“I’m really worried about Charlie,” said Azra. “Have you talked to him about the school?”
“Should I have?” Beck asked. They hadn’t spoken since the test results came in, and Beck had hardly given the matter another thought.
“He keeps bringing it up in these weird ways.”
“How did he take it when you first told him that Aid made the cut?”
“At first he just laughed it off and called Aidan a gradetard. You know how they do.”
“Uh-huh. But I just can’t see Charlie getting jealous about a test he didn’t even take.”
“It’s hit him hard, Beck. He’s used to being the best at school, the best at sports, but now all of a sudden he’s got his twin brother getting out ahead of him, starting on the soccer team when he’s on the bench, maybe going to a new magnet school. He’s been saying things like, ‘Well, I guess it’s the slow brother’s turn to empty the dishwasher tonight.’ Or ‘Kind of hard to concentrate on my homework when I know the starting midfielder in the living room could do it for me in like five minutes.’ You know?”
Beck thought about it. “I did hear him say something like that the other day. ‘Wish I was brilliant enough to make my own lunch’ kind of thing.” He drained his glass.
She reached for the bottle on the top step.
“Well, look,” he said as she topped him off. “So maybe we don’t keep going with it.”
“The academy?”
“If it’s creating friction. Why create such high expectations when it’s only going to set him up for disappointment?”
“You mean like soccer.”
“That’s different.”
“How so?”
“The twins have a natural gift for soccer,” he said. “It also happens to be the thing they care about the most.”
Azra coughed in that way.
“What?”
“Beck, come on. It’s the thing you care about the most. I see you on the sidelines, pretending not to give a damn while you’re boiling inside. It’s always been like this. You’re the one who took them out to shoot penalty kicks when they were four, the one who pushed them into trying out for travel when they were happy in select. And you were the one who convinced them to go for this ROMO thing.”
“Hey, that’s bullshit. They’ve been dreaming about this for almost a year.”
“Please. The boys wouldn’t have known that league even existed if you hadn’t put the idea in their heads.”
Beck looked down at her hands, at those long fingers crossed over one knee.
“I’ve told you before how I feel about this stuff,” he said. “I say we pull the plug. That’s my vote.”
“All I’m asking is that you keep an open mind, okay?” she pressed him. “This could be really good for Aidan. Maybe it will bring him out of his shell, introduce him to a new set of kids who won’t make him feel embarrassed about being bright.”
“What if he doesn’t get in?”
“Well, he probably won’t,” said Azra matter-of-factly. “The important thing is that he try, because I think he actually wants to see if he can. So please be encouraging about it.” She rocked forward and looked up the street. “They’re coming.”
Aidan was out front, dancing backward and singing wildly, swaying his hips back and forth, making Roy scream with laughter. The baby strained against his straps to reach for his big brother. Charlie, unamused, pushed the stroller. Beck smiled and waved, but Charlie’s mouth stayed flatlined.
Azra stood and took his wineglass. “There’s another thing.”
“Uh-oh,” said Beck, rising with her.
“A meeting about the final admissions cut. We have to put together a portfolio.”
“When is it?”
“Thursday at seven-thirty. We should both go. I’ll text you the details.”
She stood on her tiptoes to give him an awkward hug, holding the wineglasses wide and away. He felt a familiar surge and squeezed her around the waist, maybe a little too low. Her body stiffened.
“Beck, stop.”
“Sorry, sorry.” He took a half step back, hands spread in the air.
She looked at him oddly. “Is everything okay? With you, I mean?”
He felt unbalanced, suddenly ill. A zapping sensation shot across the crest of his head and his vision filled with the scrolling flicker of his fuck-ups, like movie credits: maxed-out bank cards and floating balances, the night screams of a baby and the new coldness of his wife, a flabbifying midsection, old food moldering in the pit of a garbage disposal broken for months, Charlie slumped on the soccer bench with the other scrubs.
“Beck?”
