The Ivy

by Lauren Kunze

  There was a knock on her door. Callie threw the covers over her head, pretending to be asleep. It was no use. Vanessa flipped on the light and said, “Callie, I know you’re awake. Come on, get up! You can’t sleep forever. Plus I need your advice on something.”

  Callie poked only the top third of her head out from beneath the sheets, giving Vanessa a look that clearly said: What do you want?

  Vanessa was holding two red dresses, one in each hand. “I need you to tell me which one I should wear. Mimi seems to think—”

  “I can hear you!!” Mimi yelled from the common room.

  “—that they look exactly the same! Which one do you like better?”

  Callie gazed at Vanessa in disbelief. The dresses were virtually identical.

  “The one on the left,” she muttered, throwing her head back onto her pillow.

  “See?” Vanessa cried as she rushed back into the common room. “I told you there is a difference between a red strapless Carolina Herrera dress and a jacquard bustier dress by Dior—they’re not even in the same genre!”

  Callie almost wanted to giggle. Mimi’s reaction had to be priceless.

  Sighing, she rolled out of bed and trudged into the common room.

  “Eeiggah!” Vanessa shrieked, visibly recoiling at the sight of her. Glancing in the mirror, Callie couldn’t blame her: she was wearing her oversized gray sweatpants and a tattered long-sleeve shirt, while her hair—which she hadn’t washed in three days—stuck out in crazy angles from her head. She didn’t care.

  She greeted Mimi and then headed toward the cabinet above the refrigerator. Her stomach rumbled angrily. She pulled out a bag of popcorn—extra butter, extra salt—and flung it into the microwave.

  While the popcorn exploded in loud, satisfying pops, she glanced over at Mimi. She looked stunning: modeling a dark blue Dolce & Gabbana cocktail dress for Vanessa. Vanessa nodded her approval before slipping into her own gorgeous gown that clung to her curves and made her look dangerously voluptuous.

  The clock on the wall read 7:15. There was still an hour left before the event: a cocktail party held at the Pudding’s clubhouse on Garden Street. Clearly, Mimi and Vanessa were testing out their outfits early because they were so excited about the party. . . .

  She pulled her popcorn out of the microwave and tore it open. Those dresses—just two of the dozens both Mimi and Vanessa had in their closets—couldn’t have been worth less than three thousand dollars each. How many starving kids in Africa could you feed for that amount? Callie thought bitterly, shoveling handfuls of popcorn into her mouth. The butter was making her fingers greasy, so she wiped them on her shirt. I bet if I were Vanessa, she thought poisonously, I’d be wiping my hands on that dress—wouldn’t matter at all, would it, when you can just buy another one?

  She wanted to keep thinking self-righteously about Africa, but her mind wouldn’t stay focused. . . . She was poor, too, in a different way, and at least they didn’t have to worry about losing all their friends to the Pudding, never finding a boyfriend, and trying to make it onto some stupid magazine.

  Her self-hatred mounted as she continued crunching her popcorn. She was watching Vanessa whirl and twirl—a reddish blur in front of the full-length mirror—when she thought she heard someone moving around outside in the hall.

  With another sigh she pulled herself up off the couch and, popcorn in hand, started toward the door.

  Her heart froze. A small white envelope slid across the floor. She sprinted the last few steps and flung the door open, yelling “Hey—wait!” as the boy who had left the invitation raced toward the stairs.

  “Clint?”

  Clint stopped dead in his tracks. Turning around, he held out both his palms: “Guilty as charged.”

  Callie was suddenly aware of the popcorn bag she held clenched in her fist and realized, with horror, how she must look.

  Instead of continuing down the hallway like he was supposed to, Clint was making his way back. She did her best to shrink into the doorframe, trying to recall the last time that she had brushed her teeth.

  He bent and picked up the invitation, which was addressed in the same ornate handwriting that had been scrawled across Mimi’s and Vanessa’s envelopes.

  Callie Andrews

  Wigglesworth C 24

  “Listen,” he said, handing her the invitation as the color mounted in her cheeks. “Do you think we could keep this between you and me? All of the invites were technically supposed to go out on Sunday, but there was no way I was going to let the coolest freshman on campus go uninvited.”

