Secret Society Girl

by Diana Peterfreund

  “What back way?” Malcolm blinked at me.

  I waved vaguely toward the wall that separated Calvin College from the Rose & Grave property. “The back way into the tomb. The secret tunnel that the President uses during his clandestine visits.”

  Malcolm snorted. “Right. Whatever. Not the time for jokes, Amy.”

  There was no secret back entrance? God, weren’t any of the things I’d heard about this society true? Let’s see, they weren’t always secret, they weren’t about to gift me with a million dollars, and they weren’t hiding Nazi gold. So, what exactly were those idiots protecting with their Y chromosomes? A bunch of decades-old petty thefts from the medical school’s skeleton collection?

  Still, that ass back there had seemed so…so sure of himself. Like he was more than capable of carrying out all of his threats. My legs began to feel a bit weak.

  As the Diggers trickled in, Malcolm directed them up to his room. I stood against the weathered granite wall, trying to catch my breath, but my body refused to cooperate. I may not have let the patriarchs see me sweat, but to look at me now, you’d think I was busy making up for it. I tried to chill out, to think of anything but the cold looks I’d received from the men in the human shield. Okay, Amy, think of…grammar. Foreign grammar. After a few moments, Malcolm turned in my direction.

  “You okay?”

  I shrugged. “Sure. What, you think that guy bothered me?” As soon as he turned back to the gate, I held up my hand. It was trembling.

  I clamped it into a fist and resumed conjugating irregular Spanish verbs. (Every Lit major has to take a year of literature in a foreign language. Because I’d had a head start in Spanish, I spent a few semesters misunderstanding Borges and Allende. The French people got to breeze through The Little Prince. What a gyp.)

  Okay, snap out of it, Amy. Tengo, tienes, tiene. Tenemos, teneis, tienen. If there’s one thing I’ve learned since joining Rose & Grave, it’s that half the crap I’ve heard about it isn’t true. Tuve, tuvisto, tuvo. Tuvimos, tuvisteis, tuvieron. He’s an old man playing a stupid trick. Tendre, tendras, tendra. Tendremos, tendreis, tendran. He can’t do a thing to me.

  I will have, you will have, he, she, or it will have….

  Tapping you has fucked up my life.

  Then again, maybe I should reserve final judgment until I heard what the senior knights of Rose & Grave have to say about the matter.

  Malcolm was back to the cell phone, contacting, I assumed, anyone who’d managed to miss our little showdown. I watched him punch out a few urgent text messages.

  RG 911. CC 4 J NOW.

  “That’s the best I can do for now,” Malcom said at last, snapping his phone shut. “Come on, Amy. Let’s join the others. We’ll wait for everybody else upstairs.”

  “Malcolm,” I said, and my voice had, without my permission, gone rather soft and squeaky. “That guy—”

  “Is a world-class dick,” Malcom said. “And no matter what he says, they don’t have the power to kick us out, or do anything else. It’s all hot air. But let’s not talk about it here, okay? Come on, upstairs.”

  I followed him into entryway J and we started up the stairs. On the second floor, a suite door opened and the girl with the long brown braid whom I’d first seen when I left Malcolm’s room yesterday looked out at us. I imagined she was curious about the rush hour that had so recently passed on the staircase, but she just looked from me to Malcolm, and her eyes narrowed.

  With a good look at her, I realized who the girl was. Genevieve Grady, a fellow junior and the EDN’s current editor-in-chief. I was surprised that she was even home; the EIC of the school’s daily newspaper was a forty-hour-a-week job, whereas mine was relatively cushy—maybe fourteen a month, until we got to publication crunch time. I hadn’t seen Genevieve much at all this year, or even last year, which she’d spent churning out stories and networking at a rate carefully calculated to earn her the coveted position.

  Perhaps, I wondered, she’d consent to write the foreword to the “Ambition” issue.

  “Back for more, huh, Haskel?” she hissed. “That’s a new one on the fourth floor.”

  Malcolm gave her a glance of stone-cold disdain, and ushered me up another flight.

  “What’s her problem?” I asked.

  Malcolm shrugged. “She’s a bitch. I imagine that knowledge keeps her in a bad mood most of the time.”

