The Ivy: Rivals (9 page)

“She is very impressive,” Clint said as what appeared to be the curried skate wing arrived. It looked like some type of fish. Sort of. Bravely, Callie took a bite.

“How’s your dinner?” Clint asked, smiling widely at her as if it were all going along swimmingly. Maybe he thought it was. Maybe . . . it was?

“Delicious,” Callie lied.

An awkward silence ensued, broken only by the sounds of Mrs. Weber’s cutlery as she took miniscule bites of her entrée.

Then again, maybe it wasn’t.

“So, Mr. Weber,” Callie finally said. “Clint tells me you played squash at Princeton?”

This turned out to be the right thing to say. Like she had unstopped a drain, the fond memories of his Princeton days flowed, from playing squash with wooden rackets in his eating club to working on the
Daily Princetonian
, carrying them all the way through the main course and onto dessert. As much as Callie hated to admit it, Lexi had done her a favor.

“Those were the days,” he said after sharing a story about the consecutive all-nighters he had pulled during his tenure at the
Daily Princetonian
. “Tell me, Callie,” he said, “are you working on anything interesting right now for the
Crimson
?”

“Yes,” she replied. “In fact, just earlier today Clint and I went to hear Governor Hamilton speak at the Kennedy Center so I could take notes for a piece we’re doing on his visit to campus this week.”

“Oh, did you?” Mrs. Weber said, sounding casual but suddenly seeming far more interested in this line of conversation than anything her husband had uttered in the past half hour.

Clint shifted in his chair and took a big bite of his sorbet. (Mystery of the weird spoon-shaped thing solved!)

“That’s
right
,” Mrs. Weber continued. “Now that you mention it, I do seem to recall him saying that he would be in town when we had him to dinner last month. No wonder Alexis is too busy to make lunch tomorrow; no doubt she wants to spend as much time as possible with her uncle!”

Eeigah
—Callie tried not to flinch at the sound of Alexis’s name surfacing in the conversation for the second time. Oddly enough, Clint, whose foot had started jiggling up and down, seemed even more uncomfortable than she felt.

“Tell me, darling: Did you have an opportunity to approach him afterward and raise the possibility of a summer internship like we discussed?”

“No,” Clint said shortly.

“Well, when then? Perhaps at the cocktail party this Thursday—” she said, shattering all pretenses that this turn in the conversation had simply occurred to her out of the blue.

“Callie and I have a previous engagement,” Clint said, placing his hand over hers.

Mrs. Weber’s eyes flicked after it, and she frowned. “Darling, I’m quite certain that whatever you two have planned isn’t more important than your future, wouldn’t you agree, Callie?”

“Um—yes?”

“Mom,” Clint said softly, setting aside his spoon. “It is my future.
My
future. And I would love the opportunity to intern with Governor Hamilton or anyone else in Washington, which is why I plan to file an application and be considered—just like everyone else.”

Mrs. Weber let out a laugh that bore a haunting similarity to Lexi’s tinkling giggle—though perhaps the only commonality was that both sounds made Callie’s teeth stand on end.

“Another Glenlivet on the rocks, please,” Mr. Weber said to the waiter as he cleared their dessert plates.

“Oh, sweetheart,” Mrs. Weber said, dabbing the corners of her eyes with her napkin. “We’d all prefer to believe that we live in a meritocratic society, but listen carefully when I tell you that,
especially
when it comes to politics, you have to milk every possible connection that you have while working constantly to forage new ones. That’s just how the game goes.”

Callie turned sharply to survey Clint. Was that the real reason why he wanted to be friends with Lexi?

Mrs. Weber cleared her throat. “Now, if you would just let me make one phone call—”

“No,” said Clint, a little too loudly. “No, thank you. That won’t be necessary.”

Callie downed a big gulp of water, hoping that the glass would conceal her smile.

“Suit yourself.” Mrs. Weber shrugged, signing the bill.

“Well, we both have early classes in the morning so we should probably get going,” Clint said. “Mom, Dad: thanks for dinner. I’ll see you for lunch tomorrow.” Standing, he offered Callie his hand.

“Yes, thank you so much for dinner,” Callie echoed. “It was so nice to meet both of you.”

“Wonderful to meet you, too, dear,” Mrs. Weber said, standing.

“It was our pleasure,” Mr. Weber said, smiling at Callie.

