The Admissions (29 page)

Now whenever Edmond Lopez tap-tap-tapped his pencil on his desk Angela concentrated super-hard on
not
turning around. She didn’t want to see his smile, lazy or not. She was mortified. She had been mortified since October and now it was December but sometimes her mortification was more pronounced than it was at other times—sometimes she would forget all about it, and be plenty occupied with schoolwork and track and extracurricular activities, and other times it would come rushing back over her like a wave, toppling her until she had sand in her face and little bits of seashells in her mouth. She, Angela Hawthorne, valedictorian (for now, anyway), had put Edmond Lopez to sleep. Maria Ortiz was a seductress, a siren, a real and true beauty, and Angela was a human tranquilizer.
God.

On the other hand. It was hard not to turn around because she was also trying to avoid eye contact with Ms. Simmons. Just two words, nothing complex, just
See me,
written on the top of the extended essay. But because Angela hadn’t seen Ms. Simmons yet—she’d seen her, of course, but she hadn’t
seen her
—she wasn’t really sure where to rest her eyes. She tried the ceiling, briefly, but she knew that made her look bored and a little bit like a jerk. She tried her lap, her hands, the short story in front of her. Nothing felt right.

How much longer in the class? Twenty minutes.

“All right, then,” said Ms. Simmons. “Who has something
cogent
to say about George Orwell and the elephant?”

Tap, tap tap. Angela would never have sex.

“Henrietta?”

“Well,”
said Henrietta breathlessly, as though she’d just sprinted to class, not been sitting there for twenty-three minutes. “He writes, ‘He was breathing very rhythmically with long rattling gasps, his great mound of a side painfully rising and falling.’ ”

Henrietta wasn’t even looking at the story. She had memorized it. Geez.

Angela would go off to college a virgin and return, four years later, a virgin still. She would be the only virgin to graduate from college, ever. Definitely the only Ivy League virgin. She might become famous for it. Edmond Lopez would see her on the
Today
show being interviewed by Savannah Guthrie and he’d say,
Oh yeah, that girl! I’m not surprised. Did I ever tell you about the time…

“But how do you think Orwell’s views on imperialism changed after he shot the elephant?” said Ms. Simmons. “If indeed they did at all. Angela?”

Tap, tap tap.

See me.

Angela inhaled and searched her scrambled mind for something to say. Suddenly her eyes were full of unshed tears and she shook her head mutely.

Henrietta raised her hand again. “He writes, ‘One could have imagined him thousands of years old.’ I think he’s comparing the age the dying elephant seems to be to the length of time the British have been imperialist rulers.”

Ms. Simmons nodded and called on Olivia Bishop, who said something even more cogent, about the life of the elephant being worth more than the life of the Indian man who had been killed. The
coolie.
Of course you couldn’t say things like that these days, totally inappropriate. Olivia made little air quotes around her head when she said the word, just so she wouldn’t be accidentally mistaken for a racist.

Time marched on. Edmond’s pencil tap-tap-tapped. Angela’s virginity stood up and made like it was going to announce itself to the class. Gently, she asked it to sit back down. And finally the bell rang.

She was gathering her things when Ms. Simmons said, “Angela? Come see me briefly before you go.” Angela’s stomach dropped.

At the front of the room Ms. Simmons said, “Is everything okay with you, Angela?”

“Fine,” Angela said. “Absolutely fine.” This time she looked Ms. Simmons right in the eye, even though she had to look up to do it. Ms. Simmons had a bunch of inches on Angela. (Who didn’t?) Ms. Simmons raised an eyebrow, just one.

All the things Angela couldn’t say marched through her mind.
My father is having an affair with the intern. I can’t look at Edmond Lopez. I’ve never liked the flute! I did read the story, I read it carefully. I just wasn’t paying attention when you called on me. Because I was thinking about being a virgin. What if Henrietta is smarter than I am? It breaks my heart that it took that elephant half an hour to die. And I am so tired. Just so, so, so, so tired.

“It’s nothing,” she said. “Everything is fine.”

And then it happened. Suddenly, without even the whisper of a warning, everything seemed unbearable to her: not just the elephant, but Mrs. Fletcher’s divorce, and her mom’s weird moods, and Maya’s struggles in school, and the fact that Frankie was dead. When her mom found out about the intern, what would happen? Would her parents get a divorce, would Cecily and Maya grow up in a
broken home
? Who would Angela stay with when she came home from college? She’d have to have two sets of clothes and an extra toothbrush; it would be exhausting.

So then, like a stupid
baby,
like an idiot, like someone who didn’t even deserve to be valedictorian because she couldn’t control herself, Angela started crying. Blubbering, really. Nose running, eyes streaming, the whole kit and caboodle, as her grandmother would have said.

