The Ivy: Rivals (5 page)

“What about me?” Mimi said, suddenly snapping to attention.

“You said this holiday was a ‘stupid fabrication invented by the Hallmark company and that in France St. Valentine is the name of a monster that eats little children’s feet!”

“When did I say that?” Mimi asked.

“When I—” OK lowered his voice. “When I asked if you wanted to—”

“He eats their little fingers, too.” Mimi nodded vigorously. “And the feet. Now leave me alone; I am needing to finish this.”

Everyone suddenly stared at her. “Are you . . .” Callie started. “I mean, you’re not . . .
working
—are you?”

“Oui.”

“Homework?” asked Dana in disbelief.

Mimi shook her head. “
Pas pour
school.”

“What
are
you doing, then?” OK demanded.

“I am building a website that allows friends to connect with one another using a system of social networks.”

“No, seriously: what are you doing?” Callie asked. “On
my
computer?”

Mimi exhaled. “I am doing the
Lampoon
COMP.”

“What?” Vanessa shrieked from her bedroom.
“Why?”

Mimi surveyed them as if she were debating whether they were worthy of her trust. Finally she shrugged. “
Il est le seul club à Harvard que je ne suis pas autorisé à entrer.
”

“The only club . . . oh, that you’re not authorized to enter? I guess that . . . makes a weird kind of sense,” Matt said. “Well, when you make it, we’ll be rivals, so you’d better watch out!” He stood. “I should probably get going. OK?”

“Yeah,” OK agreed. “Yeah, got to go put on my
green
shirt—”

Callie quickly shook her head at him.

“Oh,” he said, staring back at her. “This was in your drop-box.” He pulled a small white envelope out of his pocket.

Turning it over in her hands, she saw her name on the front.

“Thanks . . . and thanks for everything, guys!” she called.

“Yes, thank you!”

“Merci!”

“What’s in the envelope?” Dana asked when they were gone. Her cheeks were slightly flushed as she bit into one of the rich chocolate truffles from her heart-shaped box and then leaned in to inhale the flowers.

“Tickets . . .” Callie said slowly, pulling them out. “Two tickets to hear—oh, wow—Ian McEwan! It looks like he’s doing a reading at the Harvard bookstore next month.”

“Gandalf?” asked Mimi. “The actor?”

“No, the
author
,” Callie answered, rereading the tickets in disbelief.

“Are they from Clint?” Dana ventured.

“Yes, they must be,” said Callie, her smile spreading from ear to ear. She had never mentioned that McEwan was one of her favorite authors; Clint must have noticed her reading a copy of
Atonement
at the end of J-term.

There was a knock on the door. Vanessa froze mid-millionth-outfit change.
“No,”
she whispered. “They’re not supposed to be here for another fifteen minutes!”

“Come in!” Mimi yelled wickedly.

“Hello,” said Adam, walking into the room. “Hi. Happy Valentine’s Day.”

“I’ll kill you!” Vanessa screamed from her bedroom—probably at Mimi, but it was difficult to say for sure.

“Hi,” said Dana, beaming shyly.

“I got you something,” he said, pulling a small wrapped present from behind his back. His hand froze in midair. “And so did somebody else, apparently.” His eyes were flicking from the Nalgene full of flowers, which was situated right in front of Dana, to the open box of chocolates on her lap.

“Oh, this? It’s nothing,” Dana said, her voice slightly higher than usual.

“It doesn’t look like nothing,” Adam replied, drawing himself up to his full five feet, seven inches.

“Really,” said Dana, blushing as she stood. “These were just friendly gifts. From your roommates.”

This news did not have the desired calming effect. “My
roommates
?” Adam repeated, his voice cracking. “Which one? Gregory? Oh, he’s in for a talking to when we get home—”

“Hush, you’re being ridiculous,” said Dana, shooting an apologetic look at Mimi and Callie. “But if you insist on continuing this conversation, we can do so on the way to dinner. . . .”

“Fine!” Adam snapped.

“We’d better go get dressed,” Callie said pointedly to Mimi.

“Oui, allons-y!”

Ten minutes later they emerged from their bedrooms: Callie in a little red dress she had ordered online from Forever 21 and Mimi wearing purple as promised.

