Early Decision (19 page)

There are tests that are even more complicated, such as the test of how to be a top student at school, which means to speak a certain way and act a certain way, and then walk home and not have anyone give you trouble, which means to leave all that school behind and be just the kid that everyone knows. You have two vocabularies and two sets of voices. You say Yes in one word and Si or Yeah in the other. If you don't want trouble, you must pass this test every day.

I think again about the supreme law of the land. We are lucky to live in a country with the Constitution, which guarantees freedom for all of us who are citizens. Of course it is important to test new citizens to ensure they understand and can uphold the Constitution. But when I see Mami with flashcards in her apron, I wish I could go with her to take the test, and stand up with her and have her perfectly say, not only, “The Constitution is the supreme law of the land,” but also explain how many years she has worked to create our home, and raise her daughters to speak English even though she barely does, and how she takes only Sunday off, all because she wants her children to have this dream of a country. Because in my opinion, she has already passed the test, every single day. And I think that is an honor for even the Constitution.

So Cristina's familiarity with the United States government that first Saturday morning stemmed from her preparations with her mother for the citizenship test rather than her general acuity or, God forbid, a comprehensive U.S. history and politics curriculum. Perhaps she was even savvier than Anne had guessed, communicating to Mr. Blanchard and all his cronies that she was legal and that there was no tangle they should anticipate. It was just spicy enough to serve their need for the subordinate voice, defensive in her pride, but of course all within the lines, so they needn't be forced to address actual injustice. Or maybe she just wrote about the thing that had been shadowing her family's life for months or years, and got lucky in aiming it at the right sort of sop. Anne clipped Michelle's terse headnote, added a graceful note of thanks, and forwarded the essay on to Gideon Blanchard. It'd do nicely. She busied herself with other stray notes, all “urgent.” Mrs. Pfaff had written to ask where on the Common App to indicate that Hunter was left-handed. Dr. Kantor was concerned that William's stated first choice of intended major—theater arts—would communicate a “soft” academic commitment. Then came two notes in succession that sickened her:

Annie,

I'm back here in lonesome La-La Land without you and I have an idea for a scene:

I'm just coming in from a shoot, and it's been a long day. You've been working yourself on your latest book, about Victorian novelists, and you have a screenplay on the side that your agent is hassling you about because producers are fighting over it. We're both exhausted and tired of pleasing others but it's a warm night, so we head out with Mitchell to hike Runyon and watch the sun set. The city is hazy but we're up in the clear, the lights on the hills are winking on, Mitch is getting lost in the shadows in the brush. We drop him home, shower, and make love. Then we head out to supper under the stars so you can tell me about the chapter you're working on and I can regale you with tales of my demanding co-stars. Maybe we're talking about making a baby, once our projects are wrapped? I see a bottle of wine on the table, a chocolate dessert. Two spoons. It's a late evening. Then we go home.

Wanted to see what you thought. Notes, please.

Love-

M

Dear Anne

Mr. Blanchard thanks you for your e-mail today and requests that you phone him at your earliest convenience. He may be reached on the numbers below.

Regards

Brenda Hollow, executive assistant to Gideon Blanchard

As with previous Blanchard communications, the body of the note was dwarfed by the lengthy legal disclaimers printed at the bottom, and for a moment Anne smiled to think that Martin's e-mails would better be printed with such warnings of improper use. You'd know how to handle them. The humor softened her, and then, dangerously, opened toward gratitude. She dialed Martin's cell. He'd taken the time—she should thank him. So it was early; but who minded a loving voice? The call was shunted immediately to voice mail, sharp as a rebuke. Anne stiffened. Suitably armed, she hung up and dialed Blanchard instead.

She was asked to hold. After much clicking, he came on the line. All business this time.

“I've received the essay,” he opened. “Very nice, very moving.” He paused.

Anne felt the shifting in her gut that accompanied the challenge of an older adult's strong will. Her confidence resettled itself, but it was precarious. She pictured Cristina—her long skirts rolled three times at the waist to stay up, her T-shirts, obviously donated, too tight or cut for men. She waited.

