Tap & Gown Read online

  AmyHaskel: I’m going to hit the sack, I think. You coming tomorrow?

  DinkStover: We’ll see.

  AmyHaskel: I want to see you, either way.

  He was quiet, and I pictured him in his lonely apartment halfway across town, sitting on his couch, shirt off (hey, a girl can dream) and looking at those words on his screen. I smiled.

  DinkStover: You will. Good night, Amy.

  AmyHaskel: Night, Pajamie.

  Alone in bed as the garbage trucks and street sweepers heralded the morning in the road beyond the boundaries of Prescott College, I thought about all the times that I’d gone to Malcolm while navigating some of the more confusing elements of society membership. Had George done the same?

  Hey, Jamie, I was wondering what you think about this? The other day, Amy and I had quite a lot of sex in the abandoned tomb. We even did it in the Inner Temple. Is that okay?

  What had I gotten myself into?

  The next evening, the club convened to work out the details. At dinner, Soze expressed his fervent wish that yesterday’s debate was well and truly behind us, and that the remainder of the tap process would run “smoothly and harmoniously.”

  Poor, naive little boy.

  Though we’d all arrived toting our short lists, as requested in Soze’s e-mail that morning, it was anything but the simple, straightforward process our dear secretary had been hoping for.

  Recounting in detail may make my brain explode, and I need that to graduate. So here are the lowlights:

  1) At least three of the knights already wanted to be released from their marble-mandated gender assignments. Including Thorndike.

  2) Some knights’ short lists were anything but. For instance, Frodo had placed every pitch of the eleven all-male singing groups on campus (and a healthy handful of talented tenors outside the a capella sphere) on his. “Look at it this way,” he’d said by way of explanation, “half of these guys are going to join the Whizzbangs anyway. So that cuts the potential to actually get them down a lot.”2*

  3) On the flip side, some lists were deemed too short (mine, which had only the “three” that Poe had suggested), or were generally too inappropriate or too dadaist altogether. Puck’s latest attempt at rebellion was to introduce his list with the following: “After long consideration, I have decided that no one currently on campus meets the proper specifications to take my rightful place in the society. Therefore, I submit the following proposal: I desire that the full weight of Digger influence be deployed to encourage at least one, if not more, of the following persons to matriculate to Eli within the next month: Samuel L. Jackson, Richard Branson, or Hunter S. Thompson.”

  “Hunter S. Thompson is dead,” Bond pointed out.

  “Fine.” Puck consulted his alternates. “Prince Harry of Windsor will do.”

  I blinked, trying to imagine the list that contained both deceased gonzo journalists and tabloid-fodder British royalty. To be perfectly honest, Harry wasn’t a half-bad choice.

  4) Worst of all, Poe sat through the whole meeting and opened his mouth only to take another sip of coffee. He didn’t even look at me while George made his ridiculous pronouncement about who was worthy of replacing him (though I definitely stared at Poe enough to gauge his reaction: not amused).

  His poker face remained firmly in place no matter how heated the debate grew, and he declined to offer advice about any of our lists or suggestions, despite the frequency with which the other Diggers and I looked to him for an opinion—even a tacit one.

  I would have called him on it, but a public squabble with my new society-incest boyfriend was hardly going to lessen the tension within the tomb. Besides, I knew enough by now to figure out that when Poe bothered to keep his opinions to himself, it was because he was armed with a weapon of mass destruction. Whatever he said would likely devastate us. “Walk softly and carry a big stick” was practically engraved over his heart.

  He must really think we’re hopeless.

  The only things we’d resolved by the end of the meeting were that we should really try to get a “science tap” to fill Howard’s open slot, and that if any two knights so desired, they could “switch marbles” in order to get a tap who may not be of the right gender, but otherwise fit their requirements. This latter move put Topher Cox back into play for me. If anyone wanted a girl, that is.

  When the meeting ended, Poe walked me back to Prescott, chattering away about everything but the one subject I was interested in—what he thought of our process. Instead, he talked about whether or not he wanted to apply to the Eli law journal.

