The Ivy: Scandal (29 page)

“Oh,” said Mimi. “
Pourquoi pas
? And
why
, then, have you been checking in all over the Facebook?”

“What are you—
ohdearaghgghwww
!” Callie groaned, covering her eyes. “You don’t think—there’s any way that—I mean, his profile’s been deactivated, right?”

“Here,” said Dana, handing Callie the envelope and stamp she’d just retrieved from her room. “Explain the mix-up, mail the letter, and then pray.”

“Amen,” said Vanessa. “Hopefully then you can stop obsessing.”

“And
start
obsessing
sur votre
upcoming expulsion!”

“MIMI!” Vanessa and Dana yelled at her.

“
Désolé
.”

“No,” said Callie. “Mimi’s right. You guys are, too. Send the letter—then focus on staying in school,” she muttered, sitting at her desk and starting to write: about how she was never involved with Bryan or anyone else, and had never said those things at the date auction that the magazine had printed. Finally, on her third page now, she finished with an account of how she might have only one more week left at school.

Then she stuck the pages in the envelope and kissed the back for good luck. “So, um…how exactly does one go about sending snail mail these days?”

“Uh…” said Vanessa.

Mimi shrugged.

“Seriously?” Dana blinked. Shaking her head, she said, “Come on. I’ll take you to the nearest mailbox.”

TWELVE

The Birkin List

THE BIRKIN LIST

•
Attend a Crew race

•
Go to at least ONE Harved museum

•
Go to freshman formal
with an actual freshman

•
Pee on the John Harvard statue

•
Jump off Weeks Bridge into the Charles River

•
Sit in on at least THREE classes taught by famous professors

•
Turn in Callie’s short story

•
Use all the money left on Harvard ID to buy candy from Greenhouse Café

•
Eat in every house dining hall

•
Have a slumber party in the common room

•
One last scorpion bowl at the Kong

•
Run spring Primal Scream?

•
Sex in Widener (with…???)

•

•

•

•

•

“W
ell, there’s another thing we can cross off the list,” said Vanessa, getting up off the grass by the Charles River and stretching. “I cannot believe it took me this long to learn about the glory of these so-called sporting events!”

“
C’est magnifique
,” Mimi agreed, watching the men’s eight row back toward the boathouse from the finish line, their oars cutting through the water in perfect unison.

“You’re not going to jump off the bridge right now, are you?” asked Dana, skeptically eyeing the setting sun.

“No,” Callie answered. “It’s too cold today. And besides, you guys have to start getting ready for Freshman Formal.”

“Are you quite
sure
you will not be joining us?” asked Mimi, pouting as they started to walk home to Wigglesworth.

“Yes,” said Callie. “I don’t have a date, and I still don’t really have any idea what I’m going to say tomorrow morning at the hearing.” She stared down JFK Street, all the way to the end where it terminated at Harvard Yard. The large brick and white columned buildings seemed to grow larger with every step. Would she even be a student here by this time tomorrow?

“Mimi and I don’t have dates either,” Vanessa pleaded.

“Then what would you call OK and Matthew graciously volunteering to escort you at the suggestion of Adam and me?” asked Dana.

“Uh…how about ‘my worst nightmare’?” said Vanessa.

“You may have OK,” said Mimi. “I prefer Monsieur Robinson’s dance moves in a party scenario. Much more entertaining.”

Callie laughed.

“Are you sure?” Vanessa wheedled. “Please, please, pretty please—come?”

“Not tonight,” said Callie, her eyes flicking up to read the inscription above Dexter Gate.
Enter to Grow in Wisdom
. She remembered passing under it on her very first day of school, awed by the majestic beauty of the Yard.

“But you will be there when we return
pour la soirée pyjama, mais non
?” asked Mimi.

“Yes,” said Callie, “I’ll be home for the slumber party so Vanessa can cross another thing off her precious list.”

“The Birkin List is
our
list,” Vanessa insisted. “And I think we can all agree that it has made this last week—I mean, this
past
week,” she corrected herself with a sidelong look at Callie, “a lot more fun for…everyone.”

Callie nodded. She wanted to tell them all how much the week had meant to her—and how grateful she was to have had them in her lives as roommates, however briefly—but a lump had formed in her throat.

“Remind me again why it’s called the Birkin List,” Dana asked while they trudged up the stairs in entryway C.

