Hacking Harvard

by Robin Wasserman

  I nodded. "Hey."

  I wasn't crying.

  "So, how'd it go?" Eric asked quietly.

  "You don't want to know." I pulled my hair out of its ponytail and shook it down, hiding behind the long shaggy strands that fell in front of my eyes, "I don't want to know."

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  "Just because you think you messed up, doesn't mean ..." He shrugged. "People always think they've done worse than they actually--"

  "Give it up," I snapped. "I know how I did. I was there."

  There was a long pause.

  "Sorry." Eric began to stand up. "I probably shouldn't have--"

  "No. Wait. I'm sorry. You were just trying to . . ."

  "It's okay." He scratched the back of his neck, then buried his chin in his chest, twisting his fingers into a tangled knot. "I just wish it had gone better."

  I spit out a laugh. "Now I know things are bad."

  "Why?"

  "You're being nice."

  He smiled. I didn't. And then neither of us said anything for a long while.

  Most people would have tried to perk me up, tell me everything was going to be okay, that I could take it again, that it wouldn't matter that much, whatever. They would have spouted platitudes and probably, worst of all, tried to touch me, do that awkward shoulder- touching or back-stroking thing that people think is actually going to make you feel better, even if you're almost strangers.

  Eric just sat there, waiting for me to make a move.

  "I don't really want to talk about it," I said after several quiet minutes had passed.

  "Yeah, I got that." His eyes darted toward his watch.

  "You got somewhere to be?"

  "No," he said quickly. "I was supposed to meet up with--well, it doesn't matter. They'll deal."

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  "Who?"

  "No one." He stood up and brushed off the butt of his jeans. "Want to walk?"

  I shrugged. But I stood up, too. We walked down the stairs together, me quickly and him a little slower, so that no one watching would have realized we were together. Not that we were. Together, I mean. We were just walking toward the same place, which was nowhere.

  We walked for about an hour. It was one of those New England fall days that make tourists drool. You know: brisk air, clear sky, a sun so bright that looking out the window you would guess it was seventy degrees rather than forty, and plenty of foliage. That's what we call it here, thanks to the tourists. Everywhere else in the country, you've got trees, with leaves that change color and eventually fall off, all crusty and dead. Here, we have foliage.

  We walked down Mass Ave, through Harvard Square with its chain stores dressed up in colonial garb. As if Starbucks doesn't count as an evil harbinger of globalization if it's tucked behind a facade of three-hundred-year-old brick; like no one's going to recognize a Barnes & Noble if you print the logo delicately small under the giant HARVARD COOP sign. Back when we were kids, Harvard Square had all these little stores and restaurants that were famous just for being in Harvard Square--greasy diners and skanky bars and funky thrift shops. Then the rent rose too high, they went bankrupt, and got replaced by B&N, Starbucks, Baskin-Robbins, and Abercrombie. I guess some people have this idea of Harvard Square as a quaint little college town, because that's the way they make it look in movies-- but these days, in real life, it's more like Disney World.

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  You know how Disney World has that fake Main Street? On the outside, the buildings look all old-fashioned, like Ye Olde Chocolate Shoppe and Smitty's Apothecary--but then you go inside and they're all selling the same crappy Donald Duck dolls and Mickey Mouse ice-cream bars? Well, just substitute tacky crimson sweatshirts and Starbucks lattes, and you'll have a pretty good grasp on Harvard Square.

  But I didn't say any of that out loud.

  We walked through Kendall Square, which is much more "real" (in the J Lo sense, as in keepin' it that way), even though it's got a campus of its own. Which isn't necessarily a good thing: I'm not sure all those creepy alleys and empty warehouses are any better than Starbucks.

  We didn't talk until we were halfway across the bridge, with less than a quarter mile of brownish river separating us from Boston proper.

  "182.2 smoots," Eric said, stopping at the railing so abruptly that a jogger almost rammed into him.

  "What?"

  "The bridge is 364.4 smoots across--well, technically, 364.4 and one ear--and we're halfway." He pointed down at the faint yellow inscription reading 182.2 SMOOTS. Next to it was an arrow pointing back toward MIT and the words HALFWAY TO HELL.

