Small Admissions
Page 29
They’d finally met for the first time when Kate was in the hospital and so doped up on pain medication that she couldn’t quite get her eyelids to open. Pat had come into the room with Henry and whispered, “What a girl! I knew she was the right one. I said she would do you good, remember?”
“I remember,” Henry had answered. “Can you imagine how Nathan would have handled a situation like that?”
“By wetting his pants. And then hiding behind you while you got shot. To think she managed to talk those people down all on her own. I told you, I said psychology is a highly useful field to study, remember? I told you to hire her, didn’t I? Wasn’t I brilliant?”
“Yes, love, and I credit you entirely. But go ahead and say it again.”
“I told you so.”
Kate had been too sleepy to understand what they were talking about, and now she wasn’t sure if the conversation had even happened. Maybe she’d dreamt it. After that, Pat had visited her again in the hospital, being exceedingly kind and bringing her biographies of Hillary Clinton and Madeleine Albright, saying, “You Wellesley grads really are something, aren’t you? Is there anything you women can’t do?”
“Yeah, well, I’m nowhere near the same category as those two,” Kate had said with a laugh.
Pat looked at her with a serious expression. “That’s because you’re younger.”
And now Pat offered Kate a fork and a paper plate. “Can you have some lunch with us?” he asked. “Very heart-healthy.”
“I can’t. I’m going out with Maureen,” Kate said.
“Maureen agreed to go out with you?” Henry asked. “No kidding.”
“Well, she doesn’t know about it yet, but I’ll talk her into it.”
“I’m sure you will,” Pat said. “Your powers of persuasion are nothing short of miraculous. Have you considered a career in law? I can imagine you would be a great litigator.”
“Pat,” Henry said.
“What?”
“I’d rather she not quit over the summer.”
“I wasn’t suggesting she quit over the summer. But she could think about it, study for the LSAT, see how she does.”
“Actually,” Kate said, “I was hoping to talk to you sometime about what you do.”
“Really?” Pat asked. “Counseling? Outstanding! How about we have dinner one night during your break? When are you free?”
“I don’t believe this,” Henry said.
“Henry, you can’t possibly think you’ll be able to hang on to an ambitious woman with so much potential? She has bigger plans for her future.”
“I need her here,” Henry said.
“I’m staying,” Kate promised. “It’ll take a long time for me to live up to even half the compliments you’ve paid me this year.”
“But you would make a good counselor,” Pat said, and quickly turning to Henry, he added, “I mean down the road, in the future, eventually.” He turned back to Kate and mouthed the words, “We’ll talk.”
“When I started here,” Kate said, “I didn’t think I’d make it through the year without getting fired.”
“Firing you never crossed my mind,” Henry said.
“Well, then,” Kate said, “I guess I’ll see you here next month.”
“We’ll be vacationing in the Scottish Highlands by the time you get back. I’ll see you at the end of August.”
“I’m taking Henry to Urquhart Castle,” Pat said. “We’ll hike the trails around the loch, keeping an eye out for Nessie.”
“Castles and cryptids,” Kate said. “It sounds perfect. What do I do while you’re gone?”
“Just hold down the fort,” Henry told her.
“It was a good year, wasn’t it,” Kate asked him, “under the circumstances?”
“Very good,” he answered.
Kate wanted to say something important, words that would express all that Henry had done for her, but “Thank you for helping me get off the couch” was the best she could come up with.
“We’ll hit the ground running in September,” he reminded her, “so rest up.”
She went down the hall to see Maureen. “I was thinking next year would be much easier,” Maureen said, “since you almost know something about what you’re doing, but now that we’re moving the entire process online, you’re basically a total beginner again.”
“Want to go out for happy hour?”
“Don’t take this the wrong way, but I’m so sick of you.”
Kate made a face like her feelings were hurt.
“But if you really miss me,” Maureen went on, “give me a call, and I’ll try to make time for you.”
“No, I meant now.”
“No.”
“Please? My treat.”
“I have work to do.”
“You do not.”
“What do you know about it, newbie?”
“But it’s my birthday.”
