The Admissions (33 page)

“Angela’s gone,” said Cecily.

“What do you mean, gone?” said Nora.

Cecily shrugged, “She must have left early. She must have walked to school.”

Cecily kissed her mother goodbye and watched her drive away from the turnaround.

To be extra-helpful, Cecily brought Maya to her classroom. Then she walked back toward the turnaround and stood in a knot of students until Pinkie dropped out of her mother’s Acura.

“Hey,” Cecily said. “Come here for a second.” She pulled Pinkie over near the shrubs past the kindergarten building. There were kids playing wall ball and four-square on the blacktop, and two teachers on car duty. The car-duty teachers weren’t looking at Cecily and Pinkie. It was easy enough to go unnoticed, and to crouch behind the shrubs as though they were looking through their backpacks.

“Do you have your phone?”

“Of course,” said Pinkie. “I always have my phone.”

“Good.” Cecily walked away from the building, away from the shrubs.

“Where are you going?”

“We have to do it now,” said Cecily. “Today.”

“But—” said Pinkie. “
Today?
Now?”

“Now.”

“But we’re already at school. How will we—”

The first bell rang.

“Follow me,” said Cecily. “But act natural.”

Second bell.

“But we don’t know how to get there!”

“I do, I copied it down last night. We take the 10 and then the Muni. I have it all right here. I have money for us both.”

“But. What about school? They’ll call our moms.”

“We’ll call ourselves in sick, once we’re away from the school. You can do your mom’s voice perfectly now, you know it. Try it.”

“I don’t want to.”

“
Try
it, Pinkie. Say, ‘Pinkie’s staying home sick with me today.’ ”

“I don’t know…”

“
Say
it, Pink.”

“Pinkie’s staying home sick with me today.”

“See? Perfect.”

“But I’m not sure—”

“I’m doing this either way, Pink, with or without you. Are you coming?”

Nora found the note while she was tidying up the kitchen. Angela must have laid the note on the counter, but it had slipped to the floor and somehow wedged itself under one of the kitchen stools—that’s why she hadn’t seen it sooner, and why Cecily hadn’t seen it when she was making toast.

Nora recognized the stationery she’d given Angela for her twelfth birthday, with Angela’s initials monogrammed along the top and a little butterfly stenciled in the corner. Angela used to go crazy for butterflies; Nora had forgotten all about that. The note was folded, with
Mom
written on the outside. Not
Mom and Dad.
Just
Mom.
It would kill Gabe to know that, later.

The partners at Elpis liked to hold their offsites in a suite in downtown hotels. Twice a year, June and December. This time it was the Fairmont on Mason Street. At approximately seven thirty Gabe was crossing the Golden Gate Bridge. The sky was pinkening and purpling, the city coming into view. Far out in the bay Gabe could see Treasure Island, and, closer, Alcatraz. Think of all the people who’d been incarcerated at Alcatraz, they’d learned about it on the guided tour they took out-of-town visitors on. Out-of-town visitors loved Alcatraz. Gabe loved it too. Being at Alcatraz made you realize that whatever you’d done in your life, you probably stacked up okay compared to the guys who used to live there. Al Capone, for example. He’d done bad, bad things. Murder. Multiple murders.

Gabe had never committed murder, not even a single murder.

And even so. From what he’d done there was plenty of collateral damage. Gingerly, like a car accident victim feeling around for bruises, he assessed the past few months. Nora’s job: gone. Angela’s Harvard application: rejected. His lie: revealed. Well, partly revealed, but if Abby was true to her word soon to be completely revealed.

Nora was exactly correct: he’d pinned his own hopes on Angela, and it wasn’t fair or right. It was never right when parents did that, but in Gabe’s case it was particularly egregious because his hopes were based on something that had never happened. It wasn’t something a good father should do.

He might have ruined Angela. Had he ruined her? He should call and check on her. But his Bluetooth wasn’t working, and no way did he need a cell phone ticket on top of all the other shit that was going down. Anyway, she’d be on her way to school by now.

He hated Abby Freeman, really hated her. But in a way he didn’t.

Because she’d forced him to face something he would need to face eventually: the fact that long ago he’d set a lie in motion, and that the lie had determined the trajectory of his life and a good part of the lives of his family. Wouldn’t it be not only humiliating but downright wrong to allow his lie to be revealed by Abby Freeman when he could more honorably reveal it himself?

