Having taught hundreds of girls her age over the last ten years, from up and down the Front Range, I can say with confidence that Emma Holland-Quinn is among the most promising young riders in Colorado today. Please don’t hesitate to contact me if you would like me to elaborate on any of the points above.
Sincerely,
Janelle Lyman
Owner and Principal Instructor
Wild Horse Stables
Edgemont, Colorado
It was perfect. Couldn’t be better if Rose had written it herself.
But the trifold. The subject had been plucking at her nerves for days, and frankly it didn’t seem fair that Emma Q should get only half the credit for a project to which she had contributed 75 percent of the imagination and labor—and who knew how the admissions committee would evaluate joint projects. At least with Rose’s neurology papers you could tell who the lead author was, because hers was always the first name in the list on the title page. In this case, though, the consultants would assume the Emmas had played an equal role in producing this gorgeous display of inquiry and knowledge.
She looked back at her screen, at the new banner she’d typed up to replace the original version glued on by the girls a few weeks before. Same rustic typeface, same size, same title. Only one small difference.
THE HORSE IN THE AMERICAN WEST
BY EMMA HOLLAND-QUINN
Rose bit her lower lip. She remembered that first moment she saw Emma Zellar, a sweet baby girl bobbing in the pool, riding Samantha’s hip when she came out of the locker room, seeping into her daughter’s life with the slow, invisible osmosis of water itself, until the two girls became nearly indistinguishable.
Am I really doing this?
She closed her eyes. She exhaled. She printed.
* * *
—
It was only Monday, portfolios weren’t due until Wednesday, but Rose wanted to submit Q’s early, just to be on the safe side. The handover would take place in the model classroom at the lower school, now in its final stages of renovation.
Rose’s first impression when she entered the building for the first time: clean lines and gleaming planes, everything new, details glistening from surfaces of polished wood, stainless steel, smooth slate. Walls a muted gold, built-in bookcases stained cedar. The ceiling lights pleased the eye, tuned just bright enough to complement the natural Colorado daylight pouring in from the south.
The whole place was being prepared for an event advertised on posters as a big community open house the following Sunday, designed to allow the administration to celebrate the new school and welcome townspeople to its grounds. Two fresh-faced young women sat behind the intake table to process portfolios and greet parents as they flowed through. Laminated Dorne & Gardener name tags shone from their suit jackets: AINSLEY and MIRIAM.
Rose stood in Miriam’s line. When her turn came, she set Emma Q’s portfolio down on the table, then filled out a brief form identifying Q as the submitting applicant and signing over the contents to the school to do with as they wished. Miriam handed her a receipt and turned to place the portfolio gently in a canvas basket truck behind the table, a huge hotel laundry bin on wheels, already half full. Seeing spots, Rose watched the portfolio disappear into the bin’s depths.
This is what cheating on taxes must feel like, she thought—or committing a hit-and-run.
With an effort she turned away and nearly bumped into Bitsy Leighton, whom she hadn’t seen since the dean’s party—and whose voice she hadn’t heard since hanging up on her a few days ago.
Leighton smiled, her face unreadable.
“Rose,” she said, and held out her spotted hand. “Everything running smoothly for you, I trust?”
“It is, thanks,” Rose said, and immediately erupted in a nervous coughing fit. Bitsy put a hand on her back and signaled to Miriam, who tossed her a bottle of water. She cracked it open and Rose took it from her and swallowed, eyes watering over the plastic, glad to have her mouth stopped up for the moment. When she recovered, she thanked Bitsy and tried to start a conversation, desperate to appear normal and unflustered.
“You all are busy, aren’t you? Quite a job ahead of you.”
“We’ll manage,” said Bitsy. “In fact we’re quite looking forward to the next stage.”
“I’m sure you are.”
Bitsy scanned her face, and Rose felt herself wilting under the scrutiny. Any moment the woman would mention the bogus study again and try to nail her down on next steps. Rose braced herself, waiting for it to come up as she knew it inevitably would, about to broach the subject herself when Bitsy said, “Remind me. Your child’s name is—?”
“Emma Holland-Quinn. We call her Q.”
“And why is that?”
“Her best friend is also named Emma. Emma Zellar. We call her Z.”
“Oh yes, I know the Zellars,” Bitsy said with a smile Rose took as familiar, insidery.
Rose tried to summon a question about the school’s facilities. Bitsy cut her off with a curt and inexplicable “Well.” She raised her eyebrows. “Best of luck to you, Rose, and to Emma Q.”
Rose waggled the bottle in front of her face. “Thanks for the water,” she said.
“You betcha,” Bitsy said briskly, and whirled away.
Rose exhaled. Such a relief, to feel free of the woman’s scrutiny, let alone the nagging itch of her own idiotic deception. Bitsy must have simply forgotten about the study in the whirlwind of admissions. Next time they talked, Rose promised herself, she would come clean.
* * *
—
That evening after gymnastics Rose drove Emma Z home along with Samantha’s borrowed dress, dry-cleaned and paper-wrapped on a hanger. She followed Z up the front walk, hoping to catch Samantha. They hadn’t exchanged more than a few texts since the blowup on Friday run. A distance had opened up between them, not yet a chasm but something worrisome and odd.
