The Unseemly Education of Anne Merchant

by Joanna Wiebe

  Tongue-tied at the shock of his comment, I can only blink. I’ve never even properly kissed a guy, and he thinks I’m going to sleep with some old friend of my dad’s to thank him for sending me to this place? In what world?!

  “Now, for the reason I actually called you here today.”

  “It wasn’t just to insult me?”

  Villicus snaps his fingers twice. His door flies open.

  And in waltzes this skinny beanpole of a guy—this tall, lanky thing with pockmarks on his cheeks and probing, miniscule, steel eyes. His frenetic leer lunges toward me.

  “Miss Merchant,” Villicus says, “meet your Guardian.”

  three

  MY GUARDIAN

  SINCE FIRST HEARING ABOUT THIS WHOLE GUARDIAN idea, I’ve been naively filling in the blank after the word Guardian with the word angel. Guardian Angel. Part of me had expected that my Guardian would be ushering me through life here, helping me make decisions.

  But this scrawny man-child is no guardian angel.

  A mouth-breather no older than yours truly, he looks like someone you’d expect to crawl out from under the floorboards in a Wes Craven flick. Pale irises, greasy hair, and bumpy gray skin with little orange hairs poking out all over his jawline. I look from him to Villicus and back. A prerequisite to work at Cania must be that you be the ugliest son of a bitch alive.

  “I’m Ted Rier,” my Guardian says. He’s got a German accent, just like Villicus. “You may call me Teddy.”

  “Ted is my newest assistant and the ideal Guardian for you,” Villicus adds, just as my pathetic excuse for a Guardian shuts the door and scurries to take the seat next to me.

  Trying to catch my gaze, Teddy lifts my hand and kisses it. It is impossible not to notice the white flecks in the corners of his mouth. It is nearly impossible not to cringe—yet I manage—knowing my hand is so close to that or not to pull away too quickly when he smoothly says he’s charmed to make my acquaintance.

  “It would be great,” I say as Villicus sits and Teddy opens his cheap-looking briefcase, “if someone could explain what exactly a Guardian is supposed to do. I assume there’s a connection between a Guardian and a PT, but I’m fuzzy on both.”

  “If I may?” Teddy asks Villicus, who nods, allowing Teddy to field my questions. “Miss Merchant, first things first. I understand you attended a school prior to this one, and at that school you earned top grades.”

  “Top of my class and top of the Dean’s List each year,” I admit.

  Teddy smirks. “I didn’t know they had ‘deans’ at public schools.”

  “Which is supposed to mean what?”

  Neither Teddy nor Villicus seems to appreciate my tone much. As if they’re allowed to imply insults, but I’m not allowed a defense.

  “You and I are on the same team,” Teddy tells me. “If I have offended you, forgive me. But the fact is that you are familiar with and comfortable in an academic environment that breeds much lower expectations than Headmaster Villicus demands here at Cania Christy. You were a top performer in California. You excelled among the uninspired. But now you’re among a new class of people. And you are competing for a title that, I give you my word, every student here wants more than you want to go to Brown on full scholarship.”

  I’m about to ask how on earth he could know that when I realize that my dad must have put that info on my application form. So I skip to my second question: “I’m competing to be valedictorian, you mean?”

  Teddy drops a leaflet in the hand he kissed, which still feels icky. I read its headline.

  “The Race to Be Valedictorian: Only the Supreme Survive.” Dropping the sheet momentarily, I look from Teddy to Villicus, who is watching me with a small smile tipping the corners of his lips skyward. “Like ‘only the strong survive’?”

  Teddy glowers at me, and I immediately realize that this may be the one school on earth where “stupid questions” actually do exist.

  “What I mean is,” I backtrack, “if evolution—perhaps the most complex process in the universe, a process requiring unimaginable patience and rewarding natural talents—is all about the strong surviving, attaining the Big V must be an incredible challenge if only the supreme survive?”

  Villicus stands and stoops behind his desk like a bird of prey, beady eyes glowing. He begins to speak—slowly, like one of those dictators you see in black-and-white films from the Second World War:

  “I see that you have already adopted the vernacular of Cania students,” he says. “The Big V, as the valedictorian title has become fondly known here, is the highest mark of academic honor one can receive in school if not in all of life’s endeavors. Alas, who among this student body does not seek with full desperation the gift of the title valedictorian and all that it brings?”

