The Admissions (26 page)

“Why only three years?”

Shit.

“This year I didn’t have time anymore. With applying to college and everything. I had to give some things up.”

Angela, is the application done? It’s October, you know. Not much time now.

“You sound wistful about that.”

Wistful
was such a pretty word; it made Angela think of ladies playing tennis on grass courts wearing long skirts. “I guess I am. I miss it.” She never saw Mary Lou anymore.

“Let’s see here. This says Green Club?”

“Recycling. We do can drives, water awareness week. We do a thing on Earth Day where we go to an underprivileged school and help build something, like a playground slide.” Angela had cut her post-workout showers down to three minutes because of Green Club.

“How do you spend your summers?”

“This past summer I worked for three weeks as a volunteer docent at the Exploratorium.”

“It’s lovely, isn’t it? The new building by the Pier. I’m so glad they moved from that rusty old building they were in. Although I’ve heard that financially it hasn’t been the boon for memberships they were hoping for.”

Angela scratched at her other palm. How much longer? “I—um, I don’t know about that. But it is beautiful, yes.”

“And the other weeks?”

“Let’s see. I did four weeks as a counselor in the Rec and Park for my town, for a multi-sport camp. One week I went on vacation with my family, to Alaska.” Maya had almost fallen off the boat during a whale-watching cruise, but other than that it had been a spectacular trip. Henrietta’s summer adviser had probably told her not to go on any family vacations this past year. Shit, why didn’t Angela have a summer adviser?

“Wonderful! Any summer job that carried throughout the whole summer or into the school year?”

Angela almost laughed, then caught herself. It was actually legitimately funny, that Susan Holloway thought that anyone with the schedule Angela had just detailed would have time for a job. She didn’t know anyone in the top of the class who held down a job along with everything else. Her mother, as she reminded them
often,
had scooped ice cream at Newport Creamery throughout her high school and college years. She talked a lot about the famous Awful Awful, and she brought the whole family there every time they went east so they could all experience it. (Awful Awfuls were actually to die for.)

“Um. No, not really. After Alaska we started summer training for cross-country, and the AP course work…and I guess that was it.” The summer had gone by in a blink. Half a blink. One careful reading of
Jane Eyre,
some statistics work, the beginning of the Harvard application, and whoosh, it was over.

“I see. Now, Angela, why don’t you tell me what the last book was that you read that wasn’t a school assignment. You look surprised.”

Angela
was
surprised. Reading for pleasure! It was almost funny. “Well, it’s just that…well. Let me think. No, that wasn’t…. It’s just that, with all the reading for school—I have five AP classes this semester—I actually don’t have time to read anything else. I wish I did.”

See me,
from Ms. Simmons, written right across the top of the extended essay. Horrifying. She felt herself starting to blush and so she tried to think of very cold things: icicles, skiing in Tahoe, cold showers at summer camp.

“Anything at all?”

Angela’s mind was a wasteland; she couldn’t think of the title of a single book. Not one. She felt like she’d just taken all of her clothes off and was sitting in front of Susan Holloway completely naked while Susan Holloway checked for flaws.

“Well. Isn’t that a pity. I finally had a chance to read
Gone Girl.
I felt like I was the only person on earth who hadn’t read that. Made me uncomfortable, in the end. I suppose that was the author’s intention. But thank you for your honesty. It’s refreshing. I’m looking at my watch here and it seems like our time is almost up, if you can believe it. I have so many more questions I could ask. I didn’t even ask you where you see yourself in ten years! Which is a standard. And believe me, I get a wide variety of answers. The smart alecks always tell me they see themselves five years out of Harvard.” Susan Holloway chortled.

“I have more time if you do, Ms. Holloway.” She really didn’t want to answer the ten-year question, though. That sounded awful awful.

“Susan.”

“Susan.”

“I’m afraid I’m off to an engagement. I have to meet someone to go to the symphony, and I have the tickets. I don’t know why, but I seem to be the one with the tickets always. The most organized of my group, I guess.” She smiled again, and the vein came back out to say hello. “I wish I did have more time! It’s been a delight. Do you have any questions for me, Angela? You look like you might.”

Her father had said it would be good to have one question in her pocket, just in case. She scraped her mind, she scraped her pocket, but nothing came up.

Well, something came up, but it was not Dad approved. Definitely not.

Don’t ask it, Angela. Do not ask that question. You idiot, you complete idiot. Don’t.

