Secret Society (10 page)

L
auren walked home that evening, exhilarated after the first day of her internship at Giroux New York. The start of it was exactly as she had imagined: She had shown up and was greeted by Sebastian Giroux himself. He asked her a bit about school and then passed her on to Sabrina Harriman, the well-known creative director, who was frequently quoted in the press on style trends. Sabrina, a severe-looking woman with a hawklike nose who favored black clothes and horn-rim glasses, had been pleasant but businesslike, and Lauren sensed that they weren't exactly going to be best friends. She plunked Lauren down in the stockroom to unpack some Giroux private label dresses that had come in from Italy, a job some would have considered menial. Lauren didn't care; she was thrilled to be there. She set about unpacking the dresses
and hanging them on the rolling rack as if she had been given the most important task in the entire store.

An hour or so had passed when she came upon one dress whose label had become undone. She was about to go get a needle and some black thread to tack it back on again when she noticed something strange: On the back of the label, sewn in reverse thread, white on black, was a very small ankh. Lauren flipped over the other labels, which required some maneuvering, as most were sewn down tightly. All of them had the small sign. Lauren felt a heaviness in her stomach, not knowing what it meant. She knew she had gotten the job through some sort of Society connection, but she didn't know the exact details. Was Sebastian Giroux himself a member? Was the store owned by the Society? She decided she couldn't let it bother her. She had the internship she had always wanted, and she wasn't going to let her imagination take over.

As she left that day, the most thrilling thing of all happened. She was saying good night to Sabrina, who was talking to the cleaning people about something. “Wait a second,” Sabrina said to her.

Lauren cringed. Had someone seen her looking at the labels?

“Come closer,” Sabrina said. She held out a hand toward Lauren's neck and touched the necklace she was wearing.

“Your pendant. It's stunning. Who made it?”

Lauren had forgotten she was even wearing it. It was
another vintage piece of costume jewelry she had bought at the Chelsea flea market over a year ago and then had reset. She had a thing about jewelry; she hated almost all mainstream styles. While she loved contemporary fashion, she felt that contemporary jewelry looked like it should be sold at the mall.

“I don't know,” Lauren said. “It's vintage. I mean, I had it reset, and I added a new chain.”

“I would kill for something like that in the store,” Sabrina said, smiling. Her voice lowered. “You know, I thought you might be another one of, well, one of Sebastian's
connections
.” She rolled her eyes. “The usual socialites he likes working in the store.”

Lauren laughed. “I'm hardly a socialite.”

“That's what they all say. But I'm impressed with you. You worked for three hours downstairs without taking a single break, you didn't shop at all, and you have fantastic taste in jewelry.” She patted Lauren on the shoulder. “See you next week.”

Lauren floated home on that praise. When she got back to the apartment, Sabrina's words sparked an idea. She ran to her room and pulled out the sketchbook in which she sometimes played with ideas for jewelry. They were retro-inspired, not gaudy—simple, classic designs with a little bit of whimsy. She had never really thought of them as something people might be interested in; drawing them was just
something she did for fun.

If Lauren wanted to have a career in fashion, she knew she'd have to go to FIT or Parsons. She needed something to set herself apart from the other applicants—particularly if she needed a scholarship, which might be necessary if her mom or dad said they wouldn't pay for it. Tuition was expensive. She would need to have a portfolio of her designs.

She began to work on more ideas.

 

“Phoebe, I want you to come down and meet Daniel.”

Her mom was calling her to the kitchen to meet the guy she was dating—again. There had been three previous dates, and Phoebe had conveniently come up with an excuse each time not to be in the house when Daniel picked her mom up or dropped her off. It unnerved her a bit, the idea of her mom going on dates. Although she wanted her to be happy, she didn't really want to meet some new guy who was taking her out. But this time she didn't have a choice. She would have to meet Daniel, the famous art collector from Park Slope.

She plodded down the back stairs to the sleek, all-white modern kitchen. It didn't seem to fit with the rest of the house, but Phoebe liked it. The kitchen was like a blank canvas where she could let her mind wander.