  I recall Pilot’s teary declaration but dare not mention it now, not with Villicus knee-deep in a speech he has surely given a thousand or more times. Truly, my key consideration in coming here was that the prestige of being the valedictorian of a school of this caliber would seal my future. I am as desperate as any for the Big V. Maybe more.

  “The stakes are high—higher than anywhere. Valedictorians at schools like Taft, Exeter, and Eton go on to Oxford, the Sorbonne, Columbia.” Villicus’s eyebrow arches up his long, turtle-like head. “But an Ivy acceptance is just the beginning for the Cania valedictorian. No student here has a parent who doesn’t wholly wish him or her to graduate as the Big V. You recently saw Mr. Pilot Stone turn his back on the race, and I assure you: he is the only in the student body to do so. The Big V is, to be sure, a title that is beyond prestigious.”

  With the grandeur of an old actor, Villicus sweeps back his shapeless garment and takes his seat again. Teddy licks the tip of his pen, and I notice he’s started filling in a form on a clipboard. My name is at the top of it.

  “Miss Merchant,” Teddy says, “do you wish to be considered for the title of valedictorian at the end of your senior year?”

  He and Villicus wait for my answer.

  This is a no-brainer. Memories of my father rush at me, images of him whispering to me that I need to try as hard as I can to become valedictorian. Even Ben, who had so little to say to me, had that to share.

  “Of course,” I say firmly.

  Teddy ticks a box on the form. “Next,” he says, “I will inform you of the three rules for becoming valedictorian.”

  “You would be wise to heed—verily, to meditate on—these rules,” Villicus adds.

  I listen closely. As uncomfortable as I feel with these two kooks, as frustrating as it is to feel controlled by them, and as much as I wish I could bolt from this insanely hot room, this actually is important. The Big V is becoming more important to me as each moment passes, especially as I realize that this is an intense competition—and what Type A doesn’t perk up at the idea of competing?

  The first rule is standard: I must have an outstanding GPA. Obv. Rule number two: I must follow Cania’s communication guidelines to a tee. These are both table stakes; you cannot be considered for valedictorian if you fail to meet these two baseline expectations.

  “What are the communication guidelines?” I ask.

  “To begin, there is absolutely no fraternizing with the villagers,” Teddy says. “No unsupervised phone calls. No Internet. No personal computers, mobile phones, tablets, or other such technical nonsense.”

  “Sorry,” I interrupt to their vexation, “but how am I supposed to research my papers without Internet access?”

  “All papers are handwritten, and research is conducted in our library.”

  “Where there are computers?”

  “Where there are books. Now, the third and final rule,” Teddy continues, bypassing my obvious concern, “is the critical one. The deal breaker. The game changer. The one thing that will set the superior apart. And it is this: you must sufficiently define and excellently live by your prosperitas thema.”

  “What’s a prosperitas thema?” I’ve only just said the words whe
n I realize I’ve heard of it already. “Oh, my PT.”

  Teddy points at the sheet dangling between my fingertips as he explains, “Every student declares a PT, which is a statement of the inherent quality each mortal possesses that will make one a remarkable success in life.”

  Skimming the handout, I read that my PT is supposed to complete the line:

  When I grow up, I will be successful in life by using my

  “So, it’s essentially a statement of how we’ll each be Most Likely to Succeed,” I summarize, and Teddy nods, though Villicus sighs as if I’ve just summarized the Mona Lisa with a single line about her smile.

  “Once identified, your PT will be the ruler against which you are measured,” Teddy says.

  Villicus piles on. “Candidates will be judged by their Guardians at every turn on whether or not they are satisfying their PTs.” His eyes land on mine. “You must live and breathe your PT, Miss Merchant, if you wish to become valedictorian.”

  “If you don’t mind, what does that mean, practically speaking?” I ask. “How will I live and breathe it?”

  “Suppose,” Teddy offers, “your PT is to…be selfish to succeed in life.”

