The Ivy (10 page)
And change them she would, Callie decided, glancing down at her sweaty gym gear. There was still time before the meeting.
Quickly she turned to find Mimi—but before she even knew what was happening, she had spilled the contents of her Nonfat, sugar-free, Venti Vanilla Latte all over the sweater of a boy who had been standing behind her.
Holy crap, not now! She closed her eyes. Opening them, he was still standing there, his telltale camel-colored cashmere practically screaming Burberry. There was no way she could afford to replace it.
Mimi to the rescue! Conjuring some napkins out of nowhere, she patted the boy’s sweater, saying “
Oh, mon dieu
, Clint,
je suis désolé
. I am such a terrific klutz that I bumped into Callie and kaput
—
the fault belongs to me.”
All the irritation Callie had felt for Mimi in the past twenty minutes vanished instantaneously. Glancing at her roommate thankfully, she added: “I’m so sorry, too! I didn’t even see you standing there! Maybe you could give me your sweater and I could have it dry-cleaned for you?”
A strange expression passed through his gray-green eyes before he said slowly, “Well, that would be a bit awkward, wouldn’t it? If I just pulled my sweater off right here and then walked home half naked?”
And that’s when Callie, who was trying to figure out if she was supposed to laugh, really looked at him.
Her stomach dropped. He was the same upperclassman who’d escorted her and Vanessa to the Activities Fair, the same boy whom she had the vague sensation of seeing again somewhere else. . . .
But today it was as if she were finally seeing him for the first time. He was at least a head taller than her, with an athletic build and a huge smile that stretched across his face, causing those adorable crinkles to form around the corners of his eyes. His short, light brown hair was windswept at the moment, and she caught herself actively resisting the urge to reach up and run her fingers through it.
Looks aside, it takes a pretty damn cool guy to stay calm when a stranger has just spilled a boiling venti-sized vat of vanilla-something all over his expensive sweater.
In fact, she thought, drifting further and further into dreamland, I wouldn’t mind if you took that sweater off right now and—
Once again: Mimi to the rescue! “Callie, this is Clint. Clint, you remember—”
“I’m Callie,” she blurted. “It’s a pleasure to meet you—I mean, officially.”
Clint smiled: the same odd, indecipherable expression in his eyes. He stared hard at Callie for a full three seconds in a way that made her tug nervously at her running shorts, wondering if perhaps he didn’t remember her from the day of the Activities Fair.
“Okay,” he said after a pause. “Nice to meet you, too—
officially
. And don’t worry about the sweater,” he added with a glimmer in his eyes. “It was a gift from my ex-girlfriend, so I was planning to burn it anyway.”
e, x
: there were no two letters in all of English or mathematics that were more beautiful.
Back inside her room, Callie threw open her dresser drawers and pulled out a pair of Seven jeans that Vanessa had given her because they were “getting too small.”
“Actually, they never really fit me in the first place,” Vanessa had confided as she forced Callie to accept them. “I was trying to subscribe to the whole buy-a-really-expensive pair-of-jeans-that- are-one-size-too-small-as-an-incentive-to-lose-weight strategy, but it obviously didn’t work out. . . . Take them, seriously, or they’ll go to waste.”
Her clock read 2:53. Shit, she thought, rifling through her shirts. Quickly she chose a white Ralph Lauren sweater that was also on loan from Vanessa, who enjoyed playing “Fairy Godmother” to Callie: her own personal Cinderella doll.
In a final moment of inspiration Callie reached for the nonprescription reading glasses that Jessica had given her right before their college interviews so that she would look “well, less blond.” Glancing in the mirror, Callie decided that she seemed very fashionably journalistic indeed. Perfect. If only Clint could see her now . . .
Skipping down the stairs as fast as possible, she crossed the Yard and made her way toward the
Crimson
headquarters. A sign on the front door pointed her to the
FM
information session.
She was a few minutes late, but fortunately the meeting had yet to begin. She smiled as Vanessa waved at her from the back of the room, where she’d been saving a seat.
As Callie settled into her chair, a girl standing at the front of the room began to speak—a girl whom Callie quickly recognized.
Alexis Thorndike.
“Hello, everyone, and welcome to the first official COMP meeting for
Fifteen Minutes
magazine. As most of you already know, I’m Alexis Vivienne Thorndike, and I will be your COMP director over the following months. Most people call me ‘Lexi,’ but to you guys, I am God.”
A few people started to laugh.
But they shut up very quickly.
“In the future,” she added, addressing no one in particular, “please try to be on time.”
