The Ivy: Rivals (13 page)

Turning, she tumbled down the stairs, raced across the foyer, and threw open the front door, determined to keep the tears from flowing until she made it outside. . . .

She could barely see as she bolted down the club’s forbidden front steps, smack into—

“Callie? What the—ah!”

“Sorry,” Callie mumbled, stooping to help Vanessa to her feet. Her roommate’s heels had slipped in the snow.

Vanessa looked livid. “Next time watch where you’re going! I could have twisted my ankle or snapped the heel off my Jimmy Choo—” Vanessa’s lips froze, pursed in the shape of an “oo.” “Are you—you’re not . . . crying?”

Callie burst into sobs.

Vanessa stood there, looking stricken. “Do you want me to get Clint?”

“No!” Callie shook her head violently.

“Well, as it just so happens, I was actually on my way home. . . .” Vanessa shifted on her feet. Then she sighed. “I could walk you.”

Callie nodded, sniffling.

“Well, come on then,” said Vanessa. Side by side, they trudged through the snow. Wordlessly Vanessa unwound her silvery beaded shawl from her neck and tossed it to Callie. Grateful, Callie hugged it around her goose-pimply arms.

“Do you wanna like, talk about it?” Vanessa ventured as they made their way past the
Harvard Lampoon
’s castle and onto Linden Street.

“No,” Callie managed, staring down at the snow. “It’s so stupid.” Fresh tears streamed down her cheeks. “Not worth crying over. It’s just—” Her words were swallowed in a sob.

“Hookay, no more talking,” Vanessa decided.

They continued on in silence until they reached Mass. Ave.: dark and almost sinister in its unusual emptiness.

“Why did
you
leave?” Callie asked curiously when the tears had eventually ceased.

“Uh . . . I . . .” Vanessa looked away. “Tyler kept making a big deal about how tonight was, like, The Night—you know?” she said with a shrug. “He kept going on and on about how everything was so
special
and
perfect
and wasn’t my
first time
at a
real
college party fun and how he couldn’t
wait
to get home later. . . . Eventually I got sick of all his oh-so-subtle
hints
and decided to respond with a little
hint
of my own—by sneaking out the back.”

Callie nodded.

“Luckily I found you—after you almost killed me—so now
you
can be my excuse. ‘Sorry Tyler, but Callie had a crisis. No, worse than the usual wardrobe malfunction.’”

Callie smiled weakly. Suddenly her phone buzzed in her purse. One new text message. It was from Clint:
WHERE DID YOU GO
?!?

“It’s Clint,” she said in response to Vanessa’s questioning look.

“What are you telling him?” Vanessa asked, watching Callie’s fingers fly across her phone’s keyboard.

Callie smirked. “So sorry, but Vanessa had a crisis. Nothing worse than the usual wardrobe malfunction.”

Vanessa gasped. “How dare you!” she said with mock horror. “JK, the lies you tell to your boyfriend are none of
my
business.”

“That’s not what I actually said,” Callie muttered. What she had actually said was this:

S
OMETHING WEIRD HAPPENED
WITH ONE OF THE MEMBERS.
I
T
’
S
NOT
A BIG DEAL AND YOU SHOULD
DEFINITELY STAY AND ENJOY THE
PARTY.
I’
M WITH
V
ANESSA AND
WE
’
RE HEADED HOME
. I’
LL TALK TO
YOU TOMORROW.

A moment later her phone buzzed with an incoming call from
Clint W
. Furrowing her brow, she silenced it—certain that repeating what had happened aloud would only lead to more tears. Plus, just because her night was ruined didn’t mean his had to be, too. Her phone buzzed again, this time with a text:

J
UST TRIED TO CALL BUT YOU
’
RE
NOT ANSWERING
. . . . I
HOPE
WHATEVER HAPPENED WAS NOTHING
TOO SERIOUS, AND
I’
M GLAD TO
HEAR THAT YOU AND
V
ANESSA ARE
GETTING ALONG
! T
EXT ME WHEN
YOU GET HOME SO
I
KNOW YOU
’
RE
SAFE.
I’
LL SEE YOU TOMORROW.

The bright green door to Wigglesworth loomed ahead. Callie shut her phone. Vanessa paused with her key card poised. “Sooo . . . have you and Clint . . . ?

“
Mm-hmm
. But not until way after the article came out . . . We waited until we were both completely ready. Now we’ve been making up for lost time, though,” she added with a small smile.

