“No. But I’ve seen some of the words before. Like ‘Spot.’ ‘Out, out damned Spot,’” he explained.
“Why, that’s real smart a ya, hon,” she said, recognizing the phrase but not sure from where.
“Miss Charleston, I’m hot. May I please take off my jumper?” he asked politely.
She was confused. “You’re not wearin’ a jumper, sugar.”
“What do you call this?” he said with a sigh of frustration as he pulled off his sweater.
Again she was confused. “Oscar, what’s your favorite food?” When she was hungry, which was much of the time, she liked to talk to the children about food.
“Mummy wishes it were bubbles and squeak.”
“Whatcha mean, sugar?”
“But I’d rather have bangers and mash any day. Or chips.”
“I like chips, too,” she said with relief.
“Is it time yet to go up the apples and pears and find Mummy and Daddy?” he asked anxiously.
“You make about as much sense as a ripe Georgia peach in the middle of January,” she said, furrowing her brow.
“Upstairs to find my mum and dad!” he announced with frustration, and bounded upstairs to the admissions office, Laura Sue huffing and puffing to catch up.
They reached the top of the stairs just as Ben and Clarissa were shaking hands with Sara, and as Oscar leapt into his father’s arms, Miss Laura bubbled convivially, “Me and lil’ Oscar Meyer wiener had a real swell time, didn’t we, sugar?”
Oscar burrowed into his father’s shoulder.
“What is it, ducky?” Benjamin asked.
“This lady is all ballsed up,” Oscar sobbed.
“There, there,” he comforted his son. “Don’t get your knickers in a twist about it.” And then he shrugged apologetically at Miss Charleston, who looked upset and confused.
Maybe Pamela wasn’t completely off base about the language difference, Sara thought.
The last of the interviews completed, Sara spent the rest of the day behind closed doors with Brandi, ensconced in the first phase of the Kindergarten admissions selections. There were dozens of applications that, for a myriad of reasons, were not even in the running, making the first round of cuts quite simple. There were the many children who were patently not ready for school, there were applicants whose KAT reports were drastically below the norm, and there were the applicants whose parents so far exceeded the pain-in-the-ass quotient that Sara refused to consider their application regardless of the child’s qualifications. The Belzers fell into this category. Even though Sara felt that Sam would thrive in a supportive classroom environment, away from his parents for a good portion of the day, she rejected him on the grounds that she couldn’t bear the thought of discussing his latent genius with his parents for the next ten years.
However, the job became more difficult when they tackled the second tier. This was the group that comprised all the sibling applicants, and there were many. Sara was relieved not to have Pamela breathing down her back, glad of the freedom to make her own decisions about these tricky cases. She and Brandi discussed each application at length, making sure to consider all the variables before deciding yea or nay. For example, Nina Moore was a decent candidate with an annoying father and an absentee mother. Her eighth-grade brother, Nicholas, had been slightly needier than one would ideally want, but wasn’t an extreme case. And it didn’t seem that he was going to be particularly difficult to place in high school. Ultimately, they both felt compelled to reward the mother for her career choice, since she was one of the few ob-gyns who still accepted patients with high-risk pregnancies; and even though her husband was a shlub, they accepted the Moores’ second child.
They spent the next three hours discussing each of the siblings, admitting fourteen, rejecting twenty-three.
After the siblings they had to consider the few applicants who were essentially faits accomplis. Obviously, Montana Easton fell into this category, not necessarily by Sara’s choice but by a confluence of unforeseen circumstances and his megastar mom’s media savvy. Aurora Dondi-Marghelletti was another one, partially out of Sara’s sense of obligation to Simone Savage—she always accepted at least one of her students, and in this case, she liked the family. And although she wouldn’t admit it to Brandi, she had a soft spot for Italians and loved the sound of their name. Then there were two children whose parents were, though not exactly related, so tight with a couple of trustees that they might as well have been, whom she had no choice but to accept, as Lisa Fontaine had made abundantly clear in a recent e-mail.
