Admissions

by Nancy Lieberman

  “Really? They acted like you’re buddies. So what’s their story?”

  “By now you probably know more than I do. I’ve never even met their children. I’ve always been curious—where did their kids come from?”

  “It seems that Josh is the biological father of one child, and Donald the other. Together the children have four different mothers—two surrogates hired solely to carry and deliver, and two egg donors, chosen for their high IQs and good looks.”

  “Are you kidding? But that means the children aren’t really twins!”

  “Technically, they’re not even related by blood. But, by some divine miracle, they were born within hours of one another, so they’re being raised like twins even though they’re not.”

  “I don’t get it. Couldn’t they have used two women instead of four? Wouldn’t that have been a hell of a lot easier?”

  “They chose to use every trick in the fertility book to maximize their level of control. They shopped for the best eggs, the best ovens, as they refer to the surrogates—which must have cost God knows how many thousands of dollars—and now act like their creations are, without question, perfect. Boy, are they in for a surprise.”

  “Very Dolly the sheep meets Frankenstein,” Helen proclaimed, pronouncing it “frong-ken-shtein.” “What are the children like?”

  “The girl is all right, but the boy is a bit delayed and not quite ready for school yet. Actually, he’s quite immature. I was a little surprised when they arrived in a stroller.”

  “That’s not so unusual for four-year-olds.”

  “No, you’re right. But they were also both sucking on pacifiers the entire time they were at The School. It made talking to them rather difficult.”

  “Oh. That is weird. What are their names?”

  “Are you ready for this? Anastasia and Alexi.”

  “And their last name is what? Roman or Kirov?” Helen asked.

  “That’s the kicker—it’s Romanov.”

  “No way!” Helen cracked up. “You can call them the tsar and the tsarina.”

  “Good idea. I have another applicant who is a principessa. If we accept all of them, we’ll have an entire royal family.”

  “You’ve already got your queen. She would like nothing better than to expand her empire,” Helen cracked.

  “That’s reason alone to not accept any of them.”

  “So what’s up with you two? Have you finally gotten a chance to ask Pamela what’s up her bugaboo?”

  “No chance whatsoever. I’m just doing my job and staying out of her way. The biggest hitch is reporting to Felicity. God is that woman stupid.” Again Sara reminded herself that it would be a big mistake to tell Helen what she really thought was at the root of her Pamela rift. She was also dying to tell her the Whyte story but instead opened her fortune cookie and read aloud, “A wise man will keep his suspicions muzzled, but he will keep them awake.”

  “Hmmmm . . . what do you think that means?”

  “Dunno,” Sara answered as she tore it in half and dropped it into her teacup. “What’s yours?”

  “The chains of marriage are so heavy that it takes two to bear them, and sometimes three.”

  “Hmmmm . . . what do you think that means?”

  Helen woke up the next morning feeling groggy and achy, regretful about last night’s third (or was it fourth?) cosmopolitan, particularly in light of the busy day ahead. Cup of coffee in hand, she struggled to finish her review of the glass exhibition, faxed it to the editor, and then quickly updated her spreadsheet before heading out for the day.

  SCHOOL PHONE # DIRECTOR OF ADMISSIONS STATUS

  The Fancy Girls’ School 674-9876 Justine Frampton pen House Oct. 6 Interview scheduled Oct. 14

  The Progressive School 563-9827 Soledad Gibson Interview scheduled Oct. 20

  The Bucolic Campus School 475-8392 Vincent Gargano Interview scheduled Nov. 5

  The Safety School 498-5937 Shirley Livingston Tour & Interview Oct. 4 Sent thank you note.

  The Very Brainy Girls’ School 938-8475 Eva Hopkins Still wait listed-called Oct. 5

  The Downtown School 483-8473 Taisha Anguilla Still wait listed-called Oct. 5

  Gathering a scarf and gloves, Helen glanced at her computer screen and saw that an e-mail from Sara had just arrived.

  Helen-

  Thanks for the great evening. I must confess I’m getting too old to drink like that. Ugh! Hope you’re okay. See you later for your tour—I have an extra special family lined up for you. The child is a graduate of “Isadora for Children.” Need I say more?