“Is your mom home?” she asked Emma Z.
“Dunno,” said Z as she clattered up the porch steps. She opened the storm door and went inside without looking back. Before the door could shut Rose caught the edge and went inside. Kev, passing through the hall, saw his daughter first.
“Dinner’s mac and cheese,” he grumbled at Z. “It’s on the stove.”
Rose stopped just inside the door. Kev was standing at a slouch, clad in running shorts and a T-shirt torn above the waist, showing the lower half of his well-worked abdominals. He hadn’t shaved in a few days.
“Q’s mom’s here.” Z disappeared into the kitchen.
Kev looked up, the ice cubes rattling in his nearly empty tumbler. “Doc,” he said.
“I’m sorry to intrude like this, Kev, I just thought—”
“Sam’s at the gym.” He leaned against one of the built-in bookcases lining the front hallway. With his arms crossed Kev wedged his tumbler up against an armpit, and the channel of bared belly widened. Rose looked down, embarrassed, though what surprised her more than his unkempt appearance was the attitude. Kev usually showed the manners of a gregarious southern senator. Right now he was surly, quietly furious.
“You guys get your portfolio turned in?” she asked brightly, just to make conversation.
His face contorted, a twist of his mouth and a narrowing of his eyes. “Sensitive subject at the moment, to be quite honest.”
“Oh,” she said, still baffled by his manner. She lifted his wife’s dress. “Mind if I return this?”
“Be my guest,” he said with a shrug, and shuffled into the kitchen.
Rose went upstairs to the master suite, where she slipped the dress between two others in the main closet. Back on the porch she leaned against a column, a hand over her chest as the exchange replayed in her mind. Was it something she’d said? But Kev had already been growling at his daughter before he even knew Rose was the
re.
She heard Samantha’s voice behind her. Rose looked through the shrubbery at her car, parked by the curb. Sam leaned over the opened passenger door to speak with Emma Q.
“Just returning your dress,” Rose explained, approaching.
“Yeah, Q said.” Samantha reached through the gap and showily fluffed Emma Q’s hair, then turned and started strolling with Rose up the block. They walked in a thick and awkward silence until reaching the stop sign.
Rose stopped and turned to face Samantha. “Hey, so is Kev doing okay?”
“What do you mean?”
“He seemed upset just now. I got the feeling I’d ticked him off.”
“Oh, Kev’s just been pissy lately.”
“About Crystal Academy?” Rose said.
A sharp frown. “Why would you say that?”
“I don’t know. I just mentioned portfolios and he seemed—put off somehow.”
“Well, it’s difficult.” Her face went rigid. “I’ve been meaning to say something, Rose. Honestly we’re having second thoughts about the whole thing.”
“You mean the school?”
“I’m afraid so.”
“But why?”
“Well—for a while there we thought everything would simmer down and people would chill out. Admissions would be over, the construction done. The controversy would go away. But that’s not what’s happened. You’ve read the editorials, Rose.”
“Yeah?”
“And Kev has to think about reelection next year. City Council, maybe even mayor, I mean who knows. But that battle-ax who’s spearheading ALPACA—”
“Toni Andriesen.”
“Right. We’ve heard she’s about to announce for City Council. Kev’s seat. And she’s planning to exploit the school as a central campaign issue.”
“Is that group really going anywhere?”
“Are you kidding? They’re meeting right now in her living room. Apparently dozens of people are there.” She waved her phone as if to flag a secret source, a spy on the other end of a text chain. “And it’s getting ugly. Have you looked at their Facebook page?”
“Of course I have.”
“Kev’s worried it could all blow up in our faces. And that’s the thing, you know?” Samantha’s perfect nose leaked out a disapproving sigh. “It’s a real shame. It’s just not about the kids anymore.”
FIFTY-TWO
BECK
Sign the petition—or pass it on?
Beck read the six sentences that represented ALPACA’s argument against Crystal Academy, the same language opposing the school on the group’s Facebook page. We, the undersigned . . . Addressed to the school boards of the Four Counties and the City of Crystal, the petition demanded an immediate suspension of construction and renovation, a redirection of moneys already budgeted for the school’s first two years, a reassignment of faculty and staff back out to their home districts, and, to cap it off, a systemwide review of policies on gifted-and-talented programs in the public schools.
Quite an ask, but the tone was reasonable and the style plainspoken, crafted to make the group’s requests seem both logical and inevitable. Because who wouldn’t oppose the costly opening of a new academy targeting the most elite group of students on the Front Range?
Beck didn’t want to be seen not signing. On the other hand, there was no way he’d put his name to the thing, not with Aidan’s acceptance hanging in the balance. If the admissions committee got their hands on the petition, all it would take was a quick name match between signatories and applicants to finger the hypocrites.
Azra would kill him.
He looked around. There were a few folks he recognized in the crowd. Amy Susskin, the boys’ soccer team manager, for one. The tense gathering was being held in one of those hideous scrape-and-replace mansions you found more and more around the older Crystal neighborhoods, all glass and steel and molded concrete. Beck was one of about thirty parents sitting cross-legged on the floor as Toni Andriesen, ALPACA’s self-designated leader, stood in the curve of a baby grand piano, prattling on about action items.