Next they had to focus on diversity. Sara was committed to making sure the class was at least 15 percent nonwhite, and with many appealing applicants from which to choose, she and Brandi reviewed each one and accepted several more than they knew they would enroll. The fact was, all the schools wooed the well-qualified minority children, and each one would most likely have the luxury of receiving multiple acceptances.
In a class of fifty, that didn’t leave many open slots to fill, but Sara and Brandi persevered to give every remaining applicant a fair shake.
“I’m sorry the Romanovs knocked themselves out of the running by sending that Christmas gift,” Brandi said.
“Me, too,” Sara admitted.
“What do you want to do about Oscar Whyte?” Brandi asked, flipping open his application file.
“What are his KAT scores like?” Sara asked.
“Ninety-eight, ninety-four, ninety-seven, ninety-eight,” Brandi read.
“Wow. He’s very bright. But highly eccentric . . . which I like,” Sara began.
“The parents are sort of oddball but seem very knowledgeable about education and really love The School,” Brandi added enthusiastically.
“But they haven’t looked at any other schools, so they have nothing to compare us to. That bothers me,” Sara complained, and then paused to read through his entire file. “At the moment, we don’t have any British students. I would like to see at least one in The School. Wouldn’t you?”
“Absolutely.”
“I just wish he didn’t come by way of you know who,” Sara said regretfully. “But in a funny way, that’s why I’m favorably disposed. She really screwed them, and I feel this irrational compulsion to make it up to them. Let’s accept him.”
“Miranda Swanson?” Brandi said, going down the list.
“Icchh, no,” Sara said. “That mother is insufferable, and Miranda is on her way to becoming a narcissist of the highest order. She’s one of the few children I have no desire to see in five years.”
“The Barton twins, Craig and Greg?”
“Tough call. The boys are nice, but the family situation is a mess, and the father seems dangerous. I vote no. What do you think?”
“They’re our only viable twins. And the former nanny, now stepmother is lovely. I say maybe.”
“Okay. Maybe.”
“Butterscotch Riley?”
“Love the name.”
“Yes. No?”
“Isn’t she the one who speaks Mandarin?”
“That’s her. What do you think?”
Sara recalled her recent dressing-room encounter with the mother and couldn’t decide whether to factor that into her decision. She would have to sleep on it.
“Maybe.”
“Silvia Clarin?” Brandi continued down the list.
“Is that the girl who’s allergic to everything?”
“That’s her. I say no.”
“Me, too. Just thinking about her gives me hives.”
And on and on it went. Four hours later they were interrupted by a visit from Lisa Fontaine.
“Thanks for stopping by,” Sara began. She had left Lisa a message that morning saying that something had come up she wanted to discuss. “Just when I thought the Tally Easton problem was resolved, I received a note from her with a donation to The School, intended, as she so eloquently put it, ‘as an expression of her deep gratitude for our willingness to overlook her publicit
y faux pas.’”
“That was kind of her. It’s unusual to receive a donation from a new family before the child has actually enrolled, but not unheard of. We received a rather large donation from what’s-his-name, that Wall Street honcho, last year before his daughter was even accepted, if I remember correctly, didn’t we?” Given the commotion it caused at the time, Lisa’s struggle to recall the details rang false to Sara.
“I was slightly put off by Tally’s check since we haven’t even sent out the letters of acceptance yet,” Sara said, maintaining her deferential tone.
“You and I both know their acceptance was a done deal the minute Tally Ho hit the stands in December. Tally used the media brilliantly. If we don’t accept Cheyenne, or whatever his name is, she’ll make our lives miserable. It’s just not worth it. So how much did she send?”
Sara gulped. “Half a million.”
“That sounds about right, don’t you think?” Lisa asked, not really interested in her response.
