Secret Society (9 page)

T
he next day at school, everything with the Society was so far from Phoebe's mind, it was as if none of it had happened at all. What had changed, however, was that Lauren asked her to go out to lunch at a nearby café with her and her friends. Was it really this easy? Suddenly Phoebe felt like she had friends at Chadwick—admittedly, she didn't know these girls well, but she could hang out with them, gossip with them. The girls treated Lauren somewhat indifferently, and Phoebe sensed that there might be tension. She wondered if Lauren had told them anything about the weekend.

More than anything, Phoebe wanted to know more about the Society. It kept eating away at her, this idea that she was entering into something she really didn't know very much about, and yet it also seemed like such a clear, natural progres
sion of things. She had always wanted to succeed, and now here it was, being handed to her on the proverbial silver platter.

She had already scoured the Internet the previous day, reading everything from the paranoid to the scholarly on secret societies. For every completely crazy webpage (and there had been at least three), there were at least five more praising the work of the Society, talking about how it gave anonymously to charity, how it was a breeding ground for future leaders in politics, business, and even culture. She decided to go to the Chadwick library and see if they had anything there.

The school's library was a beautiful facility on the north end of campus, connected to the main building by a series of hallways. It had deep burgundy carpeting, large Palladian windows, and oak refectory tables where you could study in between the stacks. She went to a terminal and typed in several combinations of words to bring up a string of books. Most were in the 300s, the social sciences section. After finding the right row, she pulled out a few and flipped through them. No mentions of the Society, from what she could tell. She really couldn't check them out, anyway, she realized. Phoebe had no idea about how private the Chadwick library database was, but she knew she didn't want any record of her having been interested in the topic. It was too risky.

Was all this right?
she wondered. If it were so secret, didn't that make it sort of, well, wrong? But there were plenty of
secrets that weren't wrong. No one knew much about her life before she had arrived at the school. No one knew she had never had a relationship that had lasted more than a few weeks. That was a secret, of sorts. Maybe this was nothing more than a group of people who were keeping a set of secrets. Was that so wrong? She thought of that Diane Arbus quote that her mom often repeated: “A photograph is a secret about a secret.”

The world was full of secrets. Wasn't it better to be on the inside, knowing them, than on the outside?

On her way out of the library, still in the social sciences section, she passed the end of the 300s. Phoebe stopped cold. A book about Egyptian customs sat on the shelf, and right on its spine was an ankh.

 

That evening, when Lauren came home, her mother was lying on the celadon linen chaise in their living room, drinking from a highball glass. Her purse and two shopping bags of fabric samples had been dumped on the floor next to an ottoman. A classic movie was playing quietly in the background on a flat screen television that was usually hidden within a travertine console; Lauren recognized the dance number with Frank Sinatra and Bing Crosby as one of her mom's favorites.

Even more familiar was the sound of ice clinking in a glass and of her mother's slurred words.

It was six
P.M
., and Diana was already toasted.

“Sweetheart, come over here,” her mother said.

Lauren sat primly on a settee nearby. The more sloppily her mother behaved, the more Lauren wanted to have her act together. Lauren looked at her: her tanned skin, her blonde hair, her thin-as-a-wisp figure. Sometimes her mom looked beautiful, and sometimes she looked like she was wasting away.

“Mom, what happened?”

She glanced at Lauren and then took a sip from her glass. “I lost another client. I had come from shopping at the D&D, and I was loaded down with fabric samples like a pack mule. Ann Moss, the wife of the hedge funder, gives me this speech, right over lunch. Tells me she doesn't think I have it anymore as a decorator. That she's decided to work with someone who promised that she could get into
Architectural Digest.
So she fires me. And says she wants the remainder of her retainer back, that she'll sue me if I don't reimburse her. And then she stuck me with the check for lunch!”

“So let her sue you. You don't need her.”

“After the divorce, I can't afford another lawsuit. At eight hundred dollars an hour, these lawyers will clean you out. I wrote her a check right there. It was only a few thousand. But the principle—it was humiliating!”

“And you've been sitting here ever since?”

“No, I went to Bemelmans,” she said, referring to the bar at The Carlyle. “Figured no one would know me there, that it
would be tourists. Well, I'm on my second martini, when who do I run into but Jack Dunleavy, our accountant. I said that I had just finished having a drink with a friend. Oh, Lauren, I want so much better for you.”

“What do you mean?”

