Scandal

by Lauren Kunze

  “Seriously, dude,” OK mimicked him with an abysmal attempt at an American accent. “I wasn’t actually going to urinate,” he muttered indignantly. Scooping up the newspapers, he headed for his bedroom. “If you would be so kind as to put on the teakettle while I’m dressing,” he finished, speaking to Matt over his shoulder. Then, stepping into his room, he slammed the door.

  Matt drew a long sigh. Then he stood, and after handing Vanessa her phone, he turned on the electric kettle the boys kept next to their refrigerator. “Would anyone else care for some tea?”

  “Oh,” said Jessica. “Yes, please. Green tea is just the thing for a hangover.” She beamed at Callie. “He’s really just the best, isn’t he?”

  Blushing, Matt busied himself with the kettle.

  “Oh. My. Flipping. God.” Vanessa’s jaw hung open as she stared at her phone.

  “I heard that!” Dana called from the bathroom. “And I don’t approve! Stop squirming,” she added, presumably speaking to Adam.

  “This is bad,” Vanessa said, her eyes glued to the screen. With every swipe of her thumb, her expression grew increasingly grim. “Bad…bad…bad.”

  “What?” asked Callie, the color draining from her face.

  “Well,” said Vanessa, “the good news is that Gregory’s phone number is probably still disconnected. So it’s unlikely that he received any of these texts. Which is great, lest he think that I…” Squinting at her phone, she read, “‘Can’t lib without u Ms. Your facez.’”

  “What?” shrieked Callie. “Give me that!” she cried, reaching for the phone.

  “Wait, this one’s good, too,” said Vanessa, dodging her. “‘Rufor reals still dating Prky Boobies? Y?!?’”

  “Ohmygod.” Callie covered her eyes with her hands. “Kill me now. Seriously. Do it. Please. Put me out of my misery.”

  “Relax,” said Vanessa as Jessica put a comforting hand on Callie’s shoulder. “I’m sure his line is dead. Though there’s really only one way to find out….” Before Callie could stop her, Vanessa had dialed. “Yep,” she said a few seconds later. “Still disconnected.”

  Callie heaved a sigh. “Good.”

  “Not so fast.” Vanessa shook her head. “We’re not out of the woods yet.”

  “Stop dragging it out and just tell us!” Jessica commanded.

  “Fine,” said Vanessa, “see for yourself.” She held out her phone, which featured the following exchange with Tyler:

  YO YO T-DAWG.

  …HI VANESSA. I THOUGHT THE “TRAIN HAD LEFT THE STATION”?

  THAT’S RIGHT. WE DON’T WANT 2 TALK 2 U.

  BUT WE HAVE A MESSAGE. 4 UR ROOMMIEZ.

  OH?

  CLINT WEBER IS A POOPY PANTS!

  POOOPIE POOOPIE POOPIE POO!

  POOP POOP!

  HA. I’LL LET HIM KNOW.

  WOW, THANK YOU. MAYBE I WAS WRONG.

  U DON’T SUCK WORSE THAN A BLIND DONKEY THRU A STRAW.

  HAHA. NOW I HAVE A MESSAGE FOR YOUR ROOMMATES.

  TELL THEM TO CONFISCATE YOUR PHONE.

  “Oh no,” said Callie as Jessica struggled not to laugh. “Did…I write these?”

  “I have a vague memory of it being a group effort,” said Jessica.

  “Did we at least listen? Did we let someone take away the phone?” Callie asked, raising her voice and addressing Matt.

  “I tried,” said Matt. “But you ladies seemed to be on a mission.”

  “A mission to do what?” asked Vanessa.

  “Well,” said Matt, arranging some tea bags in mugs, “it’s hard to say exactly, but there was a lot of talk about finding some guy’s phone number and asking him to come over.”

  Vanessa bolted upright. “That would probably explain this,” she said, looking nervous, and scrolling to another set of messages in her phone.

  HEY YOU! COME OVER.

  WHO IS THIS?

  YOUR SECRET ADMIRER.

  ???

  WIGGLESWORTH, C 23 IF YOU WANNA FIND OUT. –VVV

  “These messages are time-stamped at two o’clock in the morning!” exclaimed Callie.

  “I know.” Vanessa moaned. “Do you recognize the number?”

  The others shook their heads.