“Yeah, I’m good,” he said, blinking. She knew him too well, but maybe not well enough.
She bonked a wineglass on his elbow. “Don’t forget the meeting.”
THIRTY-ONE
ROSE
Mom.”
A shaky voice from down the hall, drawn out. Rose went to Emma Q’s bedroom and found her stretched out on top of her comforter, forlorn, with smeared cheeks and a moist nose and her phone clasped tightly in her hands.
“Oh, honey, what’s wrong?” She grabbed a tissue from Q’s nightstand and stooped to swipe it across her daughter’s upper lip.
“Z got a—a—” Then something indistinguishable. Rose pulled out another tissue and tried again, peeved. Just what they needed: another tiff with Emma Z. They happened every month or so; though no matter how trivial the provocation, Q’s face was a wonder when she cried, a splotchy mess of florid pinks and shocking reds.
“Q, what is it? What did Z do this time?”
Emma Q shook her wet head. “Nothing. She got—she texted me. She got a one-forty-five.”
“You mean—”
“On the CogPro. That’s ten points higher than me. She said the cutoff was one-thirty, which is almost what I got.”
“Oh,” Rose said, dying inside. So the girls were swapping scores, this time the real thing.
“So I’m already eliminated, right?”
“We don’t know that, Q.” Though Rose was having the same thought. “That score is just the first step. Now that you and Z are both in the final pool together you’ll be treated exactly the same.”
“Really?”
“Of course really,” Rose said—though was this true?
“But why is Z so mean all the time? Why does she want to beat me at everything?”
“Oh, honey.” Rose pulled Q into her arms and let her sob it out for a little while. But beneath the surge of protective love for her daughter she felt a hard knob of fury at Emma Zellar for inciting this constant, nasty rivalry between the girls, at Samantha for encouraging it—and at herself for marinating in its juices so often.
Q stopped sniffling and backed away, looking at her with eyes wide and sober. Aware of what was at stake; wanting it. “So then how will they make the final cut? I really want to know.”
Rose smiled proudly at her daughter and wiped her cheek with the end of a sleeve. “So do I, Emma,” she said slowly. “So. Do. I.”
* * *
—
She couldn’t blame Q for what happened the next morning, the chain of competitive idiocy that started to unspool, link by link. Rose was the one who would pick up her phone at the lab, touch in the number, start a conversation and then a second conversation it would have been so much smarter to avoid. But her daughter’s anxious question had planted the idea.
She waited until ten before calling. The phone was picked up on the first ring.
“Bitsy Leighton.”
“Oh. I wasn’t expecting to reach you directly.” Rose swallowed, speaking low because her office door was open to the lab. “My daughter tested recently for Crystal Academy?”
“Our procedures for appeal are laid out on the school’s website.�
�
“No, Emma made the cut.”
“Wonderful. And you’ll be at the second-stage admissions meeting?” Her tone of voice had instantly changed, from dismissive to inviting.
“Of course.”
“So how can I help you, Ms.—?”
“Doctor, actually. Dr. Rose Holland.” She winced at herself. “Rose.”
“How can I help you, Rose?”
“I know you’ll be very busy once the next round begins,” she said, speaking quickly, “so I was wondering if you might have time to discuss a few matters about the school.”
“What sorts of matters?”
The thought came in a startling flash, though later she would recall that she sounded even to herself as if she’d rehearsed every word. “My curiosity isn’t just parental. I’m a pediatric neurologist in the med school. Our lab has done some work on childhood brain development.”
True, sort of.
“Right now we’re thinking of proposing a longitudinal study on gifted children and brain development.”
An unambiguous lie. It just shot out, like an unanticipated sneeze.
“Tell me more,” Bitsy said, sounding intrigued.
Rose thought for a moment. “Well, given the size of the first intake and the wide range of aptitudes, backgrounds, and demographics, your assessment work during the admissions process might make for an ideal sample.”