  Then he smiled his incredible eye-crinkling grin, and for a moment Callie forgot everything. Clint wanted her. He had gone out of his way to invite her. And now, there he was: standing on her doorstep and looking at her in a way that made it hard to remember she hadn’t showered in days or that her hair was sticking out from her head like pipe cleaners.

  “Thank you so much,” she said, trying to speak softly so that he wouldn’t get a whiff of her breath. She paused. “You know, about the other night . . . You left so quickly, I wasn’t sure if you wanted to see me again.”

  “No, it’s not like that,” he said. “Sometimes things are just complicated when they should be easy. . . . But this morning I realized that it really should be as simple as I like you and maybe you like me, so I invite you to a party and then you say yes?”

  “Yes—but . . . ,” she said, pausing again. “About the other other night . . . I don’t usually drink that much—”

  “Stop!” he cried, laughing. “Just say you’ll come.”

  “I’ll come.”

  “Good!” He smiled. “In that case, I’ll see you in an hour!”

  Her heart still pounding, Callie bounced back into the common room, flinging the popcorn bag into a nearby trash can.

  “You guys!” she cried. “Guys—I’m coming, too!”

  “What?” said Mimi, emerging from her room wearing only her underwear and smiling wider than she had smiled all year. “How?”

  “I just got the invite. You wouldn’t believe who— There must have been some sort of mix-up,” she said with a shrug.

  “Or maybe,” said Vanessa, running out of the bathroom, “I was able to work my magic and get you onto the list!” She squealed and clapped her hands. “I didn’t want to tell you in case it didn’t work, but I spoke with a girl I know from the Hamptons who is also on the board and I just happened to mention your name. . . .

  “Still,” she added, paving the road to hell with good intentions, “I wouldn’t get your hopes up. From what I hear, it’s very hard to get in if you’re an addition to the original Punch list.”

  Callie wasn’t going to let anything spoil the moment. She didn’t care if she made it to the second event—rumored to be a luncheon at the clubhouse followed by a final cocktail party—she was just so happy to be invited . . . and to be invited by Clint.

  After taking the fastest shower of her entire life, she ran into her room and pulled out the fanciest thing she owned. It was the black minidress with a silver sequin top that she had worn to her high school graduation party, and even though it had been heavily discounted, it still made her look like a million bucks—or so she hoped.

  She brushed her hair until it shone like platinum, then dabbed on light makeup and fastened some cheap, silver costume jewelry in her ears and around her neck.

  Ready, she stepped into the common room.

  “Wow . . . ,” Vanessa said, her eyes opening wide. An odd look flickered across her face, almost as if she was—was it possible?—jealous. Callie blinked, certain she’d imagined it as Vanessa continued: “You look . . .”

  “Great,” said Mimi. “Really, really great. I am pink with envy!”

  Vanessa laughed as Callie looked nervously at her dress. “Really? It’s not too much?” Callie asked.

  “Not at all!” Vanessa cried. “It’s just that I don’t think either of us is used to seeing you in anything other than a T-shirt and jeans.
”

  “Ha! Yes,” agreed Mimi. “You are usually a terrible dresser. Absolument terrible.”

  “Thanks,” said Callie, laughing.

  “And those awful flip-flops that you always w—” Vanessa froze midsentence when she noticed the shoes in question on Callie’s feet. “Oh my god—no—absolutely not. Be right back . . .”

  In a moment, she returned, brandishing a pair of black stilettos.

  Callie accepted them gratefully. She put them on. They fit perfectly.

  “I’m so glad that all three of us are going tonight,” Vanessa said. “Nothing could be more fabulous!”

  Battling perilous cobblestones, the girls made their way across the Yard hand-in-hand, past Cambridge Commons, and onto Garden Street. A few minutes later Callie found herself staring at the front door of a large Victorian-style house. The three girls squeezed hands and then walked into the Pudding.

  It looked less like a mix-and-mingle cocktail party and more like a reunion between old friends. All the members—denoted as such by the color on their name tags—already seemed to know all of the guests—or if they hadn’t actually met them in person yet, they had at least memorized their names, family background, and hometown (New York City, nine times out of ten).

