The Ivy (6 page)

“‘Purple Rain’!” Mimi shouted as she started dancing with someone else. . . .

“Look at Matt making the moves on Callie!” cried Vanessa.

“Wanna dance?” a random boy that nobody knew asked Dana.

“No! I want to go
home
!”

“But where
are
we?”

Five tequila, six tequila, seven tequila, more . . . eight tequila, nine tequila, ten tequila . . .

FLOOR.

Callie awoke the next morning with a raging hangover. Parched and sore, she rolled out of bed and stumbled into the common room, hoping to find water, extra strength Tylenol and—

Dana perched on the edge of the couch, sitting next to . . .

“Matt?” asked Callie, rubbing her eyes and wishing the room would cut it out with the spinning and sit still for a minute. “What are you—”

“Matt,” Dana said loudly, “spent last night
on our couch
because Gregory needed their double for . . . certain . . . unspeakable improprieties.”

Matt grinned. “Officially sexiled.”

“Great, good to know,” said Callie. “Hope he has better luck remembering her name this time,” she muttered as Dana handed her a cup of coffee.

“Thanks,” she added, noticing a cardboard tray with three more cups in it and realizing that Dana must have gotten up early to get them all coffee.

Suddenly Vanessa’s door opened, and a guy strolled out of her room, grinning. His expression had
senior
written all over it.

“Hi,” he said, looking at Callie in a way that made her wish she were wearing a bra under her tank top, and sweats instead of shorts. “I’m Je—”

“Jeremy was just leaving,” Vanessa said icily, emerging from her bedroom in a satin robe.

“Uh, actually, it’s Jeffrey.”

“Whatever. Bye now!”

“I’d better get going, too,” said Matt. The room’s estrogen count had just reached critical levels. “Thanks for the coffee, Dana.”

Callie perched on the windowsill and Vanessa settled onto the couch. As Dana approached her with a cup of coffee, she exclaimed, “Seniors! I cannot
believe
how sleazy they are. . . . Just because you want to make out and cuddle doesn’t mean that you also want to have sex!”

Dana’s hand froze in midair.

“All they want is sex, sex, sex!” Vanessa continued wickedly, right in Dana’s ear.

“Say sex again, Vanessa, I don’t think we heard you the first eight times,” said Callie, gripping her head in her hands.

“What?” asked Vanessa. “It’s not like I
did
it or anything. I was just saying that se—”

“No more!” Callie yelled, wincing at the volume of her own voice. “Uhhh . . . my head, my head . . .”

“Hey!” said Vanessa, changing the subject. “I wonder if Mimi’s up yet. Last night I saw her dancing with—”

The door to Mimi’s room opened with an audible creak, and she slipped out wearing a wrinkly man’s shirt, her hair wild with secrets from the night before. She took a few wobbly steps and then tripped over Vanessa’s high heels, which were lying abandoned in the middle of the floor.

“Whoopsie daisy!” Mimi cried, giggling insanely.

The door opened a little wider, and Charlie the Prefect tiptoed out from behind her.

“WHOOPSIE DAISY, indeed!” Vanessa squealed. Nodding, she gave Mimi an exaggerated thumbs-up.

Mimi imitated the gesture with a confused look on her face. Then, pointing at Charlie, she offered, “It’s okay to have some fun . . . just not
too
much fun.”

The girls save Dana, who was looking mortified, burst into hysterics. Callie was laughing so hard that she fell off the windowsill, and Vanessa dropped her coffee.

Naturally, this only made them laugh harder.

Charlie, his face beet red, raced out of the room, mumbling “Er . . . see you girls next week; take care.”

“Wow,” said Callie, starting to calm down. “Somehow I do not think that was part of his job description.”

“So tell us,” Vanessa demanded, “does he give good advice?”

“Excellent,” said Mimi. Dana, who had been heading toward the spill with paper towels in hand, stood transfixed—trying, perhaps, to work out if “advice” meant what she thought it did.

