by Lauren Kunze
But instead she stayed silent, trying to plaster her face with the same unreadable smile worn by the members as they made mental notes of any “character-revealing details” that they would later post anonymously to the punch profiles on HPpunch.com. The supposed purpose of said profiles was to allow members to read up on punches they had missed meeting during the event, but from the way a lot of the older girls were smirking or emitting a tiny cough when a punch turned around, Callie had a bad feeling about the contents of the so-called “punch book.”
Suddenly she was surrounded. Hi, I’m Erica—Nicholas—Reid, so nice to meet you—Pleased to meet you, I’m Beth—Oh, wow, love the dress: Versace, right?—Killer shoes—Who does your hair?—You look familiar, are you in my Ec10 section? There’s this great study guide I could pass along—Can I get you anything? A drink?—Your boyfriend’s a lucky guy, if you don’t mind my saying so—What’s your favorite band? Because my dad can get tickets to, like, any show—the Crimson, huh? My cousin’s a junior editor at the Wall Street Journal if you’re ever interested in talking about internships—
Callie turned in a spare second between conversations to locate Clint: she spotted him at the opposite end of the other room, holding two champagne flutes, similarly trapped. Every time he excused himself he made it only two steps closer to her before being intercepted. Seeing Callie, he gave her a Well, what can you do? sort of a shrug and set one of the glasses down so he could shake hands.
Give me your cell, we could grab lunch in the d-hall sometime—When do you usually hit the gym?—So I’ll just e-mail you about that class, then—Facebook me!
“What a beautiful necklace.” It was Lexi. This was the first time she had acknowledged Callie’s existence since the article outing the sex tape situation had appeared in the Crimson. Callie opened her mouth, but no words came out. “Really, it’s stunning,” Lexi said. “Enjoy the party.” Then she was gone, making her way back to the main room. The punches clustered around Callie quickly said their good-byes and trailed after Lexi, recognizing, perhaps, someone of far superior status.
Her sight-line suddenly clear, Callie saw Gregory stumble out of the coatroom, followed shortly thereafter by Alessandra. She giggled as she watched him redo the top two buttons on his midnight blue shirt—clearly he was too cool for themes—and then adjusted the straps on her fire-engine red dress which, under any other circumstance, would have screamed GO GO GO to anyone planning an approach.
“Excuse me,” Callie blurted to the sophomore who had just introduced himself, making a beeline for the swinging set of doors that led into the kitchen. When she felt like she could breathe again, she hoisted herself onto a counter, the metal cool where it pressed against the back of her legs.
“Hiding?” a girl’s voice came from behind her. “Don’t worry, I am, too.” Callie turned and saw a girl with long dirty-blond hair and a pageant-worthy smile leaning against the wall near the kitchen sink. She spoke with what sounded like a Texas accent, all chipper and southern. “If I have to kiss one more person’s butt tonight,” she said, coming over to Callie, “I swear I’m gonna scr—”
Her lips froze in place, her eyes zeroed in on Callie’s nametag.
“Oh—oh no, this? No!” Callie cried, throwing her hand over her chest. “I promise I am just as sick of having my butt kissed as you are of, uh, kissing it.”
Grinning, the girl hoisted herself onto the counter next to Callie, wiggling to smooth out the wrinkles in her emerald green dress. “Today of all days we should be hunting down boys to kiss, not butts, am I right?”
Callie laughed.
“Though . . . from the looks of it,” the girl said, eyeing Callie’s dress, “you already have a boyfriend.”
“Yep. He’s out there.”
“And you’re in here?”
“He’s . . . very . . . popular,” Callie said, dissolving into inexplicable giggles.
“I see,” said the girl. “I’m Shelby, by the way. Shelby Samuel. No relation to Shell Oil, though, in case you were gonna ask.”
“I wasn’t.”
“Good,” said Shelby, lowering her voice in a conspiratorial way. “Because I think the rest of them may have made a terrible mistake.”