  “On one hand, it’s incredibly prestigious,” he was saying.

  “Well, that sounds about right for you.”

  If he picked up on my sarcasm, he didn’t show it. Or maybe he simply agreed with me. “But on the other, it’s a huge commitment. I might prefer a really good clinic or maybe greater freedom in my schedule. In case something comes up.”

  I looked away from the path, finally engaging in the conversation. “Like what?”

  He shrugged. “I don’t know. Other opportunities. A research gig for a professor. A job.”

  “Then staying flexible seems like a wise choice.” I laughed ruefully. “Look at me. I’m the epitome of flexible.”

  He slipped an arm around my shoulders. “Do you have any idea when you’ll be hearing back on those applications? Fellowship or grad school?”

  “I’ve already heard from a few,” I admitted, though I was loath to. “A whole mess of ‘thanks, but no thanks’ so far. Maybe I was kidding myself with the idea that I should veer from my plan. My resume looks great for an assistant at a literary agency or a publishing house. It isn’t designed to impress anyone outside of that.”

  Beside me, Jamie was silent. I figured he knew the truth of that better than anyone—after all, he’d studied my C.V.

  “Of course not, Amy,” I prompted him. “Don’t be silly. Someone is bound to jump all over your application.”

  “And if they don’t?” he asked instead, bypassing my comforting-boyfriend script. “Is your alternative no longer desirable? Go to New York, work in publishing?”

  “No. I could probably still get a decent job there—could probably start looking even this summer if I wanted. They don’t hire in advance like consulting firms. They hire when there’s an opening, and people look all the time. But …” But what? It wasn’t what I wanted anymore? Or worse, I didn’t know what I wanted at all? A hundred thousand dollars in debt for a degree and I had no idea what to do with it. Eli diploma or no, Rose & Grave pin or no, it still spelled failure.

  “What you do next isn’t your life, Amy,” Jamie said.

  “Easy perspective to take, 1L at Eli Law. Besides, you were plenty bitter when you wound up landscaping last summer.”

  “I made the mistake of not having a good Plan B,” he said. “It’s one I’d like you not to make. There’s nothing wrong with Plan B. Play it right, and no one will even know it wasn’t your first choice.”

  Spoken like a true secret-keeper.

  “Because it matters so much what people think,” I mocked.

  “It does,” Jamie said. “And you know it. Malcolm runs off to Alaska to go fishing for a year and it sounds romantic and bohemian and earthy. Malcolm runs off to Alaska to go fishing for a year because the stress of losing his family on top of a first-year workload at business school might shatter his spirit—that sounds pathetic. Weak. Not like someone who should be entrusted with your money. Not like a Digger.”

  He was right, of course. I’d thought of Malcolm’s gap year as nothing but a bit of fun before he settled down to the grind, and it was indeed sexy and masculine and adventurous. Thinking of it as his alternative to a public, academically recordable nervous breakdown didn’t go over so well.

  Jamie said, “And so I ask again: You don’t want to go to New York anymore?”

  I studied my shoes. Truth was, I wanted to be there more now than I had a month ago, when I’d turned in appl
ications for graduate schools that might take me down south or out west or back to Ohio. Now I had a reason to want to stay within commuter-train distance of Eli. And he was standing right next to me.

  Jamie followed me inside the gate and up to the door.

  “Want to come inside?” I asked.

  He leaned against the doorjamb. “It is late.”

  “Yeah.”

  “And it’s a long walk home.”

  “Yeah.”

  “So if I did come in—”

  “You probably should stay,” I finished.

  “Yeah.” He looked at the door for a long moment, then at me. “But—to sleep.”

  “Ah.” I nodded.

  “Because it is late.”

  “Indeed.” But that wasn’t the problem. The real problem was that it was early. As we crossed the threshold, I marveled that there seemed to be as many rules in a real relationship as in my hookup dalliance with George or my friends-with-benefits deal with Brandon. The things we’d do, the things we’d say—and the things we wouldn’t.

