Hunter’s résumé reminded Anne of the chalked outline of a homicide victim: perfectly correct, but without anyone inside. Mrs. Pfaff had managed to kill every interest he revealed. Her Midas-by-proxy was among the most devastating examples of crap parenting Anne had ever seen. No wonder the mustangs.
Mrs. Pfaff’s voice was as slender as a whisper now. “So that’s what I mean,” she said. “I tried everything. I give up.” Her sorrow was genuine. Anne hated her, and she hated her husband, and she hated the colleges; and somewhere upstairs, Anne knew, Hunter was hating her—Anne—too, maybe just as fiercely, for witnessing this, and for acting as his parents’ tool.
“Well, to hell with it,” said Gerald Pfaff. He shook his head. “Who the hell cares about these places if to give our kid the world is to put him at a disadvantage? Sorry. In my book, you open every door you can. That’s the right way. If they want to fault our son for being who he is and not black or brown or what have you, well, that’s about as blatant racism as I can figure, but nothing I can say about it anyway.”
“So that’s it?” asked his wife. “We just let go?”
“Um, of Amherst, maybe,” dared Anne. She sensed an opening here. It could all turn, it could all be so good. Hunter could study environmental science in Billings! Or Denver! Or Tacoma or Boulder! He could spend every summer working for the Park Service! He could take those guns from the front hall and set out west . . .
“Not a chance,” said Mr. Pfaff. “Christopher will apply early to Amherst. Let them prove me wrong. If it’s as good a place as they say it is, they’ll let him in. He’s a good kid. And I’m no slouch. We know folks.”
“Fine,” said Anne. “The application’s due in two weeks. So maybe have Hunter call me when he’s feeling up to meeting.”
“Will do,” said his father, like it was nothing at all. He ambled toward the French doors and peered out.
“What a mess,” said his mother. She smoothed her hair over her temples and those oddly shiny cheeks, and turned to Anne. “Now probably isn’t the best time to work on essays,” she said. “Dinner and all. May we give you something for the road? A piece of fruit?”
“Don’t worry, she’ll bill us,” muttered Mr. Pfaff. He was studying his grounds, his back to them, his bottom embarrassingly feminine in its bulges. Mrs. Pfaff switched on the kitchen lights against the evening, which had now fallen, and immediately Anne made out his face reflected in the glass. His eyes, unlike his wife’s, were brimming with tears. He still thought himself unseen.
“Lord, it’s dark early,” he said.
“OKAY, WELL, SO, I get it now,” Anne told Hunter, in opening.
“Get what?”
“That’s a lot of stuff you have to deal with there.”
“Oh. Yeah.”
They had his latest draft before them on the table at Starbucks. She never wanted to set foot in the Pfaff house again, so she’d suggested an alternative for a few days later. Late afternoon. The Winnetka Starbucks was full of anxious mothers in cashmere coats, zooming in for enormous lattes prior to suppertime. Anne kept her voice down, and Hunter his hat low. But it was better than the gabled manse. The carp. Christ.
They were working line by line. “ ‘It was just one of her latest ideas for my college application, I thought,’ ” Anne read out loud, pointing with a pen nib. “About your mom. It’s funny. But are we comfortable with what that might suggest about your mom’s involvement in your activities?”
“It’s the truth,” said Hunter.
“Of course it is. But you don’t owe them a confession, you’re telling them a story. It’s up to you.”
He was mute.
“Is there a fear that someone reading this might think your mom has helped things a little too much, do you think?”
“Oh,” he said, scraping his finger along the outside of his iced drink. It was a frigid, iron-gray day, and he wore only jeans and a T-shirt and his big, scribbled-black sneakers. “I see what you mean. Like I’ve been packaged.”
“Yes.”
“Well, but it’s true—that’s what I thought. She was signing me up because it’s totally the sort of thing she falls for. And it’s important, like, to say why I didn’t want to go on that trip.”
