Scandal

by Lauren Kunze

  • Run spring Primal Scream?

  • Sex in Widener (with…???)

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  “Well, there’s another thing we can cross off the list,” said Vanessa, getting up off the grass by the Charles River and stretching. “I cannot believe it took me this long to learn about the glory of these so-called sporting events!”

  “C’est magnifique,” Mimi agreed, watching the men’s eight row back toward the boathouse from the finish line, their oars cutting through the water in perfect unison.

  “You’re not going to jump off the bridge right now, are you?” asked Dana, skeptically eyeing the setting sun.

  “No,” Callie answered. “It’s too cold today. And besides, you guys have to start getting ready for Freshman Formal.”

  “Are you quite sure you will not be joining us?” asked Mimi, pouting as they started to walk home to Wigglesworth.

  “Yes,” said Callie. “I don’t have a date, and I still don’t really have any idea what I’m going to say tomorrow morning at the hearing.” She stared down JFK Street, all the way to the end where it terminated at Harvard Yard. The large brick and white columned buildings seemed to grow larger with every step. Would she even be a student here by this time tomorrow?

  “Mimi and I don’t have dates either,” Vanessa pleaded.

  “Then what would you call OK and Matthew graciously volunteering to escort you at the suggestion of Adam and me?” asked Dana.

  “Uh…how about ‘my worst nightmare’?” said Vanessa.

  “You may have OK,” said Mimi. “I prefer Monsieur Robinson’s dance moves in a party scenario. Much more entertaining.”

  Callie laughed.

  “Are you sure?” Vanessa wheedled. “Please, please, pretty please—come?”

  “Not tonight,” said Callie, her eyes flicking up to read the inscription above Dexter Gate. Enter to Grow in Wisdom. She remembered passing under it on her very first day of school, awed by the majestic beauty of the Yard.

  “But you will be there when we return pour la soirée pyjama, mais non?” asked Mimi.

  “Yes,” said Callie, “I’ll be home for the slumber party so Vanessa can cross another thing off her precious list.”

  “The Birkin List is our list,” Vanessa insisted. “And I think we can all agree that it has made this last week—I mean, this past week,” she corrected herself with a sidelong look at Callie, “a lot more fun for…everyone.”

  Callie nodded. She wanted to tell them all how much the week had meant to her—and how grateful she was to have had them in her lives as roommates, however briefly—but a lump had formed in her throat.

  “Remind me again why it’s called the Birkin List,” Dana asked while they trudged up the stairs in entryway C.

  Vanessa sighed. “When I was little, I did not understand the concept of a ‘Bucket List.’ Even when I was older and saw a bucket for the first time—”

  “Wait,” said Callie, stopping outside the door to C 24. “How old?”

  “It still didn’t make any sense,” Vanessa continued, ignoring her. “What did make sense was the long waiting list at Barneys for the latest Hermes Birkin bag. I lusted after that bag for my entire freshman year of high school until I finally realized: why waste so much time waiting for just one bag while life is totally passing you by? There were so many other purses out there, yet here I was missing out on my best years to accessorize. And so I made a list of everything I wanted to do before I got the Birkin.”

  “Ah,” said Dana. “Now, that makes perfect sense.”

  “Was that—sarcasm?” Vanessa asked, whirling around to face Dana. “Is our little D-meister finally all grown up?”

  “Don’t,” said Dana, smacking away the hands that were reaching out to pinch her cheeks.

  “Fine,” said Vanessa, lowering her arms. “But still—I’m just so proud!”

  “And but still just so annoying,” said Mimi, mimicking Vanessa’s tone.

  Vanessa made a face.

  “Now would the other half of Team Best Ever at Baghole,” Mimi continued, “care to join me in my chambers? I will allow you to go into great detail regarding la length inapproprié de mon formelle dresses.”

  “Okay,” Dana agreed. “If you’ll show me how to do that hair thing again, I will gladly help you pick an appropriate formal dress.”

  “Deal,” said Mimi, grinning and offering Dana her arm.

