The Gatekeepers

by Jen Lancaster

  As if trying to deal with losing Braden weren’t enough, our applications for early decision are due in a couple of weeks. Why is everyone screwing around in Jasper’s game room when we should be working on our essay questions? Who fucking cares if his dad owns an arcade’s worth of vintage Ms. Pac-Man machines? Liam was so psyched to play them, but I was like, “Uh-huh. Be sure to mention all the bananas your avatar ate on your Common Application, ’cause that’s impressive.”

  He didn’t even reply; he just walked away. He keeps pretending to hobble around me, too, like he’s in oh-so-much pain. He’s only doing that to get out of stuff that’s hard or boring. Or maybe he’s been trying to get my attention because I’ve been so focused on unraveling Braden’s reasons.

  Whatever.

  I’ll be submitting my app as soon as I write my personal essay for Princeton. I already completed my whole Common Application and took my ACTs and the two SAT subject tests. I hit the top ninety-sixth percentile in each, yet my mother wanted to know why they weren’t higher. I told her I could show her the math behind the percentiles, but someone who went to Arizona State might not understand.

  (She was furious, but at least I made Theo laugh.)

  I have glowing personal recommendations from four of my teachers for my app as well. I only needed two, but I always cover my bases. Glad I did—I sort of feel like Ms. DeMamp was being backhanded, “complimenting” my intensity and drive.

  I worked with an admissions coach to answer the fill-in-the-blank portions of Princeton’s form. The coach explained that although Princeton wants me to be authentic, there’s honest and then there’s honest. Each answer paints a specific picture and it was his job to ensure my responses were in line with best presenting myself. For example, with Favorite Book, I couldn’t write, Who has time to read for fun? (or Pretty Little Liars) so instead he had me talk about Aldous Huxley’s Brave New World. I went all counterpoint, elaborating on the benefits of being an Alpha. I’m sure most people claim to side with the Savage because of his humanity, but given the choice, wouldn’t we prefer to be born superior?

  My coach vetoed my original Favorite Line from a Book or a Movie. He said it’s cliché to pick Fitzgerald’s quote from The Great Gatsby about beating on, boats against the current, so I went with “‘Dear God,’ she prayed, ‘let me be something every minute of every hour of my life’” from A Tree Grows in Brooklyn because it’s apt and it is how I feel—really, it’s how I live.

  I tied the quote in with an early memory of my mother reading this novel to me and how A Tree Grows in Brooklyn inspired a lifetime love of the written word.

  Except that’s total BS.

  The only thing my mother ever read to me was the label on a package of Chips Ahoy when she thought I was looking thick in seventh grade. “Sugar?” she’d shrieked. “High fructose corn syrup? Partially hydrogenated cottonseed oil? This is why you’re fat, Calorie Mallory.”

  Is it any wonder I dieted myself out of that moniker right quick?

  Speaking of, Jasper refuses to call any of his friends by their real names. Everyone he likes gets a nickname. A Jasper nickname is a badge of honor.

  Try to guess what he calls me.

  “Yo, Mallory!” he hollers. His cheeks are flushed red and his normally slicked-back brown curls are all over the place. He’s basically a big, drunken Labradoodle. Today his pants are embroidered with little pumpkins, presumably in honor of it being fall. His oxford shirt hangs open and he has a striped rep tie wrapped around his head like a sweatband, as though he’s a competing in the Preppy Hunger Games. “We’re doing body shots and we need a body—c’mere.”

  “I’m good where I am,” I reply with a tight smile. I plant myself on the couch.

  “Don’t be lame, the Knights need you! Your stomach is like, convex, and you’ll hold the most tequila.”

  “Concave,” I correct.

  He shrugs. “Same diff.”

  “Nope, not even a little bit.”

  “Mallory, you’re being a major buzzkill,” he says. “Didn’t you used to be fun?”

  “Jas, I’m, like, the most clothed person here,” I argue, pointing to all my layers. “Go find someone less dressed. So, basically anyone else.”

  “Pfft, be like that then,” Jasper replies. “Yo, Noell, My Belle! Body shots!”

