“Mm-hmm,” said his mother. The parents were on separate extensions, at the office. William was not invited to join the conversation.
“Vassar went coed the same year as Princeton and Yale,” Anne told them. “And all of them before Harvard.”
“Are you sure?” asked his father.
It was amazing: any coed college that had been all male at its founding was now considered coed. But any coed college that originally had been all female would forever be a “women’s college.”
“I’m pretty sure, yeah,” she said.
“Well, I just don’t know,” Dr. Kantor replied slowly. “I don’t see what’s so wrong with Penn. Fine theater department there, I’d think. Or hell, he can stick around here—the U of C is fantastic and right in our backyard.”
“Oh, sweetie,” said Mrs. Kantor, “we don’t want him in Hyde Park.”
“Well, he can live here and commute. Anyway, even Northwestern, as far as I’m concerned. But Vassar? What’s next, Wellesley?”
“Wellesley’s still all women, so you’re safe there,” Anne heard herself say. Occasionally she forgot to be kind. “What would be most helpful,” she continued, “is if you and William could sit down together with his college counselor and determine a clear list. Ten, maybe twelve schools at most. He’s got an excellent portfolio, as you know, so we don’t have to make a complex exercise of this. Just decide what you feel good about, and let us know so we can get started.”
“Will do, Anne,” said Mrs. Kantor. “Honey,” she directed to her husband, “we can talk about the Vassar thing later. No harm in just letting him apply.”
But it seemed Dr. Kantor disagreed with his wife on that one, because today William looked at Anne and said in disgust, “So Vassar’s off the list.”
“Why?” asked Anne, as though she didn’t know.
“Dad thinks it’s a girls’ school. Also it was really WASPy when he was a kid, so he thinks it’s going to be anti-Semitic or something. Like Francis Parker is fucking yeshiva. Whatever.”
“Language,” Anne warned gently.
“Sorry, Hebrew school,” said William coldly.
“Got it, thanks. Listen, I’m sorry. You can’t even apply?”
“Not really.”
“Have you looked at the application?”
“Are you kidding? I know it by heart.”
“I don’t even think I know it this year. Could you do me a favor?”
“What?”
“Would you just imagine what you would write if you were going to apply there?”
“Oh, I already know. I basically have it written in my head. I mean, I’m already, like, gunning to land a summer stagehand job at Powerhouse. Do you know that summer theater program? Amazing. Everyone passes through. I have the whole thing already down.”
“Yeah? The global-warming piece?”
“Geothermal macrofluctuations. And no. It’s about a play.”
“Could I see your thoughts?”
“They’re just scribbles.”
“That’s fine with me. Could I see? Or maybe you could read some to me?”
“What’s the point? Do you think my father’s going to go for me spending my summers in Poughkeepsie?” He pronounced the town “pug-keeps-ee,” which saddened Anne even more than his father’s hard line. So proud, this boy, and with no one to talk to.
“Let’s not worry about your dad for a moment. A good idea is a good idea, and I’d like to hear it. Okay?”
“Maybe. I guess so. But how about later on, once we’re done with a few of these other ones, since it’s not exactly pressing. Cool?”
“Of course,” said Anne.
“And you can’t critique it,” he added. “It’s not for real.”
“Deal.”
William glanced at his mirror, remembered the bunting, and settled again in his chair. “Okay, so, what’s next? Cornell?” he asked, and sighed.
