The Ivy (16 page)

“Okay, great,” he answered, starting to smile. “I’m really looking forward to reading your final drafts.”

“Yeah, me too,” she said, lying through her teeth. She would die of embarrassment if he actually saw some of the latest things that she had written, like “Top Ten Low-Cal Fro-Yo Toppings” or “How to Wear Your Hair with Glasses.” Not that those topics were
her
fault but still . . . “I’ll only be out for an hour or so and then I’ll meet you there.”

He frowned slightly, a dubious expression on his face.

“Matt, I promise. Just one hour and I’ll be there.”

They were only three blocks away from the restaurant when Mimi’s phone started vibrating in her pocketbook.

Callie frowned. Probably Vanessa calling to yell at us for being late.

A strange expression crossed Mimi’s face. She stopped walking. Before Callie could ask what was going on, she too felt her phone vibrate in her pocket.

“Hello?”

“Get to the John Harvard statue.” The voice was calm and deadly serious. “You have three minutes—or else.” Click.

“You got the call?” Mimi asked Callie. She nodded slowly.

“We have to go,” said Mimi, making her way back toward the Yard.

“What about Vanessa?” Callie asked, looking hopelessly in the direction of the restaurant.

“I am certain she will meet us there . . . but regardless, we must go
maintenant
.”

Callie didn’t know what was going on, but Mimi had said Vanessa would meet them there, so Callie followed her down the street, marveling at how fast her roommate could move in high heels.

When they arrived at the John Harvard statue, Callie noticed that they seemed to be among the last to join some twenty-odd freshmen from New York City and abroad. Gregory and OK were standing nearby; they gave the girls a knowing smile, which Callie barely registered. Her eyes scanned the crowd, searching for Vanessa.

Slowly it dawned on her. She recognized the Upper East Side JAQs, WASPs, NYC Prepsters, Malibu Barbies, Star Athletes, and OPEC Kings. About sixty socialites of the campus elite were there: the members of the Hasty Pudding.

But where was Vanessa? Was she still waiting at the restaurant? Surely she would have known what it meant when she got the call, if she had gotten the call at all. . . . No, that was impossible—there must have been some mistake.

The freshmen rippled with excitement as Tyler Green stepped forward with a giant megaphone and boomed: “WELCOME!”

Everyone near Callie broke into thunderous cheers, hugging each other and shaking hands as if this were a cheesy disaster movie and they had just collectively saved the planet from imminent destruction. Callie pulled out her phone, wondering if she should call Vanessa and what she ought to say. There was a text from Vanessa asking where they were, confirming Callie’s worst fears: Vanessa hadn’t gotten the call.

Callie felt a physical, visceral ill settling in the pit of her stomach as her phone suddenly lit up with an incoming call from V
ANESSA V
. Callie
knew
she shouldn’t ditch Vanessa—and on her birthday, of all days—but she also had no idea what she could possibly say to her. Surely there would be some explanation, but for now the only thing to do was buy some time.

V
ANESSA
, I
AM SO, SO SORRY
.

E
MERGENCY AT THE
C
RIMSON
,

HAD TO RUN
. H
APPY
B
IRTHDAY
,

LOVE YOU
& I
PROMISE TO MAKE

IT UP TO YOU SOON.

She let her phone slide back into her pocket. The shouts around her faded: the novices of the group suddenly aware that the veterans weren’t smiling.

Tyler Green raised his megaphone once more and cried: “Amanda Cooper!”

A tiny freshman girl stepped forward, trembling slightly. Silently Tyler handed her a slip of paper, and then two upperclassman members poured a “welcome” shot down her throat.

“Brandon Huntsman!”

Brandon stepped forward. And so on: each new member-elect called forth until soon enough, it was her turn.

“Callie Andrews!”

She accepted the slip of paper, which bore the heading
A Letter to New Members from President Tyler Green
. She opened her mouth to the alcohol and let the warmth wash over her, hoping to erase her guilt. Clint took a step forward from the crowd, beaming at her and lifting his fingers in a covert wave.

After all twenty-five names were announced, the upperclassmen suddenly broke into wild applause. Screaming words of welcome, they raised their bottles in a toast to the newest members of the Hasty Pudding Social Club.

Callie threw herself into Clint’s arms. He grabbed her around the waist and dipped her like a tango dancer before pulling her close and planting a long, lingering kiss upon her eager lips.

She kissed him fully and passionately. Nobody could take
this
moment away from her: not Gregory, not Evan, and not . . .

Wait a minute, Callie thought abruptly, pulling back from Clint. Where’s . . . ?

Then she spotted her, talking with a group of newly elected members.

Alexis Thorndike.

She looked perfectly happy and carefree as she threw her head back and laughed at something that OK had just said.

