"Elisa, please," the woman said. "I'm thinking about this."

Portia, now thoroughly alert, sat waiting, the application open before her, reading and rereading the question in question, as if she did not know it by heart.

"You know," Elisa said abruptly, "I think... would you mind terribly if I phoned you back in a few minutes? I'd like to phone you back."

"All right," said Portia, giving her the direct line. She hung up the phone and opened the application to the first page. Dad, an ophthalmologist, went to Brandeis. Mom, a homemaker, went to Wheaton. Two sibs, both older, one in college, one in medical school. Swimming-lots of swimming-tennis. Probable major: economics; possible career plans: law. Summers: tennis pro, work for Dad, calculus and history at Andover. One essay about his swim coach, one about tutoring a neighbor's child who had trouble with math. His favorite movie was Donnie Darko, the single most cited film in this year's "Few Details" section (trailed only slightly, incredibly enough, by The Princess Bride). She'd had the impression that Donnie Darko was a horror film until some boy from Maine wrote an essay about why he loved it. Now she'd concluded it was merely bizarre.

The phone rang, and Portia noted the caller ID on her phone, which was not, surprisingly, the school she had just phoned, but 617, the right area code. Tentatively, she answered. "Portia Nathan."

"It's Elisa Rosen."

"Oh yes. h.e.l.lo, Elisa."

"I'm sorry I couldn't talk. I wanted to have this conversation on my cell." She laughed shortly. "I'm actually in my car right now."

By this time, Portia was paying very close attention. "I take it there's an issue here."

"Oh yes. And I decided, if any of you ever asked, I was going to answer. You're the first one to call, by the way. Congratulations," she said with deep sarcasm.

Portia found a piece of notepaper on her desk and wrote the name of the counselor and the date.

"I must ask you, please, to make this an off-the-record conversation. Can you agree to that?"

Portia considered. Sean Aronson had an Academic rating of 2 and a NonAc 3, smack in the middle of the pool. He wasn't a legacy, which vastly decreased the likelihood of a belligerent phone call if he was rejected. She could probably terminate the application without consulting Clarence. "Well, let's do this. Let's have a conversation, and if we come to something I think my boss needs to hear about, I'll stop you and you can think about it. All right?"

"Yes," she said after a minute.

"So what are we talking about here?"

"He got hold of the chemistry final in December. We have no idea how. His teacher has no idea how. Apparently, he sold it to at least two of his cla.s.smates, but we can't compel him to tell us who they were, which hasn't done wonders for our morale. Plus, when I first met with him before Christmas, he very clearly implied that he'd done it before. He wanted us to know he'd been having his way with the system for a while."

Portia, listening, turned over the pages of the file to the secondary school transcript. A's and A minuses, with, appropriately enough, a single B plus in Foundations of Ethics, junior year.

"So he was suspended, then?"

"Well, that's just it. His father told us that if we suspended him or did anything to the transcript or the recommendations, he'd sue the school. He also told our headmaster he was prepared to claim the chemistry teacher had given Sean the answers as part of an attempted seduction, and he was ready to make a s.e.xual hara.s.sment charge. And the chemistry teacher does happen to be gay, which didn't help. So we were in meetings for days with our attorney, and we finally felt we just had to let it go. We had to," she said defensively. "We didn't want to. I mean, what I've told you, it doesn't even scratch the surface of how truly gruesome it was. And both of his references had already sent out their letters, including, I should point out, his chemistry teacher, who'd written him this glowing recommendation in November. It would have meant contacting eleven colleges with whom we've had good relationships and telling them we had a cheating scandal. But you know what? When it came time for me to fill out the SSR, I just couldn't bring myself to check that box. You know? I couldn't do it. It was my silent protest."

"I see," said Portia, writing quickly. "Well, thank you for your candor."

"I'm in my car," Elisa Rosen said again. "I feel like I'm in a spy novel. But I didn't want anyone to hear me talking about this. We kept the students from finding out, I don't know how. But if we hadn't, we'd have been overrun with parents demanding we throw him out and inform the colleges. They don't want Sean taking their kid's place, and I have to tell you, I don't really blame them. But you know what I hate most about this whole thing?"

"What?" Portia asked.