“I do, actually. I do have one. It’s sort of…”

Don’t do it! Stop it.
STOP
it.
The words were gearing up, ready to launch out of her mouth.

“Yes?”

Quick, think of something else.

“I’ve been wondering…well, I’ve been wondering if you think that Harvard…”

“Out with it, Angela. He who hesitates in this world is lost, as I’m sure you know. Especially at the Ivies.” Another chortle. Angela had been under the impression that mostly chubby, jolly people chortled, but apparently that wasn’t the case: you could be elfin and chortle anyway.

“I guess what I’m wondering is. This is something I’d like to ask my father. But I think the question would upset him.” Deep breath. Go ahead, what do you have to lose?

Only everything…

“Is it all that it’s cracked up to be?”

A long pause. Angela thought she might just go ahead and check her bag for poison, in case she had any to take.

Then Susan Holloway unleashed a peal of laughter that was so long Angela thought it might have been built in parts and strung together in a warehouse.

“Ha! How
refreshing.
I love that question. Nobody has ever asked me that before. I’m just going to take a sip of water here. Let me think about this a moment so I can answer properly. In my experience, Angela, nothing is really and truly all that it’s cracked up to be.”

I knew it!

“But Harvard comes pretty close. For me, it was paradise, it positively opened my eyes in every way, shape, and form. Made me what I am today, absolutely.”

If I don’t get into Harvard, it might be because of that question. Or it might not. And I’ll never know.

“Best of luck to you, Angela, it’s been a real pleasure. There’s that firm handshake again. You must tell your father he did well to teach you that. Are you going to have any trouble getting out of the city? No? Well, you seem like a capable young lady to me. I will say, though. And I’m sure I’m not supposed to say this. But when I look at what you kids have to do today, just to stay even, never mind to get ahead—well, it makes me glad that I’m through it all, and well on the other side. I’d be happy to have the
knees
of a seventeen-year-old, make no mistake about it. But the rest of it? You can
have
it. Oh, don’t look so crestfallen. You’re going to do fine. With these grades and these scores. You sure you know your way back? I think this city can be so confusing for young drivers. Okay, then, so nice to have met you, Angela.”

Once she was back on the sidewalk Angela’s entire body sagged with relief. She was so happy to be done, she could have kissed the homeless man who was collecting money on the sidewalk. Instead she gave him the remaining seven dollars from her mother’s parking money. It wouldn’t hurt, she thought, if Susan Holloway happened to be looking out the window at the exact same time. Extra points for charity.

Susan Holloway, class of ’76 and part-time hummingbird, seemed to have taken a shine to Angela. Right? Or did she act head over heels in love with every early-action applicant who sauntered through her door? What did Susan mean, telling Angela she was going to do fine? Fine getting into Harvard, or fine when she was rejected from Harvard and had to rebuild her life? Who knew. Angela had either aced it, or she had flubbed it completely. She just had no idea which—

Higher, Angela. Faster. Better better better.

Practice makes perfect, Angela. It wouldn’t be a saying if it weren’t true.

More.

It became easier for Gabe to be away from the office than it was for him to be there. He’d checked with HR about the possibility of hiring Abby Freeman full-time when her internship ended in December; he’d even gently floated the idea by two of the senior partners, and he’d gotten the same answer from all of them: Elpis wasn’t hiring recent grads, no matter how good they were, no matter what a phenomenal job they’d done (as Abby had) of handling the beginning of the Bizzvara presentation. The internship program at Elpis was meant to be finite—a stepping-stone to business school, perhaps—and they might welcome the return of those interns once they had their MBAs, particularly if they had MBAs from the top schools. But not before.

The world had changed dramatically since that grubby little office in Outer Sunset.

And they wouldn’t consider making an exception? For an extremely bright intern?

No, Joe Stone told Gabe, no, they wouldn’t. And why, might Joe Stone ask, was Gabe taking such an interest in the career of Abby Freeman?

No reason, said Gabe, except he thought she was very talented.

He did
not
like the look Joe Stone gave him.

If he had a client meeting, obviously, Gabe’s presence was expected, and he showed. But when he didn’t, it was simple enough to disengage. Disappear. Hide out. A matinee, once.
Captain Phillips,
a nice long movie, though riveting all the same: he bought Junior Mints and Twizzlers both and chased them with a large Dr Pepper. Another time he met Skip Moynihan at his club in Novato for a leisurely nine holes, followed by drinks and lunch in the grill room. Three hours gone, just like that. It was easy, in the digital age, to disappear for long periods of time and yet be instantly accessible. It was so easy, in fact, that Gabe wondered why he’d never thought of it before. Look at all he’d been missing.