Relieved, Callie turned to Clint. “Ready for some mandatory mingling?” he asked.

“Absolutely.”

Ninety minutes of introductions, speeches, and welcome shots later, Tyler was nearing the end of his “anti”-hazing proclamation,
wink, wink, nudge, nudge.
When he finished, Callie turned to Clint and whispered: “So, are you going to haze me now or haze me later—in private?” In the
Crimson
, in the science center, in the coatroom, on a desk, under the telescope—

“You!” he cried accusingly, tickling her sides. “Perhaps I will have to haze you into learning some respect for your elders!” She screamed as he chased her, brandishing a ten-dollar handle of rum.

Catching her, he threw his arms around her waist and said: “Seriously, though. How did I ever get so lucky?” he asked, nuzzling up against her neck. “The coolest, most beautiful girl on the Harvard campus and for some reason she picked me.”

Callie leaned into him.
He
was lucky
she
had “picked” him? Clearly it was the other way around. There wasn’t a girl on campus who wouldn’t kill to be Clint Weber’s girlfriend—probably a few boys as well. The word for him, and for the moment, that kept surfacing over and over again was
perfect
. Everything was absolutely
per—

“And I’m so sorry about Vanessa,” Clint added, suddenly somber. “I really did everything I could, but she was blackballed by someone on the board. Something about some girl’s boyfriend and the first week of school. I went to bat for her, but there was nothing else I could do. . . .”

Everything went mute. Vanessa. They had abandoned her at UpStairs on the Square, alone, with no explanations, on her birthday. She and Mimi had both assumed that Vanessa was going to meet them there, but still that was no excuse. Biting her lip, Callie said: “Clint, I’m sorry, but I’ve got to go. I need to find Vanessa—I never should have come without her.”

“That’s all right,” he said. “Dinner tomorrow to celebrate the completion of your first COMP portfolio?”

“Sure,” she said, forcing a smile as she realized that Vanessa wasn’t the only person she was going to disappoint tonight.

Mimi was completely engrossed in conversation with a group of seniors, so Callie gave Clint a farewell kiss on the cheek and then left the party.

Why me? she wondered as she walked. It was Vanessa who fit the profile of the Pudding, not Callie. Vanessa who had wanted it more. Vanessa who deserved it more . . .

Lost in her thoughts, Callie arrived at Wigglesworth.

Gregory was sitting on the stone steps that led up to their entryway, smoking and staring off into space. He tossed his cigarette aside when he saw her. “Hey.”

“Hey,” she replied cautiously. “Crazy night . . .”

“I’ll say.”

“I guess we made it,” she said, hovering awkwardly. He wasn’t exactly blocking the door, so she couldn’t exactly ask him to move.

“So what?” he asked, tapping out another cigarette and placing it between his lips.

Her eyes lingered there momentarily. She shook herself. “So . . . so nothing, I guess.”

“You see Vanessa yet?” he asked. “She seemed pretty upset.”

“She’s— Wait, you saw her?”

“Yeah . . . about ten minutes ago. She was standing right where you are yelling something about a birthday dinner, so I told her about the Pudding, but before I could say anything else, she ran inside.” He shrugged.

Callie’s face fell.

“You okay?” he asked.

“I—well—ah, I’m worried . . . about Vanessa.”

“You should go talk to her,” he said.

She stared at him for a few seconds. He stood up to make room so she could pass. It was tactful as far as dismissals go, but the message was still clear. Reaching for the door, she tried to block out the look of concern on his face—concern, evidently, for Vanessa.

“Hey,” he said suddenly, his fingers brushing her wrist. “Will you—will you let me know later how she is?”

“Sure,” Callie muttered, averting her eyes. Her heart plummeted from her stomach into her knees. Her knees felt weak. As quickly as possible, she climbed the stairs to the second floor.

When she reached the landing, she ran into Matt who, hands full, was on his way down to take out the trash. As soon as he saw her, he turned back toward his room without saying a word.

Oh, crap, she thought. In all the excitement of the Welcome Party, she had completely forgotten to text him and let him know she wasn’t coming. Still, she had to at least try.

“Matt, look, I’m so sorry. . . . You can’t possibly guess what happened tonight—”

Matt whirled around to face her, his expression furious. She had never seen him even angry before.

“What happened tonight, Callie?” he yelled, throwing the trash bags onto the floor. “What? Did your
fabulous
new friends come up with some
fabulous
new event that you couldn’t possibly bear to skip?”

She tried to open her mouth, but he cut her off.

“Whatever, I’m done. I’m so tired of waiting for the girl I met on the first day of school. You know: the one who was smart and ambitious and cared about things outside of events and parties? Do you even remember her or is your head so full of alcohol and air now that you’ve completely forgotten?”