“Oh,
Angela,
” said Ms. Simmons, and there was such kindness in her eyes that Angela could see what she must be like with her children, even when they did something wrong. “Angela, I didn’t mean to—” She pulled a bunch of tissues from the box on her desk and pushed them into Angela’s hand. Angela thought Ms. Simmons might hug her but thank God she didn’t, she just pressed her hand firmly to Angela’s shoulder and said, “Come here. I’ve got next period free. I’m going to take you into my office, and you can compose yourself there. There’s something I need to talk to you about anyway.”

“We’re
baking
?” said Maya. “Christmas cookies?” She looked like she was going to hemorrhage happiness.

“For real?” asked Cecily. She dropped her backpack, took off her shoes. “We are?” She still hadn’t gotten used to coming home with her mom instead of Maddie.

“Of course we’re baking,” said her mom, like this was something that happened regularly. “It’s Christmastime, right? Less than two weeks to go. I set this all up before I picked you up so we could get right to it.”

Cecily surveyed the kitchen island. Two mounds of dough, one for her and one for Maya. A rolling pin, wax paper. Cookie cutters in the shapes of reindeer and Santa hats and Christmas trees. Plastic containers of sprinkles and Red Hots. Little tins of frosting.

“Aunt Marianne and I used to do this all the time when we were kids, every year. Come here, I’ll show you how to roll out the dough. This is the trickiest part. Actually, everybody wash hands first. With soap.”

Cecily washed her hands and tried to read the room. Her mom looked slightly less rushed than usual. Not quite calm, but. Not her usual after-school crazed. Maya looked delighted. Angela and her father weren’t home.

Okay, this was good. Baking.

Maya was already into the Red Hots. Cecily’s mom took the container from her and closed it and said, “Listen, you girls need to get your Santa letters out the door. Have you written them yet?”

Cecily didn’t answer. She didn’t know about the Santa letter. There was talk at school and there had been last year too but mostly she didn’t listen…

Or want to listen. But she hadn’t written her letter.

“I need help with mine,” said Maya.

Cecily’s mom was frowning at the dough she was rolling out. She said, “This is sticking.”

“I’ll help you,” Cecily said to Maya.

“I’m going to put a puppy on my Santa list,” said Maya.

“You can’t do that,” said Cecily. “You won’t get it. Santa doesn’t bring puppies.” (She had thought about the same thing.)

“There,” said her mother. “Got it, nice and smooth. This is about how thick you want it. Any thinner and they’ll crack in the oven. Girls? Are you looking?”

“Santa can do anything. He’s Santa. He brought Olivia a puppy last year.”

“Well,” said Cecily. “Don’t count on it.” She didn’t know what had gotten into her. She was usually nicer to Maya. She took the rolling pin and started to roll out her ball.

“You just need a little more flour…,” said her mother. “Here, let me.”

Cecily pulled the rolling pin away. Meanly.

Her mother said, “Hey—”

“Got it,” said Cecily.

It wasn’t the dough. It was…a lot of other things. Cecily hadn’t gotten used to spending so much time at home instead of at the Seamus O’Malley School. When she was home instead of at dance she felt like someone had vacuumed out her insides and then emptied out the vacuum bag into the garbage so that there was nothing left.

Maybe she should have listened to Angela—maybe she should have kept dancing.

Every once in a while she went into her room and put some music on her iPod, a slip jig or a reel, and danced around a little bit to see how it felt. But it wasn’t the same; it wasn’t the same without her Irish friends, and without Seamus. Everything was turned upside down. She wanted things to go back to the way they were before the fall.

She couldn’t really see the dough anymore, or the rolling pin; her eyes were all blurred up. A big wet tear fell out of her eye and landed in the middle of the dough.

“It’s ruined,” she said. Her voice sounded weird. “It’s all wet, it’s ruined.” She smashed up the dough and threw it across the kitchen. It stuck for just a few seconds to the wall, like it was trying to decide what to do, and then it fell to the ground.

That felt good. And bad.

“Cecily!”

Her mother was staring at her. Maya was staring at her too, with that sort of triumphant look that little kids get when they aren’t the person in the room misbehaving.

“I don’t
care,
” said Cecily. That was a lie. She did care that she’d thrown the dough. She cared a lot: she wished she could take it back. She still wanted to bake the cookies. “Anyway,” she said. “I miss Maddie. Why’d you fire her?”

Her mother looked startled. “I didn’t
fire
her. I told you, she had too much schoolwork. Finals. She needed extra time, and things were slow at work for me, so…”

“You fired her,” Cecily said in the tiniest whisper she could create. She waited to get in trouble, but when she looked at her mother her mother didn’t look mad: she looked sad, like she was going to cry herself. That made Cecily feel worse.

