“Thanks,” said Xander.
“Want some milk?”
“Yes, thanks.”
She went to the fridge. “So, little brother.”
Little brother again. Tessa only called him that when she was thinking about something Big. It was a pattern. She set a glass of milk in front of him. He dipped a cookie and bit in.
“I have to tell you something,” she said. “It’s kind of—a secret I’ve been keeping.”
Xander blinked at her and waited. Tessa reached into her school backpack, pulled out a binder, and set it on the table in front of him. It was her portfolio, she told him, for Crystal Academy, and over the next five minutes, as they plowed their way through the bag of Mint Milanos, she showed him her sketches, photographs of her clothing designs, even a special rack for her “new clothing line” that Charlie and Aidan’s mom had set up for her at BloomAgain. Tessa had taken the CogPro at the makeup session without telling their mother, she explained, just to see how it would go. She was shocked to make the first cut, but the only people she’d told so far were her friends from Sweet Meadow.
“I’m sorry I didn’t tell you, Xander,” she said. “Especially because I know you didn’t do as well on the test as Mom thought you would. That’s probably hard, you know? I’m just glad the appeal worked out.”
But was it hard? he wondered, bothered for some reason by what his sister was telling him. He wasn’t angry at her, just a little . . . uncomfortable, and for the first time he understood at least part of what had been going on inside his head for the last few weeks.
He bit into another cookie. “I didn’t do well on the test,” he said as he chewed, “not because I lack the requisitely acute quantitative, abstract, and verbal reasoning abilities but because the test was extremely simplistic and I was bored, and I don’t really want to go to Crystal Academy despite our mother’s fondest wishes.”
He thought the way he said all this might make her laugh, but instead her face froze and her mouth hung open.
“You don’t?”
“Well, actually,” he said, thinking of Charlie and Aidan and video games, of Emma Quinn and her thick hair, “I think I probably do want to go. I’m just—maybe—confused.”
His sister rolled her eyes and smiled at the same time. “It’s okay to be confused, Xander. You’re not a fucking, like, computer, okay? You’re almost a teenager, and believe me, once you’re twelve or thirteen things will get a lot more confusing, even for a megadweeb like you.” She sighed and dipped the last cookie into his milk. “It just makes me wish Dad were still around, you know? Because he could explain this stuff to you better than I ever could, let alone Mom. Bitch didn’t even know when I got my first period.”
Tessa closed her binder and started to gather up the other things from her portfolio.
“You’re going to get in, you know,” he said, aware that the thought made him happy.
“You think?”
He nodded.
“How do you know?
He took a last swallow of milk and looked at her over his glass. “I just know things. Lots of things.”
FIFTY
ROSE
In the kitchen Emma Q sliced peppers and Rose peeled eggplants while Bonnie Raitt warbled sadly over the speakers. “Two Lives,” a slow track from Sweet Forgiveness, one of her early albums, cut the year Rose was born. If you had a secret, I could take a guess . . . One of us is hiding. Her lips made the words as strips of dark skin accumulated on the counter.
For Rose the rare comforts of making food with her daughter and ordering Gareth out of the kitchen were usually centering, though today they did nothing. The exchange with Bitsy Leighton at the party was worrying her, and she knew her clumsy lies about the bogus study could yet come back to bite Emma Q. And Samantha’s behavior at Twenty Birch the other day had been unnerving. A crystal flute cracking in her hand, a line of blood crawling across her skin. Rose yearned for the quiet of the lab, but tonight would be good for her, for Q, for her marriage and her sanity.
On an impulse she had asked Lauren and the kids over for supper, a small normalizing reparation for what happened on Friday run. Lauren acted surprised to hear from her, to receive a dinner invitation so soon after her outburst, but she accepted. She would have Xander in tow, she told Rose; Tessa had other plans.