  “That sounds awful.”

  “I would grade your actions over the course of the next two years against that PT. I would expect you to skip to the front of every line, fail to share, sabotage the efforts of your peers, especially those who are most desperate, and—”

  “Steal money from a beggar’s bowl,” I suggest.

  “Precisely!” Villicus and Teddy exclaim.

  “I was joking,” I whisper. Neither hears me.

  “Keep in mind,” Teddy adds, “that everyone around you is making every effort to live and breathe their own PTs. You won’t know it’s happening. You won’t know what they’re playing at. But that is precisely what they’re doing.”

  Evidently, our PTs are assigned to us by our Guardians. Guardians are selected from the faculty, the housemothers, even the secretaries. One Guardian for each junior and senior—freshmen and sophomores don’t participate.

  “I will be your shadow,” Teddy says finally. “Naturally we’ll be cohabitating at Miss Malone’s—”

  “Wait, what?” I interrupt. “You’re living at Gigi’s, too? With me?”

  “Where did you expect me to live?”

  “There’s not even any room there!” I already know, though, that he must have claimed the guest bedroom, which is why I’m stuck in the attic.

  “Miss Merchant,” Villicus interjects, his tone flat, “you have put up more barriers in these past ten minutes than the average student does in their entire time on this campus.”

  “I’m just surprised—”

  “And I’ve already considered,” Villicus thrusts on, “the possibility that you are not fit for this institution. Perhaps I ought to send you home. Do you realize that this morning alone I turned away a very wealthy man who implored me to let his daughter into the school? He’s flying out here tonight by helicopter just to see if he can persuade me. And here you sit! Snarling. Making demands.”

  That shuts me up. Both Villicus and Teddy notice my reaction, and both smile; they share a joyless grimace. I’d love to be in a position to march out of here and stun them both, but with everything my dad gave up and all the strings he pulled to get me into Cania Christy, that would be a slap across his grizzled face. I wring my hands but know there’s no use in fighting this.

  “So we’re living together, Teddy?” I choke out at last.

  “The better to oversee your activities,” Villicus says.

  Teddy piles on. “You’ll be graded at every turn. Morning, noon, night.”

  As a junior, I’m supposed to work with my Guardian to document the activities I’ve completed that prove I’m living and breathing my PT. Guardians track progress daily, weekly, monthly. And, on graduation day, if I’ve pleased Teddy, he will argue my case before the Valedictorian Committee, which, with just one member, is the smallest committee in the world: Headmaster Villicus. The student whose case is best argued will be named valedictorian. Along the way, we’re supposed to keep our PTs private—no other students are allowed to know another’s PT as that may give them an unfair advantage.

  It’s hitting me now, like lightning bolts shattering a gray sky, that Teddy is going to make or break me. He sneers at me like he knows I’ve just figured that out.

  “Success does not happen by accident,” Villicus says. “Success is borne of looking inside oneself, recognizing one’s strengths, and making conscious decisions based on those strengths. That’s what your PT is. Because mankind is rarely capable of seeing its own strengths or flaws, your Guardian will assess you and identify your PT for you.”

  I glance at Teddy. He just met me. How is he supposed to know my strengths and weaknesses?

  Villicus goes on to explain that, although Cania has formalized and named the concept of the prosperitas thema, the greatest success stories of our time—even those who never set foot in this school—are each committed to a personal quality that has led to their success. Steve Jobs was innovation. Madonna is bold ambition. Warren Buffett is investment savvy. Oprah Winfrey is empowerment.

  “Now, I see that you are already quite late for your scheduled meet-and-greet,” Villicus finishes. “This evening, then, at your shared residence, Ted will determine your PT. And you, Miss Merchant, would be wise not to resist him.”

  By the time I race across campus through a rain shower that turns the quad into a slip-and-slide and, huffing, take a seat at the last open workstation in Room 1B of the stony Rex Paimonde building, I’ve already refused to let myself think that things can’t get much worse. I’m learning that they sure as hell can, so I don’t dare tempt fate. Instead, I rush to settle in, apologizing as I get my notepad out of my wet backpack, knowing I’ve interrupted their discussion. After all, I’m fifteen minutes late for a half-hour meet-and-greet.

