The Rule of Four

drag. At this hour it's lifeless, prowled by two plows and a salt truck that someone has roused from hibernation. Stray boutiques glow in the night, snow gathering below their storefront windows. Talbot's and Micawber Books are closed at this hour, but Pequod Copy and the coffee shops manage a small bustle, filled with seniors rushing to complete their theses in the eleventh hour before departmental deadlines.

Glad to be done with it? Gil asks Paul, who has retreated into himself again.

My diesis?

Gil looks into the rearview mirror.

It's not finished yet, Paul says.

Come on. It's done. What do you have left to do?

Paul's breath frosts the rear window. Enough, he says.

At the stoplight, we turn onto Washington Road, then toward Prospect Avenue and the eating clubs. Gil knows better than to ask more questions. As we approach Prospect, I know his thoughts are gravitating elsewhere. Saturday night is the Ivy Club's annual ball, and it has been left to him, as club president, to oversee the arrangements. After falling behind while finishing his thesis, he's gotten into the habit of making little trips to Ivy just to convince himself that everything is under control. According to Katie, by the time I arrive to escort her tomorrow night, I'll barely recognize the inside of the club.

We pull up beside the clubhouse, into the space that seems to be reserved for Gil, and when he disengages his key from the ignition a cold silence echoes in the cabin. Friday is the lull in the weekend storm, a chance to sober up between the traditional party nights of Thursday and Saturday. The recent snow has dampened even the hum of voices that usually drifts in the air as juniors and seniors return to campus from dinner.

According to administrators, the eating clubs at Princeton are an upperclass dining option. The reality is that the eating clubs are basically the only option we have. In the early days of the college, when refectory fires and surly innkeepers forced students to fend for themselves, small groups banded together to take meals under the same roof. Princeton being what it was in those days, the roofs they ate under, and the clubhouses they built to support those roofs, were no mean affair; some of them are nothing short of manors. And to this day the eating club remains Princeton's peculiar institution: a place, like a coed fraternity, where junior and senior members hold parties and eat meals, but do not reside. Almost one hundred and fifty years after the institution first appeared, social life at Princeton is simple to explain. It lies firmly in the hands of the clubs.

Ivy looks grim at this hour. Cloaked in darkness, the sharp points and dark stonework of the building are uninviting. Cottage Club, next door, with its white quoins and round accents, easily outshines it. These two sister clubs, older than the other surviving ten on Prospect Avenue, are Princeton's most exclusive. Their rivalry for the best of each class has endured since 1886.

Gil looks at his watch. They're not seating for dinner anymore. I'll bring us up some food. He holds the front door open, then guides us up the main stairs.

It's been awhile since my last visit here, and the dark oak-paneled walls with their severe-looking portraits always give me pause. 7b the left: is Ivy's dining room, with its long wooden tables and century-old English chairs; to the right is the billiards room, where Parker Hassett is playing a game of pool alone. Parker is Ivy's village idiot, a half-wit from a wealthy family who is just bright enough to realize what a fool some people think he is, and just dumb enough to blame everyone else for it. He plays pool with both hands moving the cue, like a vaudeville actor dancing with a cane. Though he glances over at us when we pass, I ignore him as we mount the stairs, heading for the Officers' Room.

Knocking twice at the door, Gil enters without awaiting a reply. We follow him into the warm light of the room, where Brooks Franklin, Gil's portly vice president, sits at a long mahogany table extending lengthwise just past the door. Atop the table stand a Tiffany lamp and a phone. Around its edge are tucked six chairs.

I'm glad you showed up when you did, Brooks says to all of us, politely ignoring the fact that Paul is wearing women's clothes. Parker was telling me his costume plans for tomorrow night, and I was starting to think I might need backup.

I don't know Brooks very well, but ever since we shared an introductory economics class sophomore year, he has related to me as an old friend. I'm guessing that Parker's plans have to do with Saturday's dance, which is traditionally a Princeton-themed costume ball.

You'll fucking die, Gil, Parker says, arriving unannounced from downstairs. Now he has a cigarette in one hand, a glass of wine in the other. At least you have a sense of humor.

He speaks directly to Gil, as if Paul and I are invisible. Down at the table, I can see Brooks shaking his head.

I've decided to come as JFK, he continues. And my date's not going to be Jackie. She's going to be Marilyn Monroe.

Parker must see confusion in my expression, because he dashes his cigarette into an ashtray on the table. Yes, Tom, he says, Kennedy graduated from Harvard. But he went here his freshman year.

The latest product of a California wine family that has sent a son to Princeton, and to Ivy, for generations, Parker cleared both of those hurdles thanks only to what Gil, charitably, calls the Hassett family's momentum.

Before I can respond, Gil leans forward.

Look, Parker, I don't have time for this. If you want to come as Kennedy, that's your business. Just try to show some taste.

Parker, who seemed to expect something better, shoots a sour look at all of us and walks off, wine in hand.

Brooks, Gil says now, can you go down and ask Albert if there's any dinner left? We haven't eaten and we're in a rush.

Brooks agrees. He is the perfect vice president: obliging, tireless, loyal. Even when Gil's favors come out sounding like commands, he never seems to be ruffled. Tonight is the only time he has ever looked weary to me, and I wonder if he just finished his thesis.

Actually, Gil adds, looking up, I'll bring two of them up here, and eat mine in the dining room. We can talk about the wine order for tomorrow while I eat.

Brooks turns to Paul and me. Good to see you guys, he says. Sorry about Parker. I don't know what gets into him sometimes.

Sometimes? I say under my breath.

Brooks must hear me, because he smiles before leaving.

The food should be ready in a few minutes, Gil says. I'll be downstairs if you guys need me. He focuses on Paul. We can go to the lecture as soon as you're ready.

For a second after he leaves, I can't escape the feeling that Paul and I are committing some kind of fraud. We're sitting at an antique mahogany table in a nineteenth-century mansion, waiting for someone to bring us our dinners. If I had a nickel for every time this had happened to me since I got to Princeton, I would need another one to rub the two together. Cloister Inn, the club where Charlie and I are members, is a small, simple building with a cozy stone charm. When the floors are polished and the greens are trimmed it's a respectable place to draw a beer or shoot some pool. But in scale and in gravity it is dwarfed by Ivy. Our chef's first priority is quantity, not quality, and unlike our Ivy friends we eat where we please, rather than being seated in the order of our arrival. Half of our chairs are plastic, all of our cutlery is replaceable, and sometimes when the parties we throw are too expensive, or the taps we run are too loose, we find hot dogs in the lunch tray on Fridays. We are like many of the clubs on the street. Ivy has always been the exception.

Come downstairs with me, Paul says abruptly.

Unsure what he means by it, I follow. We descend past the stained-glass window that runs along the south landing, then down another flight of stairs into the basement of the club. Paul leads me through the hall toward the President's Room. Gil is supposed to have sole access to the room, but when Paul worried about having less and less privacy at his library carrel while trying to finish his thesis, Gil promised him a copy of the key, hoping to lure him back to the club. Paul had found little to recommend Ivy by then, work-obsessed as he was. But the President's Room, large and quiet and accessible to Paul directly through the steam tunnels, was a blessing he couldn't refuse. Others protested that Gil had made a hostel of the club's most exclusive room, but Paul defused all controversy by arriving at the room almost always through the tunnels. It seemed to bother the offended parties less when they