Traffic, there was always traffic. He stopped too close to the Nissan in front of him. Then the Nissan jerked ahead a little bit so Gabe did too. He glanced at the clock on the dashboard.

He’d read somewhere that there’d been thirty-six auto fatalities on the Golden Gate Bridge since the 1970s. Sixteen of those were head-on collisions. What a way to go. He tightened his grip on the steering wheel and drove like an old lady. Nothing wrong with old ladies.

What would he tell his daughters to do, if they found themselves in this situation? His funny, quirky, infuriating, completely one-of-a-kind daughters? He’d tell them to be honest, stand tall, right the wrong.

But what would he be, without this identity, without this job? Without the phantom degree that had followed him for two decades? He didn’t know, he couldn’t know, but he knew it was time to find out.

Traffic eased—no rhyme or reason to it, it just eased—and Gabe stepped on the gas. Then, the red lights of the Nissan. He slammed on the brakes. A screech of tires.

Dear Mom,

Don’t worry about me. You have to trust me. Do you promise? I’m doing the right thing, for me, and when I’ve done it I will make sure you know. Do not call the police or the school or any of my friends’ parents or my cross-country coach or anyone at all. I’m not kidding. Please trust me on this. Don’t freak out.

Can you do that one thing for me, can you let me go?

That’s it. I’m sorry if I disappointed you.

I disappointed myself too.

Love,

Angela

The phone.

Nora was trying not to worry. Like the note said. But she’d been a mother for nearly eighteen years now. She was going to worry. She ignored Angela’s instructions, of course. She wasn’t going to sit there and
not
call anyone. She called the high school—Angela wasn’t in homeroom, hadn’t Nora gotten an automated call from the office? No, Nora had
not
gotten an automated call from the office. She wanted to call every single one of Angela’s friends, but she didn’t have the numbers—they were all stored on Angela’s phone. Gabe was unreachable; his phone was off for the offsite.

It was a beautiful early-winter day in the Bay Area, which meant that it was sixty-five degrees and sunny, or would be until the fog rolled in later in the afternoon. No need for so much as a mitten.

The police? The note said not to. But the note also said not to freak out, and Nora was freaking out. Yes, she had to call the police. She had to. She was reaching for her cell when the home phone rang.

Nobody ever called the home number. She’d threatened to have it disconnected so many times that it was now a standing joke in the Hawthorne family. Because she never had time to do anything she threatened to do.

Mrs. Hawthorne?

Yes. Her hand shaking as she cradled the receiver.

A man’s voice, unfamiliar.

Nora hadn’t thought her heart could climb any farther up her throat than it had in recent weeks. But it could, it turned out, it could.

Three wishes, rapid fire.

One. Say what you have to say, quickly.

Two. Tell me it’s going to be okay.

Three. Let me go back to the beginning and start over.

My name is Sergeant Stephen Campbell, California State Highway Patrol.

Stephen. Such an ordinary name, Nora would think later, for such an extraordinary phone call.

Mrs. Hawthorne?

Yes!

Yes. I’m right here. I can hear you.

Mrs. Hawthorne. I’m in the security office at the Golden Gate Bridge.

The
what
?

Do you know how to get here, Mrs. Hawthorne?

She couldn’t say another thing. The room was whirling. She sat down on one of the kitchen stools.

Listen carefully, please. I’m going to tell you how to get here, and I want you to come right away. Do you understand me? We’re on the south side of the bridge. From where you are you have to cross the bridge to get to us.

She swallowed, tried to breathe. She watched a hand that didn’t seem like hers grasp at the edge of the counter. She watched the fingers try and fail to grip the edge. There was a sharp sound all around her, a high-pitched noise three octaves beyond glass breaking.

Mrs. Hawthorne?

Mmmmmmph.
The only sound she could manage.

I’m going to put your daughter on the phone, just very briefly, before we disconnect. Before you get in your car, Mrs. Hawthorne, which I want you to do right away.

The Fairmont suite must have cost a pretty penny. Twenty-third floor. Wraparound views of the city and the bay. Wet bar. Full stereo system. Two and a half bathrooms. Five grand a night, Gabe guessed, although what did he know of such extravagances, except that he lived among them.

