Hacking Harvard

by Robin Wasserman

  Poor Bernard was going to have to make do with his used Beemer, Eric decided. And not just because most of the Salazar assets had been impounded by the government. The problem wasn't with the cash flow (there was still a hefty chunk stashed away in a variety of off-shore accounts), it was with Bernard. He was devious and iletetmined, but he just wasn't a contender.

  The rest of Wadsworth High's usual suspects were there too. Scott (^hang, who did everything that was expected of him--nothing

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  more, nothing less--and was more bland than vanilla nonfat pudding. Katie Gibson, of course, who at that point still planned to be valedictorian. "Last year, more than a thousand high school valedictorians were rejected," the admissions officer had announced. Katie put a hand over her mouth to cover her smirk, assuming the warning didn't apply to her. Everyone's an exception in their own mind.

  Ella Stryker and Hannah Dwight sat next to each other, as usual, in two of the folding chairs set up behind the conference table. Each wore a giant green ribbon, denoting their commitment to the cause of the week, whatever it was. They had already interrupted the presentation twice to press the admissions officer on university recycling policies. Behind them hovered Finn Webber, who wore a black leather choker and fishnet stockings and claimed to hate the world--and who hoped no one would ever find out that, every afternoon, as soon as she got home, she slipped into jeans and a J. Crew cardigan, then plopped on the couch just in time for Oprah.

  Carl Dishler was a Serious Musician--or, at least, that's how his Ivy Bound college counselor had advised him to package himself at their last $500-an-hour session. Simone Pallas wrote bad poetry about tar-covered penguins. Seth Hunter--whose family had changed its name from Humper--did Model UN and preferred to be addressed, at all times, as "the representative from Argentina." Just to stay in character. Kurt Weiler was the second-best soccer player in the state, and would get in anywhere even if he filled out his applications in crayon.

  And then there was Alexandra Talese. Most likely to succeed,

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  and most likely to run you over with a bulldozer to do it, then smile and say have a nice day. Eric's eyes, which had skimmed over the other faces, needing nothing more than a checkmark confirmation that everyone he'd expected was there, hesitated, passing over her face, and then, like a stutter, dipping back for a second glance, then a third. She was prettier than she looked in her class pictures, though that still didn't make her pretty, exactly, just above average. He had seen her in person before, of course. They'd shared plenty of classes, and even a lunch table one year, though there had been a good three feet of empty space separating him from the yearbook--honor society--key club crowd at the other end of the long table; close enough that he could hear their laughter, far enough away that he couldn't know it was the half-stilted, half- manic laughter of a group always one heartbeat away from awkward silence.

  Her hair was that blondish, brownish, beigeish color that always looks dirty, but it was stretched back, smooth and glossy, into a neat ponytail. She was the kind of girl whose socks always matched her outfit--and the kind of girl who wore "outfits," not in the cover girl sense, but more like someone whose mother still dressed her (though Alexandra's did not). Eric was too far away to see the color of her eyes, which were a grayish hazel flecked with yellow and could only wonder whether the speckling of discolorations across her nose were freckles or zits.

  He knew from the file he'd assembled that she excelled at both the sciences and the humanities--though "excelled" only within the limited constraints of the high school curriculum. (She was, for example, acing AP calculus but would have been lost in the

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  upper-level courses Eric was already auditing at MIT.) Yearbook editor, key club vice president, student council representative, debate team champion, president and founder of Hugs for the Homeless, candy striper--generic, he thought to himself. A dime a dozen. Nothing that should unduly interest him.

  And yet, he didn't look away.

  Not until he caught Alexandra Talese--caught me--looking back.

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  Just as no one chooses a car without a test drive, no one should choose a college without a test visit.

  --Zola Dincin Schneider, Campus Visits and College Interviews

  I

  saw you," I said to Eric, falling into step beside him as we followed the student guide on a "thrilling tour of Harvard's storied past and stunning present." "Watching me."

