500 Words or Less
Page 3
“It feels so wrong
to love this song
so much,”
Kitty griped,
and belted out the lyrics.
I was about to deconstruct
our love for “Ignition”
as the ultimate form
of privilege,
but then I saw
Jordan Parker
leaning against a wall
paying attention to
no one, yet surrounded
by everyone who mattered
to the social structure
of Meydenbauer.
He didn’t have to say
the right things.
He didn’t have to pretend
to like people.
He didn’t have to wear
Ray-Bans or Chuck Taylors,
or fluorescent-colored anything,
because the way he wore
his arrogance
was enough
to attract
his admirers.
Then a sophomore
doubled over
and puked
on the hardwood floor
in front of us.
Her friends screamed
and ran away.
Kitty wrinkled her nose.
She reached for some paper towels.
“I thought high school parties would be—
I don’t know—more
glamorous.”
“Sorry to disappoint,” I said.
I found myself cornered
In a narrow hallway
by Miranda Price
as I waited
in line for the bathroom.
She towered over me.
She stretched her arm
across the hall
holding a rectangular black clutch
against the wall,
creating a blockade between
me and the bathroom,
me and the party,
me and the rest of humanity.
“I need you
to write my essay,”
Miranda said.
The line dispersed.
Word spread
of a second and third bathroom.
Technically,
I was next in line.
“What essay?” I asked.
Miranda and I were ranked
#1 and #2
in our class,
and if I was to be completely honest,
she was smarter,
or at least
more tenacious
at being smart
than me.
There was not a single writing assignment
in any of our classes
that Miranda
could not do
in her sleep.
“Cut the crap, Chen.
I know you wrote
Clark Matthews’s essay
for his college application.
“He got into Stanford,
and he’s dumb as shit.”
“You know about that?”
“Everyone knows about that.”
Clark Matthews
Last year, a senior
who I sort of knew
from the school newspaper
handed me a sheet of paper.
“I need you to
rip this to shreds,”
he said.
“It’s my essay
for my Stanford application.”
I half eyed the piece of paper,
and went back to finishing
a newspaper assignment.
He pulled up a chair next to me
and scooted it real close.
“I’m a photographer, not a writer.
I don’t know how to make the words say
what I see in my head.
But you do,”
Clark Matthews whispered.
Two days later I found Clark.
“It was shit.
Use this instead.”
I handed over two fresh sheets
of typed paper
and walked away.
I hadn’t intended
to rewrite his essay,
but when I was editing
his story,
the one he wasn’t telling
came to me naturally.
I barely knew Clark.
But in writing his essay
I felt like I saw him,
like the way he saw my articles,
as something more than words.
“I read it,”
Miranda said.
She lowered her arm
and tucked the clutch back underneath.
“It was really good, Nic.
Incredible.
“I’m definitely smarter than you
and my SAT scores are higher than yours, but
I can’t write like that.
I can’t make people feel
the way you did
with those words.
“I need you
to write my essay.
I need Stanford.”
Maybe I was a little desperate
for attention
that came in the form of compliments.
Maybe I was broken inside,
with a moral compass
that no longer pointed north.
Or maybe I just wanted
to be wanted,
to be heard,
to be seen
by someone.
Anyone.
How drunk
“Miranda, how drunk are you?”
I asked.
“Sober enough to know
what I’m asking.”
We both stood
without drinks
in our hands,
outside
a now-empty bathroom.
“Are you really asking me
to write your college essay?”
“A version of it.
A draft.
God, not the final.
That would be
wrong.
I’ll rewrite
whatever you give me.
It’ll be my words,
my voice
in the end.
But I need you
to start something.”
At Meydenbauer High
we were driven by
grade point averages
and rankings
and accolades.
We colored outside the lines,
we broke the mold,
we tore down walls
only when we needed to,
only when it served
our interests.
“What’s in it for me?”
I asked.
“Um, I’ll pay you?”
“I don’t need the money,”
I said.
Gas money, a little extra cash,
college tuition—
it was all provided to me
by a father who thought
that’s all I needed
from a father.
“Then what do you want?
A spot on Student Council?
A higher grade in AP Bio?
This handbag?”
She waved the clutch
in front of me.
I wanted a lot
of things.
For senior year
to be easy.
For people not
to hate me.
For Ben.
For love.
“My mom.”
The words fell out
as soon as I opened
my mouth.
They floated between us
like two frantic fireflies
unjarred.
The color drained
from Miranda’s face.
She bit her lower lip.
“I don’t know, Nic,”
she said quietly.
Everyone had a story
about my mother.
She left town.
> She didn’t want to be found.
No one else wanted
to find her.
But I was still here
in spite of all the gossip.
Trying.
Miranda wanted
to say something,
but I shook my head.
“Money. I’ll just take the money.”
Laurel LeBrea
Laurel LeBrea, captain of the cheer squad,
could do splits in the air.
She could touch her nose to her kneecap
while her other leg followed obediently behind,
completing a perfect line.
I kind of hated her for these reasons.
She called.
I silenced the phone.
She left a voice mail.
Why was she leaving
a voice mail?
Nic! It’s Laurel.
I heard from Jilly,
who heard from Miranda,
that you are in the business of
writing college admissions essays.
So yeah, I’m definitely interested.
Sign me up.
I’m dying to go to Brown.
Call me!
Packed lunches
“Why does the cafeteria smell like fish
even when it’s not Fish Fry Friday?”
I asked.
Kitty nibbled
on a quinoa and kale salad.
“I guess it smells a little.”
She kept her head buried
in a textbook
as I sat on the bench
across from her.
“It smells like spoiled milk
and rotten fish.”
