So in July there I was, at Ohare airport, waiting to board a flight to Bozeman. Which I thought sounded like a good dogs name but not a place I wanted to spend my summer. Little did I know what I would find there. Did you ever lay back and see so many stars overhead that they blurred together like snow? Well, I have. And it was amazing to think that I spent every night of my life until that day in Montana looking up and not knowing what was really there. Light from the nearby city of Chicago makes it impossible to see the stars, except for the Big Dipper and a few others, and mostly the sky is sort of pink. I had no idea what the sky was supposed to look like. You can’t even see the constellations where I live.
Did you ever stand in a braided river? Or watch a moose try to get a piece of sawgrass off it’s antler? Or a beaver go back and forth making it’s damn? Or spot mountain lion tracks and wonder how far away it was? Well, I have. These are the things I did during the day, when at night we had the incredible stars, in Montana, in the Bitterroot Range. But the coolest thing about my school trip to Montana are the wild horses, or mustangs. They were completely wild. They had never had to take the bit (that metal part that horses have stuffed in their mouths all day) and when we went horseback riding along the trails and saw them in the fields way out, it’s like the horse I was on was jealous, and I wanted to get down and take all the tack off of him and just let him free. I guess I think it’s like seeing the stars in Montana. You don’t know about how it’s supposed to be until you get out of your own prison, and my prison is Winnetka, Illinois, and like the horse I wished I could run free.
I know it sounds spoiled to call Winnetka a prison but I realized this summer that so much of the time when I react with anger to what my parents tell me to do or sign me up for its because I am at a time in my life when I am starting to find so many things I want to study and do. I loved the mustangs because they represented for me a way of living that was about my own independence and my own interests. I had no idea that I would love the mountains so much, or as I said what the sky looks like at night when you aren’t blinded by the city. And I guess growing up is a little bit like that. Your parents shine so brightly that you don’t really know what’s out there until you get away from it all by yourself. We need parents, like cities, to keep us safe and give us the things we need to survive. But we also need open fields and dark night skies so we can discover the things in our own hearts.
I’ve spent my time in high school working on things that I liked and that were important to my parents and teachers, like tennis, guitar, peer leader and homework. I feel very lucky to have been able to do all these things. But I was surprised to learn this summer that I feel passionate about things that are completely new to me, like caring for the wilderness or finding ways to be sure that wild horses are protected in our nation’s west. It has made me eager to get back to school and history and science classes, and I’ve signed up for US Government so I can learn about the laws that govern our land. When my parents ask me about these changes, I sometimes find I don’t want to share with them everything that I’ve discovered, not because it will prove they were right about the trip this summer but because it’s important to keep our own interests to ourselves sometimes, when they are brand new. But when I think about college, it is with a new sense of excitement for all the things I will discover there. College, like Montana, will show me things I never knew were there, and give me the chance to find new directions for my passions. I believe that ____ will be the best place for me to explore my new interests.
To: [email protected]
From: [email protected]
Anne
Please find attached Cristina’s personal statement, which I’ve typed up for her as she has no computer and the school’s lab has been closed since the TA is out this week. Can you send on to Blanchard, please?
Thx
Michelle
“No, Mami,” I said. “It’s the supreme law of the land.”
“The high law?” asked my mother.
“Supreme law of the land,” I repeated.
We had been working on this question, “What is the Constitution?”, along with 100 others to prepare for the United States Citizenship Test. It was all we had talked about in my house for many weeks. My mother knows what the Constitution is, but we’ve been told that it is important that she give exactly the answer the testers want and not try to explain herself. It was late and Mom was tired. She had been working all day. My sisters offered to clean up dinner so I could keep quizzing Mom. She had only three days to prepare.
The preparation made me think about tests. This test, for example, was one that I would never have to take, being born in the United States. The answers were not things that any of my classmates would know. And truly, I wondered if my teachers could answer all of them, or that policeman by the front doors, or the principal, even. I was tempted to go up to them and ask: What are the stripes on the flag for? What about the stars? What is the First Amendment? But I know that these aren’t the things that actually make citizens. It seems unfair to me that my mami should have to take this test while my sisters and I don’t even have to learn these things, not even in school, to pass. It’s enough just to be here.