  He pitched forward, his foot catching on an invisible rock, pin- wheeled his arms through the air, and caught himself moments before hurtling to the ground. "Dntkemmvatytenabert," he mumbled.

  "What?"

  Eric scowled. "Don't. Know. What. You're. Talking. About."

  "This is actually the second Harvard Hall," the tour guide confided to us, walking backward so she could face the crowd. She gestured toward a large redbrick building on the edge of the Yard, just inside the towering steel gates. "The first burned in 1764."

  He wasn't attractive, not conventionally, not by any stretch of the imagination. If he was cute, it was in a three-legged-puppy kind of

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  way. Pitiful and lopsided, but, whether confronted by a Chihuahua or a pitbull, still ready to fight.

  "You were staring at me," I insisted. "All through the meeting. I saw you."

  "Nothing to see," he said, keeping his eyes fixed on the tour guide. "You must have been imagining it."

  "The fire destroyed every book in Harvard's original library collection," the guide continued, with a beauty pageant grin that seemed to say, Burning books? Bring on the marshmallows! "Only one book survived, because the night before, a student had illegally taken it out of the library so he could continue to read through the night."

  "So you're calling me paranoid?" I asked.

  Eric finally looked at me. His eyes looked like he was smiling, even though his mouth was fixed in a frown. "Either that or an egomaniac. Take your pick."

  If we'd been a few years younger, I would have crossed my eyes and stuck out my tongue. Instead, I had to settle for the eyebrow raise and half smile. Message: Utter disdain. "Oh, so that's your thing."

  "What?"

  "Yeruhjrk."

  "What?"

  "You're. A. Jerk."

  Now I had his attention. "So I guess your thing is that you're a--"

  "What?"

  "Forget it."

  Like I hadn't heard it plenty of times before. "I'm a . . . ," I prompted.

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  "I'm trying to listen," he said, turning back to the tour guide.

  "Fine."

  "Legend has it that after the fire, the student took the stolen book straight to the president of the College, who accepted it with deep gratitude--and then expelled him." The tour guide giggled, and, after a beat, the crowd of students laughed heartily along with her. "Of course, disciplinary measures aren't quite as strict anymore-- unless you steal a book from the library!"

  More laughter.

  We followed along after her in silence for another few minutes.

  "What makes you think I have a thing?" Eric finally asked.

  "What?"

  "You said my thing is that I'm a jerk. Why do I have to have a thing?"

  "Excuse me, but I'm actually trying to listen," I said snottily, and tried not to smile.

  "Fine. Forget it."

  We both turned back to the guide. But I could see him out of the corner of my eye, simmering.

  "The statue of John Harvard is nicknamed 'The Statue of Three Lies.' Does anyone want to guess why?!

  We didn't need to guess; everyone had memorized the admissions brochure. But only one person was lame enough to raise a hand.

  "It's not John Harvard," Bernard Salazar explained proudly. "That's one. Two: John Harvard wasn't actually the founder of Harvard University. Three"--he pointed to the date inscribed below the stone puritan--"the university wasn't founded in 1638." He rubbed his

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&nbs
p; hand on faux--John Harvard's foot and gave the tour guide an oily grin. "But even so, millions of tourists every year rub it for luck."

  "And every year, hundreds of drunk freshmen piss all over it and then laugh their asses off at the tourists," Eric whispered, and when I tried to suppress my laughter, it turned into an oh-so-attractive snort.

  I decided to give him a break. "You never talk." The group paused to watch an a cappella group doo-wopping their way through a Justin Timberlake song. I suppressed the urge to jam my fingers into my ears.

  "You just told me to shut up," Eric pointed out. "You're trying to listen, remember?"

  "No, I mean in school, you never talk. Whenever I see you, you're always sitting in the back, or on the edge of the group, not saying anything. You're a lurker. Sometimes it seems like you want to talk, but you never actually do. You just lurk. So I've always figured you were either shy or a jerk."

  Eric raised his eyebrows. "Seems like you're the one who's been watching me."