  Callie had no way of knowing, but the fall semester Punch event was more of a formality than anything else: spots had already been reserved for people from established families and prep schools across the East Coast, with a few places set aside for students of international prominence and fewer still for people from non-eastern states with a lot of electoral votes, like Texas and California. As Vanessa had predicted, nearly every invitee was automatically guaranteed admission. Only a handful of individuals were up for discussion. They were considered to be a group of “dark horses,” and Callie was the darkest of them all.

  Alexis Thorndike stood out from the center of the crowd, looking immaculate in her navy blue striped Chloe dress cinched at the waist by a wide brown belt. She was ignoring all the admiring looks she was getting. Instead, she had eyes for only one person, and that person was Callie.

  Callie glanced to her left and then to her right: casting around desperately for Mimi or Vanessa. Unfortunately, they were both off at opposite ends of the room: Mimi surrounded by a group of upperclassman boys, Vanessa kissing up to the female members of her private school family tree. OK and Gregory weren’t there yet, and Clint was nowhere to be found.

  She was alone. And her feet hurt. How did anyone ever manage in heels?

  Lexi, on the other hand, was surrounded by a gaggle of girls, including Anne Goldberg, to whom she was muttering fiercely, staring daggers all the while.

  “Hi, I’m Brittney,” a girl to Callie’s left said, smiling. Name tag: Red. Member.

  “Callie,” said Callie, pointing to the blue square on her chest.

  “So, Callie, where are you from?”

  “I’m from Westwood, California.”

  “Oh, very cool. Did you go to Harvard-Westlake?”

  “No.”

  “Oh. The Marlborough School?”

  “No . . .”

  “Brentwood? Archer?”

  “West Hollywood High,” said Callie, putting her out of her misery.

  “Is that . . . is that a public school?”

  “Last time I checked.”

  “Oh . . . Oh! Your dad’s that producer guy, you know, the one who, like, did all those movies—God, those were hilarious!”

  “Uh, no . . . he’s a professor at UCLA.”

  Brittney, nearly out of options, was starting to think exit strategies. “So, uhm, who do you know here?”

  “Well, there are my roommates, Vanessa and Mimi, and these two guys who live across the hall, OK and Gregory. . . .”

  Oh. She meant members.

  “And, uhm, Clint Weber—”

  “Clint! Ohmygod, so hot! And so nice,” Brittney exclaimed, thankful that she had finally found a common ground. “The thing with Clint is: he’s super cute and, like, way smart, but he’s almost too perfect, like you sort of wonder what must be wrong. . . . But I guess none of that matters because he’s completely off limits—if you want to live until your senior year,” she added, glancing at Alexis.

  “Uhm . . . will you excuse me for a minute?” Callie asked.

  “Sure,” said Brittney, looking relieved.

  “Hi, I’m Brittney!” Callie heard her say as Brittney turned to a vaguely familiar blond freshman.

  “Elizabeth.”

  “Elizabeth . . . what a pretty name. Where are you from, Elizabeth?”

  “Hancock Park.”

  “And where did you go to school?”

  “The Marlborough School.”

  “Ohmygod, so you must know . . .”

  One foot in front of the other, Callie instructed herself, wobbling in Vanessa’s heels as she joined a long line for the bathroom. Like base during a game of tag: as long as she was there, no one would wonder why she wasn’t busy socializing.

  It was time to face the facts. No matter where she went at Harvard, no matter her accomplishments or achievements, she would never be like Mimi or Vanessa: born into an Old Boys’ network in this stupid, exclusive, impossible world that everyone seemed to want to be a part of, including, if she was honest with herself, well . . . me.

  But she just couldn’t picture herself gushing with empty compliments or implying that she had gone to one of LA’s elite prep schools and had the money it must have taken to buy the borrowed shoes on her feet. She would have to find her own place, on her own terms. Her dad was right: she shouldn’t waste time worrying about what other people thought. The members of the Pudding would either hate her or love her, and if they hated her . . . well, screw ’em.

  Oh, but it was so much easier said than done.

