Jane Austen in Scarsdale

by Paula Marantz Cohen

  “I’d like to discuss a few of our students who I think would be good prospects for Amherst,” she explained now, knowing that if it had been Sean Dunne, they would have spent twenty minutes playfully teasing each other and then segued into a brief but serious discussion of each of the three students she had in mind for Amherst.

  “We don’t talk about students at this stage of the process,” said the officer curtly. “If we have questions about an application, we’ll call.” And there went five years of cultivating Amherst over margaritas down the drain.

  This sort of thing made Anne particularly sensitive when she was on the receiving end of calls. Like the one she got after lunch that day from an intrepid admissions officer at Molson College, a little-known institution somewhere in the Midwest, who had been calling Anne once a week since school began. While the guidance counselors called the more popular colleges, the less popular colleges called the guidance counselors. It was just another version of that age-old law of social dynamics that happens to find its purest manifestation in a high school cafeteria.

  The Molson admissions officer had some of the annoying tenacity of a telephone marketer-—which, in a manner of speaking, he was. Molson had been trying for several years to claw its way from a third-tier position in U. S. News & World Report, the bible of college ranking, to a low second-tier position—an aspiration that Molson’s president had articulated to the Board of Trustees alongside his other visionary goal: to amend the name of the institution from Molson College to Thomas Molson College, thereby mitigating its evocation of a certain brand of beer.

  “I’m calling about Toby Tucker,” said the admissions officer now.

  Anne knew that Toby Tucker was being courted by many third-tier schools, less because of his grades and scores, which were unimpressive, than because he was “cool.” This value used to have the limited function of getting someone a date for the prom and the adulation of underclassmen, but it had now become a marketable commodity, at least in the view of certain lesser-known colleges. For these schools, the student was seen as a valuable trendsetter, who could entice other, perhaps better, students to go where he did. How colleges like Molson determined the coolness factor of students like Toby Tucker was anyone’s guess, though Anne suspected that they resorted to consulting middle school yearbooks, flagging the “Most Popular” and “Cutest Couple” honorees, and checking local newspapers for names of underclassmen elected to the prom court.

  Just the other day Toby Tucker had come into Anne’s office holding a bunch of letters. “All these schools want me,” he announced.

  Anne looked at the letters. Each was a personalized pitch by schools of minor reputation who had somehow gotten wind of Toby’s coolness. Some of them were offering full scholarships and additional stipends if he agreed to come.

  Toby, to his credit, was too cool to care about any of this. He had come to Anne because his mother had told him to. He wanted to go to Franklin and Marshall, where his older brother had gone. “I wish they wouldn’t send me these things,” he complained, “because now my parents won’t let me go to F&M unless I get a scholarship.” The lure of a free ride—or, at least, a reduced fare—posed difficulties for many students, whose parents might otherwise not have thought twice about paying full price.

  Anne felt that there was a certain irony in the fact that being cool, while it had gotten Toby many invitations, might now prevent him from going to the party he wanted to go to.

  “This Tucker kid is a ripple kid,” said the admissions officer on the phone, implying that Toby was likely to inspire others to follow him, like ripples in a stream, wherever he chose to go. “We can promise Tucker a full scholarship and a starter position on the baseball team if he comes, but we can’t keep admitting kids who are going to blow us off.”

  “I really don’t know Toby’s plans,” Anne said warily.

  “And if you did, you wouldn’t say,” concluded the admissions officer.

  “Well, it’s not my place to say,” said Anne. “But you know.”

  “I didn’t say that.” She switched the subject. “What about Paul Wasser? His grades are just as good as Tucker’s.” What she really meant was that they were just as bad. “And he definitely wants to go to Molson.” Paul actually did want to go to this lackluster school: He had an uncle who lived nearby, and he liked cold weather. Before Molson had begun to claw its way toward the second tier, this would have been recommendation enough.

  “Which means that Tucker doesn’t want to go?” deduced the admissions officer.

  “I didn’t say that. I just said that Paul is very gung ho about the place.”

  “But Wasser isn’t a ripple kid.”

  “He’s a very nice boy.”

  “Nice won’t get us squat.”

