“Miss Dumas,” said the familiar-looking patriarch. “Do you need a booster seat?”

Odile, to her credit, didn’t take the bait. “Oh, no,” she said. “From this vantage point, I get a much better look at your boogers.”

Josh snickered.

“Do you find this amusing, Mr. Silver?” the man snapped.

“Yes, sir,” he replied. “I find it very amusing that you thought this little snafu was important enough to leave the White House for.”

Ah, now I recognized him. Kurt Gehry, White House Chief of Staff. He was a Digger? Explained so much!

Demetria cleared her throat and stood. “Well, since I don’t want to be stuck at the kiddie table for any longer than strictly necessary, let’s get to the point. We, the current members of Rose & Grave, are here to argue for reinstated access to the tomb on High Street.”

“And as a corollary,” Josh added, “we demand that you withdraw any suggestions you might have made to our employers about our work ethics, trustworthiness, and any other negative opinions you shared.”

There was a long spate of silence. And then Mr. Cuthbert spoke up. “No.”

“But you have no right to do this,” Demetria said.

“And you, Miss Robinson, have no right to be wearing that pin. You have no right to access to the Rose & Grave tomb, and indeed have no right to be addressing this board. The individuals who tapped and initiated you without the permission of the trustees have been stripped of their alignment with our organization, and therefore your initiation is nullified. Is that not correct, Barebones?”

Gehry nodded.

“You don’t have the power to kick us out,” Malcolm said quietly. “We’re the members. We control the choice of taps.”

“Interesting theory, but alas, the fact of the matter is that money controls the fate of the organization, and we control the money, not the seniors. If those in a position of power refuse to recognize you, you won’t be recognized. Your Political Science courses must have taught you that.”

“They taught me what became of history’s overblown dictators.”

Cuthbert chose not to recognize that little jibe, either. And, while he was at it, he also chose not to recognize the fact that his daughter was staring at him, openmouthed. “And where are your so-called brothers now, Mr. Cabot?” he said instead.

“More are coming.” (Damn Manhattan traffic!) Malcolm looked at Poe. “What do you have to say for yourself?”

Poe spoke at last. “I was always against the inclusion of women without the express permission from the board of trustees.”

“Poe informed us of your plan,” said Mr. Cuthbert, smugly. Thirteen pairs of eyes shot daggers at the dark-haired senior. No wonder they were using his society name and calling the rest of us Miss This and Mr. That. (Though, in retrospect, they should all be liable for fines for speaking society code names in the presence of people they’d deemed “barbarians.” Note to self: See if there’s a statute of limitations on those levies.)

“You jerk,” Malcolm said, staring at Poe with ice in his eyes. “What are you doing?”

Poe ignored him.

Josh tried to steer the conversation back to the point. “We would like to open a dialogue with you about your difficulties with the seniors’ choice of taps.” We had, in fact, spent several hours last evening configuring exactly the types of arguments we’d be making and who would be making them. Naturally, we left the bulk of the conversation to be handled by those in the group more used to formal debates—i.e., Josh and Demetria.

“We had no difficulty with the choice of you,” Gehry said, nodding at Josh. “It’s unfortunate that you were a member of an invalidated class.”

“And yet,” argued Nikolos, according to our script, “you never gave us the opportunity to denounce the females and pick new men to replace them.” He’d been very keen on making that point, if only, he argued, because it would make the patriarchs rethink their hasty plan. I thought it made him sound like a prick, but hey, to each his own.

“Would that have been an option?” another patriarch asked.

Nikolos shot a glance at Odile. “No,” he mumbled.

“You may think it’s a case of throwing the baby out with the bathwater,” said another, “but we feel it is best to start fresh with a class untainted by this…incident. The board has already selected a new list of taps from the remainder of the junior class.”

“Oh, that’s rich,” Malcolm snapped, and even Poe looked surprised to hear the news. “Who the hell are you going to get now, after all the other societies have picked them over?”

“That does not concern you, Mr. Cabot.”

I rolled my eyes. Yeah, like all that was left was a bunch of slobs? Come on, Malcolm. This was Eli University. There were plenty of superstars who weren’t in societies. They might even be planning to tap Brandon, for all we knew. (And good luck with that endeavor!) Just because you weren’t in a secret society didn’t mean you weren’t worthy. It could mean that you’d gotten into a fight with your ex-boyfriend.

“What’s your problem with women?” Demetria cut to the chase. “Rose & Grave has, in the last few decades, opened its tap list to minorities, foreigners, homosexuals, people of different religions, creeds, social standings—why not females?”

“It is no prejudice against women,” one of the patriarchs said, and proceeded to neatly sidestep all of our intentions. “We just don’t feel as if there is any reason to start tapping them. Rose & Grave is a fraternal organization, just like the pale mockery that is the Greek frat system infesting every campus in the country. The inclusion of females would permanently alter the makeup of the society and the character of its meetings.”

“It will turn us into a goddamn dating club,” another sniffed.

“I can already foresee the accusations of rape.”

“What the hell did you people do in there!” Malcolm blurted out.

“Nothing that would interest you, boy,” Gehry snapped.

Cuthbert said with finality, “The women can feel free to start any society they so choose. We will not interfere.”

Well, there went our script and all the best-laid plans of Josh and Demetria.

“You feel strongly enough about all this to sabotage our lives?” Kevin asked, deviating completely. “I lost my job in L.A. because of you wankers.”

“Right,” Josh added. You could almost see him trying to wrestle this back into his comfort zone. He’d need to work on his poker face a bit before graduating to televised debates. “Such behavior doesn’t indicate a simple disinterest in the fairer sex, boys. You care about this too much.”

“You misunderstand,” Cuthbert replied. “We merely do what we must to maintain the integrity of the organization. The seniors went behind our backs. They were punished, and the illegitimates warned about what we could do if they fought. If you fought. It’s a simple operation that has nothing to do with how the board feels about any policy. We do not tolerate any deviation from the oaths, and we strongly believe that to include women in Rose & Grave goes expressly against the mission of our Order, and therefore, all the seniors have violated the oath of fidelity. QED.”

Odile shook her head, and her long hair glistened. “It goes against the oath in your opinion. I happen to believe that the only way to make this society viable in the next century is to recognize that this isn’t a boys’ game anymore.”

The man between us began scribbling. I looked down at his legal pad to see a page of hastily scrawled notes. The most recent read: “This is a co-ed world. Why should we not have a co-ed society?”

Did the students have allies among this crowd? And if so, why weren’t they speaking up? The man at my side held his jaw tight in check and scribbled away on his notebook, occasionally pressing the pen so hard that the ink made splotches on the page.