The Ivy: Secrets (17 page)

Oh, Clint.

She had spent a good deal of the break in bed absolutely aching for him but unsure what to do: call, don’t call, explain everything, say her e-mail had been hacked or she’d had an aneurysm and suffered from momentary insanity. . . . He, on the other hand, had apparently read her e-mail, gone skiing, and then updated his Facebook status to “single” the next day.

Could she blame him for ignoring her completely over the break? She had been the one to type,
Please don’t try to contact me
. She had also been the one to end everything through an e-mail, à la the world’s greatest d-bag, i.e., her ex-boyfriend Evan Davies. It didn’t matter that she had merely played puppet to Alexis’s puppet master;
he
had no way of knowing that. Just like he had no way of knowing—because she hadn’t told him—that she missed him.

And she did miss him. She missed the way his attention never truly left her, even when they were at opposite ends of the room. She missed the way he made her feel like she wasn’t a total outsider. She missed the little distractions and dates he had planned when she was completely swamped with COMP or final exams. She even missed all of the sneaking around that the last month had entailed: she missed the
ding
of her cell phone with a text asking when they could meet up, she missed the way he kissed her cheek when he thought no one was looking, and she missed the way his hair fell across his eyes when he leaned in . . .

When he leaned in over a steaming hot beverage toward the giggling girl sitting across the table from him, outside under the heat lamps at Finale—

Alexis MotherFreaking Thorndike.

Without thinking, Callie ducked behind the hedge lining the front walk of the Spee: for directly across the street, out in plain sight in the middle of the day, sat Clint, accompanied by the girl who had spent the entire previous semester making Callie’s life a living hell.

MOTHERFREAKINGTHORNDIKE!

Callie peered over the top of the hedge. Alexis looked adorable in a thick, oversized white sweater with fluffy white earmuffs to match. How it was possible for someone to look so perfect no matter what a hundred percent of the time was still a mystery to Callie. She glanced down at her ripped jeans, dirty sweatshirt, held-together-by-duct-tape-Converses, and the hideous poufy green jacket that her dad had been so excited to find on sale right before winter break that she hadn’t had the heart to tell him it made her look like a seven-year-old
and
a gigantic moldy marshmallow. But it was warm, so screw you, East Coast weather, and screw you, Lexi!

She watched Clint smile and take a sip of whatever was in Lexi’s cup.
Don’t touch that!
Callie wanted to scream.

Instead of inspiring her to run away—as it should, although there was the very minor stuck-in-a-bush issue—the sight of Lexi with Clint made her want him back that much more.

Was this a date? It couldn’t be! Clint had made it very clear that things with Lexi were definitively over. But if that was the case, then
why
where they
sharing
drinks at Finale, which was famous for being one of Harvard Square’s most romantic hot spots?

How very confusing. How very . . . clichéd. How very . . .
rage inspiring
.

Let’s not forget the bigger problem here, she reminded herself. You are hiding in a bush.

The only way back to her dorm involved crossing the street. Even if she tried a roundabout way, she’d still have to stand up first, and there was a very real chance that Clint and Ms. Satanical Nightmare would see her.

What to do, what to do . . .

“Clint! Hey, CLINT!” a voice called from behind her.

Shit.

Turning, she spotted a boy emerging from the Spee, waving maniacally across the street.

Then it was all happening in slo-mo. First frame: Clint looks up from where his head was bent low over his friendly—romantic?—tête-à-tête with Lexi. Second frame: Clint, recognizing the shouter (aka Life Ruiner), smiles and waves as he starts to stand. Third frame: Clint, like a good Boy Scout, looks both ways before he crosses the street. Fourth frame: Clint cries, “Hey, Marcus, great to see you! When did you get back?”

“ . . . my break was great, skiing in Vermont with some of the blockmates, you know, the usua—
Callie?
”

And . . . scene.

“Yes?” she replied, still crouched low, futilely imagining her ugly green coat had blended in with the hedge enough to conceal her through the duration of the exchange.

“What—what are you doing down there?” And then, perhaps worst of all, the corners of Clint’s mouth twitched.