Callie laughed. “I’m Callie,” she said, pointing to her nametag. “Last fall’s ‘mistake.’”
“Pssh,” Shelby snorted with a sassy wave of her hand. “You’re the first person I’ve met tonight who doesn’t look like she’s trying to balance an invisible book on her head—or how about that one girl who turned up her nose at the very sight of me, as if I’d got dog doo-doo on my shoe?”
“Who—Anne?” Callie blurted gleefully. Swiveling around to make certain they were alone, she whispered, “I wouldn’t take it personally. I think that’s just the way her face is!”
Shelby threw her head back, her hearty laughter joined with Callie’s giggles.
“Ah,” Callie finally sighed, wiping her eyes. “But you know,” she said, suddenly solemn, “they’re not all bad.”
“Like your boyfriend?”
“Uh-huh.” Callie nodded. “And my roommate Mimi—she’s amazing—and the guys from across the hall, OK and Gregory—”
“Right,” Shelby agreed. “I know who they are.”
“Yeah,” Callie muttered, remembering that her roommate and neighbors enjoyed something of a celebrity status on campus. “Hey!” she blurted. “Have you ever noticed how it seems like everyone from New York, and all the international students, kind of knew each other beforehand—I mean, like before we even got to school and like they still somehow know . . . I don’t know . . . more than we do?”
“About what?” Shelby asked in a mock hushed tone, her eyes twinkling—though not unkindly.
“About . . . oh, I don’t know, East Coast things: all the unspoken rules and cultural stuff—and, well, don’t you ever feel like they’re all part of some super-secret members only network or club or something?”
Shelby grinned. “I think you might be right. In fact,” she continued in a whisper, “I believe we may have infiltrated their ranks and are trapped inside their headquarters at this very moment!” she said, pointing toward the doors.
“Huh.” Callie fiddled with her nametag, remembering the moment of panic she’d experienced earlier while trying to find it, scanning the wrong side of the table. It was the same feeling as when she’d watched Mimi and Vanessa receive those first little white envelopes. Even though she’d had no idea what was inside, she had desperately wanted one, though it was hard to say exactly why. . . .
Why do I care? Dana and Matt had no problem saying no when she’d extended the invitation—
“Callie Andrews, may I tell you a secret?” Shelby interrupted her reverie.
“Sure,” said Callie.
“When you came in, I wasn’t exactly hiding—I was actually looking for a way out.”
Callie sighed. “That door in the back leads out to the garden. If you follow the path on your left, it’ll take you all the way around the side of the club and out onto Garden Street.”
“Hallelujah, amen,” Shelby exclaimed dramatically, leaping off the counter and reaching for her coat and purse. “I mean—no offense to y’all or anything—I just thought I’d be stuck here all night!”
“Nope, you’re free!” Callie told her with a small smile. “Though—are you sure you don’t want to stick around?”
“I’m sure,” said Shelby. “But it was nice to meet you, Callie Andrews. Let’s do lunch in the dining hall sometime.”
“It’s a date,” Callie called as Shelby pulled the back door shut behind her. A moment later it swung open again, but it wasn’t Shelby; it was—
“You. Are you following me—again?”
Gregory smirked. “Contrary to what you seem to believe, I am not aware of your whereabouts most of the time.” Reaching up into one of the cabinets, he pulled out a bottle of Maker’s Mark. “I don’t do pink,” he explained, pouring some into a glass. “Why ar
e you in here anyway?” he asked after he’d taken a sip.
“Just having a minor existential crisis,” she muttered.
“Ah. Somebody’s been doing her reading for Postwar Fiction and Theory.”
“Ugh, the French existentialists are so dense!” she exclaimed. “Personally I can’t wait until we get to the later part of the twentieth century and start reading Coetzee, Ishiguro, McEwan—” She stared at him. “It was you.”
“Hm?” he asked, arching his eyebrows.
