The Ivy: Secrets
Authors: Lauren Kunze,Rina Onur
the
ivy
Secrets
By LAUREN KUNZE
in collaboration with
RINA ONUR
FOR MICHAEL J. KUNZE
Contents
D
ear Students:
A very warm (or rather, frigid, as the weather would have it) Welcome Back from Thanksgiving break! Particularly to returning freshmen, if you are returning, that is. (A surprising number of individuals can’t even manage to hang on until the end of the semester, when some of you will be asked to leave due to grades. Two below a C and you’rrrrrrrrre out!)
As for the rest of you, how was home? Get any diet-inspiring questions about when the baby’s due? Did the phrase
best friends forever
ring hollow when you struggled to remember—or forced yourself to laugh at—the inside jokes you once shared with your high school besties? After you hugged that boyfriend or girlfriend whom you hadn’t seen since summer ended, was there an awkward lull in which you realized that you no longer have
anything
in common?
That’s what I thought. Fear not, though: it’s all totally normal, and I say, “Out with the old and on to the next.” With that in mind, here’s what you
should
be worried about instead: EXAMS. We’re nearing the end of the semester, and ladies and gentlemen, it’s almost time for the moment we’ve all been dreading. . . . There’s only one more short week of classes before reading period begins, followed by your first-ever finals Harvard Style. Don’t freak out just yet. There’s still time to get back on track, starting with my five tips for a fresh start.
1. Don’t sweat the small stuff.
Your grades. Surprise! They’re no longer perfect like they were in high school. It’s called a curve, people, as in the predetermined distribution of grades and not the new weight on your hips. So either make peace with that B- or start amping up your game: turn in extra credit, go to office hours (wearing something seductive) to “go over the class material” (i.e., flirt) with your professor, or pitch a tent in the library and hit the books. . . .
For those of you who are still vying for a spot on a magazine, newspaper, team, so-called Sorrento Square humor organization, or whatever other extracurricular activity you’re hoping to use to buff up that résumé, you are also now entering the final rounds of COMP: GAME FACES ON, FROSHLETTES.
2. Break up with your boyfriend or girlfriend.
If you missed the annual Turkey Drop (when a college freshman breaks up with his/her longtime high-school lover on the first day of Thanksgiving vacation, shortly after that awkward hug), you need to TCB (that’s Take Care of Business). Immediately. Those who are still with significant others from high school—ew—I have no words for you except
Congratulations
: you are now stuck until winter break and may even end up living the lie through Christmas, New Year’s, Valentine’s, and well into the spring. (FYI, breaking up through e-mails, texts, and even phone calls are tacky.)
For the wiser contingent of the student body who came to college sans anchor: if you paired up with somebody in the fall, unless they’re THE ONE (e.g., have world-saving super powers and can pull off a leather bodysuit better than Keanu Reeves in
The Matrix
), I strongly suggest you end it now. If you don’t, you run the severe risk of getting saddled with the same scrappy boy/girl from across the hall—aka the first person who could stand your presence for more than five minutes—for the next four years of your life and beyond. Once college ends, you’ll wake up one day to find yourself married and thirty, wondering why your ass is fat and you’ve never actually been on a real date.
3. Reinvent your schedule.
Sleeping during the day and working all night is cool if you’re a vampire, but personally I think that trend was
so
last fall. Why not give living like a normal human being a try? Grandma Thorndike always said that nothing good happens after 2
A.M.
. . .
4. Don’t let your appearance or physical or mental health “go” just because it’s below zero degrees outside.
Sweatpants are never okay, with the possible exception of the gym. They should be illegal. In fact, sometimes I fantasize about following in my favorite uncle’s footsteps and going into politics just so I can turn this particular dream into a reality.
5. Wash your sheets and towels.
For crying out loud! I know how many of you haven’t gotten around to it yet. . . . If you left your windows open so the sheets have had a chance to air, don’t put off washing them any longer. Do it now! However, if there are any mysterious-looking growths, regardless of color, texture, or size, do
not
take them into your science lab for analysis but rather: BURN IMMEDIATELY.
So nice to have (most of) you back!
