Scandal

by Lauren Kunze

  “But now,” Callie started, connecting the dots, “you think that the article might have been authentic?”

  Grace furrowed her brow. “It’s possible. But that would just be further evidence that Alexis is not involved…unless there’s any chance that she was not at the party that night?”

  “Oh, she was at the party,” Callie said darkly.

  “Well, if the article was authentic, then the Insider definitely wasn’t there,” said Grace, “and he or she must have made up all the details about the party.”

  “I don’t know,” said Callie, feeling hopelessly confused. “All the other installments were disturbingly true. I mean, the Insider knew things that only a real—well, insider would know! Maybe whoever it is found a way to leave the party early?”

  “Maybe,” said Grace. “Did you notice anyone leave sometime around eleven?”

  “Uh,” said Callie, “I probably left around that time, with my roommate Vanessa. I was not having…a lot of fun.”

  “Well, your roommate can’t have been behind it, could she?” said Grace. “She didn’t have access to the Crimson offices.”

  “Two days ago I would have agreed,” said Callie. “But today…” She gestured down at Alessandra’s article detailing the break-in. “Who knows who might have been able to get their hands on a set of keys?” Swallowing, she pictured Mimi and her large silver key ring.

  “I don’t know, Andrews,” said Grace. “It seems highly unlikely that the Insider wasn’t at least COMPing the Crimson, if not already a member of the staff and possibly the Pudding, too. If that isn’t the case, then—”

  “Then everyone’s a suspect and it’s highly unlikely that I’ll ever figure out who the hell did it!” Callie finished. “Gah!” she groaned, burying her forehead in her hands. “Shit, shit, shit!”

  Grace said nothing, allowing her a moment to freak out in peace, for which Callie felt grateful. That is until Grace murmured, “Hmm. Don’t look now, but—”

  “What?” said Callie, immediately turning. “Oh. Fuuuck.”

  Clint had just traversed the intersections of Bow and Arrow Streets, making his way toward them with what looked like two containers of frozen yogurt from BerryLine.

  “Could this day get any worse?” Callie said, turning back to Grace. “Quick, hide me!”

  If it’d been Vanessa sitting there, she would’ve thrown Callie the paper and then set about creating a diversion. Grace, however, merely raised an eyebrow as if to say, Seriously?

  Callie grabbed the strap of her bag, eyeing the door that led inside the coffee shop, but before she could get up—it was too late.

  “Hi there,” said Clint, stopping and pretending to be—as he had successfully done for so long—a gentleman.

  “Grrhi,” Callie muttered, letting the strap fall to the ground.

  Grace nodded curtly.

  “So,” said Clint, lingering on the sidewalk near their table, “how’s it going?”

  “Uh…fine?” The cup in Clint’s left hand was filled with plain frozen yogurt topped with strawberries and gummy bears. Callie had hand delivered enough frozen yogurt back in the good old days (of being blackmailed) to know who it was for.

  Alexis Thorndike.

  Callie craned her neck, squinting at the Crimson offices, but didn’t see Lexi anywhere.

  “So I heard the strangest rumor,” Clint was saying.

  “What?” Callie’s head snapped back to attention.

  “Apparently, according to some people, I am a ‘poopy pants.’”

  Grace looked like she was about to throw up. Callie blushed. “Whoever said that must be pretty immature, huh?” she blurted, trying to be blasé in naming one of the reasons he had cited for breaking up with her.

  “Yeah, well.” Clint broke into his signature grin, the corners around his green eyes crinkling. “That was always one of the things that I liked best about you.”

  Before Callie could even begin to fathom how to respond, Clint’s phone beeped loudly.

  “Uh-oh,” he said, reading the text. “The old ball and chain’s come a-calling.”

  “Is that any way to refer to your girlfriend?” Grace demanded.

  “Who said it was my girlfriend?” Clint replied, winking rakishly at Callie. “Bye, now.”

  Stunned into silence, the two girls watched him walk away, headed for the Crimson.

