by Lauren Kunze
Callie raised her eyebrows.
“She’s right, you know,” said a voice from over Callie’s shoulder.
“Grace!” Callie cried, leaping to her feet and giving the older girl a hug.
“You should never quit an institution if there’s a chance that you can change it,” Grace continued, appearing somewhat uncomfortable to find herself agreeing with a girl in a Marc Jacobs romper and four-inch wedges.
“Sounds like good advice,” Callie replied.
“Feel free to take it or leave it.” Grace smiled. “And also, congratulations on landing that gig at The New Yorker.”
“Thanks, and same to you,” said Callie. “I heard Dean Benedict was able to reverse their decision over at the Times.”
Grace nodded, breaking into a smile. “Maybe I’ll see you around at some point before next year…. Speaking of which, are you quite sure you won’t reconsider accepting a spot on the Crimson?”
“Yes,” said Callie. “I think I finally figured out what I’m supposed to be doing, and the paper isn’t it.”
“Football!” OK cheered, eavesdropping from where he sat. “Please say it’s football! Your gifts are too precious to be wasted!”
Callie laughed. “Actually, the woman’s varsity coach did e-mail me….”
“What?” said OK sharply. “She didn’t e-mail me—”
“Parce que tu es un garçon,” said Mimi, “duh!”
“Still.” OK sniffed, folding his arms. “I’m just as good as most girls, I should think.”
“You are,” Callie agreed, laughing.
“So it’s back to sports for you, huh?” asked Grace.
“We’ll see,” said Callie. “Think I can play Division One soccer and keep trying to write fiction and maintain my GPA and…?” She nodded at Gregory.
“Actually,” said Grace, “I do.”
“Thanks,” said Callie, unable to resist hugging Grace again.
“No,” said Grace. “Thank you. For…you know.”
“I know,” said Callie. “I’ll e-mail you about getting together this summer.”
“Sounds good,” said Grace, walking away to join Marcus and some of the senior Crimson staff members who were camped out on the far side of the tire swing.
“A toast,” said Mimi, holding up her can of soda. “First to Dana, who cares for our well-being so much so that she has superglued her ‘Rules to Use the Common Room’ to the wall such that we will all owe a fine since it remains permanently attached.”
“Hear, hear,” said the boys, raising their sodas, too.
“It was a good list,” Dana muttered. Adam rubbed her back. “I never meant to deface public property. I can only hope that it will prove useful for the incoming freshmen.”
Wow, thought Callie. How trippy to think that next year a whole new set of girls would be living in their suite. Would they read “The Rules” and wonder who came before them? Would they be just as different from one another or their year half as crazy? She looked at Gregory. Would the boys across the hall be even close to this cute? He kissed her on the cheek. Yes, Probably, Maybe, and No way! she decided.
“Next, to Vanessa,” said Mimi. “I am not laughing with you; I am laughing at you.”
Vanessa’s jaw dropped and she pretended to look angry. “The best university in the entire world and yet they still couldn’t teach you English,” she said. “How tragic.”
Mimi smiled. “And finally to Callie: you are a much better human being than would seem to otherwise be indicated by all the trouble you have gotten mixed into. I am glad that once I return from my summer traveling through Europe I will have le plus grand plaisir of living with you all encore.”
Callie, Vanessa, Mimi, and Dana all clinked soda cans, smiling at one another under the hot afternoon sun.
“And to mes nouveaux roommates,” Mimi continued, looking at the boys who, having joined their blocking group, would also be living in Kirkland House next year. “Adam: if you are ever needing to borrow a dress…”
“Don’t,” Dana warned. “I mean, no thank you.”
“Yes, thank you, but Dana has plenty,” said Adam, earning himself a look.
“Matthew,” said Mimi, “someday, if you just keep on believing, your prince will come.”
Matt laughed.
“Actually,” said Callie, “I think his ‘prince’ might be in California, where he is planning—purely by coincidence—to spend his summer doing research for some Stanford professor’s hot new book about the history of the newspaper industry.”
