Under the Rose Read Online Free PDF Page A

quite sure what motivated the latter. If she didn’t want champagne, Clarissa no doubt had plenty of fancy French spring water.
    “She’s been hiding out all evening,” Clarissa said. “George, want to come with me and get her circulating?”
    George began to edge toward the sideboard. “I think I’ll pass. That girl has always looked at me like she’s Salome and I’m John the Baptist.”
    If he used lines like that more often, Jenny would probably like him better. Clarissa went off to cheer up our resident party-pooping Digger, and Lydia and I found space to perch on the edge of a wingback chair.
    “So what do you think was up with George’s parents?” Lydia asked over the din of the party. “His dad acted like he knew you.”
    “I think we met move-in day freshman year,” I lied smoothly. “Or maybe he got me mixed up with one of the billion girls always dangling off his son.” I knew all about George’s divorced parents’ long-term love-hate (or at least lust-hate) relationship, but George had told me that in confidence, Digger to Digger. The report wasn’t for Lydia’s barbarian ears, or even, as far as I was concerned, for other Diggers until George felt like sharing it himself. Had I not spent last spring keeping the secret of my society big sib Malcolm’s sexual identity?
    Malcolm’s e-mail made him sound so lonely up there in Alaska. I understood his desire to take a gap year before starting business school, especially given the trauma of coming out to his ultra-conservative governor father, but did he have to do it in such an isolated locale? That reminded me, I didn’t finish reading his e-mail.
    Or figure out who had sent me the other one. I looked over at Clarissa and Jenny, whose company had grown. “Excuse me for a minute,” I said to Lydia, who was already waving to a fellow Debate Team member near the cheese fondue, and crossed the room.
    The knot of girls on Jenny’s couch had only two things in common:
     
    1) A small tattoo of a rose inside an elongated hexagon somewhere on their bodies.
    2) The fact that they’d once taken on a group of powerful and vicious men and lived to tell the tale.
     
    Other than that, we didn’t look as if we’d be friends at all, and I wondered if—extreme circumstances aside—we really were. Sure, we’d bonded as taps and at various society events over the summer, but once we got into the schedule of classes and regular meetings, what would we have to talk about? A club of Diggers was supposed to offer one another support and advice. But what did a Hollywood starlet like Odile Dumas have to say to a computer whiz like Jenny Santos? What kind of support could a radical activist like Demetria offer to a socialite like Clarissa Cuthbert?
    Still, you’d think I was the only one questioning stuff if you saw the enthusiasm with which they greeted me. “Hey, chica!” Odile called, pulling me down next to her. “We were talking about Mara. One more girl for our little revolution, eh?”
    “I saw her this afternoon,” I said. “She’s kind of intense.”
    “She’s a classist bitch.” Demetria sniffed. “Did you read her column in The Ivory Tower about how they never should have let women into Eli?”
    “Sounds like a girl the patriarchs would like,” I said. “Did she really write that?” The Ivory Tower is this crazy conservative paper on campus.
    “Yes. Said the school was at its height before they sullied the student population with an excess of estrogen. Wonder what she thinks of breaking the gender barrier at our club?”
    “I wonder why she even accepted the tap,” Clarissa said.
    “You expect a hypocrite to act rationally?” Jenny asked. “She thinks women shouldn’t be at Eli, but she’s a student here. If she really believed we don’t belong here, wouldn’t she be cooling her heels at Wellesley or someplace?” She toyed with the end of her long, dark braid and tucked her chin into her chest, as if the outburst had sapped