Scandal

by Lauren Kunze

  Matt guffawed.

  Shaking her head, Callie lowered her voice to a whisper. “Would you two mind…?”

  “Of course not,” Vanessa reassured her.

  Callie gazed at the bulletin board, still resting on her bed. “Shouldn’t I—?”

  “No,” said Matt. “Go,” he added. “Seriously. We’ve got this.”

  Reluctantly Callie backed out of her bedroom, dragging the door shut behind her. Trying not to think about what messes might await her when she returned if Matt and Vanessa got into another argument, Callie hurried across the common area. “Bye!” she called to Dana, and to OK, who had settled onto the couch to ostensibly not wait for Mimi.

  “Bye!” they replied.

  Out in the hall she found herself face to face with the gold letters C 23 that marked the entry to the opposite suite. Home to OK, Matt, Adam, and…him.

  She knew she should be sprinting to make the final few minutes of Literary Theory. After all, the last thing she needed while facing impending expulsion was a sudden dip in GPA. And yet something behind that door seemed to be beckoning her, a clue to the other mystery that kept her up at night; distracting her when she should have been single-mindedly obsessed with discovering the identity of the Insider…

  Gregory’s disappearance.

  It had been three days, and as far she could gather, no one had heard a word from him. Newspapers and gossip columns, however, could seem to speculate about nothing else apart from the scandal surrounding his father’s declaration of personal bankruptcy.

  However, while each new article offered another set of explanations, none could give Callie the answers that she wanted. When would he return to school? Or, at the very least, decide to break the silence?

  (After going straight to voice mail for two days, his phone line had been disconnected. His Facebook and Twitter accounts: deactivated. And e-mails bounced back from his Harvard address with an automated reply about his inability to communicate with anyone from school at the moment, particularly via e-mail or cell, signed by the family’s attorney. Callie knew all of this because she had exhausted every possible avenue of contact. She didn’t even care about their “relationship status”—Friends? It’s Complicated? In a Relationship?—anymore. Okay, fine, she cared a little; but mostly she just wanted to know that he was all right.)

  Slowly she poked her head inside C 23. “Hellooo…Anybody home?”

  Silence.

  Every single door off the common space stood open, and every adjoining area empty, save for the door to Gregory’s bedroom, which was closed.

  Callie’s heart thrummed in her chest. Was it possible that he’d returned? That he was inside, unpacking, after a brief trip home to Manhattan? Or had he gone somewhere else entirely? He could be anywhere right now, it occurred to her—though without any working credit cards his options were probably, for the first time in his life, rather limited.

  The doorknob felt cool in her hand. Hesitating, she looked over her shoulder. Then she pushed open his bedroom door.

  She’d been inside, briefly, only three days ago, struggling to process what OK meant by “gone” while Alessandra Constantine, her face stained with tears, explained that Gregory had left school.

  He was supposed to leave you, Callie thought, catching sight of a small framed photo of Alessandra on one corner of his desk. The frustratingly gorgeous sophomore who’d transferred to Harvard at the beginning of the semester had been involved with Gregory since New Year’s.

  Callie smiled suddenly, noticing two ticket stubs for a Puerto Rican ferry ride also resting on his desk. They were dated for the final day of spring break: when Gregory and Callie had gotten stranded on the tiny coastal island of Vieques, forced to wash dishes at a local restaurant until they’d scraped together just enough for two ferry tickets back to the mainland.

  The water had seemed so blue that afternoon, and the air so fresh, that even though it had only happened a few days ago, it was starting to feel like part of a distant dream. Had Callie only imagined the moment when he’d finally confessed his feelings for her? And when their lips had come so close to touching that her entire body had ached with agony when he insisted they wait until after he ended things with Alessandra?

  No, she decided, shaking her head. As her mother and father frequently liked to remind her, she had an extremely active imagination, but even she was not creative enough, she decided, to invent the way his eyes had looked that day, the same color as the ocean, or how his dark brown hair had ruffled in the wind, or—

  Dammit.