“Okay, then leave it. But can we find a way to pick up that thread later? So we don’t let them wonder on their own?”
He took the page from her and bent his head.
“What if here,” he said, pointing to a sentence toward the end, “I changed ‘When my parents ask me about this stuff . . . I don’t want to share it with them’ to something about, like, being grateful for the idea but wanting to make it my own now? Or, like, how I already have made it my own?”
“Great,” said Anne. “That’s the right turn to make, I think.”
“That’s nicer than I feel.”
“It’s the right thing to do. Not because it’s nice, but because we don’t want the admissions people thinking you hate your parents.”
“I don’t hate them.”
“I applaud that.”
“But calling Winnetka a prison is maybe not that cool?”
“Could sound a bit spoiled, I think, maybe.”
“Right,” he said, and leaned back again. He stretched his length under the table, and with one hand idly twisted a rope bracelet on the other wrist. Anne knew, as though it were her own memory, that Hunter’s girlfriend had given it to him.
“Hey, nice man-jewelry,” she teased.
He smiled, but didn’t look up. “It’s kind of starting to smell.”
“No worries. You can just rub a little Tide on it, on the inside there, before you shower.”
“Really?”
“Yeah. Works a charm.”
He spun the bracelet a few more times. “I’m not gonna get in, am I,” he said.
“What?”
“Amherst. Not happening.”
“Oh. Well, I’m not making the decisions. But I think it’s probably not going to be that easy. No.”
“You know what?” He raised his shaggy head on his long neck, a teenage lion. “I don’t even want to. My cousin, she’s the junior there? She’s sweet and all, but she’s, like, so uptight. I mean, have you ever been to Darien? Craaaazy. She’s basically, like, applying to law school after she finishes her homework and everything. Like, no time to think. Or chill. Or just, whatever.”
“Mmm. Those East Coasters,” Anne said.
“They’re all like that?” he asked. She was spooked to realize he was serious. Sometimes she forgot how young these kids were.
“Oh, it’s just a stereotype. You know, of suburbs like Darien, or New Canaan. But your cousin sounds like a great student.”
“Humph.”
“So anyway, what do you want?” Anne asked.
“To go back out there,” he said. “To Montana. Idaho. I don’t know. Can you go to college there?”
“You can, in fact, yes.”
“So, like, where?”
Anne flipped over his essay and started writing names. “These are schools I want you to go home and look up. Read about them, see what you think.”
“Cool.”
“And this one, in particular”—she starred Colorado College—“pay close attention. They have this thing, a block schedule, that lets you really focus on one area at a time. I think you might really love that. Then let’s talk.”
“So should I wait to work on the essay, then?”
Nice try, thought Anne. She shook her head, flipped back the page, and said, “No, listen.” Then she read him his own words: “ ‘I’ve spent my time in high school working on things that I liked and that were important to my parents and teachers, like tennis, guitar, peer leader and homework. I feel very lucky to have been able to do all these things. But I was surprised to learn this summer that I feel passionate about things that are completely new to me, like caring for the wilderness or finding ways to be sure that wild horses are protected in our nation’s west.’ ”
“Yeah . . .” he said warily. “It should be ‘peer leadership,’ shouldn’t it?”
God, the corrections this boy had endured. “Or some other wording, yes, but that’s not why I’m reading it. This is the heart of it, Hunter, right here. This is the story you’re telling. You’ve spent your life doing things other people asked of you and guided you to. And that’s not wrong—that’s called being a kid. Okay, so your mom’s a little intense. Your dad kind of scares me, but then again I don’t hunt. Even your dog kind of scares me.”
A laugh escaped his throat. He’d rather have belched, Anne knew, but he couldn’t help but give her the smile.