  I'd just spent the last three months of my life memorizing the dictionary, so I could be certain. "There's no such filing as a smoot."

  Eric got a weird half-smile on his face. He leaned against the railing, facing out toward the river, half-turning back toward the campus. From the midpoint of the bridge you could see stretches of

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  grass, still green and lush even as the trees were losing their leaves, marble buildings, a gleaming white dome. I'd walked across the bridge plenty of times, but I'd never stopped to look back at MIT. I always looked out at the river, watching the crew boats glide under the bridge and, when it was the right time of day, staring at the reflection of the skyscrapers in the water, all glittery orange from the setting sun. For a few days a year, in that glowing hour of twilight, it was my favorite spot in the city.

  "It started as a hack," Eric said, staring down again at the faded yellow writing. It was the first time I heard him use the word. "Well, more like a frat prank. October 1958, the pledgemaster of Lambda Chi Alpha had his pledge class go out and mark the bridge in 'pledge lengths.'" He sounded like he was reading from an encyclopedia. "That way, all the MIT kids crossing the bridge would know how far they'd gone without having to look up into the wind, They picked the shortest pledge: Oliver Reed Smoot, five foot seven. Then they went out in the middle of the night and Oliver lay down on the bridge while the other pledges marked off the distance from his toes to his head in white paint. They did it again, and again, 365 times, all the way to the other side of the bridge. By the end he was so cold and tired they had to drag him." His eyes were shining. "It's one of the most successful pranks in history. They repaint the markings every couple years, so now they're pretty much permanent, and even the cops measure the bridge in smoots. Google Earth lets you measure the world in smoots. That's making an impression."

  I looked down at the markings again, less impressed with the story--which, to be honest, didn't thrill me, a bunch of MIT frat

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  kids painting lines on a bridge, big deal---than with the look on Eric's face.

  "So that's why you want to go to MIT?" I teased. "Smoots."

  His cheeks flushed pink and he turned away from the campus. "Maybe. Would that be weird?"

  "Sort of." I tilted my head and tapped my finger against my lip, as if I were giving the matter deep thought. "Well . . . definitely."

  He just shrugged. "So now you know my deep, dark secret. I'm weird. Want to tell me yours?"

  "My . . . ?"

  "Your secret."

  My hands tightened on the railing. "What makes you think I have a secret?"

  "You're too interesting not to," he said, then turned pink again. "I mean, you know. Everyone does."

  I didn't want to lie. But I couldn't tell the truth. So I picked a harmless one. Although, I guess it couldn't have been that harmless, since I'd never said it out loud before. "My secret is, I'm scared."

  "Of what?"

  Try everything.

  But it was too much. "Of getting pneumonia, if we stay out on this bridge much longer," I said, forcing a laugh. I tugged my jacket tighter and realized that I actually was cold. The sun had disappeared behind some clouds, and the wind raking across the bridge wasn't "brisk" so much as "frigid."

  "Oh. Right. Yeah, we should go." He turned abruptly and started hurrying back toward the Cambridge side of the bridge, walking fast enough that by the
time we hit the Kendall T station, I was nearly

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  panting. "I've got some stuff to do for that professor I work for," he said, as we paused at the mouth of the station. "So you should probably just . . ."

  "Yeah." I did that awkward wave thing where you're not really sure how to say good-bye, so you just end up looking like some frumpy mom sending her kid off to kindergarten. He waved back, looking even less cool. "So thanks for, uh, hanging out, and all," I said.

  "Everything works out, you know."

  "Is that some kind of law of nature, MIT boy?"

  He grinned, and a little of the awkwardness faded away. "Sure. First law of thermodynamics: Energy can neither be created nor destroyed. Whatever happens, the universe maintains its equilibrium."

  "Doesn't the second law say that entropy increases and that the universe is just going to keep falling apart until there's nothing left?"

  "Well . . . if you're a glass-half-empty kind of girl, then I guess you could look at it that way." We both laughed. "Impressive, by the way."

