by Lauren Kunze
“I appreciate that,” said Clint, “and that you’ve given me space to think things over.”
Callie waited.
“I’ve decided that I could probably move past the cheating—if you can even call it that,” he conceded. “I know it was a fuzzy gray area. And I understand why you kept it from me. I may have even done the same in your shoes. . . .”
She kept waiting. Vanessa continued staring at the ceiling.
“But—”
There it was.
“But I’ve realized that we have an even bigger problem. With the e-mail, and the jealousy, and maybe one or two other minor things, I’m just not sure if you’re ready to be in a mature relationship.”
Ouch. It seemed exceptionally unfair since, given the current handcuff situation, this was impossible to argue.
“And also lately I’ve started to feel like maybe you’re not the best . . . fit for me. Though of course that goes both ways: I’m sure there’s probably somebody out there who’s better for you, too—when you’re ready.”
Double ouch. Now it was Callie’s turn to stare at the ceiling, trying to blink back tears.
“So . . . uh . . . I guess that’s it,” said Clint, straightening.
That’s it?
“I’m sorry about . . . everything,” he added, though it was unclear if he was referring to something that he had done, or simply that he had broken up with her in front of her ex-best-friend.
“I hope we’ll stay friends,” he added when he reached the door. Then he left.
Vanessa exhaled slowly, like she’d been holding her breath the entire time.
“Well, that was rough,” she said after a moment of silence.
Callie couldn’t help it: she started to laugh. The whole thing was just so bizarre, so absurd, that there was nothing else to do. “We’re handcuffed together,” she said stupidly, doubling over and laughing so hard that tears streamed out of her eyes. “We’re handcuffed together—and I just got dumped!”
Vanessa started giggling, too. “You just got dumped—and I was there!” she screeched, leaning into Callie.
“I know, and now you know everything!” Callie cried, positively hooting with laughter. “Like that I’m a psycho stalker and went through Clint’s e-mail!”
“I know!” Vanessa cried. “You totally are! And you had sex with Gregory!” she shouted gleefully, tears streaming from her eyes now, too. “You slut!”
“You bitch!”
“Whore!”
More laughter.
“Maybe I am kind of a slut,” Callie agreed when she could breathe again.
“And I’m definitely a bitch,” Vanessa said, gasping for breath. “A hot bitch!”
Callie wiped her eyes and sighed. “I guess it’s not that funny.”
“It is and it isn’t,” Vanessa offered.
Both of them stared at the wall.
“I’m sorry about your parents,” Callie murmured finally.
Vanessa’s shoulders sagged. “It’s not your fault,” she said eventually. “Not unless your name is Trudy and you answer the phones at ‘Goldman Sachs Securities, Currency and Commodities division,’” Vanessa said, her voice raised an octave higher. “‘How may I direct your call and steal your husband today, ma’am?’”
“No,” said Callie. “Really?”
“Really. It’s so cliché it’s like post-post-post-ironic—or whatever you would say in your fancy literary theory class.”
“We would probably say . . . that to leave one’s wife for one’s secretary is derivative of a classic trope that transcends the traditionally gauche connotations when rendered in a sufficiently postmodern way, though the author still runs the risk of cliché.”
“There you go,” said Vanessa. “A plus.”
“Yeah,” Callie mumbled, not really sure that her attempt at humor had succeeded. “Well, if you ever want to talk about it with a fellow survivor . . . or just someone to hide in the bathtub with you and eat Oreos . . .”
“Thanks,” said Vanessa, sniffling from all the hysteria-induced tears. “I may just take you up on that. Though, if we don’t get out of these soon,” she added, jingling the cuffs, “there may be some joint bathing in our future whether we like it or not!”
“That Mimi!” said Callie.
“It was Dana’s idea,” Vanessa reminded her. “Who knew that she could be so . . . conniving? I think I’m going to have to reconsider my general dislike of her.”
Callie giggled. “In a weird sort of way I think it works. You know: the four of us. We’re all really different, but somehow . . .”