“You have beautiful images in your essay, and great ideas. The braided rivers, the stars, the mustangs. About needing to be in the dark so you can see stars, about parents like cities. Keep all that. But go back to this passage I’ve read”—she drew a box around it—“and make sure that the whole thing is telling that story. Own it. Tell it straight up, as though you know what you’re saying, because you do now. And tell us about those new passions. What are they, and how will you act on them?”
“Okay. That it?”
“Maybe lose the prison bit.”
“Right.”
“And go easy on your folks. Not because they deserve it, but because you don’t want to sound like a dick.”
“You shouldn’t talk like that,” he told her.
“You’re right.”
“I won’t tell.”
“And your language—be careful, now,” she instructed. “It’s time to pay attention to every word. Look up here—you list homework as something you’ve done, and then in the next sentence you say you feel lucky to have done it. Do you really?”
“No. Freaking hate it.”
“All of it?”
“Most of it.”
“Okay. So if those lines are in there, then it’s just sloppy. It’s not what you mean. Be as careful as you would be with a precal problem set. Line by line. Make sure it follows, it all adds up. That’ll save us some time.”
“What, it’s—ten days now?”
“Exactly.”
“Cool.”
“So you’ll get it done? I can look forward to revisions?”
“Totally.”
“Good. Want another Frappuccino for the road?” she asked, standing.
Hunter shook his head. “These things are gross.” He straightened, raised his arms as though for a free throw, and tossed his almost-full Venti several feet to the bin. It wobbled, end over straw end, through the café. People in line had to lean forward and back to clear the way. The cup fell in without a ding. The mothers among them shook their heads. One lowered her phone and scowled at Anne.
“Dude, Mom should’ve made me black,” Hunter said.
“Gosh, I know. She totally doesn’t know you at all.”
“Craazy,” Hunter said again. He sped to the door to hold it open for her. “Thanks for the tip on the thing,” he said. “You know, Tide.”
“Nicole will appreciate it,” she told him, heading to her car.
“Awesome.” He stalled for a moment on the sidewalk, clutching his essay draft, with Anne’s list of alternatives inked on the back.
“Yes?” she asked.
He shook his head. Then he held the essay up toward her, as though he’d caught it after a long pursuit. The page snapped like a flag in the chilly wind.
“Cool,” he called, and turned toward home.
“ANNE. MARGARET BLANCHARD. Have you got a moment?”
Anne held out her phone and studied the plastic. Seriously, her friends would have gotten such a kick out of this. They’d recently had an e-mail round about Blanchard’s latest book, Call Down Your Career, now that so many of them had reached safe perches in law, medicine, and finance. Seemed they were convinced of Anne’s potential as the lone one among them who could “still do anything,” which, roughly translated, meant that she was the only one among them who had done nothing. Anne hadn’t realized she had solicited their reassuring tones, which grated. She’d have loved to correct them the tiniest bit by mentioning Sadie; alas, she had a strict confidentiality rule about her students. She couldn’t breathe a word.
The Margaret Blanchard in the books and magazines would’ve loved to get her coaching hands on a girl like Anne. So much potential, so little power.
“I’ve really got a bone to pick with you,” said the real Margaret Blanchard.
“I’m sorry?” Was it lunch? Who told her? Why would she care?
“Yes, well. Frankly, I can’t believe I’m having to make this call.”
Anne’s fingers began to shake. She hated this, how quickly she could be cut to the quick, like a little girl. She sat on her floor next to Mitchell and placed a shivery hand on his warm side. “What’s happened?” she asked.
“First our daughter says she’s not going to apply to Duke at all. That whole mess with the Mexican girl, you know. Then you meet with her, and next we hear, she’s applying but not until January, when all the other kids apply, and I’ll tell you, that’s not sending the right signal to the admissions committee. And those people are our friends. But the real issue at hand today is this: is it true that you told my daughter that the only way she could not get into college is if she becomes a drug addict?”
Ah. Finally, a bit of comic relief. A conversation out of context could be explained much more easily than the real issues, like the imagined contest between Sadie and Cristina, or the fact that for these parents, college had nothing to do with their daughter and everything to do with themselves.