“But my first allegiance is, and must be, to my daughter,” continued Blanchard. The partial non sequitur, and the tone, invoked a podium. Anne scrambled to figure out what was going on. He was taking a totally different line with her now, and having done so, he had distanced himself immensely—he was more a stranger to her than he'd been when she had known him only by reputation. And what could she say?
Hang on, what about lunch? I thought we hit it off ?
She imagined him in the courtroom; he must sound like this. Then it occurred to her, suddenly, that Mrs. Blanchard was silently on the line.

“Of course it is,” Anne replied, in the most grown-up voice she could manage.

“And I cannot proceed with fast-tracking the application of another student if it is to the detriment of my own daughter's planning. Or, God forbid, her future.”

How did he arrive at that formula, the one at the expense of the other? Where was this coming from? But she just said, “No, you can't.”

“So you'll understand why I may well have to stand down.”

“I do,” Anne said, because what else could she say? “Cristina will be very disappointed.”

“There's nothing keeping her from applying by the regular routes, of course,” he said, as if correcting Anne. She wondered for a moment if she had in fact been greedy to ask for help for Cristina. Then the logistical tangle reasserted itself in her mind. “Mr. Blanchard, the placement office at her high school isn't even set up to handle the application-fee waiver. There are holes in her transcript through no fault of her own, there's the financial-aid situation—”

Blanchard interrupted her. “Then you will have to reassure her that her qualifications are sound,” he said. “And help her to understand that life hands all of us a few curveballs. It's how we handle them that reveals our character.”

“I doubt that will be news to her,” Anne said.

“I'm sure there are plenty of wonderful schools that will welcome her with open arms.”

The wagons were circled. She could practically feel Mrs. Blanchard nodding on the line. It was clear she was not to mention anything about lunch at Spiaggia or the conversation she and Blanchard had there. Though how she knew this, she couldn't say.

“You, with your experience,” he went on, “will be able to steer her toward the best outcomes.”

She imagined him as a spider, spinning out ego, his silk growing thinner and thinner. For a moment she felt exhausted on his behalf: the solid public image, the sodden private self. She almost sympathized with him. Clearly Sadie was upset, and now she was refusing to apply to Duke, no matter who wrote her essays. And her mother must have lowered the boom. Fine, then. “Mr. Blanchard,” she dared, “what if I can talk to Sadie? What if this is a simple misunderstanding, and we're able to help her to feel confident again about her next step?”

“Anne, could I ask you to wait just a moment? Something's come up.” More clicks, and the firm's holding music. Then Mr. Blanchard's voice again: “Sorry about that. Well, we'd have to see, of course, but if Sadie is able to move forward, I'd be able to support the other girl's application, I suppose.”

“She's really very upset,” blurted Mrs. Blanchard, betraying herself.

“Margaret,” he scolded.

“Sorry, Anne, but I'm here, too,” she protested quickly, and then recovered her haughty tone. “I'm a mother. My daughter is miserable. I told Gid this would happen . . . That girl should never have come to our home.”

“Margaret, easy,” warned Blanchard.

“I understand,” Anne said, addressing them both. “Let me come talk to her.”

“Well, I'd think you'd come talk to her anyway,” Mr. Blanchard said, angry to have been exposed. “You are contracted to work with her. We are paying you, after all, and I believe I have made my expectations clear.” He paused for an extra second. Then he added, “And she didn't invite this upon herself.”

“Yes, she doesn't deserve this,” said Mrs. Blanchard. “That girl can go anywhere, can't she? Aren't they all looking for kids like that? Why does it have to be Duke?”

It didn't, of course. But if Anne and Michelle couldn't communicate somehow to an elite admissions office, at a school with the resources to fund her, that Cristina was the real deal, and then, somehow, give her mother the confidence to let her daughter travel thousands of miles to an unknown place of high stone gates for four years in directions unknown, especially after forcing her to fill out those FAFSA forms, which terrified anyone, and asking provocative questions about birth parents and bank accounts, not to mention the small amount of tuition almost any school would require, well . . . it was a long way down to a local school, community college, whatever was easiest and had night courses to accommodate work. Anne had been relying, in part, on Mr. Blanchard's pride, and here he and his wife diverged. They both loved feeling like saviors, but only he was the trustee, and only he was the alumnus. Anne realized Mrs. Blanchard's alma mater had never come up. Given her public persona, it most certainly would have, had she wished it to. So Cristina's matriculation at Duke would be his victory alone. And any cost to Sadie at all would be a price too high for her mother to bear.