“We all complete each other anyway? Yeah, gag,” said Vanessa, miming the gesture. “Please, spare me from this Lifetime Original moment.”
Callie turned to give her a half smile, half glare.
“Hey!” Vanessa said suddenly. “What was that speech Brittney was talking about earlier?”
“Oh,” said Callie, and then she explained how Lexi had attempted to dissuade people from voting for Vanessa out of spite probably dating back to when Vanessa had refused to give Lexi any dirt on Callie and how Callie had then run in at the eleventh hour and convinced them to vote in Vanessa’s favor. “Not that they needed a lot of convincing,” Callie amended.
“Aww,” said Vanessa. “I can’t believe you did all that, even after . . . well, how awful I’ve been these past few months.”
Callie shrugged. “It was no big,” she said. “To be honest, I mostly did it because I didn’t want to owe you anything anymore. It was like I had to pay my karmic dues for when we left you alone on your birthday or something.”
Vanessa nodded.
“Mimi stood up and threatened to quit for you, too,” Callie added, “and Tyler, of course, and . . . Clint.” She rested her forehead in the palm of her hand.
“You okay?” Vanessa asked.
“Yeah . . .” she muttered. “Yeah. You know, maybe he’s right. Maybe he is more mature than I am, and maybe that’s why he can see that we’re not ultimately right for each other. . . .”
“Well, what do you think?” Vanessa prompted. “I mean: were there ever any moments where you felt like he wasn’t right for you?”
“I guess. . . .” Callie closed her eyes, thinking back. “Yeah, I guess there were! Like that night he totally abandoned me at the governor’s cocktail party and I just felt horrid and awful and out of place, even though he made it up to me later. And then I suppose there were other times, too: like at dinner with his parents—I think his mom might have been worried that I was, like, after their money or something!”
“People with money are usually the ones who are most worried about it,” Vanessa supplied. “How to keep it and get more. I guess people with money are just funny about money!”
“Who said that?” asked Callie.
“Me, of course!”
Yes! Callie laughed. The wonky witticisms were back!
“Well, the money thing was kind of an issue on its own, too,” she said after a beat. “He just paid for spring break without discussing it with me first, and then refused to talk about it later! And stuff like that all contributed to my feeling like I never really belonged; that I was only somewhere like Gatsby as his guest, at his pleasure or on his terms or something. Even with the Pudding!” she exclaimed. “Somebody’s been paying my dues since the end of last semester, and I’m almost positive that it was Clint, but when I confronted him, he insisted that it wasn’t!”
“Actually,” Vanessa started, “that person paying your dues . . . is me.”
“YOU!” Callie cried. “Why?”
“Well,” said Vanessa, “you know how you said that part of the reason you made that speech is because you didn’t want to owe me? After the Ec exam—when you essentially saved me from flunking out of school and risked flunking out yourself—I was having a hard time hating you even with the things you’d written in that article. So . . . I decided to buy the right to hate you.”
“Wow,” said Cal
lie. “Money really does solve everything!”
“I’m serious!” Vanessa insisted. “Anyhow, it was trivial to sneak up here and leave some cash in an envelope on Anne’s desk.”
“I can’t believe you did that,” Callie said, shaking her head.
Vanessa shrugged. “It’s not like it’s my money anyway,” she said. “In a weird way you were probably helping me drain what was otherwise my dad’s Mistress Gift Fund.”
“Gross,” said Callie.
“Yeah,” Vanessa agreed. “But going back to this Clint thing—it’s so nice that we can finally talk about it, though I suppose double dates are probably out of the question at this point. Come to think of it, now that I’m in the Pudding I don’t know how much longer I’ll be keeping Tyler around—”
“Vanessa!”
“Kidding! Anyway, you were saying—about how you never really felt like you belonged . . . ?”
“Oh yeah,” said Callie. “There were just so many social situations that I had to struggle through where it seemed like someone more like Lexi would have no trouble at all . . . or maybe not just someone like Lexi but the Devil-woman herself. After all, he did date her for two years.”
