THE KNOCK ON Lulu’s door came at an unpleasantly early hour, not even ten o’clock. There had been a rally last night in support of the occupation and all the chanting from that rabble had kept her up. Song was long gone, of course, probably in a lab somewhere. Lulu rolled out of her twin bed and threw on a robe. The knock was irritatingly persistent.
“Just a goddamn minute!” She flung open the door, ready to vent her irritation, and saw it was two campus rent-a-cops. One was quite obese. Didn’t they have fitness tests for these sorts of jobs? The presence of campus gendarmes did not alter her general state of agitation, but she decided not be obvious about it.
“What!” She wasn’t successful.
“Miss Harris?”
“Yes.”
“We’re with campus security,” said the fat one. “We’d like to come in and look around, if you don’t mind.”
“Can you come back later? I was asleep. And why on earth would you need to come in my room anyway?”
“We just want to look around.”
“Well, this isn’t a good time. I’m not even dressed. And don’t you need a warrant or something?” Sheldon repped a few actors on Law & Order, so she knew a thing or two.
“This isn’t your property, miss, so no.”
“Why don’t you just tell me what you want? And shouldn’t you be over at Bingham making sure those people don’t start a riot?” Lulu couldn’t imagine what this was about. She didn’t have any drugs. Drugs weren’t really her thing ever since she went to the ER after that Lower East Side rave a year ago. She had ingested more than the doctor-recommended amount of ecstasy.
“We’ll just be a minute.” They walked right around her into the room. The sight of fatty rummaging around her things made her nauseous. When he leaned over, his uniform shirt rode up, exposing a roll of corpulence. Yuck. Lulu had no patience for fat people. If they didn’t respect themselves, why should she have to? Mostly, though, she just found them unattractive. Maybe she should call Sheldon.…
“Got it,” said the not-fat one, who had been digging in her minuscule closet. He turned, holding the Fellingham scepter.
“That’s what you’re looking for?”
“Yes, miss. It was reported stolen.”
“It’s from my club. Of which I am a member. It can’t be stolen if I’m a member, now can it?” Officer Blart, she wanted to add.
“Well, all we know is that it was reported stolen by the club, which filed a report, and then we got a tip it might be here. So here we are, and now we need to take this thing with us.”
“And then what?”
“Miss?”
“I mean, you’re just going to return it and that’s that?”
“Miss, our only job was to come find this here … scepter. Anything else, you’ll need to take up with the university. We will need to file a report, and that’s the end of it as far as we’re concerned.”
They left. The fat one had to turn slightly to fit through the door, Lulu noted with horror.
The scepter. She’d taken it one night out of boredom. No other reason. She frequently took things out of boredom. She would have given it back, but after everyone at the society started bitching about the goddamn thing—Win and Frazier were being dreadful bores—and then there was that story in the Daily, she just hadn’t found a moment to return it discreetly. She’d never heard people go on so much about something so silly. They should be happy she had it and not some common thief, who would have thrown the damn thing in the trash as soon as he found out the jewels were fake.
But how did someone know she had it?
She found out that bit of information the next day. Returning from her American Studies class—a new offering, American Precarity in the 21st Century—she came upon an oversize envelope at her door with her initials on the outside. No other markings. Curious, she opened it up and out fell a small gold plaque. Her plaque.
She grabbed her phone and immediately texted Shelley: “What the hell is going on?”
There was no immediate answer and Lulu grew anxious, texting again: “?????????????”
A few minutes later the reply came: “Meet me at the Dix in 30.”
The Dix. Not Fellinghams. Shelley almost never set foot in the Dix other than to grab coffee at the Starbucks kiosk. Lulu threw on her black Moncler coat, the one with all the puffy rows of down, her Stuart Weitzman boots, and trudged over.
Anxious, she found herself there early. She sat down in a pod, but then decided she felt ridiculous, so she went and waited in line at Starbucks even though she didn’t want anything. At the head of the line, she ordered a short latte (skinny, vanilla), paid with her phone, then considered where to wait. She imagined everyone was looking at her, but that was silly. Settling on the end seat of an empty nearby table, she got out her phone again and tried to look busy by scanning her Snapchat. One of her New York friends had sent her a snap from an East Village party, which didn’t make her feel any better.
“Hi.” Shelley dropped her class books on the table and took a seat. Lulu hadn’t seen her walk up.
Lulu reached into her bag and pulled out the plaque. Might as well get right to the point. “So what’s with this?”
“That’s their way of telling you,” Shelley said matter-of-factly.
“Telling me what?”
“That you’re out, of course. Off the Wall of Belonging and all that.”
Lulu had feared as much, but what the hell. “Out of the society? Over the fucking scepter?”
“You knew how they loved the damn thing. You knew it!”
“Oh, come on. It was just a prank. I was going to return it.”
“Well, frankly, it didn’t seem that way. It was in the paper weeks ago and you’ve heard the boys going on about it, and when they specifically asked if anyone knew where it was, you didn’t say a thing.”
