He laughed then, a look that suited him even better than the serious one he’d copped a moment ago. “That’s the truth. Okay, we’ll wait a minute, since your secret’s so precious to you.”
The way he said it made me feel childish for obeying the society rules. And then I remembered his antics from last night. The metal and glass, the sulfur. “Look, if you hate all the trappings that come with Rose & Grave, why did you join in the first place?”
He pushed open the entryway door and escaped into the night air. “Didn’t really have a choice, there,” he said. “My dad was kind of insistent.”
I remember what some of the other new taps had said before George’s entrance last night, about how he’d been dragged in kicking and screaming. And then I thought about how I’d watched him as he stood there in front of the tomb, lighting matches and struggling with himself. I stopped George under an arch with his last name engraved in huge letters on the cornice.
“Your dad is a Digger.”
“You met him. Uncle Tony?” He raised his eyebrows.
“Oh.” I hadn’t known the identity of the character who’d sworn me in. (Though I’d found out at the mansion last night that “Uncle Tony” was the official title for the parliamentary leader of every meeting. Some organizations have chairpersons; Rose & Grave has uncles—and now maybe aunts as well?) “That’s kind of cool, though, that he was the one in the ceremony. Like father, like son, you know?”
He snorted. “Yeah, exactly like that.” He kicked at the cornice and stuck his hands in the pockets of his jeans. “Let’s go.”
“Shush!” he whispered in a breath that tickled the nape of my neck. “Your boyfriend stopped for pizza.”
The alcove was damp and the stone felt gritty beneath my hands, but, pressed up against George Harrison Prescott, I hardly noticed. He slowly released his grip, sliding his palm down my chin and over my throat and collarbone.
I don’t think I need to remind you what a smooth operator this kid is. My legs actually quivered.
“He’s not my boyfriend,” I whispered over my shoulder.
Glare on George’s glasses revealed nothing in his eyes. “Good to know.”
At that moment, I was not thinking about Brandon walking home outside. I turned fully to George, reassured by the darkness, and put one hand on his shoulder— low on his shoulder, because he was George Harrison Prescott, and I couldn’t help myself. “Tell me why you didn’t want to join Rose & Grave.”
“Tell me why you
I shrugged. “It seems like a good idea. Huge network, cool tomb, free champagne.”
He pulled away from me and sat on a low stone bench. Beneath his jacket, George was wearing a beat-up oxford dress shirt over a fading, cracked vintage concert T. I couldn’t make out the band, but he was working the look like a latter-day James Dean. “My mom and dad are divorced. She went to Eli, too. And she was the last of a dying breed of hippies and old-school feminists.”
“She burned her bras?”
“She didn’t own any.” George crossed his arms. “The seventies might have been over, but she wasn’t about to admit that. My dad was in his ‘rebel against his upbringing’ phase when they met. She was rebelling, too, don’t get me wrong. And she and my dad just kind of…used each other.”
“That’s terrible.”
“He made her think she could change him, she made his Brahmin parents really angry. They disagreed on everything, which must have meant that the sex was nuclear.”
Um, TMI.
“The marriage lasted for about thirty seconds after I was born.” George shrugged. “When I was little, I thought they broke up over my name. Isn’t that stupid? But it was the only disagreement they ever shared with me. Dad wanted me to be a Third. Mom caved on the George part, but gave him one parting shot with the Harrison. Like the Beatle. Cute, huh?”
I’d always thought so. “Where did you grow up?”
“Split time,” he replied. “Mom’s a social worker in Connecticut. Dad, of course, stays in Westchester. They think of each other as amusing now. Dad finds it funny that Mom still wants to save the world, Mom thinks it’s hilarious that Dad became exactly the kind of man he used to hate his father for being.”
“I’m sorry.” For lack of anything better to say.
“And I’m a conduit.” He laughed without mirth. “They come to drop me off or pick me up at one of our houses, take one look at each other, and
George filled in the blanks. “Until about five years ago, they used to fuck regularly.”
