Small Admissions

by Amy Poeppel

  “What?”

  “Or maybe I could be a school guidance counselor someday, like Henry’s husband. When I meet him, I’m going to ask him about it.”

  “ ‘Husband’?”

  “Pat.”

  “Who? What are you talking about?”

  “My future. It’s a lot to think about. Doors just flying open everywhere I look, you know?”

  Angela just sat there, adjusting to Henry’s sexual orientation and to her own apparent inability to be right about anything anymore. At the same time she couldn’t help marveling at her sister’s lack of direction. Despite her father’s metaphor about carbonation, the one in which he made the claim that Kate had some clue where she was heading, it was hard for Angela to see anything other than random, chaotic movement.

  “So, are you seeing anyone these days?”

  “Yes!” Kate said. “As a matter of fact, I’m dating my neighbor.”

  “Is it serious?”

  “I hope so.”

  “When were you going to tell me?”

  “I just told you.”

  “Well,” Angela said, “that’s wonderful.” Be positive. Be positive. “And work is still going well?”

  “I love it. You were so right: you were the one who said a school would be a good fit for me. You must want to send Henry a gift basket for taking me in.” She looked at Angela and smiled. “I know I was a serious pain in your ass for a while there. You hid it well, but you must have been really sick of me.”

  “No,” Angela said. “But I’ve missed you the last few months. I thought you were avoiding me.”

  “Not at all. I was just busy, making rookie mistakes.”

  “I doubt that.”

  “It’s true. Okay, here’s one that weighs on me: I begged Henry to let me wait-list this one girl, Claudia, since she didn’t get in, because I thought it would be kinder to cushion the blow, rather than flat-out reject her. He said it was a bad idea, but I insisted. And now I realize he was absolutely right, because all I did was keep her hopes up for another month for no reason at all. It was cruel.”

  “But you’re right that a wait list is nicer than a rejection.”

  “No. Nicer on me maybe. But if you know it’s going to be a rejection anyway, you’re just prolonging the agony for the other person. I should have listened to Henry.”

  The waiter came with their food and took a moment to deliver condiments and refill their water glasses. Kate looked up at him and said, “Can you please bring the check as soon as you get a chance?”

  In terms of maturity, punctuality, and responsibility, Kate had certainly made impressive and unexpected strides. “I’m proud of you,” Angela said, “and I hope that doesn’t sound condescending.” It was true that she was proud; Kate was doing well, and she was energized in a way that Angela found comforting and reassuring. However, she couldn’t help but notice that Kate’s shirt was unbuttoned one button more than it should have been, and she was itching to say something. I can practically see your bra, Kate. My goodness, don’t you ever look in the mirror?

  “Pretty blouse,” she said instead.

  May

  It was the week’s Breaking News, or “Afternoon of Terror!” as one news program coined it. When it was all over the board of trustees ordered a review of the school’s security systems and protocol in order to evaluate exactly what went wrong and to prevent anything like it from happening again.

  The event—or “School Scare!” as another news program called it—left Albert sad and shaken. He felt the whole thing could have been prevented had he only been more vigilant and forceful, had he only stuck firmly to the Guest Identification Guidelines as he’d been trained to. He wasn’t held responsible because the security footage showed a scene far too chaotic and congested for one guard to handle alone, so new procedures were established to stagger dismissal times by division, thereby decreasing the flow of human traffic over a thirty-minute period. Furthermore, Albert was assigned a partner for the two busiest times of day, mornings and afternoons, and additional security cameras were installed on the school’s exterior. A big debate followed on the pros and cons of installing a metal detector in the school’s entry, and the parent body voted it down, feeling it would look too threatening and might upset the children.

  The episode—or “Nightmare on 84th Street!” as yet another newspaper headlined it—began when a couple entered the building at 3:15, just as school was dismissing. They were heading in as 250 students were heading out.

  “Excuse me,” Albert said. “ID please.”

