The Ivy

by Lauren Kunze

  It was Wednesday night: a mere five days since that fateful e-mail, and Callie was sitting in the common room with Mimi and Vanessa as usual, halfheartedly trying to concentrate on Nathaniel Hawthorne’s The Scarlet Letter: this week’s reading assignment for her literature course on the nineteenth-century novel. As she read, a line from the page leaped out and caught her eye.

  “Hester,” cried he, “here is a new horror!” Roger Chillingworth knows your purpose to reveal his true character. Will he continue, then, to keep our secret?”

  So much for nineteenth-century novels being “irrelevant”: was it a coincidence that the books from her class seemed like a mirror for her life, or was this uncanny syllabus clearly the mark of divine intervention—a holy practical joke, if you will. Were there angels up there now having tea and biscuits with Hawthorne, Wharton, and Flaubert and laughing their heads off?

  Or was it simply the work of an extremely clever narrator?

  Callie hurled her book onto the floor. Mimi and Vanessa stared, obviously still unused to the moody, unpredictable changeling who seemed to have replaced their cheerful, easygoing roommate some time in the past few weeks.

  “It’s just bullshit, you know!” Callie cried, gesturing toward the novel. “I mean, so she had illicit sex—so what? Who cares if it was with a minister? He was hot and you can bet that both of them liked it!”

  Vanessa looked concerned while Mimi perked up, hoping to be entertained or scandalized.

  “And now the whole fucking town’s making her wear this bullshit ‘scarlet letter’ just because she won’t tell them her secret? Well, you know what I say? Fuck those guys, man. Fuck those fucking puritanical Bostonians who can’t stop thinking about all the fucking they’re not doing and instead have to fucking punish the people who do!”

  “Are you done yet?” asked Vanessa.

  “No I’m not done yet!” yelled Callie in a mock-irritated-aren’t-you-finding-me-so-amusing sort of voice. “I have just one thing left to say about this novel and that is”— She stopped for a moment before breaking into an elongated, deliberate, Tarzan-style yell: “FUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUCK!”

  “Bravo!” cried Mimi, clapping her hands. Gravely she picked up her pharmacology textbook for Drugs and the Brain and held it out in front of her. “And to you, my silly textbook friend, I say also: fuck you!” she uttered gleefully, giving her homework the middle finger.

  “Maybe we should take a break from studying. . . .” Vanessa started, afraid that both her roommates were on the verge of snapping and completely losing it.

  “Excellent,” said Callie. “Great idea, V.”

  “Protein bars and TiVo?” Vanessa asked, setting her books aside now as well. (Diet Strategy of the Week: no carbs—“Carbs are, like, totally bad for the environment. Global warming is not a myth.”)

  “Grand Theft Auto IV!” cried Mimi, rising to her feet. “I would like to shoot things and steal the cars!”

  “Great, let’s do it,” said Callie, starting toward the door. On their way out she yelled, “Hey! Dana! We’re going across the hall to chill if you wanna come!”

  “That’s all right,” said Dana, popping her head out of her room. “Adam’s going to come over for a movie later so I think I’ll just stay here and work until—”

  The front door banged shut.

  Without knocking Callie, Vanessa, and Mimi barged into the boys’ suite across the hall.

  Immediately Callie could sense that something was off: the air smelled sticky and sweet, like the odor that often lurked in very special places all over California—near the best surf spots on the beach, in that park behind her high school, spilling out the sides of a foggy-windowed car as four giggling teenagers disembarked on their way to a party, in the bathrooms at the movie theaters, and in every location imaginable across the UC Berkeley campus. . . .

  “Tetrahydrocannabinol!” cried Mimi ecstatically as OK broke into a coughing fit and Gregory shoved something under the leather couch.

  “It’s all right, dude, it’s only our neighbors,” Matt said from where he’d been reclining on the other couch.

  “Matt?” asked Callie. “I didn’t know you were a fan of hitting the peace pipe!”

  “Peace pipe!” echoed Gregory, giggling in a very un-Gregory-like fashion. “Who calls it that!”

  OK, who was looking dazed and confused over on the couch, took a few extra seconds to process the term peace pipe before he began mimicking a tomahawk yell and making various gestures that all of us native Americans learn at a tender age are blasphemously politically incorrect. “Me-Chief—” he paused, eyes darting around the room for inspiration and settling on an empty can of beer—“Chief Milwaukee’s Beast demand passage of peace pipe. Now.”