  Noell hops down from the coffee table and yanks off her tank, flaunting her new assets, housed in a Victoria’s Secret push-up bra. This evokes a spontaneous round of applause from the water polo Jaspers.

  “What?” she says innocently, wrapping her shirt around her neck like a towel post-workout. “I don’t want it to get wet.”

  Flo Rida’s “Wobble” comes on and Jasmine from the JV cheer team squeals. Her name is actually Margo, but she resembles the Disney princess so closely that it was inevitable that Jasper gave her this nickname. She hurls her arms up and out with the high-V of victory in someone finally playing her jam. (Which isn’t hard. Nine out of ten songs are her jam.) Her gesture knocks Dane’s beer out of his hands and I end up covered in foam and Natty Light dregs.

  “Ohmigod, I’m like so sorry!” Jasmine says.

  “No prob,” I reply, and it truly isn’t.

  Because now I have the perfect excuse to leave.

  I don’t bother looking for Liam to say goodbye. I’m sure he’s too wasted to drive me home at this point and I’m not into spending time with him anyway. I thought he’d be my rock over the last few weeks, but that hasn’t happened. Lately he’s been avoiding me, saying I have to let go, that I can’t keep going over the circumstances around Braden’s death, dissecting every piece of information in the hopes of finding some kind of clue.

  Sometimes I wonder if he even knows me at all.

  I order an Uber, which should be here by the time I make it to the end of Jasper’s driveway. Uber has been my mother’s most favorite invention ever. Before I had the LR4, setting me up with an account allowed her to not have to even pretend to be invested in my comings and goings.

  I exit through the double front doors and head over to the giant three-tiered fountain Jasper’s folks imported from Milan. When we would come here for birthday parties as little kids, all of us would ask our parents for coins and we’d toss them into the water while making our wishes. Years later, Jasper admitted he’d fish out all the money and spend it on candy. That still makes me mad—it’s like he was stealing our hopes and dreams.

  The fountain is illuminated by underwater spotlights, located in a circle of grass in the middle of Jasper’s driveway. I dip my hands in the freezing cold water and press them to my face, wiping away stray bits of froth from the beer. The water smells vaguely of algae. I’m tempted to toss in a coin but don’t because Jasper would probably swipe it anyway.

  And wishes can’t bring back Braden.

  I sprint down the drive and away from the house before someone can stop me from leaving the party. No one follows me. I’m not sure if I’m relieved or disappointed.

  At the bottom of the hill leading up to the house, the freshmen assigned to gate duty are huddled together with a fifth of peppermint schnapps. They’re watching YouTube videos on their phones—looks to be shouting goats.

  “You outta here, Mallory?” one of them asks, putting his video on mute. I don’t know his name, but he knows mine. Whether that’s because of my own merits or due to dating the team’s star is undetermined.

  “Someone spilled a beer on me. I smell like the Anheuser-Busch factory, so I’m leaving,” I reply.

  “That sucks, man!” says the other freshman. He holds up the bottle of schnapps. “Hey, you didn’t happen to bring one of those beers with you, by any chance? This is like drinking mouthwash.”

  “Unless you want to wring out my sweater, then no.”

  I exit the pedestrian gate just as my Uber arrives. I ope
n the door to the Audi and slide in back, and am immediately surrounded by the scent of new leather and luxury. “Hi, I’m the one who called. I’m going to 221 Morningstar, please.”

  The driver looks at me in the rearview mirror. “That you, Mallory?”

  “Um, yes?” Kind of a random question. I mean, didn’t he receive all my details when I placed the order?

  “No way! It’s me, Mal, Jeremy Jones!”

  “Wait, Jeremy? Rugby Jeremy? From NSHS?” Jeremy was a senior when I was a freshman. He was tremendously popular back then, and another one of the all-arounders, meaning he excelled at everything—sports, academics, extracurriculars, music, in specific—and had an unparalleled social standing. Pretty sure he was Prom King that year, too. “Hey, don’t you go to school back East? Is it...Cornell?”

  “Close. Dartmouth.”

  I’m confused. “But you’re here. Did you graduate early?”

  “Nah, I’m taking some time off. The whole thing was...” He exhales loudly. “Was like, a lot, you know? I wasn’t used to all the freedom. They sort of expect you to be self-disciplined. I got there and I kind of, I don’t know, imploded on myself like a dying star.”

