Nervously taking her seat, Vicky C. Hallett ‘02 greeted Mystic Mary as she readjusted the small magnetic field reader, paused, touched her right temple and said, “I keep flashing to you as a housewife in an apron standing next to the sink.”
Vicky has always thought her life resembled a sitcom, but she was thinking more along the lines of “Will and Grace” than “Leave it to Beaver.” Skeptical, she pulled 10 tarot cards from the spread Mary laid before her and awaited more news of the future.
“I’m getting something different now. There will be a fork in the road for your love life. You can choose domestic tranquility or you can decide to be a hard charger,” Mary explained. A hard charger, in Mary’s world, is someone who actively pursues her work more than her personal life. As for what this job will be, Mary had a few ideas. “You’re a chairperson, but I’m going more toward athletics than academics,” she predicted. “You might be a master of ceremonies.” A vibe indicated to Mary that Vicky’s future home will be Philadelphia (“There’s something political about it. I go to the founding fathers there,” Mary mentioned.), but there also seem to be European locations involved. “It may very well be connected to the Olympics,” she noted, explaining that this is where Vicky’s 15 minutes of fame will be. Just in case the general public is unaware of this, Vicky involved with athletics, playing athletics, watching athletics, really, doing anything involving athletics at all is extremely humorous.
Returning to the details of Vicky’s personal life, she recounted a struggle that will occur in her home. “You will not give up your independence easily. You’ll fight like the Dickens,” Mary said. Vicky smiled. “And there’s going to be a husband who doesn’t want you to work,” she added. Vicky shuddered. “But he’ll calm down when he has success in his own career. Have patience,” Mary urged.
Their time together was waning, so pointing at the “communications” card that Mary had pushed aside, Vicky asked what that meant. “Oh!,” Mary explained. “Do you draw?” Vicky’s reply: “No. I sometimes doodle in class though.” Mary collected her thoughts and said, “Yes, I see your text next to your sketches.”
As she ended the reading, Mary left Vicky with some words of advice. “You’re impulsive,” she warned. “You have to observe for a while before deciding what to get involved in.” This winter, Vicky’s planning on watching the winter games in Salt Lake City.
JYH on VCH
Vicky’s toothy smile is contagious—intoxicating really. To those unfamiliar with Vicky’s antics, the smile is comforting and friendly. Vicky is the girl who you might chat with one night at a party and months later she will remember the details of the conversation. She cares about what you say and who you are. Or, you might know Vicky’s smile from the pages of “Roving Reporter” where her smirk brags that she has the scoop, the whole scoop and nothing but the scoop. And you don’t. You may be a good friend of Vicky’s, in which case you are most probably gay, Jewish and a ManRay frequenter. Friend Vicky surprises you with her sexy gyrations to N’Sync’s latest and her ability to shed the ratty, black fleece and get dolled up—cleavage and all. If you are at all involved with the Crimson, Vicky’s smile enlivens your day whenever you enter 14 Plympton. First, because she is always here. And second, because she makes this oft-times stuffier-than-thou building, a more energetic, more fun and more passionate place to be.
Four years from now, Vicky’s keyboard will be stained with the sugar-coated apple juice drips of late nights spent in another newsroom, this time of the Baltimore Sun. She gets a job immediately after graduation as a reporter on the Sun’s metro beat and she makes it her mission to know Baltimore like she has lived there all her life. Vicky “Talent” Hallett always knew that she would stay on the East Coast and Baltimore proved perfect with its off-Broadway plays, harbor, and close proximity to family and ex-Crimson friends in the nation’s capital. Tired of reporting on Harvard’s snobbish set, Vicky chose the metro beat because she feels the pulse of everyday life and demands its story—the hardhats at the old construction site, the mothers in the grocery store, the mayor and her coterie.
Vicky plugs away at the paper. The bigwigs notice her because her stories always cover all of their bases. At the paper she makes her closest friends and moves with a few of them to a townhouse outside the city proper. Her best friend and roommate Danny writes for the Style section of the Sun and introduces Vicky to a man that he was once attracted to with the affirmation that this mystery man once wrote for Rumpus, Yale’s humor mag. Mystery man is a washed-out writer for Harper’s and the only man alive who knows more showtune lyrics than Vicky. They laugh a lot and dance ontop of bars. One year later at their orthodox wedding, Vicky sings “Nothing’s Gonna Stop Us Now.”
The kids don’t come until much later in Vicky’s life after she has written for the Washington Post, tried her hand at a few magazine pieces, and bought the apartment next to the piano bar on K Street. She feels her 15 minutes every time she spends time with her daughters—whether through participation as the class mom or when she reads to them in all of her funny voices. Late at night as they are dozing off, she picks up old copies of FM and reads them aloud. “ Who is amazing,” Chelsea asks. Vicky replies—“You are amazing Chelsea. AMAZING.”
