Wildalone (48 page)

“What are you talking about?”

“We Irishmen are superstitious folk. An ancestor had too much free time, apparently, and came up with a rule for his progeny: everyone must be present at home on Christmas Eve. It's literally written in stone.”

He took me to the fireplace and pointed at a marble tablet inlaid high into the wall. An inscription bent its cursive around a coat of arms:

Tugann neamhláithreacht amháin solitude síoraí.

“What does it say?”

“
A single absence brings eternal solitude
. Dates back to 1649, when Oliver
Cromwell massacred Ireland. The Estlin estate happened to be in Waterford, the first town to withstand a Cromwell siege. Once the troops retreated, the ancestor in question, Thomas Estlin, rushed off to meet with other rebel leaders and didn't make it back home until Christmas Day—only to find that English soldiers had plundered his castle the night before and killed his entire family. So he commissioned this plaque, as a reminder that the death of everyone he loved was his own doing.”

“Rhys . . .” I kept looking at the letters, whose crescent rested like a necklace inside the stone. “I don't think I can be at the dinner.”

He had been standing behind me but now slowly turned me around. “What exactly are you telling me?”

“I'm going home for the holidays.”

“When?”

“My flight is Thursday night.”

“We can change it.”

“It's too late. Everything to Sofia is probably sold out by now.”

“We can change it.” His eyes were glued to my face, trying to read it. “Unless that's not what you want.”

“I want to stay here, with you. But my parents expect me home for Christmas.”

“It's your life. Nobody should tell you how to live it.”

“I know, except they—”

“They don't own you.”

“They already had one Christmas when their girl didn't come home from school.”

He sat down. Rubbed his face for a few seconds, then looked up at me. “Give me your dates. I'll book the same flights.”

“Don't change your plans because of me.”

“I refuse to be away from you. I'll stay at a hotel and you can see me whenever you want.”

“What about the dinner? You said it's a bad omen to break the family rule.”

“I don't care about rules or omens. And there's no family left anyway, only me and my brother. Plus Ferry. Christmas is the one time when we can
convince him to stop being a butler and join us at the table. Luckily, Irish superstitions run in the old man's blood, so . . .” He took out his cell phone again. “Let's book those tickets. You said Thursday, right?”

“Yes. British Air, through Heathrow.”

“Okay, it's the twentieth. Which reminds me . . . I have to check my damn schedule first.”

His voice had turned sour at the last words, but it was nothing compared to the change in him only seconds later. His fingers froze. His face became unrecognizably white, as he stared at something on that screen.

“What's wrong?”

He handed me the phone.

A grid of squares, numbered all the way to 31. Inside, spilling from row to row—starting as a crescent, thinning out to nothing, then filling up again—was the moon. Only one full circle. And over it: the number 24.

LATER THAT NIGHT, WHILE RHYS
slept, I made up my mind: I wasn't going to Bulgaria for Christmas. He and I would spend New Year's there with my parents. Until then, we were staying at Princeton. Come Christmas Eve, the creature on the hills could have him for a few hours—but that was it. He would meet her with my kiss still warm on his lips. And as soon as her time was up, he would be back. Home. With me.

THE WINTER FORMAL AT IVY
became an ordeal while we were still getting ready. Rhys looked me up and down.

“Nice, but this won't do. Too prim for my taste. And too cliché for the occasion.”

Earlier, when I had asked him what to wear, he answered vaguely: “Something long and elegant.” This was the only long dress I owned—a black halter I wore onstage—and it clearly wasn't going to make the Ivy cut.

“Rhys, maybe inviting me wasn't such a good idea. I don't belong in that world.”

“What world? The Ivy crowd? You just brought Carnegie to its knees and now you worry about a bunch of rich kids? They should be trying to fit in with you, not the other way around.”

But Carnegie had nothing to do with it. I was never going to walk into a room the way Nora did, and own it.