Vanessa sighed. “When I was little, I did not understand the concept of a ‘Bucket List.’ Even when I was older and saw a bucket for the first time—”

“Wait,” said Callie, stopping outside the door to C 24. “How old?”

“It still didn’t make any sense,” Vanessa continued, ignoring her. “What
did
make sense was the long waiting list at Barneys for the latest Hermes Birkin bag. I lusted after that bag for my entire freshman year of high school until I finally realized: why waste so much time waiting for just one bag while life is totally passing you by? There were so many other purses out there, yet here I was missing out on my best years to accessorize. And so I made a list of everything I wanted to do before I got the Birkin.”

“Ah,” said Dana. “Now, that makes perfect sense.”

“Was that—
sarcasm
?” Vanessa asked, whirling around to face Dana. “Is our little D-meister finally all grown up?”

“Don’t,” said Dana, smacking away the hands that were reaching out to pinch her cheeks.

“Fine,” said Vanessa, lowering her arms. “But still—I’m just
so
proud!”

“And but still just
so
annoying,” said Mimi, mimicking Vanessa’s tone.

Vanessa made a face.

“Now would the other half of Team Best Ever at Baghole,” Mimi continued, “care to join me in my chambers? I will allow you to go into great detail regarding
la
length
inapproprié de mon formelle
dresses.”

“Okay,” Dana agreed. “If you’ll show me how to do that hair thing again, I will gladly help you pick an
appropriate
formal dress.”

“Deal,” said Mimi, grinning and offering Dana her arm.

Now alone with Callie in the common room, Vanessa turned to her. “Are you
sure
—”

“Yes,” Callie reassured her. “I need to stay and go over everything again from the beginning.

“I’ll be
fine
,” she added, wishing Vanessa would stop looking at her the way a new wife might when seeing her husband off to war. “Really. I’m sure I’ll think of something at the last minute….”

“Okay,” said Vanessa. “I’m going to go change, but we’ll all be back before midnight, and if you think of anything that you need between now and then, just call Brad—”

“Go!” Callie cried. “Change! Get ready! Seriously! It’s fine!”

“All right!” Vanessa disappeared into her bedroom.

Callie stayed in the common room for a few minutes, taking everything in. Finally, with a sigh, she returned to her own room to mull over, for the millionth time, the bulletin board.

Three hours had passed since everyone left, and during that time Callie had grown almost dizzy from pacing around the tiny stretch of floor by her bed. No answers had come; no revelations dawned; no epiphanies suddenly lit metaphorical lightbulbs above her head.

She stared at Matt’s list of “facts” about the Ivy Insider. But no matter how many times she read them, the pieces of the puzzle refused to come together. “Fact: I’m totally screwed,” she muttered aloud.

Absentmindedly she lifted the picture of Gregory from Harvard-Yale off her bookshelf. In the past week she had spent an embarrassing amount of time staring at it, and rereading his note—the
most incredible, inspired secret love letter of all time, in her humble opinion—handwritten on the pages of
Persuasion
.

How long did snail mail take these days, anyway? She couldn’t remember the last time that she had mailed or received an actual letter. And was he even still checking that post office box? Frowning, she flung herself backward onto her bed, still holding the photo.

Maybe he’d received her letter—and was on his way back right now! In a minute he’d pull up front in a taxi, wearing a tuxedo, and ask her—better late than never—to Freshman Formal. Then they’d stay up dancing all night—and spend the entire next day in bed.

She sighed. If only it were real, he might have even made her forget it was probably her last night at Harvard. In fact, being around him made her forget a lot of things—like that one time when she’d accidently caught him in nothing more than a towel on his way out of the shower and she had temporarily forgotten how to speak. Or that other time, right as he’d first kissed her on the balcony of their hotel in New Haven, when she’d have been hard-pressed to remember her own name.

Come back, she willed him, staring at his image. Please. “Come back,” she whispered.

A strange thwacking noise sounded against her window.

Callie shot straight up. What the—

There it was again: someone appeared to be throwing rocks.

Diving over her desk, Callie yanked up the shade just in time to see another pebble crack against the pane. She threw the window
open, stuck her head out into the cool night air, and looked down.

“
Calleeeee!
”

“Clint?” she screamed back, ready to kill him for having just become literally the biggest disappointment of her entire life. “What the hell are you doing here?”