Tap & Gown (38 page)

“Reports, the article said,” I pointed out. “Plural.”

Meredith raised her hand. “When I told my dean about the scary, desperate e-mails I was getting from Andrew, she said that he just regretted the way he treated me, sleeping with my best friend and all, and wanted a chance to reconcile. She said he’d give up eventually if I just ignored him.”

“But that
is
what he wanted,” Clarissa said. “And he
did
give up.”

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Meredith smiled. “Yes, but the outcome isn’t important. The point is, the dean told me to ignore it.”

“It counts,” said Tamar.

Topher was still watching us from his end of the table.

“Hey,” I called. “Managing editor. Get over here.” As he dutifully trotted over, I considered the fact that he would have had to review Kalani’s article. Perhaps he’d even suggested it. “What do you know about this?”

“I know it’s an ongoing issue on the campus that deserves a little extra newsprint,” he replied simply.

“Anything else?”

Now every tap at the table was looking at us. The other two seniors and I exchanged glances.

“You know, guys,” I began, “if you have any plans up your sleeve, it may behoove you to run it by us first.”

“Why?” Michelle asked. “Aren’t you busy with exams and theses and maybe being expelled? Don’t you have enough on your plate?”

“Yeah, but—”

“That
was
the excuse you used for not turning in your problem set this week, isn’t it?” she went on.

“Yeah, but—”

“We’re changing the dialogue,” Tamar said simply. “The administration is trying to use our society—
our
society—as a scapegoat to appease minority factions of alumni who have their panties in a twist.”

“And ignoring actual problems on campus that they themselves have created,” Michelle added.

“Exactly,” said Tamar. “The administration has let us down in barbarian matters and pissed us off in society ones. Do you think we’re just going to lie back and take it?”

“Or let you face it on your own?” asked Meredith.

“What did you tap us for,” said Brianna, on the other side of the table, “if you didn’t think we could handle stuff like this?”

“And not necessarily in the ham-handed manner we all witnessed at The Game last fall,” piped up Paul, farther down the row. “Much as I may have been amused at the time.”

“The media is power,” said Topher. “You used it last year with Genevieve. We know that. We’re using it, too.”

“And because the article was written by Kalani,” said Zoë Ponsonby, Greg’s tap, “It’s a bit hard to connect it to us.” She looked over my shoulder. “Arielle, darling! Come here for a moment.”

I turned to see Arielle with a tray in her hands and a Quill & Ink pin prominently displayed on her shirt
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collar. “Hey, Zoë,” she said brightly. “Amy.” A curt nod.

“Arielle, did you give any more thought to the suggestion I made at our
Faerie Queene
seminar yesterday?” Zoë asked.

“About the theme for the commencement issue of the Lit Mag?”

“Yes, wouldn’t it be grand? Highlighting the ongoing struggle that women have had to undergo at the hands of the patriarchy at this university, whether through official or
unofficial
channels. A worthy theme, don’t you think, seeing as how this year is the thirty-eighth anniversary of the first female class at Eli?”

“Thirty-eight,” Arielle said drily. “How momentous. And curious, too, that you’re giving so much thought to this, considering that the poem you submitted is about pollution.”

Zoë waved it off. “The raping of our Mother Earth for masculine commercial gain and those in power’s continued attempts to shut out her ‘cries for help’ by ignoring the obvious signs of global warming?”

“Right on,” said Michelle.

“Seems apt to me,” said Zoë.

Arielle did not appear convinced. “I just don’t know how timely it is.”

“Believe me,” said Tamar. “It’s about to become the most timely topic on campus.”

My fellow Diggirls and I just sat in mute amazement.

True to the word of the knights of D178, over the next week, no one talked about anything but the administration’s “policy” of sweeping domestic scandals under the rug in order to save face. There were no fewer than three more articles on the subject in the
Daily
. That weekend the
Eli Herald
, the campus alt-weekly, even published the anonymous account of a former student who had actually been encouraged to switch schools rather than deal with the prejudice she was facing as a transgendered Political Science major.1*

As one might expect, the liberal student body, en masse, was quick to grab their pitchforks and fall in line. By the day of the Executive Committee meeting, there was even a small protest going on outside the Office of the Dean of Student Affairs, which was also, in a most provident coincidence, the location of the meeting.

I’d given up believing in coincidences.

It was a sunny spring morning, and the stones of the courtyard and the nearby rare book library gleamed a smooth, bureaucratic white.

“Hey there, Amy,” said Kalani, meeting me on the steps. As usual, she looked like she’d just stepped out of a Wall Street high-rise to grab a bagel. Beige skirt and jacket, hair in a gloriously perfect bun. If only I didn’t know she’d rather be wearing a corset and a hoop skirt. “Nice suit.”

I smoothed my shell and skirt. “Thanks.” This suit had seen me through last year’s summer internship interviews, my society interview, and every important meeting in D.C. Now, I hoped it would survive this
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meeting and live to be worn under my robe come graduation day. “What are you doing here?”

“I’m press.”

I gave her a skeptical glance. “You’re not the kind of press that works the Dean’s office beat for a protest.”

“I am when it’s an issue I brought to the attention of the student body,” she said. “And you? What brings a model student like yourself down to the Dean’s office so spiffed up?”

“I—”

Kalani grinned. “Just kidding, Amy, I’m no fool. Knock ’em dead, okay?” She reached over and folded up my lapel to reveal my Rose & Grave pin.

I gaped at her. “How long have you known?”

“Just a few days.” Kalani’s smile did not diminish. “Topher told me.”

“Topher?” Dude, how many oaths did this kid plan to break in his first month as a Digger? Who did he think he was? Me?

