Secret Society Girl

“Yeah.”

I spilled my mocha right then. The hot liquid splattered all over the table, soaking our napkins, drowning his weird combo bagel, staining the sleeve of his stylish denim jacket, and making a glorious little puddle in my lap.

“Fuck.” Malcolm grabbed a handful of napkins and started tossing them around to mop up the worst of the spill. I took another handful to dab at my lap.

“Amy, are you all right?”

When I looked up, it was through a veil of hot tears.

“Oh, I’m fine,” I hissed at him. “Everything makes sense now.”

“What do you mean?”

“I’ve been asking myself why the hell Rose & Grave would ever be interested in a person like me. Now I know. They weren’t.”

“That’s not completely accurate, Amy.”

And now he was channeling Poe! “I know what I’m talking about! At least in this, I know I do. I was sitting there, wondering why all the other taps seemed to already understand so much about the Diggers and know each other so well. It’s not like Clarissa and Demetria run in the same social circles. You had a grooming period, didn’t you?” Poe had even said as much to me yesterday, but it had been tough to hang on to every detail in his sexist diatribe. “They all knew, unlike me, exactly who was coming for them on Tap Night.”

He nodded, still not looking at me.

“That’s why Clarissa was so surprised to see me with that letter in the library! That’s why they all rushed me in the Grand Library after I was initiated.”

Again, a pitiful little nod.

“See?” I tapped my temple with my free hand. “Not so clueless as I seem! And you—I thought you were my champion! You stood up for me back at the interview, you watched over me during the initiation. You were just trying to ensure that I made the cut.”

“Well, yeah, but that’s a standard thing for big sibs to do.”

“But it was more important for me than for the others. I was a last-minute substitute. All those other taps were known quantities. You had to make sure I worked out.”

“Amy, that doesn’t really matter now.”

“Clearly, it does. Because I can tell that I’m different from the others. And they can tell, too. The rest of the taps look at me and ask themselves what I’m doing here. I know they do.”

“I think you’re being paranoid.”

I gave him a look. Get in line. The other Digger taps looked at me as if I were about to fit us all for aluminum sombreros.

He quickly backtracked. “Okay, if they were acting weird at first, it’s just because they were expecting Genevieve. But you were the one who, as you said yesterday, got tapped, got initiated. You’re the member now. You’re their fellow.”

I twirled my finger in the air. “Whoopee. A year spent knowing I’m not really good enough to be there. At least it explains the real reason behind the society name you picked out for me. Bugaboo. Pretentious-speak for pain in the ass. Is that what your expectation was? That I’d constantly be trailing behind the others?”

“Good job with the dictionary.” He rolled his eyes. (Excuse me? Now he doesn’t even have faith in my standing vocabulary. I don’t look everything up.)

“You didn’t want me.”

“Now, that’s not true. You may not have been my original choice—note that I’m not saying first—but we wouldn’t have tapped you at all if we didn’t think you belonged. We only have fifteen slots.”

I was…wait-listed. At Rose & Grave. I’ve never been wait-listed. I even got into Eli through Early Decision. Amy Haskel is not wait-list material.

“Now, where have I heard you say that before?” I asked facetiously. “Oh, that’s right, when you were talking about how much everyone wanted women in the group. Well, we disproved that little theory yesterday, didn’t we? How many of your brothers will I have to survey before I get to the truth about this one?” Probably only one: Poe.

“Enough!” Malcolm banged his hands down on the sticky, mochafied table. “You know, this is exactly why we burn the records of our delibs. People’s feelings get hurt. I want you, and they want you, and what happened before doesn’t matter. You’re in; she’s not. I never would have told you at all if I’d known you’d take it so poorly.”

“News flash, honey,” I shot back. “Women don’t like being used.”

Malcolm stared at me for one long, silent moment. Then he stood up, threw his wad of towels down on the table, and walked out. Through the pane of glass in the front of the shop, I watched him cross the street and pause on the opposite corner, covering his face with his hands and taking several deep breaths.