  Lydia’s room was empty, so she was either still at the library or she’d be spending the night with Josh. We were alone. And maybe that thought made me just the slightest bit nervous, despite our stated parameters for this tête-à-tête. Nervous enough to skip the snuggling and fall into old bad habits. I went on the offensive.

  “Why didn’t you say anything at the meeting tonight?”

  “What do you mean?”

  An innocent act from Poe? Nice try, bud. Still, I could take the high road. “We’re—” I took a breath “—floundering. And you just sat there.”

  “About that,” he said. “I may pass on attending the next few meetings. It’s like a combat flashback.”

  “Great. Right when we need you.”

  He raised his eyebrows. “Need me? Aww, that’s sweet. Disingenuous, but sweet.”

  “I’m serious. We actually could use your help.”

  “And yet, I pass.”

  “Since when do you pass on anything having to do with the society?”

  He shook his head. “I did this already. And it was one of the most torturous, thankless, relationship-eroding events of my entire life. I’m not going to make any friends if I step into your deliberations, and I have a vested interest in doing nothing that might endanger the few friends I’ve got in your club. One in particular.”

  “Yesterday, you wanted all the info.”

  “You telling me in private what you’re thinking after a long night is different from me dispensing advice to your entire club in the tomb. I’m more than happy to support you, my girlfriend, though. I know what a hard time this can be.”

  “And you could make it easier.”

  “No, I couldn’t.” He flopped back on the couch. “Last year’s tap was contentious because of me. Debate went on for eighteen, twenty hours at a stretch. I’m hardly a good role model for painless delibs.”

  “But you’ve learned your lesson,” I argued.

  “No,” he replied. “If there was an issue I believed in, I’d still fight for it, and I’d advise you to do the same.”

  “But you were wrong last year!” I said, exasperated.

  “No. I wasn’t,” he said, and my mouth snapped shut. Huh? “What happened to us last spring is exactly what I said would happen. It caused a huge problem, it hurt our members, it hurt the taps, and it damaged both of our clubs’ relationships with the patriarchs. It will likely do the same for future clubs, and it may take years for the ripples to settle.”

  I stared at him in shock. What had happened to my Florida Poe, who’d held me in sunlit waters and protected me from sabotage and treated me as an equal—no, as more than an equal. As something precious. Who was glad to have me in this society. I thought he’d changed. At the very least, I thought he’d changed his mind about the women in the club.

  “So yeah,” he went on, “I wasn’t wrong. It was, is, and will continue to be an issue. But—” He caught my hand and my gaze. “—it’s worth it, Amy.”

  As a second-semester senior, my course load tended toward the light end. Aside from the credit devoted to working on my senior thesis, I was only taking three classes: a Nabokov seminar I’d been waiting four terms to fit into my schedule, an interdepartmental study of Protofeminist Thought in Victorian Art, Literature, and Performance; and a geology survey course on Atmospheric Change I was taking pass/fail.

  This last was a recent addition to the schedule. Right before the conclusion of the drop/add period last month, I’d received notice from the Registrar’s Office that I was short one Group IV (Eli-speak for “hard science”) distribution requirement. Given the nature of the pranks Dragon’s Head had been pulling on me at the time (they’d also hacked the library system to make me responsible for every missing book since 1963), I’d chocked it up as another of their jokes and continued blithely on in the Intro to Renaissance Italy lecture I was taking because the prof seemed cool and liked to meet his students for beer and plague chat at a local pub every Friday afternoon.

  But it wasn’t sabotage. The next day, the entire class list of my sophomore year anthropology seminar had been called into the dean’s office and informed that though the class had originally borne a III/IV designation in the Course Catalog (owing to one field trip to a bone lab), it could not be used to fulfill a distribution requirement. Apparently, the course as a whole was deemed a little “soft” for the Group IV purists, and they had downgraded it into Group III (where dwelt what my Physics major friend called, disdainfully, “people sciences” like linguistics and sociology).