Rose could almost hear Leighton’s mental calculations as she improvised: the braggable prestige such a cooperative venture with the local university would bring to a new school. Bitsy asked a few additional questions, then suggested coffee later that same morning at Higher Grounds, a café on the Emerald Mall.
Rose disconnected and her face quavered on the phone’s darkened screen.
* * *
—
She had seen Bitsy Leighton only from a distance, during an informational session about Crystal Academy. Bitsy had appeared the coolest of customers then, a tall and confident woman perhaps five years Rose’s senior who had retained her stolid boarding school demeanor while being hammered with anxious, probing questions from all sides. Now Rose would have the woman to herself.
When Bitsy came in, the bell tinkled and banged on the glass. She waved off Rose’s offer to treat her, instead standing in line until she got her cappuccino. Rose studied the woman’s shoulder-length silver bob, pushed back in a brown band that left the full width of a pale forehead exposed. A simply cut burgundy suit worn over flat loafers gave the impression of a woman entirely unconcerned with style.
Bitsy licked a slug of foam off the side of the cup on her way to the table. After pleasantries Rose said, “So tell me about your background.”
“I grew up outside of Boston and graduated from Princeton,” Bitsy said. “Then I did my doctorate in elementary education at Columbia.”
“Teachers College?”
“That’s right.”
Rose asked her about the testing regimen for the academy. The choice of the CogPro, the deliberations over next steps.
“I won’t pretend the tests aren’t important,” Bitsy said. “For one thing they’ve eliminated seventy to eighty percent of the prospective students.”
“Wow, that many.”
“Yes, and believe me, we’re hearing about it from the parents.” Her brow went up. Rose thought of Lauren, the desolation on her friend’s face.
Bitsy continued. “We want the second-stage evaluations to be as effective as possible. The fewer students we’re assessing, the better.”
“Tell me about this next stage.” Rose poised her pen above her notepad, waiting for the details. “How specifically will applicants be evaluated?”
“For Crystal Academy we’re assessing the whole child. Aptitudes and special talents. Perseverance and stick-to-it-iveness. Does she play a musical instrument with particular distinction? Does he have a unique approach to problem solving? Do they express themselves in complex sentences that suggest a level of abstraction that separates them from their peers? We’re also on the lookout for the two-E kids.”
“‘Two E’?”
“The twice exceptionals. Kids with high intelligence and coexisting disabilities that might prevent them from performing to their potential on a test like the CogPro.”
“So you’re using both quantitative and qualitative data to assess each child.”
“That’s right.” Bitsy nodded with vigor. “The CogPro for an anchor score, and then the individual assessments for a more rounded sense of the child. Also important is fit with the academy’s program and curriculum.”
“Fit?”
“We want to recruit an active, curious bunch of kids for the first cohort. A diverse community of exceptional learners united by a fierce desire to push the boundaries of learning to transform themselves and the world around them.”
“Sounds like a mission statement.”
“We’re working on one.”
“And what will distinguish those selected?”
“We’ll be looking for a range of exceptionalities. Stand-aparts in knowledge or abilities or particular talents. Math whizzes. History buffs. Incredible athletes. Kids who’ve been playing with their chemistry sets since kindergarten and want to tell you everything they know about—oh, I don’t know, benzine.”
Or Plains leopard frogs.
“An obsession, then,” Rose suggested.
Bitsy waggled a hand. “Too negative. More of a spike. Some of these kids, they’ll knock you flat. We have an eighth grader in the pool who’s already doing second-year calculus at the university. A sixth grader from out in Beulah who’s a master origamicist.”
“A what?”
“He makes beautiful paper animals and things; his teachers say they’re just dazzling. Oh, and he’s trilingual to boot. And we have a fifth grader from here in Crystal who performs hip-hop lyrics with a Shakespearean twist. The kid has two million followers on Songbird.”
“That sounds familiar,” Rose said. An old teammate of Charlie’s, she thought; maybe Azra had mentioned him.