“Ready?” asked Clint, taking her coat from the waiter and helping her into the sleeves.

“Yep,” she said. “Thanks again,” she called over her shoulder, and then followed Clint out of the room.

When they had made it to the brick pavilion outside The Charles Hotel, Callie took what felt like her first breath all evening. “Well,” she said, “I guess that wasn’t a
total
disaster.”

“Are you kidding?” asked Clint, pulling her close. “They loved you!”

“Really?”

Clint laughed. “Well, my dad definitely loved you, and my mom . . . didn’t hate you.”

Maybe . . . but clearly not as much as she “didn’t hate” Lexi. “You sure about that?”

“Yes,” Clint affirmed. “And please disregard that whole ‘tenacious’ comment—she’s just overprotective.”

“Mm,” Callie murmured. Te·na·cious (
adjective
)—as far as she and her old SAT flashcards were concerned—simply meant
persistent
,
determined
, or
not easily dispelled
. In other words, not an insult.

“So . . . my place?” he asked, breaking her reverie.

She gasped in mock horror, whacking him on the arm. “But you just told your mother that we had to be up early for class!”

“Oh, I intend to go straight to bed,” he said, grabbing her around the waist and smothering her cheeks with kisses.

“
Ahg
!” she cried until he finally let her up for air. “Okay, okay, you win! Just let me text Mimi to let her know I won’t be bringing her dress back until tomorrow.”

Breaking away, she pulled out her phone. But, instead of texting Mimi, at the last second she texted Vanessa instead:

J
UST ONE QUESTION: WHAT DOES

“
TENACIOUS
”
MEAN IN
WASP?

A moment later her phone buzzed:

1 New Text Message from Vanessa V

P
ROBABLY A SYNONYM FOR
G
OLD
-

D
IGGER
. M
AYBE
G
OLD
-D
IGGING

W
HORE, DEPENDING ON CONTEXT
.

W
HY?

Callie looked at Clint, who was smiling and holding open the bright red door to Adams House, before texting back:

A
BSOLUTELY NO REASON.

Chapter Six
A Very Important Date

D
earest Froshies:

It’s precisely this time of year when you’ve survived Valentine’s Day and may even be starting to ponder your Spring Break plans that you also begin to wonder: are you and your significant other a good match? Before you book that cozy bed-and-breakfast for two, you might want to complete the following quiz.

Quiz: Is he a Sinner, a Saint, or Simply an Undeniable Douchebag?

1.
Saturday is date night and you have a whole evening prepared, but he cancels at the last minute because:

a.“The Big Game’s on TV and it’s just us guys, but why don’t you drop by after? And oh yeah: wear that thing I like.”

b.“My chemistry class is killing me. Would you mind bringing over some work so we can study together? I promise there’s a foot rub in it for you afterward. . . .”

c. He doesn’t bother canceling at all but rather shows up an hour late. You are livid, naturally, but then he makes up for it by surprising you with something bigger and better than you had originally planned.

2.
You’re in a restaurant and he takes the liberty of ordering for you while you’re in the rest room. He:

a. Orders the steak, but there’s only one problem: you’re a vegetarian. Oh, and he also forgot his wallet in the car.

b. Orders all of your favorite foods, including dessert, and then he pays for it.

c. Orders two options, which you share family style, and then you split the bill, so that you’re starting to feel really comfortable: until you get home, and realize that you had food in your teeth the entire night and he said nothing.

3.
You ask the fateful question, “Do I look fat in this dress?” Apart from the obvious—what were you thinking?!?—he responds:

a. “’Course not, babe, though your ankles do look a little chubby in those shoes. But that’s just ’cause you have chubby ankles. Aw. . . don’t cry. . . . I
like
your chubby ankles!”

b. “
I
think that you always look terrific in whatever you’re wearing, but if
you’re
not comfortable, then you should change.”

c. “I’m not falling for that one.”

4.
At a party he:

a. Leaves you on your own for most of the night, but that’s all right: you’re self-sufficient and doing fine on your own—until you spot him standing a little too close to that cute girl from his Government class.

b. Stays glued to your side all evening until you’re starting to wish you had the number for a codependency counselor.

c. Asks you frequently if you’re having fun or if he can get you another drink, but he sometimes forgets to introduce you or include you in the actual conversation.

