The Disreputable History of Frankie Landau-Banks (11 page)

THE LOYAL ORDER

As is already no doubt clear to my readers, the Loyal Order of the Basset Hounds was alive and well on the Alabaster campus. And in order to understand the events that follow, you will need to know more about its history.

Rumored to have been started by a young man who later would head the nation’s second-largest Irish-American crime syndicate, the Basset order was more benevolent than the Skull & Bones society at Yale, less intellectual and more secret than Phi Beta Kappa, and less goth than the Order of Gimghoul at UNC Chapel Hill. Its members, mostly seniors, were tapped by receiving a mysterious letter inviting them to a secret initiation ceremony.

The society’s presence was larger on campus some years than in others. Frankie had made it through her freshman year without ever noticing the small Basset Hound insignia that had decorated the seal on the golf course party invitation, though in truth it had been rubber-stamped on a number of flyers posted on the message kiosk—flyers written in code. 9/4/11/23/TOP meant that at nine o’clock, at meeting location #4 (the utility closet on the top floor of the Flaherty dorm), on November 23rd, there was a top-priority meeting.

(Of course the members of the Loyal Order could have used e-mail to communicate the times and locations of their meetings, but it was part of their mission as a secret society—as it is part of the mission of most secret societies, actually—not to be entirely secret. To be a mystery about which people know just enough to wonder what else there is to know, so that membership in the society holds a certain cachet. If no one knows anything about the society, it is infinitely less exciting to be a involved in it, right?)

The Basset insignia had also been rubber-stamped, somewhat menacingly, on the dorm room clipboards of several loudmouth senior girls who had sat together one day in the cafeteria, deriding the existence of an all-male secret society (if there was one; they didn’t know for certain) at an institution that had been coeducational since 1965.

One morning the previous May, Frankie herself had inadvertently stumbled upon a Basset meeting— but had misinterpreted it as a crew team bonding activity. Having walked in on Porter and Bess the night before, and having then spent most of the night sobbing on Trish’s shoulder and saying she hated Porter but also feeling lonely without him, Frankie had left her dorm at six a.m. to walk down by the pond, a small puddle of water decorated with a footbridge that stood on the edge of the Alabaster campus. There, at 6:14 in the morning, she had seen approximately twenty-five boys—half seniors and half juniors, plus one sophomore boy named Sam—standing on the bridge and dropping pennies into the water.

Frankie stood in the trees and watched them for a moment, wondering what on earth could motivate all those guys to be up before Sunday breakfast at nine. She hadn’t wanted to walk past them—she wished to be alone—so she was about to turn and walk away, when Matthew Livingston took his shirt off. Which stopped her.

Then he took the rest of his clothes off.

When he was completely naked, he threw himself into the pond. The rest of the boys followed, except the sophomore, who stayed on the bridge to guard the clothes.

Everyone was silent. If they spoke, they whispered, and mostly they paddled around for a minute, then hauled themselves out of the grubby pond onto land to collect their clothes.

They had forgotten to bring towels, and they swore and rubbed at their limbs with their T-shirts.

Frankie had watched them for a few more minutes. She couldn’t help herself.

As soon as one of the seniors glanced in her direction, she’d scurried back behind the trees and across campus to the library.

Most secret societies—at least those you can read about in books or on the Internet—are collegiate. Or adult. They are social clubs, or honor clubs, or clubs committed to some value system—chivalry or equality or excellence. They are like fraternities, only they don’t have houses or public identities. In colleges, their memberships are usually local, not national, but the adult ones tend to be more serious and on a larger scale.

We don’t know what they actually do. Because they’re secret.

The Loyal Order of the Basset Hound had been conceived as a society for the elect among Alabaster students—“elect” meaning those from particularly loyal and moneyed Alabaster families, and meaning also those who were considered cool enough. Many collegiate societies have some notion of excellence that drives their selection process, and certainly no one who was not excellent was admitted as a Basset Hound. But it was a notion of excellence as determined by seventeen-year-old boys, not by teachers and parents, so the entertainment potential of your conversation counted considerably more than your ability to craft a decent essay on World War II, and your excellence on the playing field counted only if your ability to banter in the locker room was equally strong. Family wealth and social class didn’t count on the surface. What those factors did was to lend the boys who had them an almost intangible sense of security regarding their places in the world, which often (though not always) led to social dominance, which led to induction in the Loyal Order.

