The Ivy: Secrets (12 page)

The door was unlocked; the knob gave way under her hand. Opening it, she stepped inside.

“WHAT ARE YOU DOING?” a familiar voice cried. Alarmed, Callie started to retreat. “Are you insane? SHUT THE DOOR!”

Callie leaped back and slammed it, clicking the lock into place. Breathing heavily, she turned. “What the hell are
you
doing here?”

“Baking a cake, what the hell does it look like?” Vanessa snapped. The bathroom was long and narrow like a hall: with the bathtub down on the end behind Callie, closest to the door, and the mirror and sink on the other. Vanessa was currently perched on the windowsill behind the sink, a pair of black stockings yanked halfway up her knees.

“Look what you made me do!” Vanessa cried, gesturing at the enormous run that had torn down the length of her calf. She looked— Well, let’s just say that she had seen better days. Sometime during the night she must have suffered a serious mascara malfunction, and her eyes now looked like a raccoon that had been punched in the face—twice—in a bar fight and was now sporting two black eyes. Her hair was knotted and matted in all the wrong places; Callie wondered why they called it “sex hair” in the first place since there was really nothing sexy about the way Vanessa’s was frizzing out right now.

“I didn’t
make
you do anything,” Callie countered. “Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’ll just be going—”

“Wait,” Vanessa said. “I need . . .”

“You need?” Callie echoed.

“My purse,” said Vanessa. “I forgot to grab it on my way in here, and now . . .” She gestured toward her face and hair. “I can’t possibly go out looking like this!”

It took all the strength Callie had not to smirk or remind Vanessa that she
could
do it and the results probably wouldn’t be fatal. Possibly highly amusing, too.

“So, will you help me? Yes or no?”

“Sure. You want me to, what, go back out there and grab your purse?”

Vanessa nodded.

“Well, where is it?”

Vanessa stared at the floor. “It’s in . . . s’room.”

“
Which
room?” Callie prodded, starting to enjoy herself.

“Tyler’s.”

“Tyler’s!”

“Keep it down!”

“Okay—jeez—I’ll go,” said Callie, reaching for the door.

“Wait.”

“What is it this time?”

“I’m also missing . . . my—” Vanessa’s arms flew to her face, the last word muffled by her hands.

“Your underwear?”

“Not—so—loud,”
Vanessa hissed in a strangled whisper.

“Sorry!” Callie hissed back. “Well . . . where do you think you left it?”

“In Tyler’s room, where else?” Vanessa’s eyes were wide. “I was just going to make do with my stockings but . . .” She motioned at the gaping run before tearing them off in frustration and tossing them in the trash. “Plus, it’s not really—”

“The type of thing you’d want to leave behind?” Callie finished.

“Yeah. Exactly.”

“So you want me to . . .” Callie trailed off, realizing. “What do they look like?”

“Pink . . . thong.”

Thong? Ewww . . . But Vanessa having to walk home without underwear =
Ewwwwww,
which, with twice as many
W
s, was indisputably a greater evil. The numbers just didn’t lie.

“All right,” Callie said with a sigh.

“Thank you,” Vanessa whispered, closing her eyes.

A minute later Callie was standing in front of Tyler’s door implementing Lesson Number One of the day: knock, knock, knock.

The door flew open. “I was wondering what was taking y—Oh! Callie?”

“Hi, Tyler,” she said.

“What are you doing here?” he asked.

“Clint,” she said shortly, tilting her head and trying to spot Vanessa’s bag. Ah, there it was, the Chanel Chambon, inconveniently located on the other side of the room.

“Oh?
Oh . . .
” Tyler said, nodding. Callie nodded back absentmindedly, trying to think of a way to get to the purse. “When I saw him on the couch earlier this morning, I thought . . .”

“You thought what?” Callie asked, snapping back to attention.

“Nothing!” Tyler said, shoving his hands in his pockets guiltily.

“What?” Callie asked.

Tyler sighed. “Just, in the olden days, Clint used to get into a lot of fights with a certain someone and she would make him sleep on the c—”

“Say no more,” Callie cut in, holding up her hand and trying not to let the image of Lexi anywhere near Clint’s bed—which was Callie’s safe space—pollute her mind.

