Diana Peterfreund - Secret Society Girl

And someone was—a slight, silver-haired man in a suit, who came within three feet of us and held out his hand. “Please remove your pins and come this way.”

Nobody moved.

“Those pins do not belong to you. They belong to the organization. As you are no longer members of—”

“That’s what we’re here to discuss,” grumbled Josh.

“I’m sorry,” the man said. “But I can’t let you in with those pins on.”

“And we’re not taking them off.” Demetria stepped forward. “And since I know it’s happy hour in the dining room upstairs, I’m sure you don’t want us to cause a scene that the barbarians might hear.”

As if to illustrate her point, the door revolved and out tumbled a trio of businessmen carrying gym bags and briefcases. Malcolm was giving Demetria the evil eye, but no one else seemed scandalized by her threat. If they were going to play dirty with our lives, we’d play dirty with their precious secrecy.

The man glowered at us, spun on his heel (Are you picturing a Nazi? Because you’d have it about right), and walked toward the elevators. “I’ll have to take you up in two groups,” he said.

I somehow managed to squeeze in with the first, which consisted of Malcolm, Demetria, Clarissa, Josh, Omar, and myself. Our escort sidled in and inserted a small gold key into an elevator lock beneath the buttons. Then he pressed the button for the top floor (which was not floor three, I’d like to point out).

“Interesting place to put a Suite 312,” I said aloud.

“Miss, there is no Suite 312.”

Now I did turn to Malcolm, who was clearly trying to hold back a smile. “That’s our Amy. Always gets to the bottom of things.” Malcolm put his arm around my shoulders. “Let’s go meet the firing squad.”

The top floor of the Eli Club housed what looked like a series of executive offices. Each one had a plaque indicating what organization was renting the space. The Dartmouth Alumni Club, the Eli Crew Team, the University of Virginia Athletic Endowment Organization. The door we paused at had no plaque, only a small white card affixed to the door that read, “Thursday 7–9 P.M.”

The other crew of juniors joined us. Jennifer looked pale, and was clutching her crucifix so tightly that her knuckles had turned white. I was sure that if she opened her hand, there’d be a little imprint of Jesus in her palm.

We opened the door and filed inside. The room was windowless, paneled in dark wood, and the ceiling had intricate gold leafing around the edges, but this hardly occupied my attention. Instead, I was too busy with the following:

1) Clarissa shouting, “Dad!” while Mr. Cuthbert, who I remember from that long-ago night at Tory’s, ignored her and poured himself another glass of water.

2) Poe, seated at the far end of the conference table, hands folded before him, face turned down. Beside me, Malcolm stiffened, and I knew that he hadn’t expected to see Poe there, either. Which meant only one thing: He was acting for the opposition. (I knew it!)

Mr. Cuthbert spoke. “Little Demon, the door, if you please.” Odile started, but Cuthbert shot her a disdainful look as the short man who’d worked the elevator moved to close the door behind us. After performing the task, the old “Little Demon” crossed to the long conference table before us and took his seat, leaving the dozen students standing in an awkward huddle by the door.

Step one accomplished. They’d succeeded in making us wait before them like children called into the principal’s office. But the campaign of intimidation had just started.

“Please sit down,” said another gentleman, who looked ridiculously familiar, though for the life of me, I couldn’t place him. He gestured at the empty seats, and we all exchanged glances as we saw the offerings. Not only were we being divided, we were being trivialized. The long, burnished wood conference table was surrounded by mismatched chairs. Some were leather, high-backed, and ergonomic, others looked liked they’d been swiped from the dining hall to fill out the table. The comfy leather ones were all occupied, and it was obvious we were to take the smaller, wooden ones, which were scattered amongst the patriarchs’ places. We fanned out and sat down on the low Windsor chairs. The tabletop reached my chest and I thought I detected a smile on one of my neighboring patriarchs’ face as Odile, on his other side, practically smacked her chin on the table as she sat down.

“Miss Dumas,” said the familiar-looking patriarch. “Do you need a booster seat?”

Odile, to her credit, didn’t take the bait. “Oh, no,” she said. “From this vantage point, I get a much better look at your boogers.”

Josh snickered.

“Do you find this amusing, Mr. Silver?” the man snapped.

“Yes, sir,” he replied. “I find it very amusing that you thought this little snafu was important enough to leave the White House for.”

Ah, now I recognized him. Kurt Gehry, White House Chief of Staff. He was a Digger? Explained so much!

Demetria cleared her throat and stood. “Well, since I don’t want to be stuck at the kiddie table for any longer than strictly necessary, let’s get to the point. We, the current members of Rose & Grave, are here to argue for reinstated access to the tomb on High Street.”

“And as a corollary,” Josh added, “we demand that you withdraw any suggestions you might have made to our employers about our work ethics, trustworthiness, and any other negative opinions you shared.”

There was a long spate of silence. And then Mr. Cuthbert spoke up. “No.”

“But you have no right to do this,” Demetria said.

“And you, Miss Robinson, have no right to be wearing that pin. You have no right to access to the Rose & Grave tomb, and indeed have no right to be addressing this board. The individuals who tapped and initiated you without the permission of the trustees have been stripped of their alignment with our organization, and therefore your initiation is nullified. Is that not correct, Barebones?”

Gehry nodded.

“You don’t have the power to kick us out,” Malcolm said quietly. “ We’re the members. We control the choice of taps.”

“Interesting theory, but alas, the fact of the matter is that money controls the fate of the organization, and we control the money, not the seniors. If those in a position of power refuse to recognize you, you won’t be recognized. Your Political Science courses must have taught you that.”

“They taught me what became of history’s overblown dictators.”

Cuthbert chose not to recognize that little jibe, either. And, while he was at it, he also chose not to recognize the fact that his daughter was staring at him, openmouthed. “And where are your so-called brothers now, Mr. Cabot?” he said instead.

“More are coming.” (Damn Manhattan traffic!) Malcolm looked at Poe. “What do you have to say for yourself?”

Poe spoke at last. “I was always against the inclusion of women without the express permission from the board of trustees.”

“Poe informed us of your plan,” said Mr. Cuthbert, smugly. Thirteen pairs of eyes shot daggers at the dark-haired senior. No wonder they were using his society name and calling the rest of us Miss This and Mr. That. (Though, in retrospect, they should all be liable for fines for speaking society code names in the presence of people they’d deemed “barbarians.” Note to self: See if there’s a statute of limitations on those levies.)

“You jerk,” Malcolm said, staring at Poe with ice in his eyes. “What are you doing?”

Poe ignored him.

Josh tried to steer the conversation back to the point. “We would like to open a dialogue with you about your difficulties with the seniors’ choice of taps.” We had, in fact, spent several hours last evening configuring exactly the types of arguments we’d be making and who would be making them. Naturally, we left the bulk of the conversation to be handled by those in the group more used to formal debates—i.e., Josh and Demetria.