The Ivy: Scandal by Lauren Kunze, Rina Onur Page A

late: this semester’s round of COMP is nearly over! And as for next year…” Callie swallowed. I might not be here next year.
    To Callie’s surprise, Vanessa grinned. “Yes, but anyone can submit poems or fiction or essays or whatever whenever they want! Meaning, all you’d have to do is bang out one little short story andyou’re in! Published! Wildly successful! People are fighting for your autograph in the streets! Men want to sleep with you, women want to sleep with you, and babies stop crying when you touch their tiny foreheads.”
    “I don’t think writing a short story is as easy as you’re making it sound,” Callie remarked. “And I don’t have anything prepared….”
    “Oh,” said Vanessa, “I didn’t mean that you should submit something today. The deadline for their spring issue submissions isn’t for another month!”
    “Well, than wha—”
    “Today you and I will be attending…wait for it…a poetry reading!”
    “A poetry reading?”
    “Yep,” chirped Vanessa, “so get your purse and let’s get going.”
    Callie cast around her room, searching wildly for an excuse. She glanced down at her problem set, but she still had plenty of time to finish before the Friday due date. “I—uh—is that why you’re dressed so—”
    “Can I borrow these?” Vanessa interrupted, holding up Callie’s tattered Converse.
    “Um, I guess,” Callie replied, watching Vanessa pull them onto her feet. After all, if it weren’t for Vanessa and Mimi, who knows how many parties she might have attended barefooted and looking more homeless than Ke$ha or the people on HipsterOrHomeless.com.
    “Come on,” said Vanessa, grabbing Callie’s hands and yanking her to her feet. “It’ll be fun! And adventurous! And if it sucks, we can leave after twenty minutes.”

    “Promise?” asked Callie, finding herself in the common room. Damn you, Vanessa.
    “Cross my heart and hope to die,” Vanessa declared, bending over a pile of papers on the coffee table. “Now I just need to find that Admit Two Eventbrite printout,” she muttered, sifting through the mess.
    “What’s that?” Callie asked, spying a page that looked like it had been torn out of the latest issue of FM .
    “This? Oh, nothing,” Vanessa said quickly, snatching the article headed “(Harvard) Society Pages” off the table and crumpling it into a ball. “Ah, there you are!” she added, grabbing the printout for the poetry invite.
    “It didn’t look like nothing,” Callie called, following Vanessa to the door.
    “Trust me,” said Vanessa, turning to face her, the hand that held the article hovering over the trash. “You do not want to read this.”
    “Why not?” asked Callie, planting her hands on her hips.
    Vanessa sighed. “It’s a highly questionable, factually inaccurate recap of the Charity Date Auction, and I think”—she cringed—“that reading it would probably only upset you.”
    “Wh—oh.” Callie frowned. “Let me guess. The FM editors go on and on about… James Franco and his undying love for Perky Boobs.”
    “Among other things,” said Vanessa.
    “Well then, by all means!” Callie cried, seizing the article from Vanessa and tossing it into the trash herself.

    “Bravo!” Vanessa clapped her hands. “Way to take control and end the obsessing!”
    Callie rolled her eyes. “To the Advocate?”
    Vanessa linked arms with Callie. “Let the adventure begin!”
    “The adventure” turned out to be far more painful than Callie ever could have anticipated. Eighteen minutes of sitting on folding chairs inside the reading room on the second floor of the little white house on South Street listening to fellow students share their feelings—often in rhyme—felt more like eighteen hundred hours. Callie wiggled in her seat, searching through her purse for her phone. Suppressing a curse when she remembered that it was still broken, she reached out and pinched Vanessa, who sat next to her.
    “ Shh ,” Vanessa