Scandal

by Lauren Kunze

  Mimi gasped, throwing off her covers. “What if—he and Alexis—were conspiring together for the entire duration!”

  Callie giggled.

  “Quoi?” Mimi demanded.

  “I’ve just never heard you sound so excitable,” Callie explained.

  Mimi rolled over onto her stomach. “I am not eager to see you gone,” she said, propping her chin in her hands.

  “None of us are,” Dana agreed. “You can’t leave school now—not when I was finally getting used to you three.”

  “Aw, D-meister!” said Vanessa.

  “I still don’t approve of most of your lifestyle choices,” Dana insisted, “but somebody needs to keep you all in line, and I guess I…don’t really mind being the one to do it.”

  “I will try to take you not minding me as a compliment,” said Vanessa.

  Callie was glad it was dark save for the light of the candle. Undetected, she rubbed her damp cheeks on the side of her pillow. She hoped they knew how much she had come to love them this year, because there was no way she could manage to say it out loud without breaking down completely. “I…don’t think it could have been Clint,” Callie said finally, trying to stay focused. “The whole reason Lexi hates me in the first place is because we started dating—why would she do all those things to keep us apart if they were secretly together the whole time?”

  “Meh,” said Mimi, sounding sleepy. “It was worth a pondering.”

  “What about…” Vanessa started. “You’re not going to like this, but—Oh, never mind.”

  “What?” asked Callie.

  “Okay, don’t freak out,” said Vanessa, “but have you considered the remote possibility that it might be…well…Gregory?”

  “I considered everyone,” said Callie. “But I refuse to believe that he was involved.”

  “Yes,” said Dana, “why would he ever do anything bad to Callie when he—seems to have a great deal of affection for her? I may not be an English major, but even I could tell that was a very—moving letter that he wrote to her before he left.”

  “But in the letter he also asked for her forgiveness,” said Vanessa. “For things that she might learn he had done during his absence.”

  “Clearly he was talking about his dad,” said Callie. “And his history with other women.”

  “I still cannot believe that Alessandra turns out to be such a sneaky little liar,” said Mimi. “Though what did we really know about her, anyway? She just appeared—poof—out of nowhere. Kind of like this zit on my forehead. Pop pop!”

  “All that stuff with his dad,” Vanessa pressed on, speaking over Mimi, “meant he knew he was going to be poor soon, right? Meaning he might have had a reason to suddenly resent the Pudding! He never seemed to really like being there, anyway.”

  “If only he’d gotten my letter and come back,” Callie mused, “we could have asked him.”

  “And what about that fifth Ivy Insider article?” Vanessa continued, refusing to drop it. “Didn’t you say he left Gatsby early that night, too?”

  “So did you,” said Callie, yawning again.

  “Yeah, with you,” said Vanessa, finally lying back down.

  The room was quiet for a few minutes except for the sound of their breathing. The candle burned lower and lower until eventually the flame snuffed out.

  “There is one more thing,” Vanessa murmured. Dana and Mimi were silent and had probably already drifted off.

  “What?” Callie whispered, rolling onto her side.

  “Remember when we snuck into his bedroom after the date auction,” said Vanessa, “because you wanted to prove that Alessandra was lying about how he had never even read a single Insider article? And then we saw what looked like an old installment in the trash?”

  “So?” said Callie. “I was correct, wasn’t I? Alessandra is a liar. In fact, I bet he never even called her and she just made up that entire conversation.”

  “You’re probably right.” Vanessa sighed. “I was just wondering if maybe she said all that to protect him because, after hanging around with him a lot, she discovered that he’d written the articles—that he was the Ivy Insider….”

  “Mmm,” said Callie. “Mm-hmm…” She shut her eyes, overcome by that familiar falling sensation that often precedes sleep. Down, down, down, she drifted until, all of a sudden, her body gave a tremendous jolt.

  “Hey—” Vanessa called in hushed tones. “Where are you going?”