  Anne was silent for a moment. “I don’t think that speaks well for your values.”

  The officer cleared his throat. “Tell you what,” he said slyly. “You tell me the truth about Toby Tucker, and I’ll guarantee that this Wasser kid gets in, no matter what.”

  “That’s blackmail,” said Anne, recalling that Trevor Hopgood wanted to resort to this tactic with his father, and wondering if she had spotted a trend.

  “It’s negotiation,” corrected the admissions officer.

  “I’ll get back to you,” said Anne.

  If she could find out if F&M was going to offer Toby a scholarship, she could tell Molson that he wasn’t interested and ensure Paul Wasser’s place. It wasn’t exactly the sort of thing that appealed to her, but there was an understandable logic behind it. No school wanted to accept someone who would ruin their “yield” (the number of students admitted who agreed to go). And no school wanted to be the garbage dump for the college bound, the place for those who would spend four years griping about how they’d really wanted to go somewhere else. Hence the willingness of the Molson admissions officer to do some under-the-table deals to make sure that things worked out in their favor.

  The whole thing had a definite cloak-and-dagger feel—and no doubt the mob would soon have a piece of the action, if it didn’t already. Meanwhile, Anne got on the phone with F&M.

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  AFTER RECEIVING CRYPTIC ASSURANCE REGARDING TOBY TUCKER’S scholarship (“Don’t quote me; don’t even say you spoke to me,” whispered the F&M admissions officer in a conspiratorial tone), Anne spent the afternoon meeting with a parade of students about their college choices.

  First came Aurora Mendelson, a bright but timid girl who, Anne suggested, should apply to Smith. It had been her experience that girls who had a hard time opening their mouths in high school blossomed in an all-female environment, though sometimes with the adjunct of a nose ring and a butch haircut. The first lines of Aurora’s college essay suggested she might be a good candidate for such a transformation: “There’s a famous ad that reads: ‘I am woman, hear me roar.’ I, Aurora Mendelson, want to go to college to learn to roar.”

  Next came Chelsea Beemer, a star field hockey player, who was being courted by a number of top schools.

  After pondering why Chelsea was coveted above, say, Skyler Landow, Fenimore’s resident math genius, Anne had concluded that an action shot of Chelsea in her shockingly short field hockey skirt would look better in college promotional materials than a photo of Skyler working out a formula in a library carrel.

  “I have a real problem,” said Chelsea, furrowing her blond brow. “Stanford and Dartmouth both really want me, and I really like them both.” She might have been referring to two attractive guys who wanted to take her to the prom. “Dartmouth is really pretty, but Stanford is in California and has really nice weather.” Chelsea appeared genuinely confused by these competing attributes. Anne observed that “weather” might have the advantage over “pretty” if you played field hockey, which seemed to shed sudden light on the matter for Chelsea, who realized that she had favored Stanford all along.

  Next came Cal Minuti, who was an officer in junior ROTC. “I want to go to
Yale because it is an excellent school and has an excellent ROTC program,” his application essay began. The only problem, as Anne pointed out, was that Yale didn’t have an ROTC program.

  Cal was followed by Kyra Pearlstein, who wanted to apply early to Bowdoin, but had already prepared her backup applications to Antioch, Bard, Middlebury, F&M, Gettysburg, Skid-more, Hampshire, Bennington, Emory, Wesleyan, Haverford, Carnegie-Mellon, Rice, and the University of Virginia.

  “Don’t you think you should eliminate a few of your backup schools?” suggested Anne. “The application fees alone are going to mount up.”

  “I like to be well covered,” explained Kyra, “and I’ll pay the fees from my bat mitzvah money. I saved it for a rainy day, which I figure this is.” There was no arguing with this sort of reasoning.

  Kyra’s essay was in the fulsome style characteristic of girls who were told, from an early age, that they had a creative flair (often to compensate for their abysmal math skills):

  “When I was a baby at my mother’s knee,” began Kyra’s essay, “I did not have goals, aspirations, or dreams. Like a puppy, I rolled and tumbled, knowing no reason or purpose for my actions. However, as I grew, I began to aspire to more. I began to study and question. In time, a dream began to take shape. That dream was to go to Bowdoin (Antioch, Bard, Middlebury, etc.).”