5.
When you meet his parents for the first time, they:

a. Laugh, then there’s an awkward silence followed by “Girlfriend?”

b. Exchange a knowing smile and say, “So,
this
is the one. . . .”

c. Say it’s so lovely to finally meet you, but then one of them accidentally refers to you by the name of his most recent ex.

Mostly (a)s: You are dating a Douchebag. Exit the relationship immediately. He may not even notice that you’re gone.

Mostly (b)s: You are dating a Saint. Though almost
too
affectionate at times, this one definitely has marriage on his mind.

Mostly (c)s: You are dating a Sinner, but like Billy Joel said, “I’d rather laugh with the sinners than cry with the saints: the sinners are much more fun.” So enjoy it while it lasts, but remember: sometimes even the good relationships die young.

“I
ce-skating? That sounds dangerous,” Dana said, looking up at Callie from the textbooks she had spread across the coffee table in their common room.

Mimi was also eyeing her skeptically: “You look like a giant poufy white sugar ball—”

“Marshmallow,” Callie supplied.

“Marshmallow—even more than usual,” Mimi finished.

“I think it’s the hat,” Dana suggested.

“That is certainly one source of the problem,” Mimi murmured. It was a rare occasion when Mimi and Dana agreed, but today the decision seemed unanimous: Callie’s outfit for her contentious, potentially future-ruining Thursday night date with Clint was anything but attractive.

“Maybe you need some knee pads,” Dana began.

“No, no, the padding is already too much,” said Mimi.
“Tu ressembles à un éléphant.”

“Come on, guys. It’s not so bad,” Callie said. “This is what you wear when you go ice-skating!” Of course, she didn’t really know since she had never actually been ice-skating. In fact, before coming to Harvard, she had never even seen snow: the only kind they had in Los Angeles was a Schedule II controlled substance.

“
I
think that you look perfect just the way you are,” Vanessa called, poking her head out of her bedroom. “Positively
tenacious
—”

“Don’t make me hurt you!” Callie cried. Half joking, she rushed Vanessa like a linebacker might a quarterback.

Screaming, Vanessa slammed the door to her room, and Callie smacked straight into it. Oddly enough, she bounced.

“Did you guys see that?” She whooped. “I didn’t feel a thing! Not a
thing
!” she called, catapulting into the opposite wall and whooping again when she bounced.

“Whoa, what’s going on in here?” a male voice called from the doorway, sounding amused.

Callie whirled around. She saw the flowers first, followed by Clint. In a suit.

A suit?

“I didn’t realize that ice-skating was a formal event,” she cried, cursing herself for getting the dress code wrong—
again
.

Clint chuckled. “Actually . . . there’s been a slight change of plans,” he explained. “I’ve been thinking that it might be a good idea for me to swing by that event at the Faculty Club after all.”

“The Governor Hamilton thing?” Callie asked, her feet suddenly feeling rooted in place.

“Yes. Do you mind? It started only twenty minutes ago, so if we leave now we won’t be too late.”

“You couldn’t have mentioned this earlier?” she asked, removing her hat. Her hair shot up, wrought with static electricity.

“I’m sorry. I didn’t decide until the last minute, and well—I’m just sorry,” he said, coming toward her. “I brought flowers?”

Callie stayed where she was. “I thought we were going ice-skating.”

“I know,” he said, setting the flowers down so he could put his arms around her. “But we can do that anytime, and Governor Hamilton’s only in town for one more night. . . .”

“I don’t have anything to wear,” she muttered. And then, a bit louder: “You didn’t leave me time to change!”

“You don’t need time—you always look gorgeous, no matter what.”

“Now we know he is a liar,” Mimi joked from the couch, where she had returned to reviewing her most recent efforts for the
Lampoon
.

“All right.” Callie sighed, slinking into her room. Slowly she unwound the scarf she’d picked out especially for ice-skating. Then she began her search for something to wear, opening and closing her dresser drawers with a little more force than necessary.

In two minutes she emerged in her nicest pair of dark jeans and a button-up cardigan.

“Okay, let’s get this over with,” she said, heading for the door. She paused. Clint hadn’t moved. “What?” she demanded.

“Well . . .” he began. “
I
think you look great, but the invitation said “business casual,” and I think that means that girls are supposed to wear a dress? I just wouldn’t want you to be uncomfortable because you felt underdressed.”

Callie stared at him.

“I have an idea,” he said. “Why don’t you borrow something from Mimi again like you did the other night for dinner?”

