The Ivy: Scandal (22 page)

The Harvard Lampoon, a semi-secret Sorrento Square social organization that used to occasionally publish a so-called humor magazine, has now publicly claimed responsibility for these atrocities, confirming widespread rumors proliferating all over campus.

The Administrative Board has declined to respond to the paper’s formal request that disciplinary action be taken against the pranksters. “Former Harvard Provost Paul H. Buck set a very clear precedent for how to handle these so-called ‘Pranking Wars,’” a high-ranking administrator commented Wednesday night. “As he said back in 1953 when the
Crimson
presented the Russian embassy with the Lampoon’s ibis as a symbolic peace offering, ‘Everyone’s taking it as a big joke.’”

In this case the joke may yet be on the Lampoon, and perhaps the
Crimson
ites will, as they did back in 1953, be the ones to have the last laugh. The Lampoon’s ibis is still missing, and its sudden disappearance, or so the Pooners claim, amounted to the
Crimson
having “fired the first shot.”

Crimson managing editor and author of
FM
’s exceedingly popular advice column, Alexis Thorndike, is reported to be in negotiations for a trade: the ibis, a copper-colored weathervane that normally decorates the top of the Pooner’s castle, for her chair. The chair is a custom-made ergonomic work of art by Eames for the Herman Miller company, designed specifically for Ms. Thorndike and presented as a gift upon her acceptance onto
FM
magazine during her very first semester at Harvard—a rare incidence of a freshman making the magazine on her first attempt in the fall. It features black fabric and a rosewood trim and is mounted on wheels for maximum movement and flexibility. Fortunately, it appears that no other items were taken from Ms. Thorndike’s office.

If you’ve seen the chair or have any other pertinent information, please contact tips@FMmag immediately.

G
race threw the paper down onto a rickety metal table outside Café Pamplona, a tiny little coffee shop on Bow Street a mere block from the
Crimson
offices. Callie jumped back as the table wobbled and her tea sloshed over the sides of her cup, filling the saucer below.

“Er, everything okay there?” Callie asked Grace, grabbing a napkin.

“Frankly, no,” Grace said shortly, sinking into her chair. “Have you
seen
this sloppy excuse for a newspaper?”

“Um, yes,” said Callie slowly. “I…
read
about that break-in. Seems like people are saying that the Lampoon was responsible? It’s really too bad—”

“Not
that
.” Grace shook her head. “The break-in is a minor blip compared to the travesty that has become our copyediting department. Under
my
administration stories like these never would have gone to print!” She jabbed her finger on that Thursday’s cover story, a follow-up piece about the escalating prank war between the
Crimson
and the Lampoon.

Callie squinted at the byline:
by Alessandra Constantine
.

“I thought new staff members weren’t allowed to publish so early?” said Callie, taking a sip of her tea.

“They weren’t.” Grace frowned. “Not until the Devil Wears Prada, as you like to call her, started playing favorites. Now the
only requirement for landing a cover story is her liking you.”

“I’m guessing all of your articles have been printed in size four-point font on the back of the so-called ‘Sports Section’?”

“You joke,” said Grace, grimacing, “but it hits just a little too close to home.”

Callie skimmed the opening paragraph of Alessandra’s article. “Oops,” she said, smiling in spite of herself. “Major typo alert! I guess it’s true what they say: supermodels don’t make the best spellers.”

“It’s actually probably not her fault,” said Grace. “Those typos were likely added by someone else when the article was transcribed. And as for the choice of subject matter…Well, let’s just say that in a week when students staged another walkout in an economics lecture, Obama visited the Kennedy School, and even that Asian basketball player scored a lot of goals—or baskets or whatever—the most important thing happening on campus was
clearly
determining the location of Alexis Thorndike’s missing chair.”

“Mm-hmm.” Callie nodded absentmindedly, now engrossed in the article. Grace continued to prattle on, criticizing Alexis and making a mild case in Alessandra’s defense, insisting that all novices are a little sloppy when they get started, even including the Insider, whose initial installments had required a fair amount of general editing.

“Andrews!” Grace barked. “Andrews, are you listening to me?”

“No,” Callie confessed. “Did you see this?” she asked, holding up Alessandra’s article and pointing to the final paragraph.

“Utterly ridiculous, right?” said Grace. “‘Custom-made ergonomic work of art by Eames’ my ass—”

“No.” Callie shook her head. “I’m talking about the part claiming that Lexi joined
FM
Magazine during her first semester freshman year.”

“What about it?” Grace asked, narrowing her eyes.

“Well, I mean—it’s not true, is it?”

“How do you know that?” Grace demanded.

“I, er…” Callie winced. “Sort of kind of might have stalked you a little bit on the internet and the
Crimson
’s internal server?”

“Why?” Grace asked, appearing amused.

“I was curious about why you and Lexi hate each other so much. It seemed to go beyond a mere rivalry between the paper and the magazine.”

“I see,” said Grace. “And did ‘stalking me,’ as you say, turn up any answers?”

“I have a very…tentative theory,” said Callie.

“By all means,” said Grace, setting down her coffee, “let’s hear it.”

“Well,” Callie began, “using that website where you can check who used to live in which dorm, I figured out that you and Lexi used to be roommates during your freshman year. You lived in a double in Thayer, but…”

Grace nodded. “Go on.”

“She transferred out of the room midway through the semester. Now, I don’t really know why, but I suspect it might have something to do with the fact that you both COMPed the
Crimson
during your first semester and that she got cut.”

“Whereas I made it,” Grace supplied in a murmur.

