Tap & Gown (18 page)

I met her in the hallway. “Please don’t leave on account of Topher. He’s an ass; we both know that.”

“But only one of us seems to care,” she said, pressing the elevator button.

“I thought that was a hell of a zinger,” I replied.

“Whatever.” The elevator door opened.

I blocked it. “How come I’ve never heard you talk about books that way before?”

She looked away down the hall. “Look, I may not be a genius like you or Brandon, but I’m not an idiot, either. I’m running the Lit Mag just fine, you know. Ads and circulation are up.”

A genius? Me? I almost laughed aloud but it was undercut by the realization that perhaps the more market-minded Arielle had been a better editor than me. Who was the real genius in that case?

“I know you didn’t want me as editor, and I know you don’t want me here tonight, either.” Now she did look at me. “And I think on the latter, your instincts may be right. Now that I’ve been here, now that I’ve seen what you people are really like, who you really
would
like—I don’t know. I don’t know if I want to be part of it.” She shook her head as if clearing it. “I’ve met the Quill class. I like them. I could imagine spending my nights and weekends with them next year. I could not imagine spending them with Topher Cox.”

“But—” But what? If I tapped Arielle, she’d never have to spend any time with Topher?

“I think what I’m saying, Amy, is thanks but no thanks. How do you people put it again? Oh, yeah: reject.” She pushed past me into the elevator.

I stood there in shock. This was not supposed to happen. Rejected by your safety tap?

Back at the party, things appeared to have deteriorated. Two voices I didn’t recognize were locked in the spare bedroom arguing. Kevin had claimed Clarissa’s bathroom as a make-out spot with one of the potentials he’d brought. Michelle was engaged in a lively debate about the origin of global warming with all four of Mara’s potentials, and Jamie was nowhere to be seen.

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I retreated into Clarissa’s bedroom and sank down at the foot of the bed, resting my face in my hands.

How could I be screwing up so badly? My first choice to tap wasn’t eligible, my safety wasn’t interested, my boyfriend thought every move I made was somehow mistaken, I didn’t have a job, I couldn’t finish my thesis, I kept having nightmares about some fourteen-year-old kid I’d probably never even see again, and now I was sitting on the floor of my friend’s bedroom in the middle of a party like it was middle school and I’d just had a fight with my lockermate.

Also, I was getting cat hair on my skirt.

“Amy?” I looked up to see Clarissa standing in the doorway. “You okay?”

I nodded miserably.

She closed the door and came to sit next to me, cathairing up her sequined fantasy. “Good, because I totally call dibs on being the hot mess tonight.” She beat her head against the duvet.

“Not fair,” came a voice from the other side of the bed. “I called dibs long before either of you.”

Demetria sat up and stared at us over the top of the mattress.

“What’s your problem?” Clarissa asked.

“I don’t want to submit anyone on my list to their own version of this crap next year. I hate every minute of this and I’ve decided that friends don’t let friends join secret societies.”

This again. I put my head back in my hands.

“You’re kidding, right?” Clarissa asked. Demetria lay back down. “Perfect,” she said. “This is the perfect end to my perfectly disastrous evening.”

“What happened to you?” I said into my knees.

“My favorite choice to tap came in, took one look at the assembled guests, and walked back out.”

“Oh!” I cried. “One of mine did that, too! Said she’d rather join Quill & Ink.”

“In my girl’s case, she can’t go anywhere near her ex-boyfriend, and he’s on Ben’s short list.”

“More society-incest issues.” Demetria’s voice floated over. “And you wonder why I feel this way?”

Clarissa shook her head, her expression dark. “No, apparently they had some kind of really bad breakup and now she
literally
can’t be in a room with him. Some kind of agreement with the dean—they can’t even be in the same classes. Like an Eli restraining order.”

“You’re kidding!” I gaped at her. “This is something we need to look into. What happened? Was there abuse or anything?”

Clarissa shrugged.

“Anything that would make a breakup that bad—are we sure Ben’s list was properly vetted?”

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Clarissa shrugged.

“I bet this is another issue they rarely had before they chose to include women,” I said. And another issue Jamie would probably love to throw in my face.

“Don’t count on it,” said Demetria. “We’re already headed straight toward sexual harassment territory with Kevin’s lineup of boy toys.”

There was a knock on the door and Josh stuck his head in. “Ladies?” he said, surveying the impromptu powwow. “Your absence has been noted.”

Translation: Get back out here. We all had to participate in the torture together.

So into the fray, enveloped in fascination and accomplishment and privilege and legacy; a golden, candlelit affair suffused with brandy, champagne, puff pastry, and baby corn. Conversations about New England boarding schools and firms on Wall Street. Debates over departments and endowments and the lineup at the Eli Repertory Theater. A chat about who got a Fulbright for what and whether or not they had begun to hand those things out like candy. All talk aimed directly at impressing the beings who floated through the room in black, nodding politely and listening as the potentials tore one another down in hope of impressing us.

All but a few—those lucky few—who either knew nothing or cared nothing about why they were there.

At one end of the room, Michelle was in deep conversation with one of Omar’s choices, who, rumor had it, had once been a spy with the Israeli army. Eli was full of ex-Israeli army folks. I knew the majority of them by reputation only. They were older than most of the teens who matriculated, and tended to be a bit disdainful of the other students’ immaturity and softness. After all, they knew how to kill men with their pinkies. What did three years on the student council or a stint on the prom committee have to compare to that?