“Lies.”
“Just come with me, or do you want me out in some skanky bar, limping around, all shot up, drinking by myself?”
Maureen sighed heavily and picked up her purse, saying, “It is just sad the way you’re milking this thing.”
In the lobby, Albert was standing at his post by the front entrance, looking out at the street. Ever since the incident, he’d been on edge.
“I don’t like it,” he said, pointing. “That man out there, that man looks very suspicious to me.” He had his other hand poised on the phone.
Kate looked out and saw Robert, handsome Robert, leaning against a mailbox, smoking a cigarette, waiting.
“I don’t know,” Maureen said. “He looks pretty good to me.”
Kate thought through her options. Confront? Retreat? Ignore? Explain?
“Do me a favor, will you?” Kate asked Albert. “Can you deliver a message for me?”
Maureen made her mad face. “I thought you were buying me a drink.”
“That’s the guy who dumped me,” Kate said, getting a piece of paper and a pen from the front desk.
“Boring. I told you: look forward, not back. What could you possibly have to say to him?”
“It’s a little late,” Kate said, “but I need to reject him.”
“Well, do it fast.”
With Maureen breathing down her neck, Kate wrote as quickly as she could.
Robert,
I got your email, and I appreciate your apology.
I’d like to apologize as well, starting with one small admission: When I told you Zinedine Zidane was on my list of men I’d like to sleep with, I lied. He’s not my type at all, which is not nice of me to say because, as you pointed out, you look a lot like him but with good hair. Also I don’t even like soccer. The truth is I faked pretty much everything when we were together. It was terribly unfair and dishonest of me, not to mention exhausting, and I assure you I learned from my mistakes. My only explanation is that I desperately needed something to work out in my life, and you were a victim of that need. I deeply regret that I didn’t have the presence of mind to accept that we were not right for each other and break up with you when I should have. I’m very sorry.
Vicki is an extraordinarily good fit for you (like a hook into an eye), so if you want my advice, you’ll be careful, and you’ll hold on to her, if you can. I think structure is exactly what a boy like you needs.
Honestly—no hard feelings. I wish you well.
Kate
July
On my wall there’s a picture of me holding hands with George in Central Park. It’s a candid and not a very flattering one; George’s mouth is partly open in midsentence and my stomach is protruding in a way that my white linen dress clearly didn’t appreciate, as it is pinched and puckered in all the wrong places. But look closely: Kate and Vicki are both there. I asked them to wear green that day, and, unsurprisingly, they chose dresses in wildly different shades, different fabrics, different styles. They don’t even look like they’re at the same party, but there they both are, one on the far left
side of the frame and one way over on the right.
In the background, slightly out of focus, Robert poses accidentally, looking pleased, like he’s lord and owner of the entire park. He’s wearing a perfectly tailored suit with a paisley pocket square, holding a lit cigarette in one hand and a glass of champagne in the other. He watches Vicki carefully, as she dazzles three men who surround her. She is poised and stunning, although her high heels have sunk deep into the grass. On the other side of the picture (and this is my favorite part), there is Kate. She is barefoot, eating cake and feeding a piece to our dog, Carter, who licks her fingers. Beneath the A-line swing of her dress, one leg is lightly wrapped in gauze, and she smiles at Jonathan, who is blowing iridescent bubbles all around her head.
As far as wedding pictures go, it’s a mess. The composition is cluttered and disjointed, everything is in motion, and I know that at one time this would have been a disappointment to me, a failure. I would have insisted on one of those pictures in which one’s friends are arranged in a tidy row, everyone smiling politely with their arms around each other just so, a meaningless display in my case. What I have instead, what I now embrace, in spite of the obvious lack of symmetry and coherence, is an image of the people who enrich and complicate my life, just as they are and, somehow, miraculously, all within the frame.
About a year after that picture was taken, I was out with Carter, pushing Russell (as in Bertrand) in the stroller, on my way to Tompkins Square Park to meet Kate, who had made it smoothly through her second season in admissions. I chose a spot for us under the trees and settled in to wait for her. I put Russell on the picnic blanket, and as I began to unpack toys and snacks, I got a text from Robert:
I have a problem! Need you.