“I dropped . . .”
Double shit.
Her hands were completely empty. There was literally nothing she could have feasibly dropped. “ . . . my shoe.”

“Your shoe?” Now the twitch twitched again.

“Yeah, my shoe. It fell off. But I got it back now, see?” She pointed, wiggling her foot where the laces of her dirty old Converse were secured, as they had been ever since she’d put them on that morning. She straightened up.

Clint’s smile faded when she met his eyes. But then, as he continued to look at her, his lips twitched again. “LaRhonda took first place in the competition, you know.”

“She did?” Callie cried.

Marcus, who was tall, tan, and vaguely Hispanic looking, coughed pointedly.

“Uh, sorry, Marcus,” said Clint, “this is Callie, my—ah—”

“Actually, sorry, but I’ve got to run,” she said, turning to cross the street. Clint did not call after her. When she reached the other side, she resisted the urge to stop and fling the contents of Lexi’s hot chocolate all over her snowy white sweater, barreling on toward the Yard instead. First her best friend, then her boyfriend, and now
FM
: Lexi had destroyed everything and taken no prisoners.

A plane whizzed by overhead, going west, and Callie wished she were on it.

She ducked through Dexter Gate, remembering how she had felt the first day she arrived.
Enter to grow in wisdom
. The words had seemed so full of promise: Welcome to Harvard: come in and we will nurse you to knowledge and greatness. Wrong, wrong, wrong. They were hollow now, these words: just words. Where was the class that told you how to fit in? Or the seminar on how not to mess up your life? Or the lecture on how to avoid falling for the boy across the hall who was so totally, utterly, and completely wrong for you . . .

Ha-ha, Universe, very funny: there, about fifty feet away on an ancient stone bench outside of Boylston with his back hunched over against the cold, was Gregory.

She hesitated, wondering how new, No-Complications Callie ought to handle any future interactions. Cool, No-Complications Callie might march right up to him and prove once and for all that she was totally and completely (and no, she does
not
protest too much) over him by saying a civil “hey” without dropping anything or fainting or peeing her pants. After all, even if he was still the same old Gregory, hadn’t he also been unusually . . .
civil
as of late? She probably owed her B in economics more to him than to Matt. Were they . . . friends? Certainly not the kind who talked over break. Acquaintances, then? It had to be more than that when he clearly felt he had a right to comment on her love life during dinner. Ex-lovers? She pushed the thought out of her mind. One time does not a lover make. Also, the word
lover
was creepy. Ew.

She started walking toward him.
Hey, buddy— No. Yo, how was break? What’s going on? Hi
— Well, she’d figure it out when she got there. She had closed half the distance when she stopped. He was on the phone. And, not only that, he was shouting.

She couldn’t hear what he was saying, but the fact that she could hear him at all from this far away confirmed it: he was upset, angry even, which was phenomenal when his emotional range had hitherto seemed to vacillate between Totally Bored and Marginally Amused.

She stayed still for a minute, watching him, but then he stood and began to pace. Quickly she turned and headed toward C Entryway, wishing the snow wouldn’t crunch quite so loudly under her feet. Any second now he might notice her and guess that she’d been staring. Hopefully he wouldn’t think that she’d been trying to overhear his conversation, too.

She struggled to liberate her key card from the pocket of her jeans, finally biting the edge of her glove with her teeth and pulling her hand free.

She smelled the smoke before she heard his footsteps.

Flustered, she dropped the key card. Her fingers froze as she dug through the snow to retrieve it. Then, once she had found it, the damn thing was wet and it didn’t seem to work. Scan, scan, scan: but no familiar click.

The smell of tobacco mingled with other familiar scents (pine needles, crisp winter wind, and that something extra indescribably intoxicating). The footsteps were drawing closer now.

“Dammit!” she cursed, scanning her card violently, repeatedly, faster and faster. Cool No-Complications Callie
should
be able to manage a stupid door—

“Need a hand with that?” Gregory asked. His tone hit the perfect middle point between Totally Bored and Marginally Amused that he seemed to reserve for moments when she seemed especially incompetent. Without waiting for a reply, he slid his own card from his wallet and scanned the lock. It clicked instantly. Pulling the door open, he stepped back, indicating that she should enter.