  She was next in line now, praying that whoever was ahead of her would take a while so she could stay just a little bit longer. . . .

  “Toilet’s clogged!” a guy called, stepping out of the bathroom. “Can I get a plunger over here?” he yelled at several club members gathered under the archway that led to the main room.

  “You’d think that when you’re the president you’d no longer get stuck cleaning up other people’s shit,” he muttered to Callie without really seeing her. Then he noticed her name tag.

  “Callie—Callie Andrews, right?”

  “Uh . . . yes.”

  “Tyler Green,” he said, holding out his hand. “I hear good things.”

  “You—you do?”

  “Yes.” He smiled. Leaning in, he added in a whisper: “Clint’s my roommate.”

  “Oh!”

  “He’s not here yet, but he should be any minute.” Suddenly Tyler seemed to remember where they were. “You don’t want to go in there,” he said, nodding over his shoulder. “But there’s another one upstairs on the left. It’s ‘members only,’ but hey, not for nothing I am the president. PLUNGER! SOMEBODY! NOW!”

  Callie smiled weakly. “Uh, nice to meet you. . . .”

  “You too. Come find me later when Clint gets here. Remember: upstairs on your left.”

  She took her time locating the staircase, grateful for the excuse to continue avoiding the event. In a few minutes she’d have to return, but for now she was safe.

  Well, not quite.

  Gregory emerged from around the corner and stepped down onto the top stair just before she reached it. Stopping, he placed a hand on each banister. She wasn’t sure if she had ever been this close to him. There was a tiny scar on the left-hand side of his chin shaped like a miniature crescent moon.

  “I didn’t know they were going to send a search party,” he said. “Or did you finally realize that you just can’t live without me—not even for five minutes?”

  “I—uhm—you’re blocking the way,” she said. “Do you mind?”

  Instead of moving he just stood there, smiling stupidly. “But ‘O, wilt thou leave me so unsatisfied?’”

  “What is that? Romeo and J
uliet?”

  “Is it?” He shrugged. “I thought I made it up.” He still wasn’t moving. “Your line now.”

  Callie rolled her eyes. “What satisfaction can you—”

  “Canst thou—”

  “—canst thou have tonight?”

  “A kiss, of course.”

  She laughed a little in spite of herself. “Only if you move.”

  They stood for a moment, watching each other.

  “Just one kiss . . .” said Gregory, his tone softening suddenly.

  “You can’t be serious. . . .” she trailed off, forgetting herself and falling into his eyes like Alice tumbling down the rabbit hole: deep down into an abyss that was a maddening shade of blue. . . .

  “Hey! I never noticed before,” he said, leaning down, “but your eyes are green.” He raised his hand, perhaps to brush the hair from her face, and as if he were a hypnotist, her eyelids began to feel heavy. His hand compelled her forward, up closer and closer until her eyes started to close and—

  —and he tapped his finger expectantly, once on each cheek.

  Callie froze, lips parted in confusion.

  “Oh!” said Gregory, his voice aching with amusement. “I forgot that in California they don’t kiss to say hello! What should we do, then—dude—will a high five suffice?” He held up his hand, his eyes alight with triumph.

  “Move,” she breathed, pushing past him. But before she could round the corner, she felt his hand on her shoulder:

  “Hey—wait a minute now, I was only kidding,” he said without a touch of remorse, his eyes dancing along the lines of her collarbone, down, down across her hips. . . .

  “Yeah, right,” said Callie, her voice trembling. “Look, can’t you just leave me alone?”

  “I can’t, I’m obsessed with you,” he said sarcastically. Turning, he walked back down the stairs.

  Shaking, she found the bathroom. She slammed the door, locking it behind her. Whirling around to face the mirror, she found a girl the color of a ripe tomato wearing a little black dress staring back at her.

  Jamming on the faucet, she wet a towel with cool water and dabbed her face, neck, and arms. Focus, she chided herself. Get a grip! Then she sat down on the edge of the toilet seat and rested her head in her hands: waiting for her heart rate to stabilize. It was a nice bathroom, really . . . no reason she shouldn’t stay just a few more minutes . . . or an hour.