Admissions

by Nancy Lieberman

  The custom-fit stateroom was home to the silent auction, where parents competed, in semi-anonymity, by writing their paddle number on bid sheets in incremental dollar values for goodies like Sunday (brunch) in the Park with George (Stephanopoulos), an ice-skating birthday party with the New York Islanders, or a personalized voice mail message recorded by Howard Stern.

  Helen was perusing the various bids, trying to figure out whose paddle number belonged to whom, when she saw Dana Winter, looking even more dyspeptic than usual. Pen clutched tightly in hand, she stood guard over several items while draining another glass of bubbly. She was poised, ready to pounce the moment anyone wrote in a higher bid for the TaylorMade golf bag signed by Tiger Woods.

  “Dana, are you feeling all right?” Helen asked.

  “The nerve of some people,” Dana sputtered. “On three separate occasions Cally Reynolds has tried to steal the cosmetic tooth whitening right out from under my nose.” She scratched out the underbid and upped it by $500.

  “I don’t know. You’re looking a little green to me. Have you had anything to eat? The bok choy egg rolls are really good.” Helen reached to snatch one off a passing tray and handed it to Dana.

  “Oh, God, no,” said Dana reflexively, pushing away Helen’s hand. “I can’t possibly eat a thing.”

  “Maybe you should go outside and get some air.”

  “And have somebody outbid me on the golf bag? If I lose it, Patrick will be furious,” Dana slurred.

  “Why don’t you go out on deck, take two Dramamine, and I’ll keep an eye on the Tiger?”

  “Well . . . Maybe just for a minute,” Dana gagged, trying to hold back the spew. “But when Pamela comes by, tell her I’ll be right b-b-b-baaacccckkkk.” She ran out of the room, hand over mouth.

  Pamela? Helen couldn’t believe her ears. She couldn’t have meant Pamela.

  But it was true. Surrounded by an adoring throng of parents who had no idea of the true story behind her ouster, the former head of The School held court atop the ersatz Versailles staircase that led to the grand ballroom. Always eager for approbation, Pamela basked in the attention.

  “Please come back,” her minions begged. “For the good of the children, you must change your mind. What are we ever going to do without you?” Champagne glasses clinked. Toasts were tendered to her selflessness as St. Pamela regaled her faithful with tales of teaching malnourished Haitian youngsters how to read, bringing comfort to babies in Yemen, and founding the first all-girls school on the Isle of Man.

  If any of these sycophants had a blood alcohol level remotely south of 96th Street, they’d realize that Pamela had made her bed and was still lying about it, Helen thought wryly.

  “What the fuck is she doing here?” Sara demanded.

  In all the years he had known her, Michael had never heard such enmity in Sara’s voice.

  “I don’t know.” He tried to diffuse her rage. “I always thought rats were supposed to abandon the ship.”

  “Do you think Helen knows about this?” Sara snapped.

  “Absolutely not,” he replied, sure that she couldn’t have known and not told him. “I’ve been looking for her for the last twenty minutes. I thought she was with you.”

  “What the fuck is she doing here?” Lisa Fontaine confronted Sara. “The board made it expressly clear that Rothschild was no longer welcome at school functions. Whose responsibility was it to check invitations anyway?” she demanded at the very moment Dana Winter, the heaving heavy, tore through the banquet hall, hands cupped over her mouth. Sara nodded in her direction.

  “Two-faced cow!” Fontaine spat.

  “What the fuck is she doing here?” Helen demanded as she charged over to Sara and Lisa.

  And the band played on.

  Despite Pamela’s unique ability to turn the end of the rainbow into a pot of poo, the evening had all the earmarks of an unqualified success. As was his custom, Christie’s Alasdair MacIntyre got the bidding off to a roaring start.

  “Anyone who has never bid at an auction before, raise your paddle.” About half the room lifted their numbers. “Excellent,” Alasdair complimented them. “Now you know how to bid.” And he began with item number one.

  Nearly halfway through the live auction, Helen calculated that they’d already netted close to two hundred thousand dollars. She had to hand it to Denise Doyle-Gillis: she couldn’t have done it without her. Any school that took Marissa as an incoming freshman should consider itself lucky; they’d be getting a dynamo of a mother as well.

