Admission

by Julie Buxbaum

  I thought I’d feel real relief from this news. Instead, the shame sits ever-present, like a gravitational force. I let my mind wander to Mrs. Oh’s definition of me being fine, a thing I do often now, the way you’d wiggle a loose tooth. I tell myself that I’ll figure out one day how to live a long and authentically good life, like she promised.

  Isla and I look back out at the set, which isn’t a set but our house. The doubling of my mom’s professional life and our personal life feels weird, though not altogether unfamiliar.

  “I’m nervous. I don’t think Mom realizes how much people hate her. She’s so used to being Missy, right? I don’t think she gets that this could be a really tough interview,” Isla says.

  Our mother stands off to the side with my dad. They make such a striking couple, even with both of them at their most toned-down. They’re holding hands, and my mother is nodding. I bet Dad is giving her a pep talk.

  “She knows,” I say. “Look, she’s nervous.”

  My unflappable mother seems shaken and pale, the same way she looked when she was walking into the ER to see Hudson. Like she knew it could be the worst-case scenario.

  “Maybe,” Isla says. “By the way, I haven’t told Mom and Dad yet, but I’m not going back to Wood Valley next year. I’ve registered myself for Beverly Hills High.”

  “Public school,” I say, using my mother’s best scandalized voice, the one she would use on My Dad, My Pops, and Me whenever her fictional kid did something wrong. Isla laughs.

  “I know, right? They’re going to freak.”

  “They’ll get over it,” I say, and then before Isla can respond, my mom is ushered over to the couch, and the interviewer takes a seat across from her, and we are silenced by someone shouting “Live in ten,” and then the countdown begins.

  I slip my hand into Isla’s as the cameras roll.

  * * *

  —

  My mother looks small under the overhead lights, and she blinks a few times up at Brittany Brady, who seems taller because of her bigger hair. A swoosh of blond swings across her forehead like a wave.

  “I imagine this isn’t easy for you,” Brittany says, with a faux-empathetic tilt of her head and an attempted knitting of brows, which doesn’t quite work, presumably because of injectables. “Just a few months ago you were gearing up to star in the My Dad, My Pops, and Me reboot, and now you’re facing multiple felony charges and a possible forty years in prison.”

  My mom lets out a gurgle-cough. It was, of course, the mention of forty years. That gets me every time too.

  “How does it feel?” Brittany asks.

  “I actually…I have something I want to share. I know this is supposed to be an interview, and I’ll answer any questions you have, I promise, but I’d like to read this first if that’s okay?”

  “Sure,” Brittany says, shooting a quick glance at her producer, who nods, like go with it. We are on live television, so I’m not sure Brittany has much of a choice anyway.

  My mother takes out a piece of paper that she’s been sitting on and carefully unfolds it.

  “I was going to speak without reading, but I’m…I’m too nervous,” my mom says, and my entire body thrums with the tension. I’ve watched my mother being interviewed hundreds of times throughout my life, and always, when in front of a camera, she transforms into the sparkliest, warmest version of herself, and every time there’s a cognitive dissonance and I think, Who is that?

  Today, though, my mom seems her true self, unsure and tired and exposed. She might as well be wearing her Wood Valley sweats.

  “First of all, I want to apologize to both of my daughters, neither of whom had anything to do with this. This is one hundred percent my fault, and I want to—need to—take full responsibility for my actions. I’m so sorry, girls.” My mom looks at Isla and me off to the side, not at Brittany or even at the cameras. This apology—at least this part of it—is for us and us only.

  “Last fall, I made the biggest mistake of my life.” My mom sets her jaw and turns her attention back to the lens. “As a result, I will be pleading guilty to the charges against me.”

  Isla squeezes my hand and I squeeze back, and we lean against each other, shoulder to shoulder. We’re both trembling, equal parts relief and fear.

  Paloma, on the other hand, not thrilled with this turn of events—apparently my mom did not fill her in beforehand—attempts to convince the producer to cut to commercial. The producer grins and shakes her head. This makes for good television, if not a great PR strategy.

