Diana Peterfreund - Under the Rose

I’d spent my whole life getting my resume in order. Maybe it was time to turn it into confetti.

I swung my legs over the side of the bed and padded out to our common room, bypassing my computer for the time being. If I was going to deal with “Graverobber’s” griping, I needed sustenance. I reached to the top shelf, where we hid our contraband hot pot behind a large hardback of Art Through the Ages, and filled it with water from our purifying pitcher. (I will never understand who the fire marshal thinks he’s kidding with his surprise inspections every semester. He knows we have coffeepots and stuff in here, and we know he knows. It’s all such a game. Demetria tells this story about sophomore year when he came into her suite while she and her roommates were huddled about the hot pot, smoking—another no-no—and waiting for their soup to warm. He just shook his head and wrote them a ticket. Demetria claims she used it for rolling papers.)

What was I going to say at this thing? I plugged in the pot and plopped down on the couch, drawing my knees up inside my oversized sleep shirt and pondering the issue at hand. How embarrassing would it be to let everyone know that a week in my arms caused number two on my Hit List, a faux-beatnik named Galen Twilo, to pack up his dog-eared copy of Howl and burn for a different “ancient heavenly connection to the starry dynamo of…” whatever-it-was.

Or would I open up the wound from number three, the supposed love of my short life, Alan Albertson, who’d abruptly left me for someone named Fulbright? Or Brandon, number five, who I couldn’t manage to hold on to for longer than a few days. How about that one-night stand I’d had in between the two of them, that Spring Break mistake I don’t remember well enough to report his full name?

I could imagine why these C.B.s were so popular with male-only clubs. The double standard was in full force, once again. A man having anonymous sex was a Penthouse letter. A woman doing it was something different altogether. And there was probably nothing I could say that would impress George enough to keep him from sorta making plans with me and then sorta standing me up. I leaned my head back and began massaging my temples. Five minutes in, and the day already sucked.

The door to Lydia’s bedroom opened and out walked a very rumpled-looking Josh Silver.

He stopped dead in his tracks when our eyes met, and for a second we just stared at each other—me a bumpy T-shirt lump on the sofa, him in a wrinkled button-down he’d obviously unwadded from a corner of Lydia’s boudoir.

“What are you doing here?” he hissed.

“I live here,” I replied. “Did you not notice the pictures of me in her room? No, wait, don’t answer that. I don’t want to know what you were busy noticing instead.”

Lydia came to the door in her silk bathrobe. Silk! “Oh, Amy, you’re up. This is Josh.”

“Hi, Josh,” I said, extending my hand from inside my tee. “Nice to meet you.”

“Nice to meet you, ” he said, taking my hand in his.

“Oh, wait!” Lydia said. “What am I saying? You guys totally know each other.”

We froze, mid-shake.

“Remember, Ames?” Lydia said. “At that political reception last January?”

I looked to Josh. Go with it? “Yeah, I think you look vaguely familiar.”

“Funny, I was just about to say the same.”

“I’m going to go hop in the shower,” Lydia said, then began to coyly toy with the felt-tipped marker attached to her whiteboard by a thin piece of yarn. Lydia, coy! “You, um, want to stick around for breakfast, Josh?”

“Sure.”

Lydia left. The second the door closed behind her, Josh looked at me.

“Amy—”

“No.”

“Amy—”

“No.”

“Amy—” He stopped. “Wait, ‘no’ what?”

“No, I’m not getting involved. This is barbarian matters, Josh.”

“Oh.” He plopped down beside me. “I thought you meant ‘No, you can’t see her.’”

“I like that one, too.” I crossed my arms. “This is weird.”

“That’s my assessment.”

“How did you…meet?”

He brightened. “It’s a funny story, actually. It was at the inductee ceremony for Phi Beta Kappa last month.”

My legs shot out of the bottom of my oversized T-shirt. “Phi Beta Kappa? But—”

“I know, that’s what I thought, too.” Josh nodded, getting into his narrative. “My dean called me in to her office to give me the news and I was all ‘Thank you so much for the honor, ma’am, but I’m afraid I must decline, as I am already in a secret society.’”

I blinked at him. “Isn’t Phi Beta Kappa just an honor society now? I think it doesn’t conflict with our oaths.”

“Yeah, I know that now, ” Josh said, rolling his eyes. “After they all had a nice good laugh at my expense.”

I shook my head. We were getting way off track here. “Wait, let me get this straight. Lydia is in Phi Beta Kappa?”

“Yeah. Didn’t she tell you? The induction was the day of Angel’s champagne party.”

“Two dollars,” I said evenly. And no, she hadn’t. But she had been ebullient that day, and this explained it. Why would Lydia keep such great news a secret from me, her best friend?

Josh was apparently wondering the same thing, considering the raised eyebrows he was currently pointing in my direction. And then, it clicked. She was keeping it from me because I was keeping Rose & Grave from her. So not fair. She got two secret societies to my one? (Lydia’s secret society freaked me out, quite frankly. They almost destroyed our suite during their initiation last year. Of course, she’d never stand for me grilling her about it.)

“So anyway, that’s where we met. I mean, we’d known each other from class and stuff, but for some reason, after the ceremony we just clicked. Bonded.”

Knowing Lydia, seeing him in Phi Beta Kappa probably convinced her he was good enough for her.

“And now what?”

He looked at me quizzically.

“Is she your girlfriend ?”

He looked down at his lap. “Yeah. I guess she is.”

I shot to my feet.

“Amy—” He grabbed at my arm, but I whisked it away and made a beeline toward my bedroom.

“I’m getting dressed.”

“Amy, your oath!”

“I’m getting dressed!” I yelled, and slammed the door.

What was I going to do? Lydia needed to know what she was getting herself into before she started to regret all of this coyness and Sunday morning sexy bathrobe wearing and cutesy little brunch invites. But what was I supposed to say? Yes, this Josh fellow seems like a lovely guy, but I have it on good authority he’s never been faithful to any of his girlfriends. If I knew Lydia, she’d try to bludgeon my sources out of me.

Why I Don’t Like Sundays (Especially This One): reason number five…

Brunch with Josh and Lydia got stickier than the dining hall’s sweet buns when Lydia left the table for a second helping on her Eli breakfast sandwich. The Eli breakfast sandwich is the best thing our dining halls offer: greasy fried egg, greasier fried bacon, and a greasy, half-melted slice of cheddar on a greasy English muffin. It’s to die for. Josh—who had, apparently, hopped in our shower while I’d been getting dressed—stared intently into his cornflakes. I concentrated on the opinion column in the Eli Daily News and munched a bagel. Neither of us saw it coming.

“This seat taken?” A loaded tray slammed down beside me. I looked up to see George frowning at our little tableau.

“At the risk of reaching critical mass,” Josh said, “go ahead.”