Early Decision

by Lacy Crawford

  “Mrs. Blanchard,” Anne said, “I’m sorry you’re under the impression that I’m not trying to help your daughter, because I really am. I like Sadie very much. But I’m not going to be lectured by you.”

  Anne made some quick calculations. Sadie was close to her final essay drafts; she’d get into Duke and likely Duke alone, but that wasn’t any the worse for Anne’s influence. She could just end the whole engagement right now. She had more than earned her first payment, and it was more than fair to forgo any balance. The novelty of being fired kept her from crumbling. This sort of thing had never happened before. Usually, parents sent her champagne and houseplants.

  Anne continued: “If you think, in fact, that I’m not able or willing to help Sadie, then we should stop working together immediately. I’ll be happy to forward all the essay drafts and materials I have to you.”

  “Oh, Anne,” said Mrs. Blanchard, her tone shifting again. There was a long pause. “Dear, I’m sorry I didn’t see this before.”

  Anne waited while Margaret Blanchard took a long, audible breath.

  “I should have done better than to come down on you,” she continued. “I can be formidable, I know. And now you’re trying to just run away. You’re young, you’re alone. Do you have a partner? A boyfriend? I don’t think you’re married.”

  Anne took the bait; in her confusion, it seemed like self-defense. “Boyfriend.”

  “Long time?”

  “Um, five years.”

  “Ooh, yes. Excellent. Listen. You really should attend my seminar next weekend. It’s oversubscribed, of course, but I could make an exception for you. ‘Strife to Wife: Empowering Women to the Altar.’ It’s right here in Chicago. My assistant can get you signed up. You must be lonely. We should get you sorted.”

  “Oh, thanks, but my boyfriend’s in L.A. He’s an actor. He can’t be here next weekend.”

  “Oh, it’s not for him!” she said, aghast. “No partners allowed! This is a safe place for the girls to come together. We like to blame the men, of course, but we have to get our own homes in order first, now, don’t we?”

  “What?”

  “Listen, Anne, there’s nothing to be ashamed of. You must want to move forward with your life. Come next weekend, you’ll see.”

  “Kind of a busy time of year for me, as I’m sure you can imagine,” Anne said quickly. “But thanks so much.”

  “Shame, dear. A real shame. I had thought we might be able to connect here.”

  “I doubt it,” Anne said, exhausted.

  She practically heard the flame shoot up. Mrs. Blanchard’s voice lost its dulcet tones and flattened, like sharpening steel. “In that case,” she said, “we will be clear on a few things. First, my daughter will complete her applications with you, and I will read every one of her essays. Second, there will be no more talk of the Mexican girl’s desire to attend Duke or anywhere else until Sadie has applied and we are settled.”

  So there it was. Anne pictured Cristina’s file, meticulously compiled, the essays and forms and waivers and recommendations, all of it in a red folder Michelle carried to and from Cicero North every day. She didn’t dare leave it in the office lest the school’s own darkness swallow up the possibility. To think it came down to this woman, Margaret Blanchard, life coach to the stars, who had never even met Cristina—how strange this world could be, the way money tangled up lives so very far from its own concerns.

  There was nothing to say.

  “I hope you’ll consider my offer to help you work on your antagonism,” said Margaret Blanchard. “That’s an opportunity lots of women would die for, you know.”

  If I were a stronger person, thought Anne, I’d go to her damn seminar and write funny e-mails to my friends at night. I’d use it to better understand poor Sadie, I’d give this woman what she wants so Cristina could get on with Duke and all of this would end. But she herself wasn’t that nimble of heart. And she was all but gagging on the offer of life correction.

  Then in a flash she thought, My God, is this how my students feel?

