The Ivy: Secrets (3 page)

“’Lucy, I’m ho-ome!’” a voice yelled from the common room. The sound filled Callie with dread.
The bitch
—to use the bitch’s own catchphrase—
was back
.

“Ew, studying already? Reading period doesn’t even start until next week!”

“Just trying to get caught up,” OK explained.

Callie, note in hand, gritted her teeth. Here goes nothing, she thought. She stepped out of her room.

“Hey. Vanessa.”

Vanessa’s face froze for an instant, then relaxed. “Do you guys hear something?”

Mimi rolled her eyes. Dana looked up from the calculus, wrinkling her brow. “Yes, Callie just said, ‘Hey, Vanessa’!” Apparently
sarcasm
was still missing from the vast lexicon of Dana’s brain.

“Oh, my bad,” said Vanessa mildly. “I guess I just don’t know how to speak
Traitorous Slut
.”

Callie’s fists clenched at her sides.

“Well,
really
,” Dana began, setting aside her book, “if you’re going to insist on using that foul language, perhaps we had better take our tutorial elsewhe—”

“Have fun burning a hole in your pocket?” Callie cut in, eyeing the shopping bags in Vanessa’s hand. A bag full of overpriced party dresses and her iPhone were Vanessa’s favorite accessories. She was rarely seen without them. “Or should we say,
Mommy and Daddy’s
pocket?”

Vanessa stiffened. Then she forced a smile. “I have a date tonight,” she said, addressing Dana and Mimi. “And no, not with my best friend’s boyfriend, or my boyfriend’s best friend—it’s just not my style.”

Callie suddenly felt very tired. She just wanted to lie down and give up. Her response to the Manifesto had crumpled in her fist. It would only add gasoline to the fire; even a true apology note didn’t stand a chance of restoring the peace. It was like the Middle East. Not even Jimmy Carter was up to this task.

She exhaled and the note slipped through her fingers. It landed on the arm of the couch before sliding down to join the pile of papers next to OK’s textbook.

“All right, Vanessa; you win,” she muttered. “I’ll try to stay out of your way.”

“Thanks,
pal
. . . but wait!” Vanessa called as Callie turned toward her room. “I have a better idea! Why don’t you move to Pennypacker? Or somewhere even farther—like Siberia?”

“It’s chillier than Siberia in here,” OK muttered. Then louder: “Well, ladies, I had better get going back across the hall. Mimi?”

Mimi nodded and started to help OK gather his things.

“I’ll come, too,” said Dana. Noticing OK’s worried expression, she added. “To visit
Adam
. That was enough math for today.”

“Yo, Mimi,” said OK as she handed him a pile of his papers. “Now I know my calculus: it says you plus me equals us.”

“Eugh,”
Mimi groaned. She stood and followed Dana out the door.

“Hey OK,” Callie called suddenly. “Could I talk to you for a second?”

“Sure thing, Blondie,” he said, pausing at the door.

“Maybe we should talk in the hall,” Callie suggested, feeling Vanessa’s eyes burning a hole into the back of her head.

“What’s up?” OK asked when they were alone.

“Um . . . well . . . do you think you could do me a favor?” asked Callie.

“Depends on the favor,” he said.

“Can you tell Gregory that I need to talk to him?”

“All right.”

“And that it’s about what happened at Harvard-Yale . . .”

“Got it.”

“And can you tell him—um—can you tell him that I missed him?”

“Whoa, whoa, whoa!” said OK, throwing up his hands. “That’s kind of a lot to remember.”

Callie laughed. “Do you want me to write it down for you?”

“No,” said OK, “I’ll manage. Callie, talk, Harvard-Yale, missed you—got it.”

“Great.” She turned back toward her door. “And OK,” she added, “thank you.”

Inside the common room, Vanessa was admiring her new dress in front of the full-length mirror. She whirled around when Callie walked in. Their eyes locked and Vanessa just stood there clutching the dress, seeming less sure of herself now without an audience. But then Callie turned and, beating Vanessa to the punch, walked into her bedroom and slammed the door.

Eyeing the train wreck that was her room, Callie sighed: she didn’t feel like cleaning; preparing for the final week of classes sounded like torture, unpacking would make things messier, and she was probably only one nap away from growing fur and turning into a sloth.

She pulled her running shorts out of her suitcase, along with sweatpants and a sports bra. A long run ought to cure her rage: with every step she pounded she could picture Vanessa’s face under her shoe.

