“Well, what about the stars?” she asked, glancing back through the telescope. “Can you tell me anything about the stars?”
“Uhm . . . okay. Now let’s see. . . . That one up there is Orion’s . . . Shoe. And see a little to the left: that’s Cassandra. And that funny
blobish thing
on her right is a purse: Cassandra’s Purse. It’s one of the most famous constellations in the, uh, aurora borealis.”
Callie stared at him, incredulous.
“And what about that one?” she demanded.
“Which one? Oh, that one’s easy—that’s the Little Brown Dog.”
“The Little
Brown
Dog? Why is the dog brown?”
“Because during the big bang, the, uh, gaseous chemicals that were released in that constellation family had a distinct brownish color—”
“You’re making this up, aren’t you?”
“Of course,” he said, laughing as she whacked him on the arm. “To tell you the truth, my specialty is the planets, not the constellations. . . . Mostly I just like coming up here and looking out the telescope,” he continued. “It’s the only place on campus where I feel alone . . . away from it all.”
Turning, he looked at her. “You probably haven’t been around long enough to realize, but people tend to get too wrapped up in the whole Harvard thing. I really do love it here, but sometimes a guy just needs a break.”
Oh, if only he knew how much his words were resonating, even though it hadn’t even been two months . . .
She thought about all of the outfits that Vanessa had forced her to borrow, all of the times she’d felt embarrassed in front of people like Gregory without knowing why, the way all of the kids who grew up in New York or went to private school seemed to speak their own secret language . . . and she thought she knew exactly what Clint was talking about.
“So, if this is your special place where you come to be alone, why’d you bring me?” she asked.
“Because,” he answered, turning to look at her, “
you
are not a Harvard girl. Or at least not a typical one from some East Coast prep school who’s too privileged to notice that she’s studying at the greatest institution in the world and thinks the only thing that matters is her social life. What’s the point of having advantages if you’re not going to take advantage of them?
“Anyway, there’s no way a girl who runs around coffee shops in her gym clothes—spilling on innocent victims, might I add—and wears flip-flops to a party is going to take two and a half hours to get ready.”
“So, what you’re saying is you brought me here because I’m a messy, sloppy klutz?”
“Exactly. And I mean that in a good way. Don’t ever change.”
Callie smiled. It was quite possibly the nicest compliment anyone had ever given her.
Now was the point in the date where he was probably going to try to kiss her. Any moment now it was going to happen, and she was ready for it; she was waiting. In fact, she was dying for it to happen . . . and it would . . . any minute now. . . .
Hell, it wasn’t like it was their first time—what was he waiting for?
Ah, there we go. . . . the lean-in . . . the hair tuck . . . the cheek brush . . . the long look . . . any moment now it was going to—
Beep, beep, beep. Clint’s phone vibrated angrily in his pocket. Flipping it open, he frowned.
“I’ll call he—them back later,” he muttered, pushing the button to Ignore. “Sorry,” he added, sticking the phone back in his pocket.
“No worries,” Callie answered. Tentatively she moved her hand so it was resting above his knee—
Abruptly Clint stood.
“Hey, we’d better get going! It must be
way
past your bedtime, freshman.” He was smiling, but he was already halfway down the ladder.
What the fuck? WTF?!?@#?$#?@???
The walk home was relatively silent save for the sound of the leaves crunching under her feet. Crushed—kind of like her expectations for the evening. When they reached the door to her entryway, he turned to face her. He leaned in. Her pulse quickened, but with a hug and a promise to call, he was gone.
FTW?!?@#?$#?@???
She was not in a good mood by the time she reached the top of the stairs. In fact, so preoccupied was she by thoughts of her date—well, really, the end of her date (if you could call it a “date”) because the rest of it had been
perfect
—hadn’t it,
hadn’t it
?—that she almost didn’t notice the two white envelopes sticking halfway out from under the door.
Stooping, she snatched them up. In ornate calligraphy they were addressed to:
Vanessa Von Vorhees
Wigglesworth C 24
and:
Marine Aurélie Clément
Wigglesworth C 24
“Mimi! Vanessa!” she yelled as she walked into the common room. “You’ve got mail!”
