"It's not like it's your fault," he said. "It's not just you, it's the schools, and the parents, and the guidance counselors, and all the people who will give you a job someday just because your college football team played in the Ivy League--it's the whole damn system. And we just keep buying into it, every year. Because what else are we supposed to do?"
"So since you've got it all figured out, what are you doing here?" I asked. "With the rest of us chumps."
"Oh. Well . . . I'm probably not applying here, I'm just . . . you know . . . looking around. I'm going to MIT."
"Right, because MIT's not an elite university that most people go
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to for the name recognition," I said. "You've totally defied the system. Congratulations."
"It's not like that," he protested. "I've been doing research for this professor there, and their engineering program is amazing, and ..." His body sagged, just a little. "Yeah. So maybe I am a hypocrite. A little bit. But . . ." He shrugged. "At least I've got a reason. I didn't just pick MIT because it's at the top of some list." When he spoke again, it was almost too softly for me to hear. "I don't think."
"You're not a hypocrite," I told him. "You're . . ."
But I couldn't think of the right adjective, and the silence stretched on, and then it was too late and the moment had passed.
Eric tapped his watch. "You should probably go," he said quietly. "Your appointment."
On impulse, I reached out my hand for him to shake. "Good talking to you, Eric Roth."
He grabbed my hand. "You too. Lex." He held on one beat too long, and it felt, for a moment, like we were holding hands--not normally, but in a frozen, formal way like someone had erected a stone monument to good manners. Then it ended, and, realizing my hand was sweating, I went to wipe it on my skirt, but then stopped--I didn't want him to think I was wiping him off.
He gave an awkward wave and began to turn away.
"I have a reason," I blurted out.
"For what?"
I chewed on the edge of my lower lip. It was a habit, and I'd always thought it was a cute one, until my one and only boyfriend Jeff told me it grossed him out. Of course, this was before Jeff hooked up with the sandwich girl at Au Bon Pain and became my
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one and only ex. But I still believed him about the lip thing. "For this. For Harvard. I mean, I have lots of reasons. And whatever you say, Harvard is the best. But... a lot of it is about my grandfather."
Stop talking, I told myself. It's not too late.
"He went here?" Eric asked.
I laughed. "Not quite. He worked here. It was when he was young, right after he married my grandmother. The students treated him like shit. So did the professors. They all thought they were so much better than him, just because he was mopping their floors. He used to really hate it here--and then he met this guy, a history professor. I guess they started talking, and eventually they got to be friends. When my grandfather was done working for the day, he'd go to this guy's office and they'd have a drink together. And that professor told him that he shouldn't waste his time hating Harvard--he should beat it. He should prove to everyone that he was just as good as they were. That he was better. And, eventually, that professor helped my grandfather get a better job, where he didn't have to wash floors anymore--but when my mother got into Harvard, he still couldn't afford to send her. So now it's my turn. And I'm not going to let him down."
Eric looked like he'd run over my puppy. "I, uh . . . I didn't know."
"Well, now you do." I shrugged. "No big deal. I just wanted you to know--I have a reason."
I was a good liar.
Not that I didn't have a grandfather, but he hadn't worked at Harvard. He had gone there. (A lot of good it would do me, since according to the admissions brochure, it wouldn't qualify me as a
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legacy applicant and so wouldn't help me in the least.) He didn't care about the place--didn't love it, didn't hate it, didn't have any opinion on whether or not I should follow in his footsteps. He thought of college as just one of those things you have to get through--like a dentist's appointment, or the Korean War--and didn't care where I ended up, as long as it was somewhere. Which was my parents' party line too, although I knew better.