Of course, anything named after a floppy-eared dog with short legs isn’t deadly serious. The Skull & Bones society, whatever it does, is no doubt much less ridiculous than the Basset Hounds were. The Bassets did not claim to be fostering social change or academic success. Nor did they conceive of themselves as rebellious in any serious way. Bassets were more focused on how to get beer, how to exit and reenter the dorms without detection, and how to get girls to like them— and yet it would not be wrong to call them powerful.

Being a Basset was very important to these boys because it mediated their relationship to the other social institutions that shaped them—most importantly, Alabaster. Like Senior Banks, they thought of themselves as Bassets more than they thought of themselves, for example, as tennis players, TV watchers, Caucasians, Protestants, East-Coasters, decent skiers, heterosexuals, and attractive young men—all of which most of them were. The Loyal Order was important because the true agenda of the club, though its members didn’t exactly articulate it to themselves, was that it allowed them—they whose position in the world was so completely central—to experience the thrill of rebellion, a glimmer of unconventionality, and plain old naughtiness without risk.

It let them play at being bad. At being different. Without any consequences. It gave them a sense of identity that was separate from the values of the school that shaped them, and it gave them a sense of family when they were away from home. Because really, when they were doing their secret rebellious Basset Hound things (i.e., drinking beer on the golf course) they weren’t risking their central status at all. They were bonding with other future world leaders, and it was a bond that would serve them very, very well in the years after graduation.

Each year members of the Loyal Order continued the annual tradition of swearing in their new king and swimming naked in the pond. The new generation of juniors took the Mantle of the Basset into their possession, both literally and figuratively (the mantle was a moth-eaten woolen blanket of a slightly disgusting, Bassety brown color), and they all threw pennies into the South Pond in a symbolic gesture that was sometimes said to represent the loss of one’s innocence, and other times argued to represent the pledging of eternal loyalty.

This ritual was the one Frankie had stumbled upon at the end of her freshman year, and it had culminated in the one junior who had been groomed for leadership taking his position as Basset King—and possession of the symbolic china doggie. His duty thenceforth to his fellow members of the Order was to guide them, lead them, order them around, and force them to do his bidding.

The position of Basset King, the year Frankie Landau-Banks interfered with the club’s operation, was held by two people. Alpha had been tapped his sophomore year to attend Basset parties and meetings with the understanding that he’d step into Basset King position at the end of his junior year. But then he’d spent that year in New York, and a substitute had to be found, since no one knew at that time that Alpha would be coming back.

That substitute was Matthew Livingston.

A SEA HORSE

Every week, Alabaster screened a film. It was a G-rated series, featuring only selections that could not be deemed objectionable by any of the conservative Old-Boy alums who had donated the money to build the arts complex. One day, midweek in October, Matthew asked if Frankie wanted to go see
The Muppet Movie
on Friday.

“None of the guys. Just me and you, Miss Piggy, and a giant pack of Twizzlers,” Matthew said. “I’ll pick you up and we can walk over together.” They hadn’t been on many dates that didn’t involve an entourage of boys going with them.

Trish (Debate Club) and Artie (Debate, AudioVisual/ Technology Club) were spending Friday night at this year’s Geek Club Conglomerate party. “You have to go!” wailed Trish, when Frankie told her about
The Muppet Movie
. “You’re like the heroine of the alliance; you’re the whole reason the debaters even get invited.”

“I know, I know,” answered Frankie. “But think about it: candy, a boyfriend, a darkened theater? Or a bunch of geeks doing the macarena semi-ironically?”

“No, think of it this way,” said Trish. “Plastic chewy things that aren’t even food, the same guy you hang around with every day, and a movie that’s basically a puppet show for five-year-olds, versus an awesome DJ, unlimited potato chips, and all your friends.”

“They’re not puppets, they’re Muppets,” said Frankie. “I have a serious and justified love for Kermit that I will parage to the end.”

“Parage?”

“Parage. The neglected positive of disparage.”

“You mean defend. You will defend Kermit to the end.”

“Parage.”

“Praise?”

“Parage. I will parage him. And Animal, too. I love Animal. I used to watch that show on DVD all the time when I was little.”

Trish changed the subject. “We should do facials and paint our toenails Friday before they pick us up. What do you say, blow through dinner and come back here for girlie stuff?”

Frankie said, “You’re on. When we’re finished, we’ll be absolutely sheveled.”

“You’ll be sheveled,” said Trish. “I’m a normal person.”

