The Ivy

by Lauren Kunze

  2. participate in a psych study: Depending on the study, this option can be risky, but there are always eager psych/med students around Harvard willing to pay if you’ll let them poke you, prod you, or look inside your brain. Some studies are as benign as clicking a button, but some (and unfortunately these are usually the ones that pay the big bucks) bear an eerie resemblance to Stanley Milgram’s Obedience to Authority electric shock experiments. . . .

  3. find a patron or a sugar-daddy/mommy: I think this probably works better in the movies than it does in real life, but go ahead and dare to dream. . . . Now I ain’t sayin’ she’s a gold digger, but I’m sure there must be plenty of wealthy, unattractive people lying around at Harvard somewhere just waiting to be exploited. If The Real Housewives of Orange County can do it, then so, my friend, can you.

  4. hook up with a tf/professor: Now, I’m certainly not advocating *blackmail* per se, but perhaps you might try encouraging them to . . . request your silence. If nothing else, at least you might earn an A for your efforts.

  5. start an escort service? No, that’s probably bad advice. Starting a fake charity: also bad advice. Seriously, don’t do that. (And don’t blame me if you get caught.)

  Well, those are all of my creative ideas for the moment. Please feel free to write in to the blogs with your own suggestions or any further questions.

  Also, I want all of you freshmen out there to please keep in mind: whether you make your own money or were born into it like the best—er, rest—of us, no matter how fabulously “rich” you may feel, you still have to pay your dues to those who are “richer” than you both in knowledge and in years. Contrary to the impression you may have formed, simply having money at Harvard does not equal social mobility. No freshman will ever be exempt from paying Harvard’s “social taxes,” and upperclassmen will always be unshakably—as it should be—at the top of the campus Food Chain.

  Go forth and prosper,

  Alexis Thorndike, Advice Columnist

  Fifteen Minutes Magazine

  Harvard’s Authority on Campus Life since 1873

  Swipe. Stamp. “Have-a-nice-day!” Swipe. Stamp. “Have-a-nice-day!” Swipe. Stamp. “Have-a-nice-day!” Swipe. Stamp . . .

  Callie stared miserably at the clock: 6:51.

  Only nine minutes left to go until her four-hour shift working the desk at Lamont Library would end: her exhilarating new job that paid a generous twelve dollars per hour to swipe (students’ identification cards), stamp (the due date into the library books), and bid a cheerful farewell (“Have-a-nice-day!”) even on days like today when she felt anything but cheerful. The combination of virtually no sleep the night before and her “green-over” was making her feel stupid and slow, as if every movement took extra effort and inordinate amounts of concentration.

  With every monotonous swipe she pictured another quarter dropping into her imaginary piggy bank, still hundreds of dollars away from being able to fund her Pudding membership.

  She glanced across the foyer at Lamont Café, where many fellow members were congregating, sipping coffee, and gossiping. She could see Anne Goldberg at a table close to the counter, always keeping half an eye on newcomers in the doorway or the cute boy a few tables over while pretending to concentrate on her books.

  Just over a month ago their lifestyle as Harvard’s social elite had seemed so far out of reach; now, miraculously, they had accepted her as one of their own. She finally understood what it meant to belong.

  Well, not quite . . . she thought, stamping a library book for a pretty, senior girl whom she had met during initiation. It pained her to let them see her working, but she had no other choice. If she was lucky, after a semester of working four-hour shifts three times a week, she’d be able to afford the price of being popular.

  She cringed as she recalled the telephone call she’d had with her mother about the Pudding earlier that week. She should have known that her mom—who had raised her to be frugal and cautious with money—would never understand why she needed to belong to this club. She had only been two sentences into her explanation when her mother had cut her off.

  “I don’t understand why you should have to pay people in order to keep them as friends.”

  And that had been the end of it.

  “I like your headband,” the senior girl said, smiling as she loaded the books into her tote bag.