But there are other tests, we all face them. For me, it’s every test and quiz in school that my teachers prepare. If I want to go to college, I have to perform excellently on every single one of them. No exceptions. But the harder tests are out of school, I know, and they are harder to explain. There is the test of a very long day: can you get three little sisters up, dressed, and ready for school, feed them breakfast, and then do well on your own schoolwork? Can you also pick them up and make them dinner and make sure they are healthy and ready for bed before you start your homework? There is the test of doing this day after day, and coming home and finding out that it’s still not enough, because maybe Mami has had to take a week off because her back is out again, and then there is not much money for that week. So this new test is: Can you figure out how to cook meals without any new ingredients from the store? We would do very well on the Citizenship test if one question was: You have beans, rice, water, salt, and cheese. Make three dishes for five people!
There are tests that are even more complicated, such as the test of how to be a top student at school, which means to speak a certain way and act a certain way, and then walk home and not have anyone give you trouble, which means to leave all that school behind and be just the kid that everyone knows. You have two vocabularies and two sets of voices. You say Yes in one word and Si or Yeah in the other. If you don’t want trouble, you must pass this test every day.
I think again about the supreme law of the land. We are lucky to live in a country with the Constitution, which guarantees freedom for all of us who are citizens. Of course it is important to test new citizens to ensure they understand and can uphold the Constitution. But when I see Mami with flashcards in her apron, I wish I could go with her to take the test, and stand up with her and have her perfectly say, not only, “The Constitution is the supreme law of the land,” but also explain how many years she has worked to create our home, and raise her daughters to speak English even though she barely does, and how she takes only Sunday off, all because she wants her children to have this dream of a country. Because in my opinion, she has already passed the test, every single day. And I think that is an honor for even the Constitution.
So Cristina’s familiarity with the United States government that first Saturday morning stemmed from her preparations with her mother for the citizenship test rather than her general acuity or, God forbid, a comprehensive U.S. history and politics curriculum. Perhaps she was even savvier than Anne had guessed, communicating to Mr. Blanchard and all his cronies that she was legal and that there was no tangle they should anticipate. It was just spicy enough to serve their need for the subordinate voice, defensive in her pride, but of course all within the lines, so they needn’t be forced to address actual injustice. Or maybe she just wrote abo
ut the thing that had been shadowing her family’s life for months or years, and got lucky in aiming it at the right sort of sop. Anne clipped Michelle’s terse headnote, added a graceful note of thanks, and forwarded the essay on to Gideon Blanchard. It’d do nicely. She busied herself with other stray notes, all “urgent.” Mrs. Pfaff had written to ask where on the Common App to indicate that Hunter was left-handed. Dr. Kantor was concerned that William’s stated first choice of intended major—theater arts—would communicate a “soft” academic commitment. Then came two notes in succession that sickened her:
Annie,
I’m back here in lonesome La-La Land without you and I have an idea for a scene:
I’m just coming in from a shoot, and it’s been a long day. You’ve been working yourself on your latest book, about Victorian novelists, and you have a screenplay on the side that your agent is hassling you about because producers are fighting over it. We’re both exhausted and tired of pleasing others but it’s a warm night, so we head out with Mitchell to hike Runyon and watch the sun set. The city is hazy but we’re up in the clear, the lights on the hills are winking on, Mitch is getting lost in the shadows in the brush. We drop him home, shower, and make love. Then we head out to supper under the stars so you can tell me about the chapter you’re working on and I can regale you with tales of my demanding co-stars. Maybe we’re talking about making a baby, once our projects are wrapped? I see a bottle of wine on the table, a chocolate dessert. Two spoons. It’s a late evening. Then we go home.
Wanted to see what you thought. Notes, please.
Love-
M
Dear Anne
Mr. Blanchard thanks you for your e-mail today and requests that you phone him at your earliest convenience. He may be reached on the numbers below.