  But Mrs. Blanchard was making excuses for hanging up, a busy life and a world that needed her desperately. Anne punched off the receiver and leaned back in her chair. Margaret Blanchard’s head shots were still stacked on her computer screen. Even this, in the angry moment, seemed baffling: that some people were in such demand that they needed formal materials so the world could have more of them. Head shots. What were those? Little self-products, little iterations designed for a world so hungry that just a smile, just your own face atop your own self, wouldn’t do? She remembered Sadie and her monogrammed chair. How much she must feel was riding on everything she did. The girl was always crossing her arms, Anne realized now, always standing as though she were cold. Or bare. Her mother would never know it, and in fact would probably always be disappointed by Sadie’s grades and leadership posts, but the girl’s greatest achievement was kindness. It was a feature Margaret Blanchard had no use for.

  ON THE LAST Saturday in October Anne rose especially early, walked Mitchell in gusting rain, and led him back up the puddled fire escape before setting out for Cicero North to see if she could find a few minutes to talk with Michelle about the situation with Cristina. She wasn’t looking forward to it. It was bad enough that she had to reveal that Cristina’s future at Duke was now riding on the tender back of Miss Sadie Blanchard’s aspirations. That Margaret Blanchard, advocate for underempowered women everywhere, was holding Cristina’s application hostage. That now that they’d had a glimpse of what a fast-tracked, power-glossed application could look like for a girl with no strings to pull, it would be impossible to just shrug and say, “Let’s send the damn thing in ourselves.”

  Worst of all was the fact that at no time did Anne’s daily work seem as frivolous as it did when she confronted the fact of Michelle. Broke, single, out-of-shape Michelle, in her ill-fitting slacks, trying against hope to change lives in linoleum classrooms. Where did she go at night? Whatever else did she do? The police officer who rummaged through her handbag four times a day at the high school doors probably got closer to this woman’s secrets than anyone else on the planet. Meanwhile Anne, whose life was similarly monastic—though she’d never have admitted it, since her full-color imagining of her future with Martin in Hollywood seemed to give her life a dimension it simply did not have—tinkered with kids’ sentences. They delivered essay drafts that reminded her of piles of matches: thin, disordered stacks, pointing every which way but without the realization that they could be made to ignite. Year after year, draft after draft. At Cicero North, Anne waved to the Saturday security guard, who sat folded up in his hood in his rain-streaked van; she felt like an impostor crossing the twin beams of his headlights.

  As a kind of talisman, she’d brought in her bag the two-page final essay Hunter had e-mailed the night before. It was clean, it was smart, and it was strong. He’d come through. His final section especially made her beam:

  Like so many young men in American history, I went West and found the way I want to live. I loved the mustangs because they represented the pursuit of my own independence and my own interests. Before Montana, I had no idea 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 activities that I liked and that were important to my parents and teachers. I’m very lucky to have been given the chance to develop these skills and gain an education. But I was surprised to learn this summer what it feels like to come across your own passion, something that you find on your own, without anyone suggesting it, the way you come across a field of wild horses when you had no idea such a thing existed. Aside from my con
crete interests in environmental preservation and in particular the ecosystems of the West, I will bring to college this new sense of excitement that stems from discovery and passion that comes from within. It has already inspired me to adjust my classes so I can take U.S. Government to better understand the politics of environmental conservation. In college I hope to study both politics and ecology so I can find the best way to address this new interest. I feel that I have a new compass that points me toward my truest goals, and like the mustangs, I want to run, run, run.

  Did Hunter’s words hold up in the damp corridors of Cicero North? Yes. Yes, they did. Anne could repeat some of the phrases in her head, and even here, where the tall, morguelike locker walls had been permanently padlocked to prevent storage of drugs and trash, even here, Hunter, for all his privilege, still seemed to be a real, live boy. Go, Pinocchio.

  With that thought, it took a moment longer than it might have to figure out what was going on in Michelle’s office, which was brightly lit against the rainy gloom and which held not just Michelle, but Michelle dressed in a black hat and cape, her cheeks streaked with green, and, sitting across from her, Cristina Castello in her usual too-long skirts and dogged sweaters with a woman beside her who was clearly her mother—the same lovely cheekbones, high and broad—and who was wearing the same drapes but in larger sizes. Cristina smiled brightly and sat up full in her chair to greet Anne. A small plastic headband on her head was adorned with twin eyeballs, like some alien lobster. On the table between them all was the red folder, thick as a steak now, neatly squared at the corners and ready to go.

