“I’m never going to get the feel of powdered drywall out of my hair,” Clarissa whined. “And my manicurist is going to shoot me for what I’ve done to my nails.”
“Do you regret it?” Demetria asked, pulling off I-91 and onto the quiet streets of New Haven.
Clarissa grinned. “Not a minute.”
“You’d better get it together,” Jenny said in mock warning. “I don’t want a CFO who isn’t presentable.”
I smiled out the window. While others had used the road trip to get their futures in order, the drive up to Connecticut had given me too much spare time to ruminate on all the questions that remained unanswered. How long had Darren been spying on Poe and me to overhear our hypothetical plate-smashing plot? Would Gehry keep his promise to punish, rehabilitate, and, moreover, help his son? And what in the world would I say when I saw Poe?
As the van rolled down Danbury Road, I came to a decision. “Hey, Demetria, can you pull over?”
Demetria checked me out in the rearview mirror. “What? Why?”
“There’s something I have to do.” I saw Poe’s block on the left. “Right here.”
Odile checked out the neighborhood. “What do you have to do here? Buy crack?”
“Isn’t this graduate student housing?” Jenny frowned and Harun covered her hand with his. “Oh.”
George looked at the house. “Amy, do you think he’s even home?”
“Who?” Clarissa asked.
“Jamie Orcutt,” George said softly. He looked at me. “I’ll get your bags back to your room.”
“Thanks,” I said, sliding open the door and slipping out. My sneakers sank into the last of the March slush. I felt through the fabric of my purse for the remainder of the cylinder inside. Life Savers.
“I’m not leaving her down here alone,” Demetria said. “We can wait to see if he’s there.”
But we didn’t have to. The door opened, and there was Poe, framed in the screen. He was wearing khakis and a dark blue Eli hoodie, and his arms were folded across his chest. I waved back at my friends and headed up the path to the porch. I didn’t even see them take off.
“Hi,” I said. “Can I come in?”
He stepped aside and I entered the apartment. It was much as I remembered it from last semester. The same worn furniture, the same bookshelves and red-bound law texts, the same giant aquarium with the giant snake. Lord Voldemort, if I recalled correctly. And next to it, the smaller cage for the little white mice Poe fed the snake. Except now, when I looked, I saw only one mouse in the cage, and a hamster wheel, and a little colorful ball. I leaned in closer.
“I named her Reepicheep,” he said abruptly.
“What?”
“The mouse. I named her Reepicheep.”
“Reepicheep was a boy mouse.”
He shrugged. “Details.” He joined me in front of the cage. “He was a really brave mouse. Brave and noble and dutiful, and a little bit too much into self-sacrifice.”
I swallowed. Well, there was answer number one.
“And anyway,” he went on quickly, “I couldn’t very well feed her to anyone after that lecture you gave me in November.”
I nodded. “And after naming her.”
“Right.” He looked at me. “What do you want?”
“To see you.”
He turned away from the cages and sat down on the sofa. “Okay.”
“And talk to you.” I turned around, too, but there didn’t seem to be anyplace to sit where I wouldn’t touch him. There didn’t seem to be anyplace to put my hands, anywhere to look that wasn’t at his face. I focused my eyes on the bookshelves, on the vegetarian cookbooks there, and I remembered why we’d fought that day. I felt so stupid now. He had eaten the lobster that night. He’d eaten it as a peace offering to the Myers. Poe was also a little too much into self-sacrifice.
“I’m sorry,” I said.
Jamie’s eyes went wide. “You’re sorry? Christ, Amy, what for?” He shook his head in disbelief. “I can’t even look at you right now. I’ve been dreading seeing you again, after what I said to you. After what happened.”
“Why?” I asked. This was like in January, when he’d avoided us all after he cracked his head open during the Dragon’s Head raid. “I heard about what you did, stealing the boat to call the police. I’m sorry I wasn’t able to thank you then and there.”
