The Ivy (21 page)

I
EXPECT IT WILL BE GONE BY

THE MORNING.

Keeping her cell phone open as she mounted the stairs to the second floor offices, she thumbed through her most recent messages, pausing on the latest from Vanessa.

H
AD SO MUCH FUN SHOPPING THE

OTHER DAY
! W
ANT TO DO COFFEE

OR LUNCH NEXT WEEK!?

Lexi snorted contemptuously and clicked Delete. Obviously Vanessa hadn’t been paying attention in Ec 10 during Feldstein’s lesson on quid pro quo. No such thing as a free lunch, sweetheart.

Lexi sighed as a familiar image materialized on her BlackBerry’s screen.

It was a photo of her and Clint, a self-portrait taken with his cell phone during their freshman year. Her hair was messy and she’d been wearing a pair of boxers and his Harvard Squash polo—the one she couldn’t seem to bring herself to throw away, just like she couldn’t manage to erase her background photo. They were smiling. A happy smile. They were happy once, before the Class of 2014 infested campus like rats carrying the plague. . . .

Lexi leaned against the doorframe of the
Crimson
’s computer lab. Shaking her head, she clicked back into her phone’s message center and drafted a new text to Vanessa.

C
OFFEE AND, MORE IMPORTANT
,

GIRL TALK’SOUNDS GREAT
! W
HAT

DAY WORKS BEST FOR YOU?

Somebody had left a computer on in the corner of the office, and Lexi’s face twisted with rage once more.

After all, how would it look to her fellow co-chairs of the Harvard Green Initiative if
her
magazine were wasting half of their funding on electricity bills?

As she moved the mouse to turn it off, the screen lit up and displayed:

Callie Andrews

11.18.2010

Justice

Autonomy in Immanuel Kant’s

Grounding of the Metaphysics of Morals

Lexi frowned and blew a frustrated gust of air through her lips. As she shut the document, her phone vibrated with a new message from Vanessa: S
OUNDS GREAT
! H
OW’S
T
UESDAY?

Slowly Lexi raised her eyes back to the computer screen. She blinked twice. It was just too good to be true.

Callie made her way up the stairs toward Clint’s suite in Adams House. Even though she should be able to relax now that all her work for the week was done, standing up to Lexi had somehow been more terrifying than empowering. . . .

She walked into the common room and found Clint waiting just inside the door. He took her bag from her and helped her out of her coat, then guided her toward his room with his hands over her eyes.

“Don’t peek,” he warned, opening the door and nudging her inside.

Immediately her ears filled with the sounds of soft, smooth jazz music. Clint walked her a few more steps and then uncovered her eyes.

On the floor was a white sheet surrounded by a border of soft pillows and covered everywhere with rose petals, which Clint had also scattered across the white down comforter on his bed. A bottle of champagne, a plate of dark chocolate–covered strawberries, and a picnic basket rested on the makeshift tablecloth, illuminated by the dim glow of tiny tea lights that he had arranged on the coffee table over by his couch.

“The other night,” Clint said, “you mentioned that one of the things you missed most about California was being able to eat outside. Well, since we didn’t have time to go somewhere warm for a picnic, I thought I’d bring the picnic inside for us!”

Callie was speechless: there was only one thing to do. She kissed him, flinging her arms around his neck and running her hands through his hair.

He kissed her: gently at first, then with greater urgency. Wrapping his arms around her, he pulled her as close to him as possible, caressing the small of her back.

Her hands slid down over his chest and then behind his waist, reaching beneath his polo shirt and over the warm, smooth skin of his back. Her fingers traced the upper rim of his boxers.

Grinning, he dipped her down suddenly and slid his free arm under her knees, lifting her and carrying her toward the rose-petal-covered bed. He lay her down and climbed on top of her, lifting her shirt and kissing her belly button before moving upward to kiss her collarbone, her neck, her cheeks, and then her lips.

She guided his shirt up over his head and pulled it off, throwing it across the room and taking a moment to admire, as she’d been doing every day that week, his body: toned from so many years of squash. Smiling up at him, she ran her fingers through his hair again. She
loved
that light brown hair, so shabby and
sexy
when it fell across his eyes. . . .