  Bye-bye, Medici.

  The only other low-level Group IV class I could take pass/fail conflicted with Nabokov. Not an option, as that course was my sin, my soul. So Atmospheric Change it was—even though the Geology department was situated about as far from the heart of the Eli campus as it could get. At least the class only met for fifty minutes twice a week, at eleven-thirty.

  Actually, there was supposed to be a weekly section with a T.A., too, but I never went. After all, I was taking the class pass/fail. No choice on the matter really, since I’d started the darn thing more than three weeks in.

  This particular morning, before making the trek across campus to the science buildings, I had an appointment with my thesis advisor to discuss my progress on his recommended reading list as well as the actual writing of the paper. It went like this:

  Amy says: It’s going great! I really appreciate all that analysis you gave me on the Aeneid. I’ll have a draft to you by the end of next week.

  Amy thinks: I’m dead meat.

  Leaving Professor Burak’s office afterward, I caught sight of Arielle Hallet, my successor as editor of the Eli Literary Magazine, and a resident on my short list, sitting on the steps of the building and adjusting her iPod.

  “Amy!” she called, popping out her earbuds and smiling up at me. “What’s up?”

  “Not much.” How fortuitous. I’d been meaning to have a little chat with her. I joined her at the base of the steps. “How was your Spring Break?”

  “Fab. Went to Cabo with my suite. You?”

  “Florida with some friends.” I tugged the back of my T-shirt down over my tattoo. “Then spent a week working for Habitat.”

  “Oh, wow,” she gushed. “I’ve always wanted to do Habitat for Humanity. Did you go with the Eli chapter?”

  “No, just a group of friends,” I said. A group of Diggers, to own the truth, but I wasn’t supposed to do that to a barbarian.

  “I should so try that,” Arielle said, packing up her iPod. “Maybe next year.”

  I nodded and checked my watch. Twenty minutes to class.

  “You headed up to Atmospheres?” she asked me.

  I looked at her quizzically. “Are you in the class, too?”

  She giggled. “Pass/fail. I’ve been skipping a lot.”

  Well, we clearly had more in common than I’d once thought. Arielle wouldn’t have been my first choice last yea
r for editor of the Lit Mag. But she was the only one who’d applied (the previous year, both Brandon and I had vied for the spot). She’d been a diligent sales recruiter since first joining the staff as a freshman, regularly coming up with way more than her quota of ad revenue. That had always been my least favorite part of the job. I’d hated going into coffee shops and stationery stores and asking for money in return for a business card-sized slot on a page of a magazine hardly anyone (except those who appeared on its pages) read. Arielle, however, relished the task.

  If only she had relished the part where she picked the stories. Now, I’m not saying the Lit Mag editor has to be a Lit major, like me. Brandon is Applied Math. Arielle, I think, is History, or maybe American Studies. Something like that. But I’m not sure she really liked literature all that much. She’d never joined in any of the office debates about books or authors, and she didn’t seem particularly well read, whether in the world of literary or of popular fiction.

  I’d made that argument to Brandon, back when we elevated her to editor. “I’m not sure I like the idea of the Lit Mag editor not knowing what the Booker Prize is.”

  “It’s British,” he’d responded. “Be satisfied she knows about the Pulitzer.”

  So Arielle it was, and if I noticed any decline in the quality of the magazine since her name had started appearing at the top of the masthead, I’d never mentioned it to anyone. And I had put her on my short list for Rose & Grave, if only to make it look a tad less skimpy. After all, Arielle and I were more simpatico than Topher Cox and I would ever be.

  Perhaps I had never given her an adequate chance before. She clearly valued literature, even if she wasn’t a writer herself. That she worked so hard for the Lit Mag without any outward show of literary leanings was a sign of … something, right? Maybe this would be my opportunity to discover what it was. If Rose & Grave could make me friends with Clarissa Cuthbert and James Orcutt, maybe it could do the same with Arielle Hallet and me.