Rites of Spring (9 page)

The GREs had been a joke (ninety-eight percentile without even taking Kaplan) but I hadn’t exactly distinguished myself in front of my professors the way I’d hoped. After all, it had always been my intent to go out into the workforce instead of staying in the Ivory Tower, and recommendations from crusty Russian Lit professors didn’t carry much weight at Condé Nast. I hoped to get a few responses before Spring Break, but it was beginning to look unlikely. Landing a fellowship would vastly increase my chances of getting into the program of my choice. I still hadn’t decided what the option was if I failed to receive admission at any of the A-list programs. Did I want to go to grad school enough to go just anywhere?

George dropped his book next to me on the table. “Stressed about the future?”

“Not really.” I turned a page and typed another line into my file.

“You know, it occurs to me that we’re the only two people in the club who don’t have our futures planned out like a military invasion.”

“Oh?” I said, looking up.

“Look.” He began pointing. “Kevin’s going to work for CAA, Clarissa’s starting at McKinsey in the fall, Demetria got into Berkeley, Omar’s headed to the Kennedy School, Jenny’s starting that company of hers, Josh to Stanford Law, Odile to her next film, Ben to PwC, Mara to Wharton for her MBA…”

I wondered how long it had taken him to memorize that list for recitation. And to think that, last year, I chose him over Brandon. “We haven’t heard from Greg yet.”

“You think there’s a chance he’s not going to get that Fulbright? I’m just saying we’re a dying breed.” He tapped his fingers on the table. “And that I’m sick of it being all political scandals, applications, and interviews around here. Don’t you think it was better when our weekly conversations were a tad more colorful?”

“No. I’d rather this than sit through another eight hours of your C.B.”

Oops. That was a mistake. He leaned in. “Could have been longer.” He’d spared me that humiliation at least. Sitting there while George kissed and told, and kissed and told, and kissed and told ad infinitum was a lesson in agony. The Connubial Bliss reports were a right of passage for every knight in Rose & Grave, but I had dreaded hearing George recount every sexual encounter he’d ever had for two reasons: First, I would learn exactly where I fell on his lengthy list. Second, so would everyone else. I had spent a week preparing to hear him report the gory details of our affair to our entire club. But he hadn’t even touched upon it—for reasons that were still beyond my comprehension.

“I could always present a coda,” he said. “If you think it’s necessary.”

“Is that a threat of some sort?” I asked.

“A threat?” He pressed his hand to his chest. “You wound me, Amy.” He also hadn’t called me “Boo” since I’d broken it off in November. It had been Amy outside the tomb and Bugaboo inside. He stared at me through his copper-rimmed glasses. His eyes, gorgeous as always, were steady and unblinking. “I wasn’t even the one to bring it up. You’re the one who has sex on the brain. Feeling frustrated? You can tell me.”

I abandoned the table then and there. Maybe I was frustrated, but I also had a date that could, hypothetically, fix all that.

When Brandon arrived at my room, his face was practically glowing. “I got in!”

“To what?” I said.

“NYU. Math!” He grabbed me and spun me around. “I just had to tell you first.”

I beamed.
Eat your heart out, George.
Knowing that Brandon wanted me to be the first to know his news was so much better than sex. “Oh, Brandon, that’s amazing! I’m so happy for you!” I enclosed him in a hug. “I’m applying for some stuff in New York, too. We could be together there next year. Wouldn’t that be wild?”

And he hugged me again, which was not really an answer, but never let it be said that Amy Maureen Haskel doesn’t do denial with the best of them. I didn’t even have the heart to ask him about his breakup conversation with Felicity after that. He was in such a great mood. Why spoil it with sad remembrances?

Brandon and I spent the rest of the evening in my room, talking about everything in the world but what was going on with him and Felicity, and doing everything in the world except the kind of activity that might lead to something I’d have to relate in a Connubial Bliss report. The rules, apparently, still applied.

Curious.

The pattern repeated for several days in a row. He’d come over, ostensibly there to help me out with my applications, but not a moment’s work would get done. “This is boring,” he’d say. “Let’s put on a DVD. We deserve it.” Which was all well and good, except I didn’t deserve it yet. I still hadn’t gotten into grad school.