“I just wanted some time to return it, you know, quietly. I didn’t know it would be a thing.”
“That was a month ago. You need to get real about this. That scepter is the society’s symbol. I think that was pretty clear.”
“It’s not even real. The jewels are glass! Someone probably bought it on goddamn eBay.”
“I’m not sure anyone thinks that matters. The society may be a bit of a lark, we all know that, but some things they—we—take seriously. People feel betrayed. Plus you took that other stuff, you know, from OTA. Seems like a bit of a pattern.”
“The stuff OTA gets for free?”
“You don’t know that, and I’m fairly certain Wendy Faircloth wouldn’t see it like that.”
“So, what, I’m out? Just like that?”
“Yes. I’m afraid so.”
“This is so fucking unfair. I actually like the place, you know.”
“That’s awfully big of you.”
“Oh, stop. You know what I mean.”
There was a pause.
“Well, if that’s all…” Shelley started to get up.
“You can’t do this.”
“It’s done.”
“Won’t you help me?”
“Lulu, I agree with it. No one trusts you anymore. And they think you’re a bit of a climber.”
Lulu recoiled. “A climber?” Shelley had hit the mark. “That is so absurd.”
“Is it?”
“How did they know I had the damn thing, anyway?”
Shelley picked up her books. “You might want to check your Instagram posts. Oh, and It Girl? Good luck with OTA.” With that, she walked out, leaving Lulu alone in the Dix.
She wanted to hole up in her room, but Song was there, so Lulu settled on a remote section of the Goodwin Library, an immense cathedral-like structure with countless reading rooms and labyrinthine stacks. The Devon campus was filled with architectural nooks and crannies where one could get lost, and this was one of Lulu’s favorites, a tiny book-lined recess with two leather reading chairs, a refuge within a refuge.
She curled up in one and started scrolling through her Instagram posts. There were forty-two in the last month. She realized she was pursing her lips, making “duck face,” in most of them. Perhaps she was getting too old for that. Nothing stuck out, otherwise. The typical picture had a couple hundred likes. Nothing wrong with that. Who do they think they are at Fellinghams, anyway?
She decided to look through the comments. Not much there. Lots of “GORGEOUS!!!” mostly. Then, under one post where she’d used the hashtag #SoBored, she saw a comment posted yesterday from someone named lionheart32:
“So you had it, bitch.”
She scrolled back up to the photo. Just an off-angle selfie from her room.
Then she saw it.
Her face took up most of the frame, but to one side you could see into her open closet. There, poking up from behind her Stuart Weitzmans, you could see fake rubies reflecting the camera flash. It was the scepter. The goddamned scepter.
Even though the idea mortified her, she considered sending an apology email to Win. Maybe that would patch things up. What the hell was she going to do around here without Fellinghams? Hang out with those priapic frat boys? Not a chance. Go to hockey games? The student production of The Vagina Monologues? Please. Study all the time? What for?
Switching to email (which she almost never used socially), she tapped out a note.
Win,
So sorry about the confusion over the scepter. I’m sure you know it was just a lark, and to tell you the truth, I’d almost forgotten I had it. OF COURSE I was going to return it. Anyway, it should be back over the mantel by now, and I hope there are no hard feelings.
Sincerely,
Lulu
She hit send and her phone made that swooshing noise. Almost immediately came a reply: “Bugger off. Do NOT email or text again!”
A deep feeling of unease came over her. This was worse than she had realized. They couldn’t do this! Desperate to dispatch the unaccustomed knot in her stomach, she remembered the new OTA might be arriving today. That would show them. She exited the library and made her way to the PO, which was in its usual state of inactivity. She hadn’t returned since last month, so her box was stuffed with junk. Once again, she took the small notice and handed it to the slow-motion worker drone behind the counter, who returned with a small pile.
“You know, you really should pick up your mail more often,” the woman said.
“Excellent advice, thank you.” Lulu took her pile to a nearby table and immediately found the latest OTA.
There it was, on the cover: “The New Philanthropists.”
Yes!
Also on the cover, in full glossy splendor, were Cassie Little, Chrissie Fellows, Aubrey St. John, and … that was it. They had cropped Lulu out of the shot entirely. Panicking, she whipped through the oversize pages until she found the article, with several more shots. She wasn’t in a single one. Perhaps she was mentioned in the article? Ugh, that was useless, worse than a comment deep in a text thread with no hashtag. But she needed something. She quickly scanned the text. Nothing. Her panic swelled as she tried again, forcing herself to read through every paragraph. Had she missed it?
Nothing.
The chasm in her gut threatened to swallow her whole.
What happened? Did Shelley say something to her mother? It must be. Shelley told her mother, who told Wendy Faircloth. Tears welled in Lulu’s eyes as the realization of just how far she’d fallen in one day washed over her. Who do these people think they are? She turned toward the wall to hide her face just in case someone happened by. For no particular reason, she looked up and saw a poster that said:
Are You a Survivor?
Then, under the glaring lights of an empty post office, Lulu Harris quietly had a nervous breakdown.