Letting her mind wander was exactly what she had been doing lately. Instead of the lonely afternoons she had imagined she might be spending in a new city, she had become
obsessed with her portfolio of artwork, pouring herself into her research and sketches. The Egyptian book had fascinated her: It was all about symbology, the meanings of different signs. She decided she would incorporate some of it into the series; she knew she probably shouldn't because of the Society, but she figured it would be subtle. Besides, wasn't edge what people were looking for in art today? One of Anastasia's performance pieces involved a black-and-white film of her sitting on the toilet and reading Rilke's
Letters to a Young Poet.
Even though Phoebe thought it sounded a bit inane, people had raved about how great it was, how it referenced Du-champ, Warhol, the celebration of the everyday.

Daniel Fullerton, her mother's date, was a little bit older than her mom, handsome and graying at the temples. Supposedly, Michelle Schrader had introduced them.

“Phoebe! I've heard so much about you.” There was something about his voice that sounded familiar.

“Nice to meet you,” she said, holding out her hand.

“Daniel's an alum of Chadwick,” Maia said.

Daniel laughed. “Yeah, I graduated so long ago, it wasn't even coed back then. So I hear you've been working away at your paintings?”

“Yeah, they're more mixed media pieces, I guess.” She had been experimenting with more silkscreens, a little bit of collage; the workroom upstairs where her mother's friend usually did her sculpting was a complete mess.

“I'd love to see them. Have you shown them to Michelle?”

Phoebe blushed. “No, I haven't. Not yet. I should, though, right?”

“Absolutely,” Daniel said.

“We'd better get going,” Maia said.

“Good meeting you,” Phoebe said.

“You, too—keep it up with the paintings!”

As Daniel gave her a good-bye wink, a shudder went through Phoebe's body. She realized where she had heard that voice, so warm and inviting: Daniel had been at the Night of Rebirth.

O
n Saturday afternoon, Phoebe and Lauren were sitting together at a round table in an upstairs ballroom at the Colonial Club, a private social club on Park Avenue that dated back to the original Astors. Security had been tight; their names and IDs were double-checked against a list, and two burly security guards stood on each side of the doors to the paneled ballroom. On a small placard was printed:

The invitation had come in the mail, on Thursday afternoon, which was a surprise, since everything so far had been text-messaged. Phoebe was also starting to realize that the Society didn't like to give much advance notice about its
events. She and Lauren had needed to pick up new dresses on Friday afternoon for the luncheon.

Most of the people at the lunch were much older, and the majority didn't introduce themselves. There were several announcements, one of which was that every Society member should save the dates between Christmas and New Year's for the annual retreat. The presentation itself was all about community service and the importance of giving. Phoebe didn't need a room full of stuffed shirts to tell her this. They had announced at the luncheon that the Society would be making an anonymous donation to the Metropolitan Museum's Egyptian wing to refurbish some of its galleries. It was a worthy cause, of course, but there had been something smug about the whole thing that Phoebe didn't like. Claire Chilton's mother, who was apparently an Elder of the Society, had given a talk about philanthropy. Again, all good, but something felt bogus about it. They had gone on and on about how they were building a generation of young leaders, helping to bring out everyone's true talents, but they hadn't actually
done
anything. All they had done was write a check. It bothered Phoebe, so as they all picked at their lemon tarts with raspberries, she finally had to say something.

“Your mother gave such a lovely talk,” one girl said to Claire.

“Thank you.” Claire smiled. “I think we should all be so proud of ourselves.”

“Okay, help me out here,” Phoebe said, putting down her fork. “Your mom's talk was great. But how can
we
feel good about this donation? We didn't raise the money. We started in this group, like, what, a week ago? I just don't really feel like it's our contribution to be proud about. We're all sitting around and drinking mimosas and toasting to the fact that someone we don't even know wrote a check.”

“I beg your pardon,” Claire said. “Lots of people worked really hard to raise that money.”

“I totally agree,” Phoebe said. “But let's do our own thing. Let's raise our own money.”

Bradley Winston scoffed. “What, and have a
bake sale
or something?”

Phoebe blushed. Bradley Winston, for all his prepster ways, was the son of a brilliant Columbia professor who had written a bestseller on the politics of race. Being mocked by someone with such a pedigree stung all the more.

“No, she's right,” Lauren said, thankfully coming to Phoebe's defense. “We can't rest on the laurels of the group.”

“No one's
resting
on any laurels,” Claire said icily, in Phoebe's direction. “You're new to this group. I'm not really sure it's your place to be commenting on things you don't understand.”

