Under the Rose (2 page)

Thorndike, poised below her and wielding a wicked-looking pitchfork, tapped Lil’ Demon on her Pilates-honed and designer jeans–encrusted behind. “Can’t let the Teamsters in the tomb,” she reminded her. Demetria “Thorndike” Robinson was our resident power-to-the-people expert, so she’d know. “But I’m with them anyway,” she continued. “There’s this Racial Strata of the 21st Century symposium I wanted to hit at three.”

A chorus of voices erupted from the other costumed participants about classes they were missing. Bond, our club’s British contingent, wanted to ensure his seniors-first spot in a college poetry seminar, Frodo needed to go to a board meeting of the Eli Film Society, Big Demon had scheduled some physical therapy at the gym, Kismet was tutoring Swahili, and Graverobber, who I don’t think I’d ever witnessed in an Eli classroom, needed to see a man about a horse. Which he owned.

Lil’ Demon sighed, unhooked herself from her safety harness, and dropped to the floor. “Fine, but don’t blame me if the new initiates think they’re getting shafted on their ceremony.”

“With these special effects, I doubt it,” I replied. Lil’ Demon had somehow managed to cajole some FX guy at her studio into lending us a bunch of old monster-movie stuff for the initiation we were holding tomorrow for the Rose & Grave taps who had been abroad during our junior year. No offense to previous clubs—society jargon for each year’s class—and their sublime efforts at scaring the pants off the neophytes, but there was something about stuffing the taps into the same coffin that had once housed Bela Lugosi that added a certain air of authenticity to the proceedings. It would be one hell of a night, rehearsal or not.

I shoved the mask off my face and breathed in cool air. Acting was so not my thing. Some might say I lacked the basic requirement: the ability to conceal my true emotions at any given time. Others would argue I didn’t have the necessary charisma.

Someone tugged at my hood. “Hey, ’boo.”

Speaking of charisma…I turned to see Puck grinning at me from beneath his hood. Of course Lil’ Demon wouldn’t hide
that
face under a disgusting mask. Who’d want to cover up a masterpiece like George Harrison Prescott? “Are you going to that thing at the Master’s house later?”

If you’re going,
I thought. “There’s supposed to be free cookies,” I said. “And booze.” Somehow, we’d moved away from the railing, back into one of the corners. We have a funny habit of doing that. Puck leaned against one of the skull sconces gracing the wall and his robe fell open, revealing a very faded, much washed T-shirt, and a whole lot of check-out-how-much-lifting-I’ve-done-this-summer shoulders. Ah, George. I like his shoulders. I like the way they connect his arms to his chest. I like the arms and the chest they connect. I like his collarbones. I like the way he kissed me in the bar last spring….

“Bugaboo!” Soze shouted from the landing. “Are we going to the Branch class or what?”

Bugaboo. That’s me. “Yes!” I called back, but I didn’t take my eyes off Puck. “Why wouldn’t you go?” I asked him.

“They do this thing…a presentation on the history of Prescott College.” He rolled his eyes. I like his eyes. They’d looked like copper pennies when he asked me to go to bed with him. “I think I’ve got it down pat by now.”

They hadn’t even blinked when I told him no.

“Because it’s starting in about three minutes!” Soze yelled.

Crap. “Coming!” I cried back down the stairs. I turned back to Puck, forcing myself to remember
why
I’d told him no. “Yeah, well, I’ve got it down pat after three years of living there, and I’m not even a Prescott.”

I’d said no because he wasn’t just George Harrison Prescott. He was also a “Puck”—society nomenclature for the knight in every club who had slept with the most people.

And right then he was my friend, and what’s more, my society brother. “Look, come early, grab a few beers, then slink out before they get into the lecture.”

He quirked a brow. “Slink out with me?”

Soze stuck his head into the shadows. “Now or never, Bugaboo.”

Tell me about it.

George decided to accompany us to the Shakespeare seminar. Raise your hand if you’re surprised. So off we went, three little Diggers, into the bright sunny world of Eli University that lay beyond our gloomy tomb. George checked to see if the coast was clear, and we sneaked out the side door and proceeded to affect the easy stroll of three students who’d just emerged from the nearby Art and Architecture building.