What, and leave little Georgie standing in the kitchen? “What happened five years ago?”
“Dad got married.” George stood, checked the street. “Now it’s only semi-regularly.”
I dropped to the bench, too shocked to speak.
He looked back at me, grimaced, and raked his hand through his hair. “I have no clue why I’m telling you all this. Guess the Digger bonding thing is starting already.”
Like Malcolm. “The Digger bonding thing where you tell your brothers all your deep dark secrets?”
“Yeah. Or my sister, in this case. At this rate, I’ll have nothing left for my C.B.”
I stood. “I have a tough time believing that about you, George.” I stood very close to him in the confines of the alcove. Perhaps too close.
His eyes widened behind his glasses, as if he was surprised to hear his reputation thrown back at him. Yep, definitely too close. He put his hand up to mine.
TWO THINGS HE MIGHT BE THINKING
1) Oh, look, it’s Amy. She’s cute and smart and funny.
2) Oh, look, it’s a girl in a dark corner. Haven’t done her yet.
I took a breath. “The coast is clear now, right?”
He nodded, slowly, and we spilled out into the relative brightness of sodium streetlights.
As we walked down the slate-lined alley between Hartford and Calvin Colleges, we said very little. George, I think, was still shell-shocked over his own gut-spill and I was busy contemplating if I should reciprocate. But what should I say? My parents were happily married, and rarely fought about anything more serious than whether to hire the kid down the street to cut the lawn or do it themselves. That would go over well. Or should I share something darker? The time last year that I slept with a boy whose name I can’t remember? Would that make me sound like a slut?
We hit High Street and turned toward the tomb, still in mutual silence. The gate was closed, and George held it open for me—after we both checked to see that no one stood on the street. “Guess no one is inside,” he said, referring to the gate-position code.
We were about to find out why.
He jogged up the front steps to the main entrance and froze. When I arrived a moment later, contemplating how dangerous it would be to hang out inside Rose & Grave alone with George Harrison Prescott, I was similarly struck.
The doors had been chained and padlocked together.
9. The Backlash
In retrospect, we should have gone to Malcolm or one of the other seniors right away, but we didn’t. After all, we were new at all of this Digger stuff. How were we supposed to know that the padlock was a recent addition to the look of the tomb? I remember reflecting to George at the time that perhaps the caretaker always padlocked it on the days when there were no formal events planned. But when we went around to the side entrance, there was a chain there, too, and neither of us knew where we might obtain the keys.
“We could knock,” George suggested, but didn’t move to do so. I was relieved to see my hesitation echoed in someone who had been more thoroughly versed in the mores of the society. Even though I’d spent hours inside the tomb yesterday, taking oaths and learning secrets, the same unease about the property that had been cultivated in the last three years still held power over me. I felt, almost, that I didn’t belong on the site.
Which, it turns out, is exactly how they wanted me to feel.
Our plans to hang out in the tomb thwarted, we walked down to Lenny’s Lunch, which holds the distinction of having the most batshit hours of any restaurant in New Haven. Really, you never know when it’s going to be open. The hours are something like 11 A.M.–3:15 P.M. on Monday, noon–2 P.M. Tuesday, 7–9:30 P.M. Thursday–Friday, and noon–midnight on Saturday. I kid you not (and no, do not hold me responsible for any of these hours. I honestly have no clue when they are open). Plus, there’s only one thing on the menu—cheeseburgers on toast with onions and tomato—and the proprietor will kick you out if you ask for ketchup. But if you learn the rules, in a sort of “
We settled into the ancient wooden booths and waited for our food. Over the decades, people had carved encyclopedias’ worth of personal histories into the tops and sides of the tables and benches (the bottoms were something you stayed away from if you wanted to keep your appetite). Hearts, crests, quotes from Shakespeare and Stalin—anything goes at Lenny’s Lunch. I rubbed the condensation from my bottle of birch beer and polished a carving that read “B + A 1956.”
Those are very common initials.
