The Ivy: Scandal (8 page)

Callie’s eyes flew open, just in time to see a suspended arm being yanked down by the girl standing next to its owner.

Alexis Thorndike, looking far more murderous than Callie had only moments earlier, maintained her viselike grip on Clint’s arm, muttering furiously. “Er…” Tyler faltered, watching his roommate turn to address his girlfriend.

Callie felt her cheeks flush scarlet. The only thing that could possibly be worse than no bid at all was a pity bid from your ex, who apparently still felt guilty for screwing you over.

Clint lowered his hand, shaking his head at Tyler.

Scratch that: a
retracted
pity bid was definitely worse.

Tyler made a face at Callie. He had never, as he’d once confided
in her, liked Alexis, and even though to call his relationship with Vanessa “rocky” would be putting it lightly, he and Callie had always gotten along.

“Uh, right.” Tyler cleared his throat. “Just to clarify, if you’d like to bid simply raise your hand and I will call on you…. So let’s try this again. The bidding starts at sixty dollars, just sixty dollars…. Ah yes, you sir, there, on the left,” he pointed.

“One hundred dollars,” said the boy, lowering his hand. It was Bryan Jacobs, Callie’s old classmate from West Hollywood High, now a junior in the same Final Club, the Fly, as Tyler and Clint.

“ONE HUNDRED DOLLARS!” cried Tyler, speaking quickly, one eye still trained on his roommate. “Going-once-going-twice-and-SOLD! And what a way to start the night!” he boomed over the crowd’s applause.

Callie tried to smile at Bryan, but her face felt frozen. Fortunately her legs took over with only one mission in mind: exit stage right.

Vanessa’s outstretched arms were waiting. Callie lacked the energy to brush them off. “You did great,” Vanessa reassured her. Callie scoffed but allowed her roommate to lead her to where Dana and Mimi were waiting, seated now on stools around a small table near the bar at the back of the crowd. Mimi conjured up another drink while Dana nodded at Callie. “I had no idea you were such a seasoned world traveler,” she said.

“I’m not,” Callie muttered, rounding on Vanessa. “Seven continents!? Why—”

“Because fun facts are supposed to be funny! And greatly exaggerated!” Vanessa insisted. “Trust me. This is not my first rodeo.”

“
Ceci n’est pas
her first bachelorette auction,” said Mimi, appearing delighted to be translating for once.

Callie folded her arms. “Thank god it’s only Bryan,” she murmured, smiling weakly at him across the room. “Otherwise I might have had to learn how to fly-fish or, heaven forbid, become balanced enough to do yoga!”

“Speaking of dates,” said Vanessa, “how crazy was that when Clint—”

“BOLTON?” Tyler’s magnified voice rang across the room.

Callie spun around so fast that she tumbled off her stool. Steadying herself against the table, she searched the crowd—

“Gregory Bol—Oh,” Tyler stopped himself, crossing a name off the list. “That’s right. He’s not…here.” Callie heard him mutter into the microphone.

“And speaking of balancing,” Vanessa picked up without missing a beat, ushering Callie back onto the stool, “you need to take a serious chill pill.”

Mimi started rifling through her purse. “I believe I have a Valium or at the very least a Xanax playing seek and hide in here somewhere….”

Dana shook her head. “I’m sure if he could be here, he would have bid on you,” she said, placing a hand on Callie’s wrist as Tyler called the next auctionee’s name.

“Not like he could afford it!” Vanessa exclaimed.

“Vanessa!” Dana snapped.

“What?” Vanessa was indignant. “I’m just saying that if anything, Gregory’s the one who
needs
charity now—”

“That’s enough!” Callie commanded, tilting her head pointedly at the group of
FM
reporters congregating nearby. Fortunately Alessandra stood out of earshot, readying for her onstage debut, where she would no doubt fetch a gazillion and ten dollars for charity.

“Sorry,” Vanessa muttered, chewing her lip. “I guess I was being a little loud.”

“Smile!” Marcus Taylor cried, stepping forward from the
FM
crew and brandishing his camera. There was a blinding flash, followed by the deafening roar of applause as “the moment you’ve all been waiting for,” i.e., “MISS ALESSANDRA CONSTANTINE!” took the stage. Callie blinked, fairly certain her face was going to look deformed in that photo.

“So what’d it feel like to be the first auctionee?” asked a girl Callie recognized as one of Lexi’s evil
FM
spider monkeys, joining Marcus and pulling out a notepad.