“Bien sûr,”
Mimi said. “Help yourself.”

Callie walked into Mimi’s room and opened her closet. There was a wide array of dresses, though only a small subset actually fit Callie, who was something of
un éléphant
to Mimi’s size zero. And within this subset Callie only felt comfortable borrowing a precious few with foreign labels that didn’t evoke the image of quadruple-digit price tags.

Sighing, she emerged with a simple black dress that would maybe zip with only a little stretching (of both the fabric and the imagination). “Is this okay?” she asked, holding it up.

“It’s perfect,” said Clint. “It’ll look great on you.”

“I was asking Mimi,” she said.

“Oui, oui,”
Mimi said, waving her hand.

“Great, just give me a second,” she said, heading for her room.

“Take your time,” Clint called, sneaking a peek at his watch.

The dress was tight, but it zipped. Quickly Callie smoothed her hair and grabbed a small purse. Then she reentered the common room.

Shoes, she realized with a sinking feeling when Clint glanced down at her bare feet, were going to be a problem. She didn’t think she could get away with sporting the flats she had worn to Rialto; Mimi was nowhere near her size, and Vanessa was more likely to throw her Jimmy Choos at Callie’s head than to lend them to her. Suddenly her face felt hot; her tear ducts mobilizing as they readied for action. . . .

“Here, try these,” Dana offered, pressing a pair of low-heeled, patent leather Mary Janes into her hand—not the trendy, modern variety but the kind Callie had assumed they stopped making back in 1959. The kind that even her grandma was too hip to wear—and that was saying a lot, since her grandma was dead.

“Thanks,” Callie whispered, jamming them onto her feet. “Ready?”

“After you,” said Clint, holding the door. As she passed, he leaned down and whispered, “I was right about the dress—it’s stunning.”

“Mm-hmm, yeah, ah, yes, I see, hmm?” Callie said, smiling and nodding in—what she hoped—were the right places, all the while thinking, Owwww-o-wow, because her feet hurt like hell. Not only that, but Mimi’s dress felt like it was cutting into her skin, her stomach was grumbling with hunger, and she wanted to go home; away from the Faculty Club with its semi-creepy portraits of famous professors and university presidents lining the walls, leering at her ominously from between the throngs of faculty and students sucking up to the politico elite.

And it had only been twenty minutes.

Seventeen of which the senior to her left had occupied with an almost uninterrupted monologue, only stopping long enough, it seemed, to let Clint agree with him. Callie, who’d been daydreaming about ice-skating and hot apple cider, tuned back just in time to hear:

“. . . everyone knows that global warming is little more than a myth invented by the liberal establishment—”

“Yeah, I heard that we could solve the whole problem and dramatically lower temperatures,” Callie began, “if only America would convert to the metric system.”

The three boys, including Clint, all paused to stare.

“You know,” she floundered, “because Fahrenheit to Celsius would be lower. . . .”

Clint laughed. “That is funny, actually. But going back to what you were saying about campaign strategies in Middle America . . .”

What would January Jones, who played the perfect blond 1960s housewife on
Mad Men
, do? Callie thought, cocking her hand against her hip and doing her best interpretation of standing there and looking pretty. After all, she had the shoes to fit the part, even if the shoes didn’t quite fit.

“Can I get you a drink?” she asked Clint during a lull in the conversation.

“That would be wonderful.” He grinned, the irony escaping him. “Make it a Jack and Coke, please.”

“Coming right up,” she said, smiling back when she realized she now had at least a five-minute excuse to escape.

Her feet pinched as she walked away. Then again, Betty Draper was a chain-smoking alcoholic who not-so-secretly hated her children—perhaps a poor choice of fictional character to emulate.

Callie’s shoulders relaxed while she waited at the bar for Clint’s drink and a diet soda (no
way
was she drinking at an event like this—that’d be almost as stupid as drinking during the first time you met your mother-in-law, or at dinner with the Webers—
not
that those two were related). Take as long as you want, Mr. Bartender, sir, Callie willed him: I could happily stand here all night—

“Hi, Callie!” a low, silky voice said from her left. “How are you?”

Callie turned to find herself facing Perky B—Alessandra, right, because they were “friends” now and it was high time she dropped the nickname—in pearls with less makeup, and cleavage, than usual.

“Hi,” Callie said, smiling back. Alessandra + a Cocktail Party could potentially = Gregory: her eyes darted around the room, but she didn’t see him anywhere. “How are you?”