A phone started ringing from somewhere in Callie’s bedroom. “I’ll be right back,” she said.

“Not so fast, missy!” Vanessa cried. “What was Matt doing here this morning? A little rebound action, perhaps?

“No . . . no rebound action for me.”

“Uh-huh, sure,” Vanessa said.

But Callie wasn’t listening. Making her way toward her room, she wondered if Evan, having finally come to his senses, was calling to ask her back. Two days ago the answer probably would have been yes, but now she was looking forward to saying no. Or maybe she would write him an e-mail.

Sinking onto her bed, she flipped open her phone, smiling at the name on the caller ID.

“Yes, Evan?” she asked in her best Make-it-quick-’cause-I-really-don’t-have-time-for-you voice.

She was quiet for a moment.

“Well, it must be
really
important if it necessitated an actual
phone call
. What happened? Is your computer broken, or did you realize that—”

Abruptly she stopped talking. A minute passed, then two, and then her hands started to tremble. Blankly she stared at the wall, the color draining from her face.

“How . . . how is that possible?” she whispered. “Why—
why the hell—
WHY would you DO THAT?”

A pause. “What do you mean ‘what I didn’t know couldn’t hurt me?’

“You’re SORRY?” she roared, leaping off her bed. “When—how—why?” she sputtered. She paused, trying to breathe. “When,” she finally decided. “
When
did this happen?”

Silence for a moment, then: “SENIOR WEEK? But who . . .” Eyes widening, she sank back onto her bed. “Who else knows?” she whispered.

She sat still, listening, her free hand clenching and unclenching the soft covers on her bed.

“You have to fix this,” she finally muttered.

“No, that’s not good enough. You have to take care of it
right now
.”

Her breaths were coming in short, quick gasps. She tried to breathe deeply, ignoring the sound of more futile apologies that were leaking out of her phone. It was no use. Leaning over, she stuck her head between her knees. “I have to go. . . .” she whispered, clicking End Call. Her phone slipped out of her hands and fell onto the floor. Head still hanging upside down, she stared at the phone out of the corner of her eye.

Numbly she reached for it. Then she stood. Walking over to her dresser, she opened the top drawer and shoved the phone as far back as possible behind her oldest, holiest socks. Like from there it could no longer hurt her. Ridiculous, since the damage had already been done.

Returning to her bed, she thought of confiding in someone: Jessica or even her mom. . . . But it was too awful to put into words. Closing her eyes, she tried to think of a three-digit number to factor into primes. But the numbers wouldn’t come. Her mind kept clouding over with horrible images until eventually, no matter how tightly she squeezed her eyelids, the tears began to flow.

Chapter Four
Shopping Period

“I
T’S
N
OT ABOUT THE
C
LASSES
: I
T’S ABOUT THE
C
LOTHES
!”

M
att stared at Callie, watching her tug at her hair. She had
The Q Guide
in one hand and the
Courses of Instruction
in the other, which she would read with deep concentration for a moment before pausing to scribble some notes.

“Thanks so much for coming over, Matt,” she said, glancing up and smiling while he tried to look like he’d been concentrating on his class hunt.

“I’ve just been freaking out about this whole class thing!” she exclaimed, painfully aware that she had much bigger things to be freaking out about . . . much, much bigger.

“I have
no idea
what I want to study,” she continued, determined to stay calm and pretend that everything was fine. As long as Evan keeps his word, nobody at Harvard will ever find out.

“Worst of all, I’m the only one who hasn’t figured it out yet! Vanessa and Dana already declared their majors and Mimi’s just going to ‘go with the flow’ and ‘try not to flunk out’!”

Hearing her name, Dana looked up from the
Introduction to Neuroscience
textbook she’d been poring over. The three of them were seated around the coffee table in the common room. Mimi was in her bedroom—probably taking a nap—and Vanessa, who subscribed to a far more literal interpretation of the term
Shopping Period
, had gone to Newbury Street to peruse the high-end, designer merchandise.

