Tap & Gown (9 page)

“God, I sound awful,” she looked down in her coffee.

And obligingly forthcoming. I smiled. “Nah. I know who you are.” And it wasn’t that awful. Everyone in school read the
EDN
We knew who was in charge. “Tell me about Music and History.”

“I think History, especially modern history, might even be better for me if I want to be with a newspaper after graduation.”

“Do you want to be with a paper after graduation?”

“Yes and no.” She eyed me. “You’re a Lit major?”

“Yes.”

“But you didn’t work for any of the campus publications.”

“I was the editor of the Lit Mag,” I replied.

“Oh.” Her face said she’d meant
real
publications. There’s a reason hardly any magazine publishes short fiction anymore. “Well, what I mean is that in the old days, if you wanted to be a reporter, you worked a beat at some small local paper, moved up, moved to a bigger paper, moved up, et cetera. Now it’s all about getting your MFA and then interning at the
New York Times.”

She sounded as conflicted as I did, which, ironically was better and better for my purposes. “Which would you rather?”

“Well, the beat reporter gig is cheaper,” she said with a laugh.

“But the
New York Times
is nice.” I sipped at my coffee.

Kalani stared into hers. “I think what I’d really like to do is write books.”

At that, I froze. I’d made an attempt at a novel, back in the day. Rose & Grave had found it on my computer and waved a copy of its pathetic pages in my face. “Fiction?” I croaked out, cool as the coffee in my fist.

“Oh, no!” She made a face. “Nonfiction. High-concept. My literary agent is shopping around a few proposals right now.”

Her. Literary. Agent. “Oh.” Probably the one for whom I’d be making photocopies next year. I pictured taking Kalani’s calls and confirming her booking on the
Today
show.

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“It’s social history type of stuff. I’ve written a few ‘this is how our generation feels about XYZ’ pieces for
Marie Claire
and
Salon
, so it’s sort of an expansion of that.” She hunched her shoulders. “Boring, right? Tell me more about the Nabokov class. Promise me I’ll like it better than
War and Peace.”

So I couldn’t hate her. I could be jealous through the whole conversation and all the way back to my dorm room and as I pounded away at my thesis and as I waited for the phone to ring about any of my applications or future plans, but I couldn’t actually dislike her for any of it. She had worked for and therefore obtained things that I had not, in fact, worked for (and therefore hadn’t obtained).

She was too nice to hate. Also, one shouldn’t think bad thoughts about anyone forced to spend time in the vicinity of Topher Cox, as Kalani did every day at the newspaper.

The last person on my short list was easy to find. When he wasn’t working at the
EDN
offices, he was training in the Eli gym. Fencing team.

No, really. Fencing.

I always confuse fencing outfits with beekeeper uniforms. Not that I’m personally familiar with either one. But if I were watching a movie about beekeepers, and a bunch of folks turned up in fencing outfits, I probably wouldn’t think it was strange. (Unlike watching, say, a Regency-set piece where they’re all in Victorian clothing, but then again, I’m a Lit major.)

But both beekeeping and fencing outfits are a lot weirder than period clothing. Unless the period is

“future,” which, according to Hollywood, features some pretty ridiculous fashion. Topher Cox looked pretty ridiculous in his beekeeping outfit. Fencing outfit. Whatever.

The fencing itself was a little cooler. Or maybe I was just really into all those period movies and liked to watch a good swordfight. Unfortunately, very few of the alien beekeeper pairs out there on the mats were having good swordfights. Mostly they hopped around each other in a complex little dance for an undefined period before moving toward each other and striking. Or I think striking. It was always tough to tell who’d won. It reminded me more of those reflex hand-slap games you play when you’re ten.

I didn’t have sports like this at my high school. We had basketball, football, track, stuff like that. I’d never even heard of squash until I got to Eli. Topher came from a world with strange sports like polo, squash, and dressage. Not that we needed another athlete in the club, as Ben’s tap would likely have that covered. But it didn’t hurt.

And there was really no reason to hold it against him, either. After all, my ex-boyfriend Brandon had played badminton, and at the time, I’d found it adorable.

I waited until Topher removed his beekeeping mask and headed over to the bleachers in the rest of his space suit. “Hi, Topher,” I said, as he sucked down the contents of his water bottle. “How’s it going?”

He looked at me. “Who are you?”

An auspicious beginning, to be sure! “Amy Haskel. We met at The Game in Cambridge a while back?” I stopped myself before I could add,
and you drunkenly hit on me
.

He looked skeptical. “Sorry. Hey, have a nice visit, though.” He waved at me and turned to watch the practice.

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“I’m not from Harvard,” I said, and the pleasant mask slipped just a tad. “I go here. I’m a senior.”

Perhaps he would catch on.

He turned back around. “Great,” he said dryly.
Nope
. “What can I do for you?”

Golly, let’s see. You can take my place in the oldest and best secret society on campus, guaranteeing yourself a life of wealth, power, and general fabulosity—or so goes the party line. I wasn’t so sure about when exactly that stuff was supposed to kick in for me.

“I wanted to talk about your recent op-ed in the Daily. The one that posited a justification for sexual harassment as necessary for the continuation of the species.” I don’t know why I was bothering.

Demetria was certain to blackball him after that vile piece of bullshit had run. But I should at least give everyone on my short list a shot.

“Oh, God, another one? Look, write a letter to the editor, like all the others. They print anything less than 150 words and without bad language.”

“Oh, no!” I said, tamping down my urge to strike. He was lucky that
A)
Demetria wasn’t nearby and

B)
his lance was several rows away.

