“I know.” She spoke softly, still staring at the wall. “I mean, it feels like we are. But how can you really know something like that?” She turned to look at me. “Anyway, what about you?”
“What—what do you mean?” I didn’t want to discuss my long-distance whatever-it-was with Colin, mostly because I knew Sarah thought I was nuts for holding out for a guy who was already in college and lived so far away. Especially when our status as a couple was a lot vaguer than I wanted it to be.
If I closed my eyes I could still hear his lilting Irish voice in my head: Ye’re still in high school, Mor. Have some fun . . .
“I mean college, dum-dum!” Sarah rolled her eyes. “You haven’t toured any campuses. You haven’t decided on a major. Your SAT scores were, frankly, kind of weak—”
“They were pathetic,” I corrected. “Extremely pathetic.”
“Indeed they were.” Sarah was very good at scolding me. “And yet, I do not see a test-prep book tucked under your arm, Morgan Rawlinson! Are you even going to bother taking the test again?”
“Somebody’s going to have to make the lattes of the future,” I joked.
“It’s too late to kid around.” All of a sudden Sarah had her game face on, and it was scary. “Junior year’s over. It’s time to figure out what you want to do after high school.”
The click of high heels echoed down the hall moments before the all-too-familiar voice rang out:
“What are you girls doing in here?”
It was Mrs. Calhoun, high school principal and object of mockery and revulsion to all self-respecting East Norwich teens.
“We came inside to use the bathroom.” Sarah smiled brightly.
“This is the college wall. Not the bathroom.” It wasn’t a question, but Mrs. Calhoun stood there like she was waiting for an answer.
Sarah kept her smile frozen in place and stood up very straight. She was a full head taller than Mrs. Calhoun, and she worked it by stepping a little too close and talking straight down at the unnaturally blond head of our school’s fearless leader. “Mrs. Calhoun,” she said somberly, “the truth is, Morgan is having a really hard time figuring out what color her parachute is.”
“My what?” I blurted.
She ignored me and kept spewing BS. “So we came to the college wall for, you know, inspiration! Wow! So many great schools! You must be massively proud—”
“Inspiration? I hope you found some,” Mrs. Calhoun said, cutting her off. “Now, back outside, please.”
“We totally found some! We’re done now. Thanks so much!” Sarah kept babbling as she dragged me away by the arm.
“What was that crap about a parachute?” I asked, as soon as we were out of earshot and had recovered from our giggle fit.
“Duh, it’s this famous book about planning your life, everybody knows that.”
“Well, duh, obviously ‘everybody’ didn’t know that—”
Together we pushed open the main doors of the school.
“Admit it, Morgan. You spent your whole junior year obsessing about Colin.” Always prepared, Sarah pulled the brim of her hat down low against the sun, but the light and heat hit me like a slap. “Too bad you can’t major in him.”
two
by the time we walked back to the field they were already taking down the tents. Sarah ran off to find Dylan, who’d been stuck playing the cymbal part in “Pomp and Circumstance” all morning in the concert band. I stood in the sun and watched as the workers tried to fold each tent into a nice, neat, obedient square, while a gust of welcome breeze made the white fabric billow and fight back.
Okay, fine: What color was my parachute?
Was it the sparkling cornflower blue of Colin’s eyes? Or the soft red-gold of his strawberry-blond hair?
Was it the cream of his fair skin, or the tawny peach of his freckles?
Maybe it was the lush velvet green of Ireland, as seen from the window of an Aer Lingus jet.
Maybe I should go find out. All I had to do was buy a ticket.
Yeah, right. As if my parents would pay for me to go to Ireland just to see Colin. My parents had met Colin, and they liked him, but the notion of me being that involved with someone, at my age, was not their idea of wisdom. When Colin’s grandmother had died shortly after he got back from his trip to the States, I’d even hinted around about flying over to Ireland for the funeral, but they wouldn’t bite.