  Instead of answering, Callie sprang to her feet, slipped out into the hall, and then pushed open the door to C 23.

  All the lights were off; it looked as if Adam, Matt, and OK had returned from the dance and retired for the evening. Callie headed straight for Gregory’s bedroom, flipping on the light. Everything appeared to be in its place, including the large perforated, metal wastebasket next to his desk.

  Callie stared at the crumpled piece of paper at the very bottom of the basket. Through the crisscrossing metal only part of a headline was visible: “Behind the Ivy-Covered Walls, Part—.” Callie hesitated for only a moment before she dumped the entire contents of the basket onto the floor—previous assignments, tissues smeared with lipstick, tests, old receipts dating back months before he left, and all. Reaching for the article where it had fallen facedown, she flipped it over and read:

  Behind the Ivy-Covered Walls: Part III (DRAFT)

  On the evening of March fifth, a privileged few gathered inside the Fly Club for Gentleman for one of the oldest, elitist, and most exclusive affairs on campus: a party whimsically entitled The Great Gatsby…

  THIRTEEN

  The Hearing

  * * *

  http://www.nytimes.com/pages/business/index.html

  May 14

  Business

  Bolton Teen Exonerated in Hedge Fund Scandal

  Pierce Bolton Testifies Before the SEC That Son Gregory Had No Involvement Though His Trust Fund Was Depleted to Pay Off Investors

  By ROB DUNBARTON

  Published: May 14

  MANHATTAN – For weeks the hedge fund industry has remained in turmoil following the declaration of personal bankruptcy by Pierce Bolton, founding partner at Bolton and Stamford Enterprises. This week Bolton finally testified in front of the Securities and Exchange Commission, which has in conjunction with the State of New York been conducting an ongoing investigation of his fund. Three unnamed sources who attended the proceedings confirmed on the condition of anonymity that Bolton admitted to paying off investors with personal funds.

  Over the course of the past two years Bolton failed to inform investors regarding the perilous state of their assets after a series of bad investments, instead paying out withdrawals from his own accounts. “It was easy enough to see after we started examining the books,” said one SEC official, who also wished to remain anonymous. “[Bolton’s] set showed severe losses, but the numbers released publicly to investors told quite a different story—of growth unparalleled by almost any other firm. [The fund] claimed a unique trading algorithm, when in reality the only magic ingredient, so to speak, was Bolton’s immense personal wealth.”

  “We cannot comment on the actual proceedings,” said Eliza Chapham, director of the hedge funds division at the Securities and Exchange Commission. “But criminal charges are highly unlikely to follow given Bolton’s cooperation and the apparent overall financial health of the firm. I cannot speak to the ramifications this might have in the civil courts,” she added, “but since no one is actually owed any money and Bolton no longer has any to award in a settlement, civil action seems, again, unlikely.”

  Widespread speculation among insiders in the financial services industry and various news outlets in the city indicated that Bolton’s son, Gregory, a freshman currently enrolled at Harvard University, might be implicated in the ongoing investigation. A former summer intern at Bolton and Stamford, Gregory was rumored to have authorized his father, Pierce, to access his trust fund (once estimated at upward of 88 million, rendering him by far the ric
hest teen in Manhattan) for the purposes of defrauding investors.

  Late this afternoon the Bolton family attorneys issued a statement alleging that this is not the case. “As our client will soon testify,” Noel Rubenstein wrote in an e-mail to the Times, “his son, Gregory, had no involvement in these events. While [Gregory] did realize that his trust fund had been accessed without his consent a month prior to the bankruptcy filings, he did not authorize the transactions.”

  An employee of the firm who worked closely with Gregory during his summer there spoke with the paper, again on the condition of anonymity. “If I had to guess, I would say that Gregory knew to what end his father was using his inheritance. Ethics may not run in the family, but mathematical gifts and economic savvy certainly do. But it’s also probable that by the time he figured it out, the investigation was already underway, so who’s to say what action, if any, he might have taken against his father.”

