“Twenty-two thousand five hundred. A year.”
There is a beat.
Matter-of-factly, he says, “Yi.”
I lash out. In a flash, I feel vicious.
“I make a good part of the money in this family”—“Mr. Little Willows!” I suddenly want to add—“and I want this! I am making that this year at Marymount College!”
“But what about next year?”
“What about Bette Midler?”
“It’s a five-month tour. I thought you said Wonder Canyon is K through five.”
“Which makes it a very important FEEDER school!”
“To what? A middle school that’s forty thousand dollars? I think you need to sit down with a calculator, honey, is all.”
“This is not a time for penny-pinching,” I say. “It’s Hannah’s whole future.”
“Well,” he observes, “bankruptcy isn’t so great, either. That’s the trouble with our bohemian lifestyles…bohemian income.”
“No one gets into this school,” I hiss. “No one. Aimee would kill to get Seth into this school.”
“Well, LET her kill someone, then. Perhaps with Paxil.”
“Do not take this from me.”
“I’m just saying give yourself a night to sleep on it. It’s kindergarten.”
He doesn’t understand about the Orff-Schulwerk method for music, and the patterns of sparrows.
Yes, he is a professional musician—!
Still, he doesn’t understand.
And then the evil mind-manipulator says, those chilling words:
“Well, sweetie. I see you’re really passionate about this. You do what you want. I’ll stick by you.”
Because he knows I am weak.
The money does gnaw at me.
It sits on my chest at night, like a weight. I can feel it slowly strangling me.
Oh, God—$22,500.
If it were one time only, we could do it.
But with the Squid coming up…that’s $45,000 a year. The money seems so substantial, immovable, like a granite pyramid. And Wonder Canyon feels so playful, and translucent, and natural as the wind riffling wheat.
Yes, “I AM a Celebrity Mom!”
But now my Grrrrl Power–like battle cry has devolved to the far less glamorous “I AM a Celebrity Mom…who needs financial aid.”
I don’t know how attractive I am as a celebrity fund-raiser when I…can’t actually afford the school.
And I realize that to get into the really good L.A. private schools, you have to be not just a celebrity but the right kind of celebrity. Look at Courtney Love—I’ll never forget that L.A. Times piece I saw about her many years ago…
Where Courtney Love was crying because she couldn’t get her little Frances Bean into the Lycée. If even the spawn of Cobain isn’t just waved in, for free—
And I’m thinking, “Is this how dark my world has become? That the mother I most identify with is…Courtney Love?”
Celeste is on the phone.
Things have gone dark.
There is no way to put it elegantly. The words are like poison, but I have to say them.
“Celeste…Wonder Canyon…I simply don’t think…” I form the horrible, awkward, ugly words. “…that we can…afford…it.”
There is a beat.
Celeste’s voice is soft, sympathetic, cajoling.
“The tuition is…out of this world. I know. And when we were young, our parents paid nothing. It’s absurd. I know.”
I’m practically sniffling.
I am Lara watching Dr. Zhivago pull out of the station.
I am Meryl Streep watching Clint Eastwood irrevocably leave town in The Bridges of Madison County.
It is all I want in the world, but in fact…we just can’t do it.
Celeste continues, with empathy.
“You know how much it tears my heart out to see that fabulous school, which I’m on the board of, and to know that, yes, quite often the Wonder Canyons of the world are wasted on…the rich. Those who can afford it. The system is unfair! Look at my stepdaughter, Skyler! Poor Skyler. She struggles at Wonder Canyon. She lacks imagination. You’ve heard me say it—she’s a pony girl. A horse girl. She likes animals.
“But Hannah…” Celeste’s voice goes lower, deeper. “She’s JUST the sort of kid who DESERVES a Wonder Canyon. Hannah is clearly gifted, special, extraordinary—”
And because I am a weak, terrible person, I ask, pathetically, “Is that what they said?” I long with every yearning molecule to hear a fabulous evaluation, news of her top one-percent-ness, her genius. “Is that what they said in the evaluation?”