“You got it.” Tyler winked. “And between the two of us, I like you better.”

Callie beamed. “Thanks!”

Tyler smiled back. “So . . . was there something you wanted?”

“Uh, yes . . .” said Callie slowly, glancing around. “Clint asked me to tell you . . .” She paused, looking down to her left, and then smiled. “Clint asked me to tell you that it’s your turn to take out the trash!” she cried, tying the ends of the bag together and lifting it out of the bin that was sitting against the wall on her left. “Here you go!” she said, thrusting it into his arms.

“Um—thanks?”

“No problem!” she said. “Better go quickly now. He’ll be back any minute and you know how these things can sometimes escalate between roommates: one day he’s asking politely, then he calls upon his lady friend for reinforcement, and then the next thing you know, he’s dumping the trash on your bed and you’re throwing his underwear out the window and Bryan’s peeing in your drawer!”

Tyler shook his head, laughing a little. “You’re an odd one, Callie Andrews. Look, I’m leaving now,” he added, stepping into his slippers and heading for the door. “If Vanessa asks, tell her—”

“I will!” Callie nodded, ushering him out.

Whew, she breathed. Rushing into his bedroom, she threw the Chanel bag over her arm. Now, where the heck is . . .

Leaning, she checked under the bed and the floor over by the desk and even peeked into the hamper full of dirty laundry in Tyler’s closet. If I were a pink thong, where would I be? Wrinkling her nose, she threw back the sheets on Tyler’s bed.

One black dress sock.

One—was that . . . a gum wrapper?

But no pink thong.

I give up, she thought, nevertheless lifting the pillows in despair. Standing in the middle of the room, she covered her forehead with her hands. Tyler would be back any moment now and—

Looking up suddenly, she smiled.

There, poking out over the edge of the top of the standing halogen lamp by the window, was a tiny stripe of pink.

“Got you!” she muttered out loud, standing on her tippy toes and gingerly plucking the underwear from the top of the light. Quickly she shoved it into Vanessa’s purse, vowing never to ask the owner how it had come to be there in the first place.

Vanessa, Vanessa, Vanessa, you
so
owe me, she thought, heading back to the bathroom.

“Found it!” she called after she had shut the door behind her.

“Ohmygod—thank you
so
much!” Vanessa cried, leaping off the windowsill and running to Callie. She leaned in for a hug—but then caught herself at the very last moment. An awkward pause ensued.

“Uh—well—you’re welcome,” said Callie, handing her the purse and then turning around to give her some privacy. “So . . . Tyler, huh?” she said, staring at the colorful fish on the shower curtain. Were he and Vanessa a good match? They were both pretty hilarious in their own ways. “I guess that kind of makes sense,” Callie mused.

“And what’s that supposed to mean?” Vanessa asked, an edge creeping into her voice.

“Nothing,” said Callie. “I can just see why you like him.” Turning, she glanced at Vanessa, who, having restored her underwear to its proper place, had gone to work on her hair. She had wiped the excess mascara from under her eyes and reapplied a fresh coat, and even though her frilly purple party dress was out of place for the middle of the day, she was starting to look more like her normal, put-together self.

“So, is Tyler the one who invited you last night?” Callie asked, anxious to reinforce the beginnings of the bridge that had sprung up between them.

“Yes,” Vanessa said shortly, pulling a tube of concealer from her bag and dabbing some under her eyes.

“Seems like a good strategy,” Callie teased. Vanessa was silent. “You know: if you still wanted to get into the Pudding, who better to date than the president?”

Vanessa set her compact on the sink with a clatter. “You do know that the only reason they chose you is because of Clint, right? A lot of people think that’s why you were dating him in the first place.”

“That’s not true and you know it,” Callie said quietly, looking Vanessa in the eye. It had been one thing to hear a similar accusation last night during Limericks, but somehow coming from Vanessa, it hurt a whole lot more.

“Looks like he took you back, anyway,” Vanessa said coldly, leaning toward the mirror and applying a coat of gloss to her lips. “I’m guessing that means you haven’t told him about what happened with Gregory?”