Alexis Thorndike, Advice Columnist
Fifteen Minutes
Magazine
Harvard University’s Authority on Campus Life since 1873
The Reasons Why You
Need to Move Out Immediately:
A Manifesto
by V. V. V.
1. You hooked up with Gregory at Harvard-Yale when you
knew
how I felt about him.
2. You screwed up our entire room dynamic.
3. You blew it with Clint.
4. You’re an all-out terrible person.
5. There is no hope that I will
ever
forgive you. We will never be best friends
ever
again.
C
allie Andrews stared at the “Manifesto” that Vanessa Von Vorhees, roommate and former “best friend,” had taped to the window above her desk. She chewed on her pen while she considered how to respond. And, not for the first time that day, she wondered if coming back to Harvard had been a huge mistake. . . .
She had arrived in Cambridge late last night. In truth, she hadn’t seriously entertained the idea of not returning for more than a few hours. After all, what could she possibly say to her parents?
Hey, Mom, remember Evan? You know: my jackass boyfriend from high school? Well, turns out he made a secret sex tape of us because some of his old soccer teammates dared him. No, I didn’t know about it at the time, but get this: now my arch nemesis has a copy and there’s no telling what she’ll do. Yeah, her name’s Alexis Thorndike. She’s real swell; you should meet her. . . .
Yes, Daddy, Economics is going great!
—as she slides the letter from Harvard, the one warning her of an imminent
C
, the first in her life, behind her back—
but did I tell you about all of my new friends? Well, there’s Vanessa, that’s my best friend. We’re really close, even though I walked all over her to get into a social club that I didn’t really care about belonging to in the first place and slept with the guy she liked—oh, and did I mention that I had a sort of boyfriend at the time? It’s okay, though, because we were on a sort of break. . . .
Imagining how it would all play out was almost funny. Almost. Though, ironically, if she told her parents the truth, they’d probably laugh and assume she was kidding. This was known as the Jessica Stanley Style of Parenting (that’s
parenting
as in how to control one’s parents). Jessica, Callie’s best friend from high school—a relationship she had thankfully managed
not
to ruin from three thousand miles away—was in the habit of telling the truth in a sarcastic tone.
Hey, Mom, just going out to do some underage drinking, you know, might have sex with my boyfriend, but I’ll be home by curfew!
To which Mrs. Stanley inevitably responded,
Oh, ha-ha, honey, very funny, how you do love to torture your poor old mom.
Jessica had been an absolute angel over the break, but now she was safe at Stanford while Callie was back here in hell. Shrouded by the cloak of night, Callie had crept onto campus in the wee hours of the morning, slipped through C Entryway to Wigglesworth Dormitory, and mounted the stairs that led to that familiar, big brown door.
Only this time something was different. On the board that used to read D
ANA,
C
ALLIE,
M
ARINE, &
V
ANESSA
, somebody—most likely Vanessa—had done her best to rip down Callie’s name, so that now it looked more like: D
ANA, A E,
M
ARINE, &
V
ANESSA
.
As far as omens go, this one wasn’t promising.
The common room of suite C 24 was dark when she stepped inside. The doors to the bedrooms were all shut; everyone was obviously asleep, and since the Marilyn Monroe poster was still hanging intact on the door closest to the bathroom, she assumed that Vanessa’s attempt to transfer out of the room—as she had furiously vowed to do before they’d left—had proven unsuccessful.
Well, that was too bad. Callie had had a lot of time to think over the break, and as a result . . . she was more confused than ever. She had betrayed not only Vanessa but also Clint, who was perfect: smart, handsome, older, attentive, chivalrous, and just . . . well, . . .
perfect
. He had broken up with her (or had he; she still wasn’t sure what
I need a break
had really meant) when they were on the verge of becoming intimate. She had completely freaked out, offering no explanation. (Since, really, how could you possibly hope to explain a panic attack induced by thoughts of your evil ex-boyfriend and his awful hidden video camera? Running away as fast as you could was surely a preferable alternative.) Naturally, in a typical perfect-guy move, Clint didn’t care that she wasn’t ready to go all the way—instead he was upset about her refusal to open up.