“You done with that?” said the woman to his left, a cute, fortyish redhead with nothing on her ring finger.
“Just a sec,” Beck said.
His delay with the petition was starting to feel uncomfortable. A few nearby parents glanced over at the clipboard the same way you’d stare at restaurant diners lingering at a table.
He decided on compromise. He scrawled his name on the next open line, but illegibly, so it looked more like Tom Valiant than Beck Unsworth, and gave a fake email address. As luck would have it the line he filled was the last one on the current page. He flipped the top sheet, covering his deliberately sloppy handwriting, then passed the clipboard to the left.
“Thank you,” the ringless woman said, showing him the bare finger. Or maybe she was just taking the clipboard. Beck pretended to listen.
* * *
—
When the crowd broke up for refreshments he slipped out to the back deck, looking for the redhead. She wasn’t around but he found a decent lager in the drinks cooler. He glugged it down and grabbed another, downing it while leaning against the railing, watching the herd mill in and out.
“Hey you.” Amy Susskin approached from around the corner of the deck.
“Amy.” Beck kept one hand on the railing behind him and the other clutched around his bottle.
“How’s Aidan’s ankle?”
“All better.”
“Our game schedule for the tournament changed. I’ll send out an update tonight.”
“Great.”
“How’d the ROMO tryouts go?”
“Just fine,” he said tightly.
“Rough, though, to have one kid make it and the other not. You doing okay with that?”
He smiled. “Word gets out, huh?”
She waved a hand. “Your wife told me.”
“Azra?”
“No, the young one.”
Azra is still young. Beck’s first, defensive thought. “Sonja,” he said.
“Right. Wow, I’m bad with names, terrible for a team manager, isn’t it?” She flashed him some perfect teeth. “I was calling around to nail down snack sign-ups, and Sonja said you were out with the twins at a tryout. I put two and two together, and so.” She shrugged. “Sorry if I stepped in it.”
“No worries.”
“Anyway.” She bent back at her waist and turned her round little head to look inside. “Don’t know about you but I’m convinced. This school is a menace.”
“You think?”
“Worst thing to happen to public education in this town since I moved here.”
“What, did Will not test in?”
This stopped her short. “Excuse me?”
“I’d bet most of the people here are just pissed their kids didn’t do well enough on the CogPro.”
She crossed her skinny arms. “Well, you’d be wrong, Beck.”
“You sure about that, Amy?”
“You think ALPACA is just a club for sour grapes?”
Beck shrugged. “Hey, I didn’t say it.”
“Well, that’s—” She glared at him. “I’m surprised at you, Beck. I didn’t think for one minute you were the high-flying gifty type. You’ve always seemed down to earth. Real liberal.”
He arched an eyebrow. “Don’t call me a liberal. And actually the academy is one of the most progressive experiments in gifted education in the country right now. It’s one of the few chances the schools around here have to desegregate themselves, be inclusive for once.”
She threw her head back in a laugh. “You’ve really gulped the Kool-Aid, haven’t you, Beck?” A few other parents sensed the heat. Some heads turned. “Why the heck did you even come tonight?”
“I came to see if I could learn f
rom you freaks. But fuck that,” he said, way too loudly.
Amy went slack-jawed.
“I’m out of here.” Beck drained his second beer and pushed out through the living room, setting his moist bottle on the polished surface of the grand piano and avoiding the stares.
“Douchebag,” someone mumbled at his back.
On the way to his car he got light-headed and disembodied, as if looking down on a stranger. His hands shook on the steering wheel. He drove a block, turned the corner, then pulled over to the curb. A blunt and a lighter screamed at him from the glove compartment. With the driver’s-side window cracked and the ignition still running he lit up, dragged deeply, leaned his head against the headrest, and let the weed do its work in him before he exhaled.
What is wrong with me?
And Amy Susskin. Christ. She’d been saying exactly the sort of stuff about the gifted school that Beck really believed, not even that deep down, and now she’d think he was the worst kind of prick, just a Front Range Bernie Bro telling a woman off on some rich dude’s deck.
Plus, now he was stoned. A midlife cliché. Worse than that.
He dragged again and held his breath and thought about how he must have sounded to Amy and the others. Self-righteous, haughty, arrogant. Like he was having a nervous breakdown. Maybe he was having a nervous breakdown. Indecisive, liable to sudden bursts of inexplicable anger, signing a fake name to a petition. Schizo soccer dad, obsessed, angry, broke.
Just—off.
He moaned quietly, choking out the smoke.
FIFTY-THREE
EMMA Z
Her parents almost never fought, or even argued about anything except in a playful way that always made Z laugh. Tonight, though, they seemed really angry, and everything in the house felt just—wrong. Her father’s unadorned mac and cheese was already cold by the time she sat down to eat. She’d had to heat up the bowl in the microwave herself, and her parents had been in really bad moods for the last two hours.
The Gifted School Page 29