  Spinning around in her reverie, she had spotted a tube of red lipstick on his dresser. It had to belong to Alessandra. Who, as far as everyone else seemed to be concerned, was still Gregory’s girlfriend.

  Callie heaved a sigh, turning back slowly even though she had no idea what she was looking for. On Monday his room had borne all the signs of his hurried departure. But someone had shut the dresser drawers and otherwise tidied up since then—probably OK, judging from the way the bed had been made (as if by someone who’d only ever had a manservant make it for him).

  Today the room still appeared inhabited. There were dirty T-shirts in his laundry basket, the perforated metal trash can was full to the brim, and even an unfinished economics assignment was spread across the desk. Sinking into the desk chair, Callie touched the spot where he had scrawled his name onto the upper right-hand corner of the problem set, probably long since overdue. On his nightstand he’d left a nearly empty pack of cigarettes and a crimson-colored sweatband imprinted with a large white H, which he wore during squash games. She breathed in deeply, certain now that she was imagining the faintest scents of smoke and sweat and that other indescribable smell that seemed to materialize whenever he was near.

  She could barely stand the sight of the bookshelf, its contents overlapping so much with her own, so instead she found her eyes falling back toward the trash can. Some tissues that seemed to have been used to blot red lipstick partially obscured several old copies of the Crimson and what looked like might be, at the very bottom of all the debris, a printout of an old Ivy Insider installment.

  Recoiling in the chair, Callie closed her eyes.

  But there was no escaping it: what was the use in obsessing about Gregory and wondering when—or if—he would return, when she might not even be there after her hearing in May?

  She knew she should feel grateful that the Ad Board had granted her almost a month to build her case while they assembled a special Student-Faculty Judicial Board to thoroughly review the “facts,” but part of her just wanted to hurry up and get it over with—

  “What,” a low alto said sharply from the doorway, “do you think you’re doing?”

  “Alessandra!” Callie cried, springing from Gregory’s chair. “I didn’t hear you come in.”

  “What are you doing in here?” the older girl demanded. Alessandra Constantine: rumored, and justifiably so, to have turned down a modeling contract back in LA before she transferred from USC.

  “Just…um…” Callie faltered. “What are you doing here?”

  “Picking up a few of my things,” Alessandra explained icily, walking into the room.

  Because…you broke up? But wait—wouldn’t that mean—that of all the people he could have contacted first—he chose Alessandra? Callie clamped her lips together, feeling her mind whir into high-danger-of-accidentally-blurting-things-out-loud overdrive.

  Alessandra bent down near Gregory’s bed, giving Callie a front row seat to her irritatingly traffic-stopping cleavage. “And you are in here why, exactly?” Alessandra repeated for the third time, reaching under the bed.

  “Oh,” Callie mumbled. “I—um—also needed—for the—picking up—of some things….”

  “What things?” Alessandra straightened, holding a pair of red panties and looking murderous.

  “Wha—ah—no!” Callie cried. Her cheeks burned. According to Gregory, Alessandra had learned the truth about what had happened bet
ween him and Callie last November: how they had spent the night together after the Harvard-Yale football game. A few months ago Callie had allowed Alessandra to believe, by omission, that the “hookup” had occurred at the very beginning of freshman year. No wonder the older girl didn’t trust her.

  “I just came to pick up…a book! That I lent him…a long time ago,” Callie declared, her eyes darting to the lowest shelf where her borrowed Justice Reader from last semester might still be lurking among his other textbooks. “But, um, I don’t really need it right now, anyway, so I should probably—” Callie stammered, watching Alessandra yank open one of Gregory’s dresser drawers and pull out some highly complex-looking, fire engine red lingerie to match the panties. Callie gulped. “Go.”

  Alessandra smirked. “Yes,” she said, “I think it is best that you leave now and that in the future you stay away from my boyfriend’s bedroom.”

  “Boyfriend?” Callie blurted before she could stop herself. “Um…still?”

  “Why—did he say something to you?”

  “I—haven’t heard from him since he left,” Callie said carefully. “Have you?”