Then, as if she hadn’t screwed up enough already, she slept with Gregory: Gregory whom she
hated
with every fiber of her being. Except that lately the “fine line between love and hate” was starting to look very, very blurry. . . .
Even if Gregory
were
right for her—which he wasn’t, as she frequently reminded herself—it was
still
wrong: very wrong to have slept with your best friend’s crush, wrong even if he clearly didn’t like her, wrong even if you thought you might be in some serious like with him, and especially wrong if you already had a perfectly wonderful sort of boyfriend even if you were on a sort of “break” at the time.
Some of that wrong, however, ought to be canceled out by Vanessa’s equal if not greater betrayal: she had revealed Callie’s biggest secret to Callie’s worst enemy, and as a result Callie hadn’t slept well or eaten right in a week, waiting for Lexi to make her next move. Over the break Lexi had stayed completely silent, which turned out to be far more torturous than if she vocalized whatever horrible things—taunts, blackmail, coercion—she might have planned. Now, with the second round of
Fifteen Minutes
magazine COMP results right around the corner, there was no telling what Lexi would do to prevent Callie from joining
her
publication even though Callie had given up everything—sleep, HBO, sanity—in her efforts to join the magazine.
Normally when you have a recurring nightmare about finding yourself naked in front of the entire school, you awaken and realize it was only a dream. But in Callie’s case, the nightmare would be true: monsters (Lexi), demons (Vanessa), and nudity.
Sighing, Callie stepped inside her tiny bedroom without bothering to turn on the light. She had been so eager to return to California after what happened at Harvard-Yale that she had left her room—with its twin bed, desk, dresser, bookshelf packed to capacity and old soccer photos lining the walls—in a state of disarray: clothing strewn across the floor, books out of order, stacks of old assignments and COMP papers piled on her desk next to a stale cup of coffee (late nights + insane workload = hopelessly addicted), and sheets tangled at the base of her bed. Abandoning her suitcase in the middle of the fray, she sank onto her mattress and, fully clothed, pulled the covers up to her chin.
She was too exhausted to clean tonight. The mess could wait, and they, the long list of people who were avoiding her or whom she was trying to avoid—Vanessa, Lexi, Gregory, and Clint—could, too.
And so Monday dawned like a fresh rose in springtime. Sunlight slanted through her window, beckoning her to gaze out across the magnificent Harvard Yard. A fresh blanket of snow glittered in the morning light. Today would surely be a new beginning. She was older, wiser, and completely—
“Completely FUCKED!” She heard a voice—Vanessa’s—yelling from the common room.
“Calm down,” another voice said, maybe Mimi’s, maybe Dana’s. “You knew your chances of transferring were slim to begin with—”
“Yeah, well . . . the BITCH,” Vanessa said loudly, presumably aiming her words at Callie’s door, “is BACK. She had better…” Callie heard footsteps and gathered that Vanessa was now standing right outside. “She’d BETTER STAY THE HELL AWAY FROM ME IF SHE KNOWS WHAT’S GOOD FOR HER.”
Callie rolled over onto her stomach and pulled a pillow over her head. Before long, she was back asleep.
Several hours later she awoke. More voices were coming from the common room. Wary of a run-in with Vanessa, Callie strained to hear, trying to pick out the simpering Judas-Brutus tones of her ex “best” friend.
Instead she thought she heard a British accent. Its owner spoke in a pleading pitch, “Please . . . you’ve got to help me. I can’t do it alone anymore! Please, just say yes. I
need
you. Without you, I don’t think I can survive.”
Hmm . . . was OK finally confessing his love for Mimi? A little desperate, wasn’t he?
“I know I’m behind . . .” Then there was muffled murmuring, a girl’s voice but Callie couldn’t tell whose, followed by OK again: “No, I wouldn’t say so far behind that I can’t possibly catch up.”
Callie almost giggled. From the sound of it Mimi was telling OK that she was too mature for him; well, that was certainly true.
“Look, I’ll pay. Just name your price.”
Wait a second—that couldn’t be right.
She poked her head out from under her covers and, like a warrior surfacing from a bunker after the dubious declaration of cease-fire, she opened her door a crack.