That evening, Frankie walked into dinner alone. Her modern dance class had been cut short for an unimportant reason.

She had not, she realized, been alone in the caf since the start of sophomore year. She always came in to breakfast with Trish or some other girls on her hall, and went to lunch either with Matthew or with a couple of Debate Club kids who had fifth period with her. Sometimes she went to dinner with Trish and Artie and sat at the sophomore tables, but usually, since dance got out before soccer anyway, she picked up Matthew and his friends outside the new gymnasium.

This day, Frankie was hungry and went as soon as the dining hall opened. But when she got through the line with her tray of eggplant Parmesan and apple juice, she stood alone, unsure where she belonged.

Trish and Artie were at the sophomore tables, and so were some other people she knew.

The senior table where Matthew and his friends always sat—was empty.

Frankie glanced at the clock and figured he wouldn’t be there for another ten minutes.

She knew she was supposed to go sit with the sophomores. She was only entitled to sit at the senior tables when a senior invited her. There were no
official
school rules about who sat where in the caf, but no underclassman—no junior, even—had sat at a senior table unaccompanied by a senior since 1958.

Frankie wanted to sit with Matthew and Alpha and their friends. Not just because she liked being with them, but because sitting at the sophomore tables would be like accepting that her status was not equal to Matthew’s. That she wasn’t really friends with his friends.

It would also be bowing to the pressures of the panopticon Ms. Jensson talked about. To sit with Trish and Artie would be conforming to unwritten rules for fear of discovery by a nonexistent watchman.

No one is going to punish me, Frankie told herself.

I can break this rule if I want.

Nothing can actually stop me.

Frankie walked deliberately over to Matthew’s table and sat down. As if she owned it. As if she had any right to be there.

She sat, and ate.

She read some of
Eggs, Beans and Crumpets
by P. G. Wodehouse. Artie and Trish called her name and waved her over, but she chose to misunderstand them, and just waved back to say hello.

No one spoke to her, although there were several seniors at neighboring tables whom she knew fairly well from sitting near them regularly. Callum sat down at the table next to her with a bunch of other guys from lacrosse, and didn’t even nod.

She ate, and read.

There was a part of Frankie that felt what nearly any teenager would have felt in that situation: embarrassed. She wished she hadn’t broken this stupid rule. She wished Matthew would come and rescue her. She felt desperate and sad that Callum hadn’t spoken to her, because it was proof that he and those other guys didn’t rate her as a person but only as Matthew’s arm candy. Maybe she should walk over and sit with Trish after all—only, if she got up now it would be even more embarrassing, and
why on earth had she done such a dumb thing?

But another part of Frankie enjoyed the fact that she’d made herself a subject of discussion. That she’d broken a rule so entrenched in everybody’s mind that it never occurred to anyone that it wasn’t actually a rule. That she had defied the sense of surveillance created by the panopticon of her boarding school.

Finally, Matthew, Alpha, and Dean arrived along with Star and Elizabeth. They sat down with a clatter of trays and began unloading glasses of juice and milk. Alpha jumped up for napkins. Dean ran to a nearby table for salt.

It was only Elizabeth who made any commentary on where Frankie was sitting. She was the outsider, the one who had earned her own money, the one unfettered by the privileged class’s sense of “noblesse oblige”—the feeling Bertie Wooster always references in the Wodehouse novels, that along with noble birth comes an obligation to treat others well. “Taking over the senior table, eh, squirt?” teased Elizabeth, not unkindly, sitting next to Frankie and unloading a tray filled with many small saucers of discrete items from the salad bar—canned beets, canned mushrooms, pimento olives, and raisins, plus a toasted English muffin with butter and two glasses of juice.

“Maybe,” said Frankie, her defenses up. “Or maybe I was pining away for Matthew and waiting for him like a lonesome puppy. It’s hard to tell from the outside, isn’t it?”

Elizabeth raised her eyebrows. “You have some balls.”

Frankie hated that expression, ever since Zada had pointed out to her that it equates courage with the male equipment, but she nodded at Elizabeth and said, “Some days I do.”

“What do you think, Livingston?” Elizabeth asked Matthew. “Your girlie waiting for you at the senior tables?”

Matthew stood and leaned across the table to stroke Frankie’s cheek. “I’m always glad to see Frankie.”

“Mushball,” muttered Alpha.

“Lay off. I touched her cheek.”