  “Thanks,” said Callie, smiling back and reminding herself that she ought to be thanking Vanessa, who had given Callie the red, oriental silk headband earlier that week because it “clashed” with her own reddish hair.

  Over the past several days Vanessa had been truly amazing. She had taken Callie on a Girls Only spa excursion the Saturday after the e-mail disaster, where the pain of getting waxed and plucked for the first time had effectively distracted her. Yesterday morning Vanessa had even insisted on proofreading Callie’s pieces for her second COMP portfolio, which were due the following week. In a way Vanessa’s sympathy about the Evan Incident and her attitude of total forgiveness made Callie feel even worse about the Pudding. But on the other hand, being able to confide in someone had been such a relief. Two months ago she never would have guessed that Vanessa might be the sole friend at Harvard whom she chose to take into her confidences, but Vanessa had proved supportive and nonjudgmental beyond any of Callie’s expectations.

  These days it seemed like their bond was stronger than ever before—especially after such a crazy time last night. Especially, Callie couldn’t help but think, since I heard her coming back just a few minutes after she left.

  Vanessa had been fast asleep when Callie headed to class that morning so she hadn’t had a chance to get the details yet, but she had a feeling that nothing serious had happened.

  6:57 P.M.: only three more minutes of torture until Callie could grab a bite to eat, finish her homework, and pass out in her tiny twin bed. . . .

  Just then a scrawny freshman boy who looked like—and may very well have been—a fourteen-year-old genius approached the counter and whined in a nasal, prepubescent voice:

  “Uhm, I’m looking for the Quantum Electrodynamics textbook for my advanced level physics course. According to the library’s database, it should be located in the stacks on the fourth floor, but I’ve been up there looking and am certain that it’s been misplaced. I already filed a Missing Book form and arranged to pick up a different copy from Widener Library tomorrow, but I really thought you ought to know so you can go up there and verify that it’s actually missing before you leave today.”

  He finished, looking at her expectantly.

  Seriously? She stared back at him, hoping he’d be intimidated by the fact that, even as a girl, she was at least a head taller than him.

  He didn’t budge.

  Lucky me! she thought with an aggravated sigh, coming out from behind the checkout counter and heading toward the stairs. She glanced back over her shoulder before opening the double doors. Sure enough, he was still standing there, staring. She had no other choice: he was clearly going to stay put and make sure he fulfilled his vigilante library duties by forcing her to approve that stupid missing book form.

  Slowly she climbed the stairs. Having no prior need for a little light reading in advanced physics, she had never been up to the fourth floor stacks. Rumor had it that since so few people cared about quantum electrodynamics, the fourth floor stacks were a preferred destination for clandestine library encounters, usually of an illicit, sexual nature. . . .

  Catching two people in the act would certainly be the icing on a fan-freaking-tastic day, she thought as she followed the confusing arrows toward the quantum mechanics section.

  Wandering through the stacks was like wandering through a maze, but eventually she found the right aisle. The Q section was low down, close to the floor. As she squatted to search for that little pinprick’s textbook she thought she heard voices coming from somewhere in the adjacent row.

  She didn’t think much of it until she distinctly heard the words sh
ame, COMP, and magazine spoken by a female voice, and then another female voice give a muffled reply.

  Holding her breath, Callie inched past the Q and R sections all the way down to the S titles: a point from which the conversation was suddenly far more audible.

  “. . . a little bit about how the COMP evaluation process works. We cut over fifty individuals during the first round, so now there are about sixty people left to compete for ten coveted spots.”

  So she’d heard right. They were talking about some sort of COMP! Of course, it could be for a different organization, but she knew there were about sixty people vying for places at FM.

  “Each of our current editors is responsible for reviewing five portfolios a day, which means that we’ll have the results of the second round tallied shortly after we return from Thanksgiving break. Less than thirty people will continue for the third and final round.”