  He knocked thrice, once, then twice at his own door and it opened to reveal a room in which every flat surface was covered with the behind of a Digger. They clustered on the bed, the futon, the desk, the dresser, and when perches gave out, the floor. I watched Clarissa trying to manipulate her minuscule bottom into an even tinier area of space, and then she waved me over. “Amy, I saved you a seat.”

  A quick scan of the room showed it was my only option, so I took it, wondering inwardly why Clarissa seemed so damned determined to buddy up at every opportunity. Had I passed some sort of test? I was a Digger, and therefore deemed an acceptable companion in her estimation?

  Of course. Ever since I’d been tapped, people had been treating me differently. The workaday Amy Haskel didn’t spend her Saturday nights flirting with George Harrison Prescott, wasn’t on Clarissa Cuthbert’s radar, and didn’t hold sleepovers with the likes of Malcolm Cabot—even if there was no sex involved. She didn’t engage in shouting matches with distinguished-looking, silver-haired gentlemen who threatened to ruin her life, nor cause older and wiser friends like Glenda Foster to get nervous in her presence.

  Some of Rose & Grave’s power might be little more than perception, but perception alone seemed to lend quite a bit of clout.

  And I still didn’t realize how much that meant.

  “I don’t think we should wait for the others,” Malcolm said. “Let’s come to order.”

  The seniors mobilized. Seemingly from nowhere, long black swaths of fabric materialized, and the boys scurried about the room, enshrouding the windows, covering the air vents, and stuffing up the cracks in the door. Soundproofing, though if anyone really wanted to listen in, I doubted that a few pieces of felt would do the trick. Still, in the absence of a real tomb, Diggers couldn’t be choosers.

  An apartment over Starbucks, however, might have been preferable. I considered Glenda’s ubiquitous venti lattes. Did she get special treatment over there because she belonged to the society upstairs? Rose & Grave hadn’t even given me a gift card to Cosí.

  One of the seniors shrugged. “My turn for Uncle Tony?”

  The others nodded and Malcolm grimaced. “Some introduction to the taps, huh?”

  “Uncle Tony” picked a paperweight off of Malcolm’s desk and rapped it thrice, once, and twice on the desk. “The time is…III and 30 minutes, Diggers-time. I call to order this…” He looked up. “What meeting is this?” Some of the seniors shrugged.

  There was a pattern of three-one-two knocks on the door. Malcolm opened it to reveal Poe, who was scowling and towing along an even more petulant George Harrison Prescott. At once, my heart leapt and sank.

  “Seven thousand, one hundred, and twelfth,” Poe announced. “Nice soundproofing, by the way.” Poe pushed George into the room. “Take a seat, kid.”

  George plopped down next to Jenny Santos, who made a face and scooted away from him, and he grinned as if he’d just gotten away with something particularly naughty.

  The seniors had gone back to padding the entrances to the room, and one was now stuffing throw pillows into the air ducts. When they were satisfied that we’d really blocked out the sound, the one playing “Uncle Tony,” the rotating parliamentary head, started up again.

  “In the name of Persephone, Keeper of the Flame of Life and the Shadow of Death…I, um, call to order the Knights….” He trailed off, a sheepish shrug in place. “Sorry. I’m helpless without the Black Book.”

  Another senior waved his hand in dismissal. “Whatever. Omnis vincit mors, nos cedamus nemini. Let’s get on with it.”

  Poe practically growled i
n disapproval. “This is precisely the problem. Our club has been entirely too lax with the traditions of the society, and now we’re paying the price for it.”

  Personally, I couldn’t see Poe being relaxed about anything. The colonic flexibility required was beyond his bass-ackwards, chauvinistic sensibilities.

  “If you want to Tony, have at it,” the senior snapped.

  Apparently, one didn’t need to ask Poe twice. He stood, cleared his throat, faced the circle, and started to reach for something on his shoulders, almost by reflex.