Regards
Brenda Hollow, executive assistant to Gideon Blanchard
As with previous Blanchard communications, the body of the note was dwarfed by the lengthy legal disclaimers printed at the bottom, and for a moment Anne smiled to think that Martin’s e-mails would better be printed with such warnings of improper use. You’d know how to handle them. The humor softened her, and then, dangerously, opened toward gratitude. She dialed Martin’s cell. He’d taken the time—she should thank him. So it was early; but who minded a loving voice? The call was shunted immediately to voice mail, sharp as a rebuke. Anne stiffened. Suitably armed, she hung up and dialed Blanchard instead.
She was asked to hold. After much clicking, he came on the line. All business this time.
“I’ve received the essay,” he opened. “Very nice, very moving.” He paused.
Anne felt the shifting in her gut that accompanied the challenge of an older adult’s strong will. Her confidence resettled itself, but it was precarious. She pictured Cristina—her long skirts rolled three times at the waist to stay up, her T-shirts, obviously donated, too tight or cut for men. She waited.
“But my first allegiance is, and must be, to my daughter,” continued Blanchard. The partial non sequitur, and the tone, invoked a podium. Anne scrambled to figure out what was going on. He was taking a totally different line with her now, and having done so, he had distanced himself immensely—he was more a stranger to her than he’d been when she had known him only by reputation. And what could she say? Hang on, what about lunch? I thought we hit it off ? She imagined him in the courtroom; he must sound like this. Then it occurred to her, suddenly, that Mrs. Blanchard was silently on the line.
“Of course it is,” Anne replied, in the most grown-up voice she could manage.
“And I cannot proceed with fast-tracking the application of another student if it is to the detriment of my own daughter’s planning. Or, God forbid, her future.”
How did he arrive at that formula, the one at the expense of the other? Where was this coming from? But she just said, “No, you can’t.”
“So you’ll understand why I may well have to stand down.”
“I do,” Anne said, because what else could she say? “Cristina will be very disappointed.”
“There’s nothing keeping her from applying by the regular routes, of course,” he said, as if correcting Anne. She wondered for a moment if she had in fact been greedy to ask for help for Cristina. Then the logistical tangle reasserted itself in her mind. “Mr. Blanchard, the placement office at her high school isn’t even set up to handle the application-fee waiver. There are holes in her transcript through no fault of her own, there’s the financial-aid situation—”
Blanchard interrupted her. “Then you will have to reassure her that her qualifications are sound,” he said. “And help her to understand that life hands all of us a few curveballs. It’s how we handle them that reveals our character.”
“I doubt that will be news to her,” Anne said.
“I’m sure there are plenty of wonderful schools that will welcome her with open arms.”
The wagons were circled. She could practically feel Mrs. Blanchard nodding on the line. It was clear she was not to mention anything about lunch at Spiaggia or the conversation she and Blanchard had there. Though how she knew this, she couldn’t say.
“You, with your experience,” he went on, “will be able to steer her toward the best outcomes.”
She imagined him as a spider, spinning out ego, his silk growing thinner and thinner. For a moment she felt exhausted on his behalf: the solid public image, the sodden private self. She almost sympathized with him. Clearly Sadie was upset, and now she was refusing to apply to Duke, no matter who wrote her essays. And her mother must have lowered the boom. Fine, then. “Mr. Blanchard,” she dared, “what if I can talk to Sadie? What if this is a simple misunderstanding, and we’re able to help her to feel confident again about her next step?”
“Anne, could I ask you to wait just a moment? Something’s come up.” More clicks, and the firm’s holding music. Then Mr. Blanchard’s voice again: “Sorry about that. Well, we’d have to see, of course, but if Sadie is able to move forward, I’d be able to support the other girl’s application, I suppose.”
“She’s really very upset,” blurted Mrs. Blanchard, betraying herself.
“Margaret,” he scolded.
“Sorry, Anne, but I’m here, too,” she protested quickly, and then recovered her haughty tone. “I’m a mother. My daughter is miserable. I told Gid this would happen . . . That girl should never have come to our home.”