“Diiing Dong,” a muffled voice that sounded like Tyler’s called from the hall.

“Ohmygod, they’re here,” Vanessa shrieked, poking her head out of her room. She was still wearing only her bra and underwear, clutching two dresses—one red and one a pale yellow—tightly in her fists. “Mimi! Mimi, can you let them in while I hide in here and then text me what Tyler’s—”

“Red, for crying out loud!” Callie erupted. “He’s wearing red. Clint told me. Now hurry up and get dressed and don’t come out until you have clothes on!”

“I will get it,” Mimi said, intercepting Callie on her way to the door.

“You’re leaving?” Callie asked.

Mimi slipped on her coat. “Would not want to be a ‘wheel,’ as you would say. . . .”

“We come bearing gifts,” Tyler said, strolling into the room. He wore maroon under a black blazer, while Clint sported a paler red dress shirt and a dark blue tie, looking amazing as usual.

“I see that,” Callie acknowledged. He was carrying a large bouquet of flowers, a box of chocolates, and a card. It seemed he had really taken Lexi’s gift advice to heart, only like Vanessa, he had experienced difficulty deciding which level of commitment to signify and so had just decided to buy everything.

Clint swept Callie up in his arms. “Hi, beautiful,” he said.

“Hi, you,” she said, kissing him.

“I have a little something for you,” he started, holding up a small light blue box tied with thick, white ribbon. But before she could take it, Vanessa emerged from her bedroom wearing—

“Yellow?”
Tyler muttered. He shot Clint a look.

“Your dress is lovely, Vanessa,” Clint said, ignoring him.

“Yeah,” Tyler echoed, “Lovely and . . .
yellow
.”

“Thanks. Are those all for me?” she asked Tyler, pointing to the gifts, her eyes lit up like a kid’s in a candy store. Or just: Vanessa in a candy store.

“Oh, these? These are actually for Callie; Clint just needed an extra set of hands.”

Vanessa was not amused. She reached out to snatch the presents, but suddenly she paused, her eyes honing in on the little blue box in Clint’s hand. They grew wide, but she said nothing, watching Callie accept the gift.

Callie undid the white ribbon slowly, her pulse thundering as it fell away and revealed
TIFFANY & CO
. printed across the top. She opened the box.

“It’s . . .”

“Here, allow me,” Clint said, lifting from the folds of white tissue paper a beautiful heart-shaped pendant with a clear, sparkling stone at its center strung on a silver chain and moving to fasten it around her neck.

“It’s . . . it’s too much,” Callie managed to stammer, nevertheless holding her hair out of the way. She fingered the pendant. It felt cool, a pleasant weight against her chest.

“Do you like it?” Clint grinned apprehensively.

“Like it? I
love
it,” she decided, snapping to her senses. “It’s just that—well, with the tickets, too, I mean, isn’t this too much?”

“Tickets?” asked Clint. “What tickets?”

“
The
tickets,” Callie said, lifting the envelope off the table. “You know, the tickets to hear Ian Mc— Oh. These aren’t from you?”

“Ian Mc
Who
?” said Clint, squinting at the tickets. “No, definitely not from me.” He handed them back to her.

“Oh. Somebody left them in my drop-box and there was no note or anything, so I just assumed it was you.”

“Nope.” He shook his head.

“Hmm,” Callie murmured. Well, then who—

“Time to go!” Tyler cried, offering his arm to Vanessa, who had arranged her own gifts on the coffee table.

“Thank you so much,” Callie said to Clint as he helped her into her coat.

“Of course,” he said, wrapping his arms around her from behind and kissing her cheek. “I’m just glad you like it.”

Her fingers flew to her throat and ran along the chain once more. It was beautiful—and no doubt Vanessa would find a way to make it known exactly how expensive once they were back in the room—but for some reason, during the entire walk to the Pudding, Callie was distracted: wondering who, if not Clint, had left her that envelope.

The inside of the Pudding bore an odd resemblance to their living room: the walls were adorned with huge shiny red hearts and dozens of helium balloons grazed the high ceiling in the main room, their strings dangling—magenta, red, pale pink, and white—fluttering just above the heads of the members and the spring punches.

