Early Decision

by Lacy Crawford

  What was it she wanted? To be admonished, or absolved?

  She went on. “So right now is kind of tough, because most applications were due at midnight. Or are due today. And people get kind of crazy.”

  A valediction. She wanted a valediction.

  “College,” Doug said. He shook his head. “I never went in much for all of that.”

  “No?”

  “No. I did a year at City College, Harry Truman. I don’t know. Maybe I’ll go back someday. Not my thing now.”

  “Cool,” said Anne.

  He topped up her drink and set it down with a lid. “Here you go,” he said, and smiled. His freckles shifted sweetly up over his cheeks. He thunked a solid, Saran-clad muffin on the counter. “Here’s for Fido.” Then he added, “Not that I have anything against more school, you know. Hope I didn’t insult you just now.”

  “Not at all.”

  “Just that the degree isn’t all that relevant to me right now. I want to be a photographer. I am a photographer. I like to shoot people. Portraits and shots of people out on the streets, in the city, on the El, you know. I’ve got a few gigs, so that’s cool. So maybe, you know, later.”

  “Plenty of time,” Anne told him.

  “Yeah, maybe I’ll call you,” he joked. He rang her up, a buck ninety-nine, and she handed him a five-dollar bill.

  “Scholarship money,” she said, and smiled back.

  “Yeah, right?” he said. “Like, who can afford college anyway?”

  “I have no idea,” she lied. “Probably people who don’t really need it.”

  He nodded emphatically. “Oh, man, that’s how everything works. But that’s how you know what really matters. I say, if you gotta be rich to get it, it isn’t that important to begin with.”

  “Nice theory. I like it.”

  “It’s free with the cocoa,” said Doug. “Stay warm out there.”

  THE OBSESSIVE PHONE calls she’d been ignoring all morning did not turn out to be from Martin. Nor were they from the Pfaffs, who would be dealing with Hunter’s application however they were going to deal with it; she was quite sure Mr. Pfaff wouldn’t stoop to asking for her counsel any longer. Anne felt only fatigue when she thought of these people, and she returned to her apartment wanting to throw open the windows and scrub everything down, change her number and e-mail address, bury her cell phone in a deep bank of snow. Martin was gone. No note, no dishevelment save her rumpled sheets and the wadded-up blanket that had sheltered William. She kicked off her boots, stripped to her T-shirt, and collapsed onto the sofa with her phone.

  It was Margaret Blanchard’s voice on the line.

  “Please do call, it’s imperative that you do so,” she said. And, “Please do call, it’s important.” And, “Anne, I’d like you to call me, please.”

  But when Anne called, there was no trace of emergency. Just Mrs. Blanchard inviting her to join the family for their traditional New Year’s cocktails at the Four Seasons Hotel. “We do an early supper for the kids,” she explained, ridiculously, “and Gid and I raise a glass to the New Year.”

  Anne laughed out loud. Damage control, of course. Gideon Blanchard had come home and revealed all, and his wife had experienced not betrayal but shame. Or, hell, maybe Margaret Blanchard already knew her husband was diddling his paralegal and was grateful not to have to tend to him herself, but they had reputations to uphold. Big reputations. Rapid-response-press-team reputations. Anne had seen this before, when, say, she witnessed a fight between a student’s parents; inevitably they’d summon her the next day for coffee or a kind word, to restore the fantasy. But that was just to keep things copacetic at the club. In this, the Blanchards would have to out-WASP even the best-soaped suburbanites she’d known. Starting with the Four Seasons.

  “Uh, what shall I wear?” Anne asked, laughter in her voice, intending to provoke Mrs. Blanchard. She failed.

  “Casual is fine.”

  Which, of course, it wasn’t. When Anne arrived, having found a taxi to skate over the paved roads, she was underdressed in her long skirt and Christmas sweater. Around her, in the cocktail lounge of the hotel, minks clung like oil slicks to the backs of chairs. The women who had shed them had almost nothing else on, just strappy tops and miniskirts above shoes that could not possibly have navigated the salted sidewalks. Anne felt like a mountaineer coming in from the cold, her parka closed against the wind that emerged in gusts through the revolving doors, where the doormen whistled like trains.

  But she felt dolled to the nines by virtue of a secret, which was Sadie Blanchard’s final essay, neatly folded in her bag. It was a knockout. It made her feel invincible.

  She looked for Sadie, but at table she found only Mr. and Mrs. Blanchard, impeccable, and Charles, his glossy head bent low over a handheld video console. His thumbs hammered on the plastic.

  “Sadie will join us shortly,” said Gideon Blanchard, rising alone. He tucked in his tie and reached across to greet her. “Happy New Year.”