Gregory. Even hearing the name made Callie wince.

A cruel smile played on Vanessa’s lips. “Didn’t think so,” she said, blotting them with a tissue. “After all, why would you? You didn’t tell
me
about the Pudding and you didn’t tell me about Gregory either.”

In the silence that followed, Callie heard the front door to the common room open and then shut with a thunk. Someone had just come home: probably Tyler but possibly Clint.

“I’m . . . I’m sorry,” Callie whispered, her eyes wide and pleading. “I’d been trying—I mean, I
have
been trying to find a way to tell you that I liked him, a lot and since the beginning of the year, and that the whole thing was a mistake . . . a huge, gigantic mistake.”

Vanessa just stared at her.

“If it makes you feel any better, afterward he basically abandoned me and left me for dead. And when I tried to tell him how I felt, he ignored me and then . . . Well, you know: you saw those two girls. What an asshole.”

Vanessa stayed silent.

“You’re not going to say anything to Clint, are you?” Callie asked, still speaking barely above a whisper.

Vanessa snorted. “Please,” she muttered, rolling her eyes. “As if I cared enough about your stupid problems to do something like that.”

Callie was suddenly overcome by the urge to slap her. Forcing her hands to stay by her sides, she snapped through clenched teeth, “Just like you didn’t care when you decided to tell Lexi about the tape? Did you know she’s” —Callie caught herself just before her voice rose too high— “
blackmailing
me?”

Vanessa kept her eyes trained on the mirror. “For the millionth time, I did not tell Lexi about that tape.” She threw her makeup back into her purse and brushed past Callie, pausing with her hand on the door. “And I’m not going to say anything to Clint either because, unlike you, I’m actually a good friend.”

With that she walked out into the common room. “Oh, hi, Clint!” Callie heard her say. Counting to ten, Callie checked her face in the mirror and then left the bathroom.

“Girls!” Tyler exclaimed from over where he was sitting on the couch. “Always going to the bathroom in pairs! What on earth do you get up to in there?”

“Oh, we just braid each other’s hair and tell secrets,” Vanessa said lightly.

“Where were you?” Callie asked Clint, searching his face for any indication that he had overheard what had transpired in the bathroom. She must have appeared particularly anxious because he took one look at her and rushed over to wrap her in an enormous hug. “Aw, did you miss me?” he teased, kissing the top of her head. “Silly girl, I was gone less than twenty minutes! And I only went out so I could pick up some breakfast,” he explained, pointing to the white Au Bon Pain bag that was resting on the coffee table. “I figured you’d still be in bed by the time I got back.”

“I’m leaving,” Vanessa announced.

“Okay, bye!” said Tyler. Clint, still holding Callie, shot him a look. “I mean, I’ll walk you out,” Tyler amended, climbing to his feet.

“So,” said Clint. “Back to bed and I’ll bring you breakfast?”

Before Callie could answer, her cell phone beeped. “Hang on,” she said, running into Clint’s bedroom. She flipped it open.

Callie breathed an angry sigh. All she wanted to do was climb back into bed with Clint, but with her final exam for the Nineteenth-Century Novel tomorrow at noon, she should have been at the library hours ago—plus, there was no telling how long a “bit of a mess” might take to clean up.

“I’m so sorry,” she said, emerging from Clint’s room with her dress and her cell phone in tow, “but do you mind if I take my breakfast to go? I have to get to . . . the library.”

“Not at all,” Clint said. “And hey, if you give me a minute, I’ll grab my bags and come with you!”

“No! Er—I mean, maybe that’s not the best idea. I should really run home and change, and I just remembered I have to stop by the
Crimson
and since my first exam’s tomorrow, I need to concentrate completely on studying because, let’s face it, when you’re around, I tend to get a little . . . distracted,” she said, leaning in to kiss him lightly on the lips.

“Mmm . . . point taken,” he said, kissing her back. “So, when’s the next time I can see you?”

“Tomorrow after five?”

“It’s a date.”