One day in early December he crossed the Bay Bridge and headed out to the East Bay. He rarely had reason to cross the Bay Bridge, but a guy from the Bizzvara team had mentioned some good hiking out that way.

In the olden days, when he and Nora were new to each other, and new to the Bay Area, they’d been inexhaustible: Stinson Beach to Mount Tam, Bonita Park, Pedro Point Headlands, an overnight camping trip once to Point Reyes, where they’d made it to the northernmost tip of Tomales Point and had seen two red-beaked, red-eyed oyster catchers. Since the kids, the hiking had slowed considerably, and now they hardly ever went.

Gabe had researched a few possible hikes carefully on his laptop at work. Yelpers, it turned out, were quite prolific with their reviews of hiking trails; it was surprising to Gabe that so many people had so much time not only to hike but also to post comprehensive reviews and even photographs of their hikes.

Eventually he chose Las Trampas because the Yelpers (Chloe C. from San Ramon, Larry B. from Walnut Creek, Stephanie H. from Alamo) talked a lot about the trails being quiet, sometimes nearly deserted. Gabe was about as anxious as he remembered being anytime in his life, so quiet and deserted seemed like just the ticket. He was anxious about Angela. Had they done everything, every single thing, they possibly could have? Should she have stayed on the swim team longer, learned more languages? What had happened to her in that last cross-country race, which she should have won handily? Was it the Adderall? He was anxious about that, too, and about the fact that he hadn’t told Nora yet—he should have, but he was worried that Nora would blame
him
for pushing Angela to a point where she became a felon. A felon! Geez. Then, of course, he was anxious about the situation at work, so anxious that he hardly wanted to think about it. He was anxious about Maya; should they get her tested for a learning disability again?

No shade, and very hot in the summer (everybody on Yelp talked about the heat), but in December he should be fine hiking Las Trampas. The rains hadn’t come yet; it wouldn’t be slippery. (The Yelpers had warned about the slipperiness after the rains. The Yelpers had thought of everything.) In fact he had heard in a piece on NPR that the rains might not be coming at all this year. The snowpack in the Sierra Nevada was lower than it had been in decades. California had a severe drought coming. It was gold rush dry.

Gabe was no stranger to drought; Wyoming was the fifth-driest state in the Union.

He parked in a residential neighborhood on a street named Camille. Pretty houses, lots of renovation going on. Nora would have something to say about that. She’d be able to look at the houses and pinpoint which renovations would increase the curb appeal and which would not.

Gabe had found a reasonable hike, four miles, steep, but (so said the Yelpers) worth it for the view from the ridge.

He didn’t bring his phone, didn’t bring his wallet, locked his car. Didn’t even bring a bottle of water, because he didn’t have one with him. Bad hiking form. He started up the trail, which didn’t, in fact, seem so steep after all. Had the Yelpers exaggerated? He paused at the trailhead to read the sign about what to do if you saw a mountain lion. These were things he already knew, having grown up in a mountain lion state. But he read it anyway, as a refresher. Make yourself appear as large as possible. Make noise. Act like a predator. Throw stones or branches. Don’t turn your back, don’t run. Back away slowly. If attacked, protect yourself. (Not bad advice for dealing with Abby Freeman either, was it?) He had seen signs like that all over California, but he had never seen an actual mountain lion here. In Wyoming you could hunt them. In California, of course, land of the liberals, you could not.

He paused and squinted—it was midday, and, despite the season, the sun was strong. He began the ascent.

Okay. Now he saw what the Yelpers were yelping about. The trail went from flat to incredibly steep in three seconds. He had read about people trail running, even mountain biking, up here, but for the life of him he couldn’t imagine that. He could hardly walk.

It felt good, though, working his quads like this, up and up and up. His calves were straining. He was starting to sweat. He was overdressed, to be sure, in his work clothes, but he’d found a pair of sneakers in the trunk of his car. So that was something.

He seemed to have the place to himself. The rocky trail was bordered by trees in the beginning, live oak, bay laurel. Farther on, the trail opened up and the trees gave way to more varied vegetation—he recognized black sage and buck brush but there were others that he did not know.