Before she knew it, they had removed his pants as well and he was working to unclasp her bra, her shirt having already joined her jeans in a pile on the floor. Her fingers lingered on his lower abs. She hesitated, but as her bra slid to the floor and he started kissing her chest, she began to pull his boxers down.

His hands rested on her hip bones, fingers tracing little lines beneath her belly button. He looked up at her, a silent question in his eyes. She nodded, arching her back as he slid her underwear down over her legs.

Suddenly they were chest to chest, their two bodies nearly one. He kissed her on the mouth and then tilted his face so that it was a few inches away from her. “Are you sure you’re ready for this?” he whispered.

“Yes . . . ,” she replied, pulling him back to her. She ran her hands over his chest, across his shoulders and down the lengths of his arms, her body aching for him.

“Sex is a big deal; I just want to be absolutely certain that you’re ready. . . .”

“It’s not my first time, you know,” she said, trying to smile as thoughts of her first time—thoughts of Evan—wandered into her head.

“I know,” he said, kissing her forehead. “I mean, I didn’t
know
, but I assumed since you mentioned having a long-term boyfriend back in high school.”

Stop talking about it! He felt heavy as he continued kissing her cheeks. Images of Evan began flashing through her mind.

“I just wanted to make sure that you were ready with
me
. . . for
us
. . . .”

“Uh-huh,” she mumbled, trying to move. He was suffocating her.

“Because I don’t want to rush you if you’re not feeling ready,” he pressed on, reaching out to move the hair that had fallen across her eyes. “Our first time should be special—”

“I think I know a way we could make today
extra
special,” Evan said, waving the keys to the soccer team’s locker room with a mischievous smile.

“But it’s Senior Week!” she protested. “We were supposed to turn the keys in already . . . and everyone’s on campus—we could get caught!”

“—and I want you to feel totally comfortable and safe—”

“Don’t worry, it’s totally safe,” Evan insisted, taking her hands in his and kissing her on each cheek. “We’ll lock the door, and no one will be able to hear us because I brought my laptop”—
THE LAPTOP THAT MUST HAVE HAD A BUILT-IN VIDEO CAMERA—
“and I can play loud music, just like this—”

“Callie?”

“Callie, come on: one last Captains’ Practice, for old time’s sake. It’ll be our little secret.”
And back then she’d assumed that by “secret” he’d meant, “hooking up in the soccer team’s locker room during Senior Week”—completely unaware that he had also been *secretly* filming them on his laptop the entire time—

“Callie! What’s wrong? Why won’t you talk to me?”

And then Evan had shown that tape—a video file saved on his computer—to all the seniors on the team right before graduation to prove that what he’d been bragging about all semester was true—she could finally understand why for the rest of the summer they had all smiled at her with that funny look in their eyes.

“Goddammit Callie, why won’t you
say
anything?”

And he had never
said anything
until after he shared the tape with his big brother at UCLA—since “Make a Sex Tape” was worth a “gajillion points” in his fraternity’s initiation scavenger hunt. Did they think she’d made the tape voluntarily—that she was a dirty, freaky, exhibitionist, nympho, slut? Weren’t there laws against this type of thing? Against filming people doing private things without their consent, without their knowledge?

“Callie,” Clint started, trying again, his voice steady now but clearly alarmed. “
Please.
Tell me what’s wrong.”

“Can’t do it!” She gasped suddenly as she noticed that Clint was gripping her shoulders looking bewildered and distressed.

Who had a copy of that file now—besides every single member in his frat—and where was it going from there? YouTube? MySpace? Facebook?

“Can’t do it—” she managed to choke out again through strangled breaths. Clint finally realized she needed some air and moved aside.

And what if Clint ever saw it? Or if anyone at Harvard ever saw it? And what about life after college, for that matter? Would a newspaper ever hire her? And her parents—oh god, her parents: if they ever knew, she would—

Clint returned from his bathroom with a glass of water, but she just shook her head and mumbled, “I have to leave,” reaching for her clothes.