  My mom, under the lights, honest and raw, is riveting.

  “I love my daughters more than you can possibly imagine, and as a parent, it is my job to be a role model. I have obviously failed in that regard. I’m so ashamed of my dishonest behavior, and I don’t know how I will make it up to them or to all the students out there who worked hard and didn’t try to cheat the system. I promise you this, though: I will spend the rest of my life trying.” My mom folds her paper, swats at the tears falling down her face, and looks up at Brittany Brady, who’s taken utterly off guard. She was prepped for a different sort of interview, something in keeping with the quotes Paloma’s team has been leaking to the press and attributing to a “longtime friend of the family”: my mother insists on her innocence, she believes this will all blow over soon, the only real criminal here is Dr. Wilson.

  “I assume you realize that by pleading guilty you will likely be facing jail time,” Brittany says, which isn’t a question, but she pauses for an answer anyway. Paloma takes the break to try to force her way onto the set, but my dad shakes his head at her. She hesitates, then stands down.

  “Yes, but it’s not ‘likely’—it’s definitely,” my mom says. “And it’s prison, actually, not jail.”

  “As you know, a lot of the other people swept up in this scandal pled guilty a month ago, and presumably had you done so then and taken immediate responsibility, you’d have received a more favorable sentence. So why the change of heart today? Just a few weeks ago, you vowed to fight the charges.”

  “My girls have always been my number one concern. I don’t always do things right, obviously.” My mom nervously clears her throat. “But when this all happened, I felt like I couldn’t leave them. I couldn’t go to prison and not be here to support them in the aftermath of this mess I had made. That seemed more important than anything else. Being with my daughters.”

  My mom’s voice cracks, and she catches my eye. I give her a teary thumbs-up.

  “So I refused to consider the possibility of a guilty plea. Even if it was the right thing to do, it felt like the wrong thing, you know? But we had a family emergency recently, and I guess it was a wake-up call for me. As parents, we realize that no matter how hard we try, no matter how fiercely we love our children, we’re going to screw it all up somehow. I have the distinct pleasure of knowing, at least in one way, exactly where I went wrong. It turns out my job as a mom is not to shield my children from the hard things, because life is life, and as much as it hurts me to see their disappointments, as much as I’d like to shield them from all the struggles I went through, I can’t do that. Instead, I realized I need to start modeling courage and strength. By pleading guilty, I hope to show them that I believe in taking responsibility for my mistakes. And eventually I hope to earn their forgiveness.”

  She’s fully crying, wet tears leaving tracks of mascara down her face, an image that I already know will transform her again from a human being into a meme. My mom has been doing this long enough that she knows it too—and not only because Paloma is obviously freaking out behind the cameraman.

  “I know I’ve also let down my fans, and I hope to one day earn back their trust.”

  I have no idea how this apology will go over, though my guess is not well. I can’t parse it in the ways Twitter will soon—I can’t break it down piece by piece, dissect all the
privilege baked into each sentence, whether she’ll move from public enemy number one to laughingstock. It doesn’t matter, though. I’m pretty sure my mother is beyond caring.

  “Also, while I’m here telling the whole truth, you should know I’m fifty years old. Half a freaking century. The Internet says I’m forty-five. That’s a lie.”

  I hear Paloma audibly gasp: No! Isla lets out a puff of air, a laugh-cry, and we are squeezing each other’s hands so tightly it hurts.

  “Until recently, I hadn’t eaten a carb in something like fifteen years, and I get Botox and Restylane and I had cheek implants, because you can’t be skinny and have cheeks. You can’t. I think that’s it. This is going to sound absurd, but I also don’t sweat because my dermatologist took care of that, and so when I sleep, which is pretty much never, I have nightmares I’ll be telling the truth but no one will believe me because I’m not sweating. Ironic, right?”

  Brittany Brady stares at her, dumbfounded. My mom keeps going. She is having a full meltdown on live television.

