Rules for Being a Girl

by Candace Bushnell

  I’m too busy kissing him to reply.

  Twenty-Nine

  Second-semester seniors are allowed to leave campus during their free periods, so on Tuesday I run out to Panera for bagels and lattes, then come back and meet Gray in the common area outside the library, where he’s reading A Room of One’s Own for book club with his busted ankle propped up on a bench. It’s just a bad sprain, but he’s on crutches for a couple of weeks at least.

  “Eh,” he said when the doctor told him, “only a couple of games left anyway.”

  I couldn’t help but notice he didn’t sound all that broken up about it. He still hasn’t talked to his moms about college.

  “My hero,” he says now, taking his bagel and lifting his face to kiss me before holding the book up for my inspection. “This one’s super fucking boring,” he reports.

  “Oh, shush,” I chide, though the truth is I read the first fifty pages last night and it’s not like he’s wrong, exactly. I sit down on the bench beside him, taking a sip of my latte before reaching into my backpack and clicking the mail icon on my phone. If Mr. DioGuardi catches you even looking at your phone during school hours he’ll take it for the rest of the day, where it sits in a big basket in the admin suite labeled with a picture of an anthropomorphic iPhone crying enormous cartoon tears that he must have printed off the internet, but Brown notifications are going out this week, and I’ve been refreshing my email every fifteen minutes. I checked while I waited at Panera, and then again before I came back into school, but this time when I click over I can’t hold back a quiet gasp: there’s BROWN UNIVERSITY OFFICE OF ADMISSIONS in the sender line.

  Gray looks up from his book. “Hm?”

  I shake my head instead of answering. When I pictured this moment—and let’s be real, I’ve been picturing this moment more or less since freshman year—I was always sitting calmly at home on my laptop, a mug of tea beside me and a cat curled in my lap, the hugeness and inevitability of the occasion somehow managing to overcome the inconvenience of the facts that I don’t drink tea or have a cat. Now I force myself to take a breath, to take in the scene around me—the crispy January grass out the window, the faintly medicinal smell of Gray’s face wash, the crinkly brown Panera bag in my lap. I want to remember exactly how this feels.

  Dear Marin,

  Thank you for your interest in Brown University. Unfortunately, I’m very sorry to inform you that we are unable to offer you admission for the upcoming academic year.

  I feel the blood drain out of my face, pins and needles prickling in the tips of my fingers. For a long, disorienting moment, I can’t get the words to compute.

  I didn’t get in.

  I didn’t even make the wait list.

  The letter goes on from there, explaining how many applications they receive and how rigorous the admission process is, reassuring me that just because I didn’t get into Brown doesn’t mean I don’t have a bright academic future ahead of me, but it’s like the whole thing is written in a language I don’t understand. My heart slams against my rib cage. My hands and feet are cold and numb. This is just one more situation I totally misjudged, I realize grimly: I was overconfident, too sure I was in control of what was happening. I played it all wrong.

  Gray glances over at me again, a tiny divot appearing between his thick, straight eyebrows. “Everything okay?” he asks.

  “Um,” I say, swallowing down a lump the size of a pair of gym socks stuck at the back of my throat. “Yup.” I can’t bring myself to tell him, and as soon as I have that thought I remember that somehow I’m going to have to tell my parents—God, that I’m going to have to tell Gram when it’s all she’s ever wanted for me—and that’s when I start to feel like I might throw up.

  I thought I was a shoo-in. How could I have been so dumb?

  Wait a minute, I think, my head clearing briefly. I thought I was a shoo-in because my interviewer essentially told me I was.

  “Um,” I say, getting to my feet so quickly the paper bag slides to the tile; I bend down and scoop it up before thrusting it in Gray’s direction, swinging my still-open backpack onto one shoulder. “I just remembered I left my notes for next period in the car. I’ll see you at lunch, okay?”

  “Uh, yeah.” Gray’s eyes narrow a little. “Sure.”

  Then, laying one big hand on my arm: “Marin,” he says, “Are you sure you’re okay? You just got, like, super weird all of a sudden.”

