“Um,” Anne managed. Hearing Cristina’s name in this woman’s mouth was like discovering the girl had been kidnapped. “To which university?”
Brenda Hollow continued: “Cristina Castello will be honored as a representative of the firm’s contributions to the pursuit of higher education in the coming year. Mr. Blanchard has requested that you help Cristina to prepare a short speech, ten to fifteen minutes, to deliver on that day.”
“A speech?”
“Yes, a talk. Honorees usually share their experience leading up to this point. Not a dry eye in the house.”
“Cristina—she’s seventeen.”
Brenda Hollow said nothing.
“I think that’s a lot to ask of a kid in high school.”
Still Brenda Hollow said nothing.
“Look,” said Anne. She felt her frustration fraying her elocution, and she regretted giving Brenda the upper hand, but for God’s sake, there was a child in the mix here. Two children, actually, if you counted Sadie. “Mr. Blanchard has been a little . . . ambivalent regarding his ability to help Cristina with college at all. So I think it’s odd to ask her to speak, unless, of course, this is his way of informing us that he’s going to support her application to Duke. Or maybe he intends to pay for her wherever she goes? If so, that’s fabulous. I’ll let her know. She can start those applications now. But we need to know which it is.”
“Shall I say she’s available, then?” asked Brenda.
“You’re not hearing me. I need to know: what’s in it for Cristina?”
“I don’t understand,” said Brenda.
Anne sighed heavily into the phone. It was meant as another flag for the woman on the other end, a semaphore from one subordinate to another, but it got her nowhere. “What, exactly, is Cristina supposed to say?” she asked finally.
Brenda began to explain, but Anne’s mind wandered to the instruction she’d been given, that first, muggy day, to present herself at the service entrance of the Blanchards’ five-story town home. She’d been fool enough to think it a matter of logistics. A broken doorbell, or a faulty stair.
“ . . . many powerful professionals committed to charity,” Brenda Hollow was saying. “About fifteen minutes, as I mentioned. She will be provided lunch, and is welcome to bring one guest. Mr. Blanchard suggested that you might accompany her. He also asked that I alert you that Sadie does not routinely attend.”
“Which means it’s a secret?” Anne asked, rudely.
“Dress is business formal,” answered Brenda Hollow. “December eighteen, the Drake Ballroom, noon.”
Anne pulled out a pen to scribble down details, which she tended to forget when her mind went white with anger.
She tuned in again to hear Brenda actually saying, “Thank you ever so much,” before hanging up the phone.
The Blanchards were prescient in their apprehension of charity as a public game, elevated as it increasingly was from the sorry confines of clerical orders and therefore now useful as a sentiment-rich playing field for the wealthy seeking prominence among themselves. To brag about the achievements of one’s own children was crass, but to brag about the achievements of children one had funded, well—that was magnificent. The annual lunch at Blanchard, McHenry, Winsett & Blair would become a landmark event, copied not only in Chicago but in New York, where the investment banks piled on, and in the glass atriums of the big studios in L.A. But Anne hadn’t yet been to such a thing, so she was stuck imagining what it might look like. She saw Cristina in a Christmas dress—or should it be a suit? Where would she find Cristina a suit?—standing before a ballroom full of lawyers dressed to the nines, eating winter salads. She saw gold and silver baubles on the tables. Maybe candles. Hurricanes. She imagined the Blanchards tucking in their chairs the better to reach their wineglasses when the room fell silent and Cristina Castello began, in truth, to sing for her supper.
It was a high price for Cristina to pay. But whether it was a price too high, Anne realized, was not a decision she could make for the girl. There was a role for the skills of self-promotion in this world, after all, wasn’t there? Feeling as cynical as she was just then, she thought the occasion simply the most blatant example of the elaborate marketing-and-PR exercise she completed with her kids every year: Make yourself believable. Make the big men feel moved. Make them proud of themselves for helping you on your way.
“I don’t see why not,” said Michelle cheerfully, when Anne found her later that week at Cicero North. This was a surprise.
“You don’t?”