Sometimes it felt like senior year in high school all over again. Once you got into college, nothing seemed very important. You’d skip classes, blow off homework, party on weeknights. Now, with most of my friends’ futures secure, I was witness to much of the same behavior all around. Not that I indulged too much. After all, the shenanigans from Dragon’s Head were getting more outlandish every day (I’d taken to keeping my shower supplies out of the bathroom, as the other day I’d found my conditioner bottle filled with blue dye, my soap covered in drain hair, and all the safeties removed from my razor blades), and I was a bit nervous about what they’d try on me if I ventured out and about.

My fellow knights were at a loss as to revenge schemes. Attacking one society member for the crimes of all of them was taboo in our little culture, and we were pretty sure Dragon’s Head was keeping a close eye on their tomb after our most recent raid. Their attacks on me were reminiscent of the kind of pranks we pulled on barbarians, not other society knights. Our rivalries were held to a different standard of honor entirely. Dragon’s Head was breaking the code by treating me like a barbarian. I admit I was beginning to pity—or at least empathize with—poor Micah Price, the last barbarian victim of Rose & Grave. The guy had been a first-class jerk, and had caused a huge amount of pain to both my fellow knight Jenny and the society as a whole. But, on the other hand, we’d filled his apartment with rats. Way worse than crickets.

I felt so left out that on Wednesday, when Brandon asked if I wanted to skip my Geology lecture in favor of taking a short afternoon nap with him, I acquiesced to his demands. After all, maybe this time we’d finally cross the line we’d set back on Valentine’s Day.

We didn’t. And we didn’t again on Thursday after my society meeting, nor on Friday when neither of us were skipping any classes at all.

Meanwhile, every kiss we didn’t share made the next one that much harder to resist. I was lying there beside him during these indulgent—yet platonic—afternoon naps, knowing that it would take little more than a swivel of my hips to bring our bodies into alignment, to cross that invisible and all-important line between right and wrong. So I dared not move, because I was terrified of what his response would be. I knew, somehow, that if anyone was to cross the line, it had to be Brandon, just like it had to be Brandon who came over that night, had to be Brandon to be the first to admit that he missed me, to say that he still wanted me, regardless of our past.

On Saturday, Lydia waylaid me outside my bedroom door.

“I’m worried about you.”

Because I’d turned into a hermit? “I know I haven’t exactly been a social butterfly lately—”

“No, Amy.
Brandon.
” She sat down. “When he came over the night of the Valentine’s Day Ball, I was so excited. Everyone had seen his girlfriend storm out of the dance. I thought they were through, or as good as through.”

“So?”

“So Clarissa apparently told Josh that they’re not.” She gauged my reaction, and I fought to keep it under control. “Josh thinks you don’t care. But I said that couldn’t be so.”

Why did I feel a sudden stab of guilt for disappointing her? “Thanks for discussing me behind my back.” Again.

“You’re welcome. Isn’t it nice to have friends who care? Now tell me what’s going on. Are they broken up? And if not, why not?”

What was going on was that Lydia had gone and gotten herself a perfect boyfriend and had suddenly forgotten how complicated the battle of the sexes could be. “I don’t know,” I said honestly. Maybe they weren’t broken up. Maybe they were, and he was just practicing some sort of…mourning period before becoming involved with someone else. Did I really want to know that answer? “It’s complicated.”

“Bullshit,” Lydia pronounced. “It’s easy. He wants you, or he wants her. They aren’t married. They don’t have shared property or children. They’re
dating
. Sure, there are going to be hurt feelings, but that doesn’t make it complicated. Awkward and potentially hurtful, but not complicated. ‘Hi, Felicity, you’ve been grand and we’ve had a really good time together, but I don’t think it’s fair to keep dating you, since I realized I still have feelings for my ex—as you know—and she wants me back—as you may not know. I’m sorry; I’m a shithead, but you’re fabulous and beautiful and I’m sure there’s a line of amazing guys waiting for the day you’re single.’ See? Easy.”

