Secret Society Girl

I hereby confess my tremendous gratitude to Bantam Dell: Mr. Irwyn Applebaum, Nita Taublib, Gina Wachtel, Tracy Devine, Paolo Pepe, Kelly Chian, Carol Russo, Pam Feinstein, Shawn O‘Gallagher, Rachael Dorman, and especially to my champion and friend, the tireless editorial genius Kerri Buckley, who from the very first moment understood Amy almost better than I did, and who I knew would be the perfect tap. Kerri, if I could order an editor custom-made, I‘d ask for someone as extraordinary as you.

I‘m blown away by the unfailing judgment and vision of Deidre Knight, who has been with me every step of the way, and whose super secret-agent moves are an asset to any society. I‘m so glad you‘re a knight in mine.

Love and whopping big hugs to my parents, who, despite the decades‘ worth of ribbing about books at Bucs games, have always encouraged me. Your happiness and enthusiasm are joys to behold. Thank you for all the opportunities you have given me and for your endless dedication to your children and their dreams.

Also, to Luke and Brian, the coolest brothers I‘ve ever had, and the rest of my family and childhood friends who put up with and participated in my stories, thank you. Special recognition to Beth for her spot-on designs and Tara for making my vision a reality. Volumes of thanks to my teachers, who over the years tolerated and even encouraged my scribblings, and trusted that I would become a woman of words.

Three cheers for Marley Gibson, the most loyal friend and outrageous critique partner, who took it upon herself to pitch this manuscript sight unseen and ―had a feeling‖ about it from the start. I owe so much to my writing friends: Lex; CLW; Colleen, Elly, Jana, and Wendy; and above all, TARA. I am especially grateful to Cheryl Wilson, who gave me a home and a sense of my own strengths, and to Julie Leto, who got me into this whole mess and has always provided a shining example of the kind of writer I want to be when I grow up.

I am indebted to Jacki and Bob, who let me live in their house while developing the seed of this story and celebrated my sale as if I was one of their own. And props to the whole D.C. crowd for making me feel so at home.

All my appreciation to fellow Bulldogs Lauren, Nicola, and Mackenzie, and further gratitude

and apologies to all my bright college friends and companions, who may or may not see themselves in these pages. Here‘s a hint: if it‘s good, it‘s totally about you. If it‘s bad, it‘s about, um…someone else. And also, I bow to the loose lips of my secret sources. Thank you for not killing me after telling me.

And, finally, my most ardent admiration and love to my partner, Dan. You‘re the person who made me believe I‘d do it, and you‘ve demonstrated your faith with every step and sacrifice along the way.
Aspiret primo Fortuna labori.

DIANA PETERFREUND graduated from Yale University in 2001 with degrees in geology and literature. A former food critic, she now resides in Washington, D.C.; this is her first novel.

Bantam Dell will publish the second book in the Secret Society Girl series in Summer 2007.

1)
Clarissa Cuthbert:
Angel

2)
Gregory Dorian:
Bond

3)
Odile Dumas:
Little Demon

4)
Benjamin Edwards:
Big Demon

5)
Howard First:
Number Two

6)
Amy Haskel:
Bugaboo

7)
Nikolos Dmitri Kandes IV:
Graverobber

8)
Kevin Lee:
Frodo

9)
Omar Mathabane:
Kismet

10)
George Harrison Prescott:
Puck

11)
Demetria Robinson:
Thorndike

12)
Jennifer Santos:
Lucky

13)
Harun Sarmast:
Tristram Shandy

14)
Joshua Silver:
Keyser Soze

15)
Mara Taserati:
Juno

It all began on a day in late April of my junior year. I was in my dorm room, for once, trying to squeeze in a load of laundry between a tuna salad sandwich in the dining hall and my afternoon lecture on
War and Peace,
or as I like to think of it, WAP. (That‘s not an acronym, by the way, but onomatopoeia. It‘s the sound the hefty volume makes when I drop it on my desk.) Professor Muravcek‘s*1lectures tended toward the impenetrable side and I wanted to spend some time brushing up on my notes. I was tilting toward a B in that class, which was unacceptable if I wanted to graduate with honors in the major. However, it was either laundry or rushing out that night to buy a new package of underwear. You know you‘re desperate when trekking downtown to GAP Body is easier than waiting for a free dryer.

But neither Tide nor Tolstoy was in the cards for me that afternoon. I‘d just finished disentangling my fuchsia lace thong (Friday night date panties) from the legs of my ―going out jeans‖ and was on my way out the door with a load of darks when the phone rang.

Crap. It was probably my mom. She seemed to have a divine sense of when I‘d be in my room.

I balanced the basket on my hip and picked up the phone. ―Hello?‖

―Amy Maureen Haskel?‖

―You got her,‖ I said, shaking one of my balled-up gym socks free.

―Your presence is required at 750 College Street, room 400, at two o‘clock this afternoon.‖

Two o‘clock was in fifteen minutes. ―Who is this?‖

―750 College Street, room 400. TwoP.M. ‖ And then the line went dead.

I plopped back onto the faded couch, strewing tank tops and pj bottoms across the floor. Talk about rotten timing.

There was no question in my mind who it was on the other end of the phone. Quill & Ink was the ―literary‖ senior society on campus, the usual refuge for scribblers of all varieties. It boasted several well-known writers amongst its alumni, and as the current editor-in-chief of the campus literary magazine, I knew I was a shoo-in, just like my predecessor Glenda Foster had been before me. That is, I would be if I made it to the afternoon‘s impromptu interview.

I was going to have to have a long talk with Glenda. She was in the Russian Novel class, too, and knew I was struggling, yet still scheduled my society interview during lecture time!

Society interviews were always arranged on super-short notice. Part of the test was to see if you could get there. I hadn‘t yet figured out what they did if the prospective tap didn‘t answer her phone—if she was busy, for example, enduring both the crime and the punishment of Professor Muravcek‘s soporific speaking voice.

Laundry all but forgotten, I hurried back into my room. Though the interview would be merely a formality, I fully intended to follow along with society pomp and circumstance and dress up.

(Societies are all about the spectacle.) My suit was crammed in the back of my closet behind my ski jacket and the flared velvet getup I‘d worn to February‘s seventies-themed Boogie Night. I hadn‘t worn my suit since January‘s spate of internship interviews, during which I‘d landed a posh (insert eye roll here) summer job xeroxing form rejections at Horton. It needed a good lint brushing, but otherwise, it was okay. I paired it with a fresh cotton shell, and went spelunking for a pair of panty hose sans runs. On the third dip into my underwear drawer, I found one. When, oh, when will I learn to throw away unusable nylons? (Not today, apparently.) I stuffed the other two pairs back in the drawer and wrestled the third onto my legs. I needed to shave, but the nylons would cover that.

In January, I‘d gotten my light brown hair cut into one of those shoulder-length, multilayered bobs I was positive was the height of fashion for the Manhattan literati. (It wasn‘t.) The downside of the cut was that, even with three months‘ growth, it took twenty minutes with a blow dryer and a big round brush to make it look halfway decent. I didn‘t have that kind of time right now, so I was relegated to ponytail-ville.

I slipped into my black pumps and clopped through my suite‘s early Gothic—complete with lead-veined windows—common room. We have one of the sweetest setups in the whole residential college—two sizeable singles connected by a wood-lined common room that featured a non-working, but darn pretty, fireplace. Only downside is the slightly pockmarked hardwood floor. Have I mentioned how much I hate heels?