Claire was probably right. Phoebe was speaking out of turn, although silently she couldn't help wishing that Claire's headband would cut off her circulation.

There was an awkward silence at the table, until someone changed the subject to the renovations on their parents' house in Newport.

Later, as they were walking home, Nick jogged to catch up with Phoebe and Lauren. Phoebe felt a warmth as he approached; she hoped he might ask her out again.

“Thank God that's over with,” Nick said. “I thought I might pass out from the smell of mothballs in that place. I heard what happened at your table. I hate these charity events where no one does anything, but they all sit around and feel good about someone else's donation.”

“I don't know,” Lauren said. “You need to be careful, Pheeb.” She looked behind them to make sure there were no Society members behind them. “There's something creepy about this whole thing—and I don't mean the secret society rituals, all that hoopla. I can't figure it out. I told you about the ankh labels, right?”

“Couldn't that mean anything?” Phoebe said. She didn't want to appear too judgmental; she felt she had already come off like a total bitch, and she didn't want Nick to think that was what she was like.

Nick took his coat and tie off and loosened his shirtsleeves. “Come on, you guys can't let all this get to you. It's supposed to be fun.”

Although Nick casually swung his jacket in the breeze, Phoebe wasn't so sure.

 

As they walked home, Lauren wasn't really thinking about the speeches at the luncheon. She was thinking about Alejandro Calleja. There was something about him—his confidence, his swagger—that she found appealing. It felt like he might allow her finally to have a little bit of fun, not to worry so much about what people thought. She doubted her mother would approve of Alejandro—after all, he was known to be a bit of a playboy. Lauren didn't care; she was flattered that he had taken an interest in her.

When she got home, Diana was reading Saturday's edition of Page Six while having a late lunch in the sunroom. “Did you read this about one of your classmates?” she asked, holding up the paper.

“What's that?” Her mother was always going on about how so-and-so was doing something, and Lauren should really be part of it.

“This young man, Patchfield Evans, has a new television program that he's filming. It's called
Chadwick Prep.
They're doing it at your school. Darling, why don't you befriend this boy?”

“Mom, I know him. He's been at Chadwick since kindergarten.”

“Ask him to film you for his show. You need to do something that will single you out from your classmates if you're going to get into a good college.”

Lauren considered what her mother had said. She had chatted with Emily van Piper that afternoon; Emily had been offered a role in an indie film by the casting director she had met with. Everyone else always seemed to be doing so much. Lauren thought about her sketchbook of designs. She had started fleshing them out, filling in the colors, making them look more professional, more like the illustrations of jewelry she had seen in books. She couldn't imagine herself drawing anything else, but somehow with clothes and jewelry, it came naturally. She didn't know what the next step was.

And then, that night before she went to bed, she realized the next step was obvious: She would show her sketchbook to Sabrina at Giroux New York.

 

Phoebe spent the rest of that weekend working on her art. She moved around bits of the collages, layered screen print upon screen print, until she was really confident that they were something worth showing. She took digital pictures of the four pieces and emailed them to Michelle at the gallery. She was nervous; to her, they weren't merely a step on the ladder to being a successful artist. They were a reflection of her entire aesthetic, everything she believed in.

She decided to tell her mom about it in the kitchen over dinner, lasagna that Maia had made.

“Do you really think you want to do that?” Maia asked. “I
mean, you're so young. The pressure. Do you think you can handle it?”

“Mom, I've always wanted to work on my art. I just got distracted—by the divorce, by the move, by everything.” She knew this was a low blow to her mother, but she couldn't help it. What right did her mom have to tell her that she couldn't be an artist?

“Sweetie, I want you to have fun. You're working so hard on everything else. Do you really need to throw something else into the mix?”

“This distracts me a bit, which is a good thing,” Phoebe said. “I need you to support me with it.”

“Of course I support you,” Maia said. She paused, taking a sip of water. “Now, tell me, what did you think of Daniel?”

“Um, he's great,” Phoebe said. “Really handsome.”

Maia gave her daughter a funny look. “That's all?”

“Yeah, um, I think it's great that you're dating.” Phoebe didn't want to tell her mother her suspicions, and what would they mean anyway?

She wished she knew.