  Gregory Bolton came into possession of the trust fund (now estimated at less than the tuition cost of a Harvard education) following his eighteenth birthday last summer, left to him by the late Mrs. Bolton, who passed away after a long battle with breast cancer in 2005. Neither Gregory nor his stepmother, Trisha Bolton, could be reached for comment.

  Mr. Rubenstein echoed Ms. Chapham’s previous remarks, insisting that, due to recent large investments, “the fiscal health of the firm is quite robust.” He added: “Pierce Bolton has cooperated and taken responsibility for his actions to the fullest extent and, in spite of this minor lapse in judgment that has yielded no consequences for anyone other than his family, will remain a pillar of the financial services industry. The media has certainly been relentless—particularly with regard to his son—but we hope that this statement and account of the SEC proceedings will pave the way for the teenager to soon resume his normal life.”

  * * *

  The conference room in University Hall was cold and sterile, same as it had been the Monday after spring break when Callie and Grace initially appeared before Dean Benedict and two other administrators. All three had returned for her Student-Faculty Judicial Board disciplinary hearing today, in addition to another female faculty member and three students, one of whom was—to Callie’s great dismay—Alexis Thorndike. They all sat along one side of a large rectangular table. A single empty chair waited on the other.

  Callie swallowed, clutching a folder containing several papers and what would have been the third Ivy Insider installment. She almost would have preferred to have arrived with nothing.

  “Ms. Andrews, please, be seated,” Dean Benedict instructed from the center of the table. The male and female faculty members on either side of him remained expressionless, as did the two male students, whom Callie had never met, but a faint smile flickered across Alexis Thorndike’s face.

  “We have established this Student-Faculty Judicial Board,” the dean continued, “including a representative from the school newspaper, the Harvard Crimson, and an English professor from your intended major’s department, to allow you the chance to speak to the strong evidence that you are responsible for authoring a series of anonymous articles published to the newspaper’s former FlyBy blog and signed by the ‘Ivy Insider.’ You have received copies of relevant materials identical to those distributed to this board, featuring documentation of your log-in records on the computers at the Crimson offices. Six weeks ago in this very room, you maintained your innocence in these matters, even though yours was the only password-protected username online during every instance of an Insider posting. Is that still the case?”

  “Yes,” Callie murmured.

  “What was that?” he asked.

  “Yes,” she repeated, forcing herself to look up and face the board. Several of them had started taking notes or were reexamining the “relevant materials” from manila folders similar to her own. Lexi, however, reclined in her chair as if she were settling in for the series finale of her all-time favorite television show.

  “After we have heard your arguments,” Dean Benedict explained, “we will determine what—if any—disciplinary action ought to be taken.”

  Lexi beamed. Callie imagined that the older girl was using every ounce of strength she had not to scream, “EXPULSION!”

  “Needless to say,” the dean continued, “this is an incredibly grave matter, given that a private document went public containing harmful comments that could even be construed as harassment targeting individual students.”

  Callie nodded.

  “And you acknowledge, for the record,” piped up one of the female faculty members, “that you are a current member of the organization the Hasty Pudding Social Club, which authored this document, and that you were in possession of the password needed to access the so-called Punch Book?”

  Callie nodded again.

  “Well, then,” said Dean Benedict. “By all means, the floor is yours.”

  Callie set her folder on the table and opened it, staring unseeingly at the papers inside. In all her life her throat had never felt so dry. She wished she had thought to bring a water bottle. Or, better yet, that she had taken Mimi’s advice and elected to skip the hearing altogether.

  Seven sets of eyes honed in on her. Each second felt like an hour. “Um…” Callie shuffled the pages in front of her, finding the unpublished draft of “Behind the Ivy-Covered Walls: Part III.” It was supposed to be her trump card, and yet, in her possession, it proved nothing. In fact, just displaying it without any evidence of the true author might make the case against her, since the first question out of their mouths would be: “Where did you get that?” And if she replied, “I found it,” they would follow with, “If you didn’t write it, then who did?”