  Alessandra frowned. “I don’t see how that’s any of your business.”

  Callie stared at the wall. Regardless of whether it was her business, it certainly wasn’t her place to break up with Alessandra on Gregory’s behalf based on his confession on the boat. Besides, what if, given everything going on with his dad, he had suddenly changed his mind?

  “You’re right,” Callie conceded finally. “It isn’t any of my business.”

  “Good,” said Alessandra. “Then we agree.” Smiling, she removed the lingerie from where she had tucked it in her bag. “You know on second thought,” she said, reopening Gregory’s dresser drawer, “I think I’ll leave this here. And I would ask you,” she went on, turning to Callie, “to leave my boyfriend alone.”

  “Uh…” Callie faltered. Did she have a choice, given that he currently appeared cut off from all modes of communication?

  “I’d hate to find out that it’s true what some of the other Pudding girls say,” Alessandra pressed on, “about how you’re a serial boyfriend stealer who slept her way into the club.”

  Callie flinched. Since when had the sultry but sweet sex bomb formerly known as Alessandra turned into such a, well—pardon the French—Thorndike?

  “Sorry,” Alessandra muttered, seeing the look on Callie’s face.

  “No,” said Callie. “I’m sorry. I’m sorry that you heard a nasty rumor about me, and I’m sorry that you chose to repeat it. But that’s not the only thing I’m sorry about.” Swallowing, she took another step toward Alessandra. “I’m sorry that I wasn’t completely honest with you when you asked me directly about my history with Gregory. You haven’t treated me like anything other than a friend since you got here—well, minus the past few weeks—and I have not done the same for you. So I apologize. Especially because I can’t change the fact…that we both have feelings for the same guy.”

  Callie held her breath. Alessandra seemed to shrink slightly before her eyes, appearing suddenly younger somehow, and not just because she no longer held the lingerie in her hands.

  “I…thank you,” the older girl said finally. “I appreciate your honesty. I also would have appreciated hearing it from you—or him—earlier instead of finding out when I went through his phone.”

  “His phone?” Callie repeated, remembering that day in the library when Gregory had brought her lunch and asked her advice, as a friend, about what to do regarding Alessandra’s trust issues, citing unsent texts she’d discovered addressed to another girl.

  Was I that other girl? Callie wondered.

  Alessandra shook her dark, wild curls out of her face. “It’s not important. But so long as we are getting everything out in the open now…I have to ask: when you two were stranded on the island, did you—um—did he—I mean, did you and him…hook up?”

  “No,” said Callie. Hard as it had been to resist, she wouldn’t trade a single kiss for the moment when he’d said, “I feel the same way,” his fingers brushing across her shoulder, warm like sunlight. It was like every muscle in her body had tensed and relaxed at the same time, flooding her with simultaneous feelings of exhilaration and relief, of security and anticipation. “He made it clear that he would never…cheat on you,” she added.

  Alessandra grimaced, roused from what seemed like her own faraway memory. “You know, before I—came to Harvard, I never had much luck with men. I was what you might call ‘a late bloomer.’”

  “Why do I find that so hard to believe?” said Callie, taking in Alessandra’s chocolatey brown eyes, her full luscious lips, and worthy-of-the-Victoria’s-Secret-fashion-show-runway body.

  “Believe what you want,” Alessandra muttered, “but it’s true. Before I met Gregory—Well, let’s just say, I was a completely different person back then. I never knew what it could feel like to just…fit in. Or to fall in love.”

  Callie shuffled her feet, glancing at her dirty Converse.

  “I do love him,” said Alessandra in a tone that compelled Callie to look her in the eyes. “I didn’t expect to…but I do. And so do you,” Alessandra added softly.

  Grimly Callie nodded. Since there was really nothing left to say, she began to retreat out of the room.

  “Hey,” Alessandra called suddenly. “Is this it?”

  “Huh?” said Callie, turning.

  “Your book,” said Alessandra, picking up the volume that stood atop Gregory’s bookshelf. “The one that you lent him?”