  “Yup,” I call over my shoulder, pulling gently away and darting down the hallway toward the exit. “Everything’s fine!”

  Out in the parking lot I dig wildly through my backpack until I find the business card Kalina gave me on the day of the interview; it’s crumpled at the bottom, crumb-stained and soft around the edges. I dial her office number with shaking hands, squinting up at the midmorning sunlight.

  “Marin,” Kalina says, once the front desk assistant puts me through to her office. Right away she sounds uncomfortable, and I wonder if any authority figure is ever going to be happy to hear from me again. “How are you?”

  “Um, not great, actually.” I dig the nails of my free hand into my palm, trying not to sound hysterical. I’ve only got six more minutes until I have to be in class. “I just got a rejection letter from your office.”

  Kalina makes a sympathetic sound. “Oof, I’m sorry to hear that,” she says. “You know, the university gets over thirty thousand applicants each year, and there’s such a limited number of spots that often even when a candidate is qualified—”

  “No, I know,” I interrupt. “It says so in the letter. And I’m sorry if it’s inappropriate to be calling you like this. I know it’s probably bad form. But I just wanted to know what happened. For, like, the future.”

  “Unfortunately I can’t really speak to the specifics,” Kalina says. “We’ve got a policy of not commenting on individual applicants—again, the pool is just so large—”

  “Kalina,” I say, and my voice is dangerously close to be breaking. “Please? You had all the information when we met, right? And you said—”

  “I shouldn’t have,” she interrupts me. “I know you and I had a rapport, but I was speaking out of turn, and I’m sorry if I—”

  “Was it my grades?” I ask. “My extracurriculars? What?”

  Kalina doesn’t say anything for a moment. It’s like I can feel her debating something with herself on the other end of the line. “Look, Marin,” she says, and her voice is very quiet. “Ultimately the admissions board received some information that made us feel like you might be a better fit elsewhere, that’s all.”

  All at once I stand up a little straighter, a sensation like a spider scuttling up along my spine. “What information?”

  “Marin, I really can’t—”

  “What information? Kalina, if somebody said something about me that made it so I can’t get into college—” I shake my head, catching a glimpse of the window of the newspaper office out of the very corner of my eye; then, all at once, the penny drops. “Oh my god. Was it Bex?”

  “I’m sorry?”

  “Mr. Beckett,” I say. “Jon Beckett, my English teacher. He—he and I—his family are these huge donors, and—” I break off. “Is that who it was?”

  For a long time Kalina doesn’t answer, and that’s how I know that it’s true.

  “For what it’s worth, I went to bat for you,” she tells me finally. “I’m really sorry it didn’t work out.”

  “Yeah,” I say, dimly aware of the bell for the end of the period ringing in the distance. I tilt my head back and look up at the tree line, my eyes blurring with tears. “Me too.”

  Thirty

  I stumble back into the building, my chest tight and my breath coming in frantic, ragged gulps. I feel like I could rip tree trunks in half with my bare hands or burst into flames in the middle of the hallway. In the back of my mind I know that not getting into my first-choice Ivy League university is the very definition of a champagne problem: after all, there are plenty of o
ther colleges. There are plenty of other paths.

  But this is the one I wanted. This is the one I earned.

  And he just . . . took it.

  There’s only one concrete thought in my head as I careen down the hallway:

  I have to find him.

  I know from back when we used to be friends, or whatever it is I thought we were, that Bex doesn’t have a class this period. I head for the newspaper office, but the room is dark and empty when I arrive, the Bridgewater screensavers glowing vacantly on the computer screens.

  I try the cafeteria next, then the admin suite where the copier is, coming up empty. I’m fully prepared to march right into the teachers’ lounge, to interrupt whatever secret, sacred stuff they all do in there with their microwave and their electric kettle, but instead, when I turn the corner near Ms. Klein’s lab there he is strolling down the hallway in my direction, his stupid messenger bag slung across his chest.

  I gasp, freezing for one icy moment before I manage to make any words. “Um,” I announce, the sound coming out phlegmy and garbled. “I need to talk to you.”