  “Very nice,” said Anne, who saw no point in trying to change this sort of essay (it would be like editing air).

  After Kyra came Albert Odoms, whose application essay began: “A young boy went to the top of a mountain and said: ‘Lord, I am seeking an education. Help me to that education, Lord.’”

  Albert’s top choices were Brandeis and Yeshiva.

  “Brandeis and Yeshiva?” asked Anne, mystified. Albert was the son of the Reverend Charles Odoms, pastor of Fenimore’s First Baptist Church, a black evangelical congregation.

  “My dad wants me to choose a college where God is respected,” explained Albert. “He doesn’t care about race or religious affiliation, so long as there’s a spiritual component. Brandeis and Yeshiva are very spiritual, and they’re both offering me full scholarships.”

  Anne commended this open-minded approach, but suggested that Brandeis would be the better choice. The predominance of forelocks and black hats at Yeshiva might strain even the most ecumenical spirit.

  After Albert came Sophie Kwan, a sophomore, who announced her intention of transferring to Yonkers for the rest of high school: “If I transfer I could be, like, salutatorian. Plus there aren’t as many smart Asians in Yonkers, so I’d stand out.” Anne told Sophie that these were not good reasons to transfer.

  Finally came Lyle Peterson, her last appointment of the day. Lyle was one of those superserious students who keep track of their GPAs the way dieters keep track of their calorie intake— no sooner did a teacher return a quiz than out came his calculator. Most parents wished they had kids who were more scrupulous and focused, but Lyle was an example of why you should be careful of what you wish for.

  “I want to apply to a college that will get me into a top medical school, so I can get into a top internship and residency program, and then into a top fellowship program in cardiothoracic surgery,” announced Lyle as soon as he sat down. He extracted a spread sheet from his briefcase (kids like Lyle Peterson never carried backpacks). “I’ve already compiled the average MCAT scores, the availability of summer internships, and the percentage of premed students who go on to earn seven figure incomes for twenty universities. I’ve narrowed my top choices down to ten.”

  Anne was momentarily speechless. Most kids could barely plan beyond the next day, which was why the so-called “long-term senior project” might just as well be named the “night-from-hell senior project.” Most everyone wrote it the night before—except kids like Lyle, who started working on it in the ninth grade.

  “Don’t you think you’re jumping the gun a little bit in thinking about medical school and residency programs when you haven’t even started college?” asked Anne. “You might discover you don’t want to be a doctor.”

  Lyle looked at her as though she were crazy. “My dad’s a car-diothoracic surgeon and I want to be one too,” he asserted firmly. “I’ve been a cardiothoracic surgeon for Halloween ever since the first grade.”

  “O-K,” said Anne slowly, “I guess that means you’re really serious about being a cardiothoracic surgeon.”

  “I am,” said Lyle bluntly.

  “Then why don’t we discuss some quality-of-life factors. Do you think you’d be happier in a small school or a large one? Do you prefer an urban environment or a quieter, more rural setting?”

  “That stuff doesn’t matter,” Lyle pronounced dismissively. “I’ll just be in the library and the lab all the time anyway.”

  “All the time?” asked Anne, dazzled by this image of relentless industry.

  “I suppose I’ll have to go to a party now and then in order to meet a girl,” he conceded. “My dad says it helps your concentration if you’re married by the time you go to medical school.”

  What could she say? Anne found Lyle’s humorless tenacity of purpose unnerving, but she could imagine that someday she wouldn’t. One spoke of people growing into their nose or their feet; Lyle would doubtless grow into his personality. Which only went to prove that weirdos in high school could one day grow up to become highly respected cardiothoracic surgeons.

  As Anne prepared to leave for the day, she glanced down at the blotter on her desk and was jolted to see the name she had traced, without thinking, in the course of the afternoon. It was the sort of thing silly high-school girls did, reflexively writing the names of their crushes in their notebooks as the teacher droned on. Now, here she was, a grown woman, engaging in the same sort of ridiculous behavior. She tore off the sheet of blotter paper and crumpled it in her hand. She would not be haunted, she told herself. She would not succumb to mooning over a man she had not seen in thirteen years, who was engaged to someone else.