ON THE LAST day of August, Anne cranked up her window-unit a/c, drew the shades, and left Mitchell collapsed on the bathroom tile to walk the muggy sidewalks of Lincoln Park to Sadie Blanchard’s five-floor Gold Coast home. She’d been instructed to go to the service entrance. The bell could not be heard from outside. Anne waited awkwardly, sweating, wondering if anyone knew she was there. She flipped through her notebook again to brush up on Sadie’s transcript, which Brenda in Gideon Blanchard’s office had faxed through. Solid B-pluses, one C, one D that was sort of scrubbed out when the course was dropped. Asterisks abounded. It was a long way down from Duke to the next school to which Sadie could gain admission on her own. In Anne’s experience, students like Sadie—genetic shoo-ins—fell into two categories: those who had no idea how lucky they were and flaunted their privilege, as though to big themselves up into the shoes they could not fill; and those who knew exactly their luck and did everything in their power to avoid being blamed for their good fortune. Kids of the former type started wearing college sweatshirts from their future alma mater in the sixth grade. Those who were more modest, on the other hand, refused to speak of the college in question. They’d be hopeless with math or science and have a tin ear for languages, fail to conjugate even English verbs correctly, but when it came to social encounters their fear of envy made them as nimble as bats in the dark. They hated to be seen.
To Anne’s relief, Sadie was among the latter. She appeared at the door in shorts, a T-shirt, and flip-flops. Her tiny tan knees were goosebumped. She clutched her arms across her chest; it was cool as a meat locker inside the house.
She flashed a quick and apologetic smile. “Mum told me all about you,” she said. “I’m Sadie. This”—she picked up a yipping white dog—“is Tassel. She’s kind of weird around strangers.”
Sadie led Anne through the back hall and into the kitchen, where a middle-aged Latina, her hair pulled into a thick ponytail, watched over a simmering stove.
“Hola, Inez,” Sadie called.
“Hola, mi amor,” the woman replied, then smiled silently at Anne and lowered her head in a kind of bow. She presided here. “Tea?”
“Nope, we’re good,” Sadie called. “Had an iced chai after practice. Where’s Charles? I want the living room.”
“Oh, he still in there, Miss Sadie. Since he come home. I tell him only to dinner, but you send him now.”
“Jesus,” muttered Sadie. She turned to Anne and gestured for her to follow, past a runway of sleek granite stacked at intervals with club directories, cookbooks, and piles of mail. Publicity photos of Margaret Blanchard spanned the length of the counter. There was one of Mr. Blanchard with George Bush, and another of him with the other George Bush. No kids anywhere. Anne skipped a step to catch up with Sadie, who was pushing through a three-story front hall into a grand parlor. “My little brother is in the weirdest phase right now,” said Sadie.
What he was in was an elaborate fort constructed between the high sofa and the coffee table. Marble bookends pinned blankets to the chintz; books stacked to either side of the table made a small doorway, through which a boy with a bowl haircut peered.
“Charles, Jeeezus,” Sadie said as they entered.
“What?” he snapped. “I’m a refugee.”
Sadie sighed. “From what?”
“Jungle warfare.”
“Nobody says ‘warfare’ anymore.”
“These guys do,” said Charles.
“Oh, sure,” said Sadie. “Because government insurgents talk a whole lot.”
Anne knelt to the floor in front of the boy’s fort. “Hi,” she said, as softly as she could.
He raised an imaginary rifle.
“Okay, sorry.” She stood. “Um, Sadie, which insurgents are these we’re fighting?”
“Probably Tamils. Charles?”
“Yep,” said the boy. “Tigers. Rawrrr.”
Sadie removed the bookends, gathered up the edges of the blanket, and let the fort collapse on top of her brother. The boy outlined by the blanket was smaller than Anne had expected. “We went to S
ri Lanka last year,” Sadie explained. “Spring break. Totally amazing. The kids there needed everything—water, food, nets. We had to get lots of shots to go and, like, take malaria pills and everything. And our own water! It was totally crazy. My parents were like, ‘No kids have ever done this on vacation before!’ Anyway, Charles is totally, like, unable to let go.”
“How old is he?” Anne asked.
“Five,” answered Charles. He rose, the blanket falling to his shoulders like a cape, and walked dragging it from the room.
“Gosh,” said Anne. “Where are you going this year?”
“Probably Haiti. Unless something big happens somewhere else. You know, earthquake, flood. Conflict is usually too much for us, but that’s what made Sri Lanka so special.”