Callie felt herself go pink. I was only two minutes late, she thought, feeling bad about it nevertheless.
Vanessa leaned over, her expression grave: “Remember what I said about not getting on her bad side, Cal,” she hissed. “Make no mistake: she will destroy you.”
Callie swallowed.
“Don’t stress about it too much, though,” Vanessa offered consolingly. “Word on the street is she’s been a complete bitch ever since Clint Weber dumped her a few weeks ago, so I wouldn’t necessarily take her hostility personally.”
Callie nodded, removing her glasses—which were starting to hurt her eyes—so that she could get a better look at her COMP director.
Alexis was not too tall and not too skinny, but perfectly proportioned and immaculately dressed. A thin headband with a tiny side bow rested delicately across silky brown hair that fell in beautiful ringlets all the way down to the middle of her back. Everything about her glowed: feminine, spotless, and white, from her dainty Milly blouse to her soft, fair skin and a smile where full lips parted to reveal small even teeth. Standing at the front of the room, she looked radiant, almost angelic: as if she could do no wrong, as if she could accomplish anything.
Clint Weber
, Callie etched in the corner of her notebook, biting her lip as she wondered . . . could this be the same Clint she’d bumped into—literally—earlier?
“Clint Weber—could you Facebook him?” she asked Vanessa. After spending several weeks together, her roommate’s creepy stalker habits were starting to rub off.
“Sure,” Vanessa murmured, reaching into her Fendi tote and pulling out her beloved iPhone.
Callie continued to watch Alexis—Lexi—with fascination. What was it about her that made it impossible to avert your eyes?
Maybe it’s the way she looks so confident up there in front of the room . . .
“Every week you’ll be asked to submit five pieces to the editors for review,” Lexi explained in a sweet, clear voice, flashing a smile at the eager freshmen and nodding to the dedicated sophomores who hadn’t made the cut last spring but had come back, determined, for round two.
Or the way she dresses, like, perfectly . . .
“The editors will return your pieces with their written feedback and a list of your assignments for the following week,” she continued. “Then, on the last Saturday in October, you will submit a portfolio with ten samples of what you consider to be your best work.” As she spoke, Lexi began to walk, strolling up and down the aisles.
Or it could be the way her long, thick curls bounce when she moves. . . . Callie thought, admiring Lexi’s grace as she stepped lightly—like a dancer—in her Chanel flats. They were a pearly shade of ivory, with two interlocking golden Cs above the toe.
“After we’ve had a chance to review your first portfolios, only half of you will be asked to continue. You’ll have a few weeks to prepare a collection of new pieces for your second portfolio, which you will submit before we leave for Thanksgiving break. Only a fraction of you will remain in the running for the third and final round. Then we, the editors, will make our last cuts and you—if you survive this long—will find out if you made it after winter break.”
Callie suddenly noticed somebody standing in the frame of the doorway, watching her.
It was Matt.
Shit! She had completely forgotten to pick him up before the meeting.
“I’M SORRY!”
she mouthed. Matt frowned and then vanished down the hall.
“Dammit I need a newer version of this phone!” Vanessa muttered. “The internet is so freaking slow. . . . Download, dammit!”
Vanessa’s eyes were glued to her phone so intently that she didn’t notice Lexi, who was now—Callie registered with dismay—less than fifteen feet away.
Callie nudged Vanessa, who remained fixated on her phone as Lexi, still speaking fluidly, moved closer and closer, until she was so close that Callie could see the whites of her big brown eyes.
In a final act of desperation Callie elbowed Vanessa
hard
—so hard, in fact, that her phone flew out of her hands and landed facedown on the floor with a heart-stopping clatter.
Lexi stooped to retrieve it. “Here you go,” she said, smiling sweetly as she extended the phone toward Callie.
Bitchy? thought Callie, relief sweeping over her. What was V talking about? She seems perfectly nice to me—
“What the . . .” Lexi muttered, the smile melting off her face. Her hand had frozen in midair, clutching Vanessa’s phone. All three of them could now see the image that had just finished downloading onto the screen.
His hair had been much shorter in person than it appeared in his profile picture, but still there could be no mistake: Clint the Coffee Victim and Clint Weber were one and the same.
Vanessa gasped.
As if the siren song had
c
eased, they caught a glimpse of the beautiful, blue-blooded Lexi transforming into something terrible and strange. It didn’t last longer than a heartbeat, but Callie was certain that Lexi had given her a look of death.