Anne allowed a little chuckle. “No, that’s not exactly what I said. Not at all.”
“Really? Not exactly? Because that’s what my daughter told me, and Sadie does not lie.”
Now Anne was both frightened and annoyed. She stood up, woke up her computer, and softly Googled “Margaret Blanchard.” Certainly Anne had seen her a million times, but in the moment she couldn’t think. The screen offered a hundred thumbnails of a brunette who would have been beautiful save a vicious underbite, a jaw so deliberate she resembled an anglerfish in some deep-sea trench. “Honestly, Mrs. Blanchard, those were not my words, and in any case they’re completely out of context.”
“So you’re saying it’s not true.”
“I had a conversation with Sadie about college and her opportunities. She was, as you know, quite upset.”
Margaret Blanchard cut her off. “You know, Anne?” A bit of song had crept into her voice. “What I teach my children is useful here. When we’re confronted with a mistake we’ve made, we have to face that head-on. We have to honor our choices, even when they’re the wrong ones. We don’t resort to things like ‘context.’ ”
Anne felt her own jaw grow as hard as she imagined Margaret Blanchard’s bones must feel in her own skin. “I’m not resorting to anything. I am happy to detail for you the exchange I had with your daughter, if you’d like to hear it.”
“Sadie told me that you said that the only way she wouldn’t get into Duke is if she was a drug addict. That it’s a sure thing. And, you know, my husband and I have spent her entire life trying to impress upon her that her achievements are her achievements alone, and now you have just gone and undermined everything we have worked to create for her. What will that admissions letter mean to her now? I mean, Merry Christmas, Sadie!”
“I think Sadie will be very pleased when that letter arrives.”
“ . . . Though of course she’s refusing to apply early now, so we have to wait until April for that letter, not that it will delight her anymore. I’d think you have ruined Duke for her completely. And to bring up drugs, well, I just don’t even know what to say to that. I’m not sure if drugs are routine in your world, but we do not find the use of illegal substances to be appropriate subject for conversation with a teenage girl.”
“Look, Mrs. Blanchard, this is just a terrible misunderstanding. Sadie was casting about for a scenario in which Duke would not be in her futu
re. Frankly, she can’t imagine one. And that’s a problem for her, believe it or not. It’s lovely to want her to feel her achievements are her own. But getting into Duke is one achievement that will not be. I’m sorry, but it just doesn’t work that way. So I chose to be honest with her, since she already knows the truth, and talk to her instead about being a good steward of her opportunities. Those are hers and hers alone.”
“What do you know about my daughter’s opportunities? What place is it of yours to talk to my daughter about stewardship? I beg your pardon.”
“Would you have preferred I lie? Would you have preferred I tell her that she should be praying every night for a spot at Duke?” Or would you prefer I tell her how her father’s too ashamed of her to even let her write her own essays?
“We don’t think it’s inappropriate to allow her to feel that she’s earning her success. But perhaps you do.”
“I don’t!”
“In fact, perhaps it’s hard for you to see these young kids succeeding. Perhaps a part of you wants to take that away from them.”
“Mrs. Blanchard, that’s just ridiculous.”
“Don’t be so quick to answer, Anne, you give yourself away.”
“Excuse me?”
“I don’t hear a considered response, I hear knee-jerk. And knee-jerk means I’ve hit a nerve.”
Anne wanted to say, It means you’re a crazy bitch, but knew she couldn’t, and her brain refused to produce anything milder. She saw this woman’s name on the covers of magazines in every checkout aisle in the city. She was everywhere, like some horrid self-help mushroom reaching its long, pious filaments blindly through everyone’s thoughts. Anne felt helpless. She was silent.
“Ah. That’s right,” said Margaret Blanchard. “It takes a few moments to really hear what we don’t want to hear, doesn’t it?”
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