You see, that’s the real trick of being in Rose & Grave: getting in and out in the light of day without shouting to the world that you’re a member. It’s worth it, though. For the price of a little secrecy and a few bizarre rituals, we’re given a unique connection to fourteen other people we might never have known—or liked, if we did know them. (I plead guilty to one such early prejudice, having held an entirely untenable distaste for one of my fellow members before I actually got to know her. Persephone bless Rose & Grave.)

We cut across High Street and through the gate onto Old Campus, otherwise known as freshman central. The powers that be at Eli think it promotes class bonding if the freshmen aren’t isolated in their assigned residential colleges right off the bat, so they stick them all together in the dorms on our largest and most picturesque quad. Five-sixths of the frosh make their home there. (Two colleges keep their freshmen to themselves, due to space constraints, and trust me, you can tell who those freaks are just by looking at them. A common refrain here is “I don’t know that person. Must be in Strathmore or Christopher Bright Colleges.”)

I’ve been told by my Digger big brother, Malcolm Cabot(a.k.a. Lancelot), that the beginning of term is the most dangerous time for Diggers in terms of secrecy. The Rose & Grave tomb is right across the street from Old Campus, and there are a thousand freshmen who have heard all about secret societies and are dying to stake them out. Today, however, Old Campus was dangerous for another reason: the student activities gauntlet.

“Brace yourself,” Josh said, as we were bombarded with a sheaf of brightly colored brochures. Russian Chorus, Club Crew, The Party of the Right, the Campus Crusade for Christ, the Women’s Center, and the Solar Car team Ad Lucem ( “toward the light” in Latin, because we’re pretentious like that). Every organization on campus was out in full force, promoting their group and trying to make themselves look as sexy as possible for the freshmeat who hadn’t yet filled up their schedule.

“Join the Society for Creative Anachronism!” said a kid in an oversized suit of armor, brandishing a papier-mâché sword in George’s face.

“Too late,” George replied. “I live it.”

Josh rolled his eyes and steered our friend away before he started discussing how creatively anachronistic Rose & Grave could get. (George is our most reluctant Digger, and coming from me, that says a lot.)

On my left, a Young Democrat and a Tory were wrestling over table space. (Yes, we have Tories at Eli, despite the fact that loyalty to the Crown went out two hundred and thirty-one years ago.) On my right, the gonzo journalists were encroaching on the turf of my old charge, the
Eli Literary Magazine
. I wandered off the path to pay my regards to the new editor-in-chief, junior Arielle Hallet. (Yes, we’ve got the same initials, and yes, I’ve heard the jokes about how they don’t even have to change the rubber stamp.) I’d passed her the reins just last week, after we’d gone to press with the freshmen clips issue that kicked off every year. “You hanging in there, Ari?”

She shrugged, and fanned herself with a few copies of my crowning achievement, last year’s commencement issue. “It’s hot as balls today. You haven’t seen Brandon, have you? He’s on lemonade duty.”

I tried not to cringe at the way she was wrinkling the pages. Or at the mention of my ex-boyfriend’s name. “No, I haven’t seen him.” Yet. This year. Or since he dumped me in May.

But the look on Arielle’s face made it pretty clear that no more needed to be said. Josh grabbed my arm and saved me from my self-inflicted awkward moment. “Class. Come on. Time to reminisce about your abandoned activities later.” Abandoned was right. Josh had no clue. “You’re a senior now. You’ve moved past this stuff.”

Then he caught sight of a truly pathetic attempt at stenciling by the Mock Trial team. “Aw, man, they totally messed up our sign!”

“Yes, Josh, you’re a veritable model of moving on.”

George, for whom the term “student activities” has always meant a more private affair, was urging us forward when we all ran smack into a phalanx of a cappella singers who were doing the Eli equivalent of the Jets and Sharks routine right there on the flagstones.