  “Straight people have never made any sense to me,” Grace finally said.

  “That’s right,” Callie agreed. “Men. Do not. Make. Sense! Especially on this campus. I’m starting to think they’re all a bunch of douche bags, each and every o—”

  “What?” asked Grace, staring at Callie, whose lips had frozen midway through forming the word one.

  “I just remembered something,” Callie whispered.

  “What?” Grace repeated.

  “It’s—nothing….” Callie stated, still looking stricken. “I was just—confused.”

  “If you say so,” said Grace.

  Callie nodded slowly. “Really, it was nothing.”

  But it wasn’t nothing. Because, as Callie had just remembered, there was somebody else who’d left Gatsby early that evening on Saturday, the fifth of March. And that somebody’s name was Gregory.

  TEN

  The Wigglesworth Walruses

  www.facebook.com/profile/gregory.b.bolton

  Welcome Back! We’re glad you’ve decided to reactivate your profile. Please fill out this brief survey or, to see what your friends have been up to, skip straight to your Newsfeed.

  * * *

  OK Zeyna is listening to Secret Lovers by Atlantic Starr on Spotify.

  * * *

  Adam Nichols added a photo: “Don’t Wake the Sleeping Dragon”—with Dana Gray at Lamont Library.

  Mimi Clement: Enfin, somebody else sleeping en public for once…Just do not let her drool on that book or la bibliotheque WILL charge a fine.

  * * *

  Bryan Jacobs:

  Mmm, pizza!—with Callie Andrews at Cambridge, 1 Restaurant.

  * * *

  Bryan Jacobs was with Callie Andrews at Brattle Street Theatre.

  Tyler Green, Marcus Taylor and 2 others like this.

  Vanessa Von Vorhees: Fiiiinallly…Took you long enough.

  Tyler Green liked this.

  Jessica Marie Stanley: WHAT?!?!? My bestie and my ex??? J/K, love that you guys have been hangin out. Catch up sesh soon, BJakes?

  Bryan Jacobs liked this.

  Vanessa Von Vorhees: Tyler Green I thought I told you to STOP LIKING MY POSTS!!!

  Tyler Green liked this.

  Clint Weber and 6 others were tagged in The Harvard Squash Team’s album—End of Season Dinner + Award Ceremony at The Murr Center.

  * * *

  Alexis Thorndike was with Alessandra Constantine at Starbucks, Harvard Square.

  * * *

  Jessica Marie Stanley > Matt Robinson: The link for that internship I was telling you about…Don’t be a stranger!

  * * *

  Vanessa Von Vorhees, Mimi Clement, Dana Gray and 3 others became friends with Jessica Marie Stanley.

  * * *

  Mimi Clement via Twitter

  Splish splash I’s taking a bath! #Money$$$Tub #LaVieEnRose #OhHiVanessa

  * * *

  Callie Andrews is In a Relationship.

  Vanessa Von Vorhees, Mimi Clement, OK Zeyna, and 3 others like this.

  Vanessa Von Vorhees: Ahahahaha. Ha ha. HA!

  OK Zeyna: Jenga>Grand Theft Auto???

  Mimi Clement: Jenga! P.S. Personally it is my belief that you will be very happy together. Does this mean we all receive the As?

  Jessica Marie Stanley: When’s the wedding? Cambridge or California? I’ll mark my calendar. Or should we wait for *him* to confirm the status with a hyperlink first ;)

  * * *

  Are you SURE you want to DEACTIVATE your profile?

  No, take me back to my newsfeed

  Yes, I’ll reactivate it lat
er ←

  “Whatchya doin’, roomie?”

  “Hi, Vanessa,” said Callie, her hands hovering over her laptop’s keyboard. “Please—do come in,” she added, suffusing her voice with irony since Vanessa had already sprawled across Callie’s bed, propping herself up on some pillows.

  “You working?” asked Vanessa.

  “Not really,” said Callie, swiveling in her chair.