“It’s not about the
classes
, Cal,” she’d explained patiently. “It’s about the
clothes
!” Still, Callie had elected to stay home. While it was fine for Vanessa, future art history major, to spend the day shopping, Callie had only enrolled in one class—Harvard’s mandatory writing seminar—and still had three more to choose.

Flipping through the art history section, Callie wondered what people learned in classes like Buddhist Art in One Cave, Casts, Construction and Commemoration, or a mysterious-sounding course called simply The Thing. To Callie, these titles sounded fascinating and exotic, infinitely exciting—especially compared to high school. But, oddly enough, when she and Vanessa had been flipping through the guide the night before, Vanessa hadn’t even
looked
at the list. Instead, she couldn’t tear herself away from the psychology section, reading out class descriptions until Callie finally interrupted and asked, “Why don’t you just do psych?”

“Mmm.” Vanessa had shrugged, tearing her eyes away from the description of Developmental Psychopathology. “It’s just not for me.”

“Why not?” Callie said. “You seem excited about some of those classes. . . .”

“Well, my mom and I already decided on History of Art and Architecture, so . . .” Vanessa looked completely miserable. The conversation had ended there.

“So, Dana, I take it you’re doing neuroscience?” Matt asked, smiling at Dana, who was still reading her textbook intently.

“Neurobiology, premed,” she replied, looking up quickly. She gave Matt a rare smile: the kind she reserved for men she found surprisingly bearable. This category included his roommate Adam, who, in her opinion, was aptly named after God’s original creation.

True, they hadn’t exchanged more than a few complete sentences (what can one possibly say to a boy one finds exceptionally bearable?), but he had smiled while he held the door to C 24 for her after walking her home from church last Sunday morning. If only she hadn’t frowned and walked away when he’d said hello in the hall yesterday afternoon.

Dana returned to her book. At the moment studying was priority. In addition to Introduction to Neuroscience she was also taking Life Sciences 1a, Physics 15, and Math 55—the leviathan of math classes that inspired more suicides than Black Tuesday back in ’29. She’d picked these classes ahead of time, purchased the textbooks in advance, and studied throughout the summer, determined not to fall behind before things even got started.

Out of the corner of her eye Dana noticed the way that Matt was looking at Callie and frowned. According to Maxwell’s law of attraction, the prettier you are, the dumber you’re supposed to be. Yet there was Callie, a direct, unfair violation to the fundamental order of the universe. (Dana also fully understood Maxwell’s
real
paper about gravitational forces, “On a Paradox in the Theory of Attraction—something in which she took pride.)

Shaking her head, Dana returned to her reading once more. Learning about a neuron’s action potential was the only
action
she needed to get during college, thank you very much.

“So, Matt,” said Callie, “what do you think you’re going to take?”

“Uhm . . . I’m still not really sure. . . .” he began, though Callie thought he had picked all four of his classes yesterday. Squinting, he tried to read her list of potential courses from upside down. “I was considering Social Analysis 10. Even though it’s a full year, that stuff should be pretty useful. You know, economy stuff.”

“Social Analysis . . .” she said, looking down. “That’s right at the top of my list! We should take it together. It’d be so nice to have a friend in class.”

Matt frowned when she said the word
friend
. “Sure, and, you know, maybe one day after class we could go grab dinner. . . .” he began, his insides starting to vibrate at the very thought—

Actually it was his cell phone, ringing in his pocket.

“Hello?”

“Matty!” his mom’s voice boomed into his ear. “Matty, are you there? I haven’t heard from you in three days—I was starting to worry!”

Blushing, Matt jabbed at the volume button on his cell phone.
“It’s my mom,”
he mouthed at Callie, making his way to the other side of the room.

“Yeah, Mom, yeah . . . No, Mom, I’m
fine
, honest. . . . Yes, nothing to worry about . . . The dance?” he asked, shooting a sidelong glance at Callie. “It was all right. . . . No, nothing too crazy, just some binge drinking and bad decisions . . . NO, Mom,
no
, I was just
kidding
. . . .”