The door opened, bringing a breeze. “It’s a challenge, I won’t varnish the truth for you,” Bitsy said. “We’re trying to identify a thousand kids out of a pool of, what, a hundred thousand? These kids will be Rhodes scholars and Supreme Court clerks. They’ll be international thought leaders; I mean, you can see them giving TED Talks in ten years.”
Rose hummed in approval.
“What excites me most of all, though,” Bitsy went on, leaning forward, lowering her voice as if sharing a great secret, “is the fact that Crystal Academy will be a public institution, with a public mission. We’re not opening an elite boarding school here, or a private day school removed from the community, with helicopter parents checking in every day with the guidance counselors. We want the academy’s culture to be the diametric opposite of all that.”
“How so?”
“Well, I don’t know where you grew up, Rose. But if you emerge from a certain East Coast background, you’ll know what I’m talking about. All the wealth and entitlement disguised as ability and smarts. Because if your grandfather went to Exeter or Andover, you can go to Exeter or Andover. If you have a horse to board and a senator in the family, your girl can get into Madeira. If your mom’s Speaker of the House, you can bet your bippy you’ll get a spot at Episcopal. All it takes is money and the right connections and you can get your child into the most elite private schools in America.” She sniffed. “But Crystal Academy? No. I’m sorry, but no. Those old families and elite networks don’t mean a darn thing out here on the Front Range. Because I remember those privileged kids, believe me. I was one of them.” She paused to gauge Rose’s reaction. “You can tell I’m rather passionate about all this.”
“That comes across,” Rose said, though she had to bite her lip, because Bitsy Leighton had no idea how
many of her buttons she was pushing. Always that intangible sense of injustice, when she was young, a suspicion that the more polished and affable kids were getting things they didn’t deserve: blue ribbons for best essays, the teacherly nods. Rose’s chest would split with envy when she saw their easy ways with grown-ups in positions of authority, their new clothes in the right labels. Money, though, had been only part of it. The greater injustices derived from family culture. Rose’s parents had possessed neither the time nor the cynicism to shield her from two poisonously cliquish schools, a run of bad teachers, a lazy guidance counselor who, she now saw, might easily have pointed her to the sky like a rocket, fueled and ready to soar.
Meanwhile it had been these same entitled kids who got the invitations to apply for the special summer programs, whose parents enrolled them in prep courses for the PSAT and SAT—tests that Rose had murdered all on her own, which was what had finally gotten her out, though not to Penn or to Bryn Mawr or to Yale. Instead she’d won a full academic scholarship to Lehigh, set aside for first-generation local kids from the surrounding valley, and the least true thing anyone could say about her was that she never looked back. She looked back all the time, most recently through the refracting lens of her daughter, who enjoyed the benefits of a mother’s hands-on investment in her schooling that Rose had never received. Unfair to Q, perhaps, all this building pressure; but then its absence had been unfair to Rose.
“So you can see why we’re not taking this initial admission cycle lightly,” Bitsy continued. “This will be the first intake. Our canaries in the coal mine. We’re putting all of our resources and energy into identifying la crème la plus pure de la crème.”
She wiped her napkin fiercely over her lips, balled it up, and stuffed it in her empty cup.
“Now.” She looked at Rose and tilted her head. “Tell me about this study of yours.”
* * *
—
Bitsy Leighton clip-clopped east over the bricks while her thumbs worked furiously at her phone. Rose tried to read Q’s admission chances in the woman’s profile and gait. When Leighton turned the corner on Lapis Lane, Rose pressed a hand to her temple, and a rare panic rattled through her chest. A longitudinal study of gifted children and brain development? She’d done a decent job of faking it in there, but a few questions to anyone who knew her research and Leighton would learn that she worked on tissues from dead people, not the minds of living ones. Rose was no more qualified to design and execute such a study than Gareth was to play second base for the Colorado Rockies. What the hell had she been thinking?
The Gifted School Page 18