“Hi there!” said a bubbly young moppet, shaking a head of braids in George’s face and sticking out her chest, where the name of one of the school’s several dozen a cappella groups was featured prominently. “Do you sing?”

“Um…” George said, looking at her T-shirt. “I—”

Sure they’d caught a live one, her packmates descended in full force. “Do you sing? Do you sing? Do you sing?” they shouted, waving their CDs. “Come to our show! Audition for us! You don’t need experience!”

“Back off, bozo,” I hissed at a bass who was bellowing his mantra at me. “Or I’ll make you a soprano. We’re not freshmen, and we aren’t interested.”

The Greek system at Eli is notoriously chill. We’ve got a few frats and sororities, but not many students join, and Panhellenic rush is practically imperceptible in the melee of other student activity groups. Secret societies are only for seniors, so freshmen looking to get their fix of “joinerism” invariably get sucked into the madness of Singing Group Rush.

Think secret societies are a lot like frats? Here’s the difference:

1)
You join a secret society at the end of your junior year, after you’ve spent almost three years getting a taste for the college, defining your place in it, and deciding what kind of activities you want to take part in. It’s not like Rushes, where they trap freshmen into an activity commitment of four years or more before they’ve even unpacked.

2)
There’s no Rush period for societies. They don’t pretend they’re crazy about you if they aren’t interested.

3)
You usually don’t even know what society is interviewing you until the night they offer you membership. At least, I didn’t, though I was a special case (more on that later).

Just past the singers, a blessedly quiet trio was handing out pamphlets advertising a prayer group. I caught sight of another Digger in the group. “Jenny, where have you been?” I called. “Odile about went nuts.”

Jennifer Santos, a.k.a. Lucky in Rose & Grave parlance, looked at her companions and then back at me, her eyes wide. She came closer and spoke in a low voice. “What happened to ‘discretion,’ Amy?”

“What happened to rehearsal?” George replied, but Jenny, as usual, ignored him.

“Look, I had a prior commitment.”

Josh folded his arms. “We’re more important.” Subtext: Besides, you’re a senior and it’s time to put away childish things.

“No,” she said. “You’re not. I’ve been with these guys for three years.”

“You took an oath saying we’d come before everyone,” Josh argued.

Her eyes narrowed. “I’ve made a lot of promises. Some are more important than others.”

I stepped between them. “Okay, guys, let’s calm down. I’m sure Jenny’s memorized her part.”

She gave me a cool, clear gaze. “You bet I have.”

Just then, another member of Jenny’s group joined our tight little circle. The newcomer was tall, with blond hair that fell to his shoulders, and dark, slashing eyebrows. “Is there a problem, Jennifer?”

“No,” she said. “These guys are seniors, and they’re not interested in what we have to offer them.”

“Pity,” the young man said.

Josh held up his hand. “Whatever, dude. I’ve got my prophets, and you’ve got yours.”

The boy turned on him. “I would like to know what exactly it is you worship, Joshua Silver.”

“Same God as you, man.”

“Knowing what I do about your kind, I doubt that.”

This time, both Jenny and I put our hands on the shoulders of our respective friends and pulled them away from each other. The words coming out of Josh’s mouth were not exactly godly and beating up a classmate over religious differences would hardly help his political career. George jumped in to help me save Josh from himself.

“Jenny, see you later?” I called, as we dragged Josh away. She glared at me, as if I had no right to speak to her in front of her other friends. Boy, was I going to bring this up the next time the Diggirls got together. Oaths of secrecy were one thing, but Jenny took it all a step or two too far.

The ranks of student activity promoters thinned out toward the far end of the quad, and we squeezed into the English building and slipped into the lecture hall right as the carillon in the Hartford Tower chimed three o’clock.

Professor Branch was already at the front of the class, pontificating on his own brilliance and mastery of the field and checking out the cute young things who had come to worship him this semester. We found three seats together near the back of the room and sat. I scoped out the area around us for a stray syllabus, and a girl with dark curly hair seated next to the podium at the front of the room started arguing with the professor about one of the assignments.