by Lauren Kunze
Sent via BlackBerry
From: The Gray Family
To: Adam Nichols
Cc: Dana Gray
Subject: We look forward to meeting you
Dear Adam,
We are very much looking forward to meeting you this weekend. As I am sure Dana told you, we do not have much use for the internet, so if you need to get in touch, please dial our landline at 843-555-9472.
Will your parents be joining us at church on Sunday? Perhaps you might send along their phone number should we need to contact them directly.
Regards,
Mr. and Mrs. Gray
From: Cecilia Clément
To: Marine Aurélie Clément
Subject: Surprise!
Cher bébé,
Quelle surprise! I know we said we would not be coming, but the dress shop in Paris that we had been planning to use for Renee’s wedding did not have le tissu approprié. Can you imagine? We had to fly all the way to New York just for the hem and will have time to stop by for an evening before we return. Your father is, of course, very busy running the country, but Renee et moi sont très, très excité!
Bisous,
Ta mama
P.S. I have been practicing my English: can you notice de cet e-mail?
From: Marine Aurélie Clément
To: Callie Andrews, Dana Gray, Vanessa Von Vorhees
Subject: RE: EMERGENCY MEETING: Must parent-proof the premises
Be in the common room tomorrow morning at 8 A.M., no excuses.
Hour One (T minus 4 hours until Parental Arrival): In which Mimi arises at a time of the morning previously presumed impossible, and the girls clean their common room.
“That’s right: all of it must go!” Dana cried, holding open an extra-large, heavy-duty trash bag, her face radiant with delight while the other three raced to fill it with various items she had declared “contraband.”
“This?” asked Mimi, holding up last October’s Halloween costume.
“Yes,” said Dana.
“This?” asked Mimi, after rushing into her room and returning with a copy of Hustler.
“Yes,” said Dana.
“Why do you have a copy of Hustler?” Callie called from the bathroom, where she was scrubbing the sink.
“These?” asked Mimi, ignoring Callie and coming out of her bedroom with a string of colorful condoms over three feet long.
“Yes!” said Dana.
“Mais je pouvais encore utiliser—”
“How useful will they be when you have to explain them to the woman who, by the glory of God, gave you the gift of life?”
“I will just tell her they are yours. . . .” Mimi muttered.
Dana, however, did not take the bait. “Stop dillydallying—into the bag, please!”
This Friday morning marked the beginning of Freshman Parents Weekend, and everyone felt a little nervous—everyone that is, except Dana. She was clearly having the time of her life.
“These?” said Mimi, holding up a box and frowning.
“Are those . . . latex gloves?” Callie yelled from the bathroom, looking up from where she was eyeing the toilet, an old toothbrush in hand.
“Oh . . .” Mimi made a face. “Is that what they are called?”
“What have you been using them for?” Callie asked, starting to giggle.
“Never mind, never mind, into the bag!” Dana cried impatiently.
“Wait!” Callie cried, rescuing the box. “Callie, one; the toilet, zero,” she murmered, donning a pair of gloves and facing down the bowl. Cleaning the toilet, bathtub, windows, and the bathroom floor was probably overkill but—especially since she still hadn’t spoken to Clint since their fight the previous Saturday—Callie was finding her Bathroom Task Force duties oddly therapeutic.
“Move,” Vanessa muttered, pushing past Callie so she could empty a bottle of rum into the sink. She was on the Common Room Task Force with Dana, special duties including Refrigerator and Freezer De-Booze-ification. Mimi had her own task force, called simply—according to Dana—“I’m not sure there’s any hope for you.” Vanessa tapped her high-heeled boot impatiently while the rum glugged down the drain. Callie couldn’t be sure, but it seemed like Vanessa was in an even worse mood than usual.
“Hurry, please,” Dana urged. “I still have to go purify next door!”
“Yes, and Mimi and I have to leave in an hour,” said Callie. “We’re already late to Pudding elections as it is!”
