Enchanted Ivy (3 page)

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The man with the book laughed at her expression. "All you have to do is pass."

"And if I don't pass?" Lily asked.

One of the perfect-posture women said, "If you fail, you are free to apply with the rest of the applicants. This test is outside the purview of the admissions committee. But if you fail here, you should not expect an invitation to join Vineyard Club. Indeed, you would not be welcome."

Success meant her dream come true; failure meant exclusion from this (admittedly nice) clubhouse but still a shot at her dream come true. Yeah, she could totally live with that. No wonder Grandpa was smiling so widely he looked like he might burst. She felt the same expression spreading across her face. She was smiling so hard that her cheeks ached. She felt as if a hundred birthday presents, including the pony she'd wanted in third grade and the lime green Volkswagen she wanted now, had landed right in front of her. "What's the Ivy Key?" she asked. "What does it look like? What does it open? What do I do to find it? How do I start?"

At her flood of questions, Mr. Mayfair and several others smiled indulgently.

"That's the test, my dear," the man with the book said.

But ... it could be anything! A locker room key, a dorm room key, a key to a top-secret safe in the university president's office where he kept world-domination plans ... How would she even know if she'd found the right key?

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"Do you accept our challenge?" Mr. Mayfair said. His eyes bored into hers. His expression was so intense that there was only one possible answer.

"Yes, of course, I accept!" she said.

All the Old Boys applauded.

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CHAPTER Two

Mr. Mayfair opened the library door, and music--or sort of music--poured in. Piano notes fell over one another like a rushing waterfall. The cascade of chords exactly matched how Lily was feeling. She pictured herself years later with gray streaks in her hair and an alum's black and orange jacket, remembering this day and saying,
Here, right here, this moment--this is when my life changed.

Better not screw up.

As Mom hit another discordant jumble of notes, Mr. Mayfair's smile slipped. He leveled a look at Grandpa that Lily would have labeled "meaningful" if she could have identified what it meant. "Are you certain?" he asked Grandpa again. "Once she knows--"

"I am," Grandpa said firmly.

"Very well then. It begins now," Mr. Mayfair said. "Good

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luck, Lily Carter." He shut the door, leaving Lily, Grandpa, and Mom alone.

As soon as the door closed, Mom sprang off the piano bench. "She's starting?"

Grandpa beamed. "She accepted the test!"

"Oh, sweetie, yay!" Mom skipped across the room and enveloped Lily in a hug.

Lily felt her jaw drop. "You knew about this?"
Mom
had kept a secret? Lily was torn between being annoyed and impressed. How long had Mom known about the Legacy Test? Days? Weeks? Years? "When did Grandpa tell you?"

As soon as the question was out of her mouth, Lily wished she could suck it back in. She knew better than to ask Mom to remember anything.

Mom's shoulders slumped, and her face collapsed. "I ... I don't know."

"Never mind," Lily said quickly. But the damage was already done.

Shooting Lily a look that made her feel as if she'd poisoned a baby, Grandpa patted Mom's hand as he guided her toward the door. "We'll be checked in at the Fiftieth Reunion tent," he said to Lily. "Ask for our room number at the registration desk when you need to sleep."

She trailed after them. "Wait, can't I come with you? I don't know where to start!" Stepping out the front door of Vineyard Club, she blinked into the midday sun. As her eyes adjusted, she noticed that the tiger-haired college boy was

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leaning against the brick wall in front of the club. His hands were shoved deep in his jeans pockets, and he stared up at the cloudless blue sky.

Grandpa shook his head. "You're going to pass with flying colors, and I don't want anyone to doubt that you did it on your own." He sounded fierce.

Lily wondered how many favors Grandpa had had to call in to arrange this. Mr. Mayfair had said only a select few were chosen, and she knew she wasn't anything special. "I won't let you down, Grandpa."

He softened. "That's my tigerlily. Remember that I believe in you, however the test ends and whatever mysteries you unlock along the way."