“Uh,” said Callie, struggling to tune out the fierce bidding war brewing among several men in the audience. “Somewhat objectifying?” she offered, thinking of Grace, who in the days before her probation probably would have loved to get a quote condemning the auction.

“Going once…going twice…and SOLD! For a record breaking—so far—amount, especially given that she’s taken.” Tyler beamed at Alessandra, who smiled back.

“No further comments,” Callie announced loudly. A gazillion and ten dollars wasn’t too far off. “That’s right,” she added to Mimi, who had just placed another drink in front of her. “Keep
’em coming. Bottoms up,” she muttered, spying Lexi and Clint, who appeared to have made up, in the corner. Well done, Sweater Vest. You two deserve each other, Callie thought bitterly. So you can take your
charity
bid and shove it up your—

“Bryan!” Callie shrieked, leaping to her feet and hugging the boy who had just approached. “My hero,” she intoned, stepping back but keeping her hands on his water-polo-and-swim-team-enhanced shoulders.

“Excellent,” Marcus encouraged them, the bulb in his camera flashing. “Now one more, for the cheap seats in the back!”

Callie rolled her eyes and moved closer to Bryan, who threw a brotherly arm around her shoulders. “Thank you,” she said quietly when the camera had stopped flashing, frowning at the lingering
FM
reporters.

“For what?” asked Bryan with a sportsmanlike grin.

“For being the one and only person to bid on me,” Callie replied.

“It was my pleasure,” said Bryan. “Anything for a good cause, right?”

“Exactly,” Vanessa chimed in, flipping her strawberry blond locks. “Won’t you join us?”

“Sure,” he said, pulling up a stool.

Callie smiled. Some of Vanessa’s mannerisms vaguely reminded Callie of her best friend, Jessica, whom Bryan had briefly dated back in high school. He’s all yours, Callie attempted to will her roommate.

Unfortunately Vanessa seemed to have the exact same thought in mind as far as Callie and Bryan were concerned: singing
Callie’s praises in between stopping to giggle at some of the other auctionees “fun flirty
facts
,” ranging from “her fourth-grade science project inspired CERN’s Large Hadron Collider” to “he starred as a backup dancer in a Lady Gaga video.”

And yet, even in spite of Vanessa’s clunky, obvious attempts at matchmaking, the evening flew by. Before Callie knew it, Tyler was announcing the winning bid on Penelope Vandemeer, a fellow freshman who had remained in the Pudding despite her threats to quit after reading the nasty things the older members had to say about her when the Insider published the Punch Book.

“You’re next,” Callie said, smiling at Vanessa. “Revenge will be so, so sweet.”

“I, for one, couldn’t be more excited,” said Vanessa, standing and smoothing her dress. “Just picture the look on Tyler’s face when he sees how many other men are interested in—”

“AND NOW…” Tyler paused, glancing in their direction. “OK ZEYNA!”

“
What?
” Vanessa gasped.

“OK Zeyna to the stage please,” Tyler repeated, grinning wickedly. “And here he is, ladies and gentleman,” he cried as OK appeared, “our final contestant of the night!”

“What!” Vanessa shrieked again. “Did he just—deliberately—
skip
me?”

“
C’est la vie
,” said Mimi, winking at Callie. Even Dana cracked a smile. “Whoever digs a pit will fall into it,” she intoned, “and a stone will come back on him who starts it rolling.”

“English, please,” Vanessa snapped.

“That. Is. Life!” said Mimi.

“Karma can be such a Thorndike,” Callie added, patting her on the back.

Vanessa gaped. “But I—”

“Educated in London but with origins in Nigeria, our final contestant’s claim to royal roots is no secret,” Tyler boomed, eliciting cheers from the crowd.

“But now for a few things you probably didn’t already know about his majesty,” Tyler continued. OK grinned, hamming it up for the audience. “He loves any and all reality TV shows with America in the title, from
Top Model to Idol
. He likes long romantic walks on the stone pathway between Wigglesworth and Annenberg, virtual race car driving, and all music with the exception of the—and I quote—‘horrendous posers in Sexy Hansel’”—this incited some spirited boos—“and finally, would like all the ladies in the house to know that while he’s only twenty-five percent British and fifty percent royalty, he is a resounding one hundred and ten percent SINGLE!”

Mimi rolled her eyes. “I suppose this is our cue to start the bidding,” she said to Dana. “Would you prefer to go first or should—”

“TWO HUNDRED AND FIFTY DOLLARS!” an upperclassman girl screamed from the center of the crowd.

