Chapter 7
The entire school is in attendance at the mixer: the common room at Skinner Hall is packed from the entranceway to the massive oil portrait of Joseph Skinner, Jr. himself. Freshmen are clumped together in anxious packs of ten and fifteen, sophomores are a little more boisterous, and juniors run around the building like they’ve just been released from prison. Only the seniors maintain an air of poise and sophistication, greeting every new student with a smile and handshake.
The hallway is decorated with garlands of fresh flowers and candelabras of white and gold. Across the room, students line up at a buffet of hot and cold appetizers. Julia smoothly plucks a plastic name tag from a selection on a table in the entranceway.
I search the table but can’t find mine. Finally, I spot one that’s kind of similar: 'Calpolie Ballflour.' Wow. That couldn’t be more wrong than if they used numbers instead of letters. Close enough, I suppose. I pin it on anyway.
“There’s Fiona,” Julia says, pointing to her bff holding court beneath the Skinner portrait. “Come on.”
As we make our way through the crowd – my roommate insists on walking directly through the groups whereas I would have wandered around the outside, clinging to the wood-paneled walls – I keep my arms by my sides and my head down. Just to be on the safe side, I pull my hoodie up so it covers the sides of my face.
Did I mention Fiona is pretty in that perfectly-symmetrical preppy way? Round hazel eyes, pert upturned nose, dimpled chin. I notice that she and Julia both favor color-coordinated wardrobes but where my roommate is partial to the sunny themes and lightweight fabrics of Lilly Pulitzer, Fiona Geddes keeps the brooding Brooks Brothers in business.
Her sling tonight is khaki-colored to match her cashmere sweater which I notice because she uses it to shoo the girls away from her as Julia arrives. They scatter at her silent command.
“Sweetie, hi,” Fiona says, offering Julia a kiss on both cheeks. Her eyes light up and she seems genuinely happy to see Julia.
Until I appear beside her. Fiona doesn’t even attempt to keep the disappointment off her face.
“You remember my new roommate,” Julia says, drawing me in closer to form a peculiarly off-balance triangle: me and Julia smashed together on one side and Fiona, aloof, on the other.
Fiona stares down her nose at the name tag on my sweater. “Calpolie, of course,” she says, holding her hand out for a limp shake.
We sat at lunch together!
I ignore her hand and smile through gritted teeth. “It’s Calliope.”
“It is?” Fiona wrinkles her nose. “What a funny name.”
“I think it’s really pretty,” Julia says. “Calliope Bellflower,” she trills with a smile, earning my eternal gratitude.
It’s unusual, I know, but that’s what you get when a sixteen year-old high school dropout names you. My mother’s second choice was probably “Britney.”
“Are you cold or something?” Fiona asks me, staring at my hoodie. “My god, it’s like a thousand degrees in here.” She pulls at the neck of her cashmere sweater with her good arm.
“Oh behave, Fiona,” Julia says. She takes Fiona’s arm and mine so now the three of us are linked. I wonder if I’m absorbing Fiona’s through Julia but no, that has to be impossible. It has to be. It better be.
The room feels clammy and much too small. I carefully disengage myself from Julia and take a step back. Just in case.
“Have you seen Mack yet?” Julia asks as she glances around the room. “He’s supposed to be coming back today.”
Fiona shakes her head. “You would know.”
Julia frets. “He texted me before his plane left but that was almost five hours ago. He should have gotten here from by now.” She turns to me, explaining, “My boyfriend, Mackenzie, is coming from Miami.”
Because I remember the emails from the summer, I almost add, Where he was training for the Olympic swim team, but I nod instead and wait for my roommate to tell me herself.
“He was training for the Olympics,” Julia says.
“Ah.”
“He probably won’t make it,” Fiona says, matter-of-factly.
“Fi! Why would you say that?”
Fiona shrugs and her gaze slowly circles the room. “It’s the Olympics, Jules. Mack is good for Darby Prep but…”
“But what?”
“Well…”
“Well what, Fi?” Julia puts her hands on her hips, squaring off against her best friend.
“Look, sweetie, I love you and Mack and I think you’re great together but…”
“Stop doing that!” Julia says. “Stop trailing off like that.”
If I wasn’t paying attention, I might not have noticed the tiny smile on Fiona’s thin lips. But I was and I did. Fiona is getting off on making Julia feel bad. She is an MG. I make a mental note to watch my step around her. If she can do this to a close friend, what might she do to me?
“I’m sure it’s just the weather that’s keeping him,” I tell Julia, getting the conversation back to her boyfriend. She smiles gratefully at me.
“Yeah, you’re probably right.”
“The rain, you know?”
“Oh god, yes. It rains all the time here.”
“So I’ve noticed,” I grimace and we both laugh.
Fiona, however, doesn’t like this change in tone especially since she’s not controlling it. She clears her throat ostentatiously to get our attention.
“Jules, we need to talk to the girls about initiation.” She nods in the direction of the group of girls who had cleared out when Julia and I arrived. They seem to be waiting impatiently near the buffet table, a cluster of anxious faces sneaking glances at us every few seconds.
Julia raises her eyebrows at Fiona and then over to me. “Don’t you have something to say to Callie first?”