  "What?"

  "That you knew that."

  "I know a lot."

  "Yeah. I'm getting that." He chewed on the edge of his lip, just like I do. Or used to do, before I tried to quit. It wasn't gross; it was almost cute. "So, do you want to, maybe, do this again sometime?"

  "Do . . . this?"

  "Well, we could skip the part where you blow the SATs."

  I winced.

  "Too soon?" he asked.

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  "Maybe."

  "I just meant, you know. Do something," he stammered, inarticulate for the first time. "Sometime."

  "I don't do hypotheticals," I told him. All his blushing and stuttering was giving me a weird feeling, one I'd never really had when talking to a guy--a feeling like I was the one in control. I liked it. "But if sometime, you were to actually ask me to do something . . ."

  "You'd say . . . ?" he prompted.

  "I guess we'll find out." I grinned at him and stepped onto the escalator down to the subway. "Sometime."

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  ai

  Consider getting into the habit of being honest.

  --Marty Nemko, PhD, The All-in-One College Guide

  There was no errand at MIT. There was, however, a meeting at Harvard. And Eric was almost two hours late.

  "Which part of rendezvous after the test didn't you understand?" Max asked as Eric, face flushed and out of breath, flung open the door to Schwarz's room. "Should I use smaller words next time?"

  "We were getting worried," Schwarz said, without taking his eyes off the computer screen.

  "What are you, his mom?" Max was standing by the window, fiddling with a yo-yo. He made it walk the dog, then threw in an around the world. "No one was worried. Just increasingly pissed. Where were you?"

  "Additional surveillance. Checking in on the competition--" Eric broke off, realizing that there was an extra body in the room. Bernard Salazar had taken Eric's customary position, lounging at

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  the foot of the roommate's unused bed. "Competition for the Bot Battle next month," he added quickly. "You know, bunch of guys building robots trying to kill each other, I just want to make sure my bot's the best--"

  "You can drop the act," Max said. "He knows everything."

  "And by everything, you mean . . . ?"

  "The hack," Bernard said eagerly. "Harvard, Clay 'like dirt' Porter, I got the 411 from your peeps."

  Eric glared at Max, who looked away, swinging his yo-yo in smooth, lazy arcs. "Say hello to the newest member of Team Max."

  Eric looked the interloper up and down. "Nice shirt."

  Bernard plucked at the wifebeater. "Made it myself. Gotta dress for success, yo."

  "Right." Eric strode across the room and snatched the yo-yo away from Max, tossing it onto the bed. "Oh captain, my captain, I think 'Team Max' needs to have a little team meeting. Yo."

  "You bros gotta get down with this shit," Bernard advised, thumping his chest. "Go with the flow, you know?" He patted the heavy gold chains strung around his neck. "Life in the loop is off the hook, yo. I mean, I got honeys lined up to get some Bernie- loving, and these ho's are hot." Bernard rolled his eyes. "I know how it sounds, gentlemen, but trust me, these high school girls eat it up like candy."

  "Bernard's full of bright ideas," Max said, without a trace of sarcasm, his expression warning Eric not to bring up the fact that Bernard, despite his rap-star fantasies, had been an object of ridicule since third grade, his parties well-attended only because he could be counted on to pay for top-shelf liquor. As for the "honeys," it

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  seemed clear they were less attracted to the clumsy faux-hawk, hip- hop delusions and perma-tan than to Bernard's rep for outfitting his admirers with "hot "n heavy bling."

  "We got tired of waiting, so we replaced you," Max said.

  "Funny." Eric didn't crack a smile. He pointed at the door. "We need to talk."

  Bernard jumped up and strode across the room, clasping Eric's hand in a firm grip. "Don't worry. From what I hear, you sir, are irreplaceable." He clapped Eric on the back, and despite the ghetto gear, his voice and manner were suddenly pure Donald Trump. "Couldn't be happier working on this with you fellows."

  "Eric, meet our new backer," Max said. "Bernard here has agreed to finance the hack."

  Eric narrowed his eyes. "In return for what?"