“No. Can’t think why not. Cristina’s articulate, she’s confident, she’ll present beautifully. Might lead to a job. Who knows?”
Of course Michelle didn’t know that Cristina’s application to Duke was being held hostage to Sadie Blanchard’s tender feelings, which, as of the first week in November, were unyielding. Nor did she know that Anne had lied through her teeth about why the application hadn’t been made early. Not to mention that Anne hadn’t even been able to discover from the executive assistant—the secretary, for heaven’s sake—whether there really was a scholarship in the offing, or just a fancy spin on the red carpet Duke would roll out if Gideon Blanchard could be convinced to make the call.
“Why, do you have doubts?” asked Michelle.
“Sadie Blanchard isn’t invited to the lunch, apparently,” Anne replied, sacrificing her last bit of dignity. “His own daughter.” Anne was shaking her head, but not for the reason Michelle understood. Apparently her need for approval was so great that she was reduced to this, plying Michelle for confidence, goosing her already-successful lies. Inexplicably to her, Martin came into Anne’s thoughts: he accompanied this feeling of desperation, as though his wide shoulders were the form it took as it moved from her heart to her mind. Never had an application season felt this dire.
Her comment worked like magic, of course. Michelle loved the idea that Cristina would have access where Sadie did not. “Sounds like a very sophisticated occasion,” she said. “Cristina will have a lovely time! We’ll start working on her remarks.”
The image of Michelle and Cristina sitting together, dark heads lowered, in that sad little cinder-block office gave Anne a useful edge with Sadie, who was acting like a spoiled brat. She was flat-out refusing to meet now, saying she didn’t have time in her schedule. So it was a race. Sadie needed to finish her Duke application. Let go of her fantasies of Yale and so on. Submit the damn thing. Then Cristina could apply, and her speech wouldn’t be just a Christmas minstrel show. And Anne could be done with all of it. She was now quite conveniently angry at Sadie for putting her in the difficult spot to begin with. Maybe it was unfair, but it worked.
“Well, you have to eat,” Anne told Sadie, when finally she caught her on her cell. “I’ll find you at lunch.”
To Sadie’s mannered ears, this was a kind of social assault. She chose a restaurant near school and said she’d have forty-five minutes.
Anne understood that the shift in Sadie’s attitude resulted from the very common phenomenon of girls siding with their parents when a conflict arose. It had happened before, and in general Anne considered it reasonable. But she sensed that Margaret Blanchard had been disparaging her in Sadie’s earshot. Just the way Sadie looked her up and down as she approached the tiny window table, as if Anne were a nerdy new girl in school—just this told her she was right in her suspicion.
“Listen,” Anne told Sadie, before she’d even removed her coat. It was chilly by the window, and Sadie was sitting there, arms folded, looking frozen and frosty both. “I know you’re sick of this college stuff. Truth be told, I am, too. So let’s just get this finished as quickly and easily as we can, okay?”
“Fine,” said Sadie.
Anne looked around the packed restaurant, where customers mobbed the front counter beneath a huge chalkboard listing salads and soups. “How does this place work?”
“You have to go up.”
“We only have forty-five minutes, is that right?”
“Yeah. So you’d better go now.”
Anne looked at the girl’s empty place. She had a blank notebook before her, and a blue pen, and nothing else. “You’ve eaten?”
“Not today. Not hungry.”
“No dice,” Anne said kindly. “Come with me.”
“Really, I’m not hungry.”
Anne was still standing. “Let’s go, Sadie. Just see if there’s something you can eat. It’s a long day at school, and it’s cold.”
“No, thanks.” Sadie bit off the ends of her words, leaving her teeth exposed.
“Jesus, Sadie. You’re young and growing. Have some soup. A piece of bread. It’s not a big deal.”
Slowly, Sadie stood, and lightly tipped her chin up toward Anne, who was taller by several inches. “Who do you think you are, my mother?”
She was clever enough to ask the question straight, and not as mere challenge, as though Anne actually were delusional. It made anger rise up the back of Anne’s shirt. The diners around them had set down their forks, so she kept her voice low. “Not in a million years,” she replied, thinking of Margaret Blanchard. “But I am about a decade older than you are, and I’m asking you to just have one bite of something while we work.”