“Thank y—” she started, but swallowed the end of her sentence when he released an exaggerated, irritated-sounding sigh.

“So . . .” she ventured after a beat. “How was your break?”

“Fine,” he grunted.

“Do anything fun?” she pressed as they mounted the stairs.

He sighed again. “Not particularly.”

Why so grumpy? Was it that phone call or something more? “Rough night?” she asked when they reached the second-floor landing, hoping that teasing was permissible.

“What makes you say that?” he said sharply, turning to her.

Apparently not. “I don’t know,” she said, her eyes flitting across his face. “You look tired.” In fact, he seemed exhausted. There were dark, purplish circles under his eyes, and a few days’ worth of stubble lined his cheeks. She tried not to think about how, if anything, the beard only made him more handsome.

“I guess I was up late,” he muttered, heading down the hall.

“So I hear,” she murmured. They had reached the space between their separate suites. “So
everyone
heard, apparently,” she added ruefully, facing the door to her room and digging into her pocket for the key.

“What I do with my time is none of your business.”

Slowly she spun around. He was leaning against the frame of C 23, his arms folded across his chest. He had sounded serious, but there was a small smirk on his face: an accusation that she was obsessed with him, listening at his door and spying on his every movement. It was infuriating.

“I happen to think it
is
my business when the morning-after parade
tramp
les through
my
hall, not to mention Matt, who probably hasn’t had a decent night’s sleep all semester, not to mention . . .” She bit her lip. “I mean, do you ever stop to think about how
they
might feel when you just use them and toss them and never call them again? No! You don’t.”

“Right. Because I’m an asshole and a womanizing whore,” he said, trying to deliver it like a joke—only the punch line fell flat.

“Couldn’t have put it better myself!” she snapped.

He rolled his eyes. “Whatever. You were right the first time. Let’s just try to stay away from each other.”

“I believe that one was
your
genius idea,” she retorted sarcastically, “but great. Whatever. Let’s do it,” she finished, jamming her key into the lock. Luckily the common room was dark because she didn’t think she could handle dealing with anyone else right n—

“CONGRATULATIONS!” several voices cried in unison. Mimi flipped on the lights and yanked up the window shades to reveal Adam, Dana, and a disgruntled OK wearing party hats, standing in front of a huge banner that read
CONGRATULATIONS, CALLIE
! The room had been decorated with streamers, the coffee table was crowded with confetti and plastic flutes for champagne, and worst of all, someone had printed out a gigantic picture of her head and taped it to the wall.

“Félicitations!”
screamed Mimi while Adam smiled and nodded. Only Dana seemed to notice that something was amiss, looking uncertainly from Callie to Gregory, who was still standing behind her.

“Can I take this off now?” OK asked Mimi, gesturing toward the lopsided party hat that was far too small for his head.

“You can all take them off—” Callie started.

“Ne sois pas stupide,”
Mimi said, seizing a bottle from the table. “We must celebrate
avec beaucoup de champagne
!” she cried, popping the cork and spraying fizz into a plastic flute.

Callie stared at her feet. Without lifting her eyes, she muttered: “I didn’t make it.”

“What?” Dana asked, yanking the glass out of Adam’s hand that Mimi had just handed him and giving him a severe look. “What did you say?”

“I didn’t—”

“Please!” OK shouted, trying to remove his hat, only to be intercepted by Mimi: “Let me take this”—Mimi held the hat down and looped the elastic back under his chin—“bloody thing
off
!”

“I said—”

“She didn’t make it,” a cold, high voice announced from behind her. Callie whirled around to find Vanessa, who, lugging her full set of Louis Vuitton luggage, pushed past Callie into the common room. Gregory was gone. Typical womanizing, a-hole behavior.

“She did not . . .
Quoi
?” Mimi gaped, her mouth hanging open.

Slowly Dana slipped her party hat off of her head. “Next time,” she whispered. She took Callie’s hand and squeezed it briefly.

“But . . . but you worked
tout le temps
!” Mimi cried. OK shook his head, trying to silence her.