  Now alone with Callie in the common room, Vanessa turned to her. “Are you sure—”

  “Yes,” Callie reassured her. “I need to stay and go over everything again from the beginning.

  “I’ll be fine,” she added, wishing Vanessa would stop looking at her the way a new wife might when seeing her husband off to war. “Really. I’m sure I’ll think of something at the last minute….”

  “Okay,” said Vanessa. “I’m going to go change, but we’ll all be back before midnight, and if you think of anything that you need between now and then, just call Brad—”

  “Go!” Callie cried. “Change! Get ready! Seriously! It’s fine!”

  “All right!” Vanessa disappeared into her bedroom.

  Callie stayed in the common room for a few minutes, taking everything in. Finally, with a sigh, she returned to her own room to mull over, for the millionth time, the bulletin board.

  Three hours had passed since everyone left, and during that time Callie had grown almost dizzy from pacing around the tiny stretch of floor by her bed. No answers had come; no revelations dawned; no epiphanies suddenly lit metaphorical lightbulbs above her head.

  She stared at Matt’s list of “facts” about the Ivy Insider. But no matter how many times she read them, the pieces of the puzzle refused to come together. “Fact: I’m totally screwed,” she muttered aloud.

  Absentmindedly she lifted the picture of Gregory from Harvard-Yale off her bookshelf. In the past week she had spent an embarrassing amount of time staring at it, and rereading his note—the most incredible, inspired secret love letter of all time, in her humble opinion—handwritten on the pages of Persuasion.

  How long did snail mail take these days, anyway? She couldn’t remember the last time that she had mailed or received an actual letter. And was he even still checking that post office box? Frowning, she flung herself backward onto her bed, still holding the photo.

  Maybe he’d received her letter—and was on his way back right now! In a minute he’d pull up front in a taxi, wearing a tuxedo, and ask her—better late than never—to Freshman Formal. Then they’d stay up dancing all night—and spend the entire next day in bed.

  She sighed. If only it were real, he might have even made her forget it was probably her last night at Harvard. In fact, being around him made her forget a lot of things—like that one time when she’d accidently caught him in nothing more than a towel on his way out of the shower and she had temporarily forgotten how to speak. Or that other time, right as he’d first kissed her on the balcony of their hotel in New Haven, when she’d have been hard-pressed to remember her own name.

  Come back, she willed him, staring at his image. Please. “Come back,” she whispered.

  A strange thwacking noise sounded against her window.

  Callie shot straight up. What the—

  There it was again: someone appeared to be throwing rocks.

  Diving over her desk, Callie yanked up the shade just in time to see another pebble crack against the pane. She threw the window open, stuck her head out into the cool night air, and looked down.

  “Calleeeee!”

  “Clint?” she screamed back, ready to kill him for having just become literally the biggest disappointment of her entire life. “What the hell are you doing here?”

  “Let me up!” he shouted by way of response, stumbling a little. “My ID card—can’t—seem to find…”

  “Have you been drinking?” Callie called, staying where she was.

&nb
sp; “Need to talk…I need to talk to you!” he insisted, slurring.

  Thank god most of the freshmen in her dorm were probably at the dance.

  “Go home, Clint!” she said, starting to shut her window. “Sleep it off!”

  “Wait!” he cried. “You were right—about Alexis…whole time…I HAVE—information….”

  Callie froze, chewing on her lip. Were these the drunken ramblings of a jackass (likely), or was she about to hear an earnest, alcohol-induced confession that might somehow pertain to the Insider? Worth a try, she decided, poking her head back out the window. “I’ll be right down!” she called. “Stay there, and stop shouting!”

  “I’m sorry for shouting!” Clint shouted, heading over to entryway C.

  “Just get in,” she said, letting the bright green door slam behind him.

  “Callie,” he said, grabbing her elbow, “so glad you could come over tonight—I mean, me—let me…”

  “Okay,” said Callie, shaking off his hand. “No more talking.” Inside C 24 she guided him over to the couch. “Sit,” she said, watching him flop down. “Good. Now drink,” she instructed, handing him a Nalgene full of water.