“There is such a short window of opportunity in your life for success—the kind of success you really deserve. And a woman today—well, she's expected to get married, to have children, and to have a spectacular career.”

“Mom, you seem to forget I'm only sixteen.” Lauren poured herself a glass of Pellegrino from a tray that was sitting on a drinks cart.

“I know, but it's just so hard. When you're in college, you're busy. And then you're thrown into the job market. You have to find a husband. And you have to find a way to distinguish yourself from your peers. Don't do what I did.”

“What do you mean?”

“I came out at the International Ball.” Lauren had heard this story a hundred times. “Every young man wanted to go out with me. Unfortunately I picked your father, who after twenty glorious years, decided that he'd had enough.”

“Mom, I know. Dad sucks. But there's nothing you can do about it.”

Her mother continued, “I never had time to develop my talents. At your age, you need to take advantage of every opportunity.”

Lauren wanted so badly to tell her mom about her internship, but her mom's advice was so contradictory. She would tell Lauren to take every chance she had, and then she would chastise her for not doing well enough on her schoolwork. She wouldn't approve of the internship, would dismiss it as nothing more than working in a shop.

She wanted to ask her mom about the Society, to see if she was a member. But from the sound of it, her mom had no clue. Besides, she had promised the Society that she would keep it all to herself.

Her mom was in another world, anyway. “It's so good that you have friends,” she said. “Stick with your friends, honey. They're the ones who will really support you.”

Lauren excused herself to use the powder room—she needed a break from her mother for a moment—and when she returned, Diana had fallen asleep on the couch. Lauren draped a beige cashmere throw over her mom, deciding to let her sleep. When she dimmed the lights, the glittering windows of Park Avenue shone through the sheer, gauzy drapes, illuminating her mother's petite frame.

That evening, Lauren set her alarm early, in case her mom slept through the night and needed to be woken before the household staff arrived.

Lauren knew one thing: She would never be like her mother. She would do everything within her power to make sure that didn't happen.

I
t all started with the ankh.

Late that night, Phoebe was at home, looking at her canvases again. She had stopped by the gallery after school, as her mom needed her to pick up some papers, and the owner, Michelle Schrader, had come out to speak with her. She said she'd heard that Phoebe had been working on a series, and she'd be interested in taking a look at it. Did she have any images she could send?

Phoebe felt short of breath. How had Michelle heard about her art? Maybe her mother had told her.

She rushed home and started looking at her pieces, laying them out on the floor and strategizing what to do with them. They were mixed media pieces, combining abstract painting, collage, and screen printing. They had potential, but they
needed something else. Her book from the library—she figured she could take the Egyptian one out without attracting suspicion—caught her eye. The ankh. Her hand went up to the bandage on the back of her neck. Still healing, she assumed.

She went to her laptop, did an image search, and skimmed through a number of the sites. The ankh symbolized immortality, the union between male and female. It could protect against bad luck or attract good fortune. She even learned its Latin name,
crux ansata,
meaning “cross with a handle.” But no mention of the Society.

It didn't matter; it was better that the ankh wasn't publicly associated with the Society. She looked back to her artwork. She was inspired by the Egyptian imagery, by the possibilities it might allow her.

She got out her sketchbook and started planning a new piece.

 

Down in Soho, Nick waited nervously for Jared Willson at a new lounge, Persepolis, that had a vaguely Middle Eastern theme. Although the idea of doing a party at Twilight was exciting, it also made Nick uneasy. Jared wanted to do the party on Thursdays, the prime night in the club hierarchy, as Fridays and Saturdays were thought of as being for amateurs.

Nick wasn't sure, though, that he could trust Jared. He had heard the rumors: that Jared was a hard partier, that he was on drugs, that he was a dealer. But Nick thought about all
the awful things he had heard people say about him and how they weren't true. He couldn't believe mere gossip. Besides, Jared's family was well known in Manhattan, and he went to a school that was as respected as Chadwick.

Jared greeted Nick and then downed his drink and ordered another from the bartender at Persepolis, who seemed to know him.

“Dude, we'll make it all happen,” he said to Nick. “You have to promise me you can get some of that young crowd, right?”

Nick nodded carefully. He didn't like to promise anything in terms of promoting. You never knew when a club would be hot one minute and not the next; if it would rain, affecting how many people went out that night; or if another, more important event would come up.