“You left those tickets in my drop-box.”
“Oh, to hear McEwan?” He swallowed the rest of his whiskey. “Yep, that was me.”
So casual. So very, very casual. “Why?”
“I bought them a month ago, before coach gave us our spring schedule. Turns out we have an away game that weekend. I noticed you reading Atonement in the library the other day, so I figured you might want them.”
But—why—he’d noticed?—when—and today, of all days? “There are two tickets,” she finally said stupidly.
“Yeah, well . . . you could take Clint,” he suggested.
“If you have an away game, won’t he be gone that weekend, too?”
Gregory shrugged. His glass made a loud clinking sound as he set it on the counter. “Look, it was either that or the trash, so I figured I’d give the whole friendly thing a try—”
“You thought you’d give it a try today?” she countered.
“There you are,” Clint cried, the kitchen doors swinging shut behind him. “We have got to get out of here,” he said. He had Callie’s coat thrown over his arm. Lifting it aside, he revealed a bottle of pink champagne. “We can still salvage the evening if we sneak out now. . . . Oh, hey, man,” he added, nodding at Gregory. “It almost seems like someone planned this whole party just to keep people from really celebrating tonight, doesn’t it?” he asked his teammate.
Maybe someone did, Callie thought darkly, remembering how genuinely sweet Lexi had sounded earlier when she’d complimented her new necklace.
Gregory nodded.
“Not to mention forcing people to talk about certain things before they’re ready,” Clint continued. “I think Tyler and Vanessa are about to break up—if they were ever together in the first place. They’ve been fighting outside the bathroom for the past twenty minutes: she keeps accusing him of flirting with the punches and telling him that they’re only interested because he’s the president, and no matter what she says, he keeps yelling ‘yellow’ over and over and over again. We’ve got to get out of here,” he repeated.
Callie laughed.
“Well, I should probably go find my girlfriend,” Gregory said abruptly, making his way to the door.
Girlfriend? There it was again, this time straight from the horse’s mouth.
“Good night,” he called.
Callie breathed an enormous sigh as the door whooshed shut behind him, and then she beamed at Clint from across the room.
“Ready?” he asked. Coming over to the counter, he looped Callie’s coat over her head and used it to pull her toward him, one leg on either side.
“Ah!” she screamed. Then: “Oh . . .” His hands moved from her knees up the length of her thighs, up to the lacy rims of the black stockings Mimi had lent her for the occasion. Wrapping her legs around his waist, she kissed him. His hands on her hips, he pulled her closer, accidentally knocking over the bottle of champagne resting next to her on the counter.
Glancing at it, Callie grinned. “We’re in a kitchen,” she said.
“I know.”
“A public kitchen.”
“That is correct.”
She bit her lip. “Wanna get out of here?”
In response he lifted her off the counter and carried her over to the back door. “I thought you’d never ask.”
Chapter Four
The Ladies Who Brunch
Feb 19 Behind the Ivy-Covered Walls: Part II
11:13AM By THE IVY INSIDER
On Valentine’s Eve, the Hasty Pudding social club hosted a cocktail party called “STOP! In the name of LOVE.” The mandatory “stoplight” theme required students to signal their availability for sexual encounters using the color of their clothing. Though perhaps, given the power dynamics that govern the punch process, the term sexual transactions is more apt.
This event was the culmination of a grueling thirty-six hours spent poring over a slide show featuring photographs of the club’s prospective punches. The top-secret process has sometimes been referred to as “The Assets Assessment”—pun intended—because the majority of the conversation revolves around the punch’s physical appearance and (parental) net worth. This spring’s meeting was no exception. Male students ranked female prospects on a scale of 1–10 while female members designated certain underclassmen as “high priority” based on a mysterious value system.
For a further glimpse at the posturing typical of 2 Garden Street, refer to the screenshot below of an anonymously submitted invitation, traditionally slipped under a prospective punch’s door in the middle of the night.