  “I’m really sorry,” I say.

  He shrugs. “Don’t be. S’okay. More than okay. I’m taking a TV-time-out right now and it’s sorta awesome. I feel like this is the first break I’ve had in a very long time. I’m living at home to save up some scrilla and then I’m moving to New York with some bros. We’re gonna start a ska band.”

  I’m not sure how to reply, but it doesn’t matter because he keeps talking.

  “I’ll bartend until I either figure out what’s next or blow up, like, worldwide. Ska’s gonna make a comeback, bank on that. If music doesn’t work out, I have some buddies who work on an organic farm in Vermont. Either way, the future’s gonna be great.”

  Um...bartending or farming? Neither option sounds promising to me. However, a degree from Dartmouth? That smacks of possibilities. It’s my second choice if I don’t get into Princeton early decision.

  Jeremy swerves to not plow into someone who’s just emerged from the shadows directly into our path, almost like he was trying to get hit.

  “Asshole!” Jeremy yells, less out of anger than fear.

  The guy doesn’t even look up, like Jeremy shouting at him doesn’t even register. Oh, wait. I know him. He’s in my class. That’s...um...what’s his name. Simone’s buddy. Spiky hair. Too much gel. His mom does Pilates and yoga with mine and somehow they manage to make it into a competition. Somebody Something Chang? My mom says the kid’s supposed to be a genius, but how smart can he be, wearing all black and walking in the street in the dark?

  “Not cool, dude!” Jeremy calls as we drive away. He messes with the radio until he finds an oldies station. They’re playing “How You Remind Me,” which prompts a running commentary on how Nickelback never got their proper due. Once after I’d fought with my mom, Braden sent me a shot of her with a Nickelback tattoo photoshopped across her cleavage. I literally wet my pants from laughing so hard. For weeks, every time she’d get on me, I’d picture her ink and then I’d feel better.

  I miss him so much.

  “This you?”

  Jeremy pulls up to my place, a pitch-black French country-style home on a cul-de-sac with a whole bunch of other French country-style homes. My development is newer, but the builders tried to infuse the neighborhood with Euro charm, so our streetlights are gas lamps and every house has a steeply pitched roof with lots of gables. The neighborhood’s supposed to look historic, but with so few mature trees out front, it seems vaguely off-kilter. Every enormous home is so perfectly appointed, so neat and symmetrical, with roses trimmed just so and ivy framing every window, it’s like someone enlarged a bunch of dollhouses and made them life-size. A few years ago, one of my neighbors erected a cheap fence and the neighborhood has yet to stop complaining about it. The Leonards are afraid to show their penny-pinching faces at our block parties now.

  “Yeah, thanks.”

  “It’s pretty dark,” he says. “Need me to wait until you get inside and turn on some lights?”

  “I’ll be fine.”

  “Cool. Okay, catch you on the flip side, Mal.”

  I exit the car and start walking down the darkened bluestone path to my front door. That was odd, I think. If I recall correctly, Jeremy was mover, a shaker, a big man on campus. I could see him leaving college early to go all Zuckerberg, and not to drive an Uber, even if the car in question’s a shiny new Audi sedan.

  How did he get there? Why couldn’t he translate the discipline he learned at NSHS to college? Did he peak in high school? Where did he go wrong and how might I avoid a similar fate? I feel like there’s a lot more I should have asked him. Like this was a missed opportunity, a Ghost of Christmas Future.

  He must be reading my mind, because he rolls down the window and calls after me. “Hey, Mallory?”

  I turn back to him. “Yeah, Jeremy?”

  What kind of wisdom do you have for me? What caveat? What piece of information can you share that will inoculate me from suffering your same destiny?

  How can I save me from myself?

  Jeremy breaks out that crazy-big Zac Effron smile that used to make all the freshmen girls swoon, including me. “Make sure you rate me five stars on Uber!”