  "See? Definitely a jerk." But I laughed--and, after a moment, so did he.

  "Maybe I'm neither shy nor a jerk," he said. "Maybe there's just rarely anyone worth talking to."

  I grinned triumphantly. "Only a jerk would think that way," I pointed out, although it was something I often thought myself. "Maybe you just don't give people enough of a chance."

  "I don't know--one could argue I'm giving you more than enough of a chance, Alexandra."

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  I must have flinched.

  "Surprised I know your name?"

  "We've gone to school together for six years, Eric. If you didn't know my name by now, I'd have to seriously question that whole genius reputation you've got going."

  "Remind me again how it is that I'm the jerk in this conversation, Alexandra?"

  I've always hated that name. "My friends call me Lex," I said. It wasn't true, but I wanted it to be. Lex sounded like someone a little daring, cool, edgy, someone who deserved to have an x in her name. A Lex might even cut class, if she had a good reason to do it. Alexandra would never even show up five minutes late.

  Not that I needed to impress him. It was just that I had already decided that the college me was going to be Lex; she deserved a trial run.

  "Okay, your friends call you Lex. So what am I supposed to call you?"

  "The jury's still out,"

  The Justin Timberlake song ended, but just as I thought we'd been saved, the group bop-bop-bopped their way into a Beyonce medley. It wasn't pretty.

  Eric tilted his head to the side, like I would make more sense from an angle. "Well, I'd say it's nice to meet you--"

  "Remember the part about how we've known each other for six years?"

  "We've never actually spoken," Eric said. "As you pointed out. Remember the part about how I've been too busy lurking?"

  "Fine. You win. It's nice to meet you."

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  "Not necessarily the adjective I'd choose, but . . ." He reached out his hand and, after a beat, I met him in midair. We shook. It was stiff, formal, and not a seventeen-year-old thing to do, but somehow it seemed appropriate. "Let's just say it's not un-nice to sort of meet you." And even though his arm was skinny, his grip was strong. "Lex."

  "This campus sucks," Eric tugged his coat tighter around himself as the wind picked up. Neither of us had actually suggested sticking together after the tour ended, we had just. . . stuck. We were sitting on a bench in front of the Science Center--a brutish gray building whose architecture, in the shape of a Polaroid camera, was supposedly as innovative as its name was mundane. It didn't look like much of a landmark of design to me, though. More like a clumsy stack of building blocks--or a prison. I was waiting around for my appointment with someone from the chemistry department, in hopes of, as one of my books recommended, "personally demonstrating my passion for the discipline." Or in my case, inventing a passion believable enough that they'd buy it. Eric was just waiting. I hadn't asked him why, and he hadn't volunteered.

  "It's not so bad." The trees were half-bare, and the Yard was strewn with dead leaves, but if you squinted, you could almost imagine the green idyll that they showed in all the pictures.

  "It's hideous."

  "It doesn't have to be pretty," I argued. "It's iconic. It's Harvard."

  "And that's why you want to go here?" He grabbed a soggy fry from the carton we were sharing and popped it into his mouth. "'It's Harvard?'"

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  "It's the best," I pointed out. "Do I need another reason?"

  "It's only the best at getting people to think it's the best." He shrugged. "But it's your life."

  "Is it hard work to be this rude, or does it come naturally to you?"

  "I'm not rude," he said. "It's just difficult for me not to point out the obvious."

  "Like?"

  "Like there's not a single math teacher in our school who could tell you what Poincare's conjecture is or whether it's been solved. Like my sister's sleeping with her asshole boyfriend, even if she's got my parents fooled into thinking she's a nun. Like you're just acting the way they want you to act, buying into whatever they say, and convincing yourself it's what you really want."

  "Sorry, but that's bullshit." I stood up, grabbed the half-empty carton of fries out of his hands, and tossed it in the trash. "Who's they?"

  "You know. They."