  Callie’s heart skipped. She had no idea how she had missed it earlier, for now the book was instantly recognizable. Battered and worn, it was Gregory’s copy of Jane Austen’s Persuasion. They had read it together in the New Haven hospital while waiting for Mimi to recover. Right before the first—and only—time they’d given in to their feelings that they had, up until spring break, been otherwise too cowardly to admit having.

  A Post-it note was affixed to the cover.

  “‘Callie,’” Alessandra read slowly. “‘My apologies for the delay.’ Huh?” She frowned. “What delay?”

  Callie shrugged and reached for the book. Just as she knew full well that the book did not belong to her—as Alessandra seemed to think—so she was certain that Gregory had concealed a secret note within its pages.

  Reluctantly Alessandra handed it over.

  “Well,” said Callie, nearly tripping as she stumbled into the common room, “guess I’ll see you around!”

  “Yeah,” Alessandra started to call after her. “See you—”

  But Callie didn’t hear the rest, slamming the door to C 23 shut behind her.

  Out in the hall Callie could restrain herself no longer. Opening the book, she flipped through its pages. Then, frowning, she turned it upside and shook.

  Nothing.

  Maybe she’d been mistaken to believe there’d be a note. After all, their track record with notes wasn’t so good, if the massive mix-up after Harvard-Yale—when a note from Callie to Vanessa had ended up in Gregory’s hands and been woefully misinterpreted—was any indication.

  Groaning, Callie thumbed through the pages a final time. While there was plenty of marginalia wherein Gregory had recorded his thoughts on the text, no slip of paper confessing his undying love or explaining everything fluttered to the floor.

  Shutting the book, she reexamined the Post-it. My apologies for the delay, she reread, over and over until the words lost all meaning. Sighing, she opened the door to C 24. She’d been waiting—if she was honest with herself—for the entire year; what was a little more time? “And now on to more pressing issues,” she muttered aloud, walking across the common room.

  Matt and Vanessa had successfully erected the bulletin board in Callie’s absence, complete with pictures and items cut from the list of “People Who Hate Me” tacked beneath them. If only Vanessa hadn’t decimated the yellow legal pad in the process, Callie thought ruefully, they could have
added Alessandra to the list.

  “Did you make the end of class?” asked Matt.

  Callie shook her head.

  “Are you okay?” he asked. “What’s with the book?”

  Callie shook her head again. “It’s nothing,” she said, sticking it on her shelf.

  “Of course she’s not okay,” Vanessa said huffily. “Not while the asshole who is trying to frame her, ruin her life, and have her kicked out of the Hasty Pudding, and Harvard, and probably off the planet, too, is still out there plotting her imminent demise!”

  Callie raised an eyebrow at Vanessa as if to say, And that was supposed to make me feel better?

  “There, there,” said Vanessa. “I have something that might cheer you up,” she continued, snatching a large photograph of Alexis Thorndike and positioning it in the center of the bulletin board. Smiling, she handed Callie a thumbtack.

  Grimacing in return, Callie speared it through Lexi’s forehead.

  Matt shifted uncomfortably. “I still don’t think it’s wise to expend all of our energy—”

  “Oh, please,” Vanessa snapped. “She’s the only possible person who satisfies all of your criteria,” she said to Matt, pointing to the upper left-hand side of the board where several index cards bore his handwriting.

  FACT: The Ivy Insider had Callie’s username and password.

  FACT: The Ivy Insider had access to “inside” Pudding information=>is likely a veteran member of the Pudding.

  FACT: The Ivy Insider had access to the Crimson offices=>is likely a staff member or COMPer of the Crimson or FM.

  Callie stared at the list of “facts.” Vanessa was right. There was only one person on the board who was in the Pudding, was on FM, and was certainly devious enough to have somehow determined Callie’s password.

  Alexis Thorndike.

  A faint shadow fell across the photograph of Alexis as the sun started to sink behind the brick buildings and towering trees outside in Harvard Yard. Chestnut curls framed porcelain skin and a smile that—darkening in the wake of the setting sun—sent chills down Callie’s spine.