Harvard Hottie (9 page)

I stare at him. “How do you know that?”

“Are you kidding?” He grins. “I know everything about everyone. I’m sort of like God.”

“Modest too,” I add. “So do you know everything about me then?”

“Everything,” he replies. And you know what? I’m beginning to believe it.

This entire room reeks of Boston old wealth. I’m probably the only person in the room with less than a million dollars to my name. Everyone here is related to an Adams or a Quincy or a Quincy Adams. I feel very low class because none of my great-great-great-grandfathers signed the Declaration of Independence.

Luke makes me feel more comfortable though when he whispers tidbits to me about everyone we meet. I didn’t know the wealthy community had so much gossip. On Luke’s part, he really knows how to schmooze. I guess he’s had a whole lifetime of learning how to do it. I mostly stand there a little awkwardly while he makes small talk, flirts with the old ladies, and says all the right things.

I’m impressed with how much he seems to know about art too. Or at least, he’s good at faking it. Whenever anyone asks me about a painting, I go entirely blank, but Luke spouts off for a minute or two about “interplay of green and purple” or some bullshit like that. “This is why you take art history in college,” he says to me later, “instead of just twenty computer science classes.” Hmph, I took math too.

The good news is that everyone seems absolutely thrilled to meet me, especially the older rich folks. I’ve never seen so many people call me “lovely” in one night. One of them even tells Luke congratulations. “They think we’re a couple,” he says apologetically.

“Yeah, I figured that,” I say.

“That bother you?” he asks, raising his eyebrows.

“Does it bother you?” I retort.

“Absolutely not,” he replies. “Actually, this is the first time I haven’t been slipped the phone numbers of twenty single granddaughters. Everyone in this room has known me since I’m a kid and wants me to settle down.”

He shifts in his wheelchair as he says this. I wonder if Luke is interested in settling down himself. In college, I pegged him as the kind of guy who had no intention of even considering marriage until at least age forty. Maybe that’s changed, though. He obviously doesn’t seem to be particularly having fun in the dating world.

“You had enough yet?” he asks me.

“I could go a little longer,” I say.

There’s a guy approaching us who’s about our age, flanked by a stunning woman. The guy’s sculpted good looks remind me of my first impression of Luke when I met him all those years ago. I glance at Luke, and I can tell from his eyes that he doesn’t like this guy much. I wait for him to lean in and tell me some gossip, but he keeps quiet for a change.

“Lucas, m’boy,” the guy says, flashing a wide but incredibly phony smile. “This is Arielle.”

Arielle is really beautiful to the point where it’s hard not to stare at her. Damn, maybe Luke was right, maybe I really am a lesbian.

“Hello, Gray,” Luke says, giving a smile that’s equally genuine. “It’s nice to meet you, Arielle. This is Ellie.”

“Ellie Jenson,” Gray says before I can even extend my hand.

And holy crap, I remember this guy. After all, it’s sort of hard to forget a guy named after a color. He was in a basic computer science class that I was a teaching assistant for. As an upperclassman, I was able to give up scrubbing toilets and instead teach for my scholarship money. This class probably should have been called “Computer Science for People Who Don’t Give A Shit.” Harvard required everyone to take a very small amount of basic science, just so people like Gray could come out well rounded, and presumably torture the teaching assistants.

This class was easy to the point of being ridiculous. The first assignment was to write a short program in C that printed out “Hello world!” It was like half a page and that was the entire assignment for the week. Gray handed in a quarter of a page of code with a stain that smelled like vodka and he misspelled the word “world.” The second assignment was to make your own webpage. Gray’s page was a single sentence that said, “This is a webpage,” and then had a pornographic photo below it.

Each week, he handed in code that was nonfunctional. The hard copy he gave me was always stained with food, alcohol, and once with something I strongly suspected was jizz (especially since he snickered as he handed it to me). He also bombed both the midterm and the final. I gave him a D, which I swear to God was a gift because he rightfully deserved to fail. But when I went to double-check the grades, his D had magically turned into a B. I confronted the professor about it, who mumbled something about “extra credit.”

So no, Gray was not my favorite person in the world.

“Hello, Gray,” I say, somehow summoning up the will to smile pleasantly at him.

“You straightened your hair,” he observes. “Good idea. I’d never seen so much hair before. It was like the crazy wicked witch look. We all used to laugh about it.”