  Bingo! They were definitely talking about FM, and this girl had to be one of the editors. Callie strained to hear the voice, grasping for familiar nuances or intonations, but the tone was too muffled by all the dense Erwin Schrödinger books to identify the speaker.

  “Competitors’ portfolios are supposed to be completely name-blind and anonymous, but it’s pretty easy to tell who each person is based on the pieces they’ve submitted. Regardless, each editor scores the pieces on a scale of one to ten, and then gives the portfolio an overall score before passing it on to the next editor. At the end of the process all of the scores are compiled and averaged. The ten people with the highest scores win a spot on the magazine after the third round, though usually there’s a run-off and we all take a vote based on—other qualities.”

  Callie couldn’t believe her luck! Nobody outside of the FM editors knew the specific details of how COMP selection worked, and yet there these two mysterious girls were, somewhere between Space-Time Structure and Statistical Thermodynamics, about to reveal it all. . . .

  “Now, so far the ‘anonymous’ COMPer in question has done much better than I’d expected. By some fluke of nature the scores on her first portfolio were actually very high—even a few tens, which are unheard of for a freshman.”

  Callie’s heart stopped. Could it be—was it possible—that these girls were talking about her? She tried not to let her ego speed ahead of her as she processed the phrases “even a few tens” and “unheard of for a freshman.” In high school, whenever her teachers had announced that the standard deviation was skewed because somebody had outscored everyone by a significant margin, they had always given Callie a significant look, and she knew, just knew, that she was the person they were talking about.

  As quietly as possible, she crouched and began to pull out one heavy book after another, while the other girl, whose voice was softer and harder to hear, was murmuring something about “read her pieces” and “really talented.”

  Working quickly, Callie cleared an area large enough for her to poke her head into. She could see through a serendipitously empty space between the books in the adjacent aisle. Cautiously she looked from left to right—thank you again, Advanced Theoretical Physics, for being so boring—before lying stomach to the floor and sticking her head through the gap.

  “. . . too much drama and too much controversy for the magazine. As you might imagine, we have an image to protect, and that image is crucial to the success of our publications.”

  Crap, Callie thought irritably, squinting: all she could make out was a scuffed gray floor and somebody’s navy blue Longchamp bag resting against the bookshelves. That bag could belong to anybody in FM: you could spot at least eighty of them on any given day during Justice. . . . Did she dare try to shift the position of a book from the shelf in their aisle? It seemed just a little too risky. . . .

  She was about to reach out and move it anyway when she suddenly froze.

  “. . . image: it’s the same reason I advocated to keep her out of the Pudding—and unfortunately, we both know how that turned out, don’t we? It’s a way she has with men: manipulating them and wrapping them around her finger with that bleach blond hair and that whole transparent act about being an innocent little California girl. It’s amazing how she had both Tyler and Clint salivating at her heels so that they just couldn’t say no. . . .”

  When she heard “bleach blond,” Callie had been ninety-nine percent certain about the identity of the speaker: a fear which was then confirmed as the girl took a step forward and Callie caught sight of the ivory Chanel flats with two interlocking golden Cs and the slim, alabaster ankles that could belong to only one person.

  Alexis Thorndike.

  Lexi, plotting against her in the Advanced Theoretical Physics section of Lamont Library with an unknown cohort, trying to figure out if there was a way they could keep Callie out of—

  “Now, I can’t ensure that she gets cut this round if her scores continue to be so high, but we are at liberty to use our discretion when it comes to serious questions of character. If somebody can cast a dubious light on another person’s integrity, then we can choose to deny her admittance based on the potential for scandal because, like I said, we do have a very important reputation to uphold. Can you think of something?”

  The other girl, whoever she was, was silent.

  “Plagiarism? Racism? Nepotism? Inappropriate Facebook photos? No? Anything at all?” Lexi prodded.

  More silence.

  Lexi’s flats disappeared from view. “Look,” she started again, her tone dropping so that Callie had to strain to hear, “I think we both know what the real issue is here and that’s this thing about the Pudding. Now that I know you a little better, I for one think it’s a crime against nature that you didn’t get in.”