“Oooh, I wonder if this is what I think it is,” Vanessa said, her eyes lighting up. Even Mimi looked excited as she tore hers open, which was unusual given her equilibrium state of spiritual ennui.
“Oh my god!” cried Vanessa, reading her letter and then hugging Mimi ecstatically. “We’re going to punch together! Oh, I knew it! I so knew it!”
“Who are you going to punch?” Callie asked as her roommates began to scream and jump up and down.
As casually as possible, she sidled back over to the front door, scanning the ground. Glancing over her shoulder, she opened the door and double-checked the hallway. It was empty.
Wandering back into the room, she sank onto the couch. She felt invisible, a blip on the social radar that was fading away fast. Soon she would be just as obsolete as VCRs, bell-bottoms, and landlines. . . .
Mimi was the first to notice.
“Oh!” she said, giving Vanessa a meaningful look. “These are just some punch invitations for the Pudding . . . no big deal. . . .”
“No big deal?” cried Vanessa. “Of course it’s a
big
deal! This is the Hasty Pudding Social Club we’re talking about here: getting in is the first step to punching the Isis or the Bee, and from now on we’ll be invited to all the Final Club parties!”
“The Pudding?” asked Callie, vaguely remembering something.
“It’s the only social club on campus that’s coed and admits freshmen,” Mimi explained, trying to look sympathetic. “It is really not that cool.”
“Not that cool?”
Vanessa was oblivious. “Are you forgetting about the clubhouse? And all the upperclassmen
boys
who are also members? What about all the lunches and dinners and parties?”
“Yes, there are those, too,” Mimi said, giving Vanessa another significant look as Callie sank deeper and deeper into the couch. “But members can bring guests whenever they want so . . .”
At the word
guests
a lightbulb suddenly switched on in Vanessa’s head.
“Oh, Callie,” she said in a voice that, instead of cheering Callie up, made her feel ten times worse.
“Dana did not receive one either?” Mimi offered.
Make that twenty times worse. No, more like a hundred. Billion. Squared.
“Where is Dana, anyway?” Callie asked, noticing that the door to her room was open.
“She said she was going to Adam’s to study, and by god, I think she meant it literally,” Vanessa said, smiling at her own little joke.
Oh, right, of course. Even Dana had a boyfriend to keep her company; whereas Callie had no one: no boyfriend, no invitations, no friends. . . .
“Callie,” Vanessa said, sitting down next to her on the couch. “Callie, just say the word and I—we,” she added, glancing at Mimi, who nodded her assent, “won’t go.” Vanessa swallowed hard, watching Callie as if she’d just bet her entire life savings on Red and was watching the roulette wheel spin slowly toward Black.
“No, of course you guys have to go. It’s no big deal. . . . You guys can, like, invite me as a guest sometimes or something. . . .”
“Certainly—
if
we get in, that is,” Mimi said. “You never know, do you? I have probably accidentally kissed so many other people’s lovers by now that there is no telling what could happen.”
“Oh, Mimi!” Vanessa snapped, reverting back to her old self. “Of
course
we’re going to get
in
! I mean, you’re
you
, and I went to high school with half of the members. . . .”
“Don’t worry, Cal,” she said. “Once we’re in, we’ll do everything we can for you during the spring punch season.”
“
Oui
,” agreed Mimi. “
If
we get in, we should have no trouble punching you next semester. As long as you do not do anything to piss off a member and get yourself blackballed, it should be fine—”
She stopped talking abruptly at the look on Vanessa’s face.
“Oh god . . .” said Vanessa, “I completely forgot that Lexi’s in the Pudding and . . .” She stared hopelessly at Callie.
“ . . . and I made out with her ex once,” Callie finished. Once and only once.
“Well, you did not
know
he was her ex when you did it!” Mimi said. She started to giggle. “I cannot
believe
that you did not remember him that day you spilled your drink all over his sweater! I thought you were
acting
, and I was just trying to play along—”
Ugghhh . . . Clint was the
last
thing she wanted to talk about.
