and into the office of the Dean of Student Affairs.
In four years at Eli, I’d never done more than pass by this building on my way to and from classes. This is where troublemakers went. The freshman who’d burned down his dorm room. The group of rowdy sophomores who, drunk at Spring Fling, had dumped over a porta potty. The Bio major who’d stolen his classmate’s lab notebook and turned it in as his own. The newspaper editor who’d published photos of all the disguised bodyguards who protected the Prince of Qatar. All those famous bits of gossip came back to me at that moment, as well as their denouements: suspension, expulsion, rustication. The Dean of Student Af
fairs—Becky Pasternak, or Becky P, as the students all called her—was known for being strict but fair. She loved the students, and she loved to nail their asses to the wall.
I don’t know what I expected from her domain. In my mind, it had looked a bit like the bridge of the Death Star. Instead, Josh and I were greeted by wooden paneling, blue upholstered armchairs, and a large vase of daisies.
“I’m Amy Haskel,” I said to the secretary. “I was called to—”
“Amy.” I turned to see Dean De La Roche. “Have you seen George? I haven’t been able to get in touch with him.”
“He’s asleep,” I said. “The pain meds—”
“Who is this?” The petite yet powerful figure of Becky P appeared in the doorway to her office. She pointed at Josh. “He’s not Prescott.”
“I’m Joshua Silver, ma’am.” He stuck out his hand.
“Hello. You can’t be here. Only invited parties.”
Josh took a deep breath. “I’m the secretary of this year’s class of Diggers. No decision gets made in our society without my knowledge or permission.” Okay, that was a stretch, but I wasn’t about to disagree with him. “It is our understanding that Blake Varnham is claiming that he’s been hazed as part of our initiation ritual, and I’m here to explain to you that this is categorically not the case.”
“We didn’t call you in. We called Miss Haskel and Mr. Prescott.”
Why me? Only George was involved in the fight. “Anything you can possibly have to ask me about Rose & Grave,” I said, “could be better answered by Josh.”
Becky P raised an eyebrow at me. “Indeed? Well then, come in, illustrious Diggers. Grace us with your presence.”
Josh shot me a look. We were so screwed.
In the room sat the dean of Strathmore College and Blake Varnham, looking remarkably well for a guy who’d just taken a knife to the back. (He was, it should be noted, not leaning against his chair.) Indeed, I think he got off better than George in the injury department. Maybe flesh wounds stung less than broken bones. Beside him sat a man who was either his father or a lawyer, and off in the corner, looking very much alone, sat Michelle Whitmore.
Tap & Gown Page 24