Can’t eat, can’t sleep.
I am a fool. Merde.
What have I done?
I was alarmed and texted back ?? but he didn’t respond.
And right away an email came from Vicki. Robert, she said, was busted. He’d hooked up with some bimbo actress in London, and Vicki had the emails to prove it. It was over. Period. He was pathetic, had begged and pleaded, cried even, on his knees, but she wasn’t having it. She didn’t tolerate such things, she reminded me, and she had told him so a hundred times. Her email ended with “I admit that I’m beyond upset, naturally, but unlike some people, I will be perfectly fine. I refuse to let him break me down, so don’t expect to find me in a puddle on my couch. But in case you don’t know this already, your cousin is an asshole. Ciao.”
I was sorry, I really was, but I realized I didn’t feel that bad. Or even guilty.
“Robert’s an idiot,” I told Russell, who kicked his legs and squealed. Carter rolled around in the grass next to me.
I answered Vicki: “That’s terrible. Let’s have drinks tomorrow night.” Nothing more. She had known all along what she was getting into, and she wouldn’t want my sympathy anyway. But she would need to vent, and as her friend, I would be there for her.
I went back to Robert’s pitiful text and answered him: I’ll call you tomorrow, but brace yourself—I won’t go easy on you. I figure you deserve some heartache.
I hit send and looked up to see Kate walking across the park, bouncing actually, holding on to her backpack straps with both hands.
“What a day!” she said, dropping down onto the blanket and kicking off her sandals. “What a spectacular day.”
“Yes, it is,” I agreed.
Happiness is not a zero-sum game. It’s the only case in which the resources are limitless, and in which the rich can get richer at no expense to anyone else. That day in the park, I found it remarkably easy to own my happiness and celebrate Kate’s as well.
It’s a strange thing, though, how rare, maybe impossible, it is to have everyone you care about thriving at the same time. For a short spell, life seems certain and stable, until something shifts and redistributes, randomly, unpredictably, and when you look around at the new landscape, you see that it’s someone else’s turn now. You redirect your attention to focus on the friend in need. You hope—you know—they will do the same for you, when your turn comes.
Acknowledgments
Thank you so much to Emily Bestler at Emily Bestler Books. I truly appreciate her enthusiasm, humor, kindness, and editorial smarts. Thanks also to Stephanie Mendoza, Lara Jones, Albert Tang, Lynn Buckley, Megan Reid, and the whole team at Atria/Simon & Schuster.
I am extremely grateful to my agent Linda Chester for taking me on, when all I had was a quirky manuscript about an old Texan couple, and for encouraging me to work on this book first. And to Anika Streitfeld, for being patient, thoughtful, funny, and insightful. Working with these two is an absolute pleasure.
For their friendship, generosity, and support, thank you to Hilton Als, April Benasich, and James Melcher.
Many wonderful people were kind and critical early readers: my amazing family, David Poeppel, Wendy O’Sullivan, Laurie Mitchell, and Jere Mitchell, and my stalwart friends, Amy White, Candy Moss, Jan Testori-Markman, Leslie Carr, Gregory Greenleaf, Karina Schultz, Ana Blohm, Hilton Als, and George Kryder. Also big thanks to my nieces, Sophie and Maddie Woods, and Megan O’Sullivan, for embracing my main character.
Thank you to Amy Shearn, for getting my writing off the ground. And thanks to Patricia Bosworth and the Playwrights/Directors Unit at The Actors Studio and to the cast of the play that was the origin of this book.
I am so appreciative for the expertise, levity, concrete help, therapy, alcoholic beverages, friendship, inspiration, and/or moral support provided by the following fabulous people: Anna Salajegheh, Felice Kaufmann, Emily Middleton, David Harman, Donna James, Diane Meier, Frank Delaney, Dacel Casey, Zuzanna Szadkowski, Albert Aeed, Lolly Winston, Stephen McCauley, George Baier IV, Max Fenton, Sabrina Khan, Theo Theoharis, Brent Woods, Mitchell Moss, Peter Mitchell, Jenna Drudi, Ben Binstock, Pam Clarke, John Kim, Honore Comfort, Amy Weinberg, Norbert Hornstein, and the members of the Brooklyn Writers’ Salon. Thanks also to my fun and loving German and Venezuelan family-members-in-law, especially my Schwägerinnen Julie Bruhn and Lili D’Huc.