  “You’rrrreallyprrretty,” he slurred, peering at her through half-closed eyes. A little water dribbled down his chin.

  “Or you’re just really drunk,” Callie remarked, perching a safe distance away on the edge of the armchair.

  “S’not sodrunk,” he protested, trying to set the water on the table and missing by a few inches. “Huh. S’funny.”

  “Finish it,” Callie said. “Okay. Now what is it that you wanted to tell me?”

  “Wha?” Clint blinked. “But I already told you.”

  “Told me what?”

  “That you’rrrpretty!”

  “Oh god,” said Callie. “Give me your phone.”

  “‘E.T. phone home,’” said Clint. “Wait—he can’t—she burned it.”

  “This was a mistake,” Callie muttered, going into her bedroom to retrieve her new cell. Quickly she dialed Tyler’s number. “Tyler?” she said when he picked up.

  “Callie?” his voice came over the line. “Please tell me you are with Clint.”

  “Unfortunately, yes I am,” she said.

  “Oh, good…She found him!” he called, presumably speaking to someone else. “Sorry,” Tyler apologized. “A bunch of us guys were just chillin’ at the Fly, and Clint had a liiittle too much to drink—”

  “You think?” asked Callie.

  “And then he somehow escaped. Right out from under my watchful eyes.”

  “How shocking,” said Callie. “Would you mind maybe coming to pick him up?” she asked, glancing at Clint, who had slumped over one of the couch pillows and started to snore.

  “No problem,” said Tyler, “just give me twenty minutes.”

  “Ten would be better,” said Callie, hanging up.

  She grabbed Persuasion and settled into the armchair so she could make sure Clint didn’t wake up and do something stupid. She’d been reading for a solid fifteen minutes when she heard him speak.

  “You were right, you know.”

  “Right about what?” she asked. He was still slumped across the couch, his chin propped up by the pillow, but his eyes seemed ever so slightly more focused now.

  “Uhlexus,” he said on the exhale. “She’s a…evil…witch.”

  “I’m sorry you feel that way,” said Callie, actually meaning it a little. He just looked so pathetic at the moment. “But I’m sure you’ll have made up by morning.”

  “No.” He shook his head vehemently. “She’s still…the same. Hasn’t changed…at all.”

  Callie nodded. “I can’t say I’m surprised.”

  “She’s still…blackmailing…found out—this morning…”

  “Blackmailing who?” Callie said sharply, remembering the thumb drive labeled C, A that she’d stolen out of Lexi’s office. Was there still another copy of the sex tape out there?

  “S’not you.” Clint shook his head. “S’someone else…”

  Callie relaxed. “Again, I’m not sure why any of this should be surprising.”

  Clint seemed to shrug from where he lay. “Shouldnaever brokenup withchu.”

  Callie propped her cheek in her hand. “Actually, I’m so glad you did.”

  “Dunts’pose…?”

  “No way,” said Callie. “Finally!” she cried a moment later, standing to get the door.

  “I’m so sorry,” said Tyler, striding over to the couch. “He and Lexi are going through sort of a rough patch at the moment, if you hadn’t already guessed—”

  “Wicked witch,” Clint muttered petulantly.

  “Come on, buddy,” said Tyler, throwing his arm around Clint and helping him to his feet. “That’s it,” he encouraged, still supporting almost all of Clint’s weight and inching slowly toward the door. “Pick up those feet—one after the other…. There ya go…. See ya later, Callie—and thanks for calling me.”

  “No problem,” she said, making sure they at least made it to the end of the hall.

  Less than two minutes later the door to the common room flew open again.

  Fortunately this time it was Mimi, Dana, and Vanessa, all clad in formal attire. “Did we just see what I think we saw?” asked Vanessa.

  “What—Tyler and Clint?”

  “Yuh-huh,” said Vanessa. “What on earth was that about?”

  So Callie told them.

  “Where are the boys?” Callie asked when she was done recounting Clint’s strange visit.

  “We decided to do the ditching,” said Mimi, stifling a yawn. “The formal was rather boring, and we would prefer to spend this time with you.”

