Girls with Bright Futures

by Tracy Dobmeier

  “No, not at all.” Alicia gazed out the window at the passing buildings of Manhattan and briefly entertained thoughts of how different her life might have been if she’d accepted the Goldman Sachs job out of Stanford business school instead of joining Microsoft. With that fateful decision, she’d traded leisurely brunches and weekends in the Hamptons à la Sex and the City for hiking, mountain biking, and kayaking in the Pacific Northwest. And of course, she’d met Bryan, a former University of Washington baseball player and avid outdoor enthusiast. Alicia had been instantly attracted to his rugged good looks and sense of adventure, the confident “guy’s guy” who swept her off her feet. She’d admired Bryan’s work ethic and that they were starting out on equal footing. No country clubs, trust funds, or multigenerational homes for them. They would build their lives together from the ground up. She almost laughed out loud at how far they’d veered from those early years as a young married couple before Ted’s throat clearing brought her back to the conversation.

  “Well, I’ll get right to it.” Ted paused. “I understand from Ms. Barstow that Stanford is still at the top of Brooke’s list?”

  Top of her list? Why was this even a question? Alicia had made it clear to Ted during Brooke’s junior year that Stanford was the only school on her daughter’s list and that she expected Ted to direct Ms. Barstow and the rest of the college counseling team to proceed accordingly. “Yes, of course Stanford is still her choice.”

  “Well, in that case,” Ted said, clearing his throat again, “I need to pass along some information we received from the Stanford admissions office.”

  Alicia massaged her temple. She’d spent enough time around Ted to know his incessant throat clearing was a prelude to bad news.

  After waiting a beat, Ted continued, “As you know, we’ve had a lot of success with EBA students gaining admission to Stanford in the past. You may have heard that four EBA student athletes in this year’s senior class have already committed to continue their athletic careers at Stanford next fall. It’s the most in EBA history.”

  Kelly Vernon, whose daughter Krissie was also applying to Stanford, had breathlessly kept Alicia apprised of each student athlete’s Instagram announcement over the past several months. The woman was a sycophant, but her information-gathering skills about all things college rivaled those of a government intelligence agency operative. All Alicia had to do in return was call her up for a cup of coffee now and then and slip her some gossip about one of the many local tech zillionaires. “You must be so proud after all your efforts to make athletics an institutional priority at EBA. But what does this have to do with Brooke?”

  Ted cleared his throat yet again. “EBA will only be allotted one more spot this year.”

  “Interesting,” Alicia said, noticing a small chip in her polish on her left thumbnail. She’d need to remember to tell Maren to schedule an extra manicure to fix it as soon as she got home.

  “They’re doubling down on their commitment to inclusivity and diversity,” Ted said. “They want sixty percent of this year’s class to come from public schools.”

  “I’m familiar with the statistics, Ted. I am on the Stanford board of trustees, remember?” Alicia held the phone between her ear and shoulder as she dug through her bag for a nail file. If she filed the nail just a little, no one would see the chip. The car pulled into an alley and idled next to another service door entrance. PR Girl pointed at her wrist, signaling that it was time to wrap up, but the bodyguard remained motionless in the front seat as he waited for Alicia to complete her call.

  “You know, Alicia, given Brooke’s academic achievements and extracurricular activities, she may want to—”

  “Ted,” Alicia interrupted, forgetting her nail and pressing the phone to her ear. “Are you actually suggesting I need to worry about Brooke getting into Stanford?”

  “Well, it’s just that she may want to consider other options.”

  “Other options?” Alicia said, brushing lint from her pantsuit. “I just can’t think of what other suitable options there might possibly be. Brooke is a legacy, after all. And while we haven’t announced this publicly yet, you should know I recently made a $15 million donation to Stanford’s Computer Science Department.”

  “Oh, I wasn’t aware of that,” Ted said.

  “I’m just curious—other than our very talented athletes, how many other EBA students will be applying early decision to Stanford this year?”