They all used to laugh at my hair?  Who’s “they all”?  Was everyone in my class just making fun of my hair? I look over at Luke, who has conveniently chosen this moment to get all quiet.

“How have you been, Gray?” I ask politely.

“Oh, fine,” he says. “Arielle and I just got back from two weeks in Paris. There’s so much to do there, it’s a bit exhausting. You know how it is.” He gives me a pointed look. “Well, maybe not
you
, but Luke knows.”

I wish I could shoot back that I’ve been to Paris, but I haven’t. But at least I’ve been to Europe. I participated in an international math program in Hungary during my junior year of college.

“What did you think of Paris, Arielle?” Luke asks politely.

Arielle just smiles vacantly. For all I know, she may be mute. I’d guess Gray wouldn’t care either way.

  Gray shakes his head. “God, Ellie, do you remember what a bitch you were when you were teaching that class?”

I glance at Luke, who seems shocked. My cheeks are burning, but I reply coolly, “I don’t think I was.”

Gray laughs. “Well, I think everyone else in the class would have disagreed. You thought you were, like, the god of the computers. It was kind of pathetic, actually.”

I don’t even know how to respond to that. I just stare at him, wishing I could disappear. How can people like Gray exist, people who can say whatever the hell they want?

“I remember we all used to make fun of you,” Gray says. “Talk about what a bitch you were. I thought for sure you knew.”

“All right,” Luke says. His voice is very firm. “Enough, Gray.”

“What in hell are you doing here with her, Luke?” Gray goes on. I can tell now that his voice is slightly slurred. He’s definitely a little drunk, although it’s not like that excuses any of this. “How in hell did you even find her after all these years? You hated her as much as I did. You told me she was a low-class bitch.”

“I never…” Luke is shaking his head.

“Seriously, Luke,” Gray says. “I can’t believe you brought the girl who used to clean your toilets to this party. It’s embarrassing. I mean, if you’re going to date someone who’s a bitch, at least make sure she’s attractive.”

Luke’s face is calm but I can see that his eyes are furious. “Maybe if you had paid more attention in Ellie’s class,” he says, “you would have been smart enough not to lose two million dollars of your father’s company’s money.”

If it were appropriate, I would have given Luke a high-five.

Gray looks outraged. Outraged and drunk is not a great combination, especially in a burly guy like Gray. He gets this threatening look in his eyes and he takes a step toward Luke. For a second, I’m sure Gray’s going to hit him, but Luke doesn’t even flinch. If Gray hit Luke, I don’t know what he would do. It’s not like he could hit back. “I can’t believe you just said that to me, you asshole,” Gray growls in a low voice.

“Oh, please,” Luke snorts. “What are you going to do—punch me? You know I know everything about you, even the stuff you’d rather I didn’t know. So calm the fuck down and tell Ellie you’re sorry.”

I don’t know what Luke knows about Gray. I can’t even begin to imagine. But it’s got to be pretty damn good, better even than losing two million dollars, because a few seconds later, Gray is stammering out a heartfelt apology and telling me what a great teacher I was.

We make an early exit after that. Luke calls for his car and we head out. Inside the car, he slumps in his seat and loosens his tie with his thumb. “I’m sorry,” he finally says. “Gray is an idiot. I really hate him.”

“I should be thanking you for standing up for me,” I say. It’s true. I don’t know if anyone has ever stood up for me like that before. I was kind of touched. But I have to ask:  “Did you really call me a low-class bitch?”

Luke flashes me this horribly guilty look and I know Gray’s accusation was true. “Ellie,” he says, “you realize I was completely heartbroken after you rejected me that night in college. I was so into you—I felt ripped apart when you didn’t want me. I was really angry at you and I might have said a few things I didn’t mean.”

“You were heartbroken?” How is that possible? Luke might have wanted to hook up with me that night, but I was fairly sure that’s all it was. “You were dating another girl like a week later. Some blonde girl who looked nothing like me and was…” Gorgeous. She was gorgeous and not just because Luke thought so. She was objectively gorgeous.

“I dated who was expected of me,” Luke says with a shrug. “I probably would have pursued you more, but my roommates and guys like Gray convinced me it would be inappropriate. So I just tried to get over it and dated a girl who I knew wouldn’t say no.”