Vanessa’s eyes were wide. “You don’t think . . .”
“I don’t know,” said Callie, and then she launched into an account of how she’d believed she’d “caught” Clint in the library and how it had led her to ransack his room and e-mail in-box.
“You know,” said Vanessa, fiddling with the ends of her hair, “from everything you’ve told me about how he justified those e-mails, it seems like there’s a perfectly logical explanation for each and every one of them.”
Callie nodded. It was her worst fear realized: the same thought that had struck her when Clint walked into his room and she spotted the socks on the floor and the closet torn asunder—that she had gone totally crazy and invented the whole thing. That she deserved to be dumped—and not the other way around.
“But the thing is,” Vanessa went on, “I don’t think it’s all in your head. It can’t be! The bottom line isn’t whether or not he has a rational explanation for all his shady behavior—it’s that something was bothering you in the first place! At the end of the day you’ve got to trust your instincts, and do what’s right for you.”
Callie turned to her. “Are we having another Lifetime Original moment?”
“Oh, just shut up and give me a hug,” Vanessa cried, embracing her.
Breaking away a second later, they grinned.
“Back to the party?” asked Callie.
“Eh,” said Vanessa. “It’s not all it’s cracked up to be. What’d’ya say we head home for some bathtub and Oreos time?”
“And force Dana to give us the key!” Callie added.
“And start plotting our revenge!” Vanessa finished.
“Deal,” said Callie.
“Mimi, we’re leaving,” Callie informed her when they were back downstairs.
“Together?” Mimi asked. “Together!” she confirmed, taking in Callie’s expression. “Do not fear,” she added, “for you can thank me later!”
“You’re lucky that we’re going to let you live,” Vanessa muttered.
“Oh là là, maintenant on peut enfin se sentir excité vacances de printemps!”
“What?” asked Callie and Vanessa.
“SPRING BREAK!” Mimi cried. “Whoo-hoo!”
“Oh!” said Vanessa. “Yes, it’s very exciting.”
“I could definitely use a vacation,” Callie agreed. “Although . . .” she added, casting around until she spotted Clint sitting on a couch in the living room.
“Don’t worry,” Vanessa reassured her. “We’ll figure out how to deal with the sleeping arrangements when we’re in the air!”
“What is this ‘sleeping’ that the two of you speak of? There is no sleeping pendant les vacances de printemps!”
“Okay, Meems,” Vanessa said. Then she muttered in Callie’s ear: “We’ll see what she has to say about that when we have to drag her out of bed and onto the plane tomorrow.”
Callie laughed. “Bye, Mimi!” she called. “Don’t stay out too late!”
Then, handcuff-in-handcuff, they made their way to the club’s front door.
There was just one problem.
Alexis Thorndike stood at the end of the foyer, blocking their exit.
“Leaving so soon?” she asked with mock disappointment.
“We’re . . .” Suddenly Callie found herself momentarily blinded by a flash of silver from Lexi’s chest.
It was a necklace. Callie’s necklace. Except that Callie’s necklace was still exactly where it should be: safe and secure around her neck.
Then it was as if everything was happening in flashes.
FLASH: “What a beautiful necklace,” Lexi had said on Valentine’s Day right here at the Pudding, with an odd look in her eye, like she had a secret. “Really, it’s stunning.”
FLASH: At brunch when Lexi had said, again with that I-know-a-secret expression, “At least a book is a lot more personal than some generic item of jewelry.”
FLASH: The same spark of silver on Clint’s bedside table that Callie had assumed, from far away, must be her necklace, only to find that . . .
FLASH: Yesterday afternoon it had been in its Tiffany box on her bureau all along. . . .
Generic item of jewelry . . . What a beautiful necklace . . . The bedside table . . . I’ll come over tonight around 8 p.m. . . . The bedside table . . . Lexi, staring into her eyes wearing the same necklace now, triumphant . . .
“Oh. My. God.”