Maya said, “Is she—” And her mom held up her hand to stop Maya from talking.

“Oh, honey, come here.”

Into her mom’s sleeve, which smelled like perfume and lemons, she said, “It feels wrong, Mom.” She didn’t mean just the dough. She meant everything: not dancing, and Angela leaving them soon, and Frankie being gone, and not seeing Grandma and Aunt Marianne at Christmas. And Santa…

“What do you mean?”

She hesitated, not sure about the next question. But she really wanted to know. “Is it my fault?”

“Is
what
your fault?”

“That everyone is mad all the time.”

“Who?”

“Daddy. Angela. You.”

“
Cecily!
My goodness, why would you think something like that? Of course it’s not your fault. Why would it be your fault?”

Cecily shrugged.

“I don’t know. I was just wondering. Maybe because I messed up at the
feis
…or maybe there’s another reason…”

“Maya?” said her mom. “Run to the laundry room and see if the dryer has stopped.”

Maya’s expression said,
And miss all this?
But she did as she was told.

“Listen to me, Cecily. Sit down.”

Cecily sat. There was a gob of dough on the stool; she peeled it off and put it on the island. Her mom said, “You are ten years old. You are responsible for yourself. You are not responsible for anyone else in this family, for their happiness or their unhappiness or anything else. Do you understand me?”

Cecily nodded, and another one of the big fat tears fell out of her eyes.

“Do you really understand me?”

Cecily nodded again.

“That’s better. And you know what? Whatever feels wrong now, it won’t always feel wrong. I promise you.”

“Are you sure? Are you positive?”

“Positive.”

Cecily wanted to believe her. But she didn’t, not really.

Friday the thirteenth.

Traffic was deadly, a full stop on the Golden Gate.

NPR on the way home. Kim Jong Un had executed his
own uncle.
Wow. Visa awarded its CEO compensation valued at $10.5 million. Asian stocks fell for a second straight week. A Finnair flight with the number 666 to Helsinki (designation HEL) had an almost full flight. Gabe didn’t consider himself superstitious but no way in hell would he have boarded that flight. No way in Helsinki.

Gabe picked up the phone to call home and check in, then put it down without dialing. His Bluetooth was broken and the cops were real bastards about the tickets at rush hour, plucking off the drivers like cherries from a tree. Must be some kind of quota thing. Gabe had three over the past year, stupid nothing calls, not worth the price tag. It never was.

Man, he was so tired, the NPR voices almost lulled him to sleep.
The Desolation of Smaug
was still trouncing everything else at the box office and they were expecting a killer weekend. Gabe had zero interest in
The Desolation of Smaug.
His brother Michael was a
Hobbit
fan, but Gabe never got into it.

Early to bed, early to rise, was the way they used to do it on the ranch. That was the way to go. Let your body give in to its natural rhythms, the rhythm of the earth. The land. But he never did that anymore. Late to bed, early to rise, that was the way he was playing it, burning the candle at both ends. He’d better watch it. He was no spring chicken anymore.

Finally, traffic moved. Slowly, but it moved. He wound his way toward home.

Pulling into the driveway he saw Angela. What was Angela doing, in the driveway, waiting for him?

He got out of the car and moved toward her, and later, when he replayed it, it seemed like it took him several full minutes to get to her. But of course it didn’t.

She was wiping her nose with the sleeve of her sweatshirt, her Harvard sweatshirt, and talking incomprehensibly into it.

“Wait,” said Gabe. “
What
happened? What is it?” Fire was his first thought. That didn’t make sense. He would have noticed a fire. Or: robbery at knifepoint, Angela the only survivor. Also unlikely, but it happened, sometimes there was a single survivor from a tragedy. “Where’s everyone else?”

Angela lifted her face from her sleeve.
“Everyone else?”
She spat the words right at him. He sort of had to duck. “I don’t
know
where everyone else is. I’m not talking about everyone else! I’m talking about
me,
Dad. I didn’t get
in.
I just got the
email.
I didn’t get into Harv—”

The last syllable of the word disappeared into an alarming sort of gulp as Angela’s crying began anew.

“Oh,”
said Gabe. “Oh. Oh, I see.” His heart nosedived. He felt dizzy. Anna Fletcher passed in her Infiniti. She waved, but Gabe didn’t wave back.

“I’m a failure,” said Angela. “My whole
life
I worked for this! My whole life. Maria Ortiz got into Yale. She’s
sixth
in the class, Dad. I’m first. And I didn’t get into Harvard.”

Gabe looked at his daughter’s crumpled, tear-soaked face and said, “Come here.” He reached for Angela but Angela turned from him and ran back into the house. For a long time he could hear her sobs, long after he could no longer see her.