“I was fascinated,” I lied. “I’m an editor emeritus at the Lit Mag, and I was thinking that the situation you put forth at the end—your hypothetical employer and receptionist—would be a really great basis for a short story.”

Actually, I thought it would make a really great basis for cut-rate porn. Topher’s “receptionist” was a slutty tease who secretly wanted it despite her protests to her overbearing but apparently heroic boss.

And it was badly written, too—I agreed with Arielle on that point.

“Huh.”

“You write any fiction?”

“For the Lit Mag?” he scoffed.

Again, with the violent urges. I forced myself to smile sweetly. “Oh, I’m not there anymore. And in a month I’ll be graduating and moving on to the publishing scene in New York. I’m fielding offers now, but I’m thinking definitely agency over publisher. Really work with the talent.”

Inwardly, I gagged. Who was this talking? I sounded like a total sleazeball. Like someone who actually wanted Topher as a replacement. What was the point of pretending to be someone else to impress a person that’s supposed to be like me the way I am? Telling Kalani I was currently in her Russian Novel class had been one thing. This felt completely different.

“Which agency?”

Crap. “William Morris.”

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Interest lit his eyes. Yep, Amy, go for the name recognition.

“I’ll just be an assistant, of course, but if I could even pass your stuff on to someone, give it that little extra push …” I raised my hands, palms up. “Maybe we can talk about your ideas more over dinner?”

He checked out my breasts, then agreed.

Dinner was the waste of time I thought it would be. Before I entered the Hartford College Dining Hall, I promised myself to keep an open mind. Maybe under all that asshole bluster he was really a sensitive soul. Clarissa hadn’t been the rich bitch I’d originally taken her for. Jamie hadn’t been the cold, vindictive misogynist I’d pegged him as. Well, maybe just the cold part. If he was mad, he could frost you like a meat locker.

I’d also promised myself to act like myself. After all, I wasn’t trying to impress Topher. I was trying to get to know him. I couldn’t care less what he thought of me.

Fortunately, I didn’t have to act like much. The topic rarely strayed from Why Topher Cox Is Totally Radical. If I’d thought listening to Arielle’s flattery was boring, listening to Topher’s solipsism was deadly.

“What do you think?” he asked, after finishing his latest spiel on his work, his personal philosophy, his plan for world domination. Who knew anymore?

“Very Bret Easton Ellis,” I replied. Which was true.

“Huh?”

“
American Psycho
. You know, except without the social satire bit.” I took a bite of my burrito.

“Oh, yeah. Love that movie.” Topher nodded vigorously. “I’m totally like Patrick Bateman.”

I blinked at him, my mouth full of burrito I dared not try to swallow under the circumstances. Patrick Bateman was the pathetic, envy-poisoned yuppie, the delusional, wannabe serial killer who narrated the book.

“You mean Christian Bale?” I managed, raising my napkin. “The actor who played him? Also played Batman?” It’s possible he got the names confused. Bateman/Batman. It could happen.1*

“Yeah, whatever. He was so ripped in that film.”

It was too late. I was already picturing Tap Night.
By the order of our Order, I dub thee, Topher Cox,
Patrick Bateman, Knight of Persephone, Order of Rose & Grave
. Hey, if Josh could cart around Keyser Soze as a society code name for a year, I could stick Topher with Bateman.

Not that I wanted to tap him. Kalani was clearly my girl.

“Hi, Amy.” I looked up to see Arielle standing over the table, looking near tears. “Guess you’re in my college tonight.”

For some strange reason, I felt guilty, as if I’d been caught cheating. “Guess so. Do you know Topher?”

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“She does,” Topher said. “We’re old friends, right, Ari?”

Arielle ignored him. “Can I talk to you for a second, Amy? I need your advice on something.”

“Um …” I looked at Topher, who seemed even less tolerable with Arielle nearby, offering to take me away.

“It’ll only take a minute.”

“Okay.” Topher looked unconcerned as I left the table and followed Arielle to a quiet nook just beyond the dining hall. We sat in a pair of leather armchairs. Arielle tucked her legs beneath her.

“What’s up?” I asked her.

Arielle traced a pattern on the leather armrest. “I was wondering … do you think I should join Quill & Ink?”

“I don’t know,” I said. “Do you want to?”

“They interviewed me today,” she said, meeting my eyes now. “Seemed really nice, very enthusiastic.”

Was she trying to make me jealous, or honestly looking for advice? I couldn’t tell. “Maybe it would be fun,” I said.

“But
you
didn’t join them.”

“No,” I admitted. “I didn’t.”

Arielle nodded, slowly. “So I wanted to know if you think I should.”

Oh, I got it now.
Are you going to tap me, Amy, or should I just go ahead and join Quill & Ink?

She cast a glance back into the dining hall. “He’s a real asshole, you know that, right?”

I was quickly figuring it out, yes.

“I just don’t want you to get hurt.”

“Oh,” I said. “I’m not—it’s not—I have a boyfriend.”

But that wasn’t what she meant and we both knew it. I liked Arielle more in this moment than I ever had before. She was the only one on my list of potential taps who I hadn’t had to lie to. It was refreshing to play the game this way—innocently, like the way Lydia teased Josh and me. Both Lydia and Arielle were barbarians, but they knew the score.

“I hooked up with him once,” she said. “Freshman year. Huge mistake, and he hasn’t ever let me live it down.”

“I’m sorry.” Now, how to say this without breaking my vows? “He doesn’t seem like the kind of person I’d trust to know private things about me.”

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