He’s in college. He lives in another country . . . I could recite their arguments from memory. He has his own life. It’s time for you to plan yours, Morgan!
When Sarah made that crack about majoring in Colin, I knew she was teasing me the way best friends do, but it hurt anyway. Probably because she was right.
“I know you love him, but it’s such a long shot, Mor gan,” she’d said quickly when I ducked my head to hide how my eyes had suddenly filled with tears. “Why risk your heart on something that’s so unlikely to work out?”
But isn’t that what you’re supposed to do with a parachute, a voice inside me whispered in reply. Close your eyes, take a breath and jump?
my mom, the queen of anti-clutter, was facing down approximately six thousand different pieces of paper, arranged with obsessive neatness in dozens of stacks that completely covered the surface of the table my family used to eat off of.
College brochures. Course catalogs. Applications. Financial aid forms. I watched her march around the table, tapping each pile into perfect alignment with her hands while maintaining a strangely neutral look on her face in order to hide her hysteria about my impending failure to launch.
Finally she spoke. “If you would take the time to actually read some of the brochures, Morgan, perhaps it would jump-start your thinking about college.”
“I’m not stalled, Mom. I don’t have a dead battery.” I’d been in super-snarky mode ever since I got home from the graduation ceremony. Blame it on the sunburn. “I don’t need to be ‘jump-started,’ okay?”
“So forget ‘jump-start.’ What I meant was—”
“It sounds like you’re going to clamp cables to my ear-lobes or something.”
“I said forget it!” She stopped marching. “I’m just saying, if you could bring yourself to participate in the college selection process, it might raise your interest level. You don’t even seem to be thinking about it.”
“Not thinking about it? It’s all anybody talks about!” Whoops, involuntary eye roll. “I’m sick of thinking about it, that’s the problem.”
Mom sighed her heaviest, most exasperated mom-sigh and leaned back against the edge of the kitchen island. “If that’s the case, then perhaps you should let me in on what you’ve been thinking. Then I can be sick of it too. Because right now, what I’m sick of is not knowing what you’re thinking about college!”
Okay, that logic officially made my head hurt. But she wasn’t finished.
“A lot of arrangements have to be made in preparation for your higher education, Morgan. A lot of planning and juggling of finances and all kinds of considerations that have to be, you know—”
“Considered?” I deadpanned. It was a dangerous moment to yank Mom’s chain, but I couldn’t resist.
“Right,” she said, narrowing her eyes. “My point is, it’s not just about you.”
“Mom, I hate to tell you this.”
She started to say something else, then stopped. “What?”
“Me choosing a college? Me choosing a career? Me choosing what I want to do with my life?”
“Yes?”
“It is just about me.”
I liked the sound of that as soon as I’d said it, so I said it again. “It’s about me. It really is.”
mom backed off after that little piece of insubordination, but she made me repeat the whole drill when my dad got home from work. With him I took a different approach.
“It’s just that I don’t know what I want to do, career wise,” I said, little-lost-girl style. That was usually the best strategy with him. “So I do
n’t know what I want to study. And so I don’t really have any, you know, whatayacallems—”
“Criteria,” my mom threw in, before I could think of the word.
“ ‘ Cry teary ahhh!’ That is the saddest word ever!” My sister, Tammy, was lying on her belly on the rug, scribbling into a composition notebook. She was so worried that she’d forget how to spell over the summer that she’d decided to make her own book of spelling words to keep her sharp as a tack until September. For a kid who’d just finished second grade, she was showing a lot more concern for her academic future than I was showing for mine. “How do you spell that sad, sad word?”
“With a C,” my mom answered. “Now hush, Tammy, we’re talking.”
“So like, there’s no way to pick,” I went on, to my dad. “It just seems so random.”
My dad nodded and said nothing. It was hard to tell if he was listening.
“There’s no shame in getting a liberal arts degree,” Mom offered.
“Oh my God, there so is,” I countered. “Liberal arts means you have no clue.”