  “I’ll never forget the first time the girls had a play date—they were probably around five years old,” Helen reminisced across the table from Denise, who was seated next to John Toppler. “Marissa asked me if it was all right to watch the Power Rangers. God, what was the name of that pink one?”

  “Kimberly,” Lauren Toppler said. “Julian always wanted to be her, too.” Her husband harrumphed.

  “Denise had already told me that Marissa wasn’t allowed to watch action shows,” Helen continued, “so I said to her, ‘I don’t know about the Power Rangers—isn’t it a little violent?’ And without missing a beat, Marissa said, ‘Oh, no, all they do is save the day.’”

  Denise beamed at the early manifestation of her daughter’s altruism.

  “My favorite was the time you and I chaperoned the first-grade class trip to the museum,” Lauren Toppler said to Helen. “Remember the Rubens nudes?” The memory caused tears to well up in Helen’s eyes.

  “Remember when Julian said at the top of his little voice, ‘Why don’t they put clothes on these people? They’re all naked!’” Lauren paused to let Helen pick up the story.

  “Then Zoe walked over to a magnificent nude, stared at it very intently, and yelled at the top of her lungs, ‘Hey, Julian, her butt is even bigger than April’s mom’s!’” Everyone found this to be amusing except for John Toppler, who excused himself to get his Chivas refreshed at the bar.

  Normally Helen found incessant reminiscing about one’s children to be deadly dull, but tonight she actually enjoyed sharing fond memories with old friends. Only the unsettling pall of Pamela’s presence at a nearby table broke the spell. Like someone unable to stop picking at an annoying scab, Helen kept stealing furtive glances over her shoulder to where the former head of The School sat between her two most faithful acolytes, Dana and Patrick Winter.

  “Item number forty-two,” Alasdair MacIntyre announced from the rostrum. “‘Zelebrate with Zigglebaum.’ Armand Zigglebaum, Johan and Wolfgang’s talented papa, has graced us with a number of his fully orchestrated CD sets including the Second Horn Concerto, ‘Metamorphosen,’ and the Duet-Concertino. These recordings are private-edition collector’s items and are not available in stores. Get ziggy with the artist that the Philharmonic Monthly describes as ‘the man who brings the oh, boy to oboe.’ Do I have a bid for four hundred? Four fifty? Five hundred? I have five fifty in the back of the room . . .”

  Helen craned her neck to see who actually wanted this snoozer, when she caught a glimpse of Pamela, buttonholing John Toppler near the bar. The receptive manner in which he greeted her made Helen wonder if Pamela was still on his speed-dial.

  “Item number forty-three: Houston, We Have a Drinking Problem. Join fifth-grade parent Lenny Camacho, lead singer of Space Case, America’s hardest-partying band, for two weeks on the road during their comeback tour starting this Memorial Day weekend. Doctor Larry Bridges, the School physician, assures me that penicillin will be provided . . . heh, heh. Must be twenty-one or older please. Do I have a bid for two thousand? . . . do I see three thousand? . . . four thousand . . . six thousand . . . eight thousand . . .”

  “Twelve thousand!” shouted Grateful Dad front man Nick Argento, jumping up and nearly knocking over the high hat and cymbals. As he stood up to take a bow, the whole place went nuts. People were stomping. High-fiving. Whooping it up Texas-style. If Sara hadn’t stopped her, Gia Hancock looked as if she might rip off her bra and throw it into the fray
.

  “I wonder how high they’ll go for a piece of pissaladiere?” Helen whispered sardonically to Denise Doyle-Gillis as they eyed the next offering in the catalogue.

  “Item number forty-four: The Last Supper. The School’s famous six-course dinner for twelve, a farewell fete cooked by Pamela Rothschild . . . ,” Alasdair read from the catalogue.

  There was a hush of suspense as everyone awaited the first bid.

  “I have an opening bid of one thousand,” Alasdair announced buoyantly. “Do I hear fifteen hundred? Two thousand. Twenty-five hundred to the lady,” he acknowledged a first-grade mom sitting to the left.

  “Would you like to bid three thousand, sir?”

  “I have four thousand. Five thousand.” Alasdair injected urgency by rattling off the bids at a breathless pace. “Seven thousand, to the lady on the left.”