  Suddenly a knock sounded at the door.

  “Ah!” screamed Vanessa, grabbing a blanket off the couch and throwing it over her head.

  “Shut up!” Callie hissed. “And maybe whoever it is will go away.”

  The knock sounded again, louder this time.

  “I think we’d better answer it,” Jessica whispered.

  “Nooo,” came the muffled sound of Vanessa’s voice from underneath the blanket.

  “You do it,” said Callie to Jessica.

  “Me? Why? No! I’m just the visitor!”

  The girls locked eyes for a moment and then both turned to Matt.

  “Fine,” he said, turning off the teakettle. “Coming!” he added as the knock sounded for a third time.

  Callie did a double take as the door swung open. Standing just outside was the tall, skinny, brown-haired poet that Vanessa had forced her to stalk at the Advocate a few weeks ago. Warily he took a step into the room.

  “I’m just here to get my pants back,” he said slowly, staying close to the door. “Then I’ll be on my way.”

  Callie and Jessica watched as Vanessa slowly lowered the blanket from her face, which had become the same reddish color as her hair (except for the green and blue chemical equations written on her forehead). Everyone stared at her legs, on which she wore the mysterious set of skinny jeans, the suspenders dangling loosely at her sides.

  “Uh…” said the guy, looking at Vanessa like she had inspired the song “Super Freak,” minus the “she’s all right” part.

  Vanessa seemed to be paralyzed.

  “Oi, Max is back!” The door to OK’s bedroom flew against the wall. Finally clothed (in an oriental-patterned silk kimono), OK strolled out into the common room.

  “It’s Maxwell,” said the guy.

  “I prefer Max,” OK replied nonchalantly, as if correcting someone’s pronunciation of his own name, rather than of this almost stranger’s.

  Max(well) rolled his eyes, appearing more eager to leave now than Callie had been to flee that poetry reading, which was saying a lot.

  “Maxwell,” said Vanessa slowly.

  “Yes,” he said irritably. “As in, the person whose pants you’re wearing?”

  “These…are yours,” Vanessa said quietly. Pulling them off as fast as possible and then wrapping the blanket around her lower half, Vanessa handed him the pants.

  “Thanks,” Maxwell said curtly, backing toward the door. “And a final word of advice, if I may,” he added, pausing on his way out. “Next time you feel like finding someone’s phone number on Facebook mobile and calling them up in the middle of the night—don’t.”

  He pulled the door shut behind him.

  Vanessa let out a wail, throwing herself onto the couch and pulling several pillows on top of her.

  “There, there,” said Jessica, patting the pillow that Vanessa hugged to her stomach. “We all fall victim to drinking and Facebooking at one point or another.”

  “I can’t believe I…did….” Vanessa struggled through her sentences.

  OK let out a barking laugh. “Oh, you’d better believe it, baby! You,” he continued, pointing at Vanessa, “couldn’t stop talking about how much you wanted to ‘call up the poet and make sweet, sweet poetry’—the kind that leads, according to you, to ‘miniature hipster babies.’ And so then you,” he continued, turning to Callie, “said, ‘Why not look up his number on Facebook?’” He looked at Jessica. “Then you chimed in with ‘Call him, call him, call him,’ but you refused”—he nodded at Vanessa—“and sent him some texts instead. Then, wonders that be, he came over.”

  “Ugh,” Vanessa groaned from under the pillows. “Why is this happening to me?”

  “Oh, but there’s more,” said OK, a spark in his eyes. “Blondie over
here said that you should write him a poem, but Jess—or shall we call her, Blondie the Sequel—”

  “Hey!” Jessica interjected, aiming a pillow at his head.

  “Blondie Part Deux?” he asked.

  “I prefer Jess,” she said, smiling.

  “Anyhow, Jess had a better idea. She said the fastest way to a man’s heart is to turn up the heat, pretend to spill water or red wine on him, and then take off his pants!”

  Callie raised an eyebrow. “Gentlemen Prefer Blondes?” she asked her best friend.

  “There’s no arguing with a strategy devised by Marilyn Monroe,” said Jessica.

  Vanessa poked her head out from underneath the pillows. “Oh god. Tell me I didn’t…”

  “You did,” said Dana, emerging from the bathroom. “And I admit that of all the things that happened last night, that incident was…mildly amusing.”