“Do you have someone in mind for a DJ?” Nick asked. He wondered if Patch might appreciate the gig. It would actually pay, as opposed to last time, for which, he now realized, he had never thanked Patch. Despite the fact that Patch had screwed up royally by filming the Society initiation, people had still raved about how fantastic the mix was that evening. And Nick wanted some way of letting Patch know that he would forgive him. He had been ignoring Nick ever since their blowup in front of the building on Sunday afternoon. “My friend Patch might be interested in doing it.”

Jared stirred the ice in his glass. “I don't know…is he
a member?” The question surprised Nick. He thought the Conscripts were supposed to know who each and every Initiate was.

“No, he's in my class at Chadwick. He's my best friend,” Nick said. Or was, he thought.

“I don't know if that's a good idea,” Jared said. “We need a name brand, you know, someone people'll recognize.”

Nick nodded. “Of course. I understand.”

“Carlo will have someone in mind, I'm sure.”

As Nick sipped his Coke and the two reviewed the rest of the details of the evening—guest list, bottle service options, door policy—it was as if the meeting were a formality, as if Jared didn't really need Nick at all, as if he had just needed to sniff Nick out and figure out what kind of person he was. Nick was used to marathon brainstorming sessions with other club promoters, using his creativity to get around problems and challenges. Now it was as if the whole thing were happening like clockwork.

 

“Nick!”

Patch took two steps at a time to meet up with Nick the next day. Nick was sitting in front of Chadwick's entrance, looking out at the traffic on York Avenue; his book bag was slung over his shoulder, as if he were about to get up.

“I need to talk to you,” Patch said. It was the most formally
he had ever addressed his friend. Patch was dreading this conversation.

There had been some new developments with his TV deal. Two days earlier, Patch had been quoted in the
New York Observer
in an article about teen vlogs, and his agent had called him to let him know that one company had come out on top in terms of bidding for the rights to produce Patch's show. That morning, Patch had met with Simone Matthews, a producer for the reality TV production company Eyes Wide Open, in order to discuss the creation of a pilot episode. It was the second time he had met with the tall, thirtysome-thing African-American woman with an infectious smile; the first time had been at his agent's offices, before they bought his show.

This time, they had met for an early breakfast at Sant Ambroeus, the Milanese espresso bar on Madison, to discuss how to make PatchWork into a television series. She wanted edgy stuff, she said, if they were going to make this work. She already had interest in
Chadwick Prep
(which the show was going to be called) from countries as far away as Japan. All this was based on a five-minute “sizzle reel” that the company had put together. Simone promised Patch total access in terms of venues; that had been a challenge with the vlog sometimes, when a bar or club would tell Patch he couldn't film (Bungalow 8 was notorious for blocking him because of its high celeb
clientele—although his being underage never seemed to be a problem). Now he felt the pressure to produce really amazing stuff that would wow the TV buyers—the show, after all, still had to be sold to a network or cable channel.

Now, Nick looked up warily. Clearly their fight was still fresh in his mind. “Yeah?”

“I met with a producer this morning. You know, the one I had been telling you about? Anyway, they want to do the show—or at least to make a pilot. But they want stuff that's really over the top, really incredible. I sort of—well, I let it slip about the footage that I have.”

Nick stood up and his voice dropped to a whisper. “Patch, are you insane? I told you that you
cannot
air that footage.”

“What are you so worried about?” Patch knew he was testing his friend, but he wanted to see what Nick would say. He was furious at how Nick acted like Patch needed his permission. Inwardly, though, he wanted to have his friend's blessing.

“I don't know. Look, if you value everything that we have—our friendship, everything, just please, please don't show them that stuff. Tell them you lost it or something.”

“Nick, I can't do that.”

“Why not? You've got plenty of other footage.”

“Nick, I don't, okay? She said, ‘No one is that interested in seeing scene after scene of a bunch of preppies going out drinking.' They want something more.”

Nick shook his head. “So don't do the show.”

Patch felt his anger flaring. This was so easy for Nick to say. “Nick, you don't get it. My life isn't like yours. I don't have carte blanche into any college I want. I don't have a credit card with no spending limit. I have to work for what I get.”

Nick looked at him as if he'd been slapped. “Screw you, Patch. You know I work hard.”

Patch was silent. There were so many vicious things he could say—how he knew Nick had every advantage, how Nick might not even be at Chadwick if it weren't for his family. But he held his tongue, turned around, and walked away. He didn't know what to say, so the fight, he decided, was over.