Felicity was indeed fabulous and beautiful. I didn’t need Lydia or her imaginary suitors-in-the-wings to remind me of that.

“So I can’t see why he’s spending so much time hiding out in your bedroom and
still
dating her.” Lydia shrugged. “Why doesn’t he make a choice? If it makes sense to you, please explain.”

“It’s just that…”
Okay, choose my words carefully here.
“We’ve had such a rocky past. We don’t even know if what is going on between us now
is
a sexual, romantic kind of thing.”

Lydia blinked. “It’s not sexual?”

I ducked my head. “Well, no. It’s, uh—”

“Don’t tell me.
Complicated.
”

“Yes. For now.”

“He’s not being fair to either of you. But especially not to Felicity.”

“So now you’re the patron saint of girlfriends?” I said. Figures. Get a real relationship going and all of a sudden you have no sympathy for those of us on the outside. Wonder what the T.A.’s girlfriend would have said back when it was Lydia infringing upon
her
turf.

“Someone here has to be. Don’t get me wrong: If you
did
want to steal some guy from his girlfriend, and I liked the guy and not the girl, I’d say go for it, as a friend. Ends and means and all’s fair in love and war and a thousand other aphorisms.” She shrugged. “But that’s not what we’re dealing with here. You’re not, apparently, trying for him, and he’s not, apparently, letting go of her. If you’re in a relationship, you have to be in it. If you’re unsure, then you have to be fair and end it.
Really
end it, Amy, not play two people off each other. Brandon, of all people, should know this behavior is unacceptable.” And she fixed me with a look that was impossible to mistake:

Because it hurt him so much when you did it.

“It’s not like what happened with us, Lyds.”

“You’re right. It’s worse. Because Brandon and Felicity had a real relationship that you’re messing with. Amy, you’re
the other woman
. Things never end well for the other woman.”

“I’m not! I told you, we’re not doing anything.” Not really.

Lydia was just shaking her head at me, disbelief rolling off of her in waves. “Right. All those hours in there, bedroom door closed, lights off, no sounds. Bet you’re studying, huh? Bet whatever it is you’re doing, you’d do it in front of your mother, in front of his girlfriend, in front of anyone who cared to watch, and you wouldn’t think twice about it, it’s so aboveboard.”

I swallowed. How had this turned from
I’m worried about you
to an indictment of my behavior? “There are a lot of things I wouldn’t do in front of my mother that are perfectly aboveboard.”

But Lydia was on a roll. “Come on, Miss Digger. You of all people should know that the things you do in secret are private for a reason.”

That was it. I stood, turned, and marched toward my bedroom.

Lydia called after me. “Amy, come back!”

I turned around on the threshold. “Please, Lydia.
You
of all people, with your well-researched secret society factoids, should know what happens when you drop the D-bomb in front of me.” Lydia knew everything about societies, enough to have convinced me all last semester that she was in one. And when you used the name of a society in front of a member, they had to leave the room.

“Only when you feel like obeying that rule,” she replied. “You usually just thumb your nose at all of them.”

Oh, now we were getting down to it. Not only was she appalled by my current romance, but she was also going to get all bitter about the way I chose to handle my society membership. Couldn’t I do anything right in Lydia’s eyes? Was I not so perfect as her darling Josh? He may have buffed up his relationship outlook for her benefit, but he wasn’t a better Digger than I was, yellow sneakers aside.

“I really think that you should pick one thing at a time to be mad at me about.”

“I’m not mad,” she practically shouted. “I’m
concerned
.”

“You’re butting in is what you are,” I practically shouted back. How dare she say such awful things about Brandon? Of course he was going to break up with Felicity! She clearly didn’t know him at all.

“Weren’t you storming out of the room in your little society huff?” my best friend said with a sneer. “Or should I help you along? Rose—”

“You’ve made your point.”

“Don’t think that this conversation is over. I’m not the only one who’s concerned about what’s been going on here.”

“I really wish your boyfriend would stay out of my love life.”

“Funny. I bet Felicity wishes
her
boyfriend would stay out of it, too.”

I slammed the door between us.