  “As always, there’s a lot of interest. We’re guessing some students who had Stanford as their early admission choice—”

  “You know, it’s really neither here nor there.” As far as Alicia was concerned, the biggest, or rather only, obstacle to Brooke’s admission was getting her to finish her application. “Ted, I’m sure we can agree that Stanford is the perfect choice for Brooke and that you’ll do absolutely everything in your power to support her application. After all I’ve done for EBA, not to mention your career, I can count on you for that, can’t I?”

  “Well, of course,” he stammered.

  “Wonderful,” Alicia said, ending the call and tossing her phone into her tote. What an idiot, wasting her time with such a frivolous call.

  “I’m really sorry, Alicia, but we need to head inside,” PR Girl simpered. “The meet and greet starts in five minutes. Here,” she said, extending a tube of Trish McEvoy Wild Rose lipstick, Alicia’s signature color, and a tissue.

  As she applied the lipstick, Alicia finally remembered the girl’s name. “Thank you, Samantha,” she said. She removed her readers and returned them to their case. Alicia detested wearing them, but at fifty-two, she found readers to be her inescapable and constant companion. At least the other dead giveaways that she was a perimenopausal, middle-aged woman—her graying hair, the loosening skin around her jowls, the cellulite that persisted no matter how many lunges and squats she did—could be disguised by throwing gobs of money at personal trainers, stylists, expensive clothes, smoothing undergarments, and cosmetic dermatology. As if this battle against age wasn’t hard enough on her self-esteem, Alicia almost always found herself in the company of younger women such as this Samantha girl or even Maren. Maren wasn’t as young as Samantha, but her stubbornly bland style only seemed to emphasize her effortless beauty, just as her shapeless clothes somehow drew attention to the enviable figure she didn’t even need to work at maintaining. It was so unfair.

  The bodyguard opened the door for Alicia as two more guards moved into position to escort her into the building. Alicia glanced at her watch as she strode from the car and saw that it was nearly five thirty p.m. She performed the mental calculation that she repeated a hundred times a day when she traveled, which felt like all the damn time. Seattle was three hours behind New York, so Brooke would still be in her last class of the day, or at least she was supposed to be there. Alicia had received two emails this week alone notifying her that her daughter had missed several classes. For reasons that remained a mystery, Bryan, the parent not running a billion-dollar company, never received these emails. She of course covered for Brooke—cramps! doctor’s appointment!—and apologized for forgetting to alert the office—you know how chaotic traveling is! Alicia tamped down on the bubbling resentment for her husband, who couldn’t be counted on to make sure their daughter did the bare minimum of attending school.

  But now wasn’t the time to be distracted by the inevitable future fight over college essays and cut classes. Alicia needed to be on her toes. The moderator of tonight’s panel was one of the toughest but most respected journalists in tech. Time to smile and inspire the eager, striving young women who had paid their $75 to learn how they too could reach the C-suite and have it all.

  * * *

  “Hey babe, how’s the Big Apple?” Bryan asked as he bit in to something crunchy.

  Alicia pulled the phone away from her ear and switched to speakerphone. She drew back the fluffy comforter and slid und
er the crisp white hotel sheets. “Fine. Is it just you, or is Brooke home yet?”

  “She went out to dinner after the game. Senior girls’ dinner or something.”

  “Damn. The game,” Alicia said, berating herself for forgetting Brooke’s soccer game. She liked to text Brooke good luck before each game even if she was rarely there to see her play. “How’d they do?”

  “They won 2–0, still undefeated.”

  “Maybe they’ll have a shot at winning state this year.” Despite nearly ten years of travel soccer, weekly private coaching, and even a summer training in Spain, they’d been told by a soccer college consultant at the end of Brooke’s sophomore year that she had no chance of getting recruited by Stanford. Brooke had promptly quit her travel team, and now she just needed to get through the season with the captain’s badge on her sleeve as a symbol of leadership for her Stanford application—and a state championship wouldn’t hurt. Lucky for Brooke, it was EBA’s policy to give a captain’s badge to every senior on a varsity team.

