Admission

by Julie Buxbaum

  I’m not sure what sort of mistake I mean. There hasn’t been a mistake. Not really. They say the devil is in the details. When I took the SAT the last time, my score went up by 240 points. If it’s true what the newspaper reports—that I applied to SCC as a pole vaulter, that somewhere along the line, Dr. Wilson changed my application and my parents paid off a coach to vouch for me and make a space—then that’s not a mistake. That’s a lie.

  And apparently, a crime.

  That’s news to me.

  Maybe what I mean is not that there’s been a mistake so much as there’s been an overreaction. The View called. Why would The View be interested in this? In me?

  My little sister, who is not so little, is wearing flannel pajamas covered in cartoon bunny rabbits and her night retainer. I’m older and wiser, if only by a year. It’s my job to rein in her anxiety.

  I grab her hand and squeeze.

  She pulls away.

  “I’ll get you a list of lawyers,” she says, and marches out of the room.

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  Then

  “So, to be clear: You’re going to go on torturing yourself and me about Levi Haas forever?” Shola asks. Today she’s wearing a vintage TLC T-shirt, cutoff jean shorts, and knee-high black Dr. Martens, the sort of amazing outfit that makes me proud to know her but makes the rest of our classmates shake their heads. I’m wearing a short ’80s babydoll dress I inherited from the “casual lunch/beach” section of my mom’s closet, which makes no one do anything. Shola and I often talk about our school’s aesthetic, how we haven’t quite yet figured out the line between what makes people admire your bravery with your style choices and what ignites irrational anger at them.

  We are sharing a cup of fro-yo on the bench outside the auditorium, as we do most afternoons after school before I head to Mandarin or to see Cesar. If you asked me my single most favorite thing about Wood Valley, besides Shola, of course, I’d say it was the self-dispensing yogurt machine. That chocolate-and-vanilla swirl is almost worth the $50k a year my parents pay in tuition.

  “Yup.”

  “Both of you need to grow a pair,” Shola says, and pauses, as if reconsidering. “Of ovaries.”

  “Did you say I need to grow a pair of ovaries?” I ask.

  “I did. The language of courage should not only belong to men.” Lola fist-bumps me, and I grin.

  “We can do better than ovaries. How about: You need to grow a vagina?”

  “A vulva.”

  “You need to learn to shed your lining,” I say.

  “Nailed it,” Shola says.

  It’s been a month since beer pong, and though I feel like things have shifted between Levi and me—he often waits for me after classes, he finds excuses to touch me, he hasn’t mentioned another girl in a while—we’ve made zero progress. I need to learn the language of courage and kiss him first.

  None of this passive, please kiss me nonsense.

  “I hear that Xander’s parents are away again.”

  “I wish my parents lived in Monaco.”

  “Stop complaining. You have the best parents in the world,” Shola says, and I’m about to reflexively disagree when I realize that my parents, though far from perfect, are still pretty kickass. My mom, in particular. When I first got my period, she lay on the floor of the bathroom to give me real-time instructions on how to use a tampon. Later, I did the same for Shola, since her mom left her a box of maxipads in her backpack and explained nothing. “My dad is super pissed because I didn’t help out with the church barbecue last weekend. I had gotten up early to finish that big physics project and I was tired and he was like, ‘We don’t do lazy in this family.’ ” Shola puts on a heavy Nigerian accent whenever she imitates her parents, and it’s always stern and menacing and disapproving. In reality, Shola’s parents are as warm and friendly as she is, and on the rare occasions we hang out at their apartment, they treat me like I’m an interesting, exotic pet that needs to be fed. Shola has a ton of friends in her neighborhood, who she sees outside of school when she’s not hanging out with me, and though I know all about their secret lives and I’ve seen pictures on her phone—a squad of beautiful black girls—I’ve only met them in person a few times.

  “My mom’s on my case too. I’m taking the SAT again this weekend,” I say.