  "No, I don't know. Neither do you. It's just something people say when they want to make something up and have it sound rebellious and nonconformist. Choosing a college isn't like picking a breakfast cereal. And I'm not some zombified toddler drooling at the screen, going 'Ooh, Harvard, that's pretty, I want.'" I started to stride away, then paused after a couple steps. It wasn't the way I had intended things to go.

  When I turned around, Eric was standing behind me.

  "Look, that's not what I meant," he said.

  "Whatever" 1 just . . .

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  "Yeah." We sat down again. Not that there was anything left to say.

  "So," I began finally. Lamely. "You're into the green thing?"

  "What?"

  I nodded at his T-shirt, which had a black SUV printed across the chest. The caption below read: WEAPONS OF MASS CONSUMPTION. "You know, save the world? An inconvenient truth? All that?"

  He looked down, like he'd forgotten what he was wearing, then shrugged. "Yeah, I guess."

  "You've never come to one of our Endangered Earth meetings," I pointed out. I was the vice president. Which, as far as responsibilities went, meant only that I was the one who took attendance.

  Eric shifted in his seat. "Yeah, well. I don't really do the group thing."

  "Why not?"

  "It doesn't matter."

  But the way he said it, I knew it did.

  I checked my watch: Ten minutes until I had to go inside the gray building and put on a show for the chem professor. My resume was tucked into a faux-leather portfolio, and I had a whole speech planned out about how I'd read this biography of Mendeleev that had inspired me to be a chemist and, ever since, I'd been slaving away in any lab I could find. I would tell them how Bunsen burners thrilled me, how litmus tests were my life.

  And while I waited, I would make conversation to keep my mind off of how sickened I was by the idea of spending the next four years seeing the world through a pair of safety goggles.

  "Why not?" I asked a second time.

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  "You'll just call me rude again," he complained.

  "Sticks and stones may break your bones, but names--"

  "Fine." He took off his glasses for a moment, so he could rub the bridge of his nose. His eyes looked smaller without the lenses, but also lighter. I could see flecks of gold within the rings of deep brown. "All those groups at school, Endangered Earth, Amnesty International, World Affairs--they're not for people like me. They're for . . . you know, people who only do stuff so they can put it on their college applications. They don't actually care, they just want to look like they care, even though all they rea
lly want is to get into--" He stopped abruptly, looked at me, blushed, then looked away. "You know."

  "People like me," I said quietly.

  "Told you it would sound rude."

  "No, not rude," I said, almost sweetly. Then I went in for the kill. "Hypocritical."

  "I am not a hypocrite," he said, jumping to his feet.

  "You're here, aren't you?" I pointed out. "You hate. Harvard so much, but here you are with the rest of us, and--"

  "Please. I don't care about Harvard enough to hate it. It's the whole thing, the applications, and this stupid idea that there are only five or six schools in the whole country that you can go to, and if you don't get in, then your life is over."

  "Alicia Morgenthal," I murmured, almost to myself. I hadn't been there when it happened, but I'd heard. The whole school had heard. Alicia Morgenthal, superstar senior, who had it all: perfect SAT scores, perfect GPA, perfect life. And then, one day, the perfectly pleasant rejection letter from Harvard University. A perfect match

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  to the letters from Brown, from Princeton, from Yale, from every school she'd applied to. No one knew where she'd gone that night, after getting the news. But everyone knew what happened the next morning. Twenty minutes into first period, she'd climbed up on her desk and started screaming. She didn't stop when they sent her to the nurse's office. She didn't stop when they carted her off to McLean, the two-hundred-year-old asylum on the hill that had housed Sylvia Plath and every other Cambridge intellectual--not to mention all the pseudo-intellectuals--who'd lost the ability to cope. For all I know, she's still screaming.

  I would be.

  "What'd you just say?" he asked.

  "Nothing."

  I don't know why I lied, maybe because I didn't want him to realize how easily her name came to mind, how often I thought about her. How much I worried that we weren't that different. Eric didn't push it.