“Do I have to play chess with Xander?” Q asked. She held the knife poised above a purple pepper, still whole. Rose examined the sprawling pile her daughter had already produced. Red, orange, yellow, green, a mound of sloppily julienned slivers ready for the sauté pan.
“That’s the last one we’ll need.” She stroked Q’s head, the smooth and shiny hair. “Once you’re done throw them all in that bowl. And yes, you have to play chess with Xander. At least one game.”
The blade cracked through the skin, and Rose smiled because Q didn’t really mind. Xander was anything but boring, plus Q loosened up with him when Emma Z wasn’t there to boss her around.
There were lots of ways to be with people you knew so well.
* * *
—
Xander came in first when they arrived, wordlessly slipping past. Gareth reached out to shake his hand, but he had already disappeared inside, a boy on a mission.
“That smells so good.” Lauren squeezed Rose’s hand before getting on her toes and kissing Gareth on the cheek. “Great to see you guys.”
“I’m happy you’re here,” Rose told her, and it was true, because when you got Lauren in a smaller group where she didn’t have to show her feathers, she could be disarmingly kind. There was a goodness in her that came out in practical ways too easy to forget.
That time Q came down with the flu, for instance, and they hadn’t had their shots. The three of them were laid out with fevers spiking 102, only three hours into their Tamiflu when Lauren showed up with a pot of chicken soup, the stock boiled fresh from the bones. She came right in and got it heating on the stove, then brought the whole family bowls of it in bed. She did the dishes, vacuumed and mopped, took out the garbage, even got down on her knees and cleaned their flu-spattered bathroom. Rose was too weak and delirious to object, and once everyone recovered it felt as if an angel had descended on their home. When Rose tried to thank her for it the following week, Lauren barely remembered they’d been sick.
A blessing, to know the talents and limitations of those closest to you, what they’re capable of and what they aren’t. One kind of friend who will spend hours sifting through your psyche; another who will sacrifice half a day to scrubbing your toilets.
Gareth set the table and Q ran off somewhere with Xander. Rose was in the kitchen with Lauren drinking chardonnay, and of course what Lauren wanted to talk about once she was loosened up was Crystal Academy. She was cautious at first, nosing around, curious to find out exactly how the dean knew the new head of school, why the rest of them got invited to the party.
“I don’t know what came over me. But when Azra was going on about that wonderful Bitsy Leighton, I started losing it. Then Sam went off about Tessa . . . I had to get away from you guys.”
“We all reach breaking points sometimes,” Rose said. “Our group can be intense.”
“It’s not just that.” Lauren folded her arms. “I’m jealous, okay? I’ll say it. I’m jealous as hell of everyone else’s easy kids.”
“Seriously? Easy?”
“Admit it, Rose. Emma Q is like an angel.”
“She has her darker side,” Rose countered, speaking softly, because Q tended to creep up. “That nightmare Gifted Club? Gareth and I were mortified. I wanted to throttle her. And Q is a bright kid, sure, but she’s no Xander.”
“Oh, please.” Lauren looked out the kitchen window. “Xander is off. That’s what everyone knows about Xander.”
“Lauren! What are you saying?” Rose turned from the counter, showing Lauren her face. “Sure, h
e’s an odd duck. But that comes with the territory. There is nothing wrong with your brilliant son.” She stepped closer. “I’m a pediatric neurologist, for Christ’s sake. If you’re going to listen to anyone other than your pediatrician or an actual specialist, it’d better be me.”
Rare tears appeared on Lauren’s cheeks, running freely now. Her face was wide open in a way Rose hadn’t seen it in years.
“Thank you for saying that.” She sniffed. “It’s just that sometimes other people’s kids— It’s hard.”
Rose nodded along.