“Oh my god,” said Vanessa. “Is Jessica going to be there?”
Callie giggled. “Yes,” she said, putting a hand on Matt’s shoulder in an effort to calm his blushing. “So you guys are guaranteed at least one visit—probably more. My parents are still in denial that I’m ‘suddenly running off’ to New York.”
“Thank god for that,” said Vanessa. “I need somebody to hang out with while I attempt to avoid my parents.”
Callie grabbed her hand and squeezed. “It’s going to be a fun summer,” she said, resting her head on Gregory’s shoulder.
“Ah yes, to Gregory.” Mimi resumed her speech. “We,” she said, gesturing to herself and OK, “have always been on the Team Gregory, pas le Team Sweater Vest. So to your ultimate triomphe and becoming moins d’un trou du cul—”
“That’s French for you’re an asshole,” OK explained.
“No!” Mimi cried. “I said becoming less like the hole du cul.” She expelled a frustrated gust of air through her lips. “What I am trying to say est la suivante: Grégoire, tu as enfin surmonté ton orgueil. Callie, tu as enfin surmonté ton préjudice. Comme le livre.” Mimi narrowed her eyes in response to their blank faces. “Oh, quelle que vous tous, les Américains,” she gave up. “Cheers!”
“Cheers!” the others echoed, raising their sodas again.
“Hey!” said OK after taking a sip. “What about me?”
Mimi smiled at him, that familiar mischievous glint in her eye. “Pour toi, mon amour secrèt Ne sois pas une un idiotte!” she toasted him. “Retrouve moi sur scène dans cinq minutes.”
“Huh?” asked Callie. “What did she say? Where is she going?” she cried as Mimi stood and ran away.
“No clue!” OK shouted over his shoulder, getting up and dashing after her.
“Don’t look at me!” Dana said a moment later, even though the only reason everyone was staring was because she had just harrumphed with a very knowing look in her eyes.
“What time do you think the band is supposed to start?” asked Matt.
“Probably any minute,” said Gregory, shaking a cigarette out of his pack. “Last one,” he promised Callie, showing her that it was empty.
“I didn’t say anything,” she said.
“Yes, but I can read your mind,” he said, pressing his forehead against hers and then kissing her.
“Oh yeah?” she murmured, tilting her head back the tiniest bit. “Then what am I thinking right now?”
“Guys! Ew! Seriously! Get a room!” shrieked Vanessa. “And preferably not the one separated from mine by a very, very thin wall. God! Is this what it’s going to be like all summer?”
Callie and Gregory looked at each other, cracking up simultaneously. “We apologize…in advance,” he said.
“Yeah,” echoed Callie, “we’re sorry we’re not sorry.”
“Matthew,” said Dana pointedly, “do you know which band is playing?”
“No idea,” he said, glancing at the huge red curtain that was currently obscuring the stage. “Didn’t the Yardfest flyer say it was a surprise?”
“I believe so,” Adam agreed. “Something like special or surprise guest appearance from a ‘certain international musical sensation’?”
Callie nodded. “I heard a rumor that—”
“Wait!” Vanessa cut her off. “I think I saw movement behind the curtain!”
Callie looked at the stage. The curtain might have rippled—but then again
, it could have been the wind. Suddenly a student mounted the stage wearing a black headset and dragging a microphone with him.
“Er—attention, fellow Harvard students,” he called, tapping the microphone. “As you know, the concert should have started a few minutes ago, but we just got word that our guests have been delayed on the second leg of their flight from Germany. We have a car waiting for them at Logan Airport now, but we’re not really sure what time Sexy Hansel—oh, crap.”
Cheers and shouts had broken out among the crowd.
The student onstage smiled. “Oops,” he said. “Well, I guess now the secret’s out. Yes, for this year’s Yardfest we did somehow manage to book the techno pop sensation Sexy—what the hell?” he cried, turning.
The curtain, suspended from only a thin makeshift rod probably built that morning, seemed to be collapsing as if a weight had been hurled against it from behind. The rod curved as the curtain continued to drag it downward until finally it snapped. Red velvet splashed down like water tumbling from a glass, still writhing after it hit the stage as if someone—or someones—struggled to escape.