“Okay, time to improvise a bit.” He turned me around and when I looked in the mirror, my dress had changed completely. Peach, turquoise, fuchsia, and cream yellow spiraled in drips over a soft silk jersey, in abstract shapes that resembled orchids. “Do you like it? Women will be dying with envy tonight.”

“I think the cause of death might be the man, not the dress. But yes, it's spectacular.” While I was saying this, a live orchid on an elastic band slipped around my wrist. “That's the custom, isn't it?”

He nodded, smiling.

“Speaking of custom, how are you allowed at the Ivy formals?”

His eyes widened, genuinely puzzled. “Allowed?”

“The formals are members-only. And you can't be a member if you aren't even a student.”

“Ah, that. It's a technicality.” As most obstacles probably were, in the Estlin universe. “I'm on the alumni board. Most of the decisions are practically mine.”

“No one notices that you stay the same age?”

“Not really, so far at least. All it takes is a little perception management. The members leave once they graduate. And the staff changes every few years. I make sure of it.”

“With a generous severance package?”

“More than generous. Complaints aren't even a theoretical possibility.”

The nonchalance with which he made such remarks bothered me. Always had. “Does everything really come down to money? One hears things about Ivy, but I thought you of all people would—”

“Some of what you hear is true and some isn't. Ivy gets bad-mouthed all the time, especially by those who bickered and didn't make it. But it's a private club, Thea. They are very good to their members. And if you happen
to be from a solid line of Ivy stock, then they go out of their way to be good to you.”

They were indeed very good to him. Welcoming him as soon as we arrived, rising from tables to shake his hand. I didn't want to say or do the wrong thing, so I simply followed him through a dining room of dark wood and candlelight, under a ceiling so low it felt as if we had walked into a deftly shaped, mythical cave. The moment we sat down, dishes were placed in front of us by white-gloved hands—perfectly timed, the food still warm and, of course, delicious. Rhys barely touched his, and didn't pay much attention to the others except to answer an occasional question.

Then the postdinner party began, cautiously at first, with two couples braving the dance floor; others gradually followed until the room became packed with people.

“Wasn't this the guy dating your friend Rita, the one who told me you were in Boston?”

I turned and saw Dev drinking by himself, with a melancholic look that didn't last long. A girl grabbed him by the arm and pulled him on the dance floor with overdone giggles.

Rhys shrugged. “Well, I guess that answers my question.”

Even seeing Dev at Ivy had already answered it—he wouldn't be at the formal unless a member had brought him as a date. So, Rita had been right. He had replaced her just in time for the holidays.

I tried to forget the encounter, but as soon as Rhys went to refill our drinks, Dev came over and asked if he could talk to me.

“Sure. What's up?”

“It's good to see you here. How are things?”

I wasn't going to make small talk, least of all with him. “What's up, Dev?”

“How . . . how is she?”

“She's fine. Leaving for Budapest, to spend New Year's with her grandparents.” A few seconds of awkward silence. “Honestly, I don't understand why you're doing this.”

“Doing what?”

“Giving up on the girl you love, so that some Barbie doll can chase you around Ivy.”

“I guess the girl I love forgot to mention that she was the one who broke up with me?”

“Depends on how you look at it, though, right? I'd break up with a guy too, if he didn't stand up for me.”

A string of sweat began to gather on his forehead, as I told him how upset I had found Rita that night in Forbes.

“You don't understand, Thea. My family is a nightmare, especially if one isn't Hindu. They would have never let me bring her home.”

“Did you at least try? I mean, it's your girlfriend we are talking about, not some random crush. You could have told them that if they shut her out, you might not be going home either.”

He stared at the floor, then said, quietly: “When is she leaving?”

“Next week. You still have time. And not to give you any ideas, but I hear New Year's on the Danube is amazing.”

He thanked me—twice—and went back to his date, who had been sulking at the bar. Rhys returned with our drinks.

“Ready to dance or shall I give you a tour? Second floor and all that.”

