Tiny Imperfections
Page 9
I remind myself to fire Roan after we get through reading five hundred applications comprised of four essays each, over the next few months. That’s two thousand answers attempting to convey how ultimately perfect each family is for the Fairchild community. I would never make it through them all without Roan reading every couple essays or so with an accent to match the applicant—Irish, Indian, Texan, and Southern Californian are his strong suits. Something has to make the time pass, and nothing does the trick quite like espresso beans and tasteless humor.
“Uh-oh here we go, Roan. Oh, yes, one of our favorite genres has risen to the top: the perfection is my child’s greatest weakness category. An oldie, but oh so good and overplayed. Remember the parents last year, or was it the year before, who claimed their child’s weakness was struggling to make friends because her perfectionistical tendencies intimidate other children. Perfectionistical isn’t even a real word. THAT was one of my favorites.”
“Really? I liked the year of the parents who said their child was genetically predisposed to genius, since he had dominant traits from both sides of the family. Remember they wanted to know if we are a West Coast testing center for Mensa and complete assurance that their child wouldn’t be penalized by the school or by his peers for the intellectually superior gifts he had inherited. Then they spent the next two pages sharing the details of Albert Einstein’s miserable, or was it misunderstood, childhood. A failed analogy complete with endless typos. That one belongs in some What Not to Do When You’re Applying to Kindergarten guidebook.”
“I don’t remember that one.”
“Yes you do, I’m pretty sure it was from my first year. Before I learned to pace myself on the snacks? I almost threw up from a Sour Patch Kids and kettle chip overdose.”
“Oh yeah, that’s right, you were an admissions virgin.”
“And you were the older director who popped an innocent assistant’s cherry. Now I daresay the mystery is gone in our relationship.” Roan sighs and reaches for another stack of applications.
I open the next family folder.
“Let’s hear what Vanessa Grimaldi has to say about her daughter, Antonia. Oh, oh, wait here’s a picture of sweet Antonia actually demonstrating her perfection.” I hold up the picture of Antonia in painter overalls with a bandana securing her hair hunched over what looks to be a forged van Gogh, The Starry Night.
“That’s totally photoshopped, you know,” Roan huffs, barely giving the photo a second look.
“I don’t know, maybe not, she could be a prodigy, it’s possible.” As director of admissions I have to keep up appearances of neutrality and positivity toward each applicant. Roan doesn’t buy it.
“Or it could be paint by numbers. Which basically tells us that, at five, Antonia knows her numbers and primary colors. Hardly a prodigy.” Good point, I have to concede. I move on to read the first essay question:
1. What are your child’s greatest challenges?
While a typical little girl in many ways (she loves frozen yogurt and having her nanny French braid her hair), since Antonia was born while summering with our families on the Amalfi Coast, Tommaso and I have struggled to find peers for our sweet daughter to play with who are able to keep up with her ability to focus; produce quality drawings, sculptures, and three-dimensional structures; as well as her European tendencies toward more refined food and outings. We encourage Antonia to go outside and play American games with the neighborhood kids so she may be one of them, but she insists on intently working on her own masterpieces in her loft art room overlooking the Bay (views can be so inspirational; perhaps we should move her studio to the basement to encourage her to be a normal child!). Our hope is that by going to a school like Fairchild Antonia will be encouraged to spread her focus and perfectionist tendencies toward other endeavors. We know she has multiple talents and potential capabilities to discover and to share with the world, but right now she is limiting herself to art. Though a true raw talent due to a lineage of famous Italian alfresco painters, she needs to expand her work and her learning, and we believe Fairchild is the best school for her to spread her wings.
Roan grabs the application folder from me and starts thumbing through the whole thing. “Well, one perfect child won’t ruin the school. Unless the Grimalidis show up at their parent interview with a six pack of spitting camels we should definitely put them in the to be considered pile.”
“What? Camels spit? Wait, who’s in charge here? We never like nascent divas, you’re breaking with tradition.”
“That may be true, but we LOVE a nascent diva whose father is heir to an international spa empire. The name Grimaldi doesn’t ring a bell? They own Casa di Bella in the Presidio near Lucas Arts. It is three stories of pure five-star Pacific pampering. I’ve heard their espresso enema followed by a Colombian roast body scrub is to die for. You lose five pounds in ninety minutes, have energy for days, and feel smooth like a peach. We take the kid, I can stay twenty-nine forever or for as long as Antonia is at Fairchild.”
“Roan, seriously, you understand we can’t do that, right?”
“No, Josie, you don’t understand. You’re black. Your people don’t age. Look at Aunt Viv. She’s sixty-nine going on forty-two. She IS the poster child for ‘black don’t crack.’ I’m Irish, we look at a lager and we get all ruddy and age ten years. But that doesn’t seem to stop us from drinking. If I keep up my night-clubbing routine, soon I’m going to be thirty going on fifty-four. I need a spa heir in my back pocket. Please, please. Do it for my future children.”
