Scandal

by Lauren Kunze

  “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.

  “To this day, I still don’t know if the bitterness that I had come to feel played a part in what happened next. I continue to think that I never intended to ‘sabotage’ her, as she put it—but maybe, subconsciously, on some level…”

  Grace stared off into the distance, her typically tough exterior seeming to melt away.

  “What happened?” Callie finally dared to whisper, perching precariously on the edge of her seat.

  “Our final portfolios were due on a Saturday at eight o’clock in the morning, sharp. The Friday before, we were holed up in our room finishing our final edits. Then Lexi’s phone rang. It was the Pudding. They demanded her immediate presence at a top secret location somewhere in the Yard—she wouldn’t tell me where—presumably so they could perform an initiation ritual.”

  The John Harvard statue, thought Callie, remembering the night during her first semester when she had received a similar summons.

  “Lexi could barely contain her excitement as she changed out of her sweatpants and into the sort of outfit she seemed to be wearing more and more those days. While she rushed to get ready, she said something along the lines of, ‘If I’m not back in time, would you?’ and then gestured at her computer.

  “She was already halfway out the door when I called to her, saying that surely she’d be back in a few hours. She laughed and said there was no telling how late she and Clint might be celebrating. Then she was gone. Off to get drunk and make out with her boyfriend while I stayed home seeing both us of through to the end.

  “I sat down in front of her computer, determined that one quick proofread would be the last favor I ever did for her. Except, as I realized when I started, it wasn’t going to be a quick final review: her latest articles still needed hours and hours of editing!

  “Something inside me snapped. I stopped reading and hit Print. For the rest of the night I lay awake, half expecting her to come home and salvage her pieces before the deadline—but she never did. I waited and waited until, at seven fifty-seven the next morning—I remember because I was staring at the clock, watching it tick—I grabbed both of our portfolios, and I left.

  “In between Pudding parties and spending the night at Clint’s, Lexi barely noticed my frosty demeanor over the following weeks. Competing for the same spot had made things awkward, and she suddenly had a new set of friends—friends more like her high school clique, friends who all came from New York or Connecticut and dressed up for dinner in the dining hall. But when we were both at home in the room, we did still hang out. And that’s exactly what we were doing two weeks later when we heard the thunk of somebody depositing two large manila folders into the metal drop-box on our front door.

  “Lexi raced to grab them but then lingered, alone for several minutes in the hall. When she finally came back, I knew immediately what had happened. She threw my portfolio to the floor and then shoved hers, which contained the unedited pieces, in front of my face. ‘How do you explain this?’ she demanded, to which I replied that I didn’t have to explain anything since her portfolio had been her responsibility.”

  Grace sighed heavily. “Things got even uglier after that. She yelled a lot about how I had sabotaged her and ruined her future, and I’m sure I said plenty of nasty things, too. In the end she demanded that I ‘make things right’ by resigning from the paper and giving her my spot.”

  “What’d you do?” asked Callie, realizing her tea had gone cold and setting down her cup.

  “I refused, of course,” said Grace. “And that’s when she threatened…to out me—to the entire school—if I didn’t do it.”

  Callie sucked in her breath. “Wow,” she muttered, shaking her head. “Just…wow. The sex tape situation was bad, but that is just a whole new level of low.”

  Grace nodded. “I wish I could say that I told her to go ahead and, while she was at it, to go fuck herself, but instead…”

  “No,” Callie whispered.

  “I’m afraid so,” said Grace. “I went to our COMP director and told him I thought that Lexi rightfully deserved my spot.”

  “And what did he say?”

  “He laughed and told me that I was crazy and that even if I quit, they wouldn’t accept Lexi in my place. As a senior, he knew a thing or two about roommate troubles and tried to give me some advice that I wasn’t really in the proper frame of mind to hear. All I could think about was that my secret would soon be revealed and that there was nothing I could do to stop it.”

  “Jeez,” said Callie, dragging her hands down her face. “That’s some seriously messed up stuff.”

  “I know,” Grace agreed. “But she never did go through with it. She’s a terrible person—and has only gotten worse over the years—but back then I guess there were still some lines that even she wouldn’t cross. She did, however, tell the administration that I had created a ‘hostile living environment’ by hitting on her, and who knows what else. That’s how she managed to transfer to another room. And then, after that, she told everyone who would listen that I had ‘sabotaged’ her at the Crimson and ‘stolen’ her spot.