“Ever been to, I don’t know, Disney World? Or Grandma’s house?”
“My grandmother’s dead.”
“I’m sorry.”
“And no, on Disney World. No thanks. We’re not into that stuff.” Sadie took a seat on the chintz. “It’s all commercial manipulation, and it’s for little kids, anyway. We raise our spirits by raising up others.”
Anne pushed aside the fort remnants and pulled up a wingback chair. The dog trotted into the room and stood on its hind paws to be lifted onto the couch.
Sadie settled the dog in her lap, and continued: “You see, my parents both have these really big jobs, and they work, like, all the time. But they make up for it by taking us on the most amazing trips. They’ll even take us out of school if there’s a truly special opportunity. Like that earthquake in Iran? Well, we couldn’t go to Iran, but we were in Turkey working with relief efforts. It was incredibly cool.” Sadie sucked on her lower lip for a moment, thinking, and then said, “Here, come with me.”
Evidence of the Blanchards’ Miserable Children of the World Tour hung in the back hall, in a series of framed photographs of the family in various ravaged locales: Indian slums (children born into brothels), South African slums (HIV orphans), Appalachian slums (general misery). Sadie led Anne past with a brief toss of her head. “Charles used to be too little to join us,” she said, “so he’d stay here with Inez. But now he comes, too.”
They arrived in an office lined with legal tomes. The boat-size desk was covered in plaques and paperweights inscribed with Gideon Blanchard’s name. A crystal gavel caught the backyard sun. Sadie fetched an essay draft off the printer’s tray and led Anne back down the galleried hall. The little dog followed. “Really,” she added, “we are the luckiest kids ever. Isn’t that right, Tassie?”
This made twice that week that Anne had been given an essay to read for the first time in the company of the student. She tried to avoid this: it put too much pressure on her first response, and made her feel she was joining an empaneled set of judges in each child’s life. Her kids had had enough evaluation; they needed conversation. They needed to be listened to. A student such as Sadie perhaps most of all, because her support at Duke meant that her essay didn’t really matter to anyone except Anne and, maybe, Sadie herself.
Sadie’s eyes were bright. “I just finished it last night.”
COLLEGE ESSAY
By Sadie Marie Blanchard
Every holiday and school vacation, my family gives back to the world by performing acts of community service. We travel or we stay at home in Chicago and work in different neighborhoods. We always have a new project on the horizon. As a result, I am extremely dedicated and passionate about volunteering. I have never met anyone more committed to generosity than we are. I like to think of my committment to community service as a five-pointed star. This metaphor enables me to explain the five ways community service is important to my life and how I serve it, and demonstrates how all five are equally important in balancing out the whole.
The first point in the star is my mother, who’s committment to everything is amazing and a real example for me. My mother is a Life Coach to a wide body of people, which means she works more than any other mom I know. As a child, I used to feel sad that my mom wasn’t there after school, but as I became older I realized that it was better that my mom was pursuing her own dreams. I learned this through community service. When my mom and dad take me on trips to serve overseas, or when I volunteer with my mom on a project in Chicago, I see that her dedication extends to people outside of her office. She is willing to take time from her weekends and vacations to give back to the less fortunate than ourselves. I am so proud when I see my mom doing this and I am so grateful that she has raised me with this example: my mom just gives so much and that’s why she expects us to give too.
Which brings us to the second point in the star. My father. Dad is a lawyer who spends his life defending the law and upholding the constitution. It is a natural extention of his work that he also volunteers almost as much as mom. He is willing to defend the needy whether they can pay expensive legal fees or not!
The third point in my star is my brother, Charles. Now that Charles comes with us on our service trips, I have a way to boost my morale when I’m feeling down. For example, recently we were doing flood clean-up in Iowa during a long weekend. I was exhausted from studying, which I did in the car, and the mosquitoes were terrible, and there was not so much food so we could only eat what we’d brought with us. I wanted to give up and just go sit in the car and wait until nighttime but then I looked at some of the victims of the flood, they were children, and I imagined that it was Charles who couldn’t go into his home because it was covered in filth and mud and I found the strength to keep going. My brother helps me stay connected to my work.
