The Ivy: Rivals

by Lauren Kunze

  “‘Irritatingly persistent’?” she squawked. “Is that what you’d call one of the greatest American novels of all time!”

  Gregory smirked. “Gatsby was a fool. Bending over backward for a chick who wasn’t even worth it.”

  “You don’t think it’s romantic?” Callie asked, staring him down.

  “No, I don’t.” He shrugged. “Not only does he pick the wrong girl, but he tries to change his whole personality just to fit into her world. What he doesn’t realize is that he’ll never belong with her, or in East Egg, no matter how many fancy shirts he may buy or parties he may throw.”

  Callie was quiet, watching the last remaining ember in the fireplace slowly die. “‘It is invariably saddening to look through new eyes at things upon which you have expended your own powers of adjustment,’” she murmured finally, speaking almost to herself.

  “Who’s quoting now?” Gregory asked.

  “Who were you on the phone with earlier?” she retorted, her head snapping back to him.

  Instead of answering, he stood. “I’m overdue for a smoke,” he said, pulling out a pack of cigarettes and walking into the living room.

  “You know you can smoke inside tonight,” Callie called, following him.

  “I know,” he said, turning when he reached the club’s front door, where their roommates had been cast out only minutes earlier. “But it’s no fun when you have permission.”

  Callie stood for almost a minute after he had gone. Eventually she shook her head and rounded toward the stairs. She was halfway to the top when she nearly collided with a guy on his way down.

  “What are you doing here?” he asked, blocking any further passage.

  “I was just looking for a bathr—”

  “You’re not supposed to be down here,” he interrupted. “Girls are never allowed in this part of the club until after they graduate or if they are escorted by their husband. You should be upstairs, with your date.”

  “Okay,” said Callie, holding up her hands. “That’s where I was headed anyway, so if you could just exc—”

  “If you even have a date,” he finished, narrowing his eyes. “You weren’t invited to this party tonight, were you?”

  “Yes, I was,” she stammered, wondering if he was the same boy who had expelled Mimi and OK.

  “By who, then, if you don’t mind my asking?” he challenged.

  “Clint Weber,” she said.

  “Clint Weber.” The guy snorted. “Nice try, but everyone knows he’s got a long-term girlfriend even if she wasn’t upstairs looking pretty cozy on the couch with him right now.”

  Callie swayed on the steps; all the feeling had drained out of her legs.

  “That’s impossible,” she finally mustered, “I mean—there must be some kind of a misunderstanding—”

  “The only thing I don’t understand is how you managed to get in here in the first place. Did you use a fake name at the door?”

  “Clint Weber is my boyfriend, and I was invited to this party!” she cried. “My name is Callie Andrews—you can check the list if you don’t believe me!”

  “There is no list,” he said triumphantly. “The other initiates and I delivered the paper invitations by hand.”

  “This is ridiculous,” said Callie. “Just let me by and Clint will explain the whole thing—”

  “Callie Andrews,” the guy said slowly, nodding now and surveying her up and down. “I knew I recognized that name somewhere. You’re that slutty freshman wannabe porn star who made a sex tape with her high school boyfriend.” He laughed. It was an ugly sound.

  Turning, she tumbled down the stairs, raced across the foyer, and threw open the front door, determined to keep the tears from flowing until she made it outside. . . .

  She could barely see as she bolted down the club’s forbidden front steps, smack into—

  “Callie? What the—ah!”

  “Sorry,” Callie mumbled, stooping to help Vanessa to her feet. Her roommate’s heels had slipped in the snow.

  Vanessa looked livid. “Next time watch where you’re going! I could have twisted my ankle or snapped the heel off my Jimmy Choo—” Vanessa’s lips froze, pursed in the shape of an “oo.” “Are you—you’re not . . . crying?”

  Callie burst into sobs.

  Vanessa stood there, looking stricken. “Do you want me to get Clint?”

  “No!” Callie shook her head violently.

  “Well, as it just so happens, I was actually on my way home. . . .” Vanessa shifted on her feet. Then she sighed. “I could walk you.”

  Callie nodded, sniffling.

  “Well, come on then,” said Vanessa. Side by side, they trudged through the snow. Wordlessly Vanessa unwound her silvery beaded shawl from her neck and tossed it to Callie. Grateful, Callie hugged it around her goose-pimply arms.