“Margaret, easy,” warned Blanchard.
“I understand,” Anne said, addressing them both. “Let me come talk to her.”
“Well, I’d think you’d come talk to her anyway,” Mr. Blanchard said, angry to have been exposed. “You are contracted to work with her. We are paying you, after all, and I believe I have made my expectations clear.” He paused for an extra second. Then he added, “And she didn’t invite this upon herself.”
“Yes, she doesn’t deserve this,” said Mrs. Blanchard. “That girl can go anywhere, can’t she? Aren’t they all looking for kids like that? Why does it have to be Duke?”
It didn’t, of course. But if Anne and Michelle couldn’t communicate somehow to an elite admissions office, at a school with the resources to fund her, that Cristina was the real deal, and then, somehow, give her mother the confidence to let her daughter travel thousands of miles to an unknown place of high stone gates for four years in directions unknown, especially after forcing her to fill out those FAFSA forms, which terrified anyone, and asking provocative questions about birth parents and bank accounts, not to mention the small amount of tuition almost any school would require, well . . . it was a long way down to a local school, community college, whatever was easiest and had night courses to accommodate work. Anne had been relying, in part, on Mr. Blanchard’s pride, and here he and his wife diverged. They both loved feeling like saviors, but only he was the trustee, and only he was the alumnus. Anne realized Mrs. Blanchard’s alma mater had never come up. Given her public persona, it most certainly would have, had she wished it to. So C
ristina’s matriculation at Duke would be his victory alone. And any cost to Sadie at all would be a price too high for her mother to bear.
“It doesn’t have to be Duke,” Anne conceded.
“No,” said both Blanchards.
“Although,” Anne corrected, “Duke would be lucky to have her. As they will be to have Sadie.” She paused to be sure they heard this. Her support for Sadie was sincere. “Listen, what if I come by tomorrow? We can talk this out. Does that work for Sadie?”
“I’ll make sure it does,” Blanchard said.
SADIE HAD A spectacular pout. Her lovely bow mouth, inherited from her father, had been drawn to a fierce, petulant point. She hurled herself into a chair and crossed her arms. “I have nothing to say,” she said.
“Okay,” Anne replied, looking around Sadie’s room, which she had never seen. It faced the front of the house, where the street trees were visible in yellow and green through heavily swagged curtains. The canopied bed was a king. The entire room appeared to be slipcovered. On the walls, posters of pop stars alternated with collages Sadie had made of her various destinations—Sri Lanka, Calcutta, Bali—which resembled travel brochures spattered with the scissored-out faces of family and ragged locals. A blank expanse was explained by a black-and-blue Duke banner in a heap on the floor. Meanwhile, Anne noticed Sadie studying her with smoldering eyes, and let her continue; she knew the girl was angry, and her parents would have stoked this, too. It was okay. Anne had to admit relief at the way Sadie’s parents had aligned themselves behind their daughter. She hadn’t thought they had such loyalty in them.
“I mean, what the hell am I supposed to make of it?” Sadie went on. A few breaths more and she was crying. Her face was immediately sodden. Anne saw that there had been days of this. “My parents tell me my entire life to do this, do that, to prepare myself for the future. And it’s always Duke, Duke, Duke. So I bust my ass, I mean my butt, I do all this volunteering, which of course I really love, I don’t mean to say I don’t see that it’s important, but I do it all the time, really every time, and sometimes I really just want to, like, go to the beach or just hang out. And I don’t. And there’s homework and sports and, just, everything. And then there’s Dad’s whole big law thing, and Mom’s always doing her thing, and Charles is just a kid, so it’s me. And the whole time, you know, I feel like I have this thing that’s mine, and then I find out that all along I didn’t have to do any of this, I could have just stayed home from school, I could have gone to the crappiest high school in town, it doesn’t matter, and I could still go to Duke because my dad will make them take me and meanwhile this girl who has nothing that I can never have is, like, the apple of everyone’s eyes.”
Early Decision Page 15