"I hate the fact that he's actually a sweet kid. Seriously, I've known Sean for years. You couldn't meet a nicer guy. Always smiling, always wants to tell you about some book he's just read or something he saw in the paper. He's very popular, but he's one of those popular kids who reaches out to the misfits, you know what I mean? And I'm not excusing what he did at all, but I gotta tell you, I don't think I'd last a week with a father like that. I mean, angry, angry man. I could hear him screaming at his son outside in the parking lot after our meeting. I wanted to call Child Protective Services."

"Okay," said Portia, frowning.

"So I'm just telling you, this is what happened. And I have no idea what he'll be like when he gets away from home. I mean, Sean is really smart, really capable. He can absolutely handle the work at Princeton, and I'm sure he'd be an a.s.set to the university. But it's right that you have the information."

There was a light tap at her office door. Portia looked up.

"Are there any other applicants you'd like to discuss?" Elisa Rosen said hopefully.

"Oh, I'm sure your kids will do great," Portia rea.s.sured her. "This is the one I've gotten to so far. If I have any questions, I'll call. Hey, listen, Elisa, I really appreciate your talking to me. And I will keep this confidential, I promise."

"Thank you so much!"

"Okay, I've got someone in my office, so I'd better go. Come in!" she said loudly, to underscore this statement.

"I won't keep you, then," said Elisa Rosen, as if she'd initiated the conversation.

The office door opened. Rachel stood in the doorway.

"All right," Portia said, distracted. "Good-bye."

She replaced the handset and sighed.

"Muhammad comes to the mountain," said Rachel.

"Would Muhammad like to sit down?"

"Muhammad has brought you a soy latte."

"Oh. Good. Thanks." And awkwardly, she took it.

"This is what I'm resorting to," said Rachel. "You know, they stopped me at the desk. Do I look like an insane parent to you?"

"No, no," said Portia.

"I had to show my ID! It was like getting carded!"

"It's policy," Portia said, apologizing. "We had a man come up last year. He walked right into Clarence's office and said he wouldn't leave till Clarence explained in detail why his nephew hadn't been admitted."

"Really?" She seemed surprised. "I didn't know."

"Really. He was in there for fifteen minutes before anybody even knew about it. I mean, poor Clarence had no idea if the guy was dangerous or what. It's not like we have a secret panic b.u.t.ton for campus security."

"Maybe you should," she said.

"Well, maybe we should. But we still like to operate under the delusion that everyone understands we do the best we can with a difficult situation."

Rachel set down her own coffee on Portia's desk and eyed the towering stack of folders on the spare chair.

"Let me," said Portia, moving them. "I have a system."

"I hope so," said Rachel, sounding dubious. She sat.

"Thank you," Portia said, taking the cover off her latte. "I needed this."

"Well, that's a lucky break," said Rachel, launching right in. "I wouldn't know what you need. I mean, how many messages have I left for you? I even started dropping by, but you're never home."

"It's reading season," Portia said, blowing on her coffee.

"That's bulls.h.i.t. You always read at home."

"Well, this year I'm reading in the office."

"You look terrible."

"Thank you," said Portia, deeply hurt.

"Oh, s.h.i.t. You don't look terrible. Well, actually, you don't look great, sweetie. But I couldn't care less how you look. I just care if you're all right."

Portia sighed. "Fine," she said dully. "Whatever."

"I'm furious at him. I told him so. I said, 'I had no idea you were such an a.s.shole.' "

Portia searched for a response to this and couldn't locate one.

"I mean, I had her in my house! How could he do that to me? Like I would ever, ever have had her at my dinner table if I'd known."

"They're your colleagues, Rachel. You've got to play nice."

"Don't be ridiculous. English departments are known for internal warfare. It's our stock in trade. Jesus, Portia, I called you as soon as I heard. I'm so sorry. So sorry."

She shrugged. Again, she looked in vain for some strong emotion. But nothing. The oddness of this, she promised herself, she would turn her attention to at some-hopefully distant-point in the future.

"I was surprised," she said finally. "I didn't know. Clearly, I should have known, but I didn't. And now..." She trailed off, looking intently away from Rachel's stricken face and then drifting, drifting, searching the bulletin board behind Rachel's head to find something to hold on to. Photograph of Princeton's oldest living graduate at the head of the annual P-Rade, in a golf cart driven by someone in a tiger suit. Photograph of the baseball team, Ivy League champions, 2003, all of them graduated by now. Gym schedule for Pilates, yoga, and spinning from the previous spring. Nothing. Nothing.

"I just have so much work to do," she said, coming back to her default position.

"Are you sleeping? You don't look like you're sleeping. You certainly don't look like you're eating."