  “Do you wanna like, talk about it?” Vanessa ventured as they made their way past the Harvard Lampoon’s castle and onto Linden Street.

  “No,” Callie managed, staring down at the snow. “It’s so stupid.” Fresh tears streamed down her cheeks. “Not worth crying over. It’s just—” Her words were swallowed in a sob.

  “Hookay, no more talking,” Vanessa decided.

  They continued on in silence until they reached Mass. Ave.: dark and almost sinister in its unusual emptiness.

  “Why did you leave?” Callie asked curiously when the tears had eventually ceased.

  “Uh . . . I . . .” Vanessa looked away. “Tyler kept making a big deal about how tonight was, like, The Night—you know?” she said with a shrug. “He kept going on and on about how everything was so special and perfect and wasn’t my first time at a real college party fun and how he couldn’t wait to get home later. . . . Eventually I got sick of all his oh-so-subtle hints and decided to respond with a little hint of my own—by sneaking out the back.”

  Callie nodded.

  “Luckily I found you—after you almost killed me—so now you can be my excuse. ‘Sorry Tyler, but Callie had a crisis. No, worse than the usual wardrobe malfunction.’”

  Callie smiled weakly. Suddenly her phone buzzed in her purse. One new text message. It was from Clint: WHERE DID YOU GO?!?

  “It’s Clint,” she said in response to Vanessa’s questioning look.

  “What are you telling him?” Vanessa asked, watching Callie’s fingers fly across her phone’s keyboard.

  Callie smirked. “So sorry, but Vanessa had a crisis. Nothing worse than the usual wardrobe malfunction.”

  Vanessa gasped. “How dare you!” she said with mock horror. “JK, the lies you tell to your boyfriend are none of my business.”

  “That’s not what I actually said,” Callie muttered. What she had actually said was this:

  SOMETHING WEIRD HAPPENED

  WITH ONE OF THE MEMBERS. IT’S

  NOT A BIG DEAL AND YOU SHOULD

  DEFINITELY STAY AND ENJOY THE

  PARTY. I’M WITH VANESSA AND

  WE’RE HEADED HOME. I’LL TALK TO

  YOU TOMORROW.

  A moment later her phone buzzed with an incoming call from Clint W. Furrowing her brow, she silenced it—certain that repeating what had happened aloud would only lead to more tears. Plus, just because her night was ruined didn’t mean his had to be, too. Her phone buzzed again, this time with a text:

  JUST TRIED TO CALL BUT YOU’RE

  NOT ANSWERING. . . . I HOPE

  WHATEVER HAPPENED WAS NOTHING

  TOO SERIOUS, AND I’M GLAD TO

  HEAR THAT YOU AND VANESSA ARE

  GETTING ALONG! TEXT ME WHEN

  YOU GET HOME SO I KNOW YOU’RE

  SAFE. I’LL SEE YOU TOMORROW.

  The bright green door to Wigglesworth loomed ahead. Callie shut her phone. Vanessa paused with her key card poised. “Sooo . . . have you and Clint . . . ?

  “Mm-hmm. But not until way after the article came out . . . We waited until we were both completely ready. Now we’ve been making up for lost time, though,” she added w
ith a small smile.

  “I know this is probably going to sound totally stupid,” said Vanessa, “but I guess I always had this idea in my head about waiting until I was in love . . . or, like, at least five pounds skinnier.”

  Both good reasons, even the latter, in a weird comfortable-with- your-own-body way.

  “And you don’t love Tyler?” Callie prompted.

  “Sometimes I don’t even like Tyler,” Vanessa said with a laugh. “I don’t know; he’s great . . . but do you ever feel with Clint that he’s just, like, a whole lot older? I mean, I know it’s only two years, but still . . . They’re worrying about jobs and graduate school and what they’re going to do with the rest of their lives, and we’re still asking for directions to some of the major buildings on campus and figuring out which foods to avoid in the d-hall.” She sighed, scanning her key card against the lock. “He’s just not . . . my fish.”