“I know this is probably going to sound totally stupid,” said Vanessa, “but I guess I always had this idea in my head about waiting until I was in love . . . or, like, at least five pounds skinnier.”

Both good reasons, even the latter, in a weird comfortable-with- your-own-body way.

“And you don’t love Tyler?” Callie prompted.

“Sometimes I don’t even
like
Tyler,” Vanessa said with a laugh. “I don’t know; he’s great . . . but do you ever feel with Clint that he’s just, like, a whole lot older? I mean, I know it’s only two years, but still . . . They’re worrying about jobs and graduate school and what they’re going to do with the rest of their lives, and we’re still asking for directions to some of the major buildings on campus and figuring out which foods to avoid in the d-hall.” She sighed, scanning her key card against the lock. “He’s just not . . . my fish.”

Callie smiled. Vanessa had devised Operation Fish Farm back during Shopping Period of their first semester, wherein she advised that they find a “diamond in the rough” freshman with potential, capture him from the wild, raise him, and domesticate him until finally, by senior year, after the culmination of a three-year plan, they would finally have the perfect boyfriend. (Unfortunately their status as fishing buddies had been disrupted when the pond appeared to have only one fish: Gregory—the white whale of the freshman class. No net was big enough.)

“If he’s not your fish,” Callie said when they were in the hall, “what is he, then?”

“He’s . . . a shark. An oversexed shark with big slimy fins!”

Laughing, they opened the door to the common room. Dana sat alone on their couch, the typical array of textbooks surrounding her. Seeing them, she beamed. “Finally!” she called.

“Finally what?” asked Callie.

Dana drew herself up, looking very superior: “Pastor John always said, ‘To err is human; to forgive is divine.’”

“I think that was Pope,” Callie ventured.

“I’m not Catholic.” Dana shook her head. “But I have certainly been praying for you two to make up, and I am happy to see that He has finally answered me!”

“What?” shrieked Vanessa. “We didn’t make up!”

“Nuh-uh,” Callie echoed, shaking her head.

“That’s crazy talk,” Vanessa added.

“We’re going—I mean, I’m going to bed,” Callie said.

“I was going first,” Vanessa added.

“So?” asked Callie.

“So . . . get out of my way!” Vanessa cried, pushing past her.

“Fine, just try not to slam the—”

SLAM
went the door to Vanessa’s room.

“. . . door this time,” Callie finished. “What?” she added, rounding on Dana. The other girl stared her down until Callie lowered her eyes.

“She started it,” Callie mumbled, heading for her room. “Sorry . . . G’night. ”

“Nonsense,” Dana muttered, turning back to her textbook. “Absolute nonsense.”

Chapter Eight
The Freshmen Fifteen

The votes are in and now, presented to you by
Fifteen Minutes
magazine . . .

The Freshmen Fifteen: Harvard’s Fifteen Hottest Freshmen

(See page 5 for more photos!)

Name: Levi Johnson

From: Philadelphia, PA

Three Words to Describe Yourself: Run, Bike, Swim

Favorite Friday Night Activity: See above

Best Pickup Line: “No, not the guy who impregnated Bristol Palin . . . but how you doin’?”

Name: Okechuwuku Zeyna

From: Nigeria

Three Words to Describe Yourself: Big, Black, and Beautiful

Favorite Friday Night Activity: Grand Theft Auto with my French mistress

Best Pickup Line: “I’m a prince, did you know?”

Name: Lily Hanafee

From: Little Rock, Arkansas

Three Words to Describe Yourself: Southern, Sassy, Adventurous

Favorite Friday Night Activity: Anything that involves dancing

Best Pickup Line: “No thank you.”

Name: Marine Aurélie Clément

From: Paris/London/Switzerland

Three Words to Describe Yourself:
Je ne sais quoi

Favorite Friday Night Activity: Decimating the African Prince in GTA-IV

Best Pickup Line:
“Bonjour.”

Name: Gregory Brentworth Bolton (not pictured)

From: New York, New York

Three Words to Describe Yourself: Are you serious?

Favorite Friday Night Activity: My Jane Austen book club, of course

Best Pickup Line: “Go away, I’m not interested.”

Name: Damien “DJ” Zhang

From: Shanghai

Three Words to Describe Yourself: Number One Stunner

Favorite Friday Night Activity: Spinning tables at the clubs

Best Pickup Line: “So, how would you like me to be your first Asian?”

