By this time, the Bee became a joke around the newsroom. I was the butt. I was given a stuffed Bee around Christmas and a picture book called A Is for Animals.

So in December, we ran a story: "Campus Abuzz About New All-Women's Social Club." Officially, I couldn't confirm that the club even existed, but I sure as hell knew that everyone on campus was talking about it.

I ran another story about the club initiating new members and blackballing at least one prospective. I gave up the Bee story this spring when I took an executive position.

AFEW WEEKS AGO, I saw a woman who looked quite lost in The Crimson's hallway. She was looking for our rental space, she said. I showed her where it was. Trying to make small talk, I asked what sort of organization she was with. " Oh, it's not an organization," she said. "It's just a group of girls."

This woman was Kristen Silverberg herself. The woman of tight lips. The "I can't help you with your story" woman. The queen Bee.

It turned out that, entirely unbeknownst to the news editors, the Bee rented space from The Crimson for an evening of cocktails and dancing.

Turns out the club had grown to about 33 members. My initial non-Bee, Deep Throatesque source ("an Eliot resident familiar with the club") had even joined. That night, the women of grace thundered over the newsroom, dancing with their tuxedoed men to the Material Girl.

There was something terribly ironic to that night. I passed Kristin in the hallway. I said hello to Bryn's boyfriend. One woman, nearly tipping over in her high heels, stumbled into the newsroom to use our phone.

"We're at The Crimson," she whispered. "The Crimson. You know, it's next to Adams House." ("You know," I said to myself," it's across from the D.U.")

I've never understood why they came to us for their party. I also don't understand why the business board, with the president's approval, took their money. (They drank cocktails on the same furniture we sat on while writing the staff editorial which concluded, "Buzz off, you pathetic elitists.")

I also don't expect to know the answer any of these questions anytime soon. They still are sorry, but they can't help me with my story. But that's the difference between me and them, I guess. I try write what's on my mind and hope that anyone who has criticisms--and plenty of folks do--will talk to me.

This is all antithetical to the Bee. They thrive on not talking. That's the point. They don't want to keep their club a total secret (Honey East lists the club on the resume that she submitted to a Jackson, Mississippi beauty pageant), but they're not truly the elite until they shut people out. Beauty pageants, cocktail parties, a stir of rumors along the Eliot corridors--this sort of publicity is good.

But newspaper articles are bad. A friend of mine who made it into the Bee told me a long while ago that she would never have her name in a paper, with the exception of her wedding. She shuddered at the thought of being named anywhere but the society pages.

The Bee members' elitism, of course, is not as odious as Lowell's. This is not the early 20th century, and I'm certainly not the impoverished, socially excluded newspaper hack. We're all students at a top college with a wide array of choices. Still, we have very different ways of looking at the world.

Yep, the Bee and I were practically a family that night. They drank and danced and furiously climbed social rungs while I proofread stories and wrote headlines. We both ended up leaving the building around 3 a.m.

In a way, the Bee party was pitiful. Without a home to call their own, they had to have a party at a newspaper--not the "quality" establishment they preferred, I'm sure.

I should tell treasurer Allison Hughes that the Pi Eta building is for sale.

But she probably knows that already.