And I did have my reasons--real reasons. They might not have been as picturesque as a dead grandfather and a family legacy, but they weren't the superficial, society-imprinted, consumerist nonentities that Eric had implied either. I had done my research, pored over every page of my Fiske guide, memorized all the inane what's hot/what's not lists in my Princeton Review; I had made my pro/con charts, carefully weighed all the options, and chosen a winner. There was a reason Harvard had a reputation for being the best, I'd decided, and the reputation was self-fulfilling, because it meant Harvard got the best--the best students, the best professors, the best resources--which meant I wanted it to get me. I wanted to get lost in the country's biggest college library; I wanted to learn Shakespeare from a grand master while staring up at a ceiling carved hundreds of years before. I wanted to sunbathe on the banks of the Charles and imagine Emerson, Thoreau, Adams, all lying in the same place, centuries earlier, dreaming up the ideas that would build a nation. I wanted to be in awe of the school, the teachers, the history, the legacy--I wanted to be terrified I wouldn't measure up. I wanted to prove that I could.
I had my reasons.
So why lie?
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It wasn't because I wanted to impress Eric, convince him that I wasn't just some mindless overachiever--I didn't care if he judged me. He obviously judged everyone. And I had no need to prove myself, not to him.
But I had to make him stop thinking of me as a target to acquire or a photo in a file. That was step one, and a lie was the surest way to accomplish it.
I don't like lying--but I'm good at it. And I'll do it when necessary.
This time, it was.
Because Eric wasn't the only one with a plan.
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There is no formula for gaining admission to Harvard.
--Harvard University admissions brochure
You should have warned me the nerd herd was coming over today," Eric's sister complained as Eric led Max and Schwarz down to the den.
"I know you wish you'd had time to get all dolled up, Lissa." Max gave her a sickly sweet smile. "But we love you just the way you are. In fact, I was just telling Schwarz what a junior hottie you are. Right?"
Lissa Roth's mouth twisted like she'd bitten into rotten fruit. "Are you trying to make me puke?" She glared at her brother. "They're not staying for dinner. Sarah and Hallie are coming over, and it's bad enough they know I'm related to you. I'm not subjecting them to Thing One and Thing Two."
Eric glared right back. "Subjecting? Big talk from Little Miss 420 Critical Reading." He clutched his chest like he was having a heart attack. "Don't tell me you've actually been . . . studying?"
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"It was 520," she snapped back. "And everyone knows the PSATs don't mean shit. Some of us have better things to worry about. Like, you know, our lives. But I guess you wouldn't know about that kind of thing. Having a life."
"Bite me," Eric said, slamming the den door in her face.
"How'd I luck out and get such a great big brother!" she yelled from the other side. "I should go thank Mom and Dad ... for ruining my life!"
She stomped up the stairs, and the guys were finally alone. Max flung himself on one of the beat-up couches that the Roths hid in the den so no real company would ever see them. "I hate to say this, Eric, but your sister's a total bitch."
"She's not that bad," Eric said. "She's just . . . misguided."
"She is full of excitement," Schwarz countered, pulling a thick blue binder out of his backpack.
"Full of shit," Max corrected him. "What's with the no-cursing thing these days, Schwarzie? Trying to look more virginal? Because trust me, it's not necessary."
'"Profanity and obscenity entitle people who don't wan
t unpleasant information to close their ears and eyes to you,'" Schwarz quoted. "So says the master, Kurt Vonnegut. So says I."
Max shook his head. "Lissa's right. You really are a nerd."
Eric raised his eyebrows, nodding toward Max's T-shirt, whose bright red slogan read GO AHEAD, MAKE MY DATA! "Pot? Meet kettle."
"Point taken." Max shrugged. "In that case, I guess I call this meeting of the 'nerd herd' to order. Reports?"
Eric laid out the basics of the competition, supplementing the
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facts and figures with anecdotes from his info session surveillance. "Not too much real competition," he concluded. "Sam Gutierrez looks good, and Aron Merrow has the tuba going for him, so we should keep an eye on him. Also Sasha Dwyer and Alexandra Talese--"
"What was that?" Max cut in, leaning forward.
"What?"
"When you said her name, you sort of. . ." Max narrowed his eyes, trying to put his finger on what had caught his attention. "Say it again."
