Read Online Tap & Gown by Diana Peterfreund - Free Book Online Page B

for and therefore obtained things that I had not, in fact, worked for (and therefore hadn’t obtained).
    She was too nice to hate. Also, one shouldn’t think bad thoughts about anyone forced to spend time in the vicinity of Topher Cox, as Kalani did every day at the newspaper.
    The last person on my short list was easy to find. When he wasn’t working at the EDN offices, he was training in the Eli gym. Fencing team.
    No, really. Fencing.
    I always confuse fencing outfits with beekeeper uniforms. Not that I’m personally familiar with either one. But if I were watching a movie about beekeepers, and a bunch of folks turned up in fencing outfits, I probably wouldn’t think it was strange. (Unlike watching, say, a Regency-set piece where they’re all in Victorian clothing, but then again, I’m a Lit major.)
    But both beekeeping and fencing outfits are a lot weirder than period clothing. Unless the period is
    “future,” which, according to Hollywood, features some pretty ridiculous fashion. Topher Cox looked pretty ridiculous in his beekeeping outfit. Fencing outfit. Whatever.
    The fencing itself was a little cooler. Or maybe I was just really into all those period movies and liked to watch a good swordfight. Unfortunately, very few of the alien beekeeper pairs out there on the mats were having good swordfights. Mostly they hopped around each other in a complex little dance for an undefined period before moving toward each other and striking. Or I think striking. It was always tough to tell who’d won. It reminded me more of those reflex hand-slap games you play when you’re ten.
    I didn’t have sports like this at my high school. We had basketball, football, track, stuff like that. I’d never even heard of squash until I got to Eli. Topher came from a world with strange sports like polo, squash, and dressage. Not that we needed another athlete in the club, as Ben’s tap would likely have that covered. But it didn’t hurt.
    And there was really no reason to hold it against him, either. After all, my ex-boyfriend Brandon had played badminton, and at the time, I’d found it adorable.
    I waited until Topher removed his beekeeping mask and headed over to the bleachers in the rest of his space suit. “Hi, Topher,” I said, as he sucked down the contents of his water bottle. “How’s it going?”
    He looked at me. “Who are you?”
    An auspicious beginning, to be sure! “Amy Haskel. We met at The Game in Cambridge a while back?” I stopped myself before I could add, and you drunkenly hit on me .
    He looked skeptical. “Sorry. Hey, have a nice visit, though.” He waved at me and turned to watch the practice.
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    “I’m not from Harvard,” I said, and the pleasant mask slipped just a tad. “I go here. I’m a senior.”
    Perhaps he would catch on.
    He turned back around. “Great,” he said dryly. Nope . “What can I do for you?”
    Golly, let’s see. You can take my place in the oldest and best secret society on campus, guaranteeing yourself a life of wealth, power, and general fabulosity—or so goes the party line. I wasn’t so sure about when exactly that stuff was supposed to kick in for me.
    “I wanted to talk about your recent op-ed in the Daily. The one that posited a justification for sexual harassment as necessary for the continuation of the species.” I don’t know why I was bothering.
    Demetria was certain to blackball him after that vile piece of bullshit had run. But I should at least give everyone on my short list a shot.
    “Oh, God, another one? Look, write a letter to the editor, like all the others. They print anything less than 150 words and without bad language.”
    “Oh, no!” I said, tamping down my urge to strike. He was lucky that A) Demetria wasn’t nearby and
    B) his lance was several rows away.
    “I was fascinated,” I lied. “I’m an editor emeritus at the Lit Mag, and I was thinking that the situation you put forth at the end—your hypothetical employer and