  “A few weeks later when she started COMPing FM, her story changed slightly: she had never really wanted to belong to the paper, since the magazine was ‘obviously so much cooler’ and way more her ‘style.’ But she did continue to stick to the overall I-stole-her-life theme, accusing me of kleptomania regarding her shoes, her clothes, her boyfriend—ironic, yes, I know. But I didn’t dare refute her for fear that she still might tell everyone I was gay. And so for the next year I lived with the rumors, which had spread through the Crimson and my dorm. Fortunately, as soon as the other editors came to know me, they showed me nothing but respect. And eventually everyone else moved on to more interesting scandals and forgot all about it, too.”

  “Everyone except Lexi,” Callie pointed out.

  “I don’t know,” said Grace. “I used to think she was content with running the magazine. She’s the perfect fit for FM, and everyone seems to love—or loves to hate—her column. But if she did orchestrate this entire Insider business for the purpose of having me demoted and you expelled, then it’s probably safe to say that she never got over it.”

  Callie drank her cold tea while Grace sipped her coffee, letting it all sink in. Grace’s story seemed like further evidence that Lexi was—and absolutely had to be—the Insider. Then again, the day planner Xeroxes that Callie carried in her bag indicated otherwise.

  “Before I forget,” said Callie. “One of the reasons I asked you to meet me here today was to show you these.” Pulling out the day planner pages, she handed them to Grace.

  “Andrews,” said Grace, staring at the documents, “how the hell did you get these?”

  Callie coughed. “Uh, let’s just say that there was more than one item of misinformation in Alessandra’s article,” she started. “You see, I—”

  “Not another word,” Grace silenced her. “I’ve got enough problems as it is,” she muttered, scanning the pages.

  “So…what do you think?” Callie asked Grace after a few minutes had passed.

  “I think,” said Grace, handing the Xeroxes back to Callie, “that this is very bad news.”

  “What!” said Callie. “Why?”

  “She appears to have a solid alibi on more than one occasion.”

  “She appears to,” Callie conceded, “but just because she wrote an appointment down doesn’t mean that she actually attended or—”

  Grace was shaking her head. “There’s something else that you should know. It didn’t seem relevant earlier, but now…”

  “What?” Callie demanded. “Tell me!”

  Grace sighed. “There was a fifth Ivy Insider article. Well, really, it would have been the third if I had appr
oved its publication.”

  “What?” Callie repeated. “When? Why didn’t you—”

  “Slow down, Andrews,” said Grace. “And I will explain.” Her voice had nearly gone hoarse from all the talking. She sipped her coffee and then said, “I was at home working late one night, a Saturday, I believe, last March, when a FlyBy submission notification popped up in my in-box. Curious, I logged on to FlyBy to review the article. One of the first things I noticed was the byline: it was signed by ‘the Ivy Insider.’ But as I continued reading, several things struck me as odd. It seemed unusual that anyone would be posting from the Crimson offices so late at night—I think it was after eleven, maybe even eleven thirty? And, even stranger, the event described was still taking place at the time that the article had been submitted for publication.”

  “What event?” asked Callie.

  “That Gatsby party at the Fly,” said Grace. “I knew it was that Saturday because I’d overheard you and Robinson discussing your weekend plans earlier—when you were supposed to be working.” Grace grinned at Callie’s sheepish expression. Clearly you could take the girl out of the managing editor’s office, but you couldn’t take the managing editor out of the girl.

  “Saturday, did you say?” asked Callie. “That was March fifth. I remember because I saved the invitation….” And then threw it away, in a rage, right before spring break. “What’s weird about that? I mean, it wasn’t a Pudding party, but Gatsby still seems like the sort of event that the Insider would love to cover.”

  Looking impatient, Grace shook her head. “How could the Insider write about the events of a party that wasn’t even over yet and claim to have attended, while simultaneously typing and submitting the article from the offices of the Crimson?”

  “Huh?”

  “Do you know anyone who can be in two places at once, Andrews?”

  “Ohhh.” Callie nodded. “I see your point.”

  “Let’s not forget that at the time I still believed that you were behind the articles and figured that you could not manage to be at the Crimson while also attending the party. So I concluded that we had a copycat on our hands. Some COMPer, most likely, who saw all the attention the Insider was getting on FlyBy and wanted a taste of the action, so he or she fabricated the details of one of campus’s most historically exclusive events. And, other lapses in judgment aside, I wasn’t about to approve a news story that I had strong reason to suspect was a complete work of fiction.”