“Yes, exactly,” said Callie. “So she gets mad and transfers out, and then once she makes the magazine, she starts trying to undermine you at every turn for, like, revenge—or something.”

“That
is
a very tentative theory,” Grace remarked.

“It’s a little too thin for print,” Callie agreed, borrowing an expression that Grace often used to describe an unconfirmed story that relied too heavily on anonymous sources.

Grace smiled.

Callie felt warmed and not just from her latest gulp of tea or the April sun peeking through the gray clouds above them. Earning Grace’s trust back hadn’t been easy, but now, after several meetings to discuss their progress on catching the Insider, it seemed like Callie had regained not only an ally but her old mentor, too.

“There’s more to the story, isn’t there?” Callie ventured, smiling in return. “Care to enlighten me?”

Grace appeared to be thinking it over. “Okay,” she finally agreed. “Why not? But you’d better make yourself comfortable, because this could take a while.”

Callie shifted in her tiny metal chair to indicate that she was settled in for the long haul.

Clearing her throat, Grace began, “As you know, Alexis and I were assigned to live together freshman year. Based on the stereotypes associated with her hometown, Greenwich, I assumed I would dislike her immensely. But I was wrong. In her e-mails over the summer before college started she seemed smart, sarcastic, and driven. All of this proved true in person, too. What’s more,
she
was aware of the typical Connecticut boarding school stereotypes
and was eager to overcome them: to establish a new self in college distinct from the Thorndike name.

“We bonded instantly over our mutual aspiration to join the
Crimson
, and over similar career goals beyond that. I’d always had my heart set on the
New York Times
, and she’d wanted to become the next major media mogul with her very own blogging empire or news conglomerate—two industries in which her complete and utter disregard for journalistic ethics might actually help her get ahead.”

Grace paused to sip her coffee before continuing. “Anyway, like I said, during that first month we became fast friends. Yes, it was obvious from the start that in some ways we couldn’t be more opposite. She’s always cared about fashion and status and other nonsense that struck me as trivial. But that didn’t change the fact that deep down we wanted the same things: to redefine ourselves and then ultimately become, via the
Crimson
, the Next Big Thing in journalism.

“When we started COMPing, we lived and breathed the newspaper. Our class schedules were nearly identical, and so naturally we ended up doing everything together: we woke up at the same time every morning and then ate together, wrote together, edited each other’s pieces, and on one or two occasions after some particularly late nights at the
Crimson
offices, cried together. You know how it is.” Grace nodded at Callie.

Callie murmured her assent, gripping her teacup and willing Grace to go on.

“This lasted for about two months, but in that short time it
felt like almost two years had passed in terms of how close we had grown. And so I decided to share with her a secret I’d been keeping from everyone—myself included—for a very long time. That I was gay.”

Grace let the statement hang in the air ever so briefly before resuming. “I told her and she reacted…well, better than I could have hoped for. She even did some online research about Harvard’s LGBT resources and suggested I check out a place called the Queer Center, where I first met Marcus and essentially found the support system I needed until I was ready to come to terms with my sexuality and, eventually, come out to society. Back then though, I was still afraid. Afraid that who I was would affect my chances at everything—making it onto the
Crimson
, a future career in journalism, and even my overall happiness in life. The center really saved me. It showed me that I wasn’t alone and that there’s a place for people like me here, on this campus and in the larger world beyond.

“Around that same time two other things happened. Lexi started dating—a guy, as you know, named Clint—and a little white envelope showed up under our door. Of course the Pudding wanted her: she fit the pedigree in absolutely every sense. And I didn’t fault her when it became clear that it was something she wanted, too. In fact, these two events had almost no impact on our relationship other than that she suddenly had less time.

“Having less time did, however, affect the quality of her work at the
Crimson
. Her pieces started coming back with more and more red pen marking the pages. We both made it through to
the final round, but our COMP director warned her that she had just barely scraped by and would need to step up her game if she ultimately wanted to make the cut. One day he held up one of her pieces as an example of the kind of work that he wanted to see more of—a piece that
I
had edited heavily after she’d begged me to help her because she was ‘just so busy’ with Punch that week.

“Neither of us ever said anything about it after, but looking back, I think that’s when the rift started to form. And yet, at the same time, she started relying on me—and my edits—more and more. Sometimes it felt like I was doing double the amount of work while she was out on a date or at a party “networking for our future,” as she liked to put it. Then again, on only four hours of sleep a night over many months, it’s easy to feel like you’re drowning. And, as I reminded myself, she was doing even more than I was, in a sense—trying to balance the social in addition to the academic and extracurricular.”

Callie nodded grimly. This account of COMPing, and the inevitable impossibility of “doing it all” at Harvard, certainly struck a chord.

“Only a few days before our final portfolios were due, our COMP director let it slip to me that they were only planning to take one freshman—meaning it was either me or Lexi, since we were the only two left. I went home and immediately told Lexi. Her reaction was to console me: the quality of our work being equal, she said, it was clearly going to come down to which one of us had the most connections. And since at least one Pudding
member and two of her high school alums wrote for the paper, the spot would almost certainly go to Lexi.”

Callie rolled her eyes. “That sounds a lot more like the Lexi I know.”

Grace shrugged. “I think she believed she was being sincere, but given how much slack I’d been picking up for her, it was…irritating, to say the least. And besides, even before she got distracted by boys and social clubs, my writing was superior. She knew it and I knew it, and yet she still had an advantage over me, due to where she was born and to which clubs she belonged.