He was breathing hard, working hard. He felt the knot of anxiety begin to loosen. He let his thoughts wander. He thought of the first time he’d seen Nora, at that bar in Noe Valley. She’d been so beautiful—she still was! Love of his life. He thought of the births of each of his children, he thought of the day he’d gotten the job at Elpis. Happy moments, all of them, joy, joy. He was a lucky man.
(But what if you lose it?
asked the bothersome voice inside his head.
What then?)

In some parts the ascent was so steep that Gabe had to grasp for tree roots and make his way up on his hands and knees. He passed a woman walking two golden retrievers. The woman and the dogs all eyed him warily, and he supposed that in his untraditional hiking clothes (khakis and a dress shirt, the sleeves rolled up to his elbows, the sneakers) he probably looked like some sort of pervert trolling the trails, the Pee-wee Herman of the East Bay. No matter. His lungs were filling and expanding, the December sunshine was now joyously unrelenting. The bothersome voice was receding. This was the California dream, right here, a piece of unpopulated land, his for the taking.

Halfway through the ascent he passed a cluster of cows. If the Yelpers hadn’t mentioned the cows he would have been wholly taken aback, but he knew from his Internet research that the parks service leased out part of the land for cattle grazing. It didn’t look like much to graze on to Gabe’s eye, all this scrub, but he supposed the cows knew what they were doing. California cows, like California people, were probably more adventurous, more accustomed to adapting to changing circumstances, than those from Wyoming. One of the cows looked at Gabe and made a halfhearted lunge toward him, then seemed to change her mind and turn away.

“Easy does it,” said Gabe, which was what he used to say on the ranch. He’d learned that from his father. He could practically hear his father talking to the cattle in that gentle and encouraging way he had—as though he understood what they were going through, what they were up against.

More sweating, more breathing, in and out, in and out. Gabe’s father had died from kidney failure, one year after Gabe and Nora started dating. Gabe tried not to think about the fact that he was only a decade away from the age his father was when he died—his father had seemed downright ancient to Gabe in the last year of his life—and concentrated instead on the trail in front of him. It was easier to ascend if you didn’t look more than three steps ahead. He tripped once on a tree root and went down on one knee, but no harm done, he recovered, though now there was a hole in his khakis.

Angela could have flown up this mountain; she was in the shape of her life. Cecily could have slip-jigged up it. Maya would have walked for about six minutes and wanted to turn back. What about Nora? She would probably have a showing, wouldn’t be able to make it.

At last—at last—he reached the ridge. And it was worth it, every drop of sweat, every uncertain breath, the cows, the judgmental dogs, all of it. To the east, he could see the majestic Mt. Diablo, bright green at the base, brown at the top. To the west, the darker green Oakland hills. Breathtaking, in every possible way.

Under his feet the dirt was dusty and dry. He sat for a moment on a little patch of scrubby grass—the khakis were now mostly a loss. He was definitely regretting not bringing water. But it was beautiful here, and in almost every way more similar to Wyoming than any place he was likely to find in Marin. Why had he never hiked in the East Bay before? He felt, after so many years away, like he was home.

Maybe it was the familiarity of the landscape, and maybe it was the cow sighting, but there on the ridge Gabe experienced a sensation he hadn’t had since his boyhood, when sometimes he would look around the ranch, at the cattle grazing in the distance, at the long low ranch house where his mother cooked stews and chili, the two bedrooms he and his brothers shared, and revel in and marvel at the smallness of his place in the world. One person, one person’s troubles or decisions, took up such an insignificant amount of space.

By the same token (the hills in the distance seemed to say), you got only one chance on this big green earth. You had to make the most of it. You had to do it right.

Have you done it right?
the voice asked him. Not exactly, he told the voice. Not entirely. But I’ll make amends. When he got home, that very day, he would tell Nora everything. Open a bottle of wine, pour them each a glass, spill the tale of his shame and woe while she fixed him with that empathetic look that made her so good at her job. He’d ask for her forgiveness, maybe even her sympathy. Definitely her advice. He’d take whatever it was he had coming. Would she still love him? He wasn’t sure. He didn’t know what he’d do if she didn’t.

That felt better. That felt really good. The decision made, he stood, stretched his arms above his head, bent down, and rubbed at his tight calf, ready to begin his descent.

And then he saw the mountain lion.