  “One last thing: there’s a topless photo of me floating around out there that I paid to have taken down from the Internet. But I’m not ashamed of that photo. I’m ashamed that the world thinks I should be ashamed of it,” my mom says.

  This is it, I think as my mom wipes at her face, and we weep and laugh and clap with abandon from the sidelines, Isla and I in our ridiculous matching pink gingham. I guess you do know when you hit it.

  This is bottom.

  How glorious it is to finally look up.

  CHAPTER FORTY-SEVEN

  Now

  Later, after they all leave—the cameras and Brittany Brady and a livid Paloma, who kept saying over and over, “Did you have to mention the cheek implants? Cheek implants are not a crime!”—we sit outside at the big wooden table near the fire pit, a giant pizza between us like a peace offering. My dad puts on some low music on the speakers, possibly because it’s a lovely thing, having music piped into your backyard, but more likely to protect our privacy.

  After my mother’s appearance today, though, who cares what the neighbors hear? We have nothing left to hide.

  My parents have both poured themselves generous glasses of wine, and though sometimes they let me have my own small smidge, today they seem scandalized when I ask.

  “Okay, so yeah. Let’s talk. The things I did—” my mom starts.

  “We did,” my dad interrupts. “Just because I’m not on the tape doesn’t mean I wasn’t part of this. I hate that you have to be the one…I hate it. The things we did.”

  “I’m sorry that we paid someone to correct your SATs and that we bribed your way into SCC. I’m spelling it out because I think that’s part of apologizing. Not being queasy about what you did wrong,” my mom says. My guess is she consulted an expert, a child psychologist, maybe, about how best to approach this with us. I’d be annoyed except I think she’s right. I like hearing it spelled out. None of us being allowed to flinch.

  “I’m sorry too,” my dad says. “For everything. I’m also sorry for not being on that tape, and that your mom has to shoulder all the blame alone.”

  “You did get fired,” my mom says.

  “Temporarily,” my dad says. He’s pretty sure that as soon as this all blows over, his company will hire him again. Money is more important than morality in the venture-capital business.

  I reflexively want to say it’s okay when my parents apologize, which is what I always say when someone apologizes to me, but obviously this time, it’s not okay. It’s not okay at all.

  We will be, though, I think.

  “The prosecutor said that they’ll recommend one year in prison. I could get more, and I could get less, depending on the judge. And they’d agree not to prosecute Dad or you, Chlo, though from what your lawyer told my lawyer, you’re in the clear anyway. But in all likelihood it will be at least a year, which is, I mean, putting aside the fact that I’ll spend that year in prison, not the Four Seasons Maui, is a scary long period of time. One night in prison is scary. But that’s not the part that freaks me out the most—” She stops, her voice thick with emotion. “I only have a limited time with you girls before you’re off doing whatever you’ll be doing with your lives….”

  She’s careful not to mention college, our personal land mine.

  “It feels unfair, like I’m being punished too much, that I will have to lose an entire year with you. But maybe it’s not; maybe it’s what I deserve. God knows people go through a whole lot worse, but still. You’re my babies. I don’t want to leave you.”

  “We’re not babies,” I say. “Dad’s here. I’ll be here to help Isla, at least until you get home.”

  “I don’t need help. I’m sixteen,” Isla says.

  “Sixteen- and seventeen-year-olds still need their moms,” my mother says.

  “Carrie can be my new mom,” Isla says, breaking into a big, sly grin. How come I didn’t realize until recently that Isla was hilarious? It’s weird how sometimes people can be so close and yet you can’t see them clearly at all.

  “Don’t think I haven’t worried about your dad running off with Carrie as soon as I’m gone,” my mom says.

  “Nah, Carrie’s not my type. Brittany Brady, on the other hand—” my dad jokes.

  “You’re not dying. You’re going away for a little while,” I say. “You’re still our mom.”

  “Is that the euphemism we’re going to use? ‘Going away for a little while’? Not bad,” my dad says.