Modeling Game Theory w/ Real-Life Examples—
Notes, C. Andrews

The Prisoner’s Dilemma:

“I
t’s. Just. No. Use!” Callie cried, throwing her pen across the room. “If I don’t understand it now, there’s no way I’m going to get it in time for the test on Wednesday!”

Matt sighed and stood to retrieve her pen. It had landed over by the potted plant in the corner of his common room in suite C 23, where they were sitting on the floor and studying. Or trying, anyhow. Every available surface was covered with economics-related material: textbooks, old problem sets, papers, and the diagrams Matt had been drawing all morning in his attempt to tutor Callie prior to the exam, their last of the semester.

“Your problem here is not a question of intelligence,” Matt said, handing her the pen. “It’s patience. I get the feeling that in high school everything came so easily to you that it’s made you lazy—”

“Hey!” she cried, whacking him on the arm.

“Well, it’s true! If you can’t grasp a concept within five minutes of reading about it, you get angry—”

“I don’t get
angry
—”

“Yes, you do. You get angry and then you throw things.”

“I don’t thr—Oh.” She looked at her pen. Setting it gently on the table, she ran her hands through her hair in despair. “I’m. Going. To. Faaaaaaiiiiiil,” she wailed.

“With that attitude, yes you are.”

“Matt, I love you, but sometimes you sound like a
Sesame Street
special.”

Ignoring her, he pulled the textbook toward them and spread it across the table. “Okay, you’ve got a solid foundation in theory of the consumer—”

“Yes, thanks to living with Vanessa I do—”

“And you understand monopoly and monopsony?”

“Monopoly: a child’s board game that is fun when you’re five.”

“Callie—”

“Monopoly: a circumstance when one seller faces many buyers.” Example: what Alexis Thorndike has on the Harvard social scene.

“And monopsony?”

“Monopsony, opposite of monopoly: when one buyer faces many sellers.” Example: Gregory on Friday night at Wellesley.

“Good,” said Matt, flipping a few pages ahead. “Now explain the fundamental principles of game theory.”

Callie chewed on her lower lip. “Game theory: a convoluted, nonsensical concept that our professors invented out of thin air for the specific purposes of tormenting me.”

“I think we should take five,” Matt said.

“I’m sorry,” Callie started. “I’ll be better, I swear!” She pulled the textbook toward her. “Look, see, I’m concen—”

The front door swung open, and Gregory strolled into the room, squash racket and gym bag tossed over his shoulder. His hair was sticky with sweat and peppered with little flecks of snow.

“—trating . . .” Callie absentmindedly bit the end of her pen.

“’Sup?” said Gregory, nodding at the pair of them.

“’Sup?” Who said “’sup” anymore? Could you possibly be any more annoying!

“Do you mind?” Callie said, angrily flipping the page. “We’re trying to study here.”

Gregory smirked and headed for his room.

“Some people!” Callie muttered. “Anyway . . . what? Why are you looking at me like that?”

Matt held up his hands. “Nothing, no reason. So—game theory. Essentially game theory attempts to mathematically model behavior in strategic situations— Callie? Callie! Are you listening to me?”

She wasn’t. Instead she was staring at Gregory, who had emerged from his bedroom wearing only a towel wrapped low around his waist.

“And what exactly do you think you’re doing?” she called as he sauntered across the room.

“Taking a shower,” Gregory answered slowly, “which I intend to do in my bathroom, off of my common room, where I live. If that’s all right with you, of course.”

“Yeah. Yeah, whatever,” she muttered, staring at the coffee table. He must have come straight from squash practice, because his muscles were still taut, his body glistening slightly with sweat.

Callie breathed deeply and let it out through pursed lips. “Game theory: where you use strategy to solve mathematical situations?”

“Almost,” said Matt. “Other way around.”

“Dammit!”

“Language!” Dana’s voice called from Adam’s bedroom, followed shortly by Dana’s head, which poked out around the corner.

“Dana,” said Matt. “I didn’t realize you were here.”

She gave him a funny look. “Well, why shouldn’t I be? It’s
my
room after all.”