“Do not, under any circumstances, go over there right now!” OK cried as he, Dana, and Mimi trouped into the common room across from C 24. Matt looked up questioningly, but Gregory, who had been on his way to the front door again, paused. “Why not?”

“It’s colder than the Cold War over there,” OK explained.

“Colder than Siberia,” Mimi added.

“East and West Berlin circa 1988,” said OK.

“Lauren Conrad and Heidi Montag circa 2008,” said Mimi.

“Yankees versus Red Sox.”

“Harvard versus Yale.”

“Harry Potter and Lord Vold—”

“Callie and Vanessa are in a fight,” Dana interrupted.

“Still?” asked Matt, looking concerned. “Isn’t that a little long—even for girl world?”

Dana shrugged. “I’m staying out of it,” she said. Then she walked into Adam’s room and closed the door behind her.

“I tried to convince Callie to kiss Vanessa and make up,” said Mimi, sinking onto the couch, “but Vanessa does not seem to be in a make-up mood.”

“Oh, well,” said OK, “guess you’ll just have to stay here until the fighting stops.” He grinned. “You can sleep in my room . . .”

“Video games, anyone?” Mimi asked, ignoring him and pointing to a shiny new copy of Grand Theft Auto V.

“
Bien sûr, mon amour
,” OK agreed in an abysmal French accent, throwing his calculus notes onto the coffee table and sitting down next to her.

“Sure, why not?” said Matt, picking up a controller.

“Gregory?” asked Mimi.

Gregory looked over his shoulder toward the door, then at the TV screen, and then back at the door. “Just give me one minute. There’s something I have to take care of first.”

Callie slipped out of C 24. Her feet already felt lighter in her running shoes. Practically jogging down the hallway, she took the stairs two at a time. When she burst out of the entryway, flecks of snow went flying, the freezing late November air nipping at her face. She breathed deeply, letting the frozen air fill her lungs, and then she began to run, leaving the monsters and demons in the dust.

Gregory crossed the hall and walked into C 24. It was empty, the door to Callie’s room shut. He took a deep breath and knocked.

No answer.

He looked over his shoulder, then shook his head and opened the door to her bedroom. It was also empty. And a huge mess.

“You’re here early!” a voice called from behind him.

“Oh,” Vanessa continued, stepping out of her bedroom and blushing when Gregory turned to face her. “Wrong person! I have a date later.”

“Uh—cool,” said Gregory. “Listen, Vanessa, could you do me a favor? Could you tell Callie that I stopped by?”

Two identical spots of color flared on Vanessa’s cheeks. Then she smoothed her face into a smile. “Sure,” she said.

Back inside his own common room, Gregory sank onto the leather couch opposite the virtual death match that had manifested in his absence. Mimi whooped when she lit a car on fire and Matt groaned, throwing his Xbox controller on the couch. Shaking his head, Gregory looked down at the stack of papers piled on the coffee table in front of him.

“Calculus?” he asked, rifling through the notes.

“Eh?” said OK, frantically pushing buttons.

But Gregory, who had just picked up a crumpled sheet of paper buried underneath Dana’s
Notes on Triangles
, did not reply.

“Oh, that reminds me,” said OK, his eyes glued to the television. “Callie wanted me to give you some sort of a message.”

Gregory tore his gaze away from the note he’d been reading and held it up: “So this—this is supposed to be for me, then?”

“What? Oh, she decided to write it down after all,” said OK, executing the police officer that he’d been holding at gunpoint. “I’m off the hook—excellent.”

Slowly Gregory looked back down at the piece of paper in his hands.

T
ap, tap, tap . . .
Callie moaned and rolled over.

Tap, tap, tap . . .

Her hand flew out from underneath her covers to hit the snooze button on her cell, but the obnoxious noise continued. At some point the alarm had stopped ringing and her phone had figured out how to make a light rapping sound, almost like someone was knocking on her door.

Wait a second. Cell phones can do a lot of things these days, but they can’t tuck you in at night, make you breakfast, or say “I love you,” and they certainly can’t knock. Only humans can do that.

“Come in,” she called, sitting up in bed.

“Hey you!” a male voice said. Matt walked into the room with a huge grin on his face and stood hovering over her bed. “Welcome back!”

“Matty!” Callie cried, leaping up and wrapping her arms around him. For a second she felt self-conscious about her pajamas (boy shorts and a tank top). Should I change? she thought.

Nah, she decided. Matt didn’t care. Goofy and gangly, it was almost as if he’d been handed a card in the game of life that said,
Go straight to Awkward—do NOT pass Attractive; do NOT collect $200.
He was like the brother she never had. (At least, that’s what
she
thought—a clever observer might have reason to believe that Matt would find any “brother” references rather horrifying.)