I couldn’t believe what I was hearing. How could Luke, back when he was perfect and able-bodied, have been heartsick over someone like me?  I look at him now, staring down at his hands. I know he doesn’t think so, but somehow he’s more attractive now than he was back then. He’s become a deeper person. He knows what it’s like not to get everything you want in life.

I glance at the dark glass dividing us from the driver. “Can he see us?” I ask.

Luke shakes his head. “No, he can’t. Why?”

I can smell Luke’s expensive aftershave hanging between us. His light hair, which is usually perfect, is slightly mussed from the evening, and it only adds to his sexiness.  For a moment, I feel tempted to unbuckle my seatbelt and kiss him. The thought pops into my head randomly and I’m shocked by it. Luke Thayer is totally wrong for me. But maybe it’s all the champagne, I don’t know. I really just want him to kiss me.

But it’s just a passing thought. Luke and I wouldn’t work together—it’s stupid to even contemplate such a thing.

“No reason,” I mumble.

He’s staring at me, his face slightly flushed, an odd look in his eyes. He’s looking at me like he wants me. Of course, he’s made no secret of that fact before, but I’ve never seen him look at me with quite this much desire. Actually, I don’t know if anyone has ever looked at me this way.

“I guess we’ll take you home, huh?” he says.

I nod, hardly able to breathe. What in the name of God is wrong with me?

“Thank you,” Luke says, “for a wonderful evening.”

Chapter Eleven

The next morning, I’m woken at 9AM by the intercom buzzing. I fumble for my phone and hear a crackling voice saying something about a package so I hit 9 to let them in. I wrap myself in a housecoat, push my glasses onto my nose, and stumble in the direction of the door.

I see a flash of red in the peephole, and I open the door to the most amazing arrangement of roses I’ve ever seen. I stand there staring at three-dozen roses, mostly trying to figure out how I’m going to get them all into the apartment. Sadie opens her door and looks like she’s gone to heaven when she sees all the flowers. “Is that from your suitor?” she asks me excitedly.

I blush. “Um…”

“Well, that one’s a keeper,” she remarks.

That’s kind of… I don’t know, chauvinistic? Just because a guy gets me a… well, really impressive amount of flowers, that doesn’t necessarily mean he’s a great guy. Now that the alcohol has left my system, I fully remember why I’ve decided Luke and I need to just be friends.

I reach down to pick up the card stuck on the flowers. Sadie is watching me eagerly. “What did he write?”

He wrote:
Dear Ellie, Thank you for last night. Three roses for each finger. Best, Luke.
But I can’t say that to Sadie. So I mumble, “It says, thank you for a lovely dinner last night.”

“Oh, how sweet,” Sadie sighs. “Do you think my
hamantaschen helped?”

“Undoubtedly,” I say.

It takes me two trips, but I manage to get all the roses into the house. I have to admit, I’m the tiniest bit impressed. Men in this day and age don’t usually buy flowers. At least, they don’t buy
me
flowers. One guy I dated told me flat out that he wasn’t going to bother because I didn’t seem like the flower-loving type, which I suppose is true. But it’s the thought that counts, right?

I decide the proper thing to do is to call Luke and thank him for the flowers. I dial his cell, which he answers just when I’m certain his voicemail will pick up.

“Hi, Ellie,” he answers, sounding very wide-awake compared to how I feel right now.

“Hey,” I say. “I got the flowers.”

“Love ’em or hate ’em?” he asks.

“Love ’
em,” I reply.

“Good,” he says. “I took a chance. You seem like the kind of girl who pretends you don’t like flowers, but you really love them.”

Once again, I’m baffled by Luke’s ability to know exactly what I’m thinking. “So what are you up to?” I ask.

“Not much,” he says, as I hear something in the background that sounds suspiciously like a fax machine.

“Are you at work??”

“Sort of,” he admits. “Okay, yes. I am.”

“It’s nine o’clock on Sunday morning!”

“Ellie,” he says. “There’s something you need to know about me: I work a lot. When I’m not asleep, I’m at work. That’s how you make millions of dollars. That, and being a crazy business genius.”

“So I guess there’s no room in your life for relationships, huh?” I say jokingly, but my laugh comes out a bit strained.

There’s a long pause on the other line. “I’d make time,” Luke says slowly. “For the right woman.”

I swallow. “So, um, what are you up to today?”

“Actually,” he says, “I’m sort of… giving a speech.”

A speech?  I haven’t given a speech since I was valedictorian of my crappy high school. “A speech where? About what?”