  Callie felt her heart start to sink in her chest as she realized she did know a specific somebody who owned a navy Longchamp bag . . . somebody who also didn’t get into the Pudding. . . .

  “I’ll admit that I wasn’t exactly pushing for you during elections, but I can see now that I was mistaken: you fit the Pudding profile exactly. You belong with us. In fact . . . when I think about it, you had a lot of advocates, but then one girl went ahead and blackballed you. I believe it may have been something to do with her boyfriend . . . Jeremy or Jeffrey something? Anyhow, blackballing is such an aggressive, distasteful move that personally I would never make, but as you know, once an individual invokes it, there’s really nothing we can do.”

  “Wait. If you can’t do anything for me, then why am I . . . ?” came the sound of a voice that was now painfully familiar.

  “Because the girl who blackballed you is a fifth-year senior, meaning she’s going to be graduating—thank god—at the end of this semester.”

  “Ahh . . .”

  “Exactly. Spring Punch. I can guarantee it for you, just as I can guarantee now on behalf of the club that you really are a perfect fit and we’d absolutely love to have you. That’s the beautiful thing about true friends, Vanessa: they help each other out with these things. And you: you’re a true friend. I knew from the second I read your e-mail that you’d be somebody I could count on. . . .”

  “It’s just so frustrating, you know?” Vanessa suddenly exclaimed. “I did everything for her! It’s like she was Cinderella and I was her fairy godmother.”

  “A social ugly duckling that you grew into a beautiful swan.”

  “Yeah!” said Vanessa with bitter enthusiasm. “Yeah, exactly. I practically made her what she is today: she was just so freaking clueless when she first got here! I mean, how can you be from Westwood and yet the only shoes you own are a pair of ten-dollar bargain-bin flats? I did my best to include her, I showed her how to dress and introduced her to all my old friends and how does she repay me? By stabbing me in the back!”

  “You deserve better from your friends,” Lexi agreed. “We all do. I know how it is: I had a friend like that my freshmen year, too. She was fun and sweet to my face, but all the while she was plotting how to steal my things—my social life, my extracurriculars, my classes, my
boyfriend—she even stole my favorite pair of Manolos, for crying out loud!

  “Essentially these people are all the same: they know they can never be like us and that they can never truly belong to our world, so they take, take, take—shamelessly clawing their way up the social ladder because they’re so painfully jealous. . . .”

  “Jealous?” asked Vanessa. “You really think she’s jealous—of me?”

  “Of course she’s jealous of you!” Lexi replied. “Who wouldn’t be jealous of you? You’re Vanessa Von Vorhees, for heaven’s sake! You don’t need me to tell you that!”

  Callie could just imagine Lexi’s sweet smile and large doe brown eyes. Vanessa was probably hanging on her every word, eating it up faster than mac-n-cheese after a party.

  “Anyway, it’s time for Vanessa Von Vorhees to start thinking about who her true friends really are. Are they the people who use you to get ahead and then leave you in the dust? Or are they the people who promise to go out on a limb and make sure that you get what you want—what you deserve?”

  Vanessa was quiet. “Okay,” she said finally. “All right, yeah. I’ll see if I can think of anything that might help you, but you should know that I’m not sure if I’ll be able to find anything good. She’s very secretive, you know.”

  “Really, anything scandalous will do. . . .”

  “I said all right,” Vanessa answered. “I just need some time to . . . think about it, that’s all.”

  “Good,” said Lexi. “And in the meantime I’ll be pulling strings for you with the board. And do keep in mind what I said earlier about you being a great fit for FM, too: the fewer freshmen that get on the magazine this semester, the more spots there will be in the spring. . . .”

  Callie’s face was burning. She made her way as quickly—and as quietly—as she could out of the stacks, leaving a pile of books abandoned in the middle of the aisle.