  “Oh, perfect!” said Cristina. The twin eyeballs bobbed a bit. “We were just about to give this to you!”

  Halloween. Of course. Michelle was grinning, her green cheeks greasy and tight.

  Mrs. Castello rose. She pressed her lips into a smile. Then she reached both arms, slowly, to take Anne’s elbows in her hands and hold her still, as though she could radiate gratitude directly into Anne’s bones. Anne wanted to be sick. There was the betrayal, of course, but part of the lurching in her belly was caused by the sense that this woman’s firm arms were holding her more still than she had been held in years, like a finger on a spinning top. When was the last time Anne had really paid attention?

  “Is it complete?” Anne asked Cristina, in part to avoid her mother’s eyes.

  “Yes! Mami’s just signed all the last forms, so we’re all ready.”

  Michelle scooted her little metal chair a bit to take the stage. “We thought you could deliver it to Mr. Blanchard,” she explained. “Seems he told Cristina that was the best way to submit, under cover of a letter from him direct to the admissions director.”

  “I know it’s only a few days, but can you get it to him? Is that okay?” asked Cristina. “It’s all there now. Sorry it took so long!”

  All three women looked up at Anne: good witch, good mother, good daughter. Anne was aware of a real danger that she might begin to cry.

  “You know,” she said, as matter-of-factly as she could, “as it turns out, it’s not going to have to be there on such short notice after all. I just was talking to them, the Blanchards, and apparently because of the FAFSA forms and all, it’s best to just submit under regular decision. That way they can assemble a proper aid package, no questions. So, by January first.”

  The lie just unfurled before her, bright as a spinnaker. It filled the room. No one seemed to mind. Still, Mrs. Castello gave Anne’s elbows a little squeeze and then resettled herself in her chair, leaving Anne standing there, feeling as ungainly as Alice after a Drink Me bottle—she didn’t belong there, couldn’t ever fit herself in that room, but now she was well and truly trapped.

  Michelle bought it. “Makes sense,” she said. “A little disappointing, but not surprising. That’s how it is for the financial-aid kids, in any case.” She turned to Cristina. “Well, kiddo, you’ve got plenty of time to rest now. We’ll just send it off to him so he’ll have it in hand.”

  “I’ll take it,” Anne said, shuffling the folder into her bag. “Cristina, will you be applying anywhere else? Because you might want to photocopy some of these—”

  “Why would she?” asked Michelle.

  Cristina shook her head. “Not really. Should I?”

  Mrs. Castello was frowning now. Cristina reached out and put a hand on her mom’s knee.

  “No reason,” said Anne. “Just wondering if you needed anything in this file before I hand it over.”

  “We’ll talk about that later,” Michelle said. She tipped open her tote to reveal piles of chocolate. “Here, I brought candy. Did you remember, Anne?”

  She had not.

  “Okay, well, that’s okay. Let’s head in. It’s time.”

  Cristina rose, lobster eyes bowing, and led her mom by the arm through the door and down the hall. Anne fell behind.

  “Not even the U of I?” she asked Michelle.

  “With board and books, they’ll want, what, five K a year? Six? Seven? No. Can’t be done. They don’t have the resources to give her the full ride.”

  “Right.”

  “What’s this, anyway? Why would she think about Champaign?”

  “No, you’re totally right. I’m just, you know, in that mode—I think everyone should have a backup. But that’s just my job.”

  “Cristina is the sort of girl for whom there is no such thing as a backup. That’s the point.”

  “I know.”

  They had slowed in the hall. Michelle turned to Anne and removed her peaked black hat.