  Callie smiled. Vanessa had devised Operation Fish Farm back during Shopping Period of their first semester, wherein she advised that they find a “diamond in the rough” freshman with potential, capture him from the wild, raise him, and domesticate him until finally, by senior year, after the culmination of a three-year plan, they would finally have the perfect boyfriend. (Unfortunately their status as fishing buddies had been disrupted when the pond appeared to have only one fish: Gregory—the white whale of the freshman class. No net was big enough.)

  “If he’s not your fish,” Callie said when they were in the hall, “what is he, then?”

  “He’s . . . a shark. An oversexed shark with big slimy fins!”

  Laughing, they opened the door to the common room. Dana sat alone on their couch, the typical array of textbooks surrounding her. Seeing them, she beamed. “Finally!” she called.

  “Finally what?” asked Callie.

  Dana drew herself up, looking very superior: “Pastor John always said, ‘To err is human; to forgive is divine.’”

  “I think that was Pope,” Callie ventured.

  “I’m not Catholic.” Dana shook her head. “But I have certainly been praying for you two to make up, and I am happy to see that He has finally answered me!”

  “What?” shrieked Vanessa. “We didn’t make up!”

  “Nuh-uh,” Callie echoed, shaking her head.

  “That’s crazy talk,” Vanessa added.

  “We’re going—I mean, I’m going to bed,” Callie said.

  “I was going first,” Vanessa added.

  “So?” asked Callie.

  “So . . . get out of my way!” Vanessa cried, pushing past her.

  “Fine, just try not to slam the—”

  SLAM went the door to Vanessa’s room.

  “. . . door this time,” Callie finished. “What?” she added, rounding on Dana. The other girl stared her down until Callie lowered her eyes.

  “She started it,” Callie mumbled, heading for her room. “Sorry . . . G’night. ”

  “Nonsense,” Dana muttered, turning back to her textbook. “Absolute nonsense.”

  Chapter Eight

  The Freshmen Fifteen

  The votes are in and now, presented to you by Fifteen Minutes magazine . . .

  The Freshmen Fifteen: Harvard’s Fifteen Hottest Freshmen

  (See page 5 for more photos!)

  Name: Levi Johnson

  From: Philadelphia, PA

  Three Words to Describe Yourself: Run, Bike, Swim

  Favorite Friday Night Activity: See above

  Best Pickup Line: “No, not the guy who impregnated Bristol Palin . . . but how you doin’?”

  Name: Okechuwuku Zeyna

  From: Nigeria

  Three Words to Describe Yourself: Big, Black, and Beautiful

  Favorite Friday Night Activity: Grand Theft Auto with my French mistress

  Best Pickup Line: “I’m a prince, did you know?”

  Name: Lily Hanafee

  From: Little Rock, Arkansas

  Three Words to Describe Yourself: Southern, Sassy, Adventurous

  Favorite Friday Night Activity: Anything that involves dancing

  Best Pickup Line: “No thank you.”

  Name: Marine Aurélie Clément

  From: Paris/London/Switzerland

  Three Words to Describe Yourself: Je ne sais quoi

  Favorite Friday Night Activity: Decimating the African Prince in GTA-IV

  Best Pickup Line: “Bonjour.”

  Name: Gregory Brentworth Bolton (not pictured)

  From: New York, New York

  Three Words to Describe Yourself: Are you serious?

  Favorite Friday Night Activity: My Jane Austen book club, of course

  Best Pickup Line: “Go away, I’m not interested.”

  Name: Damien “DJ” Zhang

  From: Shanghai

  Three Words to Describe Yourself: Number One Stunner

  Favorite Friday Night Activity: Spinning tables at the clubs

  Best Pickup Line: “So, how would you like me to be your first Asian?”

  Name: Vanessa Von Vorhees

  From: Manhattan

  Three Words to Describe Yourself: Classy, Fabulous, and Irreplaceable

  Favorite Friday Night Activity: Fighting with my boyfriend

  Best Pickup Line: “Oooh, does that come in my size?”

  Name: Matt Robinson

  From: Ithaca, New York

  Three Words to Describe Yourself: Geeky And Proud

  Favorite Friday Night Activity: You can usually find me at the Crimson with my favorite managing editor ;)

  Best Pickup Line: “Oh . . . ah, gee, crap—can I have some more time?”