  “Here?”

  “Nope. Some testing center in West Hollywood. They had more availability or something. I don’t know. My parents set it up.”

  This is a half-lie. My accommodation came through, and apparently, there was some sort of conflict with the dates available for extra time at Wood Valley. I’m relieved. My test-taking juju hasn’t been great at school. Maybe sitting it somewhere new will help.

  I guess it turns out I do officially have ADHD, though when I asked for an Adderall prescription my mother suggested I dot my wrists with ylang-ylang instead. I haven’t told Shola, because I suspect she’ll think the diagnosis is nonsense, and knowing her, she won’t be shy in telling me so. As it is, she thinks my family is ridiculous and over the top, and I guess we are, if you are Shola. I mean, the first time I showed her my mom’s closet, which to be fair is like a museum with ever-changing exhibits, she dropped to her knees and started genuflecting.

  It’s not like there’s anything I can do about the testing accommodation, even if I share Shola’s suspicions. I don’t let myself dwell on it too much, anyway, because I don’t like the way it makes me feel something uncomfortable and unfamiliar: an uncertainty about my parents’ judgment.

  According to the SAT board, I’m allowed a full two days for the test, though my mom says it’s okay if I finish in one. I tell myself the extra time won’t make a difference one way or another, so I shouldn’t stress too much about why they gave it to me.

  “Just remember, if they were testing for awesomeness, you’d get a sixteen hundred,” Shola says.

  “Who’s paying you to be president of my fan club?” I ask, and rest my head on her shoulder, which is about half a foot higher than mine and therefore at a perfect angle.

  “Why do you assume everything comes down to money?” Shola jokes. When we met on the first day of seventh grade, Shola walked up to me and said, “Everyone here seems super weird to me, and you look like you’re probably weird too, but maybe slightly less so, which I think means we should be friends.” She was wearing a T-shirt that said NERD, in all caps, like she wanted to shout the word. I said, “Define weird.” And she said, without missing a beat, “Did I say weird? I meant rich.”

  I’m not going to lie—my first thought at the time was: Do I look different from everyone else? Once we were close enough for me to ask her why she picked me without her judging me for wanting to know, Shola would confess that it was my slouch. I didn’t walk around like I thought I already owned the world, even though it turned out I was as privileged as everyone else at Wood Valley.

  After being her best friend for five years, I’m deeply grateful for my terrible posture.

  “Just kidding. It’s your parents. Yup, they’re totally paying me,” Shola says. And then we both burst out laughing.

  * * *

  —

  On Friday night, I get into bed early, with Fluffernutter tucked under my arm for extra comfort, but I can’t sleep. I’m too nervous. My tutor, Linda, told me not to worry, that what will be will be, and these words were so disconcertingly out of character, they freaked me out more.

  I guess even she has given up on me.

  Linda wears blazers and dainty shirts that have little bows that tie at the neck and basic pumps. She’s widely considered the best tutor in Los Angeles, and there’s a waiting list to work with her. In fact, sometimes we have our sessions over FaceTime, because she’s busy tutoring the children of oligarchs in places like Dubai. She calls pants “slacks” and I bet she’s never had much fun, not even on the private jets
her clients arrange for her. When the air hostess offers her a glass of champagne, I’d put money on her responding with something prim like “No thank you. I’m on the clock.”

  She’s complimented me exactly once since we started working together over a year ago, and that was to tell me she appreciated that I always showed up with sharpened pencils.

  I don’t think Linda likes me very much, which, fair enough. I bring down her stats. Despite all my studying, my score rose a measly ten points on my last practice exam, which, by the way, was untimed.

  I’m so screwed.

  My phone dings with a text, and I scoop it up, greedy for the distraction. I do a little shimmy when I see Levi’s name.

  Levi: Shola says you’re taking the SAT tomorrow. GOOD LUCK!!!

  Me: Thanks. Need more than luck. I need a miracle.