As the phone slipped through Lexi’s fingers and crashed onto the hardwood floor, it split in two with a sound that ricocheted around the room. The screen turned a Do-Not-Resuscitate shade of black.
“Oh, my bad!” said Lexi. “I’m very,
very
sorry about that.” And the Oscar goes to—
“From now on, though,” she continued as she faced back toward the front of the room, “let’s all try to do a better job of paying attention while I’m speaking.”
For a moment Callie and Vanessa sat silent, watching Lexi walk away.
“Callie,” Vanessa whispered in a tone you’d use at a wake. “Why didn’t you tell me that the person you hooked up with at Calypso was Clint Weber?”
“What!” Callie spat back.
“
Clint Weber
! Sketchy McKisserson? Foxy McFoxerson? They-are-all-the-
same PERSON
!”
Realization dawned like lightning: that light brown hair ruffling in the breeze at the Activities Fair, the same brown hair that had obscured a pair of light green eyes as he leaned in to kiss her on the couch, the same green eyes that had stared at her with such a strange look in the coffee shop, the look that had been, finally, recognizable in the photo on Vanessa’s phone . . .
Suddenly Callie’s own phone vibrated from somewhere deep in the bottom of her book bag.
Oh god, not now . . . she prayed, digging frantically. Fortunately, it had only vibrated once, meaning: 1 new text message.
She didn’t recognize the number.
She flipped open her phone. Vanessa leaned in to look over her shoulder.
I
CAN’T BELIEVE YOU DIDN’T
RECOGNIZE ME FROM THE OTHER
NIGHT
’I
DIDN’T REALIZE MY
HAIRCUT WAS
THAT
DRASTIC
.
I
ENJOYED BEING ASSAULTED BY
YOU TODAY.
L
ET’S DO IT AGAIN
SOMETIME!
’CLINT
“Callie,” Vanessa whispered mournfully. “You’re done for.”
A
fter a week and a half of covert text messaging Callie had finally agreed to meet up with Clint for a “secret” rendezvous: secret in her mind because she had no intention of telling her roommates and secret on his end because he’d refused to reveal where they were going. She’d received instructions via text an hour earlier to meet him in front of the John Harvard statue at 11:45
P.M.
. . . which was precisely thirty minutes from now.
So, while Mimi, Dana, and Vanessa were lounging around taking advantage of their Sunday as a day of rest, she was stuck in her bedroom hurrying to finish a sample story for
FM
, a bit of “investigative journalism” Lexi had ordained involving freshman necklines and hemlines:
“Are they statistically lower and shorter than those of the female upperclassmen?
” And:
“Do we take this as an indicator of greater promiscuous sexual activity or merely as a result of low self-esteem?”
Seriously? Was this even a real assignment? Callie wasn’t fluent in her COMP director’s particular dialect of prep school sarcasm, so it was impossible to tell. Blowing a frustrated gust of air through her lips, she turned back to her computer screen, wondering how many rewrites it would take until she finally managed to impress Lexi enough so that she would stop thinking of Callie as the girl who doodled her ex-boyfriend’s name on her notebook and iPhone-stalked him during important meetings. . . .
Sometimes freshmen make clueless mistakes when it comes to their love lives clothing choices,
she typed.
But please don’t hate me them. After all, sometimes a cute boy skirt is too tempting to resist. . . .
Out in the common room Vanessa was practically drooling as she watched Dana sink her teeth into an enormous slice of pizza. Vanessa didn’t need a scale to tell her to avoid eating pizza (diet strategy of the week: fasting for Ramadan—“No, I’m actually
very
spiritual”), but due to her demanding schedule, Dana was stress-eating enough to feed a family of four. Forget the fabled Freshman Fifteen: she was riding a nonstop ticket to the Freshman Twenty-five.
Mimi yawned and poked Vanessa in the side.
“Vanessa!” she cried, waving her hand in front of her roommate’s face in order to break the pizza-induced trance. “Vanessa, tell me a humorous story. I am so-oh bored. . . .”
Vanessa hesitated, but then her eyes lit up.
“Oooh, okay, I know! So, yesterday I’m sitting in Lamont Café with a bunch of my old girl friends from school. Well, we’re bored, so we decide to play this game called ‘Fuck-Chuck-Marry’—you know the game, right?”
Mimi shrugged, and Dana, cringing visibly at the word
fuck
, tried to bury her nose in her laptop.
“Oh, that’s right: foreigner,
hello
! Well, anyway, it’s pretty simple. I’d name three guys . . . say, OK, Gregory, and Matt, and then you would have to say which one you want to fuck—”
Dana cringed again.