He was silent for a while before he began again: “Mom, it’s great talking to you, but I really have to go. . . . I’m busy right now trying to pick my classes. No, Mom, I just really gotta go now. . . .
Yes
, I promise to call you tomorrow. . . .
Every day
. . . All right . . . What? No, I didn’t get your care package. . . . Well, yes, I
got
it. I just haven’t opened it yet. . . . Now? Really? Okay, okay, I have it in my bag. . . . Yeah . . . Thanks. . . . Bye . . . Love you, too. . . .”

Exhausted, he hung up, sinking back onto the futon with a sigh. “My mom, she worries. . . .” he said, reaching into his backpack and pulling out a small brown package. “She wanted to make sure I opened this; it’s probably something perishable like homemade cookies. . . .”

His face plummeted like a skydiver without a parachute as he opened the box to find not cookies but an array of colorful, assorted condoms. T
ROJAN
, E
XTRA
L
ARGE
, L
UBRICATED
, S
TUDDED
, U
LTRA
T
HIN
, S
PERMICIDAL
, S
HEEPSKIN’

He slammed the lid back down but not before Callie saw and started to giggle uncontrollably. Oblivious and exasperated, Dana grabbed her book and stalked off to her bedroom.

“
Wow
,” Callie teased, unable to resist, “your mom must have a lot of . . .
confidence
in your . . . abilities.”

“Yeah,” Matt muttered. “I mean no!” he cried as Callie tried to grab one of the condoms and he noticed the E
XTRA LARGE
label displayed prominently on the front. “I mean, no I don’t mean no. I just meant—”

“I should go finish this up. . . .” he said, standing and waving some papers vaguely. He began backing out of the room.

“Okay,” Callie said, still laughing. She reached for her
Courses of Instruction
. “Thanks so much for coming over; it was seriously helpful.”

She smiled in a way that would have made his face turn bright red if he hadn’t already been blushing at full capacity. “Listen,” he blurted in a final, desperate attempt, “let me know what you decide about Ec 10. It’s at two
P.M.
on Tuesdays and Thursdays, so we could, like, do a lunch date before or something. . . .”

“Yeah! Sounds great,” Callie replied, but she had already picked up
The Q Guide
and started skimming through its pages.

Matt opened the door to the hallway, and the room swelled with the sound of high-pitched giggles. Callie’s head snapped back up just in time to see Gregory escorting yet another “BU Bottle Blonde” (nickname courtesy of Vanessa) toward his room.

Bending over her book, Callie tried to pretend she wasn’t watching as Gregory paused, staring down into Matt’s care package. His face lit up. He dipped his hand into the box and removed a fistful of condoms.

“Please tell Mrs. Robinson I said thank you.” He chuckled. As he held the door open for the girl, he turned toward Callie and, unmistakably, he winked.

Callie accidentally tore a page in
The Q Guide
as she flipped it violently, the sound of squeals and shrieks fading as the door to C 24 swung shut.

A minute later Vanessa burst into the common room, her arms laden with shopping bags. Callie kept her head down, hoping that Vanessa would take the hint.

“Are you
still
agonizing over your classes, Cal? Seriously? It’s freshman year, it doesn’t even count! Now is the time to be experimental, to focus on the more important things in life. ”

Callie made a point of turning the pages of
The Q Guide
as obviously as possible, skipping over Ethnic and European Studies to examine Government.

“Anyway, you can stop worrying because I already picked your classes for you. We’re taking Justice: Mondays and Wednesdays at one.”

“What?” said Callie sharply. “What field is that even in?”

“Moral Reasoning, meaning it’ll count no matter what you end up studying. Plus, it’s way famous! I heard that sometimes fifteen hundred people enroll and they have to hold a lottery to see who gets in! And the professor, Michael Sandal, is like this crazy Communist who inspired that character Mr. Burns from
The Simpsons
!”