Tap & Gown Page 3

  Funny how I’d forgotten all of that down there in the Florida heat. Was it saltwater poisoning that had so addled my brain? Back at school, in this tomb, I was constantly reminded why it was that I had always butted heads with my now-boyfriend.

  Whether or not he could help us in our present predicament wasn’t the point. I didn’t want to turn to Poe at the first sign of trouble or discord. We could do this ourselves. We didn’t need the help of patriarchs. For once, I wanted to prove that we, the knights of D177, could handle something on our own.

  Especially since it was the last chance we’d have to do so.

  I put my cell phone away and sighed.

  Forty-five minutes later, Puck was either nodding off to sleep or pretending to, Angel had lapsed into silence, and both Lil’ Demon and Graverobber had long since given up any pretense of paying attention. Big Demon appeared to be counting the stars painted on our ceiling. I was pretty sure Lucky was surreptitiously checking her e-mail on her iPhone. (Either that or she was texting Tristram Shandy, who also had his head lowered and his robe-draped hands hidden underneath the table.) Kismet, Frodo, and Bond looked wearily on as Juno, Thorndike, and Soze battled it out. I leaned my left elbow on the carved armrest of the throne, rested my chin in my hand, and watched.

  And watched.

  And watched.

  I couldn’t even think of anything more to say at this point. I wasn’t entirely sure what the scope of the argument was anymore. I’d had it in my mind fifteen minutes ago … but now all I could think about was my five-page-a-day diet to get my thesis done on time. I guess tonight’s schedule was shot. My right hand dangled the gavel over the side of the armrest, the nape of my neck grew irritated from the rasp of the robe against my skin, and my left foot began to go to sleep.

  CRACK!

  Everyone looked up. I scrambled off the throne to retrieve the gavel from the floor. “Sorry,” I said, tripping over my robes as I climbed back up the dais. “You were saying, Thorndike?”

  “No,” said Angel. “I think you were saying, as Uncle Tony, that we need to get the hell on with this.”

  “I agree,” said Lucky. “Maybe dropping that gavel was an act of God.”

  “Persephone,” said Juno.

  “Whatever. It means the time for discussion is over. I second the Knight Bugaboo’s motion that this debate be brought to a close.”

  “Um, all in favor?” I said, leaping at the opportunity.

  Unsurprisingly, the motion passed.

  “So what are we left with?” Lil’ Demon asked. “I can’t even follow anymore.”

  “Fifteen of each marble, and we pick at random,” Soze grumbled. “This is going to be a disaster.”

  “It’s only fair,” Thorndike said smugly.

  “Fine!” Soze crossed the room and from a cabinet withdrew a vase and a leather bag filled with marbles. “For the purpose of this operation, black marbles will be for men, red marbles for women—no discussion, okay?”

  Thirteen heads nodded. Soze counted them out, poured them into the vase, and shook it around. “Everyone pick, but keep your hand closed. We’ll reveal them at the same time.”

  He walked around the table, and each knight picked a marble. He approached me, and I stuck my hand into the vase, rooted around a bit, then closed my fingers around one and pulled it out. The glass sphere felt cool and solid inside my fist. Soze picked last, then held the vase out to me again. “As the evening’s Uncle Tony, please pick a second marble for our missing fifteenth member.”

  “Our what?”

  Soze cleared his throat and mumbled, “Howard.”

  I did, with my left hand.

  I spoke. “Knights of Persephone, rise.” Around the table, everyone stood and held out their fists. “At the count of three: one, two, three.”

  Everyone opened his or her hand. My right palm held a red marble, my left held black. I glanced around the room, making a quick calculation.

  Nine black. Six red.

  Exactly what we already had.

  1*And some of my friends were still muttering the word “Stockholm” in my vicinity.

  2*Upon closer examination … no, he did not. Then again, two theses.

  “I can’t believe it,” Josh said, punctuating his sentence with a well-aimed kick at the edge of the walk. “All those hours, wasted.”