Name: Vanessa Von Vorhees

From: Manhattan

Three Words to Describe Yourself: Classy, Fabulous, and Irreplaceable

Favorite Friday Night Activity: Fighting with my boyfriend

Best Pickup Line: “Oooh, does that come in my size?”

Name: Matt Robinson

From: Ithaca, New York

Three Words to Describe Yourself: Geeky And Proud

Favorite Friday Night Activity: You can usually find me at the
Crimson
with my favorite managing editor ;)

Best Pickup Line: “Oh . . . ah, gee, crap—can I have some more time?”

(profiles continued on page 11)

“A
ndrews! Robinson!” an unmistakable voice barked. “Does this look like a motel? I thought I told you to stop sleeping here,” Grace continued, slamming the door to the offices of the
Crimson
behind her, “and start sleeping in the dormitories that the university has graciously provided you!” She now stood only a few feet away from where Matt lay slumped across the desk next to Callie, but her shouts—even coupled with Callie’s frantic nudging—had failed to rouse him.

Grace held up her hand, indicating that Callie should cease, and leaned in toward Matt’s ear until she was mere inches away. “Robbbinsonnn . . .” she whispered in a soft, singsong. “Oh, Robinson . . .”

“
Mmm
,” he mumbled, smiling in his sleep, a tiny spit bubble forming at his mouth.

Grace blinked. “WAKE YOUR ASS UP RIGHT NOW OR IT’S MINE!”

“HOLYMOTHEROF—
AH!
” Matt screamed, knocking over a coffee cup as he leaped to his feet. “Wha— Grace! Good morning—hello—hi!” His hands flew to his shirt, trying to smooth the wrinkles. Giving up, he went to work on his hair. Callie tried to mime,
You have drool on your face
, with little success.

Sighing, Grace bent over and picked up the mug. “From now on this building is
not
your crash pad, understood? However, I am glad that the two of you are here. Big day today!”

“What—ah—yes, big day,” Callie stammered. She had no idea what Grace was talking about or whether she was supposed to know in the first place. “Big, big day.”

“Well, what are you people waiting for? Let’s move!” Grace snapped.

Matt suppressed a yawn. “What time is it?” he whispered to Callie as they followed Grace outside.

“Just after ten,” she whispered back. “Do you have any idea . . . ?”

“No.” Matt grimaced. “There was nothing on my GCal. . . .”

“Pick up the pace back there!” Grace yelled over her shoulder.

“Well, ask!” Callie hissed at Matt.

“You ask,” Matt hissed back.

“Fine!” she muttered. “Um, Grace,” she called. “Today’s the day, isn’t it?”

“You can say that again, Andrews.”

Callie glared at Matt. “Today . . . is the day,” she repeated lamely.

“Exactly,” Grace said. Even though her legs were several inches shorter than Callie’s, not to mention a full foot shorter than Matt’s, they both still had to walk double-time to keep up. “The day we are all going to witness one of
FM
’s oldest and most obscene traditions: ‘The Freshmen Fifteen.’”

“‘The Freshmen Fifteen’?” Matt echoed.

“Yes, we’ll be covering it just in case the Insider doesn’t get the scoop,” Grace said with a worrisome wink at Callie.

“Grace,” Callie started, “you know I’m not—”

“Allowed to publish yet,” Grace finished for her. “Yes, of course I know. You’ll be assisting Robinson on the FlyBy piece featuring our own version of their perverted popularity pageant. I’m thinking The ‘Most Promising Fifteen’ or something along those lines, based on academics and extracurriculars, and I’ll be following up with an op-ed for the
Crimson
that will hopefully feature some one-on-one interviews with the so-called ‘hottest.’” If the speed at which she spoke served as an indicator of her excitement, you’d think she’d just uncovered the next Watergate.

Callie glanced at Matt, grateful that he looked just as confused as she felt.

“Er, Grace,” Matt finally said as they tore down Quincy Street, past Lamont Library and the Barker Center. “What exactly is ‘The Freshmen Fifteen’?”

Grace whirled around. To their surprise, she smacked herself on the forehead. “Of course you don’t know—only freshmen,” she muttered. Then she cleared her throat and started walking again. “Every spring
FM
puts out an issue featuring ‘The Fifteen Hottest Freshmen.’ The editors vote based purely on looks and quote unquote ‘personality’. It has historically been one of their highest circulating issues and is, in my opinion, the epitome of everything that is wrong with not only the publication but the mind-set of its editors. We’re here,” she finished, stopping short.