  His non-existent hood. I met Malcolm’s eyes and erupted into barely contained giggles. By the time I’d regained control of myself (which involved a lot of red-faced swallowing and four fake coughs), Poe had completed the calling-to-order ritual, which I will not deign to repeat here. If you’re looking for the gist, refer to the Initiation chapter of this volume. Suffice it to say that, particularly in the mouth of Poe, it was overlong, needlessly pretentious, relied heavily on Latin-esque gibberish, and possessed far more than its fair share of capital letters. No wonder the rest of the senior knights hadn’t bothered memorizing it!

  “Okay, we all know what we’re here to talk about,” began Malcolm—or, as I suppose I should be calling him now that we were in session, Lancelot.

  “Yeah,” said my classmate Graverobber, the Greek shipping heir with the unwieldy street handle of Nikolos Dmitri Kandes IV. “Why you never warned us this might happen.”

  “Basically,” said another senior, “the board of the Tobias Trust said that if we initiated women, they’d kick us all out. By locking the tomb and speaking to us like barbarians, they’ve made it clear they’ve followed through.”

  “That’s outrageous!” Thorndike (Demetria) shouted loud enough to be heard through even the soundproofing. Everyone winced, but I thought it was a predictable reaction from her. Wait until she heard the guy standing at the center of the circle was all for it. He’d be lucky to escape with his genitals intact.

  “You bet it is,” Graverobber replied. “It’s all very well for you, but as I am neither a woman nor a member of the class that tapped them, I am left to question why and whether I should be punished along with the rest.”

  Naturally, all hell proceeded to break loose.

  “We stand together or we fall apart!” Bond, the Englishman Greg Dorian, stated firmly.

  “But does it follow that we stand together in favor of the females?”

  Angel (Clarissa), beside me, gasped, but didn’t tag in, either. (You might be wondering why I, never one to keep my comments to myself, wasn’t speaking up here. Frankly, I couldn’t get a word in edgewise. These people are future professional speakers. Editors—even chatty, outspoken ones—don’t have a chance.)

  “These girls are our brothers,” Keyser Soze argued. (Yay, Josh!)

  “For forty-eight hours,” Graverobber replied. “And if the alternative is losing my affiliation, I say they should do what’s right for us, and hit the road.”

  “Would you kindly desist speaking of me as if I weren’t sitting on your lap?” Lil’ Demon shot fiery glares at Graverobber from her perch on—well, if not his lap, then damn close.

  “It’s not you, my dear, it’s your entire sex.”

  Thorndike now visibly trembled with rage, and I figured the Eurotrash Graverobber was lucky she’d have to get past Lil’ Demon in order to unleash her fury.

  “Look.” Soze spread his arms and calm prevailed. (I told you this man could get shit done!) “I want to get a better understanding of what exactly our rights are as opposed to those of the TTA board. It stands to reason that the current club ought to have a fair bit of control over the day-to-day running of the society. Are there specific bylaws or compacts that prohibit the tapping of women?”

  “It wasn’t thought necessary by the founders.” Poe sounded as if he were chewing each word. Bet he thought it would have been a good idea! “And yes, we ought to have sovereignty in our choice of taps, but the Trust holds our purse strings, and by extension, controls everything we do. They own the land, the tomb…they pay for all of our benefits.”

  “And your class has no representation on the board?” Soze asked.

  “We do,” Poe said. “It’s me.”

  Hooray, we’re screwed.

  But Soze, always the strategist, didn’t miss a beat. “And, um, other avenues?” When Poe understandably failed to respond, he braved on. “Forgive the questions, but I think all of the juniors here feel like we’ve been thrown into the deep end.”

  And are drowning in it.

  “I want to get a big picture here about what they are trying to do and why they think they have the right to do it. And if they don’t, then I think it’s a simple matter of bringing the bylaws up for consideration to—”

  “To what?” said Lancelot. “The courts? Forget it, pal. That’s why we call it a secret society. We won’t do court cases, where we risk our inner workings becoming public record. We’re not a fraternity with a Hellenic organization to turn to in the matter of disputes. Private club. Not subject to any anti-discrimination laws. We don’t really have a case.”

  “You don’t need one,” Lucky said, shocking the hell out of everyone. “Just the threat of going public might scare your board into backing off.”