“Me?”
“Now?” Fiona asks.
“Today is tap day.”
“Her? Are you sure?”
“Me?”
“Fi…”
“Whatever,” Fiona says. “Go ahead.”
Julia rolls her eyes. “You’re the president, Fi. You have to say it.”
Fiona looks like the weight of the world is on her cashmere-covered shoulders. She lowers her voice and leans closer to me. “'Bell, book, and candle shall not drive me back, when gold and silver becks me to come on.'”
“Excuse me?”
“I, Fiona Geddes, as current president of Alpha chapter, hereby invite you to join Bell Book and Candle. Do you accept?”
“Excuse—”
“You’ve been tapped,” Julia whispers.
“I’ve—”
“We don’t literally tap people anymore,” Fiona says.
“Excu—”
“To join our group.”
I lower my own voice as Julia and Fiona have. “What group?”
“You haven’t told her anything yet?”
Julia looks down at her feet. “I’ve been busy.”
“Busy texting Mack,” Fiona says. “Tell her now.”
“Bell Book and Candle dates back to when the school was first founded in the 18th Century. At first it was all boys, then co-ed and eventually it evolved to what it is today.”
“It’s a club?”
“A sorority.”
“A secret sorority,” Fiona adds.
“We’re more like a philanthropic organization,” Julia explains. “But we’re fun! We’re all like sisters and we do whatever we can to help each other out when we go to college and when we have to get jobs. It’s our own old girls’ network.”
That sounds like a very bad idea, Callie, I hear Aunt Beatrix telling me.
“Is there hazing? You know, like you have to drink a gallon of water in a minute or run around campus in your underwear?”
Julia laughs. “No, no. Nothing like that. I told you, we’re fun. We do good things. Charities and stuff.”
I look over at Fiona. “You’re the president?”
“Of this chapter,” she says. “Julia’s vice president.”
“And it’s all a secret?”
“Well…mostly.”
Fiona snorts. “It used to be but now Julia wants everyone to join.”
“Ignore her,” my roommate says. “I want you to join. I think you’ll like us.”
Secret sorority. The words hiss in the back of my throat. Oh wow, this could be amazingly cool and make transferring from Sisters and moving to this rain-soaked cove completely worth the hassle. I feel a giggle bubble up like to tingle my tongue and I have to swallow to keep from laughing out loud. Me? In a secret club?
“Did I mention the parties?” Julia’s smile is sly.
“Um…”
“With guys.”
“With…”
She cocks her head at me. “You want to meet someone?”
“I, um, no. Maybe. No.”
No boys! No dating!
Bea would flip out.
Bea will flip out.
Bea cannot know.
“That sounds awesome,” I say.
“You can think about—”
“I want to join.”
Julia’s grin grows. “Yeah?”
“Oh yeah.”
This is exactly what I want, what I need. Bea cannot know, I remind myself. Can. Not. Know.
“Cool, cool,” Julia says and her eyes meet Fiona’s before flicking back to me. “Well, why don’t you go back to the room and we’ll talk about it later?”
“But the mixer—”
“The mixer’s lame,” Fiona says. “We only come here because it’s Tap Night.” She hooks her good arm under Julia’s elbow and turns her from me. “And now, we have work to do.”
Julia, cheerful once more – she’s easily placated, it seems to me - tools her fingers. “See you later, Callie!”
I watch them become enveloped by the group of girls, the members of Bell Book and Candle presumably. Part of me is relieved to be headed back to the dorm: being surrounded by too many people, too much strange , makes me uneasy. I don’t want to absorb some random student’s genetic material, after all.
On the other hand, I want to be here, to be among the Popular. And then a thought hits me: I soon will be!
Ahhhhhhhhh! A secret society wants me!
Really? A secret society wants me?
The more I think about it…no, no, stop! Stop right there, Callie! I have to get back to my room now before anything happens.
I stick to the walls on my way out, mindful of where I am stepping and who I am stepping around. Mere yards from the exit and safety, I feel eyes on me, as if someone were watching me from across the room.
I peek over my shoulder, toward the groups of students clustered around the food and drink tables, behind the DJ booth, but see no one staring back. I find Julia with Fiona and the rest of the girls. Now guys are coming to join their group: the good-looking, the athletes, the BMOC’s.
Again, I feel eyes on me. My neck snaps my gaze around the room. Those freshmen frolicking near the punch? No. This trio? That quartet? No and no.
Trying to shake my head free of the feeling, I take one last glance around the room – and find my aunt Beatrix standing near the coffee urn and tea cups with another woman. She’s engrossed in conversation and doesn’t notice me, thank god. Not that she’d have forbidden me from attending the mixer but she would have wanted me to stick close by her side where she could keep an eye on me.
I duck behind a pillar and watch Bea chat with the woman, another teacher around her age, both wearing similar conservative skirt suits. Bea smiles but her eyes are guarded, just like the rest of her. She’s sussing out the new situation, I’ll bet, trying to figure out who she can talk to and who she must avoid.
I know what her conclusion will be: talk to no one, avoid everyone. She will be in a new place and have no new friends, no boyfriend. No one but me.
Oh Bea, why? Why does everything have to be so clandestine?
Why can’t we be normal?