Impatient but eager to move on, Eric obeyed. "Alexandra Talese?"
"See?" Max asked.
"Obviously I don't."
"It's like ... a hiccup."
"I didn't hiccup," Eric said.
"No, not a real one. But it's like your face did. Like it lurched a little, and then reset itself."
"My face did not hiccup!"
"Schwarz?"
Schwarz gave Eric an apologetic smile. "Excuse me, but it did."
Max grinned. "Go on, say it again."
"What? No!"
"See!" Max jumped off the couch, pointing at Eric's face. "You did it again, just thinking about her." Eric rolled his eyes, and Max dropped back down to the couch, looking into the distance. "She's not bad," he decided, nodding. "I mean, kind of uptight for my taste, and the soulless grade grubbing is a turnoff, but she's got that goody-goody thing going for her. You like that."
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"You're being ridiculous," Eric snapped.
"Not much going on in front," Max continued, ignoring him, "but that's not everything, right? And you've seen her in that green skirt, the one with the slit on the side? Not bad. Not bad at all."
Eric could feel the heat pulsing in his face. "I wouldn't know."
"But I bet you can imagine. Maybe you are right now. . . ."
"Shut up."
"No need for embarrassment, a little healthy fantasizing never--"
"I'm not fantasizing about Alexandra Talese!" Eric shouted.
"Methinks he doth protest a little too much."
"He protests exactly the right amount," Eric insisted.
"Schwarz?"
"It is a little much," Schwarz admitted.
Eric grabbed a pillow off the couch and threw it at Schwarz's head. "Do you have to agree with everything he says? Try thinking for yourself once in a while."
"I am thinking for myself," Schwarz said indignantly. "And I am just saying, there is nothing wrong with being in love. It is . . ." He sighed, and his face dissolved into a stare so dreamy you could almost see pink cartoon hearts bubbling out of his head. "... something."
"In love?" Eric asked incredulously. "Is that what you're calling it? So I guess Stephanie's not making you rub her feet anymore?
"Well . . ."
"And she's not whining about how she can't keep track of all her guys?"
Now Schwarz was blushing. "I did not say--"
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"And she's stopped treating you like her little sister?"
"She never--well--she does not mean to--I--"
"Ain't love grand," Eric said sourly.
"Oh, stop picking on him," Max said. "No need to be cranky just because you're not getting any."
"And what is it, exactly, that you're getting?" Eric asked, knowing full well that Max's last two--only two--relationships had never gone past the IM stage.
"We're talking about you here," Max said.
"And that's the problem." Eric grabbed a thick blue binder and waved it in Max's face. "We're supposed to be talking about the hack. Or have you forgotten?"
"Hey, fine with me," Max said. "Back to work. I'm not the one who can't stop talking about Alexandra Talese."
"Are you kidding me? I was not--" Eric slammed the binder down on the table and cleared his throat. "Fine. Back to work. Like I was saying. Other than Sasha Dwyer and Alexandra Talese--"
"Hiccup," Max coughed.
"What?"
Max shook his head. "Nothing. Tickle in my throat. Please, continue."
Eric kept talking, but the damage was done. As he gave his report, his mouth ran on autopilot. Because inside his head, he was stuck in a feedback loop.
Alexandra Talese, he thought, turning the words over in his mind.
Alexandra Talese.
It was all Max's fault.
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Alexandra Talese.
It certainly didn't mean anything.
Alexandra.
It didn't matter at all.
Lex.
By the time they heard the knock, they'd made it through the day's business and moved on to debating the merits of fantasy baseball versus fantasy football. Still, they fell silent, years of experience teaching that, regardless of conversation topic, it was always safest not to be overheard. Eric assumed the knock would be his mother. Not because his mother was in the habit of checking in on him when his friends were over--that she'd stopped once she'd confirmed those friends weren't related to anyone she needed to impress--but because there were no other likely suspects. Lissa would rather drop dead than voluntarily interact with her brother more than once in the same day. His father was on a consulting trip in New York, helping the rich get richer.