The striped-haired boy was regarding them with mild interest, but Lily told herself to ignore him. This was more important than any college boy. "Can you at least tell me what the rules are?" she asked. "Is there a time limit?"

"You have until the end of Reunions," he said. "Sunday, we go home."

Before she could ask any more questions, he turned and strode down the walk. Mom blew her a kiss and scurried after him. Feeling like a toddler left at preschool for the first time, Lily watched them head out the gate and onto the sidewalk.

The tiger-haired boy watched them too.

The street that Mom and Grandpa were walking down (Prospect Avenue, according to the street signs) was lined

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with other mansions in both directions--more eating clubs, she guessed. She saw an oversize cottage, a
Gone with the Wind
-like house with white pillars and a broad porch, and a squat brick monstrosity with an orange and black cannon on its front lawn. All were past their peak glory. Paint chipped off the grand entrances, and plywood covered several windows. One had a couch on its roof. She couldn't imagine how or why anyone would put a couch on a roof.

I'm so not ready for this,
she thought.

As she watched Mom and Grandpa pass the club with the cannon on the lawn, Lily wanted to chase after them. But Grandpa's words rooted her where she stood. She couldn't let him down, and if she ran after him in full view of Vineyard Club ... She pictured the Old Boys peering out the windows, clucking their tongues in disapproval. The heavyset woman with the ivory-tipped cane most likely already had a notebook full of Lily's inadequacies: drops her
r
's at the end of words, wears uneven socks, doesn't curtsy at greetings, isn't clever enough or pretty enough or perky enough ...
Stop it,
she ordered herself. She could do this. Grandpa believed in her. She was just freaked out because she hadn't pictured herself alone on a college campus so soon.

But she wasn't alone. There was the tiger-haired boy.

She grinned at herself. Yeah, right, as if she could walk up to a real-life college boy and ask him about the Ivy Key. He still leaned against the brick wall, as coolly casual as a modern James Dean. She couldn't talk to him. She wasn't in

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the same league as guys like that. She was barely from the same universe. It was enough that she'd have to walk past him.

And she
would
have to walk past him. Soon. If she kept dithering here on the steps of the club, the Old Boys would pronounce her the worst candidate they'd ever seen and blackball her admissions application to every college except those online schools that advertised in movie theaters. Lily ordered her feet to walk. She was hyperaware when she passed the college boy, but she willed herself not to look at him. If she looked, she'd stare.

On the sidewalk, she halted.
Right or left?
she wondered. She selected right. She didn't want Grandpa to think she was following them.

"Other way," Tiger Boy said behind her. His voice was soft, sort of velvety.

"Me?" she asked, pivoting to face him. Up close, his hair looked amazingly natural. It was soft orange and black, muted like the fur of a tiger-striped cat. Stray bits fell over his eyes. She imagined brushing them away from his face. She looked down and studied her sneakers instead.

"Main campus is left," he said. "Just ordinary houses to the right. Very boring. Unless you're invited to a barbecue."

"Barbecues are good," she said. Oh, God, what was she saying? Why was she talking about barbecues? "Unless you're a vegetarian, of course."

"Of course," he agreed amiably.

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She felt herself blushing. The first college boy who'd ever talked to her must think she was an idiot. She told herself it didn't matter what he thought of her, even if he was extremely cool-looking and had a dreamy voice and was a student at her dream school. ... "I'll go left," she said.

"Good choice," he said. A small smile played on his lips. "You should take a tour."

Her blush spread down her neck. She felt as if the words "high school student" were stamped on her forehead. "I'll be fine," she said. "Uh, thanks."

"Look for someone walking backward, and that will be the Orange Key Tour."

She opened her mouth to say no, thanks, she didn't have time for a tour right now, but then the name of the tour sank in: Orange
Key
Tour.

He winked at her and then ambled off across the street.

She stared after him for a moment and then shook herself. Clearly, he--whoever he was--had given her a clue.