“I don’t think you’re paid to monitor my diet,” said Sadie. But still she shouldered her fancy leather tote to follow Anne to the counter.
“It’s not at all clear what I’m being paid to do, I agree with you,” Anne called back.
Sadie didn’t respond. Anne replayed her words in her head and wondered what Sadie was making of them, and how much worse she’d just made things. Meanwhile, in front of her, something was familiar about a woman waiting: a long, shaggy, faux-shearling coat, needle-toed boots. Anne figured she needed to apologize, but she couldn’t think what to say.
“Wow,” Sadie finally said.
Anne turned to face her. There were tears brimming the girl’s eyes, magnifying her kohl liner and making her look animated, like a tiny, bright-eyed Disney character, something small and skittish and likely to bolt. Anne gave up what remained of her hope of boosting the girl’s confidence, giving her voice newfound strength, helping her to feel she could make her own choices. Why she’d ever thought she could bestow these things, she didn’t know. Sadie lived with a level of privilege that made things different for her. Why did it matter that she sent in a subpar application, got in only to Duke, and matriculated there? The broad contours of her life were assured. Anne could tip them neither up nor down.
“Sadie, I’m sorry,” she said. They shuffled forward with the line. Sadie was careful to keep her distance from Anne, who had to raise her voice to reach her. “I’m just frustrated, and that was inappropriate. This has gotten so complicated.”
“It’s because of that girl,” Sadie replied. Her nose was beginning to run. She wrinkled it and sniffed. “Cristina.”
Again Anne was aware of the woman ahead of her in line, who was shifting back and forth widely, as though to make out the chalkboard menu overhead, but some part of her attention was unclaimed. Anne lowered her voice.
“Is it? Really? I’m so sorry about that, if that’s true. But she doesn’t change anything about our deadline. January first. And your parents are frantic that you’re not going to apply to Duke at all. They have dreamed of having you there since the day you were born.”
“But what about everywhere else? If I apply to Duke, they’re going to take me. Miss Hughes won’t bother with my other applications. I know how it works.”
“That may well be true.”
“And if I go to Duke, it’s like, ‘Oh, here comes Sadie Blanchard.’ Everyone already knows me, why I’m there. My dad is giving the new practice gym, did you know that?”
Anne did not know that.
“Like, for basketball,” Sadie continued. “It’s just embarrassing. I mean, I’m proud of him, but it’s a lot.” She wiped at her cheeks again, and then something over Anne’s shoulder caught her attention. “What is that woman’s deal?” she asked.
Anne turned just in time to catch the faux fur ahead of them swiveling fast, but not fast enough to avoid revealing a tangle of highlighted curls and large, scrolled earrings hovering like a kind of mania. The face was thickly made up and sour.
“April,” Anne said, not in greeting.
“She keeps staring at me!” Sadie said.
April Penze narrowed her eyes. She looked from one to the other, then settled on petite Sadie.
“I’m not staring at you, kid.” Her voice was a tinny sneer.
Anne’s body tensed up. Her appetite fled. “This is my neighbor,” she told Sadie, as calmly as she could.
Sadie was still staring back, shaking her head slowly. Fearless, thought Anne. Then she said one word, “Weirdo,” with enough poise in her voice to set April to strike. She seemed to rise from within, like a snake preparing. She huffed a tight little “Tah!”—sending a spray of saliva out over the glass deli case before them, and split the line, shoving her way through the crowd and out the door. The little bell on the hinge jingled behind her.
“What the hell?” Sadie asked.
But the moment was broken. She’d forgotten Duke, her parents, Anne’s casting around for some calm place of authority.
“She’s this crazy bitch who lives upstairs from me. She hates my dog. She makes my life hell.”
Sadie laughed. “Oh my God. What a nightmare.”
“Yeah. We’re in a huge fight.”
“I can tell.”
“What do you think I should do?”
Sadie smiled and held up one finger while she gave her order to the counter girl, a green salad and some carrot soup. Anne followed.