Stunned, Callie watched as he grabbed the trash bags and stomped down the stairs. It was as if he had read in her heart the very worst things she thought about herself and then said them aloud.

Completely deflated and more than a little upset, she trudged into her common room.

Vanessa was huddled up on the couch shoveling Easy Mac into her mouth. Her dress looked rumpled and she had only bothered to remove one shoe, while dark streaks of mascara formed telltale tracks down the sides of her face.

I am officially the worst person in the world. “Vanessa,” Callie started, but Vanessa just shook her head and forced several more spoonfuls of mac-n-cheese down her throat before standing and heading for her bedroom.

The door closed with a slam.

“Please, Vanessa!” Callie yelled after her, making her way toward the door. “Just give me a chance to explain. . . .”

No response.

“Look, when Mimi and I got the call, we had no idea that you—”

“That I what?” Vanessa cried, flinging open her door. “Got rejected?” She shook her head. “You know, you really don’t
get it
, do you, Callie? Just this afternoon I called you my best friend, and yet you can’t even bother to tell me the truth when you
ditched
me on my
birthday
for the Pudding. Yeah, it sucks that I didn’t get in, but what
sucks
even more is that you didn’t have the guts to tell me to my face. Instead, I had to hear it from Gregory!”

For the second time that night, Callie couldn’t think of a response. Vanessa snorted and slammed the door once more.

Callie walked into her own room and sank onto the bed. She could hear Gregory and what sounded like Mimi with several other new Pudding members talking and laughing outside, right underneath her window. The sounds of a movie playing drifted over from Dana’s room, where she was most likely cuddling chastely with Adam. The creak of a door and the slam of another told her that Vanessa had probably locked herself in the bathroom yet again, trying to purge the imaginary damage done by the mac-n-cheese.

As Mimi squealed loudly in reaction to something someone said, Callie wished she were in the mood to celebrate, wished that Vanessa had gotten into the Pudding, or that she’d had the guts to tell her roommate the truth, and wished that she weren’t, undeniably, a terrible friend.

She lay back on her bed and stared at the ceiling. She was debating whether to change into her PJs or just go to sleep in her clothes when her phone vibrated once.

She flipped it open to find a text message from Clint.

I
MISS YOU ALREADY
!

H
OW’D IT GO WITH VANESSA?

Sighing, she dialed his number. No matter how low she felt, she knew she could count on Clint.

Chapter Thirteen
“Three may keep a secret

I
F
T
WO OF
T
HEM
A
RE
D
EAD
”

O
n the following Friday Callie was making her way back toward Wigglesworth after class when she ran into Gregory and Clint headed in the opposite direction. They were both wearing athletic gear, squash rackets in tow.

“Hey!” Clint cried, hugging Callie. Gregory glanced rudely at his watch.

“Hi!” Callie answered, disengaging quickly because she was, after all, anti-PDA. Or so she told herself. “I didn’t realize you guys had practice right now.”

“We don’t,” said Clint. “But every Friday we stop by the local public high school to hit the ball around with some of the kids.”

“Just for fun?” she asked, looking from one to the other.

“Well, it
is
fun,” said Clint, “but also their program can’t afford a coach, so we divide up their practices among the guys on our team.”

“Wow,” said Callie. “That’s so great.”

“It’s really no big deal,” said Gregory, avoiding her eyes. “Hey, we should probably get going.”

“Quit being so modest,” Clint said, punching Gregory on the arm. “The whole mentor program was his idea in the first place,” he added, turning to Callie. “He organized the entire thing!”

“Did he . . . ?” Callie asked, staring hard at Gregory.

“Just padding my resume,” he muttered, shuffling his feet.

“You should see him with the kids,” Clint continued. “They love him.”

“Speaking of which,” said Gregory, “we really do have to get going. We can’t be late.”

“The man is
dedicated
,” said Clint, slapping him on the back. “Anyway, I will call
you
later,” he said, pointing at Callie. “Maybe tonight we could all meet up for a drink?”

“Can’t—I’m busy,” Gregory said at the exact same moment that Callie shook her head and muttered, “I have to work.”

Clint gave them a funny look. “Well, you guys are no fun. Guess I’ll see you tomorrow?”

“Sure,” said Callie, and then she watched them walk away side by side.

Back in Wigglesworth as she stood facing the door to C 24, Callie noticed a large manila envelope sitting in the metal drop box.

It had her name on it.

Her heart started to beat three times faster as she tore it open. Reaching inside, she pulled out a thick stack of papers, recognizing her COMP pieces—or rather what remained of them after the editor’s unforgiving pen.

There was also a note.