“How about a gap year, then?” Mom was not going to give up. “If you can find something constructive to do, of course.”
“Please! Gap year means you really have no clue.”
Dad got up from the sofa and walked the full length of our oversized, no privacy, open-plan house. He marched across the living area to the dining area to the kitchen area and then to the refrigerator. He got himself a Diet Coke and popped it open. He even thought to pick up a coaster. Then he walked all the way back and sat back down on the sofa.
“Well, at least we all agree on something,” Dad announced.
“What?” my mom and I said at the same time.
“You, Morgan,” he said, raising the can to his lips, “have no clue.”
the two of them had one of their late-night kitchen conversations that night, the kind I could hear from my room without being able to make out any of the actual words. Like two anxious bees, buzzing and buzzing until well after midnight.
The buzzing must have been about me, because by ten o’clock the next morning my mom had booked an emergency appointment with Mr. Cornelius Phineas, private college counselor.
He was very expensive, my mom explained proudly after she’d hung up, and came highly recommended by her snootiest friends. As soon as she heard his name Tammy immediately added “Phineas” to her book of summer spelling words.
“ ‘ Phineas.’ What does it mean?” she asked as she carefully wrote it in the PH section, on a page that already contained “phone” and “phyllo dough”—two of my mom’s phavorite accessories, heh heh.
“It’s an ancient word meaning ‘bad-smelling person who kidnaps obnoxious smarty-pants girls and gives them nothing but dictionaries to eat, forever,’” I explained with a sneer.
“Mommmmmmmmm! Morgan’s acting like a meanie!”
Mission accomplished.
Of course, what it really meant was one more person prying into my business and telling me what to do with my life, but I didn’t say that to Tammy.
mr. phineas was one of those older men who hadn’t gotten the memo about how balding guys should embrace the aging rock star look and keep their hair buzzed really short.
His look was more like aging mad scientist. The top of his head was a shiny dome of pink scalp. Halfway down, a fringe of long gray frizz erupted, sticking out at weird angles and drifting over his collar. And there were serious ear hair issues. Guh-ross, as Sarah would say.
“What’s Morgan?” was his first question.
Huh? I thought. Then I wondered if it was one of those Inside the Actors Studio questions, like, “If Morgan were a tree, what tree would Morgan be? If Morgan were a type of pasta, what type of pasta would Morgan be?”
“I don’t get it,” I confessed. “Do you mean, like, what color is my parachute or something?”
“Who said anything about a parachute?” Now he looked as puzzled as I was. “A moment ago you said, ‘It’s Morgan.’ What’s Morgan?”
“My name’s Morgan,” I said, slouching in my chair. “You called me Morganne.”
And he had. My mom had tried to weasel her way into the appointment, but Mr. Phineas had blocked her at the office door. “It would be best for Morganne and I to speak privately,” he’d said firmly while closing the door in her face. Whoosh. Two points for Mr. Ear Hair.
Of course, in the faery world everybody called me Morganne. It was the mythical goddess-version of my name. But normal humans did it all the time too, just by mistake.
“It should be Morganne, but it’s not,” I explained. “Personally I always thought Morgan was a boy’s name. You can take it up with my mom when she comes back.”
“Morgan, of course! I do apologize.” He shuffled the papers around on his desk. “At my age it’s far too easy to get things mixed up. I’ve met so very many people in my lifetime, you see. And I seem to be meeting new ones all the time!”
Then he leaned back in his swivel chair and folded his fingers into the here is the church, here is the steeple formation. “Now, before we begin, is there anything you’d like to tell me about these rather—let’s call them ‘unfortunate’—documents?” My high school transcript was spread out in front of him, on the dark wood surface of his large antique desk.
“I’m an underachiever,” I explained helpfully.
“Wonderful! I’m thrilled to hear it.” Mr. Phineas smiled warmly. “I would hate to think these lackluster report cards are an accurate reflection of your abilities. Well! Now that we know who you are, and what you are capable of, the only question that really matters is: What is it that interests you?”