It’s time for . . .
BRUNCH!
A limousine will await your arrival tomorrow at 11 A.M.
On the corner of Bow and Arrow Streets.
Please come dressed in your Sunday finest
And prepare to postpone any other obligations.
We look forward to seeing you then.
THE HASTY PUDDING SOCIAL CLUB, EST. 1770
Brunches and lunches are a standard means of weeding out people prior to the second event. The school wasn’t invited, but perhaps the Insider will be. . . .
“Andrews!” Grace barked at the close of the Sunday morning meeting. The rest of the COMPers stood and started gathering their things. “A word, if you please.”
Callie froze, wondering what sort of trouble she might have gotten herself into this time. In the past three weeks since COMP had started, she had completed every assignment on time, never missed a meeting, and had avoided any accidental drunken make-outs with her COMP director’s ex-boyfriend. Though if Grace had an ex or even a current boyfriend, Callie doubted she would know, since Grace refused to allow her personal life to interfere with her professional persona—if last week’s Teddy Bear Incident was any indication.
(On the Tuesday after Valentine’s Day a teddy bear that looked suspiciously like the one Callie had seen Matt carrying in their common room had showed up on Grace’s desk. After furiously confronting the staff, who met her with total silence, Grace had used large thumbtacks to secure the bear to the Crimson’s main bulletin board with the words IS THIS YOUR IDEA OF A JOKE? tacked underneath. Poor Matt—if he was responsible.)
“What’s your take on these Ivy Insider posts on FlyBy?” Grace asked, coming over and perching on the corner of Callie’s desk.
Okay, not what I was expecting. “Um . . . Whoever’s writing them seems to strongly dislike social clubs?”
Grace folded her arms, scrutinizing Callie. “So—you don’t know who’s writing it?”
“Don’t you know?” Callie countered.
“I have my ideas. . . .” Grace was still staring at her in a manner reminiscent of the Terminator or some other robot with X-ray vision. “But I can’t say for certain. The person responsible has been posting everything anonymously, subject to my administrative approval—whoever that person might be.”
Was Grace trying to confide in Callie: to confess that she was behind the blog? Callie had known Grace long enough to witness several of her anti-Final Clubs, anti-elitist, anti-hetero-normative, “phallocentricity” of Harvard society rants. But the newspaper itself published frequent op-eds in this vein, so it wouldn’t make any sense for Grace to disguise her already highly publicized opinions under a veil of anonymity. Would it?
“Any guesses?” Grace prodded.
“Maybe . . .” said Callie, starting to nod very slowly. “But whoever it is must have some kind of inside source, because they seem to know a lot of specific
details about certain organizations . . . things that only a member would know.”
“Right,” Grace agreed, nodding now too. “Maybe a member with a reason to hate these institutions but who can still blend in like she—or he—belongs.”
“You don’t think . . .” Callie stared at Grace, wondering if she could possibly be implying that Callie was the Insider, given the blog’s fleeting reference to the sex tape article. “I mean . . . I’m not . . .”
Grace cleared her throat. “While as a journalist first and foremost I cannot claim to condone the anonymity factor—”
Right, thought Callie.
“—and will continue vetting the content thoroughly to ensure that it does not violate our ethical standards, I certainly sympathize with the motive and general sentiment,” Grace finished.
Callie stayed silent. Grace’s tone still seemed to signify an implicit double meaning, almost like she had caught Callie red-handed at something but was urging her to continue while she, Grace, looked the other way. “You do know that I’m in the Pudding, and that I COMPed FM and that I still read the magazine, right?” Callie finally said.
“Yes,” said Grace. “Just like you know that as managing editor of the Crimson and head of all its affiliates, I cannot personally disband any of our publications—even the ones that glorify images of certain deplorable institutions that the Insider is working hard to dispel.”
“Grace,” said Callie. “I’m not the Insider.”