Callie stared at her. Dana seemed to have just woken from a lengthy slumber—probably her first time really sleeping in a week, if not more—and now occupied that strange mental state between dreaming and waking. “This is Matt’s room,” Callie said.

“Is it?” Dana asked with a yawn. She surveyed the room with confusion. “I remember being in Cabot, and I remember finishing my exams, and then I went to the Coop to buy books for next semester so I could get an early start, but after that” —she yawned again—“it’s all a blur.”

“You’re done with exams?” Callie asked, hoping the envy wasn’t too obvious in her voice. “That’s great!”

“You should celebrate!” Matt said.

“Celebrate?” Dana muttered. “I think I will. Good night!” she said, shutting the door.

“Sleep does sound fun, doesn’t it?” asked Callie.

“Yeah, I miss it,” Matt said nostalgically. “So much that we take for granted . . .” Rousing himself, he tapped his fingers on the textbook. “I think you should reread these first couple of pages on the fundamental principles of game theory just to jog your memory.”

“Okay,” Callie said with a sigh. “What’ll you do in the meantime?”

“Edit these,” he said, reaching into his book bag and pulling out a stack of article drafts he had written for
Crimson
COMP.

“Ugh, COMP—don’t remind me,” she groaned. “Is your final portfolio due the day after the ec exam, too?”

“Yep.” He nodded.

“I can’t even begin to think about that right now,” she muttered. “Game theory, okay . . . ‘Game theory was initially developed to understand economic behaviors, particularly those of firms, markets, and consumers—’”

“Can you read
silently
?” Matt asked, scribbling on his paper with red pen.

“Yes,”
she said. Fine, fine. Be nice, she told herself. Patience! You have only two friends right now—maybe two and a half—and Matt is one of them.

The bathroom door popped open, and Gregory walked out, still wearing only a towel. Little droplets of water trickled down his abs, down to the ridges right above his hip bones—

Firms, markets, and consumers! Firms, markets and consumers. OH MY! Firms, markets, and whhaaaaat—

Gregory’s bedroom door shut behind him.

Matt shook his head irritably. “Show-off,” he muttered.

“Wha . . .” said Callie, still staring at the door to Gregory’s room.

“Oooh, Gregory, isn’t he so dreamy?” Matt cooed in a high falsetto.

“Stop! Shut up!” Callie cried, throwing her head back against the lower couch cushions from where she sat on the floor and placing the textbook over her eyes.

Matt chuckled, making a note in the margin of his piece.

Callie stayed hidden under her textbook for a full minute before uncovering her eyes and once again starting to read: “firms, markets, and consumers, and is now used to study a wide range of economic phenomenon including—”

“So, when’s the test?” Gregory asked, emerging from his bedroom—fully clothed,
finally
—and rubbing his wet hair with a towel.

GET OUT! Callie wanted to yell—but she didn’t; it was, after all, his room.

“Wednesday,” said Matt.

“You ready?” Gregory asked, plopping on the couch quite close to where Callie had just been resting her head. Leaning forward, he peered at the textbook over her shoulder.

“No,” said Callie through clenched teeth. “And it’s a little hard to focus with all these interrupt—”

Buzz buzz buzz. Matt’s phone vibrated on the coffee table. “Ah, crap,” he said, reaching for it. Reading the text message, his eyes lit up. “Oh no,” he whispered, the fear tinged with an odd note that sounded rather like excitement. “It’s my COMP director. I didn’t even know she had my phone number.”

“Grace Lee?” Callie asked absentmindedly, flipping the page even though she hadn’t processed a single word. Gregory’s left leg was very close to her right arm. She wanted to smack it away.

“You know her?” Matt asked. “Isn’t she just . . . terrifying?” He said “terrifying” in the same tone someone else might use with “wonderful.”

“Yes,” said Callie. “Very frightening for someone who stands no higher than four foot eleven.”

“I should go change!” Matt cried suddenly, leaping off the floor.

“Change? What—why? Where are you going?” Callie demanded, lowering her textbook in alarm.

“To the
Crimson
! I have to leave right now!” Matt yelled over his shoulder, racing toward his room. “She said”—he poked his head out from around the door—“that she
needs
me.”

