I jumped as, a few seconds later, the heavy wooden door slammed shut and another new member scampered in. Her cheeks were red from the cold, and her hair was pulled back in a plaid headband that matched her dress. She pressed her lips together when she passed me, her eyes running over my outfit.
We had Romanticism together, and she’d never spoken to me until yesterday, when she’d looked over at me and asked, “So where are you from?”
I smiled. “The Bay Area,” I said, though I knew from the way she was looking at me that she was asking about my race. I got this question all the time and didn’t mind—people were curious, it could be aconversation starter—and I believed that we all experienced some form of bias in our lives. To be human was to categorize, wasn’t it? Was bias inherent to being human?
“Hm.” She’d squinted her eyes in an expression I soon realized was curiosity mixed with distrust. “I mean, whatareyou?” And I’d hesitated. Was she genuinely curious or did I sense something else?Orwas this conversation colored by my own scars—being calledoreoandmuttandtoken Black girl,and not whatever enough, part but never whole.
“I’m Black and Chinese,” I’d said, casual, guarded.
She stared at me in wonder. “I never thought of you asBlackBlack…but I see it now. The hair. The nose.” Okay…a bit problematic…but whatever.
“Yeah, well.” I’d tried a laugh, but it caught in my throat. The truth was, I too was tired of trying to figure outwhat I was.I’d met a girl named Ayana sophomore year a month or so after the beer incident. She’d taken me under her wing, introduced me to her friends.
But when I went out with them, I couldn’t keep up. While they danced to songs they knew by heart, I drifted off to the side.
Then there was Kai, whose family was from Hong Kong, but because she had grown up in Manhattan, her high school, clothes, and address seemed to matter more to her than being Chinese.
Still, she spoke Cantonese, visited her aunt in Shanghai every summer, and belonged to the AAPI student union—so what did I know?
The girl shrugged. “It’s just, we’re past all this, aren’t we? Where I’m from, we consider Puerto Ricans and East Asians to be basically white.”
Okay, wow, that wasmoreproblematic. Basically white? What did it mean to bebasically white? Did she just dismiss my identity, my family’s struggles, and my personal experiences in one breath?
She tilted her head, studying me. “Your dad’s the Black one, right? Is he still around?”
“New members come forward.” Cecily’s voice yanked me back to the front hall, and I moved forward from the crowd with the other new members. Cecily was not only Sterling Club’s incomingpresident, Daisy had explained, but also head of Greystone Society. I’d had no idea.
As I stood in the center of the hall, I studied their faces. Daisy had explained that they chose seven new Greystone members each year to join the existing fourteen, voted in by committee. And new members would be tapped tonight, from among the new initiates.
Suddenly, Lila’s warning sounded again—get out, get out, get out!—and my stomach roiled. Something was off about the way they were staring at us, their eyes boring into my skin, or maybe it was the eyes of the men in the nineteenth-century portraits, aware I did not belong.
Before long, a man entered the room, dressed in a blazer and khaki slacks. To my surprise, it was Professor DuPont.
“Welcome, new Sterling members. We are honored to have you join us.” He greeted some of the members, shaking their hands, and I could tell he was just as well-respected and well-liked in Sterling as he was on the rest of campus. “As a member of the Sterling Club board of trustees, I am your link to the outside world. As you may have guessed, you’ve been vetted extensively. You were chosen from your peers because we think you will be able to contribute something meaningful to this club.”
He stopped in front of me, and my palms began to sweat.
“There is a reason the most successful choose to work with their oldest friends,” he said. “It’s about trust. And confidence. Sterling Club was founded in 1879 by a group of friends, and since then we’ve built a far-reaching web. Look around. The people in this room will become your allies. Your chosen family.
“What do you think? How long will we stay?” he called out.
The crowd responded. “Usque ad finem.”
Professor DuPont opened both palms in welcome. “To the very end.”
A tall athletic-looking guy handed him a shot of whiskey, which he took with them. Then the members began to chant. It started low and rose, growing louder and more fervent. The tension that had snaked its way through the room now pulled taut as a string.
My breath grew shallow as the men hit their fists against thetables, the walls. I couldn’t make out what they were saying. Maybe something in Latin. It didn’t matter—it all felt strange and surreal.
—
Afterward, Daisy pulledme aside and led me upstairs and down the long hall that led to the library.
I looked at her. “What’s with the Latin?”
“Ubi amici ibidem sunt opes.Where there are friends, there are riches,” she explained, pointing to where it had been carved into the marble fireplace.
When we entered, a guy I recognized from class was lighting a joint. He took a long drag before passing it to the girl at his shoulder. Daisy pinched my leg and did an excited dance. Soon the air was thick with wisps of smoke billowing around us. Daisy inhaled the joint and tilted her head back, exhaling a curtain of white.