“No—don’t go. Stay, please, and
tell me
what’s going on,” he pleaded as she yanked her shirt on—backward and inside out—and started jamming her legs into her jeans. “Was it something I did? Did I go too fast? Please, just come sit back on the bed and relax. . . . You’re safe with me—”

“Safe?”
she cried, wheeling around and accidentally kicking the plate of chocolate-covered strawberries across the room. “There’s nothing
safe
about having
sex—
”

“Really, Callie, it’s all right. I understand that you’re nervous—” he tried again, standing up and pulling on his boxers.

“No, Clint, no you do
not
understand!” she cried, refusing to meet his eyes. “You couldn’t
possibly
understand!” She darted around the room, gathering her things.

“All right, Callie, you know what? You’re right: I
don’t
understand.” He pulled on his jeans. “I don’t get you—at
all.
One minute you seem totally excited and then all of a sudden you’re seriously freaking out! What’s the deal? Why can’t you just
talk
to me about—”

“I don’t want to talk to you about it, okay!”

He hesitated for a moment, watching her search for her shoes and then:

“Fine . . .”

His tone made her pause, one shoe on and the other on the floor. She kept her eyes on her feet, knowing that if she looked at him she would surely start to cry.

“You don’t want to talk to me? That’s fine. That’s your decision. But I can’t have a
girlfriend
who doesn’t feel like she can tell me things. It’s just not fair—to either of us. So maybe you should take some time to think and figure out what you want.”

He pulled on his shirt. “I’ll be here waiting when you’re ready to talk, but
this
,” he added, gesturing toward the space between them as Callie continued to stare at the floor. “This type of behavior, without explanation, is completely crazy and totally unacceptable.”

She nodded slowly and pulled the straps of her duffel bag over her shoulder. She glanced at him briefly and muttered, “See you when I see you,” then made her way out the door.

She was half expecting him to follow her—to call out to her or at least offer to walk her home—when she heard the door to his room shut with a slam.

Outside it had started to snow.

Chapter Seventeen
Beer, Sex, and Football

T
HE
G
AME

S
WALLOW! SWALLOW! SWALLOW!” the crowd chanted before erupting into a roar.

“Come on, girls—one more time!” Bryan yelled above the cheers, holding two cheap plastic bottles of gin in each hand at the top of the ice luge: a large block of ice tilted at a forty-five degree angle with two miniature “riverbeds” carved into it so that two young coeds could place their mouths on the lower end and receive a long stream of freezing-cold hard alcohol.

Mimi shook her head from side to side as Bryan screamed encouragements, motioning to Callie that she couldn’t handle any more booze. “Shoulda flowed your a’vice and spit insteada swallowed,” Mimi mumbled drunkenly, stumbling off to the side.

Thus abandoned by her partner in crime, Callie was about to back away from the luge when Mimi’s vacant space was suddenly filled.

“Okay, let’s go!” Gregory cried, smiling at Callie.

For a split second Callie hesitated, wondering if this was a very bad idea. Deciding that yes, it was a terrible idea indeed, in the true spirit of college she bent over and did it anyway.

As she stood up a moment later, gin punch trickling down her chin, she searched for Mimi—relaxing when Callie spotted her wobbling toward the DJ near a table for the Fly.

It was Game Day and the tailgate was raging. The morning sun shone brightly over the massive fields adjacent to the Yale Bowl, which were currently overflowing with endless rows of trailers and cars decorated with banners and balloons, beneath which students and alumni clustered, barbecuing and drinking beers. It was freezing cold in spite of the sun, but most were too intoxicated to notice, stumbling from table to table and sampling the food and drink while the trampled grass grew muddy beneath their feet.