I drifted close enough to eavesdrop. Apparently, since leaving Israel, the guy had been involved in an NGO to create water treatment plants in sub-Saharan Africa. Once they started in about the various types of membrane distillation, I was lost, so I drifted back out and looked for Jamie.

But every time I found him, he managed to slip away a few moments later and wouldn’t meet my eyes.

Later, as the festivities—for lack of a better word—wound down, Michelle caught up to me in the kitchen, where Clarissa and I were seriously considering drowning our independent sorrows in the dregs of the crate of champagne.

“There you are. Hey, thanks so much for bringing me!” She smiled at Clarissa. “Your friends are awesome. This was almost like going to a Master’s Tea back in Strathmore again.”

Clarissa snapped into hostess mode. “I’m so glad you enjoyed yourself.” She needed to work a bit to animate her tone.

“Seriously.” Michelle’s expression turned wistful. “I really miss living on campus sometimes, and this is what I miss about it. Getting to talk with all the other students. I mean, my professors are great, and the department, and all of that, but it’s so limiting at times. I feel like I never get a chance to do anything but discuss chemistry.”

My stomach began to cramp. Yes, yes, that was it exactly. That was what I liked about Rose & Grave.

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The varied points of view, the endless discussions and debates with people whose opinions and experiences differed so much from my own. Not this series of obsequious resume-reciting.

Clarissa’s voice was much more sincere this time. “Thank you, Michelle.”

“And Jamie,” Michelle said. “Where did he go?”

“I’m right here.” Soft, steady voice at my back. I turned and my field of vision filled with subtle black pinstripe, my nose with his singular scent. His eyes glazed right over me, though. Instead, he turned to Clarissa. “Lovely party. Your dad would be proud.”

“That’s a shame,” she said under her breath.

“So, I’m heading out now.” Still not looking at me! Was this his version of good night? Even pissed, it was unacceptable.

“Where do you live?” Michelle asked. “I’m off Orange.”

“Me too,” Jamie said. “On Danbury. We can walk together.”

Clarissa raised her eyebrows at me, but there might as well have been liquid cement in that last glass of champagne. I stood rooted to the kitchen tile.

“Great!” Michelle said, and beamed at me. “Let me grab my jacket.” She bounded off. Clarissa looked from Jamie to me, cleared her throat, and vamoosed.

Jamie watched the door.

“Um,” I said.

Jamie watched the door.

“Don’t be such a baby about this,” I snapped at last.

His eyes met mine, as cold and gray as I have ever seen them. “That’s rich, coming from you.”

I snorted and turned away.

Michelle reappeared, jacket in tow. “You guys ready?” She looked at us, at our crossed-arm stances on opposite sides of the room and uncertainty flashed across her face. “Oh. I’m sorry, I just assumed—”

That I would go home with Jamie.

“I have so much work tonight,” we said in unison. I flinched. He bit his lip.

Michelle laughed. “Okay, I get it. I’m, ah, going to head home anyway. Amy, see you in class tomorrow?”

I nodded, trying to decide if I was more miserable about attending classes on a Friday or about the scene I was sure I was about to endure the second Jamie and I were alone.

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But when we were, all he said to me was, “Do you need to hang around and help Clarissa clean up?”

I shook my head. That’s why God invented caterers, or so Park Avenue had taught my friend.

“Then let’s get out of here.”

Again, I nodded. We walked in silence down Chapel Street. The bars and restaurants were still open, spilling golden light onto the dark sidewalks. A few people walked the streets, mostly in groups or pairs.

A drunk girl careened from side to side on the concrete, tottering in her high heels and giggling. Jamie put his hand on my elbow and drew me out of her path.

His touch broke the dam. “You have no right to be upset, you know.”

“Since when do you get to make those decisions for me?” he replied.

“You’ve been saying this whole time that it’s my tap, my choice, and you don’t want to be involved. So stop acting like I broke a Commandment or something.”

He stopped in the middle of the street. “I can’t understand … why are you dating me, Amy?”

What?

“I’ve been trying to figure it out all night. I seem to make you absolutely miserable, and then—tonight. It was like some sort of cruel joke, you going out of your way to hurt me.”

Hurt him! Ha! “Of course, everything I do hurts you. The society is so important, the way that you used to do things is so unbelievably
vital
to the
fiber
of your
being…
stop taking it all so personally. You disapprove of me, you disapprove of my club, you disapprove of all the ways we do things that aren’t the way you’d do things—”

“Now, wait just a minute—”

“And you disapprove of Michelle. Of course you do, though you’re sweet as pie to her face.”

He blinked at me, struck silent.

Good, let me say my piece. “You disapprove of her because she wasn’t properly vetted like the guy we’re
supposed
to tap. The good little legacy, the granddaddy’s boy with not a single thing to offer us other than a disgusting attitude and a big pile of family money. Michelle is great! She’s interesting and smart and passionate and hardworking—”

“Amy, what are you implying—”

“Nothing! I’m implying nothing! I’m saying it straight-out! You refuse to tell anyone anything.” My heart was pounding in my chest and the words were coming in a hot rush. “You hoard up your little secrets and then collect them from everyone else, and you refuse to even entertain the idea of doing it any differently.

You think it’s wrong to bring Michelle, not because of who it’s entirely obvious that she is, but because you don’t know her secrets. You didn’t get an advance list of all her elementary school teachers and summer camp counselors and the names of every person she’s ever slept with—”

Jamie was shaking his head, and when he spoke, his voice was lower than ever. “No, Amy, no. You
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