“Of course. Topher and I have worked together for three years now, and he hasn’t once tipped me off to a story. I knew there was something going on. I’m a reporter, too, you know. And though he has many good—or at least,
interesting
—qualities, holding up under interrogation isn’t one of them.”

“So I’ve found.” I studied her. “Do you think less of me now?”

She laughed. “To be honest, I think more of Rose & Grave. I mean, if you can’t have the Hall, I guess being a Digger is an adequate substitute.”

Inside the dean’s office, the other knights had already gathered. Odile and Jenny were trying to figure out a way to conceal the dirty sketch covering a large portion of George’s cast.

“Don’t worry about it,” he said. “It’s not as if we’re actually appearing in front of the Dean of Student Affairs.”

At the advice of our counsel, we’d opted to petition for a meeting of the ten-member Executive Committee’s Coordinating Group, a small, three-person fact-finding subset whose job it was to determine whether or not the accusations against us held water. We theorized that the student members of the full committee were more likely to be swayed by campus rumor and give credence to Blake’s wilder claims than the faculty-only coordinating group.

We were ushered into a small, classroom-like chamber. Three of the chairs in the triple row across from the table where the committee sat were already occupied: Blake, Michelle (as far from Blake as she could get), and Topher.

I tapped him on the shoulder as I took my seat in the second row. He merely tightened his grip on the manila envelope in his hand and said nothing.

“What is he doing here?” Jenny whispered to me.

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“No clue.” I was the worst big sib on the face of the planet. I tapped him again. “Hey—”

The chairwoman of the committee glared at me. “We’d like to get started.” I sat back in my seat.

Blake’s accusation was presented first. According to him, we had been engaging in a steady diet of hazing and psychological torture for weeks, culminating, he claimed, in threats and assault when, on Initiation Night, he finally refused to perform the “abominable rituals” we required to grant him entrance to Rose & Grave.

No, he did not specify the nature of said ritual. Natch.

However, he did say that he was stepping forward to urge others who’d received similar treatment at our hands to speak out against our abusive ways.

Ooh, nicely put. Steal that line from Michelle?

While the committee chair read these bald-faced lies out loud, Blake glared at each of the Diggers in turn, reserving special amounts of venom for George and Michelle. Oddly, he didn’t look at Topher at all.

“Topher,” I whispered. “What you got there?”

He stared resolutely down at the envelope.

Uh-oh.

“George Prescott,” the chairwoman said. George raised his good hand. “Would you please explain to us what happened on the night you initiated Mr. Varnham into Rose & Grave?”

“We didn’t,” George replied.

The chairwoman pursed her lips. “Fine. The night you attempted to—”

“We didn’t do that, either,” said George. “We didn’t do a single one of the things he’s got listed there, except for the part where I shoved him down a staircase. You
could
, reasonably, describe it like that, though really, we both fell.” He waved with his cast and I saw one of the other committee members raise his eyebrows at the sketch gracing the plaster.

“Mr. Prescott,” the chairwoman said wearily, “hazing is a very serious charge. Please describe for us what it is that your society does on Initiation Night.”

George smiled his million-dollar grin. “I don’t have any idea what that has to do with this investigation, ma’am. It’s just location. If my fight with Blake had occurred at a Chinese restaurant, would you be asking me to describe the egg rolls?”

All the Diggers were wise enough to refrain from snickering.

George continued. “Focusing on what may or may not occur at our initiation is the wrong approach because if you don’t believe me that Blake was in no way included in the ceremony why would you trust any description I have of our rituals?”

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“He’s been coached to say that,” Blake argued. “They’re all in league to parrot the party line.”

“I haven’t been coached to say
this
,” George directed at Blake. “Six generations of Diggers are going to be furious with me, but our initiation? It’s nothing. More like a carnival’s house of horrors than whatever this jackass is describing. It’s laughable—and under any other circumstances, we
would
be laughing at this disgustingly transparent attempt to get us to reveal our secrets. The same way we laugh at all the urban legends surrounding Rose & Grave. The reason we aren’t laughing in this instance is that after this guy
broke into
our tomb—uninvited, unannounced—he held a girl captive with a knife. Yeah, I jumped him. I admit it. I was trying to get both knife and girl away from him. Go ahead and withhold my degree for that. I dare you.”

Oh, crap. George, please don’t threaten the nice executive committee who holds our fates in their hands.

We don’t all have campus buildings named after us.

“Not because I’m a Digger, not because I’m a Prescott, and certainly not because of those people outside. But because it’s obvious who is really to blame in this instance. I know what he did, and I’ve already overpaid trying to stop it.”

No matter what George said, at that moment, he’d never looked more like a Digger, more like a Prescott, more like a son of Eli. Even the chairwoman had to gather her composure before speaking again.

“We seem to be at an impasse here. It’s a case of he said/she said—”

“More like a dozen she saids to one he said,” grumbled Mara.

“You and your cronies are all telling the same lie!” Blake said.

“Oh, yeah,” said Michelle.
“We’re
the ones who are all about the cover-up. That’s right. I’m sure if we could get in touch with Dean Wiatt, you’d be singing a different tune.”

But the old Strathmore College dean was doing research in Borneo. Without Internet access. We’d tried to get hold of her, to no avail. So much for the inexhaustible Digger influence.

Blake simply snorted. “She didn’t believe your lies last time, either.”

“So you’re admitting that I didn’t just start complaining about your behavior last week in an attempt to help my Digger buddies,” Michelle pointed out. “Who’s involved in a cover-up now?”

“Everyone quiet down,” said the chairwoman, who, to her credit, had been watching the entire exchange with some interest. “As I was saying, in most instances where the version of events delivered by every witness differs so immensely from the version offered by the victim …”