  “What are you writing, then?” asked Vanessa, peering at Callie’s computer screen. “Is that—”

  “It’s nothing!” Callie insisted, minimizing the Microsoft Word document.

  “It is!” Vanessa declared, clapping her hands. “You’re finally writing that short story!”

  “Trying to write,” Callie corrected her. “So far I haven’t gotten past the first sentence.”

  “Well, certainly not for lack of material,” said Vanessa, spreading her arms out as if she was utterly exhausted. “I hereby officially authorize you to use my crazy life for inspiration.”

  “Oh?” said Callie, trying not to smile. “Shall I ghostwrite your memoir, then? And should we call it Eat, Party, Love? Or how about Vanessa’s Strangelove: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Ask the Hipster—”

  “Agh!” Vanessa silenced her with a scream. “I thought. We agreed. To never. Speak of that. Again!”

  Callie laughed. “But it would make such a great short story: The Mystery of the Missing Suspenders.”

  Vanessa sighed dramatically. “All right,” she said. “As long as you finish it and turn it in—which you have to do, as promised, because technically I did—sort of—ask him out.”

  “Yes,” said Callie. “If only you’d listened to me and written him a poem like I’d suggested, we could be playing with your ‘miniature Hipster babies’ right now.”

  “Somebody needs to take sex ed again.” Vanessa laughed. “Well,” she went on, eyeing Callie’s computer, “I don’t want to interrupt you….”

  “Yes you do,” said Callie. “So what is it?”

  “Well,” said Vanessa. “I guess I was sort of wondering…When dealing with the Big D, did you ever have to decide which parent you wanted to live with?”

  “The Big D?” Callie echoed. “Is that what we’re calling…divorce these days?”

  Vanessa nodded. “I’m trying to put a human face on it.”

  “More like another anatomy part,” Callie said. She would have laughed if Vanessa hadn’t suddenly looked so glum. “Um…no, I never had to choose. I was young enough when it happened that I didn’t get a say in the matter, and my parents were still on good terms—relatively speaking—so there weren’t any custody battles or anything. Everyone just agreed on a fifty-fifty split, and that was that.”

  “Hmm.” Vanessa chewed her lip, seeming to think things over. “I mean, it’s not like I have to choose who to live with—thank god,” she said finally. “My home is technically here now, at Harvard, and I’m sure I’ll get my own apartment and everything after we graduate. But summer vacation is coming soon, and my dad is supposedly setting up a bedroom for me in the new place that he’s getting with…ugh…The Secretary.”

  Callie grimaced sympathetically. “That’s still a thing, huh?”

  “Yes,” said Vanessa, “they are still in lust. I had been hoping that her attraction to him might have faded what with the recent downward trends of the markets—especially with the whole—oops.”

  “That’s okay,” said Callie. “You can say it. Hedge fund scandal. See? It’s not so bad. Or how about, ‘that boy who used to occasionally say hi to me in the halls might be a white-collar criminal’?”

  “I’m sure that Gregory had no idea even if his dad did use his trust fund to pay off bad investments,” said Vanessa.

  “I’m not,” said Callie, remembering all the mysterious, angry phone calls that Gregory had made that semester, presumably to his father. “But I’m not sure whether I would think it was wrong to have helped his dad in that scenario either. I mean, obviously it would be wrong if he knew the money was being used to defraud investors, but if he just thought he was doing his father a favor…” Callie shrugged. “Then again, who knows what he’s capable of?” she muttered, swiveling back to her computer and absentmindedly opening a browser. There was no way that, on top of everything else, he could be the Ivy Insider—right?

  “I thought you swore off Facebook this week!” said Vanessa, watching Callie log in to her account.

  “Yes, but—like all serious drug addictions—it’s not. So easy. To quit!”

  “You do realize,” Vanessa said, starting to giggle, “that you’re still listed as ‘in a relationship,’ right?”

  “What?” shrieked Callie, navigating to her profile page. “Goddammit,” she said, clicking the button to change her status.