“Bored,” Alessandra confessed. “I was only invited to this because my dad’s a major campaign contributor.”

Callie nodded. Big business tycoon + Desire for tax breaks = likely Moderate with Conservative Tendencies, aka closeted Republican with commitment issues in a Democratic-leaning state. “Well,
I
was only invited,” she started, “because my boyfriend’s mom is a little bit controlling and—”

Alessandra’s eyes had suddenly gone wide.

All the blood drained from Callie’s face. “He’s standing right behind me, isn’t he?”

“False,” said an unmistakable voice from over Callie’s shoulder. “Hiya, neighbor,” Gregory continued, swooping in to kiss Callie’s cheek before draping an arm over Alessandra’s shoulders. “And hello, beautiful.”

Without thinking, Callie touched her glass to her cheek, a single square inch of which felt like it was on fire.

“I told you that I don’t like it when you call me that,” Alessandra said. She rolled her eyes at Callie. “Doesn’t it make you feel like he can’t even remember who you are,
neighbor
?”

“Okay, wow. Sorry,
Tiffany
.”

“It’s, like, my
name
is Alessandra,” she said, ignoring him and speaking to Callie, “not
Babe
, or
Beautiful
, or—what was it you called me that one time when we were in bed? It was a Spanish word for—”

“TIME for another DRINK,” Gregory interrupted loudly.

“Don’t bother,” Alessandra said, with a perfect execution of her simpering pout. “Ladies’ room. If I’m not back in five minutes—”

“You snuck out the window?” Callie supplied.

“Exactly.” Alessandra smiled and then excused herself.

Dammit, thought Callie, smiling back. I actually like her. Even if her boobs sometimes seem to divert a significant portion of blood flow away from her brain—and everyone else’s brain, if Gregory’s face was any indication—she’s kind of cool. . . .

“My girlfriend is
hot
,” Gregory said. “Possibly the hottest girl at this school. You know she turned down a modeling contract back in LA before she transferred here?”

“I should go,” Callie blurted. “Clint’s ice is melting,” she added, rattling his drink.

“What a lucky guy,” said Gregory, “to have someone to fetch his drinks for him.”

Callie debated throwing said drink into Gregory’s stupid, smirking face. In fact, the only thing that stopped her was the sight of Lexi leading her uncle over to Clint and introducing them. Lexi’s hand rested on Clint’s upper arm while she laughed at something he’d said, tossing her immaculate curls and exposing her small, even teeth.

“Don’t they make the perfect couple?” Gregory remarked, following her gaze.

“Are you actively
trying
to make me hate you,” Callie seethed, wheeling around, “or are you really just naturally this detestable?”

This seemed to amuse him to no end, his blue eyes winking in the dim light. Staring at her, he visibly struggled to suppress his laughter. (Apparently the earth-moon-sun position of the evening => Wildly-entertained-at-your-expense.)

“Want to play a game?” he finally asked.

“What?”

“Do you want to play a game?” he repeated, enunciating.

“What kind of game?” she asked, leaning away as he leaned toward her.

“A little game I invented to make tedious social functions like these more bearable. I call it . . . I Bet You Won’t Say. I give you a word or phrase that I bet you can’t manage to casually insert into a conversation, and if you pull it off, I’ll give you . . . a dollar.”

“Like what?”

“Like—oh, I don’t know—like
platypus
. If you can say
platypus
within the next five minutes without stopping an entire conversation, then I am prepared to make you a very rich lady.”

Callie stared at him. “I have to go.” Turning, she made her way over to where Clint and Governor Hamilton (though perhaps by now he had asked Clint to call him “Uncle”) were yammering away like old fishing buddies while Lexi presided over the exchange.

“. . . your article on Reaganomics literally changed my life,” Clint was saying. Callie handed him his drink. “Thanks,” he said, keeping his eyes on the governor. “I thought I understood the Tax Equity and Fiscal Responsibility Act before,” Clint continued, “but I might as well have been a Little League player claiming to understand what it’s like to pitch in the World Series. . . .”

“You a Red Sox fan, son?”

“Is the sky blue, Governor?”

“I like him,” Governor Hamilton said to Lexi, clapping Clint on the back.

“Oh, excuse me, sorry, sir,” Clint said, as if seeing Callie for the first time. “This is my friend Callie.”