The Ivy: Scandal by Lauren Kunze, Rina Onur

shirt.
    “It’s definitely different…. But you look…cute?” Crazy, but cute.
    “I know, right!” Vanessa smiled.
    “Urban Outfitters?” Callie asked, naming one of Harvard Square’s staple clothing suppliers.
    “Please,” said Vanessa, widening her eyes dramatically, “don’t make me talk about it.”
    Callie laughed. “So what’s brought on this sudden—er—change?”
    “Well,” said Vanessa, “I’ve really been getting into EPL these past few weeks….”
    “Oh jeez,” Callie started. “Please do not try to tell me that just because you read Mimi’s tabloids about all the crazy English Premier League WAGs making their husbands get hair implants or having sex with other players on the team, you suddenly understand soccer!” Callie glanced at the photo of Gregory on her bookshelf, remembering their impromptu, thirty-second soccer scrimmage the night of Pudding elections, which, thanks to an interruption from Clint, had basically ended before it had even begun. Kind of like our entire relationship, she thought bitterly.
    “Uh, no ,” Vanessa was saying, “though I am impressed thatyou’ve learned to use the acronym for Wives and Girlfriends in a sentence. I was talking about the book Eat, Pray, Love . Essentially, if you replace the Praying part with Partying , then the scenario becomes highly applicable to our lives.”
    Here we go again, thought Callie, steeling herself for one of Vanessa’s epic speeches.
    “Much like us, Julia Roberts has been through a bad breakup.”
    “Isn’t the author named Elizabeth Gilbert?”
    Vanessa shrugged. “Movie, book, it’s all the same these days. Anyway, Julia tries to heal the pain of her divorce with James Franco. Except it doesn’t work. You would think, as any sane woman would, that James Franco,” Vanessa continued, lifting the photo of Gregory off of the bookshelf and holding it up, “heals everything. But you would be wrong. James Franco just creates even more problems than you had when you started,” she declared, tucking the photo in between two books. “Meaning that it’s time to forget James Franco and start focusing on you , and your own personal spiritual journey to self-actualization and independence.”
    Callie laughed. “Is your mom’s kabbalah instructor back from vacation or something?”
    “Callie!” Vanessa admonished. “I’m being serious!” Her smile faded as she placed a hand on Callie’s shoulder. “I worry about you, you know? It seems like all you do these days is go to class, do your homework, and then spend every other waking moment obsessing about that bulletin board,” she said, tilting her head at the wall, “or obsessing about…you know, James Franco. Don’tyou think it’s time to take a break from all the conspiracy theories and do something else for a change? Something extracurricular and—well, I don’t know—fun?”
    Callie sighed. “I had an extracurricular activity. It was writing, remember? But I got cut from FM magazine and suspended from Crimson COMP, so now…”
    “So now so what ?” said Vanessa. “You don’t need to be part of a paper or a magazine to keep writing! You can write anywhere, about anything, and there are plenty of other publications out there besides the Crimson and FM . Which brings me to my next favor.” Vanessa’s lips curled into a sly smile. “I need you to come to an event with me at the Harvard Advocate that starts in approximately fifteen minutes.”
    The Harvard Advocate was one of the oldest literary magazines in the country, and boasted many famous alumni and contributors, including T.S. Eliot, Norman Mailer, e. e. cummings, Jack Kerouac, and Tom Wolfe.
    Callie shook her head. “There’s no way I’m COMPing another editorial board ever again. Even if I weren’t emotionally and literally exhausted and even if the Advocate didn’t have an even more exclusive editorial department than the Crimson or FM , I still couldn’t do it because it’s too