Gregory snorted.

“But . . . what . . .” Callie gaped. “Who’s going to help me study?”

“I can help you,” Gregory commented from over her shoulder.

“Yes, Greg can help you!” Matt repeated, rushing from his bedroom to the bathroom. Callie watched him grab a comb and attempt to flatten his hair.

“Does this shirt make me look too skinny?” he asked them, returning to the common room.

Callie just stared.

“I knew it!” he wailed, running back to his room. “Knew it, knew it, knew it. Should have done laundry last week before all my quarters disappeared.” Callie heard him muttering over the sounds of drawers opening and closing.

“So,” said Gregory, “what’re you working on? Game theory?” he added, reading over her shoulder.

Turning, she looked up at him. You’re not
seriously
going to pretend to be helpful, are you? “I’ve—uh—thanks, but I’ve got it under contr—”

She stopped talking as he slid down next to her on the floor, gently taking the textbook from her hands and spreading it open between them on the coffee table.

“It’s not as complicated as it initially sounds,” he said, picking up her pen and pulling a blank sheet of paper in front of him. “At the end of the day it’s really just a matter of applied mathematics—and you’re good at math, right?”

“Uh . . . sure.” Right. At least I used to be, once upon a time.

“I think it will help if you stop thinking of a game as an abstract theoretical concept and start thinking about it like a math problem. A game is just a well-defined mathematical object with three components: a set of players, a set of strategies available to those players, and a specified set of payoffs for each combination of strategies.” As he spoke, he wrote everything down under headings: 1)
Players;
2)
Strategies;
3)
Payoffs.
“Does that make sense?”

“Yes.” Callie nodded. Actually, it sort of did. “And there are different types of games, right? Like cooperative versus noncooperative?”

“Correct,” said Gregory, rewarding her with a smile. “Here, write them in,” he added, handing her the pen so she could scribble the various subcategories under the heading
Games
.

“There’s also symmetric and asymmetric, zero-sum and non-zero-sum, simultaneous and sequential . . .” Matt walked out of their bedroom. Picking up his book bag, Matt shoved his COMP pieces inside and then slung it over his shoulder.

“Does this shirt look okay?” he blurted, stopping in front of the door. It was a
little
wrinkled, but given that Matt seemed a
lot
frazzled, Callie smiled and said, “Yep! You look great.”

“I’m really sorry to leave you like this,” Matt apologized. “But at least you’re in good hands?”

Callie glanced at the notes Gregory had made so far and decided that, for once, she agreed. “It’s totally fine—go!”

“Okay,” said Gregory when he had left, all business, “now that we’ve identified the ‘math problem,’ can you explain the idea of a solution concept?”

“You mean the equilibria?” asked Callie.

“Without looking at the textbook,” Gregory said, covering it with his hand. “Let’s start with the Nash equilibrium.”

Callie closed her eyes.

“Write it down if that’ll help,” he said, handing her the pen.

Opening her eyes, she scribbled a few things on the sheet of paper. She looked at him.

“Okay, I see you’ve memorized the equations,” he said with a small smile. “But what does it
mean
?”

“Well, strategy is an assumed constant, and each player is going to adopt a strategy to maximize utility, so . . . the game can be said to constitute a Nash equilibrium if, when all strategies are known, no individual player has an incentive to change his or hers?”

“And is the strategy adopted necessarily the
most
beneficial for each individual player?”

“No, but that’s because when analyzing decisions made by multiple ‘players’ you want to take into account the decisions of everyone involved. Player A’s decisions influence Player B’s and vice versa. What’s best for the group may not be what’s individually best for the players. So Player A might initially be tending toward one choice, but she may change her mind once Player B makes his or her strategy known.”

“Good,” said Gregory. “Now give me a real-world example.”

“Can I draw?”

“Yes, you can draw,” he said, suppressing a smile.

An hour and a half later they had reviewed the most common types of games and their solution concepts.

“I still don’t really understand
why
anyone would want to use game theory in economics. I mean, besides the fact that it’s boring, a lot of the time it just doesn’t work!” said Callie.