  “P-public?” a senior spluttered. “Are you insane? Do you even know who we are?”

  “Better than you think.”

  “Lady’s a shark!” Puck exclaimed, impressed. “Right for the balls.” Lucky shot him a withering glance, folded her arms, and sat back in her seat.

  “Before we get into all of that,” said a new tap whose real name I didn’t even know (found out later he was Omar Mathabane, a.k.a. Kismet, the first-ever Diggers tap to hail from the continent of Africa). “I’m interested to see where everyone in this room stands on this issue. Are we for the inclusion of women?”

  “You’re asking us?” Demetria hissed, making a fist with one hand and gesturing wildly at the five women in the room. “You’re in the country for what, five seconds? And you’re all set to join the Establishment!”

  The tall basketball player, Big Demon (Benjamin Edwards, for those of you playing the Who’s-Who-in-Rose-&-Grave Game), cleared his throat and spoke softly. “At the risk of offending the women and the seniors, I think Graverobber has a point that should be considered, regardless of everything else. The men in D177 did not commit either offense. We didn’t tap women, and we’re not women. So, for the purpose of argument, what is the patriarchs’ problem with us?”

  “Enough!” Lil’ Demon detached herself from her questionable perch and took the floor. “Oh, yes, Kismet, let’s vote.” (That Odile managed to keep all the code names straight while I was lucky to remember half of them convinced me once and for all that she deserved that Eli diploma.) “Let’s find out where everyone here stands before you all set to talking about my future. I’ve had about enough of being talked around and talked about by men. I spent five years being ‘handled’—by my agent, my stupid father, my record label—and I am so done with letting any man tell me what to do!”

  That shut up even Thorndike. Puck seemed to look at Lil’ Demon with newfound appreciation, and I took a deep breath.

  “The way I see it,” I said before I could stop myself, “we have four distinct issues to solve before we can even get a plan together.” I began ticking them off on my fingers:

  1) “Have we broken any of the society bylaws?” I looked to Poe for confirmation. “Apparently not.”

  2) “Assuming we have not, what are our rights as active members, versus the board’s control over the financial aspects of the society?”

  3) “On the off chance that they do have a grievance against us, what can we do to mitigate the situation with the male taps?”

  4) I took a deep breath. “And finally, do you guys still want the women around at all?”

  “Yes,” Lancelot said without hesitation. Poe just looked at me with clear gray eyes. The other senio
rs were a mess of nods and thoughtful expressions. Not encouraging.

  “Perhaps we should take a vote?” Frodo suggested.

  “The problem with that is, they already voted.” I said. “They voted the day they agreed to tap us. We’re tapped. We’re initiated. It’s too late. The actions the senior club performed are irrevocable, and that’s why the patriarchs waited until now to act. They thought the seniors would come to their senses before this.”

  “Since when are you such an expert?” Angel asked, finding her tongue at last.

  “I’m a quick study.” I looked at Poe, who was doing his best to channel Medusa. “And one thing I’ve learned is that your tapping decisions have to be unanimous. Is the same true for your decision to kick someone out?”

  “Yes,” Poe grumbled.

  “Then I think it’s safe to assume that the women aren’t going anywhere.”

  “Woo-hoo!” Angel said softly, pumping her fist in the air. I smiled at her. Yes, I really did. Nothing like a little camaraderie when you learn you have an even bigger enemy out there.

  Poe sat back in his seat and folded his arms. “What Bugaboo said isn’t entirely accurate.”

  I turned on him, incredulous. “You told me so, not an hour ago.”

  Again with the deadpan. This man could give lessons to Bob Newhart. “I did nothing of the sort.”

  I looked to Lancelot for assistance, but he just appeared confused. All at once, I understood. Poe was so steeped in society mores that the others could afford to be lazy and let him take charge of all the old-fashioned rigmarole. And because they didn’t know any better, he was free to manipulate the rules to suit his own agenda.

  How in the world had they ever gotten women past him in the first place?

  Angel, in the meantime, had skulked back off my soapbox. “Sit down,” she whispered, tugging on my sleeve. “He knows a lot more about what’s going on in here than you do. You’ll end up sounding silly.”