“Pffft.” Vanessa flounced out of the bathroom with the empty bottle in hand. “If you think that I’m going to clean the boys’ room just because I don’t have somewhere else to be,” she said acidly, “then you are even crazier than I thought.”
“It’s not cleaning,” Dana retorted primly. “It’s purifying.”
“Whatever,” said Vanessa. “I think that’s the last of the liquor. Can I go now?”
“Yes, you may,” said Dana. “And thank you very much for helping us.”
Vanessa rolled her eyes and stalked off into her room.
“What bug is crawling up her bum, I wonder,” said Mimi.
“What?” Dana and Callie asked at the same time.
“It is a very common expression, no? ‘A bug up the bum’ . . . meaning she is being very irritable today?”
Dana and Callie stared.
“Vraiment!” Mimi exclaimed. “Sometimes I think I am the only one here who is speaking English.”
Hour Three (T minus 2 hours until Parental Arrival): In which the Hasty Pudding elections have been derailed by speculation re: the Ivy Insider.
“Order! ORDER!” Anne cried, smacking a hardcover book of the Pudding bylaws on the table in the absence of a gavel.
“It’s one of the punches; it has to be,” a boy called.
“I don’t know why you’re so quick to rule out one of our own—”
“It was three stupid articles; what’s the big deal?” a girl interrupted.
“Maybe the fact that whoever wrote that last article basically confessed to calling the cops on our Fabulous Fifteen party?” the boy retorted. “Or that this same someone seems to be out to take down our entire organization? Who knows what they’ll—”
“Calm down, people, calm down,” Lexi said, standing. “We have only twelve hours left to choose our new members: it would be foolish to waste this precious time speculating about the words and possible actions of a singular, bitter individual. Now I’m not saying that this Insider situation hasn’t become potentially problematic for our organization, but rather that, at the moment, we have more pressing matters to discuss.”
“Thank you,” said Anne, exhaling while the rest of the room settled back into their seats.
Callie was sitting next to Mimi on one of the couches. Clint, who sat near the front with Tyler—and Lexi—was still avoiding any interaction with Callie, including eye contact. Suddenly Mimi nudged her.
“Sorry to interrupt,” Gregory murmured, walking into the room and taking the longer route to avoid Tyler, Lexi, and Clint. Clearly Callie wasn’t the only one in the doghouse. Gregory locked eyes with her and then glanced at the empty spot next to her on the couch. Callie shook her head very deliberately, even though Clint was facing forward and it seemed, as far as he was concerned, that neither of them existed.
Taking the hint, Gregory placed an empty folding chair next to OK.
“Now,” said Anne, “to continue our consideration of Mr. Boyd”—elections had started several hours ago and they were still only on the Bs—“does anyone have any idea why someone posted ‘kind of a narc’ to his profile on HP punch dot com other than to say that he might be the Ivy Insider?” No one said anything. Anne sighed, looking unusually frazzled. “Anyone? I know the member comments are supposed to be anonymous, but if whoever wrote that could just give us some indication as to why . . .”
Callie’s phone buzzed in her pocket. Her heart soaring, she craned her neck to get a better look at Clint—but both his hands were empty. Frowning
, she opened the text:
1 NEW TEXT MESSAGE
FROM GREGORY BOLTON
HEY. WE NEED TO TALK.
NOW IS NOT THE TIME, she texted back. Then she jammed her phone into her pocket.
A second later it buzzed again. WHEN THEN?
Callie thought for a moment, then replied: ARE YOU GOING TO THE DEAN’S TEA LATER?
NOT SURE YET. MY DAD
MIGHT NOT BE GETTING IN
UNTIL SOMETIME TOMORROW.
Callie stared at his answer on the screen. Between the ongoing elections all day today and parents all weekend, it would be almost impossible to find time—especially because appearing to have a private conversation with Gregory when Clint was anywhere in the vicinity didn’t exactly scream, I’m so sorry; please forgive me and take me back.
“CALLIE!” Anne was staring. “If it’s not too much to ask, can you kindly put away your phone?”
“Sorry,” she called. “It’s my dad,” she added defiantly. Clint shifted in his chair.