“I’m giving it at Harvard,” he says. “It’s on, you know, how to be an awesome businessman and make a shitload of money. That’s the official title, anyway.”

“Can I listen?”

“God, no.” He sounds horrified. “Anyway, you don’t want to make a shitload of money. You just want to play with a computer all day.”

He’s right, of course. Sure, it would be nice to be rich, but I never really cared that much about money. Still, I like the idea of hearing Luke give a speech to a bunch of wide-eyed college kids. He seems like he’d be a fantastic speaker.

“I still want to go,” I say.

He sighs loudly, but agrees to let me hear his speech. The way he gives in so easily, I can tell he really likes me.

***

Luke picks me up in the afternoon and drives me to the Harvard campus. My college boyfriend Noah had a car, a two-door Toyota Camry with a hatchback that was possibly older than I was, and he always ended up parking it miles from campus. He parked it so far away that it got broken into once. The guy who broke in damaged both the door locks, so for months Noah had to climb into the car through the trunk until he could scrape together enough money to fix the locks.

Of course, Luke, with his handicapped plates, parks just feet away from the Yard. Somehow I imagine that even if he weren’t disabled, Luke would find a way to get good parking. And if someone ever broke into his car, he’d probably have it fixed within the hour.

I spent ages in the morning trying to figure out what to wear. Of course, this is far from my first lecture at Harvard, but I feel like I can’t dress the way I did when I was a twenty-year-old college student. Jeans and a T-shirt just don’t seem appropriate. I finally select a summer dress that looks a bit formal and makes my nearly nonexistent hips and butt look slightly curvier.

Luke looks great, by the way. He’s wearing a dark Armani suit that’s buttoned up and does a pretty good job hiding the imperfections in his body. Aside from the fact that he’s using hand controls, it would be hard to know he had any kind of disability just from looking at him driving the car.

I haven’t been to Harvard Yard in ages. There’s something sort of surreal about being here as an adult. Especially being here with Luke as an adult. Actually, going to Harvard in itself is kind of a surreal experience for someone like me. I’m sure for Luke it was a given his whole life that he’d end up there, but for me, it was tantamount to saying I was going to attend Hogwarts University.

I spent most of my four years of Harvard being mildly embarrassed to be going there. I always thought of myself as a questionable admission and was never quite sure what they saw in a frizzy-haired Jersey girl. When people asked me where I went to college, I’d usually mumble, “In Boston.” Of course, nobody would leave it at that. They’d always have to know where and I’d be forced to admit my embarrassing secret.

Now, ten years after graduation, it’s even worse. I see Luke, who’s accomplished so much with his life, and then compare him to myself. I’ve accomplished so little. That gives me yet another reason for being embarrassed to have gone to Harvard. I was given such a fantastic opportunity and what did I do with it?  I became a computer programmer. I could have gone to Rutgers and been a computer programmer. So in that sense, returning to this campus kind of leaves me with a sense of failure.

“Hey, it’s the John Harvard statue,” Luke says, pointing out the statue I’d passed literally thousands of times during my four years of college.

“I know that,” I say. “What are you, the tour guide?”

Luke grins. “You remember the three lies?”

“Of course,” I say. “One, John Harvard didn’t found Harvard. Two, the date is off by two years. Three, that’s not even John Harvard.” I make a face. “I still remember it from the tour I went on before applying. Did you know it’s good luck to rub his left foot?”

“Really? I thought it was good luck to pee on him.”

“Oh God,” I say. “You didn’t.”

“Of course I did,” he says. “I assumed everyone did. Like having sex in the Widener Library stacks.”

“I never did that.”

“Yeah, well, you missed out.”

The Widener stacks are a desolate area of the library filled with the dustiest and oldest books on campus. It was also a place that young undergrads frequently went to exchange bodily fluids. I look at Luke and imagine him pushing one of his blonde bombshells into the dusty old bookcases and pressing his lips onto hers. And then for one crazy moment, I imagine him in his chair between rows of books, me in his lap and kissing him.

Luke winks and says, “Forget it. I don’t think I’d fit anymore.”

He’s joking, I’m sure. He doesn’t really know what I’m thinking about. Not this time.