  “Seventy-five hundred.” Alasdair pointed to Dana’s raised paddle.

  “Eight thousand,” shouted a well-heeled father who still operated under the misconception that his slacker son was a freshman at The Very Brainy Boys’ School due to Pamela’s efforts last year, when, in fact, the boy swam the fastest 440 butterfly in the state.

  “Ten thousand!” Dana Winter shouted as Pamela nodded approval.

  “I have ten thousand; do I hear eleven thousand?” Alasdair said, looking at the previous bidder, who shook his head and bowed out.

  “I have a bid for ten thousand. Am I selling at ten thousand? Ten thousand once . . . ten thousand twice,” he announced, looking directly at a quaking Dana.

  “Fifteen thousand!” a voice boomed. Every head in the room turned to see John Toppler with his paddle held straight in the air.

  Pamela nudged Dana with a sharp elbow. “Twenty thousand!” Dana yelled, to get the auctioneer’s attention.

  Toppler’s paddle didn’t budge. “Twenty-five thousand.”

  “John, what are you doing?” Lauren whispered, laying her hand firmly on her husband’s arm.

  “I know what I’m doing,” he mumbled gruffly, pushing away her arm.

  “I have a bid for TWENTY-FIVE THOUSAND DOLLARS,” Alasdair enunciated every syllable.

  Everyone applauded.

  “Thirty thousand,” Dana bleated, as much from the sharp kick she had just received under the table as from the murderous look she had just gotten from Patrick.

  Toppler’s arm never wavered as he yelled, “THIRTY-FIVE THOUSAND.”

  “John, what’s going on?” Lauren asked through clenched teeth.

  He hushed her harshly and whispered, “She said she would get Julian into boarding school.”

  “Who did?”

  “Rothschild. She promised if I bid up her damn dinner she would get him into Extrover.”

  “I thought we agreed that boarding school isn’t right for Julian. And besides, Sara spoke with them and they told her that he’s not the right fit.”

  In the rear, Pamela yanked on Dana’s arm and pushed it into the air. “Forty thousand. . . . We have forty thousand over here!” Pamela yelled as Patrick Winter tried to wrestle the paddle out of Dana’s hand.

  “Forty thousand dollars for frogs’ legs? What are you, crazy? It’s either this or the side-by-side Sub-Zeros. You can’t have both!” Patrick snarled forcefully.

  “We have FORTY THOUSAND DOLLARS from the lady in the back of the room,” cried Alasdair as the crowd went berserk.

  “Patrick, you have nothing to worry about,” said Pamela, joining the paddle tug-of-war. “John Toppler promised me he’s going to pay a record price for the Last Supper. My dinner will go down in private school history,” she explained excitedly.

  Alasdair looked at John Toppler. “Sir, the bid is to you. Will you bid forty-five thousand?”

  “John, let it go,” Lauren pleaded. “Julian doesn’t want to go to boarding school, and they’ve made it clear, they don’t want him, either,” she urged.

  Toppler lowered the paddle a few inches. “He’s a cream puff.”

  “He’s our baby.” Lauren choked back a tear.

  “He needs to be tougher.”

  “So you want his childhood to be miserable just because yours was?”

  “Rothschild gave me her word.” He remained intransigent.

  “Pamela’s word is worthless and you know it,” Helen cut him short, and said rapidly, “John, Julian is a joy. Any man who doesn’t recognize how lucky he is to have a son like Julian doesn’t deserve to be a father. You should be happy that he wants to stay at home and be near you.”

  Alasdair looked at John Toppler again. “Sir, the bid is still with you. Will you bid forty-five thousand?”

  Slowly John Toppler lowered his paddle to his lap.

  “Going once, going twice, SOLD TO THE LADY FOR FORTY THOUSAND DOLLARS!” Alasdair shouted, and slammed down the gavel over thunderous applause.

  For the third time that evening, Dana Winter made a mad dash for the deck.

  And the band played on.

  Pamela ran to follow Dana out the starboard door, leading to the third deck, where a thick fog made visibility almost impossible. She stumbled over to the rail and found her doubled over, violently vomiting overboard.

  “It will be the grandest fete ever. We’ll do the boeuf en croute, the pommes de terre Anna. I’ll even make my famous chocolate torte with butter ganache.” Pamela rested her hand on Dana’s back and patted her assuredly.