  Raising one eyebrow, Gregory handed him the pipe.

  “What?” asked Vanessa as she looked around the room. “I don’t get it. What’s the joke?”

  “This is not a joke, Vanessa,” OK snapped, suddenly back to his BBC best, attempting to look affronted as he sat up straight on the couch. “On the contrary, this is a very serious effort to engage in some very serious relaxation. . . .”

  He trailed off as Sublime’s cover of “Smoke Two Joints” started to play from the speakers in the corner.

  Vanessa rolled her eyes. “Really? On a Wednesday?” she muttered to Callie. Callie laughed and nodded in affirmation: that smell in the room was unquestionably marijuana, and their friendly neighbors from across the hall were stoned out of their minds.

  “Well,” said Matt, reaching for the pipe, “are you just gonna keep standing there staring or are you guys gonna sit down and chill?”

  “I’ve never smoked pot before,” Vanessa admitted to Callie in a whisper. “Because it, like, you know, makes you fat.”

  “Neither have I,” Callie reassured her. “Never wanted to because of soccer.”

  “Should we leave?” Vanessa asked, glancing longingly toward Gregory as Mimi, already comfortable on the couch, passed him the pipe.

  Callie had always prided herself on being the type of girl who avoided using substances to alter her mood. But, then again, until now she’d never suffered from a mood that was in serious need of alteration. Plus, she couldn’t bear the thought of returning to her room. . . .

  “No, let’s stay and try it,” she said, taking Vanessa by the hand. “College is supposed to be all about new adventures and experiences, and there’s no other person with whom I’d rather lose my pot-smoking virginity.”

  “Did somebody say ‘virginity’?” Gregory asked with a mis-chievous smile. His pupils were so dilated that they had nearly swallowed the cold blues of his irises. “I didn’t know you were a virgin, Callie. I never would have guessed.”

  Before Callie could respond, Mimi cut in: “Oh no, she is definitely not a virgin,” she cried, shaking her head at Callie, and then pointing to Vanessa: “but she is!”

  “Thanks a lot, Mimi,” Callie and Vanessa murmured simultaneously, both turning pink.

  “Hey, it’s all right, Vanessa,” OK said as he lit the pipe, inhaling deeply. He exhaled slowly, releasing an enormous puff of sweet-smelling smoke. “Matty here’s a virgin, too!”

  “That’s right,” said Matt. “I’m saving myself for someone special.”

  “What’s wrong with me, baby?” OK joked, leaping to his feet and rushing over to tackle Matt, trying to mount him as Matt struggled to resist. “Am I not special enough for you?”

  The two boys, both well over six feet tall, wrestled for a few moments in an affectionate tangle of black and white limbs while Mimi screamed. Matt managed to pin OK, who, fighting for freedom, flung himself onto Mimi, pretending to cling to her for comfort.

  “There, there,” she cooed, patting OK on the head as he tried to nuzzle closer to her chest. “I will protect you, the enormous black man, from the skinny white boy you just tried to molest. . . .”

  Gregory looked up from helping Vanessa light the pipe, chuckling appreciatively. Midw
ay through laughing, a confused expression passed across his face: he couldn’t remember what had been so funny. He kept laughing anyway.

  Callie watched as Vanessa inhaled, expanding her cheeks and furrowing her brow in a way that made her look like a constipated blowfish. Vanessa held her breath for a good ten seconds before she exhaled in a tremendous fit of coughing. Gregory patted her fraternally—or was it affectionately?—on the back.

  “Your turn, Caliente!” Gregory cried, leaning over Vanessa and brandishing the pipe.

  Vanessa succumbed to another hacking fit, tears streaming out the corners of her eyes.

  “I’ll be gentle, Callie, I promise,” Gregory whispered, positioning the lighter. “Just try to breathe slowly and hold it in your lungs for as long as you can.”

  Callie nodded and placed her lips around the mouth of the pipe. Slowly she sucked the sweet-smelling smoke into her lungs, then gulped a large mouthful of air like a swimmer surfacing from the water and held it for a count of five Mississippis.

  Her head felt light, and she, like Vanessa, started to cough uncontrollably, her throat burning.

  “Atta girl, Caliente, atta girl,” said Gregory, patting her on the knee. “Always knew you were a champion.”