Joe Stone from HR stood at the door of the suite, holding a basket into which each of the partners was supposed to put his or her phone. “Company offsite policy!” said Joe. Joe loved offsites. He got all hopped up on the change of scenery. He usually introduced some touchy-feely get-to-know-your-coworkers game, the sort of game that really worked well only when people had been drinking. Was anybody drinking? Gabe cast a hopeful look at the wet bar. Of course not, it was eight fifteen in the morning. Just carafes of orange juice and cranberry juice, and coffee.

“Give up the phone!” cried Joe merrily. He made a motion like he was going to snatch it out of Gabe’s hands, but Gabe was only too happy to comply. His phone had been off all morning. He didn’t want to talk to anyone. His heart was still hammering away from the close call on the bridge. He dropped it into the basket. “Ready to brainstorm?” said Joe, gesturing to the plush couches. “Have a coffee first. You look terrible. Rough weekend?”

“Something like that,” said Gabe. “Rough drive in.” Close call with that Nissan. Team building and brainstorming were the last things in the world he felt like doing. His brain didn’t seem like an actual brain anymore, more like a bowl of pudding, unformed and useless.

Do it now, Gabe. Get it over with. Do it now.

Gabe took his coffee and strolled to the windows to check out the panoramic view. Alcatraz and the San Francisco Bay (again), the double mounds of Twin Peaks, the financial district. And now that he was no longer on the Golden Gate he had a spectacular view of the Great Lady herself. Gabe didn’t think anyone called the Golden Gate the Great Lady; he wasn’t sure if it had any nickname at all. But it should. Maybe he’d get it started.

Now, Gabe. Now is a good time.

But it wasn’t a good time; the partners were settling onto the couches and helping themselves to pastries and tropical fruit salad.

“Gabe?” said a voice. “Gabe? You with us?” Joe Stone was setting up a giant whiteboard, and Kelsey was passing out legal pads and perfectly sharpened number two pencils. It was time to brainstorm.

Now, Gabe?
No, not now. Don’t be an idiot.

“Of course,” he said. “You bet.” In fact he was a million miles away. He was thinking about the ranch, imagining himself there. He could feel the presence of the cattle surrounding him, shaking their heads and lowing; he could see the ranch house in the distance, and behind it the majestic and forgiving Wyoming sky. The biggest sky in the world. Bigger than all of them; bigger than all of this.

At the midmorning break he thought,
Now. Yes.
He pulled aside Joe Stone. “Listen,” he said. “When you get a minute. I don’t want to interrupt the morning. But maybe during lunch, or after the afternoon session. I’d love to talk to you, one on one.”

“Sure thing,” said Joe. The lenses of his glasses caught the light so his expression was inscrutable. He clapped Gabe on the back, a friendly, man-to-man gesture, probably no real meaning behind it. “I’m all ears,” said Joe. He was already moving on to the next person he needed to speak to, but over his shoulder he said, “I’ll come find you in a quiet moment.”

Right away
was an understatement. Nora flew to the car and backed out of the driveway so quickly that had something been in her path, well, good luck to that something. She was a warrior. She was a woman and she was a mother. Hear her roar.

Her baby, her Cecily. On the Golden Gate
Bridge.

The sergeant had put her on the phone but all Nora had heard was crying, then four words.

Mommy,
Cecily said.
Mommy, come get me.

Easy peasy lemon squeezie Cecily. Cecily, falling at the
feis.
Cecily, working so hard on her landmark project. Cecily, the joy draining from her beautiful brown eyes. And Nora hadn’t really noticed. She’d been so wrapped up in Angela, and Maya, and
Harvard,
and her own idiotic troubles with the Watkins home and the Marin dwarf flax, that she hadn’t noticed. She thought she was on top of things but all along she wasn’t—all along she was watching, was worrying about,
the wrong daughter.

And this was her penance.

Genie, I take back everything I’ve ever wished for in my whole life. That crap about putting the kids in mason jars? Forget I ever said that. The wish about wishing I’d never even heard of Harvard? Stupid. Stupid! I didn’t mean it, of course. All the way back to the chocolate appliances, the perms, the one time I wished (privately) that Marianne wouldn’t get invited to Lisa Reardon’s party along with me so I wouldn’t have to watch over her. There is only one wish now, there’s only ever been one wish that matters. Make Cecily okay. Genie? Are you hearing me? God? Are you out there?

