Enchanted Ivy

the vial into her pocket, easily accessible if Mom needed it, and then she forced herself to look out the window again.

Grandpa turned right at a library with a roof like metal wings and drove past an observatory and a concrete stadium flanked by metal tigers, Princeton's mascot. At a PRIVATE PARKING sign, he turned left into a gravel lot and parked.

'Vineyard Club,' Grandpa said. He pointed at a tree-choked hill.

Leaning forward, Lily saw hints of brick gables and peaked windows through the screen of trees, and her breath caught in her throat. Vineyard Club was the most exclusive and prestigious of all Princeton eating clubs. Grandpa had been a member.

Following her grandfather's lead, Lily stepped out of the car. She inhaled the smell of Princeton: the earthy scent of pine and the sweet perfume of tulip trees, undercut with the sour stench of stale beer. It smelled exactly like it should. She smiled.

'Oh, freedom!' Mom cried as she jumped out of the car. She spun in a circle with her arms stretched in a V over her head. Her sleeves flapped around her. 'I hear the world singing!'

Grandpa chuckled. 'No more cars until Sunday,' he promised, coming around to the trunk. He lifted out their suitcase. Lily claimed the duffel bag. Without prompting, Mom fetched Grandpa's hideous jacket and her purse from the backseat. Lily and Grandpa both watched her.

Mom's smile slipped. 'I'm fine. I won't ruin your weekend.'

'This way,' Grandpa said, pointing toward a path through the trees. 'We're expected.'

Grandpa hadn't said they were meeting anyone. Swinging the duffel bag over her shoulder, Lily hurried to follow Grandpa across the parking lot. 'Expected by who?' Lily asked.

'By whom,' Grandpa corrected. He flashed her an enormous grin. 'I have a surprise for you.'

The last surprise from Grandpa had involved escargot for dinner. (Lily had tried one; Mom had flat-out refused.) Surprise before last was a six-foot saguaro cactus that Grandpa had ordered for the shop. (Mom had loved it; Lily had found a desiccated scorpion impaled on a thorn.) For all his aura of being a respectable business owner, Grandpa tended to plan bizarre surprises. Now he had a twinkle in his eye as though he thought he was Santa Claus. 'No snails this time,' Lily said.

'No snails,' Grandpa said. 'Just a few people I'd like you to meet.'

'Really?' She'd never met any of Grandpa's college friends.

The path through the trees opened onto a slope of perfectly manicured lawn, complete with a volleyball net and Adirondack lawn chairs. As Grandpa strode up the hill, Lily tried to picture him as a college student—subtract the salt-and-pepper beard, darken the white hair to black, erase the tanned wrinkles ... She wondered if he'd learned his I-own-the-world-not-just-a-flower-shop walk here. She imagined herself striding across the lawns as if she belonged.

Coming up behind her, Mom hooked her arm through Lily's. 'I wonder what secret life your grandfather has been hiding from us. I'm thinking a dozen girlfriends.'

Lily grinned. 'At least a dozen.' Her grandpa was a handsome man, after all. 'First, we'll meet Buffy, Muffy, and Fluffy, triplet bottle-blonde octogenarians who live on a yacht.

And then will come Margaret, the divorcée with the hard shell hiding a soft, vulnerable heart. And of course Penny, the rich widow who loves sequins and feather boas ...' As they climbed the stone steps to Vineyard Club, Lily trailed off. Here was her first close-up look at Grandpa's infamous club.

Mom didn't notice that Lily's attention had shifted. 'Don't forget Clarisse,' she said, 'the brainy brunette. And Martha, ex-third wife of his third-best friend ...'

Gazing up at the ivy-covered brick, Lily breathed, 'I think I'm in love.'

It was a mansion. No other word for it. Vineyard Club was a Victorian-style mansion with peaks and gables of aged brick, all trimmed with ivy. All the windows had wrought-iron frames, and most were stained glass. She craned her neck to try to see the pictures in the stained glass, but all she could see from this angle were colors. Sapphire- and ruby-and emerald-colored bits of glass flashed like jewels in the sunlight. 'Can I move here now?' Lily asked. 'Seriously, I want to live here.'