“You’re a complete ball of mush, my dog.”

“Be nice about me, Alpha,” said Frankie, not liking the way the conversation was going. “I’m sitting right here.”

“I wouldn’t mind if Dean was a mushball,” said Star, sulky.

“No disparagement upon your person, Frankie.” Alpha stuffed a large piece of eggplant into his mouth. “Your person is young and lovely and we’re always glad to see you. It’s the mush when I’m eating, little lady. It puts me off my feed.”

“I didn’t start the mush,” Frankie argued. “Matthew started the mush. I was minding my own business.” She felt like she was ten again, the youngest at the dinner table, trying to keep out of trouble.

“Alpha, we went over this already,” said Matthew, looking down at his pasta.

When? When had they gone over what, exactly?

“We went over it,” said Alpha, pausing to take a sip of coffee. “But we didn’t
finish
going over it.”

“Now is not the time or place.” Matthew kept his head down.

They had been arguing about her, Frankie was sure. Why did Alpha always call Matthew away when she and Matthew were together? Was Alpha jealous of Matthew being with Frankie—or of Frankie being with Matthew? Or did Alpha just not
like
her? Or like her too much?

“Boys.” Elizabeth rolled her eyes. “That extra dose of testosterone makes them unbearable, don’t you think?”

“What, you mean testosterone like the hormone?” asked Star.

“No, the other kind of testosterone,” put in Alpha, snorting.

Star looked perplexed.

Frankie shrugged. “I’m not sure it’s about testosterone.”

“Sure it is,” argued Elizabeth. “Boys have got oceans of it hurtling around in their systems. It makes them needlessly aggressive. Like these two, they’re like moose locking antlers right now.”

“I don’t think you can blame it on testosterone,” put in Alpha. “No one’s getting violent, here. What we’re getting is testy.”

“And that’s exactly my point,” said Elizabeth. “Testosterone, testy. The words even have the same origin, I bet.”

“No they don’t,” said Matthew. “They don’t, actually.”

“Anyways, I disagree.” Alpha waved his piece of eggplant at Elizabeth. “Testosterone is making me horny, and the consequences of
that
you can deal with later, but the thing that’s making me annoyed with Matthew is not testosterone.”

“What is it, then?” Elizabeth picked up a cucumber in her fingers and ate it.

“It’s Matthew.”

“Ha. You two are a pair of moose, having a contest to see who’s got the biggest set of horns. Are you with me, Frankie? Star?”

“Absolutely,” said Star, taking a bite of toast. “They’re animals.”

Frankie knew she was expected to side with Elizabeth, but she didn’t agree. “I think girls can be as competitive as boys,” she said.

“Come on,” said Elizabeth. “Look at nature. Who’s got the big tail, the peacock or the—what’s it?”

“Peahen,” said Matthew.

“Exactly. And who’s got the big horns? The shaggy mane?” asked Elizabeth.

“The boys,” answered Dean.

“Yeah, yeah,” said Frankie. “But lions are a good example of what I’m saying, actually. The female lions do all the gazelle hunting while the males sit around and, I don’t know, roar. The women are fiercer than the men.”

“Oh, no.” Elizabeth turned to look at Frankie. “Because what do they do after they kill the gazelle? They give it to the guy lion. And they all stick together, it’s like all about lady lion sisterhood, whereas the males are lone rangers. They don’t hang around with each other because they’re too combative, but the females are all about cooperation.”

“Yay for the lady lions!” said Star. “Sisterhood is so important.”

But Frankie said, “That’s a slippery slope to be heading down, Elizabeth.”

“Why?”

“Because once you say women are one way, and men are another, and say that’s how it is in other species so that’s gotta be how it is in people, then even if it’s somewhat true—even if it’s quite a good amount true— you’re setting yourself up to make all kinds of assumptions that actually really suck. Like, women tend to cooperate with each other and therefore don’t have enough competitive drive to run major companies or lead army squadrons. Or men are inherently unfaithful because they want to propagate their seed. Assumptions like these do nothing but cause problems in the world.”

“Ooh,” said Elizabeth. “The underclassman debater rears her fierce head.”

“Besides which, you can read a situation several different ways. If it was the female pea . . . ?”

“Peafowl,” said Matthew.

“Peafowl that had the blue tail, everyone would be saying it was all about how girls are more beautiful than guys, girls are more concerned with appearance, girls like all that gaudy, froufrou stuff—”