  “Were I a religious man,” George said, strolling along the deserted sidewalk two steps behind us, hands resting easily in his jacket pockets, “I’d say this was the universe’s way of telling you people to chill out.”

  Josh stopped dead and whirled around. “Well, maybe if you picked up some of the slack around here, we could. You’ve never taken society matters seriously enough.”

  “Yeah,” George replied. “Wonder why that is?”

  Not entirely true. George knew when to take it seriously, and when it was just a bunch of stuffy traditions that ought to be ignored.

  I stepped between the two of them. “All right, guys. It’s late, we’re all tired, we’re all a little in shock over the outcome. Let’s just table any more discussion until tomorrow, okay?”

  Josh turned and stormed off down the sidewalk toward Prescott College. George shrugged and fell into step with me. “I do think there’s something to this ‘universe’ theory of mine,” he said.

  I murmured in assent. Maybe there was. How else to explain the results? Hours of debate, and we ended up with exactly the same ratio as our class.

  “Or maybe it was just the universe’s way of telling us that D176 had it right?” George continued.

  I didn’t have the where withal to respond to that one, either. Upon seeing the marbled results, I’d immediately called the meeting to a close, and the other knights were smart enough to agree it was a good move. No one had the energy to react in any way that was either useful or wise. Demetria, in particular, looked ready to implode. We’d deal with it tomorrow.

  I looked at my watch. Two A.M. I mean, tonight.

  Josh was still storming off in front of us. I didn’t envy Lydia his foul mood. Perhaps it would have been a good idea for him to go back to his own room this evening. However, it had been quite a while since I’d seen my roommate spend the night alone, and it certainly hadn’t happened since Spring Break. I don’t know what went on over there in Spain, but whatever it was, it had brought their relationship to a whole new level.

  Josh said nothing when we met him at the Prescott gate. I wondered if he felt weird entering my suite with me only a few steps behind—as if not entering by himself was his admission that it was, in fact, still my suite. That he was a guest there, not a full-time resident.

  Though he’d certainly come in alone often enough when I was inside. Sometimes it felt like I lived inside a sitcom, where your friends felt free to walk inside your house without knocking whenever they wanted.

  George stopped at his usual entryway. “See you guys later,” he said, and as the door closed, I noticed he went not up the stairs to his room, but rather cut to the right and headed into the basement.

  Huh? These are the things in the basement:

  1) The laundry room. Chance that George was washing his whites at 2 A.M.: 0%

  2) The Buttery. Hamburgers, pizza bagels, and grape sodas galore, but at this time of night, it was locked up tight.

  3) The underground passageway to all the other entryways in the building.

  I quickened my pace, took the stairs up to my entryway two at a time, yanked open the door, and sprinted down the basement passageway just in time to see George’s fabulous butt disappearing into the corridor toward the sophomore wing.

  Huh.

  I met a quizzical Josh in front of our suite door on the first floor. “What was that all about?”

  “Nothing.” I pushed past him and into the common room. Where was George going? At night? In secret? “I thought I’d forgotten to take my clothes out of the dryer earlier.”

  “But then you remembered?” Josh asked.

 
Not that I cared what George did. I’d totally moved on. He could have as many two A.M. rendezvous as he wanted with as many sophomores as he cared to. No skin off my back. I had a boyfriend and I was over him.

  “Yep.” I tripped over the laundry bag of obviously dirty Spring Break clothes I’d dragged into the common room that afternoon and then promptly ignored.

  “Uh-huh.” Josh shook his head. “Night, Bugaboo.”

  I cringed as he vanished into Lydia’s room. “Two dollars,” I hissed after him, but I doubt he heard.

  Whatever. Like it mattered what Josh thought any more than it mattered what George was doing. If he even was doing what I thought.1* Or if he was doing it with a sophomore. Could be anyone. Why should I concern myself anyway? I had Jamie, and that didn’t bother George one iota. He’d even started to support it. Time to get over yourself, Amy.