“A tour sounds nice.”

“Honestly? I keep getting a sense that you don't like the place.”

“It's just a bit . . .”

“
Detached and breathlessly aristocratic?”
He pointed to a large portrait at the base of the main staircase. “F. Scott Fitzgerald, Ivy's literary claim to fame. That's how he described the club in
This Side of Paradise
. I don't think there's much aristocratic left in it, though. And certainly nothing breathless.”

“Then why do you come here so much?”

“Habit. It's easy to keep doing what you've always done.”

We went upstairs and sat by a fireplace in one of the rooms. The walls were covered with photographs, mostly outdated group shots of young men in retro jackets and ties.

“How come there are no women?”

“Because Ivy didn't admit women until 1991.”

“That late?”

“You know how it is. People fight for tradition.”

“I don't know how it is, no. The traditions I grew up with were somewhat less . . . male centered. And either way, shutting others out of your bastion doesn't seem to require much fighting.”

“Except in this case the fight was real. A student sued the club and won, after an eleven-year trial.”

I didn't want to argue with him. But what exactly had she won? The right to be at a club that would go to court just to keep her out? There were stories about what girls had to endure during Ivy bicker, culminating in the practice of passing them naked down the same staircase Rhys and I had just climbed so peacefully.
It's a private club, Thea.
And although a judge might have forced its doors open, he had no control over what happened once you walked through those doors. It was all . . . Princeton tradition. A sacrosanct status quo in which the good and the bad coexisted in precarious harmony, often known only to people like Rhys whose families had been on the inside of the fence for decades.

“Is Jake a member of Ivy too?” Somehow, I couldn't picture him enjoying white-gloved service.

“No. Jake had only one parent—me. Which meant he could do whatever he wanted.”

“And you couldn't?”

“My father would have expelled me from home if I'd even considered another club.”

“Rhys, living in a dorm is not the end of the world. Your own brother is doing it, and he seems to be just fine.”

“I meant really
expelled
. Thrown out, with no money. Archer's typical lesson: it was either his way or you could go fuck yourself.”

“You don't seem to have liked your dad very much.”

“I used to be in awe of him. Everyone was. Until he killed my mother.”

“He . . . what?” I knew that Rhys liked to be dramatic, but this was a bit much. “Wasn't your mother very ill, beyond anything doctors could do?”

“She didn't need doctors. I could have saved her myself. For that, she didn't even need to be alive.”

Finally I realized what he was talking about. “
Save her
. . . the way my sister saved you?”

“It would have been a different ritual—but yes. My mother was so far gone that we were praying for a miracle. And it happened. Elza with her mumbo-jumbo about eternal love and life beyond death. I thought she was making it all up. But what did I have to lose?”

“Is this why you became involved in the rituals?”

“Actually, what got me involved was sex. But then what hooked me was the promise of godlike power. Of winning over death. First you had to be ‘initiated into the mysteries'—which is what the Greeks used to call it, but is just a fancy name for learning how to invoke any ritual you want. For that, I would have done anything. Even married a woman I didn't love.”

“But you didn't marry her. Or did you?”

“I almost did. It was planned for the full moon in December, but earlier that week I received a call from a police detective upstate. A sports car had driven off a cliff on the Pacific Coast Highway. Fell over the rocks. Exploded. By the time anyone got to it, there wasn't much left, only enough to track the license number back to a rental agency with my father's name on file.”

“That doesn't mean he killed her. It could have been an accident.”

“There were no accidents in that man's universe, Thea. You know the last thing he said to me? We were on the phone, they were just heading out of San Francisco, and he said:
I'll be seeing you, son.
My entire life, he had never called me ‘son.' Not once.”

A piece of wood crackled in the fire. Downstairs, people danced to loud music in a world where accidents did happen, and love was not eternal, and death was invincible. I took him in my arms, but he seemed restless. His lips reached my ear before I could figure out if he was trying to say something to me or kiss me: