Hack (11 page)

“Okay,” Hannah said.

“Can I get a snack?”

“Sure. Don’t eat too much, though.”

“What are these things?” I said, looking at a pack of crunchy something.

“They’re low-calorie snacks. Try them if you like.”

I grabbed a handful and went upstairs to check out my wardrobe. An hour later, we were all sitting at the table—the whole faux-family, eating sweet potatoes, and saying absolutely nothing. In the silence, I realized why Hannah had been making conversation before. It occurred to me that our domestic setup not only had to look authentic, but it had to sound real, too, like a real family.

Children talking to their mothers were quite normal in most families. I felt stupid for having launched into the somewhat sarcastic monologue earlier. I said that the dinner was very good, and asked Hannah if she had ever worked as a chef somewhere, before she met Dad. Richard chipped in, too, saying that the food was good, and Hannah tried to look unconcerned.

41

After dinner, I went upstairs to try on some clothes for the party, but couldn’t decide what suited me. I used to buy grey clothes, or navy blue, or black, but that didn’t seem appropriate now. According to Olivia’s dating advice, I was supposed to look clean, neat, and contemporary when going on dates. I figured that since I’d already been dressing contempo-casual, I’d dress pretty much like the cafeteria guy—

the one who had been so popular with the two girls. I went into the closet and routed through the clothes.

“Do you know how to do hair?” I asked Hannah. She looked up, and sort of frowned and smiled at the same time. It was an odd expression, and I wondered what had prompted it.

“What’s wrong?” I said.

“Are you going out?”

“Yeah. Is there a problem?”

“No, you just look different.”

I was worried that my style makeover might look contrived, and scare off the girl. She was a kook and the sweater might give her the wrong idea. Besides, I was aware of fashion faux-pas and their effect on girls.

“Different in a good way, or different in a bad way?”

“You scrub up pretty well,” she said. She gave me a look that I had got before from other girls. I remember one boring school trip I was sat next to a couple of girls I knew, who were passing the time by rating the boys. I asked them my score, and I got

“cute,” and “definitely cute.” Cute I can live with.

“Thanks. I think,” I said to Hannah. She put gel in my hair, and then spent five minutes combing it one way, and then another, and, finally, making a trendy mess of it. I looked like I had just got out of bed, but in a good way.

“That suits you,” she said.

“Thanks.”

“Are you going somewhere tonight?” she said, asking the question I had recently dodged. She said it a bit too casually.

“A party.”

“Oh, that’s nice. Just don’t be out too late.”

“Okay.”

I left it at that, and checked my new image in the mirror. Squarish, but not too much. I looked the part. Now I just had to play it. The cafeteria charmer had been confident and easy-going with the two girls, without saying anything amusing or brilliant. In fact, he had been distinctly dull. That meant that the chat-up lines and conversational charm could be dispensed with, which was just as well.

I tried not to think about the ticking clock that I was against, and I tried to ignore how much I wanted this girl to like me, so that I could recruit her. Girls smell desperation like grizzly bears smell fear. I sat back for a minute and emptied my mind of everything, until it was completely blank. Once my brain was purged of all cares and thoughts, I was ready to attend my first party.

I didn’t have to spend long looking for the house. From down the street, I could see people standing at the foot of the driveway, and a bit further up, I could hear the pounding of a subwoofer. I made my way up the path, and looked through the frosted glass in the door, to see if anybody was minding the entrance. As expected, there was a guy standing guard. He looked like he had spent the last ten years sacking quarterbacks. I gave him some of the Federal Bank International’s dollars, and asked 42

him to let my girlfriend (I described Grace) in when she turned up, and then went through the house, and into the kitchen.

There were only two people in the kitchen—a couple holding beer bottles and cigarettes, talking loudly and laughing. I walked outside, down the patio, and into the swimming pool area, which was deserted. I walked back into the kitchen, helped myself to a bottle from an unguarded bunch left on the countertop, opened it, took a swig, and went into the living room. Since my date wasn’t there, I took the time to mingle. I made my way from one side of the house to the other. I never understood aimless socializing. People gather together in groups to discuss interests they have in common. But when the only thing some people have in common is that they have nothing in common, why bother? I walked up the stairs, and looked down the hallway.