“—which one you want to chuck—off a cliff, that is—and which one you want to marry.”
“All right,” said Mimi, nodding. “So, let me see . . . I choose Matt for my husband because he is so nice—”
“Ew,
no
,” Vanessa cut in, shaking her head. “That was just an example so you could understand the necessary background for the story. So”—she began raising her voice as Mimi scowled—“we’re sitting there in Lamont Café playing Fuck-Chuck-Marry and somebody proposes three highly influential politicians who shall remain nameless—”
“Who?” Mimi demanded.
“That’s classified information, Mimi, though I’m sure you could guess if you put your mind to it. . . .”
Mimi shrugged again. Dana shifted uncomfortably in her chair.
“So anyway,” Vanessa continued, “this girl throws those names out, and
everybody
at the table goes silent—except for me, who starts debating very
loudly
which one I’d like to fuck, who I’d like to chuck, and who, by process of elimination, I’d have to marry. . . . As this is happening, I can’t figure out why everyone is staring at me looking nervous and one girl is motioning at me to stop talking, but I keep going, and I’m right in the middle of contemplating the merits of fucking one of them—”
“I thought you said you were a
virgin
?” Mimi interrupted.
“Oh, for christsake Mimi, it’s a
game
! Now would you
please
let me finish?”
“Let me guess,” Dana piped up suddenly, looking extremely irritated. “One of their daughters was sitting right behind you?”
“How did you—” Vanessa began, looking dumbfounded, as if she’d forgotten that Dana knew how to speak.
“Every ‘highly influential politician’ has a daughter at Harvard. That’s old news. Frankly, I think it’s
rude
and indecent to be talking about you-know-what in a
library
.”
“What’s rude—
talking
about fucking in the library?” Vanessa asked. “What about all the people who are actually
fucking
in the library? It’s probably happening right now in Widener as we speak. I hear ‘Medieval Weaponry’ is a real prime location to—”
“I can’t hear you!” Dana screamed, throwing her hands over her ears. “I-can’t-hear-you-I’m-not-listening-I-don’t-hear-you-LALALALALALALA—”
“Hey, guys!” Callie called, stepping out of her room and making her way toward the front door.
“Where are
you
going?” Mimi asked, sounding accusatory—or maybe that was just Callie’s imagination.
“Library,” she said, reaching for the doorknob.
“On a Sunday?” Mimi raised one eyebrow. “We never go to the library on Sundays. . . .”
“You look pretty dressed up—even for Lamont,” Vanessa said, eyeing her suspiciously.
Callie shrugged.
“Hold on, I’ll come with you,” said Dana, taking her hands off her ears and standing.
“No—uh—sorry—I have a . . . study group.”
Dana frowned, as in,
If there were really a study group, I would have known about it.
“Study group for
what
?” Vanessa wheedled.
“For economics, okay? I promised I’d meet Matt! And hey, since when do I have to tell you guys everything?” she added as the three of them stared.
Then Vanessa started to nod in a very understanding, very
annoying
way. “She’s meeting
Matt
. To
study . . .”
she explained to the other two as if everything suddenly made sense.
“Oooh,” said Mimi. “So
that is
why you are all dressed up.”
“Dressing up—for the
library
?” Dana erupted out of nowhere. “Study
dates
—in the library? Doing you-know-what—IN THE
LIBRARY?
. . . What is WRONG with you people?” she cried, gripping her head in her hands. “I’m going to study. Actually
study
. IN MY ROOM,” she added, slamming her door. Vanessa and Mimi started laughing uncontrollably.
“Yes . . . and
I’m
going to study in the
library
,” Callie said, stepping out the door.
“
Sure
you are.” Vanessa gasped for breath.
“Have fun!” Mimi called.
It was cold waiting outside in front of the John Harvard statue, but nonetheless Callie was glad she had opted for tights and a skirt instead of jeans. She shivered as the wind blew past, mussing up her hair, which she had arranged with more care and attention than usual. Her hands flew to her head to smooth it out.
A set of soft-gloved hands suddenly covered her eyes.
“Guess who?”
“Clint!” she shrieked, leaping around. “Erm—uh—hey,” she stammered in a much lower, more casual and—hopefully— cooler tone.
“Hi.” He smiled, stepping forward to give her a hug.
His sweater was the softest, warmest, fuzziest thing in the world. It smelled like cinnamon and autumn leaves. She didn’t want to let go.