Callie and Clint stood in front of a table in the foyer filled with rows and rows of nametags. Callie skimmed the names but did not see hers anywhere. She stared down at the table, reading each card one by one, row by row, but still could not find her name. Had they forgotten her? Or did somebody steal it? Maybe Lexi—

“Here you are,” said Clint. “Is something wrong?”

“No, nothing,” she said, taking deep breaths while he pinned the card to the strap of her dress. It had been there the whole time—on the members’ side of the table. She had been scanning the punches.

“Drink?” he asked, nodding toward the main room. There was no bartender tonight; instead, hundreds of flutes of something pink and sparkling lined the tables, a single raspberry bobbing in each glass. “Wait here—I’ll be right back,” he said, squeezing her hand.

Despite the different decorations and her new status, as denoted by the color of her nametag, the party felt like a déjà vu version of Callie’s first punch event. Everyone seemed just as hyperaware of what everyone else was wearing: tonight outfit color simply happened to take precedence over the inside labels. And, while young men in green steered clear of girls in red dresses, punches still flocked to red nametags like moths to a flame. Callie wished she could tell them—especially the ones who were sweating or laughing too loudly while making off-color jokes or longingly eyeing the line for the bathroom—that they didn’t have to try so hard: most of the members had already made their decisions during the pre-punch slide show based on factors beyond the punch’s control.

But instead she stayed silent, trying to plaster her face with the same unreadable smile worn by the members as they made mental notes of any “character-revealing details” that they would later post anonymously to the punch profiles on HPpunch.com. The supposed purpose of said profiles was to allow members to read up on punches they had missed meeting during the event, but from the way a lot of the older girls were smirking or emitting a tiny cough when a punch turned around, Callie had a bad feeling about the contents of the so-called “punch book.”

Suddenly she was surrounded.
Hi, I’m Erica—Nicholas—Reid, so nice to meet you—Pleased to meet you, I’m Beth—Oh, wow, love the dress: Versace, right?—Killer shoes—Who does your hair?—You look familiar, are you in my Ec10 section? There’s this great study guide I could pass along—Can I get you anything? A drink?—Your boyfriend’s a lucky guy, if you don’t mind my saying so—What’s your favorite band? Because my dad can get tickets to, like, any show—the
Crimson
, huh? My cousin’s a junior editor at the
Wall Street Journal
if you’re ever interested in talking about internships—

Callie turned in a spare second between conversations to locate Clint: she spotted him at the opposite end of the other room, holding two champagne flutes, similarly trapped. Every time he excused himself he made it only two steps closer to her before being intercepted. Seeing Callie, he gave her a
Well, what can you do?
sort of a shrug and set one of the glasses down so he could shake hands.

Give me your cell, we could grab lunch in the d-hall sometime—When do you usually hit the gym?—So I’ll just e-mail you about that class, then—Facebook me!

“What a beautiful necklace.” It was Lexi. This was the first time she had acknowledged Callie’s existence since the article outing the sex tape situation had appeared in the
Crimson
. Callie opened her mouth, but no words came out. “Really, it’s stunning,” Lexi said. “Enjoy the party.” Then she was gone, making her way back to the main room. The punches clustered around Callie quickly said their good-byes and trailed after Lexi, recognizing, perhaps, someone of far superior status.

Her sight-line suddenly clear, Callie saw Gregory stumble out of the coatroom, followed shortly thereafter by Alessandra. She giggled as she watched him redo the top two buttons on his midnight blue shirt—clearly he was too cool for themes—and then adjusted the straps on her fire-engine red dress which, under any other circumstance, would have screamed
GO GO GO
to anyone planning an approach.

“Excuse me,” Callie blurted to the sophomore who had just introduced himself, making a beeline for the swinging set of doors that led into the kitchen. When she felt like she could breathe again, she hoisted herself onto a counter, the metal cool where it pressed against the back of her legs.

“Hiding?” a girl’s voice came from behind her. “Don’t worry, I am, too.” Callie turned and saw a girl with long dirty-blond hair and a pageant-worthy smile leaning against the wall near the kitchen sink. She spoke with what sounded like a Texas accent, all chipper and southern. “If I have to kiss one more person’s butt tonight,” she said, coming over to Callie, “I swear I’m gonna scr—”