  But the teacher, Garnet Descarteres, this lovely blonde woman who’s maybe twenty, smiles and tells me to relax, get settled, I haven’t missed anything critical. She’s so pretty, I have a hard time believing she works alongside fuglies like the secretaries, Teddy, and Villicus. She explains that it’s her first year teaching here—she’s new, like moi—and that I should feel free to call her by her first name.

  I’m about to smile when I glimpse someone I hadn’t expected to see: Harper. And, just like that, things go from bad to worse.

  In total, there are twelve of us in the Junior Arts Stream, and, although we’ll have different classes, we’ll all meet daily for a morning workshop with Garnet. I’m relieved to find Pilot here and all the more relieved that Ben isn’t in this group—I’ve already guessed he’s a senior, so I shouldn’t have expected to see him. But a part of me, against my better judgment, did.

  There’s also a very smiley girl, who must have declared a PT to be as sweet as cherry pie because she couldn’t appear more friendly and cherubic. The other nine students—including Harper and her Thai friend—engage actively with Garnet but practically snarl when someone else talks. Either everyone’s taking the Big V competition ultra-seriously or they all declared PTs to be gigantic snobs in life.

  “We were just introducing ourselves,” Garnet tells me. “You’ll have plenty of time to get to know each other at the dance this weekend, but why wait until the weekend to make friends when you can start now?”

  At the mention of making friends, smirks and sneers appear one by one, like fireflies in the night, on the brooding yet beautiful faces of most of the students.

  Harper whispers to her Thai friend, “Even if I were open to knowing this bunch of losers, ain’t nothing gonna make me like Trailer Park Tramp.” She gestures my way. I’m meant to see it; I’m meant to hear her. “We don’t do charity in Texas.”

  Ignoring Harper, I organize myself and ask, “Are we saying anything in particular in our intros, Garnet?”

  “The usual. Where you’re from. What brought you here.�
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  “We don’t have to share our PTs, do we?” I ask, hoping to hear what the others will be “living and breathing” in the hopes of getting the Big V but knowing I’d have nothing to share yet.

  No sooner have I uttered my question than everyone—even Pilot and the smiling girl—gapes at me like I just said Picasso is irrelevant.

  “No, Anne,” Garnet explains slowly, tucking a lock of her gorgeous blonde hair behind her ear. “Students are meant to keep their PTs private. Only you and the school’s Guardians will know your PT.”

  “Unless you don’t have one,” Pilot tacks on. His eyes meet mine and he flashes me a bright smile. “Some of us choose not to. It’s your right, you know.”

  “Excuse moi, Garnet,” says a brown-haired boy with a tiny whiff of hair above his lip. He has a French accent so thick, it sounds like he’s eating peanut butter while fighting a head cold: every sound he makes is stressed, dragged out endlessly, or shoved to the back of his throat. He glances from Garnet to me. “Do you think we should continue to tell all our specific details?”

  “If you don’t mind me adding, I was just thinking the same thing Augusto was,” the smiling girl adds, tossing me an apologetic grin before looking again at Garnet. “I would appreciate some clear guidance, if you wouldn’t mind, considering the, um, present company.”

  “Well, Augusto and Lotus,” Garnet says, though she’s clearly talking to all of us, “why don’t you share as much with the group as you think you should, okay? Can we all self-edit? That’s an important skill for an artist.”

  The introductions pick up where they left off before my interruption, with Augusto. He’s from Quebec. His parents own luxury ski resorts in Montreal, Banff, and Colorado.

  “Before I came here, I was very much in love with a boy,” Augusto begins timidly, his cheeks flush. “The son of my own au pair. We could not share our love because my father is very traditional. So,” he flicks his sad gaze at me and fidgets with his pen, “I was at one of our family ski resorts with my love. And, holding hands, he and I boarded off the most incredible cliff together, soaring into the crisp and cool air. It was, without question, the most profoundly amazing moment of my life.” His eyes begin to water. “Unfortunately, my mère discovered us when we reached the bottom, and that was that. I was sent here after. I was a freshman at the time.”