There was a collective gasp from the blanket where Callie, Gregory, Vanessa, Matt, Dana, and Adam sat. OK’s head had just popped out from under the curtain. Another face soon surfaced after him.
“Mimi?” screamed Vanessa, causing a few people to turn in their direction even though most eyes were riveted on the stage.
OK crawled out from under the curtain and then pulled Mimi up after him, taking both of her hands. He continued to hold one of them as he grabbed the microphone from the confused-looking student and said:
“Er—ah—pardon the interruption. I just dropped by to say that Sexy Hansel are a bunch of wankers—and also this.”
The microphone made a loud plunking sound as it hit the stage, and nearly everyone from Wigglesworth entryway C gasped again.
OK and Mimi were kissing.
After a few seconds the crowd burst into applause, even though most of them couldn’t truly have known what they were clapping for. No one, however, cheered louder than the inhabitants of C 24 and C 23, who looked at one another with wide-eyed expressions that all seemed to agree: Finally.
Grinning, Mimi picked up the microphone. “Merci beaucoup et bonne soirée!” She curtsied, handing the mike back to the still dumbfounded MC.
“How long has this been going on?” Vanessa demanded as she and the others surrounded OK and Mimi upon their return.
“Er…” Mimi and OK exchanged glances.
“Oh, come on!” said Dana to Mimi. “The secret’s out just like that boy said onstage and in more ways than one.”
Mimi smiled at her. “You are right. It is time.”
“Wait—Dana knew?” Vanessa was indignant.
“We both did,” said Adam. “OK and I share a double. Why do you think Dana started letting me stay over so often?”
“I thought,” Vanessa sputtered, “that maybe you’d decided that Third Base was no longer a sin?”
“So those noises we heard coming from OK’s bedroom—that was you?” Callie asked.
“I should hope so,” answered Mimi, narrowing her eyes at OK.
“Of course it was, my petite baguette,” he said, mussing up her hair and lavishing her with looks of utter adoration.
“Non,” she responded, her grayish blue eyes huge. “C’est exactement why I wanted to garder le secret!” Backing away, she started slapping his hands.
“Fine,” he grumbled, sticking them in his pockets. “Have it your way. You always do.”
“Oui,” said Mimi, smirking.
“So you’ve been seeing Mimi secretly this entire time,” Matt said to OK slowly.
“Oui-oui-ouuiii,” said OK, avec une “fraaanch” accént. “Ever since that day at the date auction when she realized she could no longer live without the fresh prince of—” He grimaced as Mimi held up a warning finger. “Uh. Yes. No big deal. Whatever. I, like, like her, and stuff,” he amended, trying for an American accent.
Mimi smiled in spite of herself.
“But I don’t get it,” said Callie. “Why did you want to keep it a secret?”
“Really?” said Mimi. “You do not get it?” She nodded at OK, who seemed so brag-happy he was on the verge of doing a jig—or mounting the stage again to “Pull a Matt” by grabbing the microphone and telling the world that he loved Mimi Clément.
“I detested it,” OK interjected, “but she seemed to enjoy all of the sneaking around. It really turned her o—into a…sneakier…person.”
Mimi rolled her eyes.
“Well, hey, man,” said Gregory gruffly, pulling OK into a half hug, “congratulations. Now, Vanessa,” he said turning to her. “Have you met my friend Matt?”
“Wha—” Vanessa looked from Gregory to Matt.
“No,” said Matt, slowly shaking his head.
“Nuh-uh,” Vanessa cried, shaking hers, too. “No way.”
“Not a chance,” Matt countered.
“Don’t even think about it, Robinson—”
“I wasn’t!”
“Good, because if—”
“Okay,” said Callie. “We get it.”
“Great,” said OK. “Time to go, then!”
“Huh?”
“We have to leave. Immediately,” he said, starting to fold up the blanket.
“What!” shrieked Vanessa. “Why? Sexy Hansel could show up any minute!”
