Phoebe stopped. After only a few months of dating? It seemed so fast. She didn’t know what to think-she would now be living with a member of the Society under her own roof. It felt so odd, particularly since Daniel had only once made reference to actually being part of it. Aside from the conversation they had had a few weeks ago, he had never really been candid with Phoebe about the Society and his role in it.
“Don’t you have anything to say?” Maia asked. “It’s wonderful news. Tatiana has renewed her teaching contract in Paris, and the town house will be ours for another year.” Officially, the reason they were living in such a posh house while paying only a pittance was that they were house-sitting for Tatiana, a wealthy sculptor friend of Phoebe’s mom.
“Um, sure.” Phoebe forced a smile. “That’s great. I’m so happy for you both. I’d better get upstairs, and you know… schoolwork.”
Maia and Daniel both nodded as Phoebe ducked into the hallway and went upstairs to her room. She heard them behind her, talking in hushed tones about teenage moodiness. Phoebe so desperately wanted to tell her mother everything she knew, but now with Daniel in the house and his direct ties to the Society, that would be impossible.
The following day, after school, Phoebe decided to take a route home that involved her walking past Nick and Patch’s building. She didn’t know if either of them were home, but she wanted to visit someone else.
“Will you ring Genie, um, I mean, Mrs. Madison, please?” she asked the doorman. Thankfully, he recognized her by now.
“Would you like me to tell Master Bell that you were here?” the doorman asked.
“No, just Mrs. Madison, that’s all.”
The doorman introduced Phoebe over the intercom and told her to go on up. Phoebe had to remind herself to stop at Patch’s floor and not go all the way up to Nick’s apartment. When Phoebe reached Patch’s apartment, she was comforted by its sense of warmth, by the cracked and worn marble tiles in the entryway, scuffed with years of use.
Genie had already opened the door for her. “Phoebe, dear, what a nice surprise! I had no idea you were coming over. Is Patch expecting you?”
“No, it’s actually you that I wanted to talk with,” Phoebe said. “I hope you don’t mind my dropping by like this.”
“Not at all. Let me go make some tea.”
Genie busied herself with the teakettle while Phoebe stood awkwardly at the entrance to the little galley kitchen.
“I wanted to talk to you about the Society,” Phoebe said. “That’s probably no surprise. I feel like I’m stuck in the middle of all of it. Not only in the Society itself, but stuck with Nick. I love Nick-please don’t tell him that-but I just… well, it’s just hard, everything with his family. And then getting to know Patch has been great, too, but there are so many things that we don’t know. I’m sorry, I’m babbling. I just thought you might be able to give me some advice.”
“Come into the living room,” Genie said. “We should just let this tea steep for a few minutes.”
“Thank you.” Phoebe followed her.
Genie sat down on one of the two living room couches. “My advice to you and also to Patch is to stay away from it all. Nothing good can come from being involved with the Society.”
Phoebe sighed. “It’s too late for that, I’m afraid. It was supposed to make our lives better, and instead it’s made them worse. I was so ambitious last semester, while this semester I’ve done nothing.”
“Now, Phoebe, come on. That’s not the Society. That’s all you. Patch is the same way, going on about his television show. You can do whatever you want to do. You don’t need the Society to get you there.”
Phoebe nodded. “I know. But we’re trapped in it now. All I want is to get out, to get away from all the craziness.”
“I don’t know how you can get out. I know that others have tried, and failed.”
“Others? Like who?”
“Why don’t you go get that teapot and I’ll tell you.”
Phoebe walked to the kitchen. She wanted to find out as much as she could, but she wondered how much she could ask before Genie got too suspicious.
“My daughter was in your same position,” Genie said as Phoebe poured two cups of tea in the living room. “She thought that being in the Society would make her life wonderful. And it was, for a time. She met her husband, she had a child. And then there was a disagreement.”
“A disagreement with whom?”
“Let’s just say that she upset some people with her words. She upset the people in charge. And then she had her psychotic break.”
Phoebe thought back to her experience with Dr. Meckling, how quickly he had labeled her as delusional.
“And that was when she was hospitalized?” Phoebe asked. She knew about the story from Nick.
“That’s right. Patch doesn’t know all the details, and I’d rather not get into them now. All I am saying is that you have to be cautious. Patch is looking for information about his mother, but I’m not certain he’s ready to know everything.”
“What about the Bells?” Phoebe asked. “I’m trying to understand-forgive me if I’m being nosy, but there’s a connection somehow between you and Patch and them. I mean, beyond your engagement to Palmer Bell.” She knew she was taking a risk, and she wasn’t even sure if what she was saying was true, but there were too many connections for it to be a coincidence: Genie being in the same building as the Bells, years after her broken engagement with Palmer; Patch and Nick’s friendship; Genie’s knowledge of the Society; the bottle of tuberose perfume in Genie’s medicine cabinet that smelled exactly like the scent used in the initiation ceremony.
“Our families have always been close,” Genie said a bit stiffly. “Not so much in recent years, aside from Patch and Nick’s friendship.” She took a sip of tea. “I’m not really sure what else you want to know.”
Phoebe sensed a defensiveness in her voice and realized that to push the issue would seem rude. She and the others needed to keep Genie on their side, and she didn’t want to alienate her.
“I’m sorry,” Phoebe said. “I’ve been so intrusive-it really isn’t polite.”
“Not to worry, dear. It was kind of you to visit. And yes, if you’re wondering, I would have asked exactly the same questions myself when I was your age.”
Chapter Twenty-Nine
A week later, Claire Chilton announced the first meeting of the Dendur Ball Junior Committee at the Colonial Club. Lauren and Phoebe attended begrudgingly, knowing that they didn’t have a choice.
Phoebe and Lauren arrived just as the meeting was starting. Nick, Patch, and Thad were already there, listening dutifully to Claire Chilton. What a charade this all had become, Lauren thought. Who ever thought that one’s greatest role in life would be playing oneself?
After the meeting, which had mostly been a pep rally urging everyone to get their friends to buy the $250 tickets to the ball, Mrs. Chilton approached Lauren, with Claire behind her. Letty Chilton had been supervising the meeting from the back of the room, as if she didn’t trust her daughter to do something properly on her own. Lauren and Phoebe were standing next to each other; the boys had disappeared somewhere else, into the vast maze of rooms that was the club.
“Lauren, dear, I’ve just had the most marvelous idea suggested to me,” Mrs. Chilton said.
“Yeah?” Lauren cocked her head. She realized she was being a bit rude, but Mrs. Chilton didn’t seem to notice.
“I’m very interested in your little jewelry company.”
“Thanks,” Lauren said.
“And you specialize in reproductions?”
Lauren bristled. She did not do reproductions. To suggest it was an insult.
Lauren smiled as sweetly as she possibly could, given that she wanted to walk away. “They’re not reproductions. They’re my own designs, and reinterpretations of classic jewelry.” She paused. “Really old stuff. The kind of thing you might have worn while growing up.”
Now it was Mrs. Chilton’s turn to pay Lauren no mind. “We have had the most brilliant idea. You are familiar with the Scarab of Isis necklace?”