I emptied the contents
of my lunch bag.
Overripe banana.
Turkey sandwich.
Carrot sticks.
What I wouldn’t give
to have my mother back
to pack me lunches
of leftover pork roast,
of pesto and brie,
of grilled vegetable paninis.
To write me notes
on my napkin,
like I’m her little girl,
not the seventeen-year-old
who was supposed to be
grown up enough
to navigate life
without
her mother.
Kitty and I
sat in uncomfortable silence.
She barely raised her eyes
from her book.
Stagnant air
filled my lungs.
“What’s going on?”
I asked.
She shrugged and flipped a page.
“What are you studying for?”
I said just to say something.
“Psychology.”
“So you can analyze
our friendship,” I joked.
“Yeah,” Kitty said,
and she flipped another page.
I chewed on my soggy
turkey sandwich in silence
until I opened my mouth
and said something
I probably shouldn’t have said.
“What is up with you, Kitty?”
“You didn’t text me.
You never called, Nic.
“You took me to a party,
watched me get shit-faced,
and nearly left me there
fawning over some lacrosse boy.”
Kitty closed her textbook.
She looked me in the eye.
“Jesus, Nic.
You broke, like, all the rules
of girl code.”
Girl Code
1. Don’t let your friend get that drunk.
And if she gets that drunk,
you are obligated to
stay by her side
the entire rest of the night
ready to either hold back her hair
or hold out a wastebasket
as she pukes up
her breakfast, lunch, and dinner.
2. Never. Ever let your drunk-ass friend
sit on the lap of a lacrosse boy.
3. DON’T LEAVE YOUR FRIEND AT A PARTY.
4. Call or text your friend the next morning
to check in on her.
Ask her how she feels.
Be a good friend.
Show some goddamn sympathy.
So important
“What were you doing on Sunday, Nic,
that was so important
that you couldn’t call or text?”
There was the exam
I was studying for in AP Calculus.
Six chapters remained in Crime and Punishment.
An essay I formulated for Miranda.
But there was also
the time I whittled away
scrolling through contacts on my phone.
Landing on Ben.
Reading his last text.
Pick you up in ten
And before that
I’m outside the library
And before that
dope
And before that . . .
I read and reread his messages
to get to the one
where he said I was
“special,”
or the one that made me feel
something
that might have been love,
or the one that would be
the last one
I would need to read
to feel
enough,
today.
“I should have called,”
I said.
A turkey sandwich
sat in a crumbled mess.
Kitty sighed.
“Yeah, you should have.”
The new girl
Teetered with a lunch tray
down a row of tables, looking
like a sad, lost Bambi.
“I think we should invite
her
to sit with us,”
Kitty said,
forcing us
to move beyond
the uncomfortable
moment.
Kitty waved.
The new girl
shuffled toward us.
Her hair, her eyes,
her overall demeanor
all looked very—
shiny.
She extended her arm toward me.
Tiny silver bangles, making
tiny jangling sounds,
slid down.
“I don’t think we’ve been
properly introduced,
but I’m in most of your classes,”
the new girl said.
Her hand remained hanging
midair.
Why would she transfer here
senior year, abandoning
all the friends she had known
her whole life?
Like what Ben
did to us.
What happened to her?
Or maybe,
what did she do
to cause such a fissure
in her life?
Her bright blue eyes
offered no secrets,
no darkness,
no sadness.
She looked
perfectly fine,
and I felt
a twinge
of jealousy.
“This is Nic.”
Kitty nudged.
I forced a polite smile.
What if I had been
the one
to transfer schools,
to abandon everyone
I had ever known
and loved?
But the thought
quickly dissipated.
That wasn’t me.
I was still
here.
Your firstborn child
Miranda sat poised
at the edge of a faux-
leather armchair positioned
&nbs
p; next to a fireplace,
in what had been deemed
the school’s Academic Commons.
Our public school’s showcase space
looked like a Starbucks
sans the coffee and baristas,
with sconces illuminating walls
and pendant lights hovering
above cozy tables.
Apparently, taxpayers
were generous.
“Describe, in your own words,
what happened
at last year’s Golf Pros
and Tennis Hoes party,”
I said slowly.
We were alone.
“You want me
to tell you
what happened
at a party where
the male population of Meydenbauer
dressed in respectable golf attire,
while the female population
arrived in slutty tennis skirts
and skintight polos?
“And this is for
my college application?”
I nodded.
“I’m applying to Stanford.
Remember?”
I nodded again.
“A sweet, safe, slice-of-life essay
isn’t gonna cut it
for an Ivy or any other decent school,”
I said.
“College admissions officers want
to read
something real.
They want to feel
something raw.
In turn, they want us to emote
all over the damn page—
in five hundred words or less.”
“You mean—in five hundred words
or fewer,”
Miranda corrected.
“Yeah, I know.
Words are countable objects
so
it
should
be
fewer.
“But I’m not the one
screwing up the grammar.
Read the essay prompt from last year’s
Common Application.”
Miranda narrowed her eyes.
“I volunteered
in Haiti.
An orphanage
in Haiti.
Why can’t you write about that?”
“Hey, I’m just doing my job.”
I set down a notebook,
and leaned in close.
“My job
is to get you into college.
Not just any college,
Stanford,
which has an acceptance rate
of 5.1 percent.
“If you want an essay
about a volunteer trip to Haiti,
then write it
yourself.
“But if you want me
to write your essay,
then I write it
my way.”
Miranda slumped.
She chipped away
at polish on manicured nails.
“What happened at the party
is on YouTube,”
she hissed.
“You can go watch it.”
A string of pearls dangled
below her pressed shirt.
She twirled the necklace loosely with a finger.