“Hey, man,” I said in an urban drawl to a guy who was standing at the top of the stairs. “Like, where’s the john?”

He pointed silently, and I followed his finger to the bathroom door. I knocked on the door. Hearing no reply, I went in and locked the door. I sat for a moment, contemplating life, the universe, and stick-on tile decorations. I thought about the party Knight must have held when he opened his business. There would have been lots to eat and drink, plus some dancing.

Knight: His parents were well off, and their lawyers had done his plea-bargaining for him.

Knight: He had been a big fish in a small pond. Now he had his own pond.

Knight: He didn’t play fair.

There was a knock on the door. I opened it and walked out without looking at the two waiting girls. I walked downstairs, and danced my way through the partiers, to the turn-tables. I spent a minute shouting over the music to the DJ about playing some rock music, but it wasn’t that type of party. The partying people filled all the lower rooms in the big house, but Zaqarwi and his friend were to be found. I didn’t think that they would have shown anyway. Not his scene. I’d try Gameworld tomorrow. More chance there.

I turned around, and suddenly noticed a girl standing next to me, and for a split-second I didn’t realize who it was. She wasn’t wearing as much black eye makeup as usual; she wasn’t wearing such strange clothes; and her hair wasn’t plastered down, like last time. She looked good. It was my date. I mentally scanned the memorized text of Olivia’s dating tips, and said, “Hi. You look different.” It was the only thing I could think to say.

“Thanks. I think.”

After that, the conversation ground to a halt, as I waited for my brain to kick in. Maybe you’re not supposed to think.

“Do you want a drink?” I said finally.

“Sure.”

“Let’s go to the kitchen.”

In the kitchen, I poached another of the bottles from the pack that had been left standing. I handed it to Grace.

“Thanks,” she said.

“It’s a cool party.”

“Yeah. Do you know what this music is?”

“No, I don’t know. I just asked the DJ, but I couldn’t even hear him.”

The music changed suddenly, and I could see that the people in the living room started jumping up and down in time to the beat.

43

“What music do you like?” asked Grace.

“Me? I don’t know. Everything, I suppose. I just like music.”

“Everything?”

“I nodded.”

“Do you like rap?”

I shrugged. “Any music is better than no music.”

As conversations go, it wasn’t one for prosperity. But she seemed happy with it. I was just about to say something else when someone shouted “Graaace!” and two girls appeared. All three friends began girl-huddling. They talked for a minute, while I sipped my drink and stared at nothing in particular.

“This is David,” Grace said eventually.

“David, this is Emma and Jennifer.”

“Hi,” I said. I didn’t catch which girl was which.

“Hi,” chimed the girls. For some reason, they seemed pleased that I was there.

This was a new experience for me—girls pleased to see me.

“I hear you just moved to Elmwood,” said Emma or Jennifer, conversationally. I overcame my stunned haze, and said, “Yeah, just this week.”

“What you think about it?” she asked. Her tone implied that any answer that was either too sunny or too disrespectful would be suspect.

“My parents like it,” I said cryptically. They nodded, as if I had confirmed their own feelings.

“Did you see Barney anywhere?” the other girl asked Grace.

“He’s in the living room.”

“Nice to meet you, David,” said the girls.

“Likewise.”

The girls went to find Barney. I stood with Grace, racking my brains, which had gone blank again, for something to say.

“Do you want to dance?” Grace said.

“I don’t really dance . . .”

“Come on,” she said. “You got me down here, at least you can manage one dance.”

I followed her into the living room, where the crowd had ceased jumping up in the air, and was now waving their arms from one side to the other, and singing along with the lyrics that I didn’t know. Dancing at parties is pretty easy. Like consumerism in general (in as much as I had bothered to study advertisements), the object was to do the same thing as everybody else, while appearing to be an individualist.

“You’re a good dancer,” Grace said, leaning to shout in my ear.

I am?
I thought. “Thanks. You’re pretty good yourself.” Looking around, I could see some of the other girls seemed to be taking it a bit too seriously. They kept raising their arms for some reason, like Oriental women do when dancing. Grace just seemed to be having fun, and thankfully our relationship hadn’t reached the arm-raising stage yet. Then the music changed, and a dance version of a familiar rock song started.