  Sara

  Arriving at The School, Helen went directly to the admissions office, where Brandi was waiting to introduce her to the attractive and trendy Swansons and their daughter Miranda. Helen’s eye was immediately drawn to the wife’s pumpkin-colored shoes. Having reviewed Miranda’s curriculum vitae (voluntarily submitted with the application) prior to meeting the Swansons, Helen knew that Miranda was not only a highly accomplished dancer but had also completed two semesters of Mallets and Strings and three semesters of Spatter, Smear and Stipple, the highly selective toddler art program at the Painters’ Alliance. When Zoe was preschool age, Helen had investigated the possibility of enrolling her in this program and called for an application. When the enticing brochure arrived, she was shocked to learn the cost—twelve hundred dollars for ten sessions—but out of curiosity went ahead and set up an appointment to visit a class. She was wowed by the classroom, and the teachers seemed appropriately bohemian; but she just couldn’t see the logic behind paying a fortune for Zoe to learn finger painting by numbers and to sculpt with recyclable papier-mâché, and opted instead to invest forty dollars in an easel, a pad of newsprint, and a set of water-based paints, enabling Zoe to create masterpieces in the privacy of her room.

  “I understand Miranda is quite a little culture vulture. The School’s artistic offerings will probably interest you. Where would you like to begin?” she patronizingly asked the Swansons.

  “Why don’t we start with art, move on to music, and save the most important for last? Miranda is very excited about your dance program, aren’t you, cuddly bear?” Miranda hid behind her mother’s leg, clinging to her well-cut pants. “She’s an extraordinarily talented dancer,” whispered Mrs. Swanson.

  The first stop was a Kindergarten art class, where they found the children painting wooden spools and then stringing them on colored yarn.

  Bad choice, Helen thought. This is about as interesting as watching paint dry. Oh, dear, we are watching paint dry. She wished she had chosen a class that was engaged in a more ambitious project, like the one she dropped in on last week in Miss Atari’s room, where the children had painted a map of the world, highlighting the countries of origin of each student’s caregiver. When Helen was in kindergarten, she had never heard of Trinidad or Tobago, but thanks to their multinational caregivers, these kids knew not only the names of numerous countries in the Southern Hemisphere but their capitals, language spoken, and, most important, best resorts, since their parents often planned vacations expressly “to see where Yolanda grew up.”

  Next Helen steered the Swansons to the music room, where a Kindergarten class was banging on tom-toms and singing the “Indian War Song” from Peter Pan. She prayed that the Native American number was not in some way offensive to them, and was relieved when Miranda, obviously having seen the Disney version, was able to sing along, pleasing her mother no end.

  “Lovely singing, pussycat,” Mrs. Swanson purred.

  When they arrived at the dance studio, Helen was relieved to find the room awhirl with a bevy of children draped with colored scarves, leaping and spinning to Swan Lake. At last Miranda emerged from behind her mother’s leg and whispered, “Miranda wants to dance.”

  Her mother bent and whispered, “No dancing today, ladybug. Next time.”

  Not accustomed to hearing the words “no” and “dancing” uttered in the same sentence, Miranda ran into the middle of the room, pull
ed her dress up over her head, exposing her underpants to the entire class, and shrieked, “I HATE THIS SCHOOL!” The mother looked mortified as she ran to comfort Miranda. The father stayed with Helen and made light of the situation with an emotional detachment she found chilling. As quickly as possible, Helen rounded them up and herded them back to the admissions office, hardly able to contain her impulse to run in and share the story with Sara.

  Her tour guide duty out of the way, she went to the lobby to wait for Zoe and ran into Lisa Fontaine, who had just heard about the Swansons.

  “The School will be abuzz with this one for days, right, honeybee?” Helen chuckled.

  “You can bet this one will travel fast,” Lisa concurred with a grin.

  “So, Lisa, what’s the board up to these days?” Helen asked.