Like a formal butler, Grandpa swung the door open and gestured inside. Lily peeked in and saw mahogany: walls, floor, tables, chairs, bar and bar stools, all beautiful dark wood. It was ... ugh! She recoiled as the stench of stale beer rolled out and over her like a tsunami wave. 'Before I move,' she said, 'we fumigate it.'

Grandpa inhaled deeply. 'Smells like senior year.'

Was that the year his scent glands died? Retreating to gulp in fresh air, Lily turned back toward the brilliant green lawn sloping down behind them ...

... and saw the boy.

He stood underneath a pine tree by the parking lot. He wore jeans and a black T-shirt, and he had orange and black tiger-striped hair. Clearly, judging by his school-spirit hair, he was a Princeton boy—the first one she'd ever seen. She felt like a bird-watcher who had glimpsed an elusive and rare specimen.

Oddly, he seemed to be staring back at her.

She was sure it was her imagination. He had to be admiring the architecture. Or waiting for a girlfriend. Guys like that had girlfriends. They didn't notice rumpled-from-a-long-drive high school juniors who were hanging out with their relatives. Lily opened her mouth to ask Mom if she thought the boy was looking at her, but then she stopped. Mom might like the hair. Lily didn't want to waste Reunions weekend on a search for orange and black hair dye.

Lily followed Mom and Grandpa inside and instantly forgot about the tiger-haired boy. She was inside Vineyard Club! She stared around her, feeling as if she needed to memorize every detail.

The taproom of Vineyard Club felt old but more in a finely-aged-wine sort of way than in a plumbing-never- works-right kind of way. Black-and-white photos of men in suits and ties (and women in the newer photos) adorned the wood-paneled walls. She studied the nearest photo, imagining herself in the group of students.

Don't get carried away, she told herself. She had no idea if she'd be accepted to Princeton, much less the über-exclusive Vineyard Club. What if they saw that B from ninth-grade history? What if she hadn't done enough extracurriculars? She'd thought she had an okay list: student council secretary (but never president), twice chorus for the school play (never the lead), part-time employee at Grandpa's flower shop (not optional), one year of tap dance (big mistake), yellow belt in tae kwon do (Grandpa's idea after the tap-dance fiasco), catcher for junior varsity softball. ... Maybe she should have done more. She should have pushed to fit in one more AP class this year. Or joined the debate team. Or discovered the cure for cancer.

Grandpa led them across the sticky floor to the stairs. 'We're on a hill, so the taproom is essentially the basement,' he explained. 'The rest of the club is upstairs.'

The wooden steps were worn from hundreds of feet over a hundred years. More photos lined the staircase. Mom lingered on the fourth step. 'It's you but it isn't,' she said cryptically.

Lily froze. Please, not another brain hiccup. She was having them more and more often these days. 'Are you okay, Mom?'

Grandpa doubled back. 'Come on, Rose,' he said gently. He lifted her fingers away from a photograph and then guided her upstairs. He didn't look at Lily.

Maybe it hadn't been a hiccup. Sometimes it was hard to tell when Mom was being artistically enigmatic or actually crazy. Please hold it together, Lily prayed silently at Mom, at least while we're in the club! She followed Mom and Grandpa upstairs.

Stained-glass windows cast red, green, and gold shadows across leather couches and high-back chairs. An Oriental rug covered the floor. Sections of the rug were worn to threads that looked like tan scars against the faded scarlet swirls. One end of the room was dominated by a stone fireplace with a massive marble mantel. It was flanked by an oil painting and a cream-white door. The other end of the room held a shiny black piano, as well as a doorway to a billiard room. It was all very grand and all very—

'Dead,' Mom said, as if completing Lily's thought. 'It needs sunlight. Fresh air!' She waved her hands at the stained-glass windows.

A new voice spoke. 'But then we'd lose our carefully cultivated aura of stuffiness.' All three of them pivoted to see an elderly gentleman enter through the cream-white door. 'Gentleman' was the absolute right word for him. Dressed in a starched Brooks Brothers shirt and sporting a meticulously trimmed beard, he looked like someone who would know which fork was the salad fork while blindfolded with his hands tied behind his back.