  Even if she told them, it would sound like a lie: the final, desperate diversion of a girl who clearly only had an unpublished draft because she was in fact the Ivy Insider.

  And in the next-to-impossible event that they did believe her, what then? Expulsion, probably, for the very person she’d spent weeks praying would return.

  Callie flushed, furious that she could even consider defending him after what he’d done. No explanation—on a Post-it, or in the pages of a book, or even in person—could possibly account for this.

  The faculty member who’d questioned her a moment ago coughed pointedly. “Ms. Andrews, as I’m sure you can imagine, we’re all busy people who don’t have the whole day to sit—”

  “What,” Lexi suddenly said shrilly, staring at the door, “are you doing here?”

  “Callie—” said a voice, deep and serious, at the exact same second she turned.

  Her lips formed the shape of his name, but no sound came out. She inhaled sharply, wanting to cry—to scream—to throw her arms around him and hold him—no, hit him until he admitted why he’d done the things he’d done—

  “Young man,” said the faculty member Lexi had interrupted, “these are private proceedings that you’re interrupting—”

  “I know,” he said, his eyes never leaving Callie’s face and looking—to her horror—like he was on the verge of smiling.

  Was he actually…enjoying this?

  “But I have some new—crucial—information to these proceedings. You see, Callie”—his smile faltered—“is not the author of the Insider articles. In fact, I—”

  “STOP!” Callie screamed suddenly, leaping to her feet. Her heart, which felt as if it had ceased beating the moment he entered the room, began to beat violently.

  “I couldn’t agree more.” Lexi’s clear, high voice cut through the air. “I’m sorry, Gregory—I’m sure we can all appreciate that you’ve been through a lot—but this interruption is simply unacceptable. Disciplinary hearings are supposed to be private proceedings between the accused student and the board.”

  “Now, wait just a moment, Ms. Thorndike,” Dean Benedict intervened. “If, ah—Mr. Bolton, isn’t it?—has uncovered some new piece of evidence, then perhaps it would behoove us to hear what the young man has to say?”

 
“Actually,” Gregory started slowly, appearing confused at the expression on Callie’s face, “I would like to…er…formally request that this board reconvene tomorrow.”

  “Reconvene tomorrow?” a faculty member repeated. “When she’s already had six weeks to build her case? Forgive me, but I fail to see how allowing her a little more time could possibly contribute to anything other than to waste our own.”

  Callie turned back and saw Lexi nodding fervently.

  The professor from the English Department cleared her throat. “Actually, I don’t see the harm in granting what you point out to be simply a little more time,” she said. “Especially if, as this Mr. Bolton seems to be saying, new information has come to light.”

  Callie stared at the manila folder in front of her, paralyzed by indecision. Slowly she reached to open it as the students and faculty members continued debating, painfully aware of Gregory, who stood only a few inches away. What if this was all a trick? What if he had only pretended to be on the verge of confessing in order to prevent her from showing them her solitary piece of proof?

  “Ms. Andrews?”

  Her hand froze, hovering over the unpublished draft of the Insider installment.

  “If we vote to reconvene here tomorrow,” Dean Benedict continued, “can you affirm that you will attend, ready to argue your case and accept our judgment as final even if you and Mr. Bolton fail to present any compelling additional evidence in the interim?”

  She grabbed the article. But what if, a tiny voice pleaded in the back of her head, Gregory had never meant to frame her and had returned, with a plan, to somehow make it right? Meeting the dean’s eyes, Callie started to nod. “Yes,” she managed, her voice barely above a whisper.

  “Then it’s settled,” the dean announced a moment later, counting four hands including his own. “You are all free to go, but we will expect you to return again this time tomorrow.”