  “Ya miss me?” Bryan asked in what Alicia immediately recognized as his phone sex voice.

  She rolled her eyes, wanting nothing more than to watch a half hour of crappy TV and fall asleep. His sexual desires and demands seemed to have increased in direct proportion to her rise in power and prominence. Whether she was in the mood or not, Alicia often acquiesced to avoid the petulant behavior that typically followed any perceived slights to his manhood. And she had to admit that once they got going, it was usually pretty rewarding. But it wasn’t going to happen tonight.

  “Check your phone,” he said.

  Alicia looked at the screen and saw the notification with the small picture. She didn’t bother to open it. “Really, Bry? Looking at a picture of your junk is so not a turn-on. What if this got out?”

  “So what? You’re my wife. And anyways,” he said, lowering his voice, “I’m hung like a horse.”

  Alicia sighed and waited. She could hear him whipping a ball against a wall. Imagining the mark the ball made with each thwack pissed her off. “Ted Clark called this afternoon.”

  “What’d he want?” Bryan asked.

  Alicia could hear the surliness in his voice because she failed to play along. “Surprisingly, he didn’t want anything,” she replied. “He called to let us know that Stanford will only be taking one more student this year because a record four student athletes have already committed. Diversity, inclusion, more kids from public schools, blah, blah, blah. He even suggested Brooke might want to consider another school for early decision. Can you believe that? After everything we’ve done for EBA?”

  “Who else is applying?” Bryan said.

  “I’m sure Krissie Vernon. She’s a double legacy as Kelly reminds everyone every chance she gets.”

  “What about Winnie? She worships you. It seems like she’s wearing that Stanford T-shirt every time I see her. When you got it for her, it came down to her knees like a nightgown, and now it barely covers her rack.” Bryan guffawed at his own observation.

  “Maybe Winnie thought she was going to apply to Stanford, but not if they’re only taking one more student. She’s a smart girl. She’ll know she needs to find another school.” Alicia broke off a square of the dark chocolate Maren arranged to have next to her bed every night when she traveled. It was Alicia’s one consistent concession to her sweet tooth. “The spot is Brooke’s for the taking,” she continued. “She may not be anywhere near the top of the class, but with my pull at EBA and Stanford, she should be fine. If Stanford can accept four dumb athletes, they can accept Brooke too. But all this is moot if Brooke doesn’t finish her damn application. What’s the status on the essays?”

  The ball throwing stopped, and she heard a long exhale on the other end of the phone, which was all she needed to confirm that zero progress had been made since she’d left yesterday morning with strict instructions to both of them that essays were their top priority.

  In an effort to avoid precisely this situation, Alicia had directed Maren to enroll Brooke in last summer’s EBA essay boot camp, but as insurance, Alicia had also hired Cynthia McIntyre, the supersecret college admissions whisperer who flew around the country providing her services to the progeny of America’s ultra-ultra elite. Alicia had been lucky enough to secure Cynthia for three hours (for $25,000) the weekend before the boot camp to select Brooke’s essay topics and provide guidance for completing her activities résumé. The plan was for Brooke to have all her essays wrapped up with a bow by the first day of senior year. What Alicia hadn’t counted on was Brooke finishing the boot camp with the sweeping declaration that all her essays sucked and she would just deal with it in the fall. With Stanford’s early admission deadline three weeks away, the essays were mission critical, but still Brooke rebuffed Alicia’s every status check. It mattered not one iota how Alicia raised the topic. The cheerful, nonchalant sneak attack (“So, honey, you spent a lot of time in your bedroom this weekend; I bet those essays are really coming along…”) yielded the exact same result as the direct approach (“Where are your damn essays?”): deflection and disgust, and not necessarily in that order.

  “For God’s sake, Bryan,” Alicia snarled. “Her app is due in three weeks. Why is she out with her friends tonight? She should be grounded until the essays are done.”

  “You know, Leesh…” She could hear him stretching. “Maybe this Stanford news is a blessing in disguise.” Now he was probably scratching his balls. “Brooke isn’t exactly enthusiastic about Stanford. You know that’s why she’s been giving you such a hard time about the essays.”