They were standing outside an enormous brick building flanked by poles with black banners that read
THE FOGG MUSEUM
. Callie and Matt exchanged nervous glances as they followed Grace up the stone steps. Inside, a curator dressed in black tended the front desk. “We’re not open to the public today,” she said, smiling apologetically.

“We’re here for the photo shoot,” Grace explained.

“Oh, excellent,” said the curator. “They’re upstairs now in the American wing. Shall I phone ahead to inform them of your arrival?”

“That won’t be necessary,” Grace said shortly. “Andrews, Robinson? It’s go time.”

She powered up the marble stairs with Callie and Matt trailing closely at her heels. When they reached the third floor, Grace held a finger to her lips. Slowly they crept into the closest room, the white walls lined with paintings by famous American artists from the mid-nineteenth century. Callie paused in front of a work by Winslow Homer, staring at the dark waves tossing a tiny ship at sea.

“Andrews!” Grace hissed, beckoning her. Grace tilted her head in the direction of a neighboring room. As they approached, Callie heard someone speaking.

“Hold still, everyone,” a male voice cried. “And please remember to
smise
! That’s Tyra talk for
smiling
with your
eyes
.”

“Marcus, I thought I told you to hold off on the group picture because we’re still missing one of them,” a clear, high voice called. Callie didn’t need a visual to recognize the speaker: Alexis Thorndike.

“It’s been twenty minutes,” Marcus—a senior who bartended at the Harvard Pub—replied. “Boyfriend’s clearly a no-show.”

“Let me try him again on his cell,” Lexi said.

Following Grace’s lead, Callie stopped just outside the entrance to an enormous room dotted with sculptures fashioned from metal or stone. Inside, an elaborate photo shoot appeared to be taking place. Marcus, overseen by Alexis, stood in front of a camera mounted on a tripod, with bright lights winking on either side. A group of freshmen, including Vanessa, Mimi, and OK, were positioned in awkward poses around several of the sculptures. An upperclassman writer for
FM
named Tom, who had frequently given Callie positive feedback on her pieces, hovered in the background taking notes.

“Just remember,” Marcus called as Lexi whipped out her cell, “that the camera is only on reserve till noon so—”

“Just give me a minute!” Lexi snapped.

“As you wish, Your Highness,” Marcus said, performing an exaggerated bow.

“Please.” Alexis snorted, hanging up her phone. “The only
queen
in this room is y—”

“It’s Monday, March seventh, and I’m here in the Fogg Museum at a photo shoot for
FM
magazine’s infamous issue featuring ‘The Fifteen Hottest Freshmen,’” Grace said loudly, walking into the room. She spoke into the mouthpiece of her iPhone, which ran a voice recording app. Lexi wheeled around. “The day is off to an interesting start,” Grace continued, “with a politically incorrect, possibly homophobic slur from the magazine’s editor and COMP director, third-year Alexis Th—”

“What do you think you’re doing here?” Lexi demanded, marching up to them. “This isn’t
Crimson
business.”

Grace smiled and clicked Pause on her phone’s voice recorder. “Since you are still affiliated with the paper despite my recent recommendation to the board, everything you do is
Crimson
business—even though little that you do upholds our standards and fundamental commitment to excellence.”

“Please,” Lexi said, rolling her eyes, “it’s a
school
paper, not the
Wall Street Journal
, and you’re a college junior, not Carl Bernstein—even if you do have the same seventies-style man’s haircut.”

“I don’t know which I find more insulting,” Grace mused, pretending to really consider the question, “your trivializing our
nation
’s oldest continuously published daily university newspaper, which incidentally boasts several alums who are currently staff writers at the
WSJ,
or the fact that you don’t like my hair.”

“If we are so beneath your standards,” Lexi shot back, struggling to keep her cool, “then I repeat: what are you doing here?”

“Well, if you must know,” said Grace, “we’re doing an opinion piece on your annual popularity contest. I’m quite curious to learn how the rest of the one thousand nine hundred and eighty-five other freshmen at this school feel about not being the quote-unquote ‘hottest.’”

Oof
, thought Callie, watching Mimi and Vanessa primp and preen for the photograph. When you put it that way . . . Being one of the one thousand nine hundred and eighty-five of the not-worthy-of-an-article and, conversely,
ugliest
freshmen on campus really didn’t feel so good.