  Bex frowns. “Marin,” he says, with this tiny pause like I’m some random student he’s never taught before and he needs to search his mental contacts list for my name. “Shouldn’t you be in class?”

  “I don’t think it really matters at this point, does it?” I shoot back. “You made sure of that.”

  Bex’s eyes narrow for the briefest of moments. “Well, it’s pretty obvious you’re upset,” he observes mildly, like the emotion has nothing whatsoever to do with him, like I’m a character on a TV show he doesn’t much like. “Do you want to go somewhere and talk?”

  “Somewhere like your apartment, you mean?”

  It’s out before I can stop myself, and I think I shock us both in equal part: Bex’s lips thin, a muscle twitching erratically in his jaw.

  “This is really inappropriate,” he murmurs with a shake of his head, turning away and making to brush past me down the hallway. “If you want to have a conversation related to your schoolwork, you know where to—”

  I laugh out loud, hysterical and cackling like the witches from Macbeth. I know I sound exactly as crazy and ungovernable as everyone in this school already thinks I am, but for the first time since this all started I 100 percent do not care.

  “Seriously?” I can’t help asking. “I’m inappropriate?”

  “Enough.” All at once Bex turns around again, grabbing me by the arm and steering me down the hallway into the south stairwell, the door slamming shut behind us with a startling chunk. “Jesus Christ, Marin,” he says, bewildered. “What is your problem right now?”

  In the back of my head it occurs to me to be afraid of him. Instead, I stand my ground, planting my feet on the linoleum and willing my voice not to shake. “Did you talk to the Brown admissions board about me?”

  Bex’s expression doesn’t change, smooth and innocent as a Boy Scout’s, but his hands twitch at his sides.

  “I— What makes you think that?” he asks, and then he clears his throat, and that’s when I know I’ve got him.

  “You did.” Even after everything that’s happened there’s a part of me that didn’t believe it until right this moment, like surely no adult—no teacher—could be that awful and petty and mean. “Oh my god.”

  “First of all—”

  “How could you do this to me?” I interrupt, trying like all hell to swallow the sob I feel rising in my throat. Sounding a little emotional is one thing. Letting him see me cry is quite another. “Brown has been my dream my entire freaking life.”

  Bex lets out a low, mean scoff. “I ruined your dream?” he echoes contemptuously, like I’m a little kid who still believes in Santa Claus. “You tried to ruin my life, Marin.”

  For a moment I’m totally stunned. “I—what?”

  Bex rolls his eyes, scrubbing a hand through his hair like he honestly cannot believe me. “My god,” he says, “you are so spoiled. Everyone in this school is spoiled, but especially you.”

  I blink at him for a moment, caught up short. No adult has ever talked to me that way before. “How am I spoiled?” I ask, more baffled than offended. “You’re the one who—”

  “You can play victim all you want, kiddo,” Bex interrupts. “You can act like you had nothing to do with any of this. But you and I both know the truth.”

  I feel myself get very still. “What does that mean?”

  “Oh, don’t look at me like that. You’re not a baby deer.” Bex rolls his eyes. “You were always around, Marin. Hanging out in the office. Making up excuses to ask for rides.”

  “Wait a second,” I protest. “I never—”

  “Sitting on my fucking desk, for Christ’s sake,” Bex continues. “What vibe did you think you were giving off, exactly? You wanted it, Marin. And maybe you freaked out and regretted it afterward, but I’m not going to sit around and let you make me out to be some kind of fucking sex predator when we both know you were every bit as responsible for what happened as I was. More, probably.”

  I am crying now, I can’t even help it, tears slipping fast and silent down my face. For the first time in my life it’s like I’m all out of words.

  “Fuck you,” is all I can manage. I don’t wait for him to reply before I turn and walk away.

  Thirty-One

  I tear down the hallway toward the south exit, slamming the push bar and exploding out into the parking lot even though it’s the middle of the day. After all, it’s not like it matters—what are they possibly going to do to me at this point if they catch me skipping my afternoon classes? Tell me I can’t go to Brown?