Good riddance. After all, it’s not as if the jerk had done me any favors recently. Well, he’d washed my clothes and bought me two breakfasts (like a Hobbit). There was that. But he’d also dragged me into a Battle of the Sexes that should have been over and done with a good thirty years ago, all because he needed a warm body to fill a slot.

I didn’t belong in Rose & Grave, and that was that. There. Easy. Over. No more rubbing elbows with Clarissa Cuthbert and trying to keep the peace between Odile and Demetria. No more putting up with the condescension of that wretched Poe. Just leave them all to their little games and get back to the life I had before this mess started. Who needed a secret society anyway? I’d only joined because Rose & Grave was supposed to be so all-powerful and scary. But in truth, they were exactly like Brandon had characterized them: Paleolithic, in both outlook and influence. Hardly anything I’d heard about them was true, and on top of their utter lack of omnipotence, they had a seriously backwards perspective on gender equality.

So, who needed them? Who needed rich old men trying to tell me who I was and could be? Who needed rich, young, gay—if closeted—men measuring my worth on a scale? Who needed any of them threatening my future? I had good grades, good friends, a great—if new—boyfriend, and a prestigious-sounding—if boring— summer job.

Screw ’em.

I dumped the mess of napkins and soggy breakfast in the nearest trash can and marched out of the shop, head held high. I was going to go straight home and tell Brandon he was right all along.

But when I arrived back at the suite, the whiteboard hanging from our door had a note scrawled across it. “Call Horton, 911” with a number, and Lydia’s scrawled “L” beneath. Puzzled, I skipped waking up the boy in my bedroom and went straight for the phone.

An assistant, sounding nervous, put me right through.

“Oh, Amy,” said my future boss, her tone boding ill. “I thought your roommate left you a message.”

“She left me a message to call you.”

“Yes, well…” The woman trailed off, seeming to grow more uncomfortable with each passing second. “The thing is, Amy, we’re going to have to cancel your internship with us this summer.”

The bottom dropped out of my stomach. “What? Why?”

My future boss (No! No, not my boss now! My ex–future boss? My future contrary-to-fact boss?) hesitated. “Well, I’m not really at liberty to get into company policy right now, Amy. I can’t apologize enough for putting you in this difficult situation. I feel terrible, really—”

“Tell me why.” You know how in books, they say, ‘Her blood ran cold’? So not just an expression.

Good luck with your career.

“I’m sorry. I’m not at liber—”

“Give me a satellite view,” I insisted. “Budget cuts? Departmental shifts? Decided I’m not qualified to run the Xerox machine? Tell me. I need to know.”

“Amy, I can’t—”

“No!” I cried into the phone, probably shocking myself more than her. “You have to tell me why.”

“I can’t tell you why.” Or she’d have to kill me, no doubt.

“Does it…” I swallowed, composed myself, and began again, softly. “Does it have anything to do with Rose & Gr—”

“I need to go now, Amy. Good-bye.” And she hung up.

I was still staring at the phone, mouth agape, when Brandon, my sweet barbarian boyfriend, came out of my bedroom, rubbing his eyes. I must have awakened him with my screaming.

“Hey,” he said. “Anything wrong?”

Yes. Everything.

13. Casus Belli

Malcolm answered his door and I pushed past him, still sniffling underneath the hood of my Eli crest sweatshirt (gotta do something to hide the red nose). He handed me a box of tissues.

“You were almost unintelligible over the phone,” he said in a flat voice.

Tough luck for him. I hadn’t improved in the ensuing ten minutes. In fact, I hadn’t even been able to tell Brandon what had happened to me. It was as if there’d been some sort of post-hypnotic Diggers suggestion to keep me from talking of my plight to barbarians. (Really, at this point, maybe we could all start thinking that these conspiracy theories actually had some merit?) I’d abandoned him there, utterly oblivious about what had happened to me in the hour since I’d left him alone in bed that had the power to turn me into such a shocked, sniveling mess. I’d put the call in to Malcolm then ran out with little more than a choking good-bye.