Spring Break
Chapter Fourteen
Spring Breakup
Spring Break To-DON’T Pack Checklist
Brought to you by the editors at FM Magazine
• SUNSCREEN: You’ve been borderline albino all year long, and this is your one chance to rectify it. . . . Plus, we think the only protection you’ll need on whatever desert island is of a slightly different nature (wink-wink, nudge-nudge).
• CLOTHING: Pack only your skimpiest fare, as tropical temperatures will be spiking over 80 degrees daily, while the nights have potential to get even steamier.
• DIGNITY: What happens on the island, stays on the island (but possibly also ends up on Facebook—so maybe don’t go too crazy).
• YOUR RELATIONSHIP: Spring break is the prime time for a transient one-night (if not one-hour) fling, so leave all that drama (and possibly the person, too!) on the mainland.
• HOMEWORK: Seriously, people, do we even need to put this one on here?
• ANY READING MATERIAL THAT IS NOT A WEEKLY GOSSIP MAG: Because you can finish the last 4,299 pages of Marcel Proust’s A la recherche du temps perdu when we return to campus and thus avoid exorbitant airline heavy-baggage fees.
• YOUR SMARTPHONE: No, Twitter will not break nor will the planets collide if you miss a few days of telling us, in 140 characters or less, what you had for breakfast.
• EXTRA BAGGAGE/STRESS OF ANY KIND . . .
. . . because it’s time to sit back, relax, and HAVE FUN!!! HAPPY SPRING BREAK!!!
“That was the most awkward plane ride of my entire life, and I have traveled on beaucoup, beaucoup d’avions et jets privés,” Mimi announced, letting her bags slump off her shoulders.
“Even I can’t remember exactly who is mad at whom,” Vanessa exclaimed, “and I could tell you the entire plot for every season of Days of Our Lives in what my mother calls ‘excruciating detail.’”
“Let’s just get unpacked and get to the pool,” Callie muttered from underneath the large hat and even larger oversized sunglasses that her roommates had lent her. Then she wheeled her luggage over to where Mimi’s and Vanessa’s were piled on the stone floor of what had to be the most adorable accommodations on the entire island of Vieques: Villa Whale.
Granted, the island was barely four miles wide, but still, with its nautical-themed white and blue furnishings and decorative wooden whal
es adorning the walls, the villa was completely picturesque: remote from the towering main resort building that loomed behind it. The living room’s entire far wall consisted of nothing more than two huge sliding glass doors, which looked out on an enormous pool—more like a small lake, actually—and beyond that, the beach, where pale blue waves lapped gently on untouched white sands.
Callie inhaled a deep, fresh, and slightly salty-smelling breath, feeling more relaxed already. Never mind the other villas also dotted around the pool, separated from them by only a few sparse palm trees and the hammocks here and there suspended between the trunks. Never mind, in particular, Villa Seashell, where she had originally planned to stay with Clint. And never mind that, according to OK, Gregory and Alessandra also had transferred out to Villa Sandcastle at the last minute, while Lexi had transferred in.
“Oi!” OK cried, bursting into the living room with Matt at his heels. Callie grinned at Matt, who had buckled to his mother’s pressure over Parents Weekend when, after learning that both OK and Gregory were going to Puerto Rico, she insisted that spring break was “a pivotal aspect of the college experience” and that she and his father would treat. “Which one’s our room, love?” OK continued, coming over to Mimi and squeezing her sides.
“Your room est là,” she said, wiggling away and pointing to the smallest of the three bedrooms, which contained two twin beds. “Avec lui,” she added, gesturing at Matt. “Je suis très désolé, mais you are the last to arrive and so you must eat the smelly egg, as one might say in America.” Then, turning, she lugged her bags into the largest bedroom—the one with a single enormous, king-size bed—and pulled the door shut behind her.
Callie and Vanessa glanced at each other, and then across the living room at Matt and OK. Everyone froze for a single moment before Vanessa and Callie screamed and made a mad dash with their luggage for the next largest bedroom (the one with two double beds), beating out the boys by a fraction of a second.