  “We have an appointment,” the older gentleman said over his shoulder. “We’re just dropping off some papers for Kate Pearson,” and he and his wife pushed through the swarm of kids and past the indoor park benches to the admissions department. Albert should have gone after them, but they were so well dressed and sure of themselves, so moneyed, that he didn’t. The woman was wearing enormous dark glasses, and the man was in a pinstriped suit. They knew their way around, and Albert accepted their air of privilege as license to skip the red tape, a mistake he forever regretted.

  Kate saw the couple walking down the hall, and she stopped them in the sitting area of the admissions department. She noticed right away that Silvia Blake was not in her right mind. She was sloppy, listing slightly to the side, like her Xanax had been sloshed down with a glass of gin. She looked older, worn, and her roots needed serious attention.

  “Can we talk?” Kenneth said.

  “I’ll get Henry,” Kate told them.

  “No,” he said. “You.”

  “That’s a pretty party dress,” Silvia said, trying to focus in on Kate’s buttons. “So pretty. What is that?”

  “Sweetheart—let me,” he said, and he propped Silvia against the wall. “We need to talk to you,” he told Kate. “You know what went wrong. You’re someone who understands this impenetrable process. You have to help us.”

  Silvia wagged her finger. “I remember he said you have a leg in, or a foot on, or whatever he said. Ah! You have the smell of all this—something about smell.”

  “You screwed us over,” Kenneth said. “You liked Dillon when you met him. You were very enthusiastic, too enthusiastic apparently, and then out of nowhere you dumped him.”

  Kate stopped him. “Mr. Bigley—and the school—they’ve already told you multiple times that we can’t discuss decisions once they’ve been made. I’m sorry I can’t help you. I’ll walk you out.”

  “Excuse me, Miss. Lady,” Silvia slurred. “Don’t think you can just do that, just blow us off like that, like we’re nobody. We’re here now, and you better show us some respect,” she demanded. “I want to know why you hate my son.”

  “No one hates Dillon, but we can’t discuss decisions,” Kate repeated.

  “Yes you will. You will. You have to,” Silvia insisted.

  “No, you have to leave,” Kate said.

  “Calm down,” Kenneth started, “all we want—”

  “You will too talk to me!” Silvia cut in, stomping her foot and pulling a shiny silver handgun out of her Louis Vuitton. It matched her chunky platinum rings. “I’m an alum here, goddamn it. You can’t tell me to leave.”

  “Are you shitting me?” Kate asked, throwing her hands up in the air.

  “Easy now,” Kenneth said, and Kate wondered which one of them he was talking to. Silvia’s Chanel sunglasses, which she had propped up on her head, dropped down over her eyes, and she seemed confused as to why she couldn’t see. She pointed the gun randomly at the ceiling, and then the floor, the file cabinet, and then the ceiling again. “Okay, doll, why don’t I hold on to that,” Kenneth suggested.

  “Oh, psshhh,” Silvia said, carelessly dropping the gun in her bag like it was nothing but a pair of cheap reading glasses. “Take a joke. Everyone’s so serious all the time. I need to sit down.”

  Kate went into a sort of role, like she was playing a part. All she had to do was get through this, handle it, by acting like she unders
tood more of the situation than she did. She had gotten good at that after nine months at this job. Just another interview.

  “We’ll talk,” she said, pointing toward her office. “Let’s go talk.” She walked backward to the file cabinet and pulled Dillon’s folder, fat with school reports and letters. “The thicker the file, the thicker the child,” was what Maureen always said.

  “Can I see that?” Kenneth asked.

  “No,” Kate said, hugging it to her chest. “You’re not allowed. We have strict rules here, like no weapons of any kind in the building. Is it real? Is it loaded?”

  “Oh, please,” Kenneth said. “It’s not like she’s going to use it.”

  “That’s not what I asked,” Kate said quietly, wishing she knew how Henry would tell her to deal with an angry, psychotic couple wielding a gun, with people who can’t take no for an answer. We never went over that scenario at dinner, Kate thought, but she knew what he would say; it was obvious: Make a run for it. Run away screaming. Run for help. It wasn’t that she didn’t want to haul ass out of there, but she could so clearly imagine a bullet hitting her right between the shoulder blades if she were to turn her back on them. She was too afraid to do the one thing that made the most sense.