  Lisa took Helen by the arm and led her to a hidden corner of the lobby and, sotto voce, began, “The board has hired an independent accounting firm to conduct an emergency audit. There seems to be an inexplicable shortage of cash, and the operating budget is showing a deficit. Pamela has stonewalled everyone who has tried to discuss it with her, forcing us to solicit outside counsel. This is, of course, highly confidential. You must give me your word you’ll keep it under your hat,” she begged.

  “Mum’s the word,” Helen whispered, and zipped her lips closed.

  Helen had never understood the board’s unwillingness to challenge Pamela’s authority, or the wisdom of allowing Pamela unrestricted access to The School’s funds. So today’s news, though not surprising, was certainly alarming. As she was pondering the potentially dire implications, she saw Zoe come cheerfully bounding down the stairs, and immediately her mood improved. A ten-minute cab ride got them across town, just in time for their four o’clock appointment with Bertha Kauffmann.

  They rang the bell, and a loud gravelly voice commanded, “Let yourselves in.”

  As they shyly squeezed into the three-foot-wide foyer, Helen, a typically real-estate-obsessed New Yorker, quickly appraised the apartment: a two-bedroom, two-bath prewar in a doorman building between Madison and Park. In other words, like many of Bertha’s students, it had potential. But talk about fixer-upper!

  Cardboard cartons were stacked on every available surface, making the apartment appear smaller and darker than it actually was. Some of the boxes, logically, contained textbooks, workbooks, notebooks, files, and binders, but even more contained candy: every variety of neon-colored, newfangled, braces-busting confection on the market, leading Helen to suspect that Bertha was in cahoots with the orthodontist around the corner.

  Through years of experience, Bertha had developed a brilliant strategy: by plying her students with limitless quantities of candy, she gave them a heightened state of euphoria that they associated with their tutoring sessions. Her students eagerly looked forward to seeing her when, in fact, what they really craved was their regular sugar fix. Conveniently, by the time the inevitable postglycemic crash occurred, the child was under someone else’s supervision.

  The living room was lined with overloaded bookshelves and wooden file cabinets, spilling over with the tools of her trade. In the center of the room sat an enormous desk covered with piles of creased and torn paper, an assortment of stationery and office doodads, the remains of Bertha’s past three meals, and, of course, buckets of candy. As Helen spotted Bertha herself amidst the hodgepodge, she was reminded of one of Zoe’s favorite childhood books, Where’s Waldo?

  Pushing aside a stack of books and several boxes, Bertha ordered Helen and Zoe to sit down at the table for a discussion of the game plan. With the ultimate insider’s view of private school mania, and an opportunistic outlook, Bertha had built a successful business, catering to the needs of neurotic New York parents as well as to those of their progeny. One of her patented techniques was to begin the first session with a standard proclamation.

  “Your child is unquestionably bright, obviously capable, and will undoubtedly increase her test scores and be accepted at the school of her choice if . . .” (pause for impact) “. . . you are committed to seeing me twice a week.” She had yet to come across a parent who didn’t buy into her program.

  Helen was instructed to leave and then return to pick up Zoe in one hour. So, doing what any remotely self-indulgent New York mother with an hour to kill would do, she went for a manicure and pedicure at the neighborhood Korean nail salon. With eyes fixed on the bobbing head of the esthetician polishing her toenails, her mind wandered to the events of the afternoon. Lisa Fontaine’s confidential story about the “independent emergency audit,” sounded fairly ominous. If the audit were to uncover a serious malfeasance, the implications for The School could be devastating. If Pamela’s reputation in the private school network were tarnished, where would that leave them on the admissions front? Helen had no doubt that Pamela was capable of shady dealings, but she desperately hoped that none of them would be uncovered before February 12.

  An hour later she returned to Bertha’s and was delighted to hear that her daughter was one of “the brightest young ladies” Bertha had ever met and that working with her was “pure pleasure.” She loaded Zoe down with workbooks, invited her “take some candy for the road,” and said she would look forward to seeing her in three days.