  “You were there, too,” Vanessa recalled with a sigh.

  “We were,” Adam affirmed, joining Dana in the common room.

  Callie sat up. “Dana, exactly what time did we come home last night?”

  Dana pretended to look put out, but her shoulders seemed to perk up slightly, no doubt at the opportunity to turn the story into a medieval morality tale. “Well, it was definitely after midnight, and while I can’t comment specifically on the events that occurred before, Adam and I were here watching a movie when suddenly you all barged in. Vanessa kept singing something about how ‘she blinded me with science,’ and other people were singing, too. It was very loud and rather out of tune.”

  “Hey!” cried Vanessa.

  “Mimi was carrying that green bottle and you all drank from it and then Jessica screamed ‘dance party’ and turned off all the lights. Adam and I decided it would be in everyone’s best interest if we stayed and chaperoned, since you all seemed somewhat intoxicated and your judgment highly impaired.”

  Matt, looking sheepish, set down several cups of tea on the coffee table. Jessica shot him a grateful smile. He sat next to her on the couch, loosely draping his arm above her shoulders.

  “After you were tired of dancing, you all decided to have a slumber party. Then you agreed you should play a game. The general consensus seemed to be that Monopoly was boring, so you asked our upstairs neighbors if you could borrow their Jenga. Then you proceeded to write the most ridiculous set of dares,” she continued, lifting some of the neutral-colored wooden blocks off the coffee table. “‘If you drew this block, you have to cross dress.’ ‘Send a “relationship request” to one of your Teaching Fellows on Facebook’—”

  “Uh-oh,” Callie mumbled, making a mental note to cancel that asap.

  “‘Put on bathing suits and go swimming in a pile of money,’” Adam jumped in. “‘Torture OK until he confesses who his mystery girlfriend is—’”

  OK gasped.

  “Don’t worry,” said Dana. “They weren’t successful.”

  Adam cleared his throat. “Dana eventually fell asleep after fulfilling Vanessa’s request to draw on her, but I figured I had better stay behind to—er—keep an eye on things. We played Jenga for another hour or two, during which that Maxwell guy showed up and then left, without his pants, when he realized that you two”—he nodded at Jessica and Vanessa—“weren’t going to give them back.”

  “I’m transferring to Stanford,” Vanessa declared. “Jessica, take me with you!”

  “But we were where before midnight?” Callie asked.

  “Beats me,” said Adam. “Did you check all of your phones?”

  “The moral of the story is,” Dana cut in loudly, “that none of you should ever drink again, ever.”

  Callie’s eyes traveled from OK, who had sprawled out across one couch; to Jessica huddling next to Matt, sipping tea with a pained expression on her face; to Vanessa cowering under the blanket and pillows. Oddly enough they all seemed to wholeheartedly agree. Her head pounding, Callie nodded. “Never again,” she murmured, which they all echoed with a series of grunts and moans. Absentmindedly Callie picked up Vanessa’s phone and started scrolling through it, making sure nothing had been overlooked.

  “Good,” said Dana. “Now if you’ll excuse us, we’re off to church!”

  “Why are you going to church on a Saturday?” asked Vanessa.

  “It’s not Saturday, it’s Sunday,” Dana said with a scathing look of disbelief. Then, shaking her head, she and Adam left the room.

  “Sorry,” Vanessa mumbled.

  “Oh, hey, wait a second,” said Callie, staring at the phone. “We forgot to check the pictures. Aha! Mystery solved. Before midnight we were at Tommy Doyle’s,” she said, holding up a photo. “And it looks like we were doing…karaoke? Hang on, there’s a video.” She set the iPhone on the table where they could all see it and then pressed Play.

  Vanessa stood on stage at the bar, holding a microphone and singing the eighties one-hit-wonder “She Blinded Me with Science.”

  “Well, that certainly explains some things,” said Vanessa, who, having perhaps reached her mortification quota for the weekend, appeared indifferent to the video.

  The scene changed as Mimi took the stage when Vanessa was finished, belting out her favorite, Edith Piaf’s “La Vie En Rose.” In the background the audience booed. As her roommates had tried to hint gently to Mimi on numerous occasions when she sang in the bath, she was truly, unequivocally terrible. At the end of the video a man presented Mimi with a small gold trophy.