  Levi: Nah, you’ll do great. You’re a smartypants. You always give such good advice. Speaking of which…

  We’ve been down this road enough times that I recognize the pattern. This is how it always starts: Levi drops the I like so-and-so bomb and then asks me what to do about it, like it’s fun for me to be his personal relationship consultant.

  I always help out, because I’m a self-defeating masochist.

  I can’t do this tonight, though. I need my beauty rest. The goddamn SATs, the Academy Awards of the high school experience, are tomorrow. I even canceled on Cesar, my reading buddy, this afternoon, and I never cancel on Cesar. That little dude and I are halfway through Harry Potter.

  I’m about to say something to Levi like Going to bed, talk later—but his next text beats me to it.

  Levi: There’s this girl who’ve I’ve known forever…

  Me: I’m tired. Can I give good advice tomorrow?

  Levi: I promise it’ll be quick.

  Me: You realize I’m no expert, right?

  Levi: You totally are, especially with this one. So, anyhow, I’ve known her forever and she’s amazing and well, things have been different between us lately. In a good way.

  Levi: But I’m worried about ruining our friendship.

  Levi: What do I do?

  My mouth goes dry and I fold over. Fluffernutter pushes her head into my stomach to make sure I’m okay. He can’t be talking about me, right? I mean, we’ve known each other forever, or at least since seventh. There’s been a noticeable shift in the air between us lately, or at least I think there has, and if we were to hook up, I’d be worried about ruining our friendship too. I mean, not that worried, because friendship was always my second choice, but still. I get it. I mean, who would he ask for breakup advice when he got bored of me?

  I totally guided him through ghosting on Sophie. And Evianna. And Blue. And Rain.

  This might be it. For real this time.

  I decide that I can’t assume, which, as Isla likes to say, makes an ass out of u and me. Isla always says dumb-smart stuff like that, which is why I hate-love her.

  Me: I don’t know. I need more information.

  Levi: Well, she kills at beer pong and turns nouns into verbs and she gives good advice and she’s fun and awesome and she’s…

  I hold my breath. I wait through three rounds of ellipses, and then disappearing ellipses, and then ellipses appearing again. So many ellipses. Are you kidding me?

  Levi: taking the SAT tomorrow.

  My stomach falls out. Me. He’s talking about me. I think. Just to be sure, I write back.

  Me: Tell her

  More ellipses.

  Levi: I just did

  * * *

  —

  I fall asleep that night, way too late, grinning and hugging my phone, like it’s actually Levi and not an electronic device that translates his thoughts into words on a screen. My mom would be mad, since she’s constantly harping on about blue light disrupting sleep and the radiation giving us cancer.

  No matter what happens tomorrow, even if I sit for my unlimited time and still manage to bomb the SAT again, Levi Haas, Levi Haas, likes me.

  CHAPTER NINE

  Now

  After Isla leaves my room to play Nancy Drew girl detective, I realize I need to talk to Shola. What are best friends for, if not for when the FBI comes pounding on your door? How many times have we joked about the fact that when the time comes, we’ll always be there to help each other bury a dead body?

  My corpse-in-the-trunk moment has arrived.

  I scroll through my phone and realize the messages are from numbers I don’t recognize. Every single one of them, without exception, seems to be a hate text.

  Deep breaths. No one would ever say this stuff to my face. When I eventually go back to school—though I have no idea when that will be, as it went without discussion that Isla and I were staying home today—people will be, if not exactly nice, then at least civil. I will not get assaulted in the parking lot.

  Have I been doxxed somewhere?

  Hope your mom rots in jail

  Die of AIDS cheater bitch

  Spoiled See You Next Tuesday

  You too stupid to live

  entitled rich idiot

  I deserved that spot so much more than you

  “Isla!” I scream, because I don’t know what else to do. Deep breathing is a scam. I feel like I’m getting stabbed in the brain by my phone.