  Just as they were getting ready to depart, there was a shrill buzz, and Bertha shouted, “The door’s open.” Helen and Zoe pressed against the wall to let the next client enter and simultaneously registered recognition—it was Catherine, the girl from The Safety School tour, and her handsome widowed father. They all shuffled about and awkwardly switched places in the cramped space, averting their eyes while muttering hellos and goodbyes. Helen grabbed Zoe’s arm after they left, and held her close, grateful for the mundane luxury of being there for her daughter on an ordinary weekday afternoon.

  The School had been on celebrity alert all morning—Tally and Montana Easton were due any minute for their interview. Margaret was looking spiffy in Tally’s signature line of clothing, Brandi was chatting up a sixth-grade English teacher about Tally’s latest literary recommendation, and three Kindergarten teachers were lingering in the admissions office with disposable cameras.

  “Remember, no pictures,” Sara scolded as the door swung open.

  First in was an impeccably tailored six-foot-five African-American man, resplendent in a tapered jumpsuit, black beret, and leather jacket, revealing just the slightest outline of the Tech-9 that was cradled in a shoulder holster. After giving the room a well-practiced once-over and confiscating the Kindergarten teachers’ disposable cameras, he nodded over his shoulder as if to say, “Coast is clear, no paparazzi here.”

  Then in strode the World’s Best-Known Daytime Television Personality, Magazine Publisher, and Marketer’s Dream and her sparkling five-year-old son, Montana.

  The secret of Tally’s success was her genuine warmth and familiarity, her everywomanness that made females in America as comfortable speaking with her as they would be with their best friend. Even Sara was seduced.

  “Sara. You have the most . . . full-bodied hair,” Tally gushed.

  “Really, I think it’s too big,” Sara responded, patting her wild mane, then feeling silly for continuing a conversation about something as trivial as her hair.

  “I would give anything for so much hair. A little trim is all you need. How about if I send my Rafael over to give you a snip-snip?” Tally offered graciously.

  “Thanks. Maybe you can just give me his number. But, Tally, let’s talk about Montana.”

  “It’s so sweet of you to ask about my boy. My life was meaningless until I had him. Do you have children?”

  “Er, no,” she answered. “But as you can imagine, I adore working with kids.”

  “Of course you do. You’re so compassionate and understanding. I could tell that about you the minute we met.”

  “Well, thank you.” Sara felt herself blushing. One of the most powerful women in America is showering me with compliments! she gloated inwardly.<
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  By the end of the interview, Sara was convinced that Tally was the kindest, most empathetic person she had ever met in her life. Whether she thought her son should attend The School was another matter altogether.

  “I have one last question for you . . .” Sara hesitated. “It has to do with Montana’s bodyguard.”

  “Quentin?” Tally asked with surprise. “The man’s been with me for years. He’s as gentle as a pussycat.”

  “Still, I have to tell you, we can’t possibly allow a gun anywhere near The School.”

  “Not to worry. Quentin is a fifth-degree black belt in both tae kwon do and hapkido. He can take care of Montana and his little schoolmates with his bare hands and a pair of nunchakus, if you’re more comfortable with that. The fact is, Quentin played linebacker at the University of Southern Mississippi and trained with the World Wrestling Federation, so he could probably help out with your phys. ed. program. Word on the street is, your athletic department could use a kick in the ass.”

  “I would have to clear that with the head of School,” Sara answered politely.

  “Ms. Nash, you have my word. Quentin is like a ninja. The School won’t even know he’s here.”

  “Well, we’ll certainly have to factor Quentin into the equation when we consider your application, won’t we? Do you have any questions?”

  “Just one . . .” Tally demurred. “May I ask what The School’s position is on Mother’s Day and Father’s Day?”

  Sara had been waiting for this question. She was aware that MOTBOB had initiated a national campaign to abolish Mother’s Day and Father’s Day on the grounds that they discriminated against children who might not have a mother or a father.

  “As you have seen, The School truly embraces the spirit and values of the nontraditional family,” Sara conveyed in her best National Public Radio voice. “We go out of our way to make sure our children feel free to celebrate these holidays by making cards for whomever they choose. We are also proud to have taken a leadership role in converting our Grandparents’ Day into ‘A Day with a Special Person,’ sensitive to the fact that many children don’t have living grandparents.”