  “And that explains this,” said Callie, picking up the golden trophy that had WORST EVER printed across the base.

  “Okay,” said Matt. “But that still doesn’t explain: where is Mimi?”

  “Meemeeee!” OK yelled, eliciting giggles from the others. “What?” he demanded.

  “Nothing!” Jessica and Callie chorused.

  “Don’t just sit there,” OK admonished, though he himself had not moved. “Help me.”

  “Mimi!” the others droned. “MIMI, WHERE ARE YOU?”

  “Dans ici!” came a faint call from somewhere inside the bathroom.

  “Did you hear that?” asked Matt.

  “Oui, oui,” said OK, dragging himself off the couch.

  After helping each other up, they followed him into the bathroom.

  It was empty.

  Slowly OK peeled back the shower curtain over the bathtub.

  It was filled with a mixture of one, five, and ten dollar bills, and multicolored Monopoly money. Mimi’s head, shoulders, and knees poked out from beneath the cash.

  “Bonjour, mes amis,” she said brightly, languishing with her head tilted back as if she were in a particularly luxuriant mud bath at a spa. “Je me sens comme un million de dollars!”

  “Yeah,” said Matt with a laugh. “No wonder you feel like a million bucks. I would, too.”

  “Care to rejoin me, fellow dare buddy?” Mimi asked, winking at Vanessa. “You look as if you could use a good scrubbing!”

  Giggling, Vanessa hopped into the tub. “‘Put on bathing suits and go swimming in a pile of money,’” she recalled. “Genius. Say,” she continued, “do you know whose glasses are in the common room?”

  “Yours,” said Mimi. “You asked Callie to retrieve them to help you prepare before le hipster est venu, and then she returned with that book and proceeded to cry out in her sleep. ‘Wentworth!’” Mimi mimicked Callie, naming the main love interest in Persuasion. “‘Gregory!’”

  “Okay,” said Callie, ignoring Jessica’s amused expression. “That’s enough of story time!”

  “Wait,” asked Matt. “Any idea what happened to my keys?”

  “Non,” said Mimi.

  “You didn’t”—Matt lowered his voice—“roofie us last night, did you?”

  “Ha!” Mimi laughed. “It was only a weensy splash of absinthe. Perfectly legal these days; in Europe we take ours in our tea. Pfft! Featherweights,” she muttered. “Now be a dear, deary,” she called to OK, “And fetch us un cocktail. I am simply parched!”

 
“A cocktail?” OK repeated, seeming too surprised to be offended at being told to fetch. “Right now?”

  “Mais oui,” said Mimi. “C’est la seule façon de réparer un hangover.”

  Hours later, after gorging on greasy food and a brisk walk along the Charles River, Callie’s hangover had finally subsided. She still felt terrible, however, and not entirely because it was time for Jessica to leave. Insane as the weekend had been and wonderful as it was to see her best friend, her overall predicament remained unchanged. She was two days closer to her hearing and yet no closer to proving that Lexi was the Ivy Insider. And, even worse, the ratio of time spent obsessing about Gregory to actual time spent with Gregory basically equaled a huge number divided by zero which was—in real life and in math—a problem with no solution.

  “Can I give you two pieces of sisterly advice?” asked Jessica, breaking out of a teary hug near the escalators that descended into the Harvard Square T station.

  “Of course,” said Callie. “I need all the advice I can get.”

  “Okay,” said Jess, propping herself up on the handle of her carry-on. “Here it goes…. Number one: you’ve gotta stop obsessing about Gregory.”

  “Who me? Obsess?” Callie feigned weakly.

  Jessica laughed. “Look, I’m not saying you should give up completely because I still think that you two are meant to be…well, at least not like this. Howsoever, no amount of obsessing or calling out for him in your sleep—”

  Callie groaned.

  “—is going to bring him back any sooner. He will return when he is ready. And when he does, maybe he’ll have good reasons for going totally AWOL—or maybe he won’t. Either way, it’s not going to change the fact that you have more important things to worry about right now.”

  “I know,” Callie agreed with a sigh. “I’ve been trying to tell myself the same thing since that Monday after spring break.”

  “It’s hard, I’m sure,” Jessica said sympathetically. “But necessary. Anyway, number two: as far as this Ivy Insider business is concerned…I think it’s time to start playing dirty.”