  “What’s going to happen to you, Chloe?” my mom asks, in that same voice I imitated for Isla earlier today when I said public school.

  Isla grabs my hand under the table and squeezes it to keep from laughing. Of course, we realize this is serious, this isn’t my mom’s usual melodrama, which makes it all the funnier. If your life is going to take a turn for the surreal, you might as well enjoy it.

  “I’m going to be fine, Mom. Look at me. I’m already fine,” I say. I realize that’s the truth, mostly. I’m heartbroken about my friendship with Shola, and I’m terrified for my future, but if I’m honest, I was terrified for my future before this all happened anyway.

  “It’s seems cruel that I’ll have to give up delicious things like pizza and ice cream just when I’ve rediscovered them,” my mom says.

  “We should call that prison guy. Ask if they have pizza in the big house,” Isla says.

  “Do you guys have any questions for me? About all this? That’s what the therapist we talked to said we should do.” Bingo, I think. “Let’s open this up to questions.”

  Isla gives me a side-eye, obviously thinking the same thing I am: No expert left unconsulted in this family.

  “I mean, everything I said on 20/20 was true, but you might have your own thoughts.”

  “Why?” I ask.

  “Why what?” my mom asks. “The cheek implants? As I was saying, with aging in particular, you can get a little hollowed out.”

  “No! Why did you do this, all of this, any of this? I would have gotten into college, maybe not SCC, but somewhere, without you committing a felony. Why did you do this to us?” I ask, and I realize once the question is out that this is the part that I still can’t quite understand, no matter how many times I turn it over in my mind. I have a trust fund. It’s not like I was going to starve if I went to AIU.

  “You’re going to find this ironic, but you know what hooked me with Dr. Wilson? Not only finding the easy way for you into school, Chlo, that perfect side door, because that of course was part of it, I’m not going to lie. I’ve grown a little too used to being able to buy what I want without repercussions. I’ve worked my ass off all these years and figured you should get the benefit of that. But what really got me is that he told me that everyone else was doing it. I’m fifty years old, and that’s what sold me: All the cool kids are doing it,” my mom
says. “I thought if I didn’t, you’d be left behind. I thought—and this is ridiculous in retrospect—I thought it meant I was a good mom.”

  “That’s not why I was in,” my dad confesses, and his voice gets thick. “Honestly, for me it was as simple as if I can do this for you, why wouldn’t I? It seemed like a no-brainer. My parents basically left me to fend for myself. I was practically feral. I fought so hard to get here, and what for? So I can give you girls the whole world. You do everything you can for your kids. It didn’t even occur to me to not do it. It didn’t occur to me that we could get caught.”

  “No, you don’t do everything for your kids,” Isla says.

  “You’re right.” My dad has a wry look on his face, the same one he always gets when Isla astounds him. “You don’t. Not everything.”

  “Do you think I’m stupid?” I ask, and as soon as the question slips out, I realize there it is, my biggest fear laid bare for all to see. My mom is going to prison because she thought I was too stupid to get into college on my own. “Is that why you did this really?”

  “Oh, honey, no, of course not,” my mom says. “We wanted things to be easier for you. School hasn’t been easy. That doesn’t mean you’re stupid.”

  “Chlo. No. Never,” my dad says.

  “I mean, listen, you aren’t the brightest bulb in the sea,” Isla says, and throws her arm around my shoulders.

  “That’s a mixed metaphor,” I say.

  “It’s time we all put on our big-girl panties around here and speak the truth,” Isla says, and I wait for my mom to step in, which is what she usually does when Isla’s about to get a little too real. “Chloe, you don’t deserve to go to SCC. That doesn’t mean you’re stupid; it means you didn’t care as much or try as hard as me. Because one day, I’m going to Harvard, like Shola.”

  “Shola’s going to Harvard? Oh my God, that’s amazing,” I say. I’d been scouting Shola’s feed hoping for a clue as to where she’d be next year, and in true Shola fashion, she hadn’t dropped any hints. She’s not like Levi. She doesn’t need to brag.