The lecture is in Emerson Hall. It’s a humanities building that I may have set foot in less than half a dozen times during my brief tenure at Harvard. The science buildings are at the other end of the Yard, and those are where I spent most of my time. Luke seems very familiar with the layout of Emerson, though. When I ask him, he admits that this isn’t the first lecture he’s given here. “Wow,” I say, “you must be a great speaker.”

He shrugs. “I’m fair.”

The lecture is scheduled to start in a few minutes and the large auditorium is already more than half full. I am shocked that so many people showed up to see Luke speak. He must be more well-known than I realized. Or maybe all these Harvard kids just want to be rich like he is.

An important-looking man in a dark suit is on the stage and greets us as we come in. “Luke,” he calls out. “Thanks for doing this. Everyone is really excited.”

“No problem, Ed,” he says. He eyes the stage, which is elevated several feet from the ground. There are four steps to get on top of it. “You got the ramp, right?”

Ed grimaces. “Luke, I’m sorry. Those idiots never ordered it.”

“Goddamn it, Ed,” he sighs.

“I’m really sorry,” Ed says again. “I’ll help you.”

I watch as Luke backs up to the bottom step and the other man pulls him up the stairs from behind. Luke’s legs bounce on each step and he puts his hands on them to keep them from falling out of place. Several students are staring, which makes me aware that I kind of am, too. Luke takes it mostly in stride, though.

They set up a microphone that’s lowered for Luke’s height. I take my seat and realize that the auditorium is now nearly full. Hundreds of people have come to watch this lecture. Luke leans over the microphone and I hear him clear his throat. “Hello,” he says. “My name is Luke Thayer of Thayer Industries.”

Luke has a fantastic speaking voice. I hear it echo through the auditorium and everyone stops talking and looks up at him. I can see some of the faces in the audience registering surprise.

“I didn’t know Luke Thayer was in a wheelchair,” a girl two seats down from me whispers to her friend.

“Oh my God, how awful for him,” her friend replies. “No wonder he keeps it quiet.”

I feel a sudden surge of resentment. I know for a fact that Luke wouldn’t want people in the audience to pity him. What, just because he’s in a wheelchair, his life is awful? That’s absolutely not true.

“I know you’re all here to find out how to make some serious money in business,” Luke is saying at the front. “My first big tip: Have rich parents.”

There’s a round of laughter from the audience. It’s true that Luke did come from a wealthy family, but from what I’ve read online, it sounds like Thayer Industries was stagnant and even struggling a bit when Luke took over the company. In the four years he’s been CEO, the company doubled in value. I have no idea how he did it, but needless to say, Luke’s a really smart guy and a phenomenal businessman.

The room sits in rapt attention as Luke speaks, throwing around some economic concepts that are pretty much jargon to me. Sometimes I wish I had taken some economics classes in college. Of course, Luke went to business school after college and has an MBA (from Harvard, where else?). He told me he completed his degree a month before his accident.

The lecture is forty-five minutes and afterwards, several students rush onstage to ask Luke some questions. I can’t even get near him for at least another twenty minutes and I’m actually kind of tempted to leave and take the T back home when the last student finally leaves.

“Sorry,” Luke says to me. “I told you that you’d be bored.”

“I wasn’t bored,” I say. Okay, I was slightly bored. But he’s so charismatic and such a great speaker, it was sort of fun to watch him, even though I had no idea what he was talking about.

“Liar,” he says. “You were bored out of your mind.”

I watch as he wheels over to the few stairs that Ed had helped him up earlier. I’m about to offer him help when he does a little wheelie, grabs the railing and bounces down the stairs. “They taught me how to get down stairs in rehab,” he explains. “Up is slightly harder though.”

He adjusts his legs slightly and I try not to watch. He then loosens his tie and undoes the top button on his expensive white shirt. As good as Luke looks in his suit and tie, I think he looks sexier when he’s slightly casual. It occurs to me that I’ve never even seen him in a T-shirt before, at least not since college. Or shirtless.

Shit, why am I thinking about that?

  “So,” he says. “Can I treat you to dinner?  Make it up to you for having to sit through that?”

“Um…” I want to say yes, but I’m disturbed by the thoughts I’ve been having about Luke lately. I think I’ve been spending too much time with him. I consider telling him I have plans, but then I remember how he always seems to know what I’m thinking and especially when I’m lying.

“Nothing fancy,” Luke adds. “There’s a wicked good bar around here that serves, believe it or not, the best lobster rolls in New England. Under ten dollars.”