“It doesn't have to be Duke,” Anne conceded.

“No,” said both Blanchards.

“Although,” Anne corrected, “Duke would be lucky to have her. As they will be to have Sadie.” She paused to be sure they heard this. Her support for Sadie was sincere. “Listen, what if I come by tomorrow? We can talk this out. Does that work for Sadie?”

“I'll make sure it does,” Blanchard said.

 

S
ADIE HAD A
spectacular pout. Her lovely bow mouth, inherited from her father, had been drawn to a fierce, petulant point. She hurled herself into a chair and crossed her arms. “I have nothing to say,” she said.

“Okay,” Anne replied, looking around Sadie's room, which she had never seen. It faced the front of the house, where the street trees were visible in yellow and green through heavily swagged curtains. The canopied bed was a king. The entire room appeared to be slipcovered. On the walls, posters of pop stars alternated with collages Sadie had made of her various destinations—Sri Lanka, Calcutta, Bali—which resembled travel brochures spattered with the scissored-out faces of family and ragged locals. A blank expanse was explained by a black-and-blue Duke banner in a heap on the floor. Meanwhile, Anne noticed Sadie studying her with smoldering eyes, and let her continue; she knew the girl was angry, and her parents would have stoked this, too. It was okay. Anne had to admit relief at the way Sadie's parents had aligned themselves behind their daughter. She hadn't thought they had such loyalty in them.

“I mean, what the hell am I supposed to make of it?” Sadie went on. A few breaths more and she was crying. Her face was immediately sodden. Anne saw that there had been days of this. “My parents tell me my entire life to do this, do that, to prepare myself for the future. And it's always Duke, Duke, Duke. So I bust my ass, I mean my butt, I do all this volunteering, which of course I really love, I don't mean to say I don't see that it's important, but I do it all the time, really every time, and sometimes I really just want to, like, go to the beach or just hang out. And I don't. And there's homework and sports and, just, everything. And then there's Dad's whole big law thing, and Mom's always doing her thing, and Charles is just a kid, so it's me. And the whole time, you know, I feel like I have this thing that's mine, and then I find out that all along I didn't have to do any of this, I could have just stayed home from school, I could have gone to the crappiest high school in town, it doesn't matter, and I could still go to Duke because my dad will make them take me and meanwhile this girl who has nothing that I can never have is, like, the apple of everyone's eyes.”

“Oh, Sadie,” Anne began, and the girl's crying sharpened. She looked about for a box of tissues, but Sadie used her fingers again and again to wipe away her tears—protecting eye makeup, Anne realized, even through the storm. She felt a moment of sympathy for her own mother—were all seventeen-year-old girls this dramatic?—and then remembered that she was not innocent in this crisis. “Sadie,” she said gently, “I don't think you did all of those things so you could get into college, did you?”

Sadie stopped heaving for a moment to think. “No,” she sniffed.

“I'm pretty sure you'd have been a good student and a wonderful volunteer no matter what.”

“But no matter what, what?” asked Sadie. “I mean, if what? If I didn't want to go to college? If I was just going to, I don't know,
die
when I turned eighteen?”

“What I mean to say is that I don't think your qualities and successes emerge from your parents' expectations of you.”

Sadie shook her head firmly. She was right, of course; Sadie's parents didn't actually have that many expectations for their daughter herself. Her job was to redeem their jobs, their titles, their ambitions, but they weren't much interested in her own. They didn't pay much attention to her at all, in fact. Anne's comment led to a dead end, and Sadie had known this all along; Anne was only seeing it now. It was the thing she'd missed in getting Mr. Blanchard involved in Cristina's search in the first place. To bring in a young woman whose future they could get behind, with pride, was to expose the ropes behind those two-story damask drops, and it had devastated Sadie.