Portia looked down at herself, perplexed. What was Rachel talking about? She wore three layers at least: long-sleeved cotton shirt, turtleneck sweater, a fleece pullover with a zippered neck. The fleece had a small stain, she noticed, by the right wrist. From food? She couldn't imagine. Actually, she had only put the fleece on this morning, and she couldn't remember eating anything so far today. The shirt and sweater she had worn for a couple of days.

"Don't be silly. Just, you know, catching meals whenever I can. Do you know we have eight hundred more applications than last year? Do you know the median SAT is up another twenty points? It's out of control."

"I stopped at your house on the way over here. I looked through the window. Portia, I'm very concerned."

"I'm busy. Mark was the neatnik, you know."

"That's not what you always told me."

"Really? Look, Rachel, I'm dealing with things. I just have work right now. And I'm lucky n.o.body cares what I look like."

"It's the fact that you don't care what you look like that worries me."

"I just talked to a guidance counselor in Ma.s.sachusetts. She called me from her car. She didn't want to call me from her office."

"This is a non sequitur, Portia."

"No, but it's interesting. She wanted me to know that her advisee got caught cheating on his chemistry final. They think he sold the answers to his cla.s.smates, too, but they can't prove it."

"So what's the problem?" said Rachel, humoring her. "Why even talk about it?"

"She couldn't tell us on the application because the student's father threatened to sue. So they had to, you know, sup with the devil. Can you believe it?"

"Of course I can," Rachel said, setting down her coffee. "I just can't believe we're talking about that and not about the fact that you've just split up with Mark, you look dreadful, and you haven't answered my increasingly hysterical phone messages."

"But isn't it sick that the parents have become so powerful? And she's in her car, on the phone! Like a police informant or something."

"Portia," Rachel said intently.

"The thing is," she rolled on, "I sort of understand. This kid. They must all be, just, crazy with this thing. It must be terrible to go through this now. The pressure from the parents and their peers, and the schools, too. Is it any wonder that some of them screw up? The real question is why more of them don't. Or maybe they do! How would we know? I mean, how do we even know they're taking their own SATs and writing their own applications? Next thing, ETS is going to ask for a fingerprint or a strand of hair before they let you have the test booklet. And the sad thing is, these applicants... they're just teenagers. And teenagers are supposed to f.u.c.k up. I mean, when else do you get to do that? But if they f.u.c.k up, or if they f.u.c.k up and they get caught, like this one, it's the end of everything."

"Fine, but that doesn't change the fact that he did f.u.c.k up," Rachel observed. "If he did that here, we'd throw him out. You know that."

"Yes, I understand that," she said, blithely deflecting the logic of this. "But what I mean is, this particular kid, who got caught, probably isn't any worse than the ones we're going to let in instead of him. Maybe he's the best of the lot and we're going to pa.s.s him over. And these parents, I know they're awful, but I feel for them, too. Because, you know what's weird? They're not older than we are anymore. All these years, I've been reading applications from high school seniors whose parents are twenty years older than me, ten years older, five years older. Now they're my age, Rachel. If I'd had a kid, like, at the end of college, he'd be this age now, in twelfth grade. He could be applying to Princeton right now. Do you see how weird that is?"

Rachel was looking steadily at her, hands in her lap, lightly holding the now empty coffee cup.

"You know," Portia heard herself say, "he hasn't called me once. He hasn't come to the house. It's like... boom! Sixteen years. I mean, doesn't he want a couch or something? Aren't there things to talk about?"

Rachel leaned forward in her chair, her calf nudging a tilting pile of folders. Instinctively, Portia reached out to shift them.

"Yes," said Rachel. "There are things to talk about. Even if Mark doesn't seem capable of talking about them, maybe you need to talk about them. And if not with him, and if not with me, then what about someone else?"

"Oh, Rachel..." She sighed. "I'm fine."

"Oh, Portia," Rachel echoed, "I do not think so."

When my church group arrived in the small Mexican town where we were to spend a week building houses, I looked around and thought, this is a town? I saw hovels made of cinderblocks, without windows or floors. Women and children carrying what looked like very unclean water from a pond about half a mile away, dogs and cats everywhere. Everyone looked hungry. I'd known there was poverty in Mexico, of course. But I couldn't believe people were living this way. I couldn't believe that I hadn't realized people were living this way.

CHAPTER FIFTEEN.

A FEW DETAILS.