“Oh,” said Anne. “That reminds me: for the twenty or so of you freshmen who have to leave soon for Parents Weekend–related activities, unfortunately you’re going to miss the majority of our discussion—”
“Unfortunately,” Mimi muttered.
“—but we will be mass texting you the name of each punch before we vote so you can send us your input remotely by responding with either a yay or a nay. All right. So, back to Mr. Boyd . . .”
“I never thought I would be saying this,” Mimi whispered, leaning in toward Callie, “but I am eager for Mama’s arrival.”
Callie nodded emphatically. “Tell me about it.”
Hour Five (T minus 0 Hours until Parental Arrival): In which, after collecting her father, Dr. Thomas Andrews, from Logan Airport, Callie brings him with her to Economics class, followed by Economics discussion section and the Dean’s Afternoon Tea.
“Say it just one more time, sir,” Matt begged Callie’s dad, setting his teacup on its saucer. They were standing in a small group that included Callie and Matt’s parents, Mr. and Mrs. Robinson (who, incidentally, could not look anything less like Anne Bancroft circa 1967 in The Graduate), in the downstairs dining room of the Faculty Club, where the Dean’s Tea was currently taking place.
“Please, call me Thomas,” her dad said. Callie beamed at him, taking a sip of her tea. She had been actively fighting the urge to hug him every second since he’d landed and had so far managed to pace herself: setting the limit at ten hugs (three at the airport and seven while walking to and from class) but still sneaking in several covert hand squeezes every now and then.
“And it was nothing, really,” her father continued, “just a simple error that I’m sure any of you students could have spotted had you the necessary mathematical background.”
The incident Matt was referring to had occurred half an hour ago in their Economics 10b section. Their Teaching Fellow—who Matt and Callie referred to as The Ruski, in part because of his thick Russian accent but mostly for the bleak way he referred to anything relating to the economy and the even bleaker way he graded their problem sets—had been trying to explain an economic model by drawing two equations on the board.
dx/dt = 2x2 + 2y2 - y - 2
dy/dt = x2+ y2 + x – 1
Stepping back from the board, The Ruski had then said, “These planar differential equations describe a competitive equilibrium model we are working on in our lab. There are no known solutions to this model, so we must use numerical methods to solve it.”
Callie’s father had cleared his throat. “Pardon me,” he’d said, “but I believe there is one explicit solution.”
In a typical move The Ruski had replied rudely, “I’m afraid that’s impossible,” before turning back to the board.
“On the contrary, it’s not impossible,” her dad had said. “It’s a circle.”
And then he had gone on to gently explain, over the TF’s bitter protests, why the solution was a limit cycle (i.e., a circle in graphic form) while the rest of the students and their parents looked on, thoroughly impressed, though none more so than Callie—except maybe Matt, who was simply delighted to see The Ruski finally back down, chalk smeared angrily all over his face.
“It’s not impossible. It’s a circle!” Matt repeated, savoring every word. Smiling, he sighed. “It was brilliant. The best thing to happen in Econ all year.”
“The, er, ‘Ruski’ did seem extremely grumpy,” Matt’s mother chimed in. “You’d expect the teachers to be more accessible what with how much we pay in tuition, wouldn’t you?”
“They’re just graduate students,” Matt said charitably. “They have three times as much work as we do and they have to grade all of our problem sets.”
“It’s still their job to teach you—and to make sure the information they’re teaching is correct,” Mr. Robinson said.
“Quite right,” Callie’s dad agreed. “Although now I do feel a greater sympathy for your grade first semester,” he added to Callie. She grimaced.
“It probably would have been even lower if not for Matt’s tutoring,” she said to his parents. “I think I might have failed without him.”
“Is that true, Matty?” his mom exclaimed.
“Greg helped, too,” Matt muttered, blushing.
Speaking of . . . Where was Gregory? Callie glanced around the room full of parents and students mixing with members of the faculty and administration but failed to spot him anywhere. Whew.