“But that’s not what you wanted.” He wasn’t looking at me, and I think I might be getting a bit better at reading his expressions. Disapproval, resignation, carefully reined frustration. I remembered what he’d done to Micah Price, and that poor boy had only spit at me. Gehry would do well to keep his son away from Poe.
I came closer. “You didn’t know that when you did it. Hell, I didn’t know it. You didn’t know anything but that I was in danger. And you chose me over the society.”
“No.”
“Yes.” I sat down next to him. “Like it or not, Mr. Patriarch, you broke the third oath.”
He looked down at his hands and shrugged. “Details.”
Exactly. Amazing how silly they seemed in context. Present a good enough reason, and you realize that the things you thought were important go right out the window. The society was just the symbol. It was the people inside who really mattered. Put me in a room with a man like Jamie, and my well-reasoned case against dating seemed ridiculous. And all the specific arguments against dating him evaporated like frost in the sun.
We sat in silence for a few minutes, and then he spoke again. “Still, it was a pretty stupid move. It took me right out of the game. I wasn’t able to rescue you. I heard it was…George.”
And how that must have grated on him! “You know George is long over, right?”
He nodded. “Yes. I knew it at the time. I don’t know why I said that stupid—”
“I don’t care.” I did then, but it all seemed so petty now. “You were angry. We all say stupid shit.”
“That’s not even it,” he admitted. “It killed me that I wasn’t there to save you. Like I didn’t have the right to be.”
“Actually,” I said, smiling, “I kind of saved myself. A week earlier, I would have drowned long before the boat got to me.”
And now he did look at me.
“I think I must be a pretty good swimmer now, if I can do it tied up and drugged.”
“Amy…” All incredulous.
“Here’s the thing,” I said, quickly, before I lost my nerve. “I’ve made a lot of mistakes. About the society, and about my relationships—everything.” He was still staring at me, and the words came out in a rush. “And come on. We’ve had so many battles, and you’re just so damn prickly all the time. And my friends would think I’m nuts for…”
“For what?” he cut in. “Making another mistake?”
“No,” I said, and took his hand in mine. “Doing something that might make up for all of them.”
Jamie stared at our hands for a moment, then pulled away. “No. I tried, on Cavador Key, but I hated it.” He caught my stricken expression and amended his words. “I couldn’t—I can’t pretend this isn’t important. I can’t act like it doesn’t exist. It’s ironic, but true. There are a lot of things I’m really good at keeping secret. But I’ve learned I’m not too good at that with you. I can’t pull it off. I don’t want to just hook up. I don’t want a secret relationship.”
“Well, that’s a relief,” I said, grabbing for both of his hands and holding on for dear life.
Doubt started giving way to recognition, but he needed to hear it. “Why’s that?”
“Because I’m really sick of secrets.”
Acknowledgments
FOLKS I’D LIKE TO THANK
1) The readers of Secret Society Girl and Under the Rose
2) The Venerable M.A.E., footnoter extraordinaire
3) Tracy Devine, master titler
4) Pam Feinstein, Lynn Andreozzi, Carol Russo, and all the others on the Bantam Dell Team
5) Deidre Knight (and the gang at TKA), who always rooted for Poe
6) The Sistahs, TARA, WRW, CLWOW, and the Non-Bombs, for being the only societies I need
7) Holly Black, Libba Bray, Cecil Castellucci, Margaret Crocker, Cassandra Clare, Maureen Johnson, Jaida Jones, and Justine Larbalestier, for the (in)sanity
8) Marley Gibson and Cheryl Wilson, who always have my back
9) Erica Ridley and Carrie Ryan, for screaming in text and in person at the shower scene
10) Julie Leto, who saved my storyline
11) The bloggers, blog readers, and lurkers galore
12) My family, family-in-law, and friends
13) Fellow sons and daughters of Eli
14) Those fabulous secret sources
15) My husband (!!!)