  Instead Kate followed her own instincts and entered her office with Silvia and Kenneth, closing the door behind them. They all sat in the same spots they had during the interview the previous fall.

  “Humiliated,” Silvia belted out. “That’s what you did. You humiliated us. It’s been a nightmare, everyone else’s kids getting into school after school, and then there’s us. I want to know how come you think those kids are any better than my Dillon. You just went out of your way to screw with us. I keep remembering at the end of the tour here, someone said—what did he say?—we should try to ‘enjoy’ the process. I don’t even know what that means. Enjoy what? It’s been a nightmare. I have a muscle thing in my left eye that never stops, I can’t sleep—they put me on all kinds of pills.”

  “We don’t understand what happened,” Kenneth said. “How come no one wanted our kid?”

  “Ten schools,” Silvia suddenly shouted. Her bag was in her lap, and Kate kept her eyes on Silvia’s hands; she was holding them out, fingers spread wide, to make her point.

  “Silvia, please,” Kenneth said.

  “We applied to ten schools! And got ten rejection letters.”

  “Maybe you should wait outside,” he suggested.

  “Or at home,” Kate added. “I could call a cab?”

  “Do you have any idea what that looks like?” Silvia went on. “Ten rejection letters filling up my in-box? Dillon has no place to go. What’s he supposed to do now?”

  “You should have accepted him,” Kenneth said. “You made a big mistake.”

  “You sure did,” Silvia added. “You all did. I know a conspiracy when I meet one.”

  Kate had studied enough psychology to understand the basic problem: Kenneth and Silvia were delusional. In the Abnormal Behavior course she took at Wellesley, she’d learned that people suffering from delusions aren’t swayed by evidence that contradicts their beliefs. You can put facts in front of them, but facts won’t change what they perceive to be true. In this case, they believed that Dillon could succeed in a school like Hudson, an opinion that defied all logic. Silvia also seemed paranoid, convinced that there had been some kind of orchestrated effort to sabotage Dillon’s application. Kate wondered if she could somehow get them to accept the truth, a risky and likely futile idea, but she couldn’t think of what else to do. No one will die, Jonathan had told her, no matter how incompetent you are. She hoped he was right.

  “I’ll talk to you,” Kate said, “but I need to make sure you understand that there’s nothing I can do to get Dillon in here next year. You can force me to explain our reasoning, but Henry says that once decisions are made, they’re final.”

  “Oooh, la-dee-da,” Silvia chimed in. “Henry.” She started coughing.

  “Are you okay?” Kate asked her.

  Silvia reached for a tissue and blew her nose. “No, I’m not okay. I’m sick, obviously. I took an antihistamine with my Zoloft before we left. With a swig of cough syrup.” She jammed her hand into her bag, and Kate held her breath; Silvia pulled out an Altoids tin. “This whole thing has made me ill. And we’re going to have to go through it all over again next year. I can’t stand to even think about it. I feel like I might actually throw up.”

  Kate passed her the garbage can.

  “We need answers,” Kenneth said. “What happened?”

  “One thing I’ve learned,” Kate said, “is that admissions is about fit, so I’ll try to explain why we feel that Dillon and Hudson are a bad fit.”

  “I object to that,” Silvia said, “fundamentally.”

  “I haven’t started yet,” Kate said weakly. “Let’s go over what was submitted.” She opened the file. “So first of all,” she began, “you already know this, but Dillon’s test scores were really low. Dillon and I had a nice conversation when he interviewed, but as soon as the scores came in, I knew there was a problem. And then when you called about it, I suggested that you have him tested for a possible learning issue or even test anxiety, just to give us a better understanding of why he did so poorly.”

  “Oh, come on,” Silvia said dismissively, sucking on a mint. “You put too much empathis on that stupid test.”

  “Maybe we do,” Kate acknowledged, “but in this case he scored, sorry, at the rock bottom of every percentile in every category. Hudson can’t accept a kid with scores that low. It’s a big red flag. It shows that there’s something wrong.”

  “There’s nothing wrong with him,” Silvia said suddenly, clenching her teeth. “I think there’s something wrong with you.” She turned to Kenneth and mumbled, as if Kate couldn’t hear her, “I might just shoot the bitch after all.”