  (profiles continued on page 11)

  “Andrews! Robinson!” an unmistakable voice barked. “Does this look like a motel? I thought I told you to stop sleeping here,” Grace continued, slamming the door to the offices of the Crimson behind her, “and start sleeping in the dormitories that the university has graciously provided you!” She now stood only a few feet away from where Matt lay slumped across the desk next to Callie, but her shouts—even coupled with Callie’s frantic nudging—had failed to rouse him.

  Grace held up her hand, indicating that Callie should cease, and leaned in toward Matt’s ear until she was mere inches away. “Robbbinsonnn . . .” she whispered in a soft, singsong. “Oh, Robinson . . .”

  “Mmm,” he mumbled, smiling in his sleep, a tiny spit bubble forming at his mouth.

  Grace blinked. “WAKE YOUR ASS UP RIGHT NOW OR IT’S MINE!”

  “HOLYMOTHEROF—AH!” Matt screamed, knocking over a coffee cup as he leaped to his feet. “Wha— Grace! Good morning—hello—hi!” His hands flew to his shirt, trying to smooth the wrinkles. Giving up, he went to work on his hair. Callie tried to mime, You have drool on your face, with little success.

  Sighing, Grace bent over and picked up the mug. “From now on this building is not your crash pad, understood? However, I am glad that the two of you are here. Big day today!”

  “What—ah—yes, big day,” Callie stammered. She had no idea what Grace was talking about or whether she was supposed to know in the first place. “Big, big day.”

  “Well, what are you people waiting for? Let’s move!” Grace snapped.

  Matt suppressed a yawn. “What time is it?” he whispered to Callie as they followed Grace outside.

  “Just after ten,” she whispered back. “Do you have any idea . . . ?”

  “No.” Matt grimaced. “There was nothing on my GCal. . . .”

  “Pick up the pace back there!” Grace yelled over her shoulder.

  “Well, ask!” Callie hissed at Matt.

  “You ask,” Matt hissed back.

  “Fine!” she muttered. “Um, Grace,” she called. “Today’s the day, isn’t it?”

  “You can say that again, Andrews.”

  Callie glared at Matt. “Today . . . is the day,” she repeated lamely.

  “Exactly,” Grace said. Even though her legs were several inches shorter than Callie’s, not to
mention a full foot shorter than Matt’s, they both still had to walk double-time to keep up. “The day we are all going to witness one of FM’s oldest and most obscene traditions: ‘The Freshmen Fifteen.’”

  “‘The Freshmen Fifteen’?” Matt echoed.

  “Yes, we’ll be covering it just in case the Insider doesn’t get the scoop,” Grace said with a worrisome wink at Callie.

  “Grace,” Callie started, “you know I’m not—”

  “Allowed to publish yet,” Grace finished for her. “Yes, of course I know. You’ll be assisting Robinson on the FlyBy piece featuring our own version of their perverted popularity pageant. I’m thinking The ‘Most Promising Fifteen’ or something along those lines, based on academics and extracurriculars, and I’ll be following up with an op-ed for the Crimson that will hopefully feature some one-on-one interviews with the so-called ‘hottest.’” If the speed at which she spoke served as an indicator of her excitement, you’d think she’d just uncovered the next Watergate.

  Callie glanced at Matt, grateful that he looked just as confused as she felt.

  “Er, Grace,” Matt finally said as they tore down Quincy Street, past Lamont Library and the Barker Center. “What exactly is ‘The Freshmen Fifteen’?”

  Grace whirled around. To their surprise, she smacked herself on the forehead. “Of course you don’t know—only freshmen,” she muttered. Then she cleared her throat and started walking again. “Every spring FM puts out an issue featuring ‘The Fifteen Hottest Freshmen.’ The editors vote based purely on looks and quote unquote ‘personality’. It has historically been one of their highest circulating issues and is, in my opinion, the epitome of everything that is wrong with not only the publication but the mind-set of its editors. We’re here,” she finished, stopping short.

  They were standing outside an enormous brick building flanked by poles with black banners that read THE FOGG MUSEUM. Callie and Matt exchanged nervous glances as they followed Grace up the stone steps. Inside, a curator dressed in black tended the front desk. “We’re not open to the public today,” she said, smiling apologetically.

  “We’re here for the photo shoot,” Grace explained.

  “Oh, excellent,” said the curator. “They’re upstairs now in the American wing. Shall I phone ahead to inform them of your arrival?”