Callie and Mimi had already gotten lost three times on their way to find the Harvard undergraduates’ section, surviving catcalls and mock death threats from Yalies who spotted their crimson sweatshirts. Finally they had happened upon a crowd of familiar faces. Banners for some of the upperclassman houses fluttered in the breeze next to tables full of booze and bagels that had been set up in front of trailers painted with logos: the Fly, the Delphic, the Isis, and the Bee. The Final Clubs had pooled their money and rented a DJ. Music blasted from the nearby speakers, and a dance party was quickly materializing—the wildest ever to occur before noon in the history of the Ivy League.

“I had fun last night,” said Gregory, speaking over Callie’s shoulder.

Callie ignored him and continued to scan the area, looking for Clint and wondering what he might think or say if he spotted the two of them together like this. She couldn’t see him and . . .

. . . if a = b and b = c, then a = c so . . .

. . . he must not be able to see her either.

Turning to Gregory, she met his eyes, remembering the events of the previous evening all too clearly: how by the end of the night, she had ended up in his arms . . .

. . . where Clint had practically pushed her. She had been trying to dance with Clint, trying to apologize, when he had stormed out of the bar and left her there, alone, saying:
“Callie, I thought I told you I need a break.”

All night long the words had played to the DJ’s soundtrack, over and over again in her head.

“I need a break”
as she started dancing with Gregory and—

“I need a break”
as their sweat began to mingle and—

“I need a break”
as he pulled her closer and closer—

What did it mean: “
I need a break
?”

She felt Gregory’s hand on her shoulder and realized that he was still looking at her . . . and Clint still wasn’t speaking to her . . . and Gregory’s eyes were still just as blue, just as beautiful . . . and Clint still wasn’t speaking to her . . . and maybe being on a break meant that it was all right to give in to gravity and lean forward and—

“Bad,
bad
neighbor!” Mimi cried, rushing over and stepping in front of Callie. Glaring at Gregory, she made a fist.
“Laisse-la ou je vais te faire mal!”

Before Gregory could respond, Mimi grabbed Callie’s hand and dragged her off into the midst of the dance party, now packed with hundreds of students. Gregory quickly disappeared from view. Mimi began to move to the music, but Callie froze—for there was Vanessa not ten feet away,
dancing up a storm with some prep school girls. She had driven down in their car and was also sharing a room with them at the Omni New Haven. Good for her. Have fun guessing whose jeans cost the most or plotting how to ruin my life.

Suddenly Vanessa waved. It was a tiny, weak wave, but it was still a wave and Callie felt her heart soaring just a little. As far as Callie could tell, Vanessa hadn’t told Lexi about the video. Right now she could really use a friend. Her best friend.

“Come
on
,” Mimi cried, tugging Callie’s hand. “Need foods.” She gestured toward a nearby table filled with what looked like boxes of donuts. “Forgotta eat this morning . . .”

Callie nodded and followed Mimi through the crowd. Suddenly she stopped walking. Clint was over by the Delphic’s trailer. He had definitely seen her, and he definitely still had zero interest in talking to her. She watched him shotgun a beer and “whoop”: drunker and rowdier than usual because—
hopefully
—he was upset about her. A girl walked up to him but he ignored her, high-fiving the guy who had just handed him another beer.

Better than I can say for myself, she thought. From across the way Mimi held open an empty pink box and mouthed: “
No Donuts
,” pouting with great exaggeration as she headed back toward Callie. “LET US TRY THE PUDDING TAILGATE!” she screamed.

“OKAY!” Callie screamed back. “BUT YOU DON’T HAVE TO YELL!” Arm-in-arm, they wove their way through the crowd. Unfortunately, instead of food, the Pudding’s folding table was lined with bottles and bottles of booze.

“Neos!” cried a bunch of older girls.

“Initiation time!” one of them screamed as another picked up a handle. “Now, drink!” she yelled. Mimi shrugged and opened her mouth. Callie clamped her lips and shook her head.
No way
was she participating in any form of
initiation
. . . .

She turned around and saw Lexi smiling. Smiling? Yes, smiling—at her, a
knowing
expression in her eyes. Still smiling—
creepy
—Lexi started making her way toward Callie.

“Hi!” she said, pouring some Bloody Mary mix into a plastic cup and selecting a piece of celery. “Are you enjoying your weekend?”