“Boy, am I glad to see you,” she said when Matt finally let go.

“Really?” he asked, a familiar blush creeping into his cheeks. “Then how come you haven’t been across the hall? Our door’s been open, you know. . . .”

Callie frowned and climbed back onto her bed. “Well, I didn’t get back until the middle of the night on Sunday and . . . things are a little crazy at the moment.”

“So I heard,” said Matt.

“Oh—what’d you hear?” Callie asked, staring him down.

“Not much: Vanessa broke a nail and wants you dead, etcetera, etcetera.”

“Yeah. That about sums it up.”

“Whatever. You’re better off without her. Anyway, we’re still on for lunch tomorrow before economics, right?”

“Yep.” Callie smiled. Then she groaned. “I can’t believe there are only two more classes left until reading period and then we have to take . . .
the exam
. I’m so behind, I’m probably going to fail!”

Matt chuckled. “Stop exaggerating. I’m sure you’ll be fine.”

“I am
not
exaggerating!” she cried, throwing a pillow at his head. “I got an e-mail from our teaching fellow over the break warning me that I’m in danger of getting a . . .” Her eyes grew wide. Why did it seem like every e-mail she received these days—from Lexi, her econ TF, and now Anne and Student Receivables—was one of the four horsemen of the apocalypse?

“Getting a . . . ?”

“A
C
,” she whispered.

“Oh no!” He gasped, his hands flying to his cheeks in mock horror. “The end of the world—it’s here!”

“It is!” She moaned. “I’ve never even gotten a
B
before. It’s going to
kill
my dad and he will die of a broken heart or a heart attack and it’ll be all my fault—”

She stopped talking when Matt began to laugh. “It’s not
that
bad,” he said.

She narrowed her eyes. “I’m sure
you’re
not getting a C.”

“Well, no, but . . . Hey, I could tutor you—if you want.”

“That would be amazing!” she cried. Jumping out of bed, she hugged him again.

Averting his eyes from her bare legs, Matt cleared his throat and said, “I also came over to tell you the news: I just found out that I made it past the second round of
Crimson
COMP!”

“You did?” She yelped. Matt was COMPing the
Harvard Crimson
, the university’s daily newspaper and parent organization of
Fifteen Minutes
magazine. “Do you think
FM
results are—I mean, uh, congratulations!”

“Thanks.” Matt smiled. “And I bet
FM
probably will return your portfolios now if they haven’t already. In fact, I think I saw a manila envelope in your drop box on my way in—”

“What?” Callie shrieked, running past him. She flew across the common room and flung open the front door.

A manila envelope was sitting in the box. Her pulse was racing. C
ALLIE
A
NDREWS
was written across the front in big black lettering.

She grabbed the envelope and slipped back inside. Matt was staring at her from across the room. “Well . . . ?” he asked.

She looked at him and then down at the envelope. Her heart slowed to a steady
thrum
, accompanied by a sinking feeling. There was no way she had made it to the final round. Even if Lexi hadn’t sabotaged her or—heaven forbid—told the other editors about the tape, she was still competing against so many talented people that—

“Are you going to open it or not?” Matt interrupted her thoughts.

She shook her head. “No. No, I can’t.”

“Yes you can.” Matt walked over and placed his hands on her shoulders. He guided her to the couch and then sat down beside her. “How about you do it on the count of three? One . . . two . . .”

“I can’t!” she cried, covering her eyes with one hand and shoving the envelope toward him with the other. “You have to do it.”

“You sure?”

Both hands over her eyes now, she nodded.

“All right,” he said. Ripping the envelope open, he pulled out the stack of sample articles she had submitted for her second portfolio. Quickly, he skimmed the note on top.

“Well?” she asked, peeking at him through her fingers. “Good news . . . or bad?”

“The bad news is . . . that you’ve got a lot more work to do over the next coming weeks. But the good news is you made it!”

“What!” she cried. “I—I made it?”

“Yep!” He grinned.

“Eeeeeeeeeeeeyaaaah!”
she shrieked, leaping up and clapping her hands. She’d made it! In spite of Lexi’s conspiracies, Vanessa’s betrayal, and the destitute states of both her love life and current GPA,
still
she had made it. “Yes!” she cried, jumping up and down. “Thank you, t—” Pausing suddenly, she frowned and said: “‘The bad news is’—how could you do that to me?”