“Exactly.” OK nodded gravely. “And we cannot be here when it does.”
“Why not?” asked Adam.
“Because when I am on my deathbed,” said OK, “I need to be able to tell all of our little princes and princesses”—he looked at Mimi—“that Daddy died never having suffered through a Sexy Hansel show.”
Vanessa gaped.
“They are probably just going to lip-synch and Auto-Tune everything,” Callie said to her, eager to avoid splitting up the group. Everyone else seemed game to leave except Vanessa, who stood her ground, chewing her lip.
“Wellll,” Vanessa said eventually, “I guess there is one more thing left on the Birkin List that we still need to do.
“Uh,” said Callie. “How are we going to pee on the John Harvard statue with all these people around?”
“Oh.” Mimi raised her eyebrows. “Some of us already took care of that one after the Pudding party last night.”
“Ugh,” Dana groaned, plugging her ears.
Callie frowned. “Well then…you can’t mean…But Widener isn’t even open today!”
Obviously her hands weren’t enough to stop the references to statue urination and library fornication, because Dana started singing loudly.
Vanessa shook her head. “We decided to take that one off the list since there’s still plenty of time to try before we graduate.”
“Well, then, what?” asked Callie.
Dana pulled her hands off of her ears. “You want to jump off that bridge, don’t you?”
The banks of the Charles River were lined with people sunning themselves, tossing Frisbees, or jogging the dirt paths along the edge of the grass. The John W. Weeks Bridge jutted out over the calm gray-blue water, connecting Cambridge to Boston. This brick and white stone structure rose less than thirty feet above the river’s surface, making it ideal for jumping.
Laughing and chattering nonstop, the inhabitants of Wigglesworth entryway C mounted the pedestrian footbridge, the grass turning to concrete beneath their feet. Callie paused halfway through their journey to the middle, turning back to stare at the Harvard campus fanning out behind them across the streets of Cambridge.
She’d survived the year. They all had, in spite of their various individual struggles, and she couldn’t ask for better friends—or a better maybe-just-might-be-the-love-of-her-life boyfriend—than the ones who currently stood examining the bridge’s wide, white stone railing and yelling at her to hurry.
They had all climbed onto the railing by the time Callie caught up, even Dana, who didn’
t look nearly as afraid as Vanessa did when she turned, motioning at Callie to join her.
Smiling, Callie hopped up onto the railing in between Gregory and Vanessa and peered down at the tiny ripples in the water below. It felt a little higher from up here than it had looked from the shore, but it definitely seemed manageable—especially in present company.
Gregory took Callie’s hand.
“Ready?” he asked, his blue eyes twinkling in the summer sun.
Callie beamed. “I am.”
And so they jumped.
ABOUT THE AUTHORS
LAUREN KUNZE and RINA ONUR were roommates and best friends for all four years at Harvard. They graduated in 2008. They started collaborating on this book when they were juniors. They refuse to say how much of it is true.
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CREDITS
Cover illustration © Jonathan Hill/iStock
Lauren Kunze photo © 2010 by Scott Fitzgerrell
Rina Onur photo © 2010 by Gözde Otman
Thanks
Thank you so much to everyone who has seen this series through to Scandal, especially if you’re a fan. I couldn’t have done it without a phenomenal team, including my editors (special shout-outs to Tim, for never tiring of all the *drama*, and to Virginia, for teaching me most of what I know about creative writing while working on that very first draft); my agents (a round of applause for Rosemary!); my family (and their undying support); and my friends—fellow Harvard alums and otherwise—who provided specific soundbites and other endless sources of inspiration (you know who you are!). Whether you’re here to reminisce about your college years or to anticipate them going forward, I hope you all had as much fun with the Ivy series as I did writing it.—L.K.
COPYRIGHT
This book is a work of fiction. References to real people, events, establishments, organizations, or locales are intended only to provide a sense of authenticity, and are used to advance the fictional narrative. All other characters, and all incidents and dialogue, are drawn from the author’s imagination and are not to be construed as real.