  “You know,” she said, “I’m really proud of you. It can’t be easy kowtowing to that man and his crazy family. I mean, I fight the system every day, but I don’t have to sit in their living rooms. God knows how you charge enough to put up with it. I didn’t think you could pull it off, after that whole afternoon at their apartment. But you did. You’ve done a really good thing here.”

  Anne looked sideways at the top of Michelle’s head. She had pulled her hair into a tight bun, with rows of pins to keep in the strays, and she’d sprayed some sort of gray paint over the whole pile. As she walked, her long black witch’s skirt swished.

  “Lord, I need a broom,” Michelle added. “I can’t believe I forgot a broom.”

  “You’re still pretty impressive,” Anne told her. “Great costume.”

  “So what’re you this year?”

  “Oh, you know, just—a girl. Me.”

  “Hmm. Well, to that mother down there”—she gestured up ahead toward Cristina, who was leading her mom through the front doors—“you’re an angel. I’d take it.”

  They stopped at Anne’s classroom. Thirty-something souls sat slumped in their chairs, silent and bowed, like the very old. The fluorescent tube lights buzzed overhead. Anne stood in the doorway in her blue jeans, no costume to cheer them, no candy, nothing in her bag of tricks but a rain-soaked New York Times, some ACT books, and Cristina’s college dreams in a big red file. Oh, and the folded-up essay of poor Hunter Pfaff, the Winnetka carp, bound for certain rejection in Amherst, Massachusetts. Michelle patted her arm.

  “Thanks,” Anne said.

  RETURNING HOME, SHE welcomed the sleeting rain as a fitting sort of cloak for her conscience and a reasonable celestial response to her behavior. She parked miles away and staggered into the vestibule. A long envelope had been wedged into her mail slot, her name handwritten on the front. Special business. More BS about Mitchell? Some further clipping of her daily routines, some further intrusion from that bitch April? She pulled it open, hands almost shaking, and sat on the stairs to read two perfect, tiny, handwritten pages:

  VASSAR PERSONAL STATEMENT

  BY WILLIAM SAMUEL KANTOR

  My father is a plastic surgeon. Lately this has made me think a lot about angels. Let me explain.

  Dad spends his days performing procedures that are not needed but that people undergo because there is something about their body they want to change. Sometimes he’ll talk at night about th
e girls who get their nose jobs as sixteenth birthday presents or ladies who’d like larger breasts (without names of course) but mostly, it’s people who don’t like the way they are getting older in the mirror. My own mother has had a face lift. I don’t judge her. She is beautiful to me, no matter what. And my father’s hard work has made it possible for me to live in a nice home with a view of Lake Michigan and go to good schools, for which I’m thankful.

  But there has always been something that bothers me about people cutting themselves up to stop what is simply what happens over time. (Maybe this is easy to say when you’re seventeen, as I am.) It wasn’t until I read “Angels in America” by Tony Kushner that I understood what this was. I saw half of the show, “Millennium Approaches,” at Northwestern University in a student production and when the angel crashed through the ceiling at first I was embarrassed for the director because it was such a mess. You could see the wires and the angel’s wings looked like they were falling off. But I bought the play and went home and read about Tony Kushner and how he was inspired by the figure of the Angel of History imagined by Walter Benjamin, a German Jew who died in 1940. Benjamin’s Angel was his way of understanding progress. The Angel has his wings held constantly open by a gale wind that blows from Heaven, which is Time, and which causes the Angel to have to keep flying, though he’s facing backwards so all he sees is the wreck of things piling up in front of him. He sees wars, cities, and all the people who died. He wants to close his wings and make it stop, but he can’t. The wind is just too strong.

  When I read about this figure I researched Walter Benjamin, who killed himself rather than be sent to the Nazis. Many of my own family members perished in the Holocaust. I never met them, but my father has a book of pictures of some of them, like his two uncles who were young men who used to live in Poland. Though there are some who’s names we won’t ever know. When I read about the Angel I imagined my uncles’ faces there in the pile of stuff that the Angel is looking at and that he is helpless to stop. It made me want to cry, though I never knew these men.