Celeste wisely presses on. “And giftedness needs nurturing. I didn’t say anything at the time, but…You don’t want Hannah in a Luther Hall. Good Lord. The daughter of two amazing artists like you?”
I blort the words out. It’s like vomiting out my intestines. “It’s just…We are just in a different class than you are. We just don’t…make that much. MONEY.”
“But surely there’s something you can do?” Celeste wonders. “Something you haven’t thought of?”
She doesn’t finish the thought.
She knows better than to say, “Just liquidate some stock!” That much, in our friendship, we have learned.
I dream that night that I am swimming, clutching Hannah to my chest, through an Ocean of Money.
And the bills are wet, heavy, dragging us down.
Just around this time, Joan Archer writes me, from the sad little co-op school of the fleas.
Hey, Sandra!
Because we haven’t seen you in a while, I presume you’re not continuing with the Spring Jamboree Committee, that you’re wrapped up in writing deadlines and all. No worries. Since I know you were looking for a kindergarten, thought I’d just drop you a note to say it looks like Kester, which is a very good LAUSD school, may have a few open enrollment slots this year, and I know it’s near you.
The Spring Jamboree Committee! My God! I am the world’s worst—and shallowest—person. Lying, cheating, inconsistent. For some idiotic reason, I actually write back:
Joan,
Thanks so much for the note and 100 apologies for dropping out of sight. Our household has been in a bit of a frenzy. Unbelievably enough, Hannah just won an acceptance into the Wonder Canyon School for Gifted Children, and what with the tuition and Ligiero math and all that wacky German talk about socialism, it has thrown us into a bit of a quandary.
And then Joan actually writes back, completely misinterpreting my note:
Oh does that take me back! I know what you mean. I remember when we first starting looking for schools for Jimmy, and I was simply this crazed mother. I remember reading about Wonder Canyon and thinking Ligiero math was wonderful, but if it’s so super and so much based in socialism, why can’t every child get it for free? Just yesterday I saw a Hispanic maid sitting at the bus stop trying to help her son with his math homework—and giving him all wrong answers—and I thought, “Well, THERE’S someone who needs Ligiero!” So I know what you mean about feeling flattered and drawn into a whirling eye of private school evil.
Well, THAT was helpful!
FUCK HER!!!
I now go to the next Kübler-Ross stage: Bargaining.
Now that I have an acceptance from Wonder Canyon, the big Kahuna of private schools, maybe I can parlay that into an acceptance for…a still excellent but somewhat cheaper school, which might like a semi-celebrity?
Frantically, I buy the Los Angeles Guide to Private Schools. Deadlines are flying by. I’ll have to work fast. Fingers trembling, I go through every page…
And here’s what I find…That all the good schools, all the progressive schools, all the recommended schools, basically start…
At $10,000.
If the brochure says the children are taught:
INDEPENDENT THINKING, add $1,000.
PEACEFUL CONFLICT RESOLUTION, add $1,000.
HONORING DIVERSITY—oh, that’s a big
one—add $2,000.
Then there are the extras. For Spanish, add $750. French, $1,500. Japanese, $2,500. Music taught by the Orff-Schulwerk method, $1,000. Actual science labs, vague but important connection with UCLA, $2,000. Award-winning arts program, any mention of the Getty, Disney Hall, $2,000…
Celeste calls me again, for an emergency lunch at some hip new place called Pax. I bounce queasily down La Brea in the dented Toyota minivan, whose Check Engine light is now mysteriously permanently on.
Celeste is waiting for me in her work clothes, a pale green suit.
“I’m a wreck,” I say.
“I know, sweetie, I know,” she says, hugging me. “But you will get through this.”
“I have such indigestion!” I say.
“Take a deep breath…and relax,” she replies, pressing me down into a cushioned chair. “We’re going to take our time. The chef here is the same as at Auberge. The food is fabulous.”