“God.” Lauren hung her head. “Sure, Emma Z can be a little witch. But do you realize that the Zellars actually go to plays together, that they’ve taken her to chamber music concerts in Denver? Plus they’ve traveled all over the world with her. And even Azra and Beck’s boys are polite and charming, these amazing athletes, so charismatic. And I’ve got—” She clapped her hand over her mouth. “How can I talk about my kids this way?” she whispered between her fingers. “It’s just that ever since Julian died I focus on them, only on them, and I know I don’t ask about the Emmas and the twins all that much, Sam’s right, but I love them all, I hope you guys know that, I would do anything for them, but it’s all focus focus focus and I’ve fucked up so badly with Tessa and—and—god, I’m such a shit mom.”
Rose stepped into Lauren’s space. “You’re an incredible mother, Lauren, and you’ve been through hell. But you’ve got an articulate, beautiful daughter who’s coming out of a dark place and doing great.” Rose felt her worries recede in the face of this more important truth about a mother she loved, a daughter she loved almost like her own child. “Seriously, Tessa is amazing. Those outfits, her eye for the telling detail. And you’ve got a brilliant son whose love of science makes me green with envy. It’s a cliché, sure, but you’ve got two kids who could change the world. That’s what you’ve got.”
Lauren’s shoulders hitched, and Rose rubbed her arm even as her own parenting jealousies clawed for attention, the petty and the profound. How she envied Emma Z’s charismatic confidence and her graceful form and wanted both for Q—desperately sometimes. The ways she’d fantasized about Xander’s brain and how nicely it might fit her daughter’s skull, if you could just lobotomize his weirdness. The relaxed way Azra and Beck had with their boys, who seemed to wear their full emotional lives on their sleeves.
Insidious, these false versions of superiority and ease we project onto other families: how often they blind us to the surer comforts of our own.
* * *
—
After dinner Gareth cleared plates while Lauren and Rose sat in the living room with the kids. Q was on her third round of chess with Xander. He was letting her stay in the games longer than he needed to, stretching them out, taking his dutiful notes. He’d done it with Rose earlier, making just enough weak moves to give her a glimmer of hope before lowering the boom. Testing her somehow, in a way he never had before, though still ruthless at the end; a wily cat toying with a blind mouse. She had never seen him lose, not since he was three.
An undeniable talent, a spike like no other, as Bitsy Leighton might have said. Rose thought anxiously of Emma Q’s portfolio, the need for a special finishing touch. But what could it be?
Gareth came in wiping his hands on the seat of his pants. “Xander, how about a game or two?” he said, flashing a grin at Rose. She smiled back, glad he’d volunteered in Q’s place. He so rarely interacted with any of the younger kids aside from the Emmas.
Xander looked at him, inscrutable as ever. “Q wants to play again,” he said.
“That’s okay.” Q crab-walked backward. “I’ve got a book.” She lunged for her Kindle and settled in at Rose’s feet.
Rose spoke softly with Lauren as Gareth and Xander played. A few minutes into their game a gentle tap sounded from the front door. Q glanced up from her Kindle, recognizing the knock. She bounded up to answer, and when she came back, she had Tessa by the arm.
“Well, hello there,” said Lauren from the sofa. “I thought you had plans.”
“I did,” Tessa said. “They ended early.”
Tessa wore a flannel shirt untucked above unpatched jeans, dressed plainly for once. Instead of taking the free chair she slumped down on the floor with her back against the hassock, as far from her mother as possible in the small living room.
Gareth looked up from the chessboard. “Tessa, you hungry? We have plenty.”
“I’m okay,” she replied softly. “I already ate.” She blinked, her pretty eyes fluttering, and a surge of love for this odd broken family swelled in Rose’s heart, along with a fierce protectiveness that surprised her.
Tessa stopped blinking and stared at a random spot on the rug, her eyes slitted now, opaque—familiar. Rose shivered and some animal instinct caused her to raise her hands and squeeze the chilled flesh along her upper arms. She remembered the two of them sitting just like this at Julian’s wake all those years ago, mother and child huddled on opposite sides of a room, unsure how to go on, bewildered by the sudden absence of a cherished life.