“Hey, I know this guitarist,” I said, listening to the familiar riff. Grace nodded.

“He’s good.” And that was how we spent the next two hours: dancing, talking, resting, going outside for fresh air, talking some more. I felt pretty awkward through it all. I was fluent in numerous computer languages, and used them with ease, but date-talk was not a language I understood.

What could I do? I just relaxed and smiled, and whenever Grace said something, I said something. Anyway, the music was too loud for talking. It was past 44

ten o’clock when I decided that being at a party wasn’t getting me anywhere. So, I was finally in the company of a girl, but now I had to figure out some way to hint at my own agenda—namely computer hacking—just to see how she took it.

“I’m hungry,” I said.

“So am I. Let’s see if they have anything to eat.”

“Why don’t we go get some pizza?”

“Don’t you want to stay?”

“I haven’t eaten since lunch. Do you know anywhere we can go?”

“Yeah, but it’s in town, too far to walk.”

“I’ll get a taxi.”

We taxied down to a pizza restaurant, and sat in a booth. We ordered and sat waiting. Through the doorway to the kitchen, I could see some guy making pizzas.

That might have been me,
I thought,
had I not made the decision to work for the FBI,
and get paid for dating quirky girls.

As the night got later, my idea of getting to know this girl to the point where she would be willing to let me hang around her house began to seem increasingly idiotic. In the time frame I was supposed to be operating in, I couldn’t think of any way to manage it. I couldn’t even wedge the subject of computers into the conversation. I realized that I had goofed completely. Grace seemed to be completely straight. She probably wasn’t involved in her father’s business at all.

Where had I got the dumb idea from in the first place?
I wondered. I gave up on it completely. Fifteen minutes and one half of a pizza later, I did another one-eighty-degree turn. Of course, there was no other option. This girl was the only possible avenue to hacking. I’d have to see it through to the conclusion.

We sat talking for another half hour, but there never seemed to be a good opportunity to bring up the topic of computers. It was going on twelve o’clock, when we got into a taxi, and had a silent journey back to Grace’s house. I walked with her up to the door.

I combed my memory of Olivia’s dating tips for post-dating rituals.

Apparently, I had to thank my date.

“Thanks for showing me around Elmwood,” I said. She hadn’t shown me around, as such.

“I had a good time,” Grace replied. A good time? Really?

“Me, too. I was thinking of going to Gameworld, tomorrow. Do you want to come?” Casual, Ripley, very casual. Grace’s eyes lifted, as if she was checking a mental diary.

“Isn’t that right over on the other side of town?”

She had answered a question with a question, something I had noticed the girls doing with the cafeteria guy.

“Yeah,” I said, ignoring her apparent lack of interest. “Do you want to go?”

“Seems a long way to go.” Another block, I thought, something else I had noticed the girls doing with the cafeteria guy. Strange.

“We could get a taxi.”

Grace stared at me silently, as if wondering if I was worth the bother. She moved her head back a little bit, like one of the shoppers at the mall, eyeing up a special offer. Buy now, or caveat emptor? I prompted her.

“What do you say?”

“Okay.”

“Cool. See you tomorrow? About seven p.m.?”

“See you,” she said.

45

On the drive home, an echo of the party song was bouncing around in my head. Grace had said that she had had a good time. Strange. And she’d made me ask her twice to go out again. Odd.

The taxi driver, probably bored, began talking to me, and I gave him the official line. I was new in town. I had just met a girl. We had danced. The taxi pulled up outside the house, and I paid. I got out, and crept into the house. Both of my parents had gone to bed. But when I went upstairs, Hannah came out of her room, and smiled at me.

“Did you have a nice time at the party?”

“Yeah,” I said with my usual abruptness. Then I turned back. Some twinge of feeling for Hannah—or whatever her real name was—hit me. She was stuck here, the same as I was. In a way, she had sided with me during the argument. Feeling somewhat guilty for my abruptness, I turned and looked at her with what was probably a softened look. “It was a good night. Thanks for doing my hair.”