  Dana nodded.

  “Slumber party?” Vanessa proposed, her eyes widening maniacally.

  “Oui!” said Mimi.

  “I’ll get the marshmallows,” said Vanessa.

  “I’m going to go put on my pajamas,” said Dana.

  “Let’s all change,” Callie suggested, “and then bring our mattresses out here?”

  “Brilliant!” said Vanessa, tossing the marshmallows onto the couch and dragging the coffee table over to one side of the room to clear space.

  A few minutes later they had successfully combined their four twin mattresses on the floor to create one gigantic super mattress. Clad in pj’s, they watched Vanessa make s’mores, roasting the marshmallows over a scented candle. Then, in between bites of graham crackers and melted chocolate, they reminisced about the highlights of the dance, from Vanessa’s renewed hunt for a freshman “fish” whom she could train over the course of the next three years and raise into the perfect boyfriend to OK’s epic freestyle rap battle with DJ Damien Zhang.

  “It all started to go downhill after he rhymed ‘royalty’ with ‘bow to me,’” Vanessa explained, sending Callie into another spasm of sidesplitting giggles.

  “Ah,” said Callie finally, wiping her eyes. “I should have just gone with you guys.”

  “I take it you did not make any progress?” asked Dana gently.

  Callie shook her head, then lay back on one of the mattresses and stared at the ceiling. “Unless you count Clint’s ‘revelation’ about how Alexis is still evil…”

  Vanessa shrugged, climbing under the covers next to her. “Well, at the very least I think it’s safe to say that when your ex shows up blitzed out of his mind, trash-talking his current girlfriend, and—sort of—asking for you back, you definitely won the breakup.”

  “Tsk, tsk, tsk,” Mimi clucked. “Callie is already winning after he restarted dating Lexi.”

  “True,” said Vanessa.

  “But what are you going to do, then—about tomorrow?” Dana asked quietly after standing to dim the lights.

  Callie sighed, watching the flame of the candle flicker.

  “If it were me,” said Mimi, hopping into bed, “I would simply not show. How will they manage to have the hearing if you do not attend? Trust me. J’ai été expulsé de nomb
reuses institutions dans ma carrière académique.”

  “Your less-than-exemplary record with boarding schools is exactly why she should not listen to you!” said Dana. “Now, what you need is a plan, even if it’s just a backup—”

  “Matt already volunteered to come in and ‘testify’ that I was sitting next to him at the Crimson when the third Insider article was posted from a computer all the way on the other side of the offices,” said Callie. “So maybe if I don’t think of”—she yawned—“something before tomorrow morning then I can ask him to come with me…. But I don’t want to drag him into this—especially since, if Lexi is one of the students on the judiciary board, she’ll probably just accuse him of lying or colluding and find a way to have him kicked off the paper, too.”

  “And you’re sure she didn’t do it?” asked Vanessa.

  “I’m not sure,” said Callie, “but Grace seems to be, and since all the evidence we could find just seemed to exonerate Lexi…” She shook her head, pulling the covers up to her chin. “Maybe Matt was right. Maybe if I hadn’t wasted so much time obsessing about how Lexi had to be the Insider, I wouldn’t have been so blind to other possibilities.”

  “What other possibilities?” asked Vanessa. “Who’s more conniving than Alexis Thorndike? Who else is a member of the Crimson and was a veteran member of the Pudding?”

  “Maybe whoever did it was only one or the other—or neither,” said Callie, her eyelids feeling heavy. “There are ways of getting into the Crimson without being a staff member or a COMPer….”

  “Oui,” Mimi murmured.

  “And maybe even ways to find out what happened at private Pudding proceedings without actually being there.”

  “Hey,” said Dana. “Didn’t Clint used to bring you coffee at the Crimson a lot?”

  “What are you saying?” Callie asked.

  “He’s in the Pudding,” said Dana, “and he spent a fair amount of time in the offices, right? And he showed up here the night before your hearing clearly feeling guilty about something—from the sound of it.”