  In my bedroom, I sat down at my desk and opened the lid on my laptop. A few e-mails, including one from my mom about commencement travel plans—nothing I couldn’t wait until tomorrow to answer. The file with my thesis draft was open. I clicked over and stared at the blinking cursor for a few minutes.

  An IM window popped up on my screen.

  DinkStover: Hey. Wondered when you’d be getting home.

  The new window flashed at me, daring me to accept something from this stranger. Whoever Dink Stover was, he knew I wouldn’t be back until late. I clicked Accept.

  DinkStover: How did it go?

  I smiled. Oh, he knew, all right.

  AmyHaskel: Jamie?

  DinkStover: Do I need to provide the secret handshake?

  AmyHaskel: Can’t be too careful these days.

  DinkStover: Good girl.

  I pursed my lips. What, was I a dog?

  DinkStover: So how did it go?

  AmyHaskel: Fine.

  My fingers hovered over the keys. Should I tell him it was sheer torture? Ask him how in the world he survived it, especially as a voice of dissent? I barely got involved in the discussion and I was miserable. He must have been the most wretched person on the planet. Especially since, to Jamie, Rose & Grave meant everything.

  DinkStover: It’s okay if you don’t want to talk about it.

  Long hesitation.

  DinkStover: But I’m here if you need a shoulder to lean on.

  When I didn’t answer, he wrote again.

  DinkStover: You still there?

  AmyHaskel: Yeah. I’m taking a screenshot for evidence that there is a Gentle Jamie.

  No response.

  AmyHaskel: I’m joking.

  DinkStover: No you’re not.

  AmyHaskel: It’s harder to tease you when I can’t see your face.

  DinkStover: I’m not walking over there at two-thirty in the morning.

  DinkStover: Wait … that *was* an invitation, right?

  I bit my lip. Was it? I didn’t even know anymore.

  AmyHaskel: Pretty tired, actually. Class tomorrow.

  DinkStover: I understand. So at least tell me how many people you’ve got on your short list.

  I should have figured a die-hard Digger like Jamie wouldn’t give up so easy on hearing details about our deliberations.

  AmyHaskel: I haven’t thought that far ahead yet.

  DinkStover: You’d better believe they have.

  AmyHaskel: What do you mean?

  DinkStover: You were a shoo-in for Quill & Ink last year, right?

  AmyHaskel: Until you guys screwed it up.

  DinkStover: But you knew it. You were expecting it.

  AmyHaskel: Yeah?

  DinkStover: Well, this year’s shoo-ins for us are expecting it, too.

  AmyHaskel: But what does that matter to us? I’m not going to tap someone just because they expect it.

  DinkStover: Spoken like Malcolm’s true little sib. But don’t go the other way, either. Don’t *not* tap someone because it’s expected.

  I frowned at the screen. Don’t lecture me.

  AmyHaskel: This? This right here? It’s why I didn’t want to talk about it.

  DinkStover: Okay. I’ll just assume it’s the three, then.

  The three? The three what? Were we each supposed to start from a list of three and pare down? Josh hadn’t mentioned that this evening, but maybe that’s because everyone else knew how it worked. After all, they’d been part of the whole winnowing-down process. But if that was the case, why would Malcolm have had to pick me last year? After the whole debacle with Genevieve, couldn’t he have gone to either of his two backups? Or was I always a backup, and it was standard procedure to keep us thoroughly in the dark as to our status? I hesitated, then began to type.

  AmyHaskel: Probably going to regret this, but what’s “the three”?

  DinkStover: The three people I already know you have on your short list.

  AmyHaskel: And who, pray tell, would they be?

  DinkStover: The usual suspects: EIC of the Eli Daily News, managing ed. of same, and, because it’s you, the EIC of the Lit Mag.

  AmyHaskel: Oh. Those.

  Of course that was how it would work. Rose & Grave always tried to tap either the editor-in-chief or the managing editor of the Daily. They were probably sitting at home expecting the little white and black envelope to slide under their door any minute. And though I’d never had a moment’s experience in campus journalism, I’d be expected to tap one of them to replace me. This was the system.