Filled with purpose, Lily headed left, down the street toward campus. She was swept up in a steady stream of alumni that flowed into and out of the clubs. As Grandpa had promised, she saw worse outfits than his blazer: orange jean jackets, black and orange trench coats, orange satin smoking jackets. She crossed the street within a flock of alums dressed in crossing-guard orange Hawaiian shirts.

Slowing with the crowd, she began to wonder if she was wrong. The tour name could have been a coincidence, not a

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clue. She could end up wandering around all weekend until her nerves snapped and she resorted to stealing car keys from drunken alums and toting them in a Santa Claus sack to Vineyard on Sunday. ... She climbed a set of steps that led to a brick archway. Above her, the arch was decorated with stone gargoyles. Little carvings of monkeys curled into rosettes. One side of the arch had a frieze carved into the shape of a tiger's head. Four stone monkeys crawled over the tiger's face.

One of the monkeys turned its stone head and looked at her.

Lily lost her footing on the steps. She caught herself on the railing, and an alum steadied her elbow. "Are you all right?" he asked.

"Fine, thanks," she said automatically.

The alum continued on.

She was most definitely
not
fine. Clutching the railing, Lily stared at the monkey gargoyle. It didn't move.

Of course it didn't move,
she told herself.
It's stone.
She must have imagined it.

Lily climbed the remaining steps and leaned against a wall inside the archway, out of sight of the gargoyles. A plaque on the wall labeled the building as 1879 Hall.

Please, don't let me have a brain hiccup.

She was genetically predisposed to them. She took a half dose of the same medication as Mom to prevent their onset. Until now, it had worked. But until now, she'd never had such

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an important weekend. Her raised stress levels ...
No,
she thought. She wasn't going to let Mom's illness beat her. Not here and not now. Lily reached into her pocket and pulled out Mom's medicine vial. She uncorked it and chugged the syrupy silver liquid. It tickled her throat as she swallowed.

Now she was safe from hallucinations and memory lapses and any behavior that would make a college admissions officer look at her as if she were less welcome than dog poo on an Oriental rug. She had double her usual dose in her. Or was it triple? Grandpa was always so careful with the dosage, and Mom's doses were twice the strength of hers. ...

Oh, crap,
she thought.

Lily flipped open her cell phone and then stopped. Grandpa would not be happy if he found out she'd panicked five minutes into her test. She should wait to see if any abnormal symptoms developed before she called him.

Pacing back and forth, she waited for signs of a seizure, heart attack, or frothing at the mouth. But aside from a ringing in her ears (which she decided was a distant radio), she felt fine.

She needed to calm down. Yes, this was an incredible, once-in-a-lifetime, unexpected opportunity--and calling it that was
not
helping. Lily took a deep breath. She needed to treat this as if it were an outing with Mom. She had to remain calm, stay in control, and try not to do anything stupid.

Like overdose on antipsychosis medication.

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Stop it,
she told herself. Done was done, and now she had to continue on. Her best bet for where to find an Orange Key Tour was the center of campus. Tucking both the empty medicine vial and her cell phone back into her pocket, she strode out of the arch without looking at the gargoyles.

Almost immediately, the ringing in her ears worsened. It sounded like dissonant notes, blurring into a steady hum. It peaked as she reached a campus road hedged with rhododendron bushes and evergreens. She guessed she was hearing overlapping music from the various Reunion tents beyond the shrubbery. Grandpa had said that each Reunions class had a fenced-off area with its own swing band, country band, disco band, or DJ. That was a much more likely explanation than that the hum was a side effect of too much medication. She pushed aside worries about overdoses and brain hiccups and instead focused on her first view of the heart of campus.

Ahead was a plaza with a soaring cathedral. To her right were Gothic classrooms draped in wisteria. To her left was an ivy-edged walk lined with lampposts. Following a campus road, she passed the cathedral plaza and headed for a wide green lawn flanked by twin, white marble, templelike buildings. This was the Princeton University that she'd been dying to see. Gothic turrets. Gleaming marble buildings. Massive oak and elm and sycamore trees. Lawns so green that the grass looked as if it had been combed and cut by a master barber rather than a lawn mower. And a flock