Tyler smiled into the microphone. “Ladies, please remember to raise your hands if you’d like to bid. Now I heard two hundred and fifty; do I hear two sixty? Yes, you there,” he cried, pointing to another girl. Several other hands had shot up in the meantime.

“I guess we won’t be needed after all,” said Dana.

Mimi narrowed her eyes. “This is just—”

“All right, now we have three hundred from the lady in the back!” Tyler cried. “Next up—yes, you there, on the left—”

“—
absurde
.” Mimi finished.

“Is somebody—dare I say it—
jealous
?” Vanessa demanded.

“
Absolutement pas!
” Mimi denied it with a wave of her hand.

“And we have three hundred and fifty,” Tyler announced. “Going once…going twice…and—what the—”

OK, eager, it appeared, for more bids, had removed his shirt and started circling it above his head. The crowd went wild.

“Well, this is certainly a first,” Tyler remarked over the shrill sound of female screaming. He laughed as OK chucked his shirt across the lounge.

“Four hundred dollars!” belted a senior who’d wrestled the garment away from her peers like a bouquet-crazed bridesmaid.

“Ladies, please wait until I’ve called on you,” Tyler urged while OK, who’d been sauntering up and down the stage, reached to undo his belt. “Let’s try to keep this civilized—”

“FIVE HUNDRED DOLLARS!” It was Marcus Taylor,
FM
photographer and bartender at the Cambridge Queen’s Head pub, whose interest in OK had always been abundantly clear to everyone with the exception of his highness.

Up on stage OK froze. Then, with a shrug, he beamed, sliding his belt out of its loops.

“Is it over yet?” Dana asked, her fingers plastered over her eyes.

“Going once…” Tyler warned. “Going twice…”

“FIVE HUNDRED EUROS!” Mimi screamed, standing.

“Five hundred…euros?” Tyler repeated. “Er, how many dollars is that?”

“Approximately six hundred and fifty-eight,” called a boy near the stage.

“SOLD!” OK yelled, grabbing the microphone. “To the lovely Miss Marine Clément—”

“Now hang on just a minute,” Tyler interjected, yanking back the mike. “You there,” he called, pointing to the girl who, still clinging to OK’s shirt, had just raised her hand.

“One thousand dollars!” she screamed, jumping up and down.

OK’s face fell. Mimi, by contrast, appeared quite serene as she reassumed her seat.

“One thousand dollars: by far the highest bid of the night!” Tyler echoed loudly. Then, with his hand only partially obscuring the microphone, he added with a stern look at OK, “Bro, seriously. The pants stay on.”

OK frowned.

“Going once…going twice…and…SOLD, for a whopping one thousand dollars to the lucky lady holding the shirt! What a way to end the bidding, folks! But wait—don’t head for the door just yet! ’Cause my man DJ Damien Zhang’s about to start spinning some serious tunes, so get ready to grab your favorite auctionee and hit the dance floor!”

Half an hour later, after some halfhearted dancing, Callie stood making conversation with Bryan. Vanessa had abandoned them to go yell at Tyler. Dana had excused herself and Mimi had just flat
out disappeared, much to the dismay of OK, who’d been cornered by his winning bidder and appeared unable to retrieve his shirt. And Matt, Callie felt certain, would be found wherever Grace might be—probably back at the
Crimson
offices, overseeing other reporters’ draft coverage of the auction.

“So…you keep in touch with Jessica much?” Bryan asked, confirming Callie’s suspicions that her best friend was a heartbreaker.

“Only about twice a day,” said Callie. “Even if it’s just a stupid Facebook poke.”

Bryan laughed. “That’s good to hear. She planning a visit soon?”

Callie sighed. “She keeps promising to come and then flaking out when I try to make her commit to actual dates—Oh, excuse me,” Callie apologized, spotting Vanessa who, having finally tired of Tyler, was motioning frantically at Callie from the bar.

“Sorry to interrupt,” Vanessa gushed. Callie rolled her eyes. “But here,” Vanessa continued, thrusting her iPhone into Callie’s hands. “Call your dad.”

“What?” asked Callie.

“He called a few minutes ago looking for you.”

“My dad…called
you
? Looking for me?” Callie repeated.

“Yes, but since you seemed
very busy
dancing with a certain handsome gentleman from California, I explained that you were otherwise occupied.” Vanessa beamed. “You’re welcome, by the way.”

“But…how did he get your number?”

“Probably because you gave it to him after that five-pound hunk of scrap metal you called a phone finally put us all out of our
misery by kamikaze-ing into the toilet, remember, genius? ‘If my parents don’t have a number where they can reach me, they will freak and think I
died
—’”