“I wasn’t looking for comfort then, Brandon,” I tried to explain. “I was looking for action. I did come to you, later. You were wonderful.”

“I really don’t want to be your afterthought.”

I closed my eyes, and the tears that had been building up crashed down my cheeks. “Brandon…”

He turned away then, probably because he wasn’t willing to let himself see me cry. “Here’s the thing, Amy. What all that thinking made me realize was that I’d been kidding myself last weekend in your bedroom. I didn’t just want a title slapped on our relationship. I wanted a relationship. I hoped that if we called it one, then you’d start treating it like one. But from that very first morning, you didn’t. And maybe you never will. You may not kiss other guys at bars now, but that alone doesn’t make you my girlfriend.”

And then he told me that he didn’t want to see me anymore, and that though he’d always care about me, and hoped that we could someday be friends, he couldn’t let our relationship continue in any of the permutations it had enjoyed since February 14th.

Sorry for the summation. His actual words were too brutal to keep in my mind. I excised them that night with large amounts of Finlandia Mango. Lydia held me while I cried, and I believed then that all the secret societies in the world wouldn’t really come between us.

The thing is, I think I knew it would come to this. Brandon could only put up with my bullshit for so long.

Okay, on to happier things. As it turns out, the seniors managed to mobilize the patriarch population much more swiftly than anyone expected, and by the middle of Reading Week, we had our answer: Girls were in.

Understandably, the new taps spent the rest of the week camped out in the tomb, which helped me put Brandon and the rest of my barbarian life out of my mind. I learned all of the tomb’s nooks and crannies, secret rooms and hidden staircases. I combed through the library, and figured out the exact pattern that would make the “clappers” installed in the second-floor skull sconces flicker. (Diggers have a very bizarre sense of humor.) And of course, I crammed for finals, and found that the exam collection in the Rose & Grave library was as helpful as promised.

A secret society tomb during Reading Week is truly a sight to behold. Everywhere, the Diggers had set up little camps from which to corral their troops and prepare for battle. You’d wander through the rooms on a fifteen-minute break from studying, and see tiny microcosms of academia in every corner. Every flat surface, from an empty teak china cabinet to a glass case holding rusty Civil War swords, seemed to sprout families of spiral-bound notebooks, photocopies, textbooks, and laptops whose endless extension cords snaked through the hallways in search of the elusive unused power outlet. The ground around headquarters would be littered with empty pop bottles and cardboard coffee holders, sandwich wrappers and deflated bags of chips. Nearby would be a student’s sleeping-spot, identifiable only because it usually encompassed a slightly more comfortable flat surface and a makeshift pillow (usually a sofa and a balled-up sweater, though Greg Dorian very creatively utilized a stuffed mongoose and a billiard table). My little home was the aforementioned window seat in the Grand Library (no body parts, just books) that looked out onto the well-tended courtyard. The outside yard of Rose & Grave may have looked neglected and uninviting, but the inside was paradise. Funny how so many things worked that way.

A week later, I took my seat in Professor Muravcek’s lecture hall, three number-two pencils in my hand, and a fair dose of serenity in my brain. I’d do fine, even though I’d left a good 500 pages of WAP unread.

I didn’t yet understand that my position was even better than I’d thought.

The T.A. at the lectern lifted several stacks of exams and started up the steps, handing out a dozen or so at the end of each aisle. I lifted my exam packet from the proffered stack and passed the rest along. Once he had finished handing out the materials, he returned to the front of the hall, wrote the time on the chalkboard, and said, “Begin.”

I opened the packet, and a tiny white card fell out.

Dear Initiate,

I sincerely hope you’ve taken careful note of the 1985 final.

It will probably be coming in handy right about now.

Yours in 312,

Shandy, D171

I glanced back at the T.A., who was shuffling papers at the lectern and very determinedly not meeting my eyes. Another Shandy, just like Harun. I wondered if someday there would be another Bugaboo. Forty-five minutes later, I finished my exam, packed up my things, and headed toward the front desk.

“Done so soon?” the T.A. asked.

“Nineteen-eighty-five was a very good year,” I said. It was the year I was born. Of course I’d pick it out of the Diggers’ hefty collection, if only to see what kind of questions they thought were important then.

“I knew you’d think so.” He smiled. “We’re all very impressed with you, you know.”

I blushed. “I didn’t do anything.”

“Oh, yes you did. You put one of your own first. Next to punctuality, that’s the best quality to have.” He cleared his throat. “Too bad you weren’t in my section. I give all my students a pizza party at my house. You could have seen my, ahem, atomic grandfather clock.”

I cannot believe that story got out. “You’re teasing, right?”

“I’d tell you,” he said with a wink, “but then I’d have to kill you.” He pointed at my exam. “You’re sure you have nothing more to tell me about Kitty and Levin?”

I shuddered. “No offense, but I don’t think Russian lit’s my thing. Besides, there’s something I need to do.” I had one of my own who needed me. “Barbarian matters.”

He gave me a mock salute. “Carry on, then, sister.”

I made straight for the offices of the Eli Daily News. The EDN, unlike my own lowly publication, occupied a veritable Gothic castle of a structure on campus. Once upon a time, the building had been home to a rival secret society, which had long ago given up the ghost and relinquished its property to the university, who had added windows and turned it over to their illustrious student media outlet.

Genevieve was at her desk in her tiny private office, and, to her credit, managed to hide the majority of her shock when I barged in. But not all.

“Hi,” I said. “We need to talk. May I sit?”

“Wha—what are you doing here?”

“I’ll give you one guess.”

Her eyes flickered toward the door behind me, as if I were concealing a troupe of hired killers.

Best to nip that fear in the bud. “I’m here to talk about a feature you’ve proposed for the EDN’s commencement issue.”

“Oh?” She raised an eyebrow.

“I’d like to offer an alternative.” She brightened, but I held up my hand. “Not the one you suggested. I’ve never been a fan of blackmail. However, I must admit that I’m not entirely insensitive to your situation.”

“You have no idea what my situation is,” Genevieve snapped.

“On the contrary,” I replied calmly. “I think I understand it better than you do. And I don’t think he’s entirely blameless in this affair.”

“Get…out…of my office.”

“Not until you hear me out.” I waited, but she made no further objection. “Okay, let’s talk. You want to write an excruciating piece of muckraking tabloid fodder about a very dear friend of mine, with the full understanding that the article would do irreparable damage to his interpersonal relationships while not revealing any insufficiency of character. I think this is a Bad Idea.” (When needed, I can swing capital letters with the best of them.)

“Like I said, you don’t understand my situation.”

“I do.” I leaned forward. “I think you’re holding it over his head because what you really want to do is try for a sharp little piece that will assure you a neat job as an investigative journalist at the Post or the Times or the Tribune.”