“You don’t even have a boyfriend.”
“Exactly, and I certainly won’t ever have a boyfriend and then husband and then said children if I look like a weathered Irish mailman from County Cork. I need the spa to ensure my husband is as hot as Golden Boy.” Roan has raised some very fine admission points to consider.
“Well, like I’ve always said, we do need to prioritize what’s best for the children, real or imaginary.” I wink at Roan and toss Antonia’s file to the top of the to be considered pile and open a new folder. Each of us is due our favorites, regardless of rhyme or reason.
* * *
• • •
Ding.
Saturday morning, I wake up feeling fuzzy, sluggish, and regretful from eating a bowl full of Skittles followed by multiple Jack Daniel’s shots and a subsequent turn on the karaoke stage. Lola is hands down my sista from another mister, but I do have a few friends from my days as a student at Fairchild who I see from time to time. This year we are all turning forty and these girls don’t mess around with their celebratin’. These fortieth birthday parties are going to ensure me an early death. I don’t have to look in a mirror to know I look as tired as the entire seventh-grade class on a post–bar mitzvah Monday morning. Only, my headache and puffy eyes are much worse. And who the hell is texting me so early in the morning? I pick up my phone to check. Whoops, it’s actually 10:45. Hopefully Etta found a ride to ballet. She’s probably texting me to let me know who picked her up; damn, I raised a responsible girl. Even from bed I’m an exceptional mother.
TY
Hi, Josie. It’s Ty Golden. Just want to check in and see how your aunt Viv’s doing. I hope you’ve been able to keep her off her feet and out of the kitchen. Her medication shouldn’t be causing any trouble, but for some people it can be upsetting to the stomach. If it’s bothering her let me know and I can stop by and check in. Hope it’s okay to text on a Saturday morning. I’ve been at the hospital doing rounds since six and wanted to make sure all is good in the Bordelon house.
10:45 A.M.
I bet Golden Boy has saved multiple lives in the amount of time it’s taken me to semi sleep off a hangover. And he texts with perfect grammar. Who does that? Well, better he text this morning than call. I’m not sure I can formulate an intelligent sentence through the cotton field that has sprouted in my mouth. Luckily, even on death’s door I can still ty
pe.
JOSIE
Dr. Golden, thanks for check in. Aunt Viv has come to embrace Netflix, Amazon Prime, Hulu, and bossing me around more than usual. My hope is that she continues to get her energy back so she can return to school and boss other people around for a change. I’m an admissions director not a nurse, though you may have been understandably confused given my stellar bedside manner in the hospital. Medication A.O.K.
10:46 A.M.
Ugh, I gotta brush my teeth. I officially can’t stand myself.
TY
You don’t strike me as the type of woman to take someone bossing you around. You probably got that from your aunt Viv?
10:46 A.M.
Ohhh text banter, I’m really good at that. Fuzzy teeth can wait.
JOSIE
You got that right so don’t think you can bribe me with free bedpans and Band-Aids to get Gracie into Fairchild.
10:47 A.M.
TY
Gracie can get herself into Fairchild, that kid rocks. I’m the unacceptable one.
10:47 A.M.
JOSIE
What’s unacceptable is saying someone rocks. What is this, 1999?
10:48 A.M.
TY
Might be, I don’t get out of the hospital much.
10:48 A.M.
JOSIE
Speaking of getting out much, I need to get my day started. Seems there must be a life that needs saving, too. Don’t lose a patient on account of my witty banter. Have a good weekend.
10:49 A.M.
Ty
You, too.
10:50 A.M.
I brush my teeth and wash my face to dislodge the mascara crumbles, but I decide to forgo the shower at this particular moment. I’m a bit too consumed with worrying whether I overstepped my professional boundaries by sharing that the director of admissions of the school where the good doctor wants to send his kid is a hot mess with a hangover. I gotta start rereading my texts before I hit send. Damn trigger finger.
Though not a requirement for acceptance, I shoot myself an e-mail from my phone to remind myself to write “smart” and “funny” in the Golden file so “hot dad” is not the leading pro for the Golden family. I assume Gracie goes by Golden. I’d rather be obviously related to hot dad than frumpy dude if I were Gracie. Not that Gracie, at four and a half, even knows one of her dads is hot. Yuck, hope not. I need to pull my head out of the gutter; maybe I do need a full shower to wash away the sins of the mind and of my evening.