  Meanwhile Matt had leaped up and walked over to the other side of the room, returning with two water bottles. Smiling like a proud soccer mom, he handed them to Callie and Vanessa.

  Callie let the cool water soothe her aching throat. “Wow, water bottles and everything!” she said when she had recovered her powers of speech. “Who knew you were such a pro? To be perfectly honest, I never would have guessed that you . . .”

  “That I what?” asked Matt, sliding between OK and Mimi with a mischievous look on his face. “Like to smoke pot? Just because I’m from upstate New York doesn’t make me a naive little farm boy.”

  As he said the word upstate, Callie noticed him flash a look in Gregory’s direction. She was reminded of the time she’d concluded that Matt wasn’t going out on Friday night because nobody had invited him to a party. Why do I immediately assume that Matt isn’t as, well, cool as the rest of us? she chided herself. He was smart, friendly, funny (sometimes unintentionally), and even rather good-looking in certain lighting when he bothered to substitute contacts for his glasses. . . .

  Callie suddenly realized that Vanessa, who usually couldn’t shut up, hadn’t said a word since she’d smoked from the pipe. A dreamy expression had settled across her face: an expression normally reserved for the occasions when they passed by the display window of Finale, the high-end cake store in Harvard Square. Callie wondered if Vanessa was “high.” Callie, for one, hadn’t started to feel anything yet.

  “I’m hungry!” Gregory exclaimed, folding his arms and leaning back.

  “I could make you some popcorn!” Vanessa cried, snapping to attention. “It’s just across the hall—I’ll be right back!”

  “Mmm . . . that would be wonderful,” Gregory murmured, his eyes half-closed.

  “Ew—popcorn!” Mimi said, wrinkling her nose. “The things you Americans like to eat . . .”

  “If you could eat anything right now, what would it be?” asked OK, staring at Mimi as if he’d just asked her to fly off to Vegas and marry him tomorrow and was awaiting her response.

  “Hmm . . . cornichon pickles avec du beurre and that hot sauce they make at Felipe’s.”

  “Excellent. I’ll ring for Babatunde and have him bring it up immediately,” OK said, reaching to his left and grasping at some empty air. He looked very perturbed when he realized there was nothing there. “Where’s my summoning bell? Did you guys hide it again?”

  “Summoning bell!” Callie howled at the joke.

  Matt cut in: “I threw it out the window two nights ago—that damn bell was annoying, man. If you want to talk to one of us, get up off your ass and come find us.”

  Matt looked to Gregory for affirmation, but Gregory was busy staring at the enormous poster of a topless porn star that was plastered on the wall opposite the big screen TV: so “college” and so clichéd. “She’s always watching over us,” he muttered. “Like an angel with giant, giant boobs . . .”

  Speaking of boobs—

  “I’m back!” cried Vanessa, busting in with a huge bowl of popcorn and sporting an extremely low-cut tank top that she hadn’t been wearing earlier. “There you go!” she said, placing the popcorn down in front of Gregory in a way that gave him a full view of her chest.

  “Angels . . .” whispered Gregory, reaching into the bowl as Vanessa lingered seductively over the coffee table.

  Slut! Callie thought irritably. She watched Gregory stare down the neck of Vanessa’s top. Wait a minute, what am I saying? Vanessa’s my best friend at Harv—

  “Scoot over!” Vanessa hissed, squeezing into the narrow space between Callie and Gregory on the couch.

  Slut-faced whore!

  Callie suddenly realized that Matt was holding the pipe, looking at her expectantly. Annoyed, she accepted, hesitated, and wondered how you were supposed to light the damn thing before thrusting it in Vanessa’s face, which was currently hovering obnoxiously close to Gregory’s.

  “Oooh, thanks!” Vanessa cooed without even turning to look at her. “Gregory, would you do me the honor?”

  “Sure thing, darlin’,” he answered, holding it for her with one hand and lighting it with the other.

  In the meantime things were starting to get a little weird over on the other couch. Matt, who apparently thought he was being funny, cried: “Look, guys! I can breathe underwater!” before submerging his entire head in the gigantic bowl of popcorn, sending buttery kernels soaring around the room.

  This sent OK and Mimi into a fit of hysterics until German techno-pop started playing on the iPod shuffle: Oh, du mein touch privaten Raum, wo ich mein Herz . . .