  He peels away as I open the front door. “I’m home,” I call, but my voice echoes through the empty house. I figured Theo wouldn’t be here, as he’s at an away football game and won’t be back until late. Even though he’s benched with an injury, he insists on suiting up and being there. My dad’s out of town on business—again—and my mother? I could check her Instagram feed to see what she might be up to, except I don’t care. Not into witnessing her waving around glasses of wine with her girlfriends, displaying too much skin, flirting with businessmen who may or may not be married, all while squeezed into my J Brand jeans.

  Plus, I’m mortified every time I see her posts. No, Mom, you’re not too old to go braless at all.

  I should just appreciate the quiet.

  I strip down to my underwear in the laundry room and toss everything into the washer. I put in the detergent and extra fabric softener, then set the temperature to hot. I assume that will wash away all the beer-whiff. I pull on a pair of pajamas from the basket of clean clothes our housekeeper, Marta, folded (and left) on top of the dryer.

  I go to the double-door fridge and peer inside to find a wrapped plate with a Post-It reading Theo on top. My mother left him a hefty rib eye steak, richly marbled with fat and branded with grill marks, served with a heaping side of au gratin potatoes, oozing with cream and topped with crisped, brown, buttery breadcrumbs. Maple-bourbon glazed carrots and jalapeño cornbread complete the entrée, and there’s a large ramekin full of crème brûlée dotted with fresh raspberries next to it. Obviously she didn’t cook this, as the bag from the delivery service sits empty on the kitchen island. I look deeper into the fridge to see if she ordered anything for me, even though I know the answer long before concluding the search.

  For a moment, I consider scarfing down Theo’s entire meal, but then I’d hate myself more than I already do. I settle for a bottle of water, a handful of baby carrots, and one thirty-five-calorie wedge of Laughing Cow Creamy Light Swiss.

  Once upstairs, I recline on my comforter, which is snowy white with silver piping, and I shove a couple of pillows behind my back. My black cat Dora hops up next to me and curls against my leg. Yes, Dora as in the Explorer. (Don’t laugh, I was eight when I named her.) Don’t know where our other cat, Boots, is. He and Dora were littermates and they have hated each other their entire lives. In retrospect, we should have named him Swiper.

  I flip open my Mac Book Pro to view my incomplete Princeton essay.

  Or, that’s what I mean to do.

 
Instead, I find myself on what’s become my default—staring at Braden’s Instagram feed. I’ve spent the last few weeks enlarging each shot to see if there’s anything, anything at all I missed. In last year’s shot at Homecoming, I notice his smile doesn’t completely reach his eyes. Was this a warning sign? Should I have known?

  After I’ve inspected another twenty or thirty pictures, I pull up the log-in screen for his email. I type in BradentheRoach@northshorehs.edu and then pause over the password box.

  I know that breaking into his email is a gross invasion of privacy and I’m disgusted with myself, yet I’m compelled anyway.

  I’m compelled to know why. I mean, what if he drafted a suicide note and forgot to press Send? Or, what if he read something that sent him over the edge?

  Then I remember something—in his final text, he said he’d email me. I never got that email.

  I have to see what’s in his email account.

  I’ve already tried a bunch of possibilities, like his birthdate, his first dog’s name, his football position, but none of them have worked. The NSHS email server tells me I have one more incorrect log-in before the account is locked without additional verification, so I can’t keep guessing. The next password I input must be right or that’s it.

  I feel a trickle of sweat roll down my back, weird because I’m not hot. Yet my pajamas are clinging to my clammy skin and I’m on the edge of hyperventilating.

  I’m at a loss so I click shut the window.

  No answers today.

  I gather my hair into a damp ponytail and I tab back to my Princeton essay. I’ve already filled out the particulars on which of my extracurricular activities was important and meaningful and why (peer counseling—because I love it and it’s the only thing I do that actually matters), and the section on how I spent my last two summer vacays. (Spoiler alert—the activities were enriching.)

  My plan was to answer the second of five choices of essay questions, which is based on a quote from Omar Wasow’s speech at the 2014 Martin Luther King Jr. Day celebration on campus. My coach says bemoaning white privilege is a homerun swing to admissions directors, especially coming from this zip code, so that was the tack I intended to take. Yet in reading this question again, I can’t remember any of my talking points. And somehow it feels wrong to use my privilege as a tool, you know? I’ve already benefitted from it more than enough.