“It wasn’t me!” he cried. “That’s what it says right here.”

“Oh,” she said, taking the note:

“Congratulations,” Matt said, handing her the other papers he had pulled out of the envelope.

As she took them, another small slip—light pink and what looked like personal stationery—fluttered to the ground. She bent over and picked it up:

“Heartfelt congratulations”? Since when had
congratulations
become a synonym for
death threats
? Callie glanced at the clock. It was almost 2
P.M
.
Shit.
Lexi liked to be kept waiting just about as much as she liked shopping at Walmart or taking public transportation.

Callie looked up. “Matt, I have to—”

“Go?” he finished. “That’s fine. Go ahead. I’ll see you for lunch tomorrow. And then we can set up our first tutoring session after class.”

“Perfect,” she said. “Thanks for being the best!”

“You got it,” he replied, making his way to the door. By the time it had swung shut, she was yanking on her faded jeans. Hopping around her room with one leg on, one leg off, she grabbed her old soccer sweatshirt, a scarf (the maroon cashmere that Clint had given her), and the one glove she could find. Clothing in tow, she rushed for the door, pulling on her jacket and pocketing the glove as she headed down the stairs and then out into the cold toward the
Crimson
headquarters.

Soon she was climbing the stairs to the second-floor offices in the old brick building where breaking news like “No More Hot Breakfast” and “Widener Library Open Late” was written. The door was shut. Tentatively she knocked.

“Come in,” a sweet, clear voice called from inside.

Callie took a deep breath and entered the room. She shivered. Somehow it seemed colder in here than it had been outside.

“Well, if it isn’t Callie Andrews,” said a girl, spinning around in the black, high-tech ergonomic office chair that, in these parts, was her throne.

Alexis Vivienne Thorndike.

She looked immaculate as usual. Her shampoo-ad-worthy chestnut curls were pinned at the sides with two slim, pearly white barrettes. She wore a deceivingly simple navy dress—plain on the outside, G
UCCI
on the inside label—over sheer tights, and a thin gold belt matched the delicate chain around her neck. The chaos of the messy office around her—with its gray desks, rows of computers, green lamps, and piles of old drafts and newspapers—only threw the perfect order of her appearance into greater relief.

Callie swallowed. No matter how much she hated, or feared, or envied Alexis in her presence one particular feeling took precedence above everything else: inferiority. Suddenly she felt hot and flustered. She pulled off the hood of her sweatshirt, exposing her own shampoo-ad worthy hair—worthy of the “before” section in a “before and after” story, that is—and unwound Clint’s scarf from her neck. Remember to breathe, she instructed herself, fiddling with the scarf.

“So lovely to have you back,” Lexi cooed.

Translation:
You should have taken my hint and never returned.

“I was worried that the pressure might be too much for you,” she continued.

Translation:
Haven’t had enough yet? Well, I can fix that.

“Do anything fun or
wild
over the break?”

Translation:
Make any more sex tapes I should know about?

“No,” said Callie. “Nothing too exciting other than eating and sleeping and—”

“That’s nice,” Lexi interrupted. “So,” she continued, “you’re probably wondering why I called you here today.”

To . . . murder me?

“Yes,” said Callie, eyes darting around the room looking for a weapon—ahem—reason.

“In addition to congratulating you on defying all of our expectations by making it to the final round, I wanted to give you some advice. From someone older and wiser to someone younger and . . . well, like you. Please—sit,” she added, gesturing to a nearby chair.

Callie obeyed. She leaned forward, unaware that she was gripping the edge of her seat so hard that her knuckles were turning white.

“Now, let’s see,” said Lexi, picking up a pile of papers resting near her computer. “I have a list of your new assignments—for COMP, of course—right here,” she said, selecting a sheet from the stack. “Before I give it to you, however, I want to emphasize the importance of completing these assignments without deviating from the instructions.”

Callie nodded. So this was it: Lexi was going to keep her off the magazine by forcing her to write on the most ridiculous subject matter possible. These new assignments would probably be even worse than her topics from the previous months, which included
Vaseline: Friend or Foe?
and
Foot Fungus in the Freshman Showers: Alert Level ORANGE
. Callie had tried to make the most of those pieces, tweaking the guidelines to write something more substantial (“while we’re on the topic of alert levels, are they really a successful barometer of an imminent threat?”) or attempting an ironic spin (“Vaseline is the twenty-first century’s cure-all answer to even the toughest problems: Squeaky door? Vaseline. Low on mousse? Vaseline. Out of Mayo? Vaseline!”).