  The parking lot is strangely quiet, just a couple of birds chattering away in the trees and the occasional car cruising by out on the street. I unlock the car with shaking hands, jamming the key into the ignition and nearly clipping a red Passat as I peel out of the parking lot, everything I should have said to Bex echoing meanly in my head. I’m spoiled? He’s the one with his name on the auditorium at an Ivy League university. I’m responsible for what happened between us? He’s the asshole who drove me to his fucking apartment.

  Hot tears blur my view of the road in front of me. I head down Juniper Hill Avenue, midday traffic thinning out as I pass the municipal baseball fields and the golf course development, the function hall where we had my eighth-grade graduation party. I don’t have any real destination in mind. I can’t go home and face my parents. I can’t turn around and go back to school. There’s a part of me that wants to just keep on driving—to speed right out of this stupid town, to keep my foot pressed to the pedal until I get all the way to the Atlantic Ocean.

  Finally I head for Sunrise without ever quite making the conscious decision to do it, instinct and muscle memory taking over. My gram is the only person I can imagine being around right now.

  Camille is coming out of a suite down the hall as I step off the elevator, a blood-pressure cuff dangling from one hand. Her scrubs have rubber ducks parading across them today, her Crocs the same bright, cheery yellow.

  “Marin,” she says, looking surprised—and there’s that uncomfortable look again, that flicker of trepidation at the sight of me. “What are you doing here, hm? Shouldn’t you be in school?”

  “Reading day,” I tell her, surprised at how smoothly the lie comes out of my mouth. “I just need to talk to my gram real quick.”

  “It’s not really a good time, sweetheart. You should come back later.”

  That surprises me—in all the years I’ve been coming here, Camille has never said anything like that to me before. “Why?” I ask, frowning. “What’s going on?”

  “She’s having a tough day, that’s all. She was a little agitated this morning. It’s probably better if you just let her rest.”

  Camille’s tone is light—friendly, even—but there’s an underlying warning I’ve never heard from her before. “What do you mean, agitated?” I ask, trying to keep my own voice even. “Is she okay?”

&nb
sp; Camille nods. “She’s fine, sweetheart. She just—you know. Needs to take it easy until she’s feeling more like herself.”

  “What, like she’s not remembering stuff?” I shake my head. “That’s okay though. I don’t mind.”

  “Marin—”

  “She knows who I am,” I promise. “It’s fine, Camille, honestly. I’ll be quick.”

  Camille takes a step closer then—to try to block my path down the hallway, maybe, or to catch me by the arm—but I’m too fast and too determined and possibly a little too wound up, skirting past her and slipping down the brightly lit corridor to the door of Gram’s suite. It’s all the way closed today, which is unusual, but I knock lightly before pushing it open, same as always.

  “Hi, Gram,” I call, all slightly manic sunshine—then stop where I’m standing in the doorway, caught short. The woman sitting vacantly on the love seat doesn’t look anything like my grandmother. She’s not wearing any lipstick, her mouth so pale it’s nearly vanished into the rest of her face. Her white hair is a matted mess. She’s still in her pajamas, the undone top button revealing her sharp, jutting collarbones. Most of all she just looks frail.

  “Who are you?” she asks, her blue eyes watery and suspicious.

  I bite my lip. “Hey Gram,” I say again, careful to keep my voice breezy. “It’s me. Marin.”

  Gram shakes her head, stubborn. “I don’t know you.”

  “I’m your granddaughter,” I remind her, working hard to swallow down the sudden lump in my throat, knowing instinctively that getting emotional is only going to make this worse—which, I think bitterly, is something of a theme in my life lately. “I’m Dyana’s daughter, remember?”

  I take a step closer, but Gram holds her hands up, like the victim in an old murder mystery on the classics channel.

  “Who? I don’t know you,” she repeats. “Where’s the nurse?” Then, raising her voice toward the open door: “Hello! There’s a strange woman in here! I need help!”

  “Gram,” I plead, “come on,” but Camille is already here, laying a firm, gentle palm on my back.