My star’s fourth point is Church. My family doesn’t often get to go to Church on holidays, because usually we travel, but when I was little we went every Sunday. We don’t talk about Jesus at school or at home much, and sometimes it is difficult to decide what I believe about God and my faith. When I am doing community service, I know that I am doing good. That’s not why I do it, but it helps me to feel better about some of the things I don’t know.
The fifth and final point of my star is the future. When I look ahead to college and my life, I want to always be giving back to the world because I have been given so much. I’m not sure yet what I want to major in, but I believe that when I feel my heart is touched by working to serve, I’m in the right place and that my path will open to me.
Anne finished reading and looked up. Sadie was huddled over the dog, her hair falling like a screen over them both. Anne studied her feet, the brightly striped flip-flops, the perfect moons of red polish. The essay read young—younger than Sadie spoke; naive, spoiled, and surprisingly candid: there was a nice girl in there, bless her. Anne wanted her to have several acceptances in the spring, even though they’d be nonstarters beside Duke. The essay would have to improve dramatically.
From beneath her hair, Sadie said, “My mother thinks I should take out the stuff about her and Dad.”
“Why?”
“She thinks it shows I think I’m special because my parents both work, when really the norm in the world is that. And it’s only because we go to private school that I think moms are there to pick up their kids and stuff.”
Man, there they were, at the most tender spot. With the boys, it took weeks of scraping at their dull sentences to find a beating heart. The girls drove straight to the center. “I think it’s hard to have two parents with really big careers,” Anne told her. Her own mother had started graduate school when Anne was small, and she remembered clearly the years of being told to look for their car in the pickup line because it was unclear which of a number of ever-changing college girls would be there to fetch her. For a moment she felt cold fall air and remembered one precise afternoon, and the white turtleneck she was wearing, and not having a jacket. Why would she not have had a jacket? Maybe her memory had added that bit, to explain the chill.
“Really?” said Sadie. “I think it’s just normal.”
“Well, ‘normal’ doesn’t mean not hard, does it?”
Sadie shr
ugged.
“What do you think of your mom’s suggestion?”
“I don’t know. I can’t think of what I would put in for those two points, though, if I took them out.”
“I think we might be able to let the star metaphor go, eventually, as the essay evolves,” Anne said.
“Really? But I thought that was good? As structure?”
“It does give a firm structure, it’s true. But you might find down the line that you don’t need it. Anyway, let’s not worry about that now.”
“I really like it, though.”
“Okay,” Anne stalled. God, who were the English teachers who taught these extended metaphors? Every year they replicated.
“You know,” Anne continued, “when I was a little girl, my mom went back to school. To become a social worker.” Anne’s students had been raised in the age of oversharing. Confession was like a key in a lock with them, particularly the girls.
“Really?” asked Sadie. “Who’d she work with?”
“Well, she has an interest in families with small children. Single moms. People who are struggling.”
“How old were you?”
“When she started school? Four.”
“So not really little.”
“Um, I think that’s kinda little.”
Sadie was puzzled. Her fingers worked the dog’s ruff.
“You must be proud of her,” she said.
“Absolutely. Of course.”
“I can kind of understand that. My mom’s job is to help people, too.”
“Doesn’t mean it’s not a drag when you feel you’re the one who needs help. Does it?”
“I guess it’s, like, I don’t know. When it’s really bad, the kids we see, I just, you know, I think about this”—she waved her hand vaguely toward the room’s double-high windows, the late city light falling behind the silk—“and I just wonder, like, why them and not me?”
Which was exactly what her parents intended, thought Anne coldly; trying to prove to their children how good they had it. Or trying to prove to themselves how good they were, and how deserving of fortune. A tidy transfer of guilt from parent to child.
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