Lexi exhaled, her lips pressed together in a thin line. “‘The Fifteen Hottest Freshmen’ is, as you are well aware, one of our oldest traditions—”

“Sometimes it’s the oldest traditions that are the most deplorable,” Grace interrupted. “Take, for example, slavery, or the disenfranchisement of women—”

“You did
not
just compare some silly magazine article to slavery—”

“So you admit that your articles are
silly
!” Grace retorted, brandishing her iPhone.

Lexi looked murderous. “‘The Freshmen Fifteen’ is—”

“Fourteen,” Matt murmured suddenly.

“What?” Grace and Lexi shouted simultaneously, rounding on him.

“There are only—ah—fourteen people posed for the photo over there,” Matt said, seeming to deeply regret his decision to speak. “Not fifteen.”

Slowly Grace and Lexi turned to look at the fourteen—indeed there were only fourteen, plus Marcus and Tom—frozen faces, riveted as if they’d scored front row seats to a prize fight. Mimi waved cheerily at Callie. Vanessa flipped her hair. OK struggled to maintain his pose, mimicking the statute of a nude warrior with bow and arrow next to him. Tom coughed uncomfortably. Marcus, a delighted gleam in his eye, snapped several pictures of the two female editors, now inches away from each other’s face.

Lexi cleared her throat. “As you can see, I’m afraid that you and your protégées”—she shot a withering death glare at Callie—“are interfering with our shoot, and so I’m sorry, but I’m going to have to ask you to leave.”

“And I’m afraid that you don’t have the authority to do that,” Grace said, infusing her voice with Lexi’s signature saccharine quality.

Lexi took a deep breath, but before she could reply, Tom walked over and said, “Actually, it might be to our advantage if they stayed. You’re a freshman, right?” he added, turning to Matt.

“Yes,” said Matt.

“Well, we’re still missing a fifteenth, and it doesn’t look like this Bolton character is going to show so . . .” Tom was still looking at Matt. “Perhaps you could stand in?”

“Him?”
Lexi asked.

“Me?”
Matt echoed. “As one of
the
fifteen—no!—I mean—wait—really?”

“Sure, man,” said Tom, clapping him on the shoulder. “You’ll be great.”

Grace scoffed at the just-won-Miss-America expression on Matt’s face. “Never underestimate the power of vanity,” she whispered to Callie, nudging her. “It’s settled, then,” she said so everyone could hear. “Robinson will participate in the shoot—almost as if he was on an undercover assignment,” she added pointedly, “and Andrews and I will observe and then shadow the individual interviews.”

Lexi was shaking her head. “I don’t—”

“We’ll be so quiet you won’t even know we’re here.”

“But—”

“Clock’s a-tickin’, ladies,” Marcus called, the flash on his camera flickering as he snapped several more photos of the standoff. “Shall we get this show on the road?”

Callie glanced at Lexi. The older girl had the same about-to-explode air as a grenade. Callie suppressed a smile, watching Lexi take deep, calming breaths. “Fine,” Lexi whispered when she could finally talk again. “Carry on.”

Matt bounded over to join the group. “And do something about his hair!” she yelled halfheartedly.

Marcus began repositioning his subjects and kept encouraging OK to move to a place of greater prominence. Callie smirked when Vanessa started gesturing frantically from the other side of the room, no doubt insisting that she belonged in the front row and refusing to let OK obscure the brand-new outfit and heels she’d most likely purchased for the occasion. Meanwhile Matt hovered awkwardly in the background, seemingly torn between laughing at and trying to mimic OK’s outlandish poses. . . .

“All right, that’s a wrap!” Marcus finally called twenty minutes later. “Time for the individual shots: How about we start with you, sugar?” he said, pointing to OK. “Now the first thing we want to know is: single or taken? Gay or straight?”

“Actually, I’ll be conducting the interviews, Marcus,” Tom interceded, smiling wryly at Callie, whom Grace had assigned to shadow him while she personally covered Lexi, blocking her every move like a basketball player on the court. Callie smiled back and pulled out a pen and paper from her book bag so she could take notes, thankful that she still had several hours until her Economics 10b lecture started. Grace and Lexi had begun bickering again loudly, and from the looks of it, it would be a while before they left the museum. . . .

The next day after their afternoon classes Callie and Matt were, once again, at the Crimson. “I’m starting to feel like we live here,” Callie moaned, resting her head on the desk.

“Maybe we should buy a potted plant—decorate or something,” Matt offered.