Now Vanessa was laughing, too. Still giggling, Mimi looked at her expectantly. Callie tried to force a smile. It wouldn’t come. Instead, all she could think about was the price of a plane ticket back to California: one-way, please. If only she could turn back the clock, go back to high school where girls went out of their way to be friends with her and guys were always pulling crazy stunts to attract her attention, even when she was with Evan . . . Evan . . . If she actually owned a time machine, she would arrange to make an additional stop on her way to the Globe Theatre to watch Shakespeare performed in the Elizabethan era, and instead of saying yes when Evan first asked her out, she would punch him in the face.
Maybe wanting a new boyfriend was a dumb idea after all. Maybe all men were assholes, prone to evil behaviors and evil things.
Speaking of evil, at that instant the front door flew open and Gregory, followed by OK, strolled in wearing matching grins, identical white envelopes in hand.
Gregory noticed Callie and a look of sympathy—sarcastic, no doubt—stole across his face. “Surely you must have been invited, Callie?” he asked, adopting a tone of mock kindness and pretending to be disappointed.
“Have to get back to my research,” she muttered, standing up and heading toward her bedroom. Well, at least he’d called her Callie. Without
really
meaning to she slammed the door behind her.
Sinking into her desk chair, she stared blankly at her computer screen:
Hemlines and Necklines: It’s a Personal Choice.
This was all Lexi’s fault. . . . Lexi knew that Callie was after her boyfriend (well, congratulations—no real worries there), and she had made it her mission to socially annihilate her.
Slamming her computer shut, Callie stood up and walked over to her bed. Plopping down, she grabbed
The House of Mirth
, her new favorite book from English class, and began flipping angrily through the pages.
It is less mortifying to believe one’s self unpopular than insignificant, and vanity prefers to assume that indifference is a latent form of unfriendliness.
Yeah . . . it was much more likely that everybody just forgot about her. Regardless, Lexi was still a b—utthead. A
butthead
with great hair, perfect skin, clothes straight out of
Vogue
, and the only boy Callie found interesting at Harvard locked down on speed dial #1. Well, maybe not the
only
boy, but
he
didn’t count. . . .
Just then she thought she heard a light tapping on her door.
“What do y—
Oh
!” she cried, leaping off her bed.
The
House of Mirth
tumbled to the floor.
“Hey,” said Gregory, bending to pick it up. Then he closed the door behind him.
Her breath caught in her chest. She took a step backward, bumping into her desk.
“What’s up?” she asked, taking the book and trying to breathe normally. For the first time she noticed exactly how tiny her bedroom was—the bed, currently unmade, the most prominent thing in the room.
“I just came in to see . . .” He paused, watching her shove Edith Wharton back onto the shelf. “You arrange your books by genre and . . . publication date?”
“No, actually by genre and the title’s rank on my list of favorites. I mean, it’s not like a
written
list—well, okay, there
is
a copy on my computer. . . .”
Why—WHY—had she confessed this aloud? And to him? And why was she still talking?
“That’s so—” he began.
“Dorky? I know.”
“I was going to say
cute
. . . .”
Cute? Sarcasm, maybe?
“And dorky, yes.”
Sarcasm, definitely.
“So you like Feynman?” he asked, pulling a book from the popular science section.
She opened her mouth intending to lecture him about touching other people’s things, but instead she said, “Yeah.
Surely You’re Joking
is one of my favorites. Mine and my dad’s. We must have read it out loud together like a billion times.”
Gregory smiled in a funny sort of way as he thumbed through the pages. “That must have been nice.”
“What, you and your parents never read together?”
Gregory shrugged. “The only thing my dad ever reads are the stock reports in the
Wall Street Journal
, and my step-mom . . . Well, let’s just say I’m not even sure she knows how. That’s probably why she flunked kindergarten.”
Callie laughed. “Ah, Step-mom . . . Thank goodness we haven’t gotten there yet. Though, with my dad, he’s more likely to pledge eternal love to Euclid or Pythagoras than remarry a twenty-five-year-old. . . .” Was this it? Were they finally having a real conversation? “How old were you when—”