I flop open the menu and for the first time see prices. Oh my God. The lunch entrees are thirty-eight dollars! And they come with nothing! Is that what we paid at Auberge? Of course, I never saw a menu at Auberge. Celeste kept airily waving them away.
“The monkfish is very interesting,” Celeste says. “And we’ll definitely have wine. Remember?” She squeezes my hand, grins. “Mandatory wine…with…lunch! Women Getting On to the Next Page!”
And then there are the wine prices. Oh my God.
“Remember that Viognier we had in Napa?” she says warmly. “You loved it.”
I’d kill for a glass of wine but it’s sixty dollars…for a split! Is that $120 a bottle? Holy fuck.
“I’ll just have water,” I murmur. “My stomach.”
“Are you sure, honey?” Celeste asks.
“Sure.”
“Gas or no gas?” asks our waitress, who, with her tight French braids and tiny steel-rimmed glasses, looks like a chemical engineering Ph.D. with a minor in gassy water.
God, look at that—even the water I don’t even want is fourteen dollars a bottle!
“Tap water,” I croak. “Just tap.”
Everyone looks at me.
“Because of the fluoride…” I add. “My…ah…my orthodontist says in these, my periomenopausal years, due to my…caps, I…really need the fluoride.”
“Oh!” everyone murmurs, with relief.
Celeste and I—we both know we are on the eleventh shoal of our friendship. We are at the farthest reaches, battling for it. It’s Greg Louganis, having hit his head on the diving board, trying to wrench his body back, midair, into a graceful swan dive.
“Here is some great news,” Celeste says, leaning forward, taking my hand. “I know private-school tuition is tough, so I’ve been calling around for you. And it turns out that Radcliffe-Holyoke for Girls? In Brentwood? An amazing school, just amazing, I toured it the other day. And because they have great taste, if you can believe it…” She squeezes my hand. “They actually teach your style of NPR essay writing to their eighth graders! They’re huge fans! Irate over the KCRW thing! ‘Just send her over!’ they said.”
Unapologetic, I plop the Private Schools handbook onto the table—the handbook I now carry with me at all times. I page through it. “But Radcliffe-Holyoke,” I say dully, pointing. “The annual tuition for that school is twenty-seven thousand dollars.”
“Oh God—I know,” sighs Celeste, running a hand through her hair. “Which can probably feed an entire village for a year in Rwanda.”
“I guess that’s what they mean when they say ‘It takes a village…’”
“But think ahead,” says Celeste. And I remember how often she used to say this to me, when we were twenty-five. “Think ahead. Where will your writing be in five years, in ten years? Think ahead.” And clearly the time has come to think that way for Hannah. Who is four. “The wait list for Radcliffe-Holyoke is at least five years long…In fact, as it starts in sixth grade, it wouldn’t be a bad idea to get Hannah on the wait list now. And they said—good news—they would LOVE you to come in, do maybe a couple of guest lectures!”
“What will that get us?” I wail.
“Not just admission,” Celeste answers smartly. “Financial aid. Major financial aid. They’re very big on diversity.”
“But Hannah is white.”
“And a quarter Chinese!” Celeste answers. “And you guys are not just boring industry types…You’re artists. With you and your writing, and Mike working with Bette Midler…You should have seen their eyes open!”
“I cannot get Bette Midler to go anywhere,” I warn. “She is my husband’s EMPLOYER.”
“No matter!” Celeste laughs. She goes into cheerful barter mode. “So you can tell Mike—Salt of the Earth—bite the bullet for a few years at Wonder Canyon, then come middle school, you’ll be PRINTIN’ money!”
Yes, I’ll lead writing seminars at Radcliffe-Holyoke, yes…But what will I tell them—?
“That’s right, girls—master my literary style and you’ll end up like me, living in Van Nuys”?
It doesn’t sound very fist raised (à la Ruth, my therapist), very “Fuck you!”
Although it seems all the original “Fuck you!” got me is a crumpled kind of “Fuck me.”
I think of Marymount College for Women, and its cinnamon-bun lactose intolerance.