“Well, Matthew,” her father said, “it sounds like you have a fine career in economics ahead of you. . . . Unlike my daughter, who, between you and me, I’m afraid may be planning to become an English major.”
“Daddy!” Callie cried, whacking him on the arm.
“My greatest fear realized,” he continued, ignoring her, “and the one thing I absolutely forbade her from doing when she came to college!”
“Callie is an excellent writer,” Matt volunteered, unfamiliar with her father’s humor. “You should be very proud of all the work she’s been doing in her English classes and for the Harvard Crimson.”
“Believe me, I am,” her dad said, executing Hug Number Eleven.
Callie grinned. Suddenly her phone vibrated in her pocket. Her face fell. She had been ignoring every text and call since she had left the Pudding to pick up her dad, but she should probably check in at some point to make sure there were no election-related emergencies. . . . Maybe if she snuck into the bathroom she could—
“Go ahead and get that,” her dad said, watching her closely. “I think I spy Professor Stanislauss over in the corner there. We were both at Berkeley as graduate students,” he explained to Matt’s parents. “I’m going to go say hello. I’ll be right back, kiddo,” he finished, squeezing Callie on the arm.
“Okay,” she said. “It was so nice to meet both of you,” she added to Matt’s parents, who had also excused themselves. Sighing, she whipped out her phone.
It looked like she had missed the opportunity to vote on approximately fifteen prospective members. It was almost six o’clock and they were just getting started on last names beginning with O. No word from Gregory about why he was MIA and no word from Clint about whether he wanted to stay together or never see her again. Sighing once more, she put away her phone.
Her father still stood with Professor Stanislauss, probably talking about some mathematical concept far beyond her grasp. It was wonderful to see him again after these past few months apart, but it also reminded her of how he could no longer solve her problems the way he had when she was eight years old, always ready with a Band-Aid when she scraped her knee or a huge bear hug after a rough day in school, like that one time she’d gotten her hand stuck in the goldfish bowl.
In a weird way the connection to home made her feel more alone than ever. She was on her own, and despite his considerable intellect and general Best-Dad-in-the-World-ness, Dr. Andrews had no solutions for everything going on with Clint, Gregory, or even Vanessa. Unless,
of course, she could convince him to kidnap Alexis Thorndike. She almost laughed at the thought of trying to explain Lexi to him. What is a Thorndike and why is it bothering you so much? he would probably say, before ruling the entire situation a Mom Problem, just as he had done with periods and her one big fight with Jessica back in high school.
Catching his eye, she smiled at him.
“Ready for dinner, kiddo?” he called, coming over to her.
Smiling, she slipped her arm through his. “You betcha, Daddo!”
A few hours later they were sharing their favorite dessert—an ice cream sundae with extra hot fudge—in the lobby of his hotel.
“Ugh,” she groaned, dropping her spoon with a clatter and silencing the never-ending buzz of her phone.
“Seriously, Calbear,” said her dad, watching her, “what’s the deal with all this phone stuff?”
“I’m sorry,” she said. “I should have just turned it off.”
“It’s okay,” he said, taking a huge spoonful of ice cream. “You’ve been good about it, even though I could see you itching to answer all night. Who keeps calling you, anyway? It’s not that boyfriend your mother made me promise to spy on this weekend, is it?”
Callie closed her eyes at the word boyfriend, trying not to groan again. “They’re not calls; they’re texts,” she explained. “It’s that club I joined last semester,” she continued. “Today is the day we’re voting on new members and they want to know if I say yay or nay.” She paused, picking up her phone. “On . . . ew . . . Vandemeer comma Penelope.”
“Sounds like a nay,” said her dad. “I can tell just from the name.”
“Very perceptive of you,” Callie agreed, spooning some hot fudge covered in crushed walnuts into her mouth. Still, she refrained from responding in the negative, having decided on the way to the airport that the very idea of voting on someone made her uncomfortable. She would make only one exception: to vote yay on Von Vorhees, Vanessa. After what had happened with the Pudding last semester, she owed her that much.