“Of course,” Sara said as if she meant it. When it came to fund-raising, she was flying by the seat of her pants. And for one who was accustomed to coach, upgrading to the first-class cabin was going to take some getting used to.
Tacked to the corkboard above his desk were the photographs Michael had taken in France. The numerous shots of Justine in situ, posed in her tiled kitchen stirring large copper pots, or on the garden path carrying baskets of potatoes, were a graphic testament to the surreal quality of Michael’s job these days. Generally not a procrastinator, he was having trouble finalizing the production budgets for the fall season. Factoring in the costs related to La Cuisine de Justine, which in his mind was still no more than a farce, was stretching the budget beyond tenability. As Xavier talked up the show as though it were the linchpin of the fall schedule, Michael dutifully played along. Some days he thought that Xavier really did believe in the show and that it would actually be produced and aired in the fall. Other days he expected Xavier to crack and confess his real reason for rooting for Justine. But he knew that if he persisted in second-guessing, he could drive himself crazy, so instead he forced himself to stay focused on the tasks at hand: fine-tuning estimates, participating in preproduction meetings, and humoring Justine. Come February 12, who knew what would happen?
He was relieved when his phone rang and on the other end was a chipper Vince Gargano; they hadn’t spoken since before the holidays.
“Yo, bro. I’m calling with a proposition. By the way, happy New Year,” Vince began.
“To you, too. What’s up?”
“Would you believe I’m calling to offer you a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to play some b-ball with the nineteen seventy-three Knicks?” Vince succeeded in tantalizing Michael.
“Say what?”
“Okay, listen. The Bucolic Campus School auction is coming up next month. You know how these school auctions work, don’t you?”
“Oy, do I ever.”
“Okay. So one of the items in our auction this year is Fantasy Basketball Camp. The deal is, five guys get to hoop it up with five members of the 1973 Knicks for a whole day, with lunch and dinner thrown in, too. Monroe’s gonna be there—Reed, Lucas, Bradley, and Frazier, too. We’ve got four guys, and we’re looking for a fifth to join us. We’ll be bidding against some heavy hitters, but there’s strength in numbers, and we might just get it. I immediately thought of you, bro. It’ll be a total gas and a great chance for you to get to know some of the guys here. We’ve got one of the cooler phys. ed. teachers, a math teacher, the dean of the upper school, me, and you would make five. Whaddya think?”
Michael wasn’t sure what to think. Did Vince mean that he should “get to know” these guys so that when Zoe went to The Bucolic Campus School next year he’d already be chummy with a few members of the faculty? What other reason would there be for him to “get to know” them? But at the same time that he was sweating that question, he was also thinking that it sounded like a gas.
“How much are we talking about?” Michael asked.
“It’ll probably go for around twenty-five,” Vince replied.
“Thousand?” Michael was not prepared for that.
“Yeah. That’s five grand each. Could be a bit more, but we figure we’ll set a limit at seven grand each. But hey, it all goes to the school, and it’s almost a hundred percent tax-deductible.”
“Great, if your kid is in the school,” Michael fished, and then waited for a response. But none was forthcoming. “That’s a lotta dough. Let me discuss it with the wife and get back to you, okay?”
“Sure, bro. Let me know soon, though; I know a lot of other guys who would kill for it.”
“How are things with you otherwise?” Michael fished again.
“Nuts. January is crazy in admissions. I’ve got to make the final selections this month. You can’t imagine what a huge to-do that is.”
“I think I have some idea,” Michael responded wryly.
In preparation for her meeting with the Winters, Sara was reviewing April’s academic records and was disturbed by the fact that, year by year, the level of her performance had markedly declined. When April first enrolled at The School in Kindergarten, she had KAT scores that ranged from the eighty-fifth to the ninety-fifth percentile. When, in the fifth grade, she first began to receive quarterly report cards, she had a 3.5 average. Each subsequent quarter her grade point average dropped until it had reached 2.2 last semester. The teachers’ written reports also reflected her troubles. The nadir of her academic descent was her recent SAPS scores, which were substantially below the fiftieth percentile. All this was presumably aggravated by her absenteeism, which had increased at an alarming rate, to the point that in the first semester of eighth grade she had missed eighteen days of school.