The silence lingered, deepened; then Xander moved a chess piece, and the spell in the room was broken by a capture, the tink and roll of another kill.
PART IV
SPIKES
Gifted children often have fears like those of older nongifted children . . . but do not have the emotional control to put these insights aside and go on with their lives.
—NANCY M. ROBINSON,
in The Social and Emotional Development of Gifted Children
City of Crystal
SCHOOL DISTRICT
achievement, excellence, equality
TO: Crystal Academy Stage II Applicants
FROM: Dr. Joe Jelinek, Superintendent
SUBJECT: Portfolio submissions
April 2, 2018
Dear Crystal Families:
This is a final reminder about the timeline, format, and procedures for portfolio submission in support of your child’s application to Crystal Academy. We will be evaluating upwards of eight thousand students in Stage II for approximately one thousand combined seats in the upper and lower schools. It is of crucial importance that all portfolio submissions conform to the guidelines set out in this memo.
Content
Your child’s application portfolio can include virtually anything, from book reports to ribbons won at a gymnastics tournament, and we are eager to recruit a well-rounded student population. However, the admissions committees will pay particular attention to those parts of an applicant’s portfolio that demonstrate concentrated ability or proficiency in a specific area, whether scientific, athletic, or artistic. Parents are advised to help their children compile the materials that will best showcase the applicant’s one special talent, achievement, or competency.
Format
The contents of portfolios should be submitted in a single container, whether a box, a portfolio case, or an accordion folder. The container should be clearly labeled with the child’s name and parent contact information. In the case of web-based or online materials, please provide a cover sheet with full URLs and detailed instructions for accessing the relevant components of the application.
Procedure for Submission
Portfolios must be submitted in person at the Lower School for students applying for grades 6–8 and at the Upper School for students applying for grades 9–12. No exceptions.
Deadline
All portfolios must be submitted by 5:00 p.m. on Wednesday, April 18, in advance of the Open House on Sunday, April 22. Again, no exceptions.
FIFTY-ONE
ROSE
Am I really doing this?
On Monday morning Rose sat in her lab with the door closed and a cold slug of guilt inching up her throat. Xander’s chess, Aidan’s soccer, Emma Z’s well-rounded perfection—Emma Q’s what?
She looked
down at her unpainted nails and then at her fingers, poised over the keyboard. Am I really doing this?
The trifold lay flat and open at the side of her desk. The Emmas’ joint History Day project, returned the week before with an A+++ scrawled on the banner in red ink.
THE HORSE IN THE AMERICAN WEST
BY EMMA ZELLAR AND EMMA HOLLAND-QUINN
The last names weren’t in alphabetical order, Rose noted with a frown, but otherwise the girls had done a beautiful job with the project. At least two dozen discrete artifacts were arrayed across the surface, from old postcards and movie stills to cutouts from magazine articles about modern breeds and siring. Everything was laid out neatly but artfully, creating a real sense of visual wonder while conveying an enormous amount of information about the chosen subject.
The trifold was all ready to be clipped and zipped into the poster-sized portfolio case, along with the other evidence of Q’s dedication to equestrianism, beginning with Janelle Lyman’s testament, which Rose had placed on top of it all. She was tempted to frame it.
To Whom It May Concern:
I am delighted to provide this assessment of Emma Holland-Quinn’s equestrianism. Although Emma has been enrolled in introductory lessons with me for less than three months, she has already developed into a truly gifted rider, with a natural grace in the saddle that comes across in a variety of ways: a mature sense of posture, balance, and form, a quick mastery of rein length and leg alignment, and, most remarkably, an intuitive touch and manner with the animals, who respect her and yield to her commands without the slightest hesitation. Usually I have our young riders wait many months before competing against representatives from other stables. In Emma’s case, I have little doubt that she could compete against some of the best riders her age if she wanted to—and would have an excellent chance of coming away with ribbons!
The Gifted School Page 28