  Callie was struggling to recall the name of the song when OK leaped to his feet and roared:

  “HANSEL EBERHARDT, HOW DID YOU GET IN HERE? WHERE ARE YOU HIDING? COME OUT AND FIGHT, YOU TIGHT-PANTS-WEARING SEX GOD!” In a frenzy he raced around the room, lifting pillows off the couch and peering under the coffee table, searching, apparently, for the “Techno Prince of Europe.”

  Amused, Mimi started yelling, “OK! Relax! He is not actually in here. It is just his band—Sexy Hansel—playing on the iPod.”

  “Oh!” said OK, clapping his hand across his forehead. “I mean, yeah, I knew that. Just don’t like this song is all . . . thought I’d change it if nobody minds?”

  “Sissy,” Mimi muttered wickedly.

  “What’d you just say!” cried OK, jumping as if somebody had just shot a surprise enema up his ass.

  “I said that you are a sissy.” Mimi laughed. “Similar meaning to ‘wimp,’ ‘fairy,’ and ‘pussy’? I looked it up today on UrbanDictionary dot com!” she finished proudly.

  Shaking her head, Callie regretted the day she had elected to tell Mimi about UrbanDictionary.com.

  Still rattled, OK settled back onto the couch. Mimi patted him on the knee and reached to take the pipe from Gregory’s outstretched hand. Nobody seemed the least bit concerned that Matt’s head was still submerged in the popcorn bowl like an ostrich burrowed in the sand.

  Vanessa was swaying to the music, a vacant expression in her eyes until, catching sight of Matt, she started to scream, “OH MY GOD! Matt! What happened to his HEAD?”

  Gregory started snickering, but Vanessa was on the verge of tears.

  “What—what happened to it? It’s not attached to his body! Where did it go! Is he still . . . alive?” she stammered, recoiling from what Callie realized in some bizarre marijuana world might look like a body without a head. Clearly she wasn’t as high as the rest of them.

  “Uhguh-chughuh-tawy-aetma-wee-oot!” came Matt’s muffled response from deep inside the bowl.

  “What!?” cried Vanessa, clinging to Gregory for comfort.

  “He said he is going to try to eat his way out,” said Mimi, a deadpan expressio
n on her face. “Really, Vanessa, I thought you said you know how to speak French. . . .”

  “Mais non, elle n’a pas la sophistication,” Gregory offered as he patted Vanessa’s head (which she was resting on his shoulder), a bored expression in his eyes.

  “I thought you spoke Spanish?” Callie shot at him.

  “Oui, Caliente, je parle les deux. And Italian, Chinese, Japanese, and Arabic, in addition to a perfunctory knowledge of Latin and Greek. What?” he added as she looked at him, incredulous. “Surprised to learn I’m more than just a pretty face?”

  “You don’t speak all those languages, my little California football champion?” OK asked obnoxiously from the couch. “Everybody knows you need at least Chinese or Japanese for business, Latin and Greek to pass boarding school, Arabic if you’re ever tapped by the CIA, French and Italian if you’re ever in love, and Spanish if you want them to get things right in the burrito you order from Felipe’s when you’re shit-faced at two A.M.”

  “Amen to that!” Gregory and OK did a fist pound, and Mimi stared at them in awe, no doubt wondering if she had just witnessed new material to add to her high-five repertoire.

  Suddenly Matt’s head shot out of the popcorn bowl. “I’ve had a vision!” he cried, springing to his feet and running toward his room.

  “Of what?” asked Mimi, giggling as OK slid his arm around her shoulders. “Trans fats and the color yellow?”

  “Need pen and paper!” came the muffled reply. He emerged moments later holding a notebook covered with doodles and drawings. “Sometimes when I’m high, I like to write poetry. . . .” he said, a serious expression settling across his face.

  “Sometimes when I’m high,” started OK, also looking serious, “I think that I’ve grown a third ball. I look down and I see three glorious fucking testicles just floating around like I’m the king of the fucking sperm gods. But then,” he continued, his face falling a little, “a few hours later I look down again and realize that it was all just a beautiful, beautiful dream. . . .”

  Ew, thought Callie as Mimi dissolved into laughter. For some reason Callie still wasn’t feeling high at all, and she felt like the only sane person in a room full of idiots. She didn’t think she could stand it much longer: Matt’s bad poetry, OK’s third ball, Mimi’s tendency to lapse into French, or Vanessa resting her head on Gregory’s broad, muscular shoulder as if she were about to fall asleep—