Callie simply stared at her.

“I’d make the most of it if I were you. . . .” Lexi continued, taking a sip of her drink. The bloodred color and her pale, smooth skin made her look a bit like a vampire, and Callie was about to open her mouth and say just that when somebody stumbled into her from behind—

“Hey, watch—” Callie snapped before she realized that Mimi was literally collapsing into her arms. “Whoa there, drunkie—”

“Je dois sortir. Je vais être—être—MALADE!”

“What?” yelled Callie, shepherding her to a less crowded area.

“I said—” Mimi sputtered, tripping over her own feet, “ThatIamgoingtobe—SICK! PUKE! NOW!”

“Oh!” cried Callie. Then: “Not you too! What’s wrong with the pair of you—YOU’RE NOT FAT!”

“NO, YOU IDIOT. I MEAN—” and then Mimi barfed—all over Callie’s ten-dollar, bargain-bin flats.

“Well, I guess
that’s
why I don’t buy nice shoes!” Callie mused with cheery matter-of-factness, grabbing Mimi midway through her descent earthward. “Feeling better?” she asked, her concern mounting as Mimi continued to sink downward: limbs like a rag doll’s, eyes half closed.

“Nah . . .” Mimi mumbled. “Shtill shfeeling shick . . .”

Callie guided Mimi away from the crowd, past rows and rows of cars, and toward a grassy knoll. Mimi sank onto the ground. Callie cursed herself for worrying so much about Clint, Gregory, Lexi, and Vanessa that she hadn’t paid closer attention to how much her roommate had been drinking. She was trying to figure out what to do—leave Mimi there and go get her some food?—try to see if she wanted to throw up again?—find Vanessa and ask for help?—when all of a sudden, a man in a golf cart zoomed over in their direction.

As he got closer, Callie realized that he was a cop. “
Shit!
” she muttered. Then: “Mimi, we’ve got to move!”

“Blerg . . .” Mimi mumbled, closing her eyes and leaning her head against Callie’s chest. A disturbing-colored spit bubble formed around the rim of her mouth.

Shit.

“You girls look like you could use a little help,” said the cop, parking the golf cart and making his way toward them.

“Oh no, officer,” Callie said, trying to sit Mimi up straight. “We’re doing fine . . . just fine—”

“Dandy!” Mimi opened her eyes and yelled happily, “Peachy keen!”

Nudging Mimi in the ribs, Callie continued, smiling: “Yep, just fine and definitely not in need of any assistance. But thank you very much for asking!”

The officer didn’t budge. “Your friend looks very, very drunk,” he said.

“Define ‘drunk,’” Callie said slowly as Mimi groaned and her head dropped between her knees.

“How old are you girls, anyway?”

“Twenty-one, officer” Callie offered at the exact same moment Mimi cried: “TWENTY-FIVE!”

“Right,” he said, staring down at them. “Well, in that case, you don’t have a choice. I’m going to take you to health services so they can get you to a hospital.”

Head still sunk low between her knees, Mimi lifted her hands as if she were waiting to be cuffed: “Take me away, officer.”

“Uh—no, Mimi—HOSPITAL,” said Callie, trying to lift her to her feet. The officer bent to help.

“L’hôpital? Oui, bien sûr . . .”
Mimi murmured as he scooped her up and carried her to the golf cart.

“Can I come, too?” asked Callie.

He surveyed her skeptically. “Usually it’s not allowed unless—”

“
Please
, sir,” Callie interrupted, starting to panic. “She’s not a U.S. citizen, and I don’t want to leave her alone—”

“All right. You can wait in the lobby at the hospital—but don’t cause any trouble!”

Seven hours later Mimi was still asleep, hooked up to an IV while Callie waited in the lobby. Numbly Callie had watched many of her fellow freshmen being wheeled in on stretchers. She had watched the football game on a static-ridden TV in the corner. She had watched the clock tick away the hours. And at around noon she had watched her cell phone lose its final bar of battery power as it beeped its way to a tragic, untimely death. . . .