“Vanessa!” Callie cried as she threw open the front door. “Vanessa, I made it! Vanessa—”

And that’s when she remembered: Vanessa wasn’t speaking to her. A full week had passed, but apart from a “Hurry-up-in-the-bathroom!” and a surprised grunt after a near collision in the hall, Vanessa had been completely silent.

And it’s all my fault, Callie reminded herself. Lately she’d become a rotten, horrible person—worse than Lexi, worse than that dude who stabbed Caesar, and almost as bad as Evan.

All week long she had been trying to think of ways to make it up to them: Vanessa and, not to be forgotten, Matt.

Of the two Matt had been slightly easier. After a few awkward silences in the hallway she’d knocked on his door wielding hot chocolate, a giant cookie, and her best sad, puppy-dog eyes. It had been impossible for him to resist.

Vanessa, on the other hand, still hated her guts. Callie had tried everything: cookies, apology notes, little presents, and funny cartoons about Dana and Adam, and she had even asked Mimi to talk to her (which turned out to be a mistake, since Vanessa was none too pleased with her either).

As Callie entered her bedroom, she realized her phone was vibrating in her pocket.

O
NE INCOMING CALL FROM . . .
Worse than Brutus. Oh, goody.

“Hi, Evan,” she said, sitting down at her desk.

“Callie? Hey! How are you? Are you coming home for Thanksgiving br—”

“Save the small talk, Davies,” she snapped. “It’s been almost a month already. Did you take care of it?”

“Well . . .”

“Yes or no, Evan.”

“Yes . . . ,” he started, “
and
no.”

“What do you mean ‘yes and no’? What the
fuck
, Evan?” she yelled, standing up and starting to pace around her room.

“Callie, look, calm down,” he said. “I couldn’t exactly ‘take care of it’ because more than one person has a copy—”

“
What
? But you said—”

“Please,” he interrupted, “just let me explain. Like I told you back in September, I gave a copy of the file to my big brother because it was worth a lot of points in the scavenger hunt. But I realized immediately what a huge mistake I had made, and that’s when I called you—”

“Yes, I know. I was there. And then you swore to explain the situation to him and get it back—erase it—whatever. Which you did . . . you
did
, right?”

Evan was silent. “Well . . . I did . . . try. But he said it wouldn’t count unless we showed—”

“‘SHOWED!?’”

“Just to the brothers who were in charge of initiation—to prove that I actually did it!”

Callie felt sick. She sank back down in the chair at her desk.

“My big brother
promised
me that it was only saved on his computer and that he would delete it permanently after initiation was over. But, just to be safe, I broke into his room two nights ago and I erased his entire hard drive. Including,” he added darkly, “his senior thesis.”

“So then it’s fine?” Callie asked, gripping the sides of her chair. “It’s erased—destroyed—and all of this is over?”

“Well, not quite. I
thought
that’d be the end of it and was about to call and tell you so last night when . . .”

“When
what
?”

“When an e-mail went out over the fraternity list. And the file—it was attached. Everyone in the frat . . . has a copy now.”

“How—how—is that . . .
possible
?” Callie’s head was spinning so fast she could barely see.

“I—I don’t know, Callie. I’m sorry,” Evan said, his voice breaking. “I did everything I could. Please believe me. This morning I quit the frat.”

There was nothing left for her to say, except: “Evan, I
never
want to speak to you again.”

“Callie—”

“And I need to see that e-mail. Send it, and then don’t contact me
ever
again.”

“All right,” he said after a pause, swallowing hard. “I’ll forward it to you right now, and I’ll call you later to see if there’s anything else I can—”

“Don’t ever call me again.” She hung up the phone.

Callie flipped open her computer screen. Her foot started tap-tap-tapping as she logged into her in-box, waiting for Evan’s e-mail to arrive. Angrily, she clicked Refresh, and sure enough, a new e-mail appeared.

But it wasn’t from Evan. Instead, it was from the “Hasty Pudding Club; est. 1770”:

Callie had to read the e-mail twice before she understood what was meant by the word
dues
. With a sinking feeling she picked up the letter that Tyler Green had handed her a week ago during the Pudding welcome party.

Sure enough, near the bottom of the page, there was a paragraph about “Club Dues.”

Quickly she calculated in her head. Lunch fees . . . guest fees . . . one-time participation fee . . . maintenance fees . . . ONE THOUSAND DOLLARS?

How the hell was she going to pull that off when her entire budget for both semesters was two thousand dollars minus at least seven hundred for books?

What could she possibly say to her parents?

“Mom, Dad: could you please double my budget?”

“Why? Oh, just for social reasons . . .”

It was impossible. They would never understand. Especially when they had just spent so much money on a plane ticket to fly her home for Thanksgiving break.

Tears of frustration and hopelessness started to leak out of the corners of her eyes as she navigated back to her in-box. And there it was.