Knowing it was bound to be fraught with strife, Sara dreaded this meeting. She could hear the Winters in the reception area in the midst of a hushed but heated argument and waited until they appeared to have reached a momentary standoff before inviting them to enter her office.
“Bring me up to date on your thinking about where you would like to see April next year,” Sara began the discussion, with a self- assurance that she hoped to maintain throughout the meeting.
“If you’d been doing your homework, you would know that April is going to The Fancy Girls’ School. We’ve been unwavering in our pursuit of that from day one,” Dana stated smugly as Patrick nodded in agreement.
“I’m not sure, given the fragile state of April’s health, that would be a wise choice. I would worry that she would find the demands of their program extremely stressful right now,” Sara began diplomatically.
“That’s absurd,” Patrick blasted.
“Ridiculous,” Dana echoed.
Sara knew it was her responsibility to exercise her newfound authority and force them to face the facts. As she handed them April’s transcript, she said, “I’m sure there’s nothing here you haven’t already seen, but when looked at all together, the picture is pretty grim.”
She waited patiently while they gruffly leafed through the report, hissing barbed remarks to each other as they went.
“What you’re looking at is essentially a longhand version of what the admissions directors are working with. In addition, after meeting April, they have all had the same reaction—this is not a healthy adolescent. They have all asked me what kind of treatment April is receiving, and I’m almost embarrassed to tell them none. I have to tell you, I feel that’s unconscionable,” she said quietly.
They both refused to meet her gaze.
Sara continued, “I’d like to make a suggestion.” She paused. “That is, if you’re open to hearing one.”
“What?” Patrick barked, barely civil.
“I think the best thing you could do for April is to withdraw all of your applications and leave her at The School for another year. This would relieve her of tremendous pressure and give you some time to get her into intensive therapy, possibly a residential program, for t
he remainder of this school year. She could return to The School in September and repeat eighth grade.”
Their reaction was instantaneous: Dana turned red and emitted a choking sound, and a tear or two ran down her cheek, pooling in the ridges of her tightly puckered lips; Patrick quivered as the veins of his neck and forehead swelled and bulged. Sara was frightened by the potential for calamitous cardiovascular episodes on both their parts.
“I told Lisa Fontaine that you’re unsuited for this position. You’re absolutely unqualified to be talking to us this way. I’m going to tell the board that they should immediately get Pamela back to take over eighth-grade admissions, before we have a total fiasco on our hands!” Dana fumed.
“Why don’t you two go home and talk this over? You don’t have to make a decision immediately, but I wouldn’t let it go much longer. April is in crisis. I just saw her this morning, and she looks dreadful,” she counseled calmly. “I realize this is a lot to digest,” she added, immediately regretting her choice of word.
“You can be damn sure we’re going to talk about it,” Patrick exploded.
“I can assure you that this recommendation doesn’t merely reflect my own opinion. I’ve spoken with all of April’s teachers, The School’s consulting psychologist, and the psychiatric staff at the hospital last month.”
“You had no right to do that,” Patrick shouted. “That’s an invasion of privacy! I knew I should get Toppler involved. Dana, call him the minute we get out of here!” he ordered.
Sara didn’t back down. “You should also know that I spoke with Justine Frampton about April, just yesterday. She’s extremely concerned about her health and will not even consider her application until April gets help and shows signs of improvement.” She hadn’t planned to tell them this today, but at this point, felt she had no choice.
“That’s absurd and you know it. Just yesterday, Pamela assured me that April was getting into The Fancy Girls’ School. All along she’s told us that our application is no more than a formality.” Hands on hips, Dana bullied like the schoolyard thug Sara imagined her to have been.
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