Clint chuckled. “Are you cold or something?”
“Wha—
Oh—
yes, freezing!” she said, realizing that she had in fact held on a bit too long.
“Here,” said Clint, unwinding a maroon cashmere scarf from around his neck and draping it across her shoulders. “Allow me.”
She stood still, averting her eyes so as not to stare while he knotted the scarf at her neck.
“How’s that?” he asked.
“Much better.”
“You sure? We could stop for coffee or a hot chocolate on our way. . . .”
“Coffee?” she echoed vaguely, glancing at his sweater. “We’d better not risk it.”
Clint laughed. “Good point. Shall we, then?” he asked, offering his arm.
She accepted it and they began to walk. “So, where are you taking me?” she asked.
“If I told you that, it would ruin the surprise!”
Instead of heading toward Harvard Square they were moving deeper and deeper into campus. They finally stopped in front of the Science Center. Clint stepped forward to get the door—and she was surprised to see that it wasn’t locked, even though it was almost midnight.
“Oh, I get it! You need help with your homework,” she teased. “It’s all right—no need to be embarrassed, asking a freshman. . . .”
“Hush, you,” he admonished, taking her hand.
Wandering through the building, they made their way toward the elevator bank in the back. A night watchman guarded the entrance.
“Evening, Clint,” he said with a tip of his hat.
“Hiya, Miles, how ya doing?” Clint asked.
“Can’t complain,” Miles answered. “Good night for lookin’ at the stars, eh?” he added, winking at Callie.
Reaching into his wallet, Clint retrieved a small card with his picture in the corner, and the words
Astronomy Club
:
MEMBER
written across the top.
Astronomy Club?
Miles glanced at the card, nodded, and waved them through.
“So!” Callie said once they were inside the elevator. “You must be what they refer to as a closet nerd?”
“Hey, don’t knock it till you try it.”
The elevator stopped on the very top floor.
“Penthouse, mademoiselle,” he said, keeping one arm pressed against the elevator doors and ushering her into the hall.
There was a door at the end of the hallway. It unlocked with a click as Clint ran his card across the scanner, the door popping open to reveal a tiny, circular staircase winding up.
At the top Callie found herself inside a dome-shaped room. The walls were completely black except for a few colorful posters of planets and pictures of the galaxy. In the center a huge cylindrical case—big enough to fit at least three people inside—extended from the floor all the way to the ceiling.
“What is this place?” Callie asked, examining what looked like a supercomputer resting on one of the desks along the wall.
“A well-kept secret,” Clint replied. “Open only to graduate astrophysics students and members of the Astronomy Club.”
“How many members are there in the Astronomy Club?”
“Well, our numbers have fluctuated over the years, and we had to start denying applications due to the club’s popularity,” Clint said, laughing. “But . . . as of right now, you’re looking at it.”
“You’re the only one? That’s the lamest thing I’ve ever heard!” she cried, meaning exactly the opposite.
“Yep.” He grinned. “Now check this out. . . .” He pushed a button on one of the desks and the black walls suddenly started to slide open, revealing the midnight sky.
He pushed another button and the cylindrical case in the middle of the room began rotating slowly. A ladder descended from the ceiling, leading up to a platform placed directly underneath an enormous telescope.
“After you,” he said.
When Callie reached the top, she was level with the telescope: advantageously situated in front of an observation deck with seating designed for two. Their own personal love seat.
Clint joined her and started fiddling with the telescope. Pulling it closer, he aimed it toward the gap in the ceiling, focusing the lens.
“Go ahead, have a look,” he said.
She could see lots of stars and a big reddish mass that looked like it might be a planet. “It’s beautiful,” she said, turning and offering the telescope to Clint.
He pulled it toward him and pressed his eye to the glass.
“What’s that big red, blobish thing?” she asked.
“Blobish thing?”
He laughed, leaning back. “Mars. Though personally I think ‘big red blobish thing’ is far more descriptive. Perhaps we should write in, ask them to change it?”
“Sure,” she agreed. “I never cared much for ‘
Mars
,’ anyhow.”
“Oh yeah? What’s your favorite planet?”
“Uh . . . Earth? Obviously?” She laughed. “You?”
“Pluto. Without a doubt.”
“But Pluto’s not even a planet!”
“Stop!” Clint said, pretending to look scandalized. “I don’t think I can date a girl who doesn’t appreciate the awesomeness of Pluto. We were robbed.”
“So—this is a date.”
“Maybe. Now I’m not sure,” said Clint, wrapping his arm around her shoulders.