But maybe, Eric thought, his mother had joined some kind of Committee for Concerned Parenting and was reviving her long- dormant maternal tendencies. Or maybe there was a fire in the kitchen and she'd remembered that she had a son long enough to warn him to evacuate.
Whatever the reason, he climbed the stairs without a hint of fear, not realizing that, to anyone watching the scene, this would have been the moment when the hero takes one foolishly confident step after another toward certain doom, his hand pausing on the doorknob while the audience shouts at him, "Turn the hell back!" but
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instead of doing so, he pushes forward, and, with painfully slow inevitability, twists the knob. Swings the door open. Drops his jaw in frozen horror.
And screams like a girl.
At least in his head.
'"Sup?" Clay Porter asked, pushing past him. "Your sister let me in. She's scorching, you know? Sure you're related?"
Eric gave"himself ten seconds to catch his breath. Then he eased the door shut and slowly descended the stairs, focusing very intently on balancing his weight on one foot and then the other as he thudded down, step by step by step. By the time he made it to the bottom, Clay had already settled in next to Schwarz and snatched Schwarz's notebook out of his hands. Schwarz lunged for it, but not quickly enough. A slim magazine that had been tucked between the pages slipped out and fluttered to the floor. Clay scooped it up. Schwarz squeaked.
"You actually buy this shit?" Clay asked, flipping immediately to the centerfold. "You know you can get it for free online, right? Good stuff, not this posing-by-the-fire shit."
"It is not, uh . . . excrement," Schwarz protested in a thin voice, trying to grab the magazine away. Clay held tight--it might not have been the "good stuff," but it was apparently good enough.
"Damn right it's not excellent. I said it's shit," Clay repeated. " Look at how she's sitting, you can't even see--"
"It is not about that," Schwarz said quickly. "It is just . . ."
Eric plucked the magazine out of Clay's hands and tossed it into Schwarz's lap.
"Leave him alone."
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Clay held up his hands. "Hey, chill, I got no problem with the little man."
Eric didn't feel like chilling. "How did you know where I live?" His voice cracked, and
he swallowed hard. "How did he know where I live, Max?"
Max ignored him. "Greetings, salutations, and heartfelt appreciation for gifting us with your presence, Clay."
Clay pulled out a pack of cigarettes. "Okay if I smoke in here?"
"No," Eric said.
"Sure," Max said at the same time, louder. "It's cool." He grabbed the blue binder, which had a weathered Star Trek sticker peeling off the front and a small Playboy insignia stuck to the spine. "Care to do the honors, Professor?"
Schwarz took the binder and shoved his glasses higher up on his nose. "As noted within, I have secured work-study employment in the admissions office, where I am conducting a survey of the admissions archives and a statistical analysis to determine the potential likelihood of varying traits impacting the application decision. I have compiled an algorithm, operating on a variety of axes with an effort to minimize internal contradiction--"
"Schwarz!" Max barked. He closed his eyes and feigned a snore. "Speed it along. In English, preferably."
"Excuse me, but the math on this is quite fascinating," Schwarz retorted. "But if you insist . . ." He handed Clay the binder. "I call this the Binder of Power. It contains all the information you will need for the hack. Names, dates, places, specifications, everything you will ever need to know."
"Yeah, whatever." Clay took it, but didn't bother to look inside.
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Eric suddenly wondered if the Neanderthal even knew how to read.
"Urn, if you turn to page two, you will see what we have in mind," Schwarz continued, reaching over to flip open the binder. "Wardrobe, image, lines, a daily schedule. You will be the tortured attist type, brilliant but angst-filled. A painter, willing to do anything for your art."
Clay took one last puff on his cigarette, stubbed it out against his knee, leaving a perfect sphere of ashy residue in the worn denim. "You want to turn me into a pussy?"