  “Don’t talk about food. You’re making me . . . ,” Dana barely managed to say before heaving once again.

  “Oh, Dana, here you are.” Denise Doyle-Gillis approached. “How do you want to pay for the Last Supper? Check or credit card? You hadn’t left your card imprint before the sale, so we weren’t sure,” she said officiously, as though oblivious to Dana’s retching.

  “I don’t know . . . I’m not even sure I really meant to bid that high,” Dana groaned softly.

  “Don’t you dare betray me. Of course you did,” Pamela insisted indignantly. “It will be the most celebrated soiree in the history of The School. For years people will talk about how you stood up to the pressure and stepped up to the plate. The dinner will be a celebration of April’s acceptance to The Fancy Girls’ School. She will be the guest of honor.”

  At that moment, Sara appeared on the deck. Concerned about Dana, she, too, had followed her out, only to be greeted by a wet slap of wind and a glacial stare from Pamela’s ghostly, enshrouded silhouette. Above the hum of the engine and the churning waves, Sara faintly heard Dana murmur, “Yes. We’ll all toast April when she starts The Fancy Girls’ School. I can’t wait to see her in the little skirt and blouse. I always loved their uniform.”

  “Dana, please,” Sara interjected emphatically, “I don’t know why you’ve chosen to believe Pamela, but I promise you, The Fancy Girls’ School is not going to accept April. Dana, think about April’s health. She’s very fragile. She can’t handle that kind of pressure now. Maybe next year, if she’s better by then.”

  Dana looked from Sara to Pamela, to Sara, to Pamela.

  “She’s LYING!” Pamela shrieked, and then, jutting out her chin and baring her teeth, growled, “You’ve been after me and my job for the last year, you slag! You lied to the board and to the parents. You poisoned them against me. Well, no more! You see what she’s doing, don’t you, Dana?”

  Suddenly another figure emerged from the fog and felt her way towards the muffled voices.

  “Everything I’ve ever done, I did for the good of The School. I’ve devoted my life to these people and their children,” Pamela declared as she made a sweeping gesture towards the new arrival, Helen.

  “Zoe Drager was a timorous little mouse when she came to The School. I built her confidence. Gave her courage. I made her join the chorus. I helped her find her voice. And she thanks me for it every time I pass her in the hall. And you, Helen. You were a simpering sheep when you first arrived. I made you a room parent. I made you a tour guide. How do you think you became president of the Parents’ Association
? That was my doing. And how do you show your appreciation? By taking sides with this, this Brutus, that’s how! Et tu, Helen?”

  “Pamela, get a grip. Maybe we should go inside,” Denise took her elbow and tried to steer her away from the others.

  “Leave me alone, you übermother! I hate your type. So self-righteous!” she shouted, shoving Denise aside. “All you people who think Sara knows what she’s doing are in for a shocker. The only way any of your children are getting into high school is because I’ve called in favors for all of you. And this is the thanks I get. Dana, April is signed, sealed, and delivered to The Fancy Girls’ School because of me. Denise, I had the power to get Marissa into any school in the country, but you cheaped out and chose public. But that’s your prerogative. And you, Helen!” she shouted, and jabbed her finger in the darkness. “You should know I’ve used every bit of my influence to get Zoe into The Bucolic Campus School—even though they had their doubts, I may add. Thanks to me, you can rest assured I’ve taken care of everything. I’ve had several meetings with my dear friend Vince Gargano over the course of the last month. In fact, just this morning we had breakfast and he said to let you know she’s in.”

  Sara squeezed Helen’s hand and whispered, “Are you going to tell her, or should I?”

  “Tell me what?” Pamela snarled.

  Helen cleared her throat. “Vince Gargano has been in Italy for the last three weeks. He’s taken a leave of absence from his job.”

  At least ten very awkward seconds passed, and then a fury was unleashed. “You INGRATES! Every one of you! After all I’ve done for you, your pathetic children, and your little school.” As she ranted, she grappled with the clasp on her infamous charm bracelet. “You’ve ruined this for me forever. You’ve turned it into a meaningless trinket.” Dramatically she tore the bracelet off her wrist and tossed it overboard, into the icy waters below. “Farewell, all my children!”