To get to the security office she had to cross the bridge, just as the sergeant had told her. When traffic halted her progress for a minute she could see, on the east side, knots of pedestrians, a couple of runners.
Hey!
Nora wanted to call to all of them.
Hey, guess what? I’ve been worrying about the wrong child!

Cecily and Pinkie were spending more time together than ever before this fall. Nora had attributed this to Cecily’s quitting Irish dance but really it was more: they were plotting something, they were plotting
this.

Whatever this was.

Wrong child, wrong child. Nora had been worrying about the wrong child.

It was confusing, pulling off so close to the end of the bridge, and then squeezing into the small parking area that Sergeant Campbell had described. Nora had to ask a bridge patrol officer examining his bicycle where to go, and he answered her nonchalantly, like this was a regular day, a regular situation. Up a few steps, bridge traffic whooshing by just behind her. Another officer at the window of the security office, a voice that didn’t feel like hers asking where to go. Then down a corridor. And there was Cecily, sitting on a plastic chair and holding a cup of water. And Pinkie. And Cathy Moynihan.

Sergeant Stephen Campbell wore a tan uniform with a holster. No hat. Nora realized that on the drive over she had been picturing a hat.
Wrong child, wrong child, I’ve been worrying about the wrong child.
Probably he had one somewhere, he just wasn’t wearing it at the moment. There was a gold star above his front left pocket, and a blue patch on his right arm that made Nora think of the Girl Scout patches her mother spent many a painstaking hour stitching to Nora’s uniforms. Now they were all iron-on. Irrelevant fact. The sergeant’s tan pants had a blue and gold stripe running down the side. He was clean-cut, with hair going gray, about Nora’s age, although he could have been a bit younger or a bit older. Strong, square hands, deep wrinkles around his eyes, the kind common in avid skiers and hikers—people who summered and wintered near Tahoe.
I’ve been worrying about the wrong child.

It was unthinkable, all of it.

That Cecily had gotten herself to the Golden Gate, and that Pinkie had too. (“Took the bus,” they said later, almost casually, as though they were talking about an after-school activity, like glee club or lacrosse. “Then the 10 and then the Muni.”)

It was unthinkable that the school had never called to inquire after their absences.

“They called themselves in sick,” said Cathy Moynihan, who somehow, unfairly, had gotten herself there before Nora. Cathy Moynihan looked as ill as Nora felt; her hair was unstyled and partially damp, as though she’d stepped right out of the shower and into the security office. She wore no makeup. Nora noted in a pocket of her mind reserved for incongruous, unimportant thoughts that she had never seen Cathy Moynihan without makeup.

All of it was unthinkable: Cecily and Pinkie standing on the Golden Gate—two ten-year-olds,
by themselves
—until Sergeant Stephen Campbell happened by on his regular bridge patrol, saw something amiss, and pulled over.

“Wait a second,” said Nora. She still didn’t understand. She hadn’t let go of Cecily since she’d arrived. She was kneeling in front of her, holding on now to the sleeve of her turquoise fleece, as though she might take flight without warning. “You were going to
jump
? They were going to jump off the
bridge
?”

“No! No, Mom,
no.
” Cecily looked horrified. “We were helping.”

“Helping
what
?” Cathy’s voice was carved straight out of ice.

“Whoever needed it,” said Pinkie. Her face was dead white; her freckles looked almost black against her skin. Her hand holding her water cup was shaking; some of the water sloshed over the edge and onto her jeans. “We learned about all those people who help people who want to jump. And we thought we could help. We thought we could save someone. And then we’d be…and then we’d be heroes.”

“Even if we couldn’t be heroes, we thought we could do something,” said Cecily. “I couldn’t do anything at home, I couldn’t help
Angela
with
anything
and everybody at home is so stressed out, and I heard you and Daddy fighting the other night and I don’t know, I thought I could do something here. Like, where people’s problems are sooooo bad.”

It’s official,
thought Nora.
Worst mother in the world, right here. Bring me the award and I’ll frame it and hang it in the office. There are no other contenders.

“But there was nobody to save,” said Cecily. “So we stood there for a long time, and waited. And talked about what it would be like, and why people jump. All those people we saw in the movie, and how they thought everything was hopeless…” She started to cry. “And it was so scary, looking down like that. Imagining. The water is black if you look straight down. It was so scary, Mom.”