  Bernard let out an explosive and thoroughly artificial burst of laughter that sent flecks of spittle spraying across the hardwood floor. "What do you think, bro? You get me in too."

  "Information sharing," Max clarified. "We fill him in on whatever we find out about the admissions people--the rest he does himself."

  "I like to call that a win-win scenario." Bernard beamed. "My favorite kind."

  "I like to call this an exit line," Eric said, and walked out of the room, slamming the door behind him. He stood by the stairwell and waited.

  It took less than a minute for Max to appear.

  "Well, that was suitably dramatic," Max said, shutting the door behind him. He leaned against the wall and crossed his arms. "You

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  want to tell your fearless leader what the problem is?"

  "You--I can't believe--what are you--" Eric flung his arms toward the door. "How could you--"

  Max drew in a loud, deep breath, then blew it out slowly, in shott butsts, like a Lamaze coach. "Take it easy. Use your words."

  "Bernard Salazar!" Eric finally managed to spit out. "You brought in Bernard Salazar? What the hell were you thinking?"

  "I was thinking we had a cash-flow shortage, and Bernard has a platinum card."

  "So you want to sell us out for a few extra dollars?"

  "Maybe I'm missing something," Max snapped. "Did you win the lottery lately? Can you fund this? Weren't you the one complaining just last week that you had to dig into your savings for the micro-camera? Bernard will fix all that for us."

  "Yeah, but for what?"

  "You heard for what," Max said. "We're just going to give him a little extra help."

  "We're going to help him cheat."

  "Lighten up, Eric." Max flashed a smile at the group of girls passing through the entryway. "Think they thought I was a college man?"

  "Focus, Max."

  "How about you focus?" Max shook his head. "What was so important that you had to ditch us?"

  "I had stuff to do," Eric said. "I told you. More surveillance."

  Max snorted. "I bet. "

  "What's that supposed to mean?"

  "Look, all I'm saying is, you were supposed to be here, and

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  instead you were . . . elsewhere. Schwarz and I talked it over, and he agrees with me. Bernard is our best shot at some quick cash inflow. Low risk, high gain."

  "Oh, Schwarz agrees with you?" Eric asked. "I'm stunned. Please. If you told him our best shot at cash was rowing out into the Harbor and digging up sunken pirate treasure, he'd agre
e with that, too."

  "Did I hear you right?" Max asked, cocking his ear with mock disbelief. "Are you actually suggesting our most loyal and trusted friend doesn't have a mind of his own?"

  Eric slammed his hand against the banister, wincing at the impact. "I'm saying this idea is just as stupid, and Schwarz is too polite to tell you. Bernard can't be trusted. He's a weasel. Or do you not remember the time he turned Kara Winters in for cheating, when he was the one who suckered her into stealing a copy of the test?"

  "What are you, an elephant? That was like ten years ago."

  "That was sophomore spring," Eric shot back. "And he gets worse every year. He's a total fraud--in school he talks like Eminem, and now listen to him, he's Lil' Ken Lay."

  "Holding the sins of the father against the son?" Max clucked his tongue. "How very un-Christian of you."

  "I am un-Christian," Eric reminded him. "And I'm just stating a fact. His father doesn't have anything to do with it, although--"

  "He claims his father was set up."

  "Oh, really? And how does he explain the six employees who came forward to testify that he'd raided all the retirement funds?"

  "We can't all live up to your disgustingly high moral standards."

  "You would know."

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  Max sighed. "You want to share with the class what this is really about?"

  "Am I being too obtuse? Let me spell it out for you: I. Don't. Trust. Him."

  "Who does?" Max asked. "But that's not your real problem. You want to know what your real problem is?"

  "I assume this is where you enlighten me?"

  "You're having second thoughts."

  "No."

  "Yes."

  Eric rubbed the back of his neck. "This is a good hack. We're doing the right thing."

  "But," Max said, with a knowing smile.

  "But." Eric paused. "But for every person that gets in, there's someone--a bunch of someones--who get rejected. It was one thing when it was just Clay, but if we're going to get Bernard in too . . ."