  “Yeah, whoops.” Vanessa laughed. “Did he—what’s it you call your heavily accented econ TF? Oh yeah—the Rouski actually flat out deny your request?”

  “Luckily,” said Callie, investigating his profile, “he does not appear particularly Facebook literate. And based on the lack of weirdness in class this week, I’d say he didn’t even notice my invite to romantically hyperlink—thank god! Otherwise I could never show my face in econ section again.” Callie shuddered, closing her browser. “Enough Facebook. Let’s change the subject, please.”

  “Okay,” said Vanessa. “What are you going to do over the summer?”

  Callie sighed. “At this point,” she said, “it doesn’t make much sense to plan past May. I mean, if I get kicked out or asked to take a year off, I imagine I might need to…figure out…a new life…strategy or something.”

  Vanessa made a face. “You’re going to catch whoever did it,” she promised. “Just look at how much new stuff you’ve added to the board!” she exclaimed, jumping up to examine it. Her eyes roved over all the notes and index cards and recently tacked-on day planner pages. “Hey,” she said suddenly, pointing at a picture on the right. “Who’s this?”

  “Beats me,” said Callie. “I found it in Lexi’s desk when I…um—”

  “You don’t think—I mean, it couldn’t be—is it Lexi?” Vanessa cut her off, staring at the photo.

  “The thought occurred to me,” said Callie. “But I don’t think vampires can get that tan.”

  Vanessa sighed, plopping back on Callie’s bed. “You know who it actually sort of does look like?” she said, grinning wickedly. “A fat Alessandra!”

  “Vanessa!”

  “Come on,” said Vanessa, “don’t tell me you can’t see it. A little dark hair dye and a couple months of fat camp, some collagen for the lips and some plastic for the boobs, because I hear those things shrink when you go to ‘rehab’ for the summer, and—”

  “Stop,” said Callie. “Just stop.”

  “Actually,” Vanessa continued, “if you really want to see what a fat Alessandra might look like, Google ‘Constantine family photos.’”

  “God,” said Callie, “you really are a psycho stalker.”

  “Nah-uh,” said Vanessa, “it was homework, I swear! I had to write a paper for one of my art history classes on fashion in the nineteen seventies featuring some of the top trendsetters of the time, one of which included Alessandra’s mom.”

  “Her mom,” Callie repeated, wondering where this was going in spite of herself. “Isn’t she, like, some Brazilian model or something?”

  “Luciana Garcia, former supermodel,” Vanessa corrected. “And yes. But anyway, I needed to find photos of some of her old signature outfits, so naturally I’m on image search, typing away. The first hundred or so hits turned up some of Alessandra’s recent modelesque photos, but if you dig a little deeper, as only I and the top engineers at Google know how, you can find old family photos, and let me tell you, Alessandra’s younger sister, Allison—not very creative naming by the way, if you ask me—is a porker. I mean, they don’t really look alike, but it still helps facilitate a very…satisfying mental image.”

  “I didn’t kno
w Alessandra has a sister,” Callie remarked.

  Vanessa nodded. “There are a lot of things that you don’t know and that you would never know without me here to guide you. Gee, maybe I should start a private detective agency so I can spy on people having secret love affairs or—”

  “Qu’est ce-que vous dires sur des amours secrétes?” Mimi poked her head around the door to Callie’s bedroom.

  “I have no idea,” said Callie. “She lost me a few minutes ago.”

  “I’m just trying to give Callie material,” Vanessa said indignantly, “for the short story that she’s writing about my life!”

  “How boring,” said Mimi.

  “Hey!” Vanessa snapped.

  “I mean…I am bored.” Mimi grinned, flinging herself on the bed next to Vanessa. “And oh—so—sleeeepy,” she said between yawns.

  “Maybe if you hadn’t been staying out all night so much recently,” Dana called from the common room.

  “I cannot understand you if you are yelling at me,” Mimi called back, tucking her hands behind her head and staring at the ceiling.