“Then I came by,” said Sergeant Campbell. “On bridge patrol. We share that with the bridge patrol officers. We all work together. And I stopped, of course. Because one of them was starting to climb over the rail.”

Nora’s stomach dropped right out of her body. “Which one?”

“Me,” said Cecily. And she began to bawl, the way she used to when she didn’t get her way as a little girl—taking deep gulps of air, hyperventilating.

“I brought them here, and called you both. You know the rest.”

Nora looked at Cathy but Cathy wasn’t meeting her eyes. Nora looked at Cecily. Nora pictured her hiking a leg over the rail of the bridge. Her mind refused to accommodate the image.

“I just wanted to see what it was like,” cried Cecily, in between sobs. “I just wanted to see what it felt like.”

“I told her not to,” said Pinkie. “I told her not to climb over. She couldn’t anyway, it’s way too high.”

“But if you had!” said Nora. “One slip, one mistake, and you would have been dead. Oh my God, Cecily. You would have been
dead.
” She’d been worrying about the wrong child.

“Listen to me,” said Sergeant Campbell. He stood in front of the two girls and looked down at them. Nora, who suddenly felt in the way, released her grip on Cecily’s sleeve and moved behind her. Sergeant Campbell was stern but you could see that he was ultimately kind, the way Nora knew parents should strive to be. This was a nearly impossible balance to achieve—it was the hardest part about parenting—but Sergeant Campbell made it seem as easy as slipping on a sweater. Look at Pinkie and Cecily, giving him their full attention! “Listen to me, you two. Listen very carefully. We are trained especially to help people like that. You can’t just…you can’t just be a regular person, even a regular person who’s trying to do some good, and help anyone in that situation. You just can’t. People who consider suicide are desperate, and we have to be really, really careful about what we say to them. Now I understand that you were trying to help. But you scared a lot of people. And you weren’t ready to help anyone. You understand?” The girls nodded. Pinkie’s braces glinted in the overhead light. They were mute and obedient; they were practically Girl Scouts.

Sergeant Campbell turned his attention then to Nora and Cathy.

“I got kids of my own,” he said. “I know how it is, you try to keep up with everything. You can’t always. But you got to keep trying.”

“You’re right,” whispered Nora. She wanted to hug Sergeant Campbell. She wanted to lie down in bed and have Sergeant Campbell wrap a giant soft blanket around her and tiptoe out of the room so she could sleep for sixteen hours straight.

But there was nothing to do but the best thing in the world: gather up her child and go home.

In the car Cecily fell asleep. The promised fog hadn’t materialized; the bay was as calm and clear as a sheet of glass.

Nora used the rearview mirror to look at Cecily, who slept with her head leaning against the window and her mouth hanging slightly open. The posture reminded Nora of how Cecily used to sleep as a toddler, leaning to one side in her bulletproof car seat.

Poor Cecily. Of course she wasn’t immune to the stress in the house: how could she be? No doubt Cecily looked at Angela, even at her parents, and saw the same fate coming down the pike for her. The other members of the Hawthorne family weren’t exactly making it look attractive, growing up.

With one hand she dialed Gabe’s number again, then Angela’s. Again. Neither picked up. When Gabe turned on his phone he’d see sixteen missed calls and seven voice mails from Nora. When Angela turned on hers: probably twenty, twenty-five. Nora had lost count. Where
was
everybody?

When Nora pulled into the driveway she started to wake Cecily. But instead she climbed in the backseat. The back of the Audi was nice, spacious and comfortable, and still clean, the way she had to keep it to drive clients around. Nora allowed a lot of things in her household, but she didn’t allow snacking in the car. She moved a piece of Cecily’s hair out of her face and Cecily stirred but didn’t open her eyes.

One day Cecily would grow up and fall in love and have her heart broken and do stupid things she’d regret and wonderful things she’d remember for the rest of her life; there’d be a time when Nora might not know where Cecily was for days or even weeks at a time or what she was doing, or with whom. She’d get a job (or not); she’d love it (or not); she might get married and have kids of her own or be a single mother or not be a mother at all. She might be a lesbian or an archaeologist (obviously, Nora knew, you could be both of those at once) and she might hurt people and ache with regret or be hurt herself and ache with sadness. She might not always be safe but for now she was, she was right here with Nora, and she was sleeping, and nothing could get to her at this moment.

But where the hell was Angela?