  I didn’t know the editor-in-chief at all, though I’d read a few of her columns, and her name was either a point of envy or a punch line in my suite (depending on how many Gumdrop Drop shots we’d imbibed): Kalani Leto-Taube. Her reputation was one of accomplishment and elegance, and her position ought to belong on the top of any short list I made. Rose & Grave hadn’t gotten the EIC last year. I could fix that.

  The managing editor I knew, to my chagrin. Topher Cox. He’d drunkenly hit on me in Cambridge at The Game during my junior year. Between the Andover T-shirt and the sloppy leer, I’d been sure he was from Harvard. It was Glenda, my predecessor at the Lit Mag, who’d explained to me that he was the resident golden boy over there at the castle-like headquarters of the Eli Daily News.

  A son of Eli. One of our own. And if I followed standard Digger M.O., he’d be another of me.

  AmyHaskel: I’m supposed to pick a girl.

  DinkStover: Is that how you guys are working it? All the girls pick girls?

  AmyHaskel: Are you going to keep *bugging* me until I tell you everything?

  DinkStover: We have ways of making you talk, Miss Haskel.

  I laughed and typed wish you were here. But I didn’t press Send. Some circumspect backspacing later, I typed:

  AmyHaskel: You bring up an interesting point. What if our perfect tap is the wrong gender for our assignment?

  DinkStover: You have to find a way to work it out. Your perfect tap might be the wrong gender, or might be abroad and unreachable, or might not be interested in joining. We don’t all get our perfect taps.

  AmyHaskel: True. Malcolm didn’t.

  DinkStover: Malcolm did okay for himself.

  AmyHaskel: Oh, so *now* you’re okay with it?

  DinkStover: You know I am.

  I wondered what Jamie would have done had he drawn a girl marble last year. Actually, wait …

  AmyHaskel: Who is your little sib? Mara?

  DinkStover: No.

  AmyHaskel: Who?

  There was a long silence. Jamie was probably trying to figure out the best way to scold me for my lack of observance. Maybe if I were a really good Digger, I’d have memorized the line of succession of every knight back to 1832. I’m sure he had. I didn’t even know who’d tapped Malcolm, my own big sib. Then again, I’d actively avoided Jamie for the first few months of our acquaintance. It wasn’t like I spent much time seeking out the company of either him or the people in the club he’d be most likely to hang out with.

  DinkStover: George was my tap, Amy.

  I blinked at the screen. I was clearly up too
late. That made no sense. They never hung out. They weren’t anything alike: Not in background, not in personality, not in interests or majors—the only thing George and Jamie had in common was … well, me.

  AmyHaskel: I didn’t know that.

  DinkStover: Now you do.

  What was the correct response here? I’m sorry you tapped someone I later slept with before I started liking, let alone dating you, with whom I have not slept?

  Way to nail the issue, Amy. But still, I had to say something; the silence on the screen was turning fatal. The cursor blinked at me like a ticking time bomb.

  AmyHaskel: You don’t like him.

  Probably never had, not even last spring. George Harrison Prescott had been born with a silver spoon in his mouth, then with the triple threat of his looks, his entirely decent brains, and his significant charm, received the rest of his life on a matching silver platter. He’d never had to work for anything. Not Eli, not girls, and not Rose & Grave. Last spring, Jamie’s class had practically forced the tap upon him. As George was a legacy of one of their most supportive patriarchs, his membership was an absolute must. At the meeting, George had mentioned that his big sib’s constant presence “cramped his style.” No kidding. No wonder I hadn’t seen them together much. George and Jamie clearly did not have the same kind of relationship that I had with Malcolm.

  Jamie hadn’t yet answered me. Maybe George hadn’t been the only one forced that particular Tap Night. And maybe this was not the conversation to have over IM.

  AmyHaskel: You know, sitting in stony silence loses some of its punch over IM. I just assume your Internet connection blinked out.

  DinkStover: Curses.