Tonight, Fairchild is having a reception for families of graduating seniors. The evening’s entertainment is the college counselors reviewing the college application process. This is not my idea of a fun-filled Saturday night, spending it back at work with parents who have been in and out of each other’s intimate business for the past thirteen years. An administrative decision was made to move the event to a Saturday night after parents complained of out-of-town work commitments during the week and that the least Fairchild could do after a decade plus of tuition is combine a parent cocktail hour with college information night. Steep college costs on top of the nearly-broke-me bills from the past thirteen years of education is enough to make any teetotaling parent drink.
When my breakfast burrito fails to soak up last night’s liquor and my headache kicks in, I decide to quit drinking. Or at least I’ll quit until tonight, when I’m forced to accept the truth of college tuition and the competing data on whether the outcomes are even worth the price tag. I’ll save the option to drink if I need it. I have to see where the night takes me.
After the subpar college conversation at dinner a few days back, I decided I needed to come to the higher-learning discussion 2.0 with Etta a bit more prepared. Some preparation will also help me get the most out of Fairchild’s college night. Krista and Sam in college counseling spend their days transitioning the oldest Fairchild students out of the school. I spend my workdays doing the complete opposite, counseling Fairchild’s youngest potential students into the school. Though Krista and Sam are friends of mine, it’s a rare day that our two departments cross paths, thus we are fairly clueless about the details of one another’s jobs.
I open my laptop at the kitchen table to finish off the college Excel spreadsheet I barely started last Sunday night. Mustering my cunning mama smarts yesterday, I suggested to Etta that we go to dinner together before the college night. This will be when I present my succinct spreadsheet that will foretell her future.
Aunt Viv is in the living room consumed with the second season of Queen Sugar, a show that strikes a little too close to the train wreck that was her childhood in New Orleans. The characters in the show even share our last name, so I suppose Aunt Viv feels like they’re kin. Either way, with Aunt Viv sucked into the Deep South drama, I know I have some time when she won’t be prying into what I’m doing or why I look like ten miles of bad road at 11:35 in the morning.
COLLEGE/UNIVERSITY
EARLY ACTION DUE DATE
EARLY DECISION DUE DATE
REGULAR DECISION DUE DATE
APPLICATION COMPLETED
** CORNELL
10-Nov
N/A
1-Jan
** DARTMOUTH
10-Nov
N/A
1-Jan
WILLIAMS
10-Nov
N/A
1-Jan
DUKE
10-Nov
N/A
3-Jan
POMONA
10-Nov
N/A
15-Jan
CLAREMONT
10-Nov
N/A
15-Jan
UMICHIGAN
10-Nov
N/A
30-Nov
UCBERKELEY
10-Nov
N/A
30-Nov
UCDAVIS
10-Nov
N/A
30-Nov
UCSANTA CRUZ
10-Nov
N/A
30-Nov
After toggling back and forth between a couple of websites, I realize we can’t apply Early Decision anywhere because Etta would have to choose to attend said university before we hear about any kind of tuition assistance package. That’s good information to know because in our house it’s financial aid first, acceptance second, pack your bags third. That narrows our options down to applying Early Action and Regular Decision. Ugh, Early Action applications are due in two weeks. How has Etta not been on top of this? I’m annoyed that my conscientious seventeen-year-old has chosen now, of all times, to fall down on the teenage job. That said, Etta and I have pulled off more difficult feats in our past, like when Etta was one and I had to lose six pounds in five days for an Alexander McQueen show in London. We made it happen by both of us subsisting on baby food alone for 120 hours. As a grown woman, if I can eat applesauce and strained peas for a week straight, I can get Etta to pull it together to apply to Cornell and Dartmouth Early Action. And then I can march down to the San Francisco Ballet School and
shove two quarters’ worth of tuition down Jean Georges’s leotard.
Getting this college thing tied up before life goes dark with admissions work in January would be a huge relief. Otherwise, I’m not sure how I can pull off yet another intense three-month stretch of the Fairchild admissions season and the stress of getting Etta into a top college regular admissions. The last time life felt this out of my control was when I peed on the pregnancy sticks in Paris, but at least then I got the answer I needed immediately. This waiting to know Etta’s future is forcing me to live waaaaay outside my control freak comfort zone.
I decide this is no time to be subtle; immediate action is required no matter how small. I bold and increase the font size for Cornell and Dartmouth and add a few more asterisks for emphasis. When I sit down to show Etta this chart before we head to tonight’s odd mix of events—drunk college counseling—I want her to be clear on what the Bordelon game plan is and what our prioritized college picks are for next year.
TEN
“Aunt Viv, Etta and I are headin’ out for sushi on Geary before we go to Fairchild for college night. Can we bring you back anything?”
“Why you pay good money to eat at a restaurant that don’t even cook your food for you is beyond me. I can make you plain rice with a bite-size chunk of raw fish right here, won’t cost you nothin’. Sushi, phf, what a waste of money. Every time you girls go out for sushi you come home pokin’ around my kitchen looking for somethin’ real to eat ’cause you still hungry.”