  “No one’s shooting anyone,” he responded.

  “My wording was bad, I’m sorry,” Kate said, feeling herself getting sweaty. “I didn’t mean wrong. I only meant that his scores indicate that he would have a hard time managing the curriculum here. There’s an incompatibility.”

  “I do not believe he did that badly,” Kenneth said, very plainly.

  “But he did,” Kate said. “The scores are right here,” and she held them up. “You’ve seen them.”

  “I think they’re someone else’s scores,” Silvia said. “They got the test swapped around with some other kid.”

  “Stupid machines,” Kenneth added.

  Oh my God, Kate thought, classic delusion. “Maybe you’re right,” she said hopelessly. “I just thought that more thorough testing could help you figure out what happened.”

  “Dillon doesn’t need any more testing,” Kenneth said.

  “You’re so dumb,” Silvia said, “making such a big deal out of some random numbers. He’s just a little boy. I figured you’d see this test for what it is: irrevalent. A bleep. A blip. A blotch.”

  “Well, I want to agree with you, believe me, I do, except I can’t because, well, because the scores were in line with everything else in his file,” Kate said tentatively.

  “Nuh-uh,” Silvia said.

  “That’s impossible,” Kenneth added.

  “Have you talked to Dillon’s teachers?” she asked. “He struggles in school.”

  “No, he’s fine. It’s just that his teachers don’t like him,” Silvia explained, “and they pick on him. It’s not his fault that they like girls better than boys.”

  “His teacher—his very experienced teacher—was working with him to teach him basic subtraction. In the fifth grade,” Kate explained.

  “Well,” said Silvia, “as long as we’re spilling all the beans here, let me tell you what I know about math: ten rejection letters, taking over my whole goddamn Gmail account. And guess how many acceptance letters,” and she made a zero with her hand and squinted one eye to see through it.

  “He lacks basic skills,” Kate said slowly. “H
e would need nonstop individualized attention to get caught up.”

  “Let’s say you’re right,” Kenneth proposed, “and I don’t think you are . . .”

  “Okay.”

  “Then we would need a top-notch school like this one. If Dillon needs the best teachers money can buy, fine. We have money.”

  “This school—” she said clearly, “I’m assuming you know this already since Silvia went here—this school is rigorous and competitive and highly stressful. The students here do three to four hours of homework every night, hard homework, stuff I can’t even do. And we don’t do remedial help. We don’t accommodate individual student learning needs because Hudson students don’t have any. It’s not that kind of school, and it doesn’t pretend to be. There’s no recess here, and the list of rules is a mile long: sit still, tuck in your shirt, don’t talk out of turn. It’s an amazing place for certain types of kids, but tell me truthfully, can you picture Dillon sitting down to do an hour of grueling Latin homework every night?” Kate asked.

  “I can picture him looking adorable in his little blazer,” Silvia said, her eyes glazing over. Kate wondered if she might pass out.

  “Personally, I think he would rise to the occasion,” Kenneth said. “He’s getting older and more mature every day. You’re not giving him credit for the strides he’s making, every day, big strides. By the fall, he would be fine.”

  Nothing she said was getting through to them. They wanted answers, but if they didn’t believe or trust her, then what good was it to go through this exercise? How could she possibly get them to leave? “Should we talk about extracurriculars?” she sighed.

  “Absolutely, Dillon plays guitar like a—” Kenneth said.

  “Rock star?” Kate asked. It came out bitchy and sarcastic, and Mr. Blake was taken aback.

  “Excuse me? Are you saying he doesn’t?”

  She started to apologize when she recalled that in the interview they had said they wanted to talk to someone in charge. They were used to going “to the top.” She wondered if she were tougher and more confident, if she were more like Vicki, would they respect her? Could she school them then? Who am I? she thought to herself, sitting up taller. I’m God with my little computer. I’m the bouncer bitch. If facts wouldn’t sway them, maybe bullying would; it was a method they likely understood. “You know, that rock star line, it isn’t . . . It’s . . .”