  Alicia could hear Bryan turn on the TV, his less-than-subtle signal that he was checking out of the conversation. “You’re kidding me, right?” she said. “This is just like sleepaway camp. Remember the stink she made about that? Now those are her best friends in the world.”

  “She was ten when we sent her to camp. She’s seventeen now.”

  “And your point is?” Alicia took a slug from a chilled bottle of Perrier, also courtesy of Maren. She traced a finger down the outside of the green glass bottle, drawing a line through the condensation. Sometimes it felt like her whole life was courtesy of Maren and that without her, it would all fall apart. Indeed, she was so indispensable that Alicia had made the conscious decision years ago to overlook the yearning expression on Bryan’s face whenever Maren was around.

  “If she gets in, everyone’s going to think it’s only because of you,” Bryan said. “And what if she gets there and can’t cut it? It’s gonna be hard for her to live up to everyone’s expectations of being your daughter.”

  Alicia set down the Perrier and grabbed her own remote control, pointing it at the TV. She too was rapidly losing interest in this conversation. Oh, the hardship of being Alicia Stone’s husband or Alicia Stone’s daughter—a lament favored by both of them. Yet when it came to living in their fourteen-thousand-square-foot home in Washington Park, flying on private jets, belonging to five golf clubs, vacationing in the most incredible places on the planet, or having an American Express black card it didn’t seem quite so bad.

  But even if Bryan wasn’t the most hands-on father, having one parent physically present most of the time at least assuaged Alicia’s guilt about all the travel her job required. When the first dot-com bubble burst in 2001, taking Seattle’s commercial real estate market and Bryan’s career with it, Bryan had struggled to find purchase. To save her marriage and her sanity, Alicia cashed out her Microsoft stock and bought several rental properties around Seattle for Bryan to manage as investments. They’d since acquired a vacation property on San Juan Island, a condo in Telluride, and a beach house in Del Mar as well as several more rental houses and small apartment buildings scattered throughout the city. Bryan enjoyed fixing up and flipping some of the properties, though generally he played the role of rent collector and occasional fix-it man. But his real estate endeavors left him with a lot of free tim
e, which he spent playing golf (two hundred and fifty rounds last year, he bragged to anyone who would listen), drinking with his college buddies, working out, playing video games, and watching porn. And in theory being a stay-at-home dad.

  “The only thing Brooke wants right now is not to write her goddamn essays,” Alicia scoffed. “She’s just doing this to upset me. Or embarrass me. She’ll thank me once it’s all said and done.”

  “What if we’re just setting her up for rejection? With only one spot left, maybe we should think about another school,” Bryan said. “You know she’d probably love Michigan if you’d let her consider it.”

  Alicia bit her lip. As he’d no doubt intended, Bryan’s mention of Michigan flooded Alicia with memories of her older brother, Alex. His sandy-brownish hair, always buzzed short and bleached out. The smell of chlorine. His habit of teasing her and throwing her over his muscular shoulders. Alex had died just six weeks before he was supposed to follow in their parents’ and grandparents’ footsteps and head off to Ann Arbor on a full-ride athletic scholarship to swim for the Wolverines. There was never a question after that of where Alicia was going to college. The University of Michigan was the only option. It was the Harvard of the West—or at least their whole family had T-shirts that said that.

  As much as Michigan was part of her family’s multigenerational legacy, the idea of Brooke going there was too painful to contemplate. Alicia had established a scholarship in Alex’s memory after Aspyre’s IPO as a gift to her father. The family attended a small ceremony to honor the first scholarship recipient, but that was the only time she’d set foot on campus since graduation, and she’d needed two Valium to get through it.

  “You know damn well Michigan isn’t an option,” Alicia said. “The balls on you to bring that up right now. Ted’s phone call today changes absolutely nothing. Why do you think I donated the $15 million?”

  “Fine,” Bryan said, emitting an audible sigh. “I’ll talk to her tonight.”