  I need Shola. She’ll know, for example, how so many strangers have my cell number. When I dial her, it goes straight to voice mail.

  “Delete all your social media accounts,” Isla yells back from her bedroom. “Carrie’ll get us new phone numbers later today. Ignore them.”

  “You’re getting texts too?” I ask. It hadn’t occurred to me that Isla, who had nothing to do with any of this, whose only crime is being my sister, would also be targeted. Will everyone forget about this by next year, when it’s her turn to apply?

  “Just shut down those accounts. The lawyer told Dad to tell us yesterday but he forgot,” Isla shouts. “And then turn off your phone.”

  “He forgot?” I ask, as if that’s inconceivable, even though it makes total sense. My online life was no one’s priority yesterday, not even mine.

  Instead of listening to Isla, I open Instagram, and as I’ve been doing for the last week since I was accepted, I check in on the SCC Class of 2024 page. Before, I’d scroll through looking for a potential roommate, or potential friends, or to marinate in the idea that it was official: I was going to a kickass school.

  Today, clicking over is a very bad idea. I need to learn to listen to my little sister.

  Photos lifted from my account are posted everywhere with comments that are as cruel as the texts.

  You better not come bitch or we’ll be waiting for you

  Screw her and screw her mom and screw SCC

  I hope she rushes and then dies of alcohol poisoning

  There’s a meme with a picture of my face Photoshopped onto a cartoon water polo player, a ball being smashed into my face, even though I apparently applied as a pole vaulter, not a water polo player.

  Two totally different things.

  Apparently, it was Ignacius Smith Wollingham, IV, a name I’ve only recently learned, who was the one who applied to Yale as a pretend water polo player.

  There are a bunch of gifs of my mother on My Dad, My Pops, and Me, mostly from the episode when she’s arrested for trying to break into her own house. But in another one of the memes, my mom’s in stirrups giving birth in the pilot, but instead of baby Lil’ Missy, out comes out an emoji poo with a name tag that reads: Chloe Berringer, dumbass p.o.s.

  “Chloe,” Isla yells from the next room. “Seriously, stop looking. Shut it all down.”

  I have no idea how she knows through the wall what I’m doing. Maybe she does have second sight.

  I keep reading. No one is supportive. Not a single person even suggests
the possibility that I did not know.

  No one says Hey, leave her alone. She’s only a kid.

  The world has decided I’m a spoiled, entitled lying bitch—bitch is the word used most often—which makes me wonder idly what the boys who’ve been caught up in this are being called. Did the rest of my fellow scandalees also wake up feeling scared and heartbroken and blindsided, but also like they’re officially the stupidest person in America?

  The meme doesn’t hurt so much as feels like confirmation: I am a piece of shit.

  This is not news to me. I had thought I had done a good job of hiding it, that’s all. But I guess that’s what a dumbass p.o.s. would think.

  And then that’s when I see it, a new text from Levi. My pulse stutters, and I feel a sickening dread. I don’t want to read it and fillet my own already filleted heart.

  Levi: I mean, Chlo…seriously?

  I write back immediately:

  Me: It’s not how it looks

  He doesn’t make me wait. I thank God for small blessings.

  Levi: I need a beat to process

  Me: Levi, let me explain

  Levi: I need time. I’m so…

  Levi: Never mind

  Me: Please

  I wait a minute, but the little Delivered never appears under my message. I retype and resend. Again, no delivery confirmation. There’s only one explanation: Levi, without even giving me an opportunity to explain, has blocked me. I tell myself this is temporary—I take him at his word; he needs time—and still a loud, flushing sound, like the suction roar of an airplane bathroom, fills the empty space in my head.

  I deactivate all my accounts, as I should have done fifteen minutes ago. I feel a pang of nostalgia and loss as the pictures that have chronicled my life—mostly shots of Shola and me making silly faces in front of LA’s many Instagrammable walls, or smiling big as we are about to dig into red velvet cupcakes—all disappear.