'Ninety-something,' I said.
He looked a little surprised.
'That's right,' he said.
'Must be the combination of highly intelligent students with great teachers,' I said.
'Sure it is,' Matthew said.
'You're in grad school now?' I said.
'Yeah,' he said. 'Economics.'
'Ouch,' I said.
'I know,' he said. 'I know, the dismal science.'
He took a bite of pepperoni pizza from the narrow end of a slice.
'So how's school?' I said.
'Everybody thinks Harvard is so hard. It's no harder than anyplace else. All you got to do is study.'
'Which you do,' I said.
'Enough to get by,' he said.
'It engages you,' I said.
'Yeah,' he said. 'Economics is pretty interesting. I mean, the whole deal with money. Money is something we've made up, you know, because barter is clumsy. . . . It's smoke and mirrors.'
'I've always suspected as much,' I said. 'Can we talk about your sister?'
He was quiet for a moment, looking down at the pizza. Then, without looking up, he nodded.
'Good,' I said. 'Tell me about her.'
'Like what?' he said.
'You decide, anything comes to mind.'
'She was a good kid when she was little,' Matthew said. 'Hell, she was always a good kid, but she was an awful mess, too.'
He was still looking at the pizza.
'How so?' I said.
'My parents,' he said, and shook his head. 'My old man treated her like she was the carnival queen and captain of the cheerleading squad. My mother . . .' He raised his eyes from the pizza and looked at me as the conversation began to engage him. 'My mother treated her like she was an ugly little slut that would fuck every guy she met.'
'Which one did she buy into?' I said.
'Both,' Matthew said.
It was a rainy day in Harvard Square, so the foot traffic through the atrium from Mass Ave to Mount Auburn Street was heavier than it might have been if the sun were out. A lot of people were carrying umbrellas, which most of them furled inside. I had always thought that Cambridge, in the vicinity of Harvard, might have had the most umbrellas per capita of any place in the world. People used them when it snowed. In my childhood, in Laramie, Wyoming, we used to think people who carried umbrellas were sissies. It was almost certainly a hasty generalization, but I had never encountered a hard argument against it.
'She promiscuous?' I said. 'If the word still has meaning.'
'Some,' Matthew said. 'And she was, ah, you know, bubbly and cute.'
'Vivacious,' I said.
'Yeah,' Matthew said. 'Vivacious. Worked hard as hell at it.'
'She wanted to be popular?'
'More than anything.'
'Maybe valued for what she was?'
'If she ever knew,' Matthew said. 'They really messed her up.'
'Your parents?' I said.
'Yeah.'
'You don't seem,' I said, 'at first glance, really messed up.'
'I was a boy,' he said.
'Different standards,' I said.
'Yes,' he said. 'I'm two years older. I got good grades in school. When she came along, they expected that she wouldn't.'
'And she didn't disappoint them.'
'I guess not,' Matthew said. 'I played sports in high school. She didn't make cheerleader.'