Instead of self-esteem, we are teaching our girls to be sensitive, demanding, experimental, impractical…
Thank God they’re rich, as all we’re grooming them for is to be useless…
Trophy wives!
Anna Kareninas!
YES, MORE MR. DARCY!
In the mornings, after dropping the kids off at school, I cry and cry and cry. My days are horrible.
Receiving another mailing from Luther Hall, and looking at its neat blue-and-gold stationery, I think back to Aimee’s suggestion that we simply retest…at Luther Hall.
Or no, not at Luther Hall, but maybe a similar school?
But then I look at parochial schools and new formulas emerge…
Annual tuition still starts at $10,000. But if the religion is:
CATHOLIC, subtract $1,000.
LUTHERAN, subtract $3,000.
BAPTIST, subtract $5,000!
QUAKER…For some reason, that’s PLUS $5,000. If the school is in an old wooden Quaker meetinghouse, the price skyrockets, I don’t know why. Add Shaker furniture—and the word Friends in the title? Unaffordable.
Then there’s JEWISH, but there are two types of Jewish. High Temple Jewish and low JCC Jewish…But it’s a moot point, as I can’t seem to find any Jews in Van Nuys, anyway.
And then there’s chapel. Chapel required? MINUS $1,500! Chapel OPTIONAL? Well, that relative religious freedom is going to cost you…$1,500!
But look at this! Classes “taught from a Biblical perspective”…MINUS two thousand dollars! THAT’S a really great deal!
Now Bruce sends me his thousandth moveon.org petition, saying I need to FIGHT THE RELIGIOUS RIGHT and STAND UP FOR THE DEMOCRATS!!!
And for once in my life I type him back!
Dear Bruce,
You want me to help the Democratic party? Why doesn’t the Democratic party fucking HELP ME? Where are they in my search for KINDERGARTEN?
In fact, our family is thinking of actually LEAVING Blue State Land, because progressive educational values cost too much! To save money, we’re thinking of switching sides, going over to the Big Red Planet. I wonder what the God People could offer our family? Big tuition discounts at the very least!
Indeed, instead of all that peaceful conflict resolution, I wonder what price breaks we could get for settling disputes the old-fashioned way, aka:
Bullying: subtract $500! Name-calling: subtract $500! Melvins: subtract $750!
And what if we go even more religious, not just sitting first row in chapel, but…
Paying tuition in Old Testament currency, like shekels? Subtract $300? Home snake-handling? Subtract $1,000? Father to wear golden codpiece at all time
s? Tuition free perhaps, and 100 acres in Utah given! I love Utah! Sign us up!
Right now, I’m actually seriously considering a Baptist school in Panorama City. That’s right—best friend to the poor? Baptists!
The school is a mere $3,000 a year, AND they offer not just discounts, but “classes taught from a Biblical perspective.”
And I’m thinking:
How bad can Creationism really be? Or Intelligent Design?
Having our kids taught evolution is clearly an economic luxury. We have to be realistic. In this day and age, perhaps Darwinism is not a theory our family can actually afford…
And perhaps evolution science is over-rated anyway. Look at the Big Bang. Stephen Hawking…30 years later he says oops, I was wrong. Now suddenly he’s back in favor, for this week, but with all of science’s flip-flopping, who really knows?
For once in his life, there is a stunned radio silence. I cannot believe this is all it took to get Bruce to stop e-mailing me.
So I continue:
So fuck your Democratic party, Bruce.
I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but it’s an entirely online party now!
TIVO-ing the Daily Show is not actual political action!
He finally shoots back:
I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but the U.S. faces some urgent problems in the international debacle that has been the Bush administration. If you check the following links to huffingtonpost.com and truthdig.org—
And I shoot back:
Fuck you, Bruce. Arianna Huffington and Robert Scheer and all your heroes…Did THEY put their kids through public school?
He shoots back:
The Democrats are the party of women. The moveon.org founders have started this website: momsrising.org. Check it out.
Mother on Fire: A True Motherf%#$@ Story About Parenting! Page 19