“Move,” Sadie told her.
“I wish I could.”
They took their number and wound their way back to their tiny, drafty table. “No, seriously,” Anne said. “What would you do if you were me?”
“Honestly?”
Anne nodded.
“I’d just totally ignore her. Path of least resistance. That’s a chick looking for a fight. Did you see her, the way she, like, spat at us? The whole thing—she’s just . . . nasty. Like, ghetto nasty. Like, you aren’t going to be her friend, no matter what. I’ve seen that sometimes. I’d just totally ignore her. Rise above. Do what you gotta do and get on with it.”
Anne was quiet.
“Look. She was totally staring at me because I’m rich,” Sadie continued, spreading her fingers on the table to demonstrate. A Cartier tank watch, a little ruby ring on her right hand, some narrow enameled bangles on the other wrist. Even the manicure, clear, buffed to a shine. Anne hadn’t noticed any of this. She figured she must be used to it by now. “She hates me for it.”
“Well, plus you’re with me, which makes you extra heinous,” Anne said.
Sadie smiled. “Totally.”
Anne leaned in. “You know better than anyone that some people are just going to resent you, no matter what. Right?”
“Yeah. That’s my point.”
“Mine, too. So don’t let that get in your way. You know? The gymnasium. Who cares?”
Sadie studied her hands. As she did so, Anne observed her. Her hair was freshly blow-dried and fell straight, the chestnut tips in military rows on her cashmere shoulders. She sat with her hips squared and her ballet flats pressed to the floor. Her tiny body seemed perfectly proportioned, immaculate, and contained. How did an adolescent come to project such a total absence of need? Anne thought of Hunter, who was always underdressed, as though announcing: I need a mother. His huge, trip-on-things sneakers, better designed for the moon than the burbs. Even William Kantor, in his sartorial displays, revealed a desire to be seen. But Sadie was wrapped up tight. A done deal, wholly committed, fed from within. She drew circles in her carrot soup with a flattened spoon.
“Okay, you’re right,” she said.
Anne imagined those hands on the Miserable Children of the World Tour. Did she remove the watch? The ruby r
ing? She’d had years of enforced gratitude. Surely this created a child who knew to ask for nothing. And, of course, to confess to a problem was to risk her mother’s life-coaching the very blood out of her own heart. The family was its own little cult of correctness. Sadie just wished to be invisible, for fear of being fixed.
It was why her writing was so insipid. It was why she wasn’t a standout student. She shied from proving grounds, wherever they lay.
Anne picked up half her turkey club. “You know, I don’t know that I have anything to offer you about this college thing.”
Sadie looked up, puzzled.
“Except that I am good with grammar. Commas, etc. So whatever you want to do, it’s fine with me. I’ll just help you out with the words bit.” Anne took a huge bite and chewed slowly, as if formally out of commission.
Sadie puffed air from her bottom lip to clear her bangs from her brow. After a moment she asked, “What was that woman’s name, again?”
“April Penze. Pen-zay. Pence. I have no idea how it’s pronounced.”
“Hmm.”
“Do you have your essay with you?” asked Anne.
“No. Sorry.”
“It’s okay.”
“Maybe I should write about April,” Sadie mused. “More interesting than what I’ve got.”
“What would you say?”
“I don’t know. Something about resenting strangers. Or kindness to strangers. Or, I don’t know. I’m just sick of all of it. Wish I could do something new.”
“You can,” said Anne. “That’s sort of my entire point, here. You can do this however you want to do this.”
Sadie set her spoon down carefully against her bowl and laced together her little hands.
“What if,” she began, smiling askance, deep in thought, “what if I did write about April? But April as a person and as a metaphor? You know how, like, at first I had that star metaphor but I took it out? Well, I think my essay needs something like that. And April is April, but it’s also the month when the colleges send their letters. So, like, maybe I can play on that somehow? I can write about this woman who has all these ideas about me and is really mean even though she doesn’t know me, which is kind of like the colleges who have to, you know, guess based on just some grades and things?”
Early Decision Page 21