  CHAPTER TWENTY

  > As ANNE WAS ABOUT TO LEAVE THE OFFICE, CINDY LOOKED UP from her murmurings with Gus about whether she should get another piercing in her left ear.

  “Oh, by the way, Ms. Ehrlich,” said Cindy, “I was just going to ring you. Dr. Flockhart called to say the mom of that new student, Cutler, is coming in tomorrow morning and wants to meet with you and Dr. Flockhart. It’ll be at nine A.M. in Dr. Flockhart’s office. He said there’d be bagels.” Cindy looked over at Gus, who gazed adoringly at her for being able to impart so much information so accurately.

  “Thanks,” muttered Anne. But instead of hurrying past the main office as she usually did on her way out of the school, she stopped and went in. Gwendolen, the principal’s secretary, had left, and Vince was sitting at the front desk, trying to get a handle on the school’s tardiness policy. He looked grateful to see her. “I can’t get this straight,” he said. “Is it three latenesses equals a Saturday detention—or two? And is it an after-school detention if the kid skips homeroom? And do they go to the nurse with the late slip after ten A.M. or to the main office?” The rules in running a high school were labyrinthine, and it sometimes seemed as if no one actually knew them.

  After Anne had helped Vince wrestle for a while with the fine points of the policy, she interjected casually: “What time is Pauline Cutler coming in tomorrow?”

  “The Cutlers are coming at nine,” said Vince.

  “Cindy said the mom was coming in.”

  “The mom and the uncle. He called this morning, suggesting that you be in on the meeting—kill two birds with one stone, so to speak.”

  Anne was silent, wondering if this was Ben’s way of getting her input while not having to meet with her alone.

  “We just got the transcripts from the boy’s previous schools,” continued Vince, taking a file from his desk. “Here you go”—he handed it over. “Not exactly strong in some areas, as you can see.”

  Glancing at the transcripts, Anne could see that, indeed, Jonathan Cut
ler had received mostly B’s and a few C’s in math, and had hardly done better in science, though he had consistent A’s in English, history, and philosophy (a course taught at the American high school in Calcutta). “Problematic,” said Vince. “We might get him into Bennington or Bard, but I don’t know about Columbia.”

  “We’ll see,” said Anne, ruminatively. “Perhaps Columbia wouldn’t be the best fit.”

  “But this guy’s got his heart set on it. He mentioned it to me again on the phone.”

  “Yes, but he’s not going,” Anne reminded him.

  Vince sighed. “I know, I know. It’s what you always say. And I’m not saying that you’re wrong. Only we can’t all be as high-minded as you.”

  “I’m not so high-minded,” protested Anne.

  “You are,” insisted Vince, with a mixture of annoyance and admiration. “You’re the Jiminy Cricket of Fenimore, and I’m Pinocchio.” He touched his nose—which was actually rather flat, having been broken twice on the football field.

  Anne laughed but returned to the point. “Don’t you think it’s our responsibility to stand up for the kids when the parents start to bully them? I’m not saying I entirely blame the parents, but they lose perspective. The least we can do is help them get it back.”

  “I’m not disagreeing with you,” said Vince in a harried tone. “Only there are other factors to consider. Some of these parents have a lot of clout. You remember what happened to Fliegler when he criticized the new sidewalks in town in his biology class? Didn’t get tenure. Are you going to tell me that there wasn’t a relationship between Fliegler’s not getting tenure and the fact that Tim Iorrio is on the board and has the paving contract for Fenimore Township?”

  “Yes, I am,” said Anne. “Fliegler pinched Julia Sheffler’s behind as she was leaving his bio lab. I think that was rather good cause to deny him tenure.”

  “Possibly,” said Vince, “but still . . .”

  “Vince,” said Anne, with some fervor, “you’re a fine leader. You’ve put Fenimore on the map in so many ways: academically, athletically, in terms of the quality of guest speakers”—she added this as a reward for his having agreed to a generous honorarium for a guest poet for Poetry Day (which meant that she could call Peter Jacobson with a formal invitation). “You have an impeccable reputation. You don’t have to buckle to anyone!”