“If I knew that—”
But he kept talking, in a voice that was both calm and strangely hypnotic. “What puzzle would you most love to solve? What subject do you return to again and again—not because you have to for school, or because some parent or teacher or friend thinks you should, but because you simply can’t stay away from it?”
“Mythology.” The word slipped out of my mouth without me even planning to say it.
He leaned forward, suddenly interested. “Really? I so rarely hear that from today’s students. Which branch of mythology do you prefer? The tales of White Buffalo Woman, from Native American lore? The German Nibelungenlied? The Icelandic saga of Snorri Sturluson? There are some positively hair-raising tales from ancient China—”
“I guess I’m mostly interested in Irish myths. You know, faeries and stuff.” I thought of all the adventures I’d had last summer, in Ireland, where I’d first met Colin. And more recently, when I had to do some wee-folk matchmaking to help get Colin unenchanted in time for the junior prom. “And leprechauns, of course. And all those ancient goddesses and warrior-dude types.”
Morganne, the half-goddess daughter of a faery mother and a mortal father . . . According to legend, it was the Queen of Mean, nasty Queen Titania herself, who was the source of my magical mojo. Luckily for me, the faery-human booty call that created my half-goddess DNA had taken place many millennia ago, where I didn’t have to think about it. I mean, gag. I didn’t even like seeing my parents kiss, and they were both human.
Mr. Phineas lifted his feet and did a slow 360 in his swivel chair, interlacing his fingers and muttering as he twirled. “Fascinating . . . Irish myths . . . faeries and leprechauns and ancient ‘warrior-dudes’ . . .”
When he faced front again he stopped and pounded the desk in enthusiasm. “Brainstorm! Have you considered Ox ford University? In England?”
As soon as he said “in England,” I perked up. England wasn’t Ireland, but it was a whole lot closer than Connecticut.
“Not really.” I tried to remember anything I knew about Oxford, and came up blank. “Is it hard to get into?”
“Quite competitive, in fact! But for someone of your unique qualifications, it should be possible. And it would be ever so much closer to your boyfriend.”
Wait—had my mother coached this guy
in advance? I scooted to the edge of my chair and looked him in the eye. “Why did you just say that? About my boyfriend?”
“You have a boyfriend?” he murmured innocently, staring at his fingers. “How nice. Is he applying for colleges too?”
Okay, my weirdo radar was starting to bleep. In the past I’d sometimes had this same feeling when an encounter with the faery realm was about to happen. But other times it just meant that I was talking to a weirdo. I was pretty sure this was one of those times.
“You just said,” I replied slowly, “that Oxford was a lot closer to my boyfriend.”
Mr. Phineas unfolded his hands and looked at me quizzically.
“If I’m not mistaken, Morgan, you and I have just met. And our conversation has consisted solely of a discussion of your professional and educational aspirations.” He leaned forward until his chair squeaked for mercy. “So how would I know if you have a boyfriend?”
We sat there, stymied. Or at least I was. He just looked at me calmly, with his big watery brown eyes. I had the sense that he was trying not to laugh. It was annoying, frankly.
After a moment, he sat back and resumed our meeting as if nothing freaky had just happened.
“All right then! I have your transcripts here, and I am quite familiar with the admissions requirements at Oxford. I have some personal contacts there, in fact. Let me review the situation, and I will send you my specific recommendations as to how to proceed.”
He reached inside one of the file drawers of his desk and pulled out a large white envelope with an emblem printed on it—a circle containing a picture of a heavy book, surrounded by three crowns. The words UNIVERSITY OF OXFORD ran around the edge of the circle in capital letters.
“Here’s some background information, which you might find of interest.” He slid the envelope across the desk to me. “Do you think you would be capable of writing a particularly strong application essay? It would have to explain your special interest in Irish mythology in some detail.”
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