As for Carmen Davis, Kristin Harman, Karyn Delay, Dan Feigin, and Maria Allwin—I could not have written this book without their friendship and truly outrageous humor.
Most importantly, love and thanks to the men in my life: David, Alex, Andrew, and Luke Poeppel.
AMY POEPPEL is a graduate of Wellesley College. She lives with her husband and three sons in New York City, where she worked in the admissions department of a prestigious independent school. Poeppel workshopped a theatrical version of Small Admissions at the Actors Studio Playwrights/Directors Unit. She later expanded it into this novel.
Follow Amy on Twitter @AmyPoeppel and on Facebook at Facebook.com/AmyPoeppelAuthor, or visit AmyPoeppel.com.
MEET THE AUTHORS, WATCH VIDEOS AND MORE AT
SimonandSchuster.com
authors.simonandschuster.com/Amy-Poeppel
Facebook.com/EmilyBestler
@EmilyBestler
EMILYBESTLERBOOKS.COM
We hope you enjoyed reading this Emily Bestler Books/Atria eBook.
* * *
Join our mailing list and get updates on new releases, deals, bonus content and other great books from Emily Bestler Books/Atria and Simon & Schuster.
CLICK HERE TO SIGN UP
or visit us online to sign up at
eBookNews.SimonandSchuster.com
An Imprint of Simon & Schuster, Inc.
1230 Avenue of the Americas
New York, NY 10020
www.SimonandSchuster.com
This book is a work of fiction. Any references to historical events, real people, or real places are used fictitiously. Other names, characters, places, and events are products of the author’s imagination, and any resemblance to actual events or places or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
Copyright © 2016 by Amy Poeppel
“You Fit into Me” by Margaret Atwood, used by permissi
on of the Author. Available in the following collections: In the United States, SELECTED POEMS I, 1965 – 1975, published by Houghton Mifflin, ©Margaret Atwood 1976; In Canada, SELECTED POEMS, 1966 – 1984, published by Oxford University Press, ©Margaret Atwood 1990; In the UK, EATING FIRE, published by Virago Books, ©Margaret Atwood 1998.
All rights reserved, including the right to reproduce this book or portions thereof in any form whatsoever. For information, address Atria Books Subsidiary Rights Department, 1230 Avenue of the Americas, New York, NY 10020.
First Emily Bestler Books/Atria Books hardcover edition December 2016
and colophon are trademarks of Simon & Schuster, Inc.
For information about special discounts for bulk purchases, please contact Simon & Schuster Special Sales at 1-866-506-1949 or business@simonandschuster.com.
The Simon & Schuster Speakers Bureau can bring authors to your live event. For more information, or to book an event, contact the Simon & Schuster Speakers Bureau at 1-866-248-3049 or visit our website at www.simonspeakers.com.
Interior design by Kyoko Watanabe
Jacket design and illustration by Lynn Buckley
Author photograph by George Baier
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Names: Poeppel, Amy, author.
Title: Small admissions / Amy Poeppel.
Description: First Emily Bestler Books/Atria Books hardcover edition. | New York : Emily Bestler Books/Atria, 2016.
Identifiers: LCCN 2016011397 (print) | LCCN 2016021057 (ebook) | ISBN 9781501122521 (hardback) | ISBN 9781501122545 (ebook)
Subjects: LCSH: Young women—Fiction. | School management and organization—New York (State)—New York—Fiction. | Chick lit. | BISAC: FICTION / Contemporary Women. | GSAFD: Love stories.
Classification: LCC PS3616.O345 S63 2016 (print) | LCC PS3616.O345 (ebook) | DDC 813/.6—dc23