  Anne kept her arms crossed and sat. Blanchard made his eyes small at her, and she thought she detected a warning. An involuntary smile made her mouth wobbly. Holy crap.

  To steel herself Anne summoned the image of April Penze in flagrante. As silly as it was foul. This helped.

  Mrs. Blanchard pushed a bowl of nuts across the table. “They have the most delicious spice glaze here,” she said. “And can we order you a drink? Something warm to start? Let’s get Manuel.”

  Gideon Blanchard raised a French cuff into the air.

  “Where is she?” asked Anne. “Sadie.”

  “She’s visiting with a friend,” answered Margaret. “After all her hard work, we figured she could have a little social time. Also it affords us the chance to talk before.” She looked at Gideon and then at Charles, who had not yet looked up.

  “Charles,” she said.

  He raised sullen eyes at Anne. “Hi.”

  “Thank you,” said his mother.

  He returned to his game.

  Manuel arrived. Anne ordered hot tea and he was gone.

  “That’s all?” asked Margaret.

  Anne gave a tight nod and briefly scanned the room. She imagined the company they were in: couples hiding away together, or revelers taking the day off to explore the snowy city. How could she have explained her presence there, the complicated, ludicrous, and finally trivial set of expectations that had brought her to this glass table in a blizzard? A high school senior and her parents and the young woman they had hired, all party to a process that claimed to elevate young people and offer them the world, but which instead taught them to commodify their gifts, bury their struggles, deny curiosity, and murder whimsy. Never mind the adultery, Anne thought, if you could dismiss such a thing; why did parents like Gideon Blanchard let their children grow up in a world in which college admissions could poison them so? Sadie already had all the privileges any applicant ever sought by virtue of a top degree. The contacts, the carriage, the cash. Why make it all so difficult?

  Why not, Anne wondered, just for one moment tell the truth?

  Gideon Blanchard spoke. “Anne, we wanted to invite you to thank you for all of your work this fall. We can only imagine—we know it must be a terribly busy couple of months for you. Sadie told us she submitted her application this morning, so we’re very happy and grateful.”

  “Of course,” Anne said.

  “And that girl,” prompted Margaret Blanchard, her voice cross.

  Anne straightened. Here it comes.

  Gideon Blanchard said, “Oh, yes.” His wide horse grin, half flare. “Cristina Castello.”

  “What?” said Anne.

  His eyes were wide with feigned inquiry. “Cristina?” he repeated. “Your other student?”

  “Oh, yes,” Anne scrambled. “Yes. Of course.”

  “Yes. You will be happy to hear that her information is all in the hands of the director of admissions himself. I saw to it that he’d give her a special read, and the trustees are keen to e
nsure that she’s in a position to take advantage of any opportunity the university may offer her.”

  Anne felt what should have been delight for Cristina crashing head-on with disgust for Gideon Blanchard and sheer bafflement at his ability to dissemble. The girl was a pawn to him, that’s all; he moved her about as he needed to, forcing Anne’s hand. Anne held her breath and felt her thoughts wheeling. Wasn’t this right about when some people tossed a drink in a man’s face? Threw a shoe? Pulled a gun?

  Anne’s forced smile made her cheeks twitch, like a threatened hare. “That’s lovely, thank you,” she said. She held her tea to her face and listened, and hoped something would come to her.

  Margaret Blanchard said, “We’re so glad that’s sorted. Now. All Sadie will tell us about Duke is that the application is in. No idea what she wrote. I assume she used the essay she developed with her English teacher, the points-of-the-star piece. It was so clever and true.”

  Anne did not correct this.

  Gideon Blanchard said, “Are you happy with it? Her essay?”

  “Oh, yes,” said Anne.

  “Good. We just wanted to be sure. Because it turns out that Sadie came home from your office very, very upset last night.”

  “My apartment. Yes. I can imagine she did.”

  “She won’t say why,” added Margaret. With a shudder Anne realized she wasn’t bluffing. Margaret Blanchard had no idea.

  “No,” added Gideon. “So we were a little concerned. Wanted to have the chance to clear that up before she arrived.” He raised his voice slightly. “So,” he asked Anne, “did something happen last night?”

  Charles lifted his golden head and tuned in.

  “Hey, kiddo,” his father said quietly.

  Anne sputtered. The boy paralyzed her, as Gideon Blanchard had known he would. She would not be the one to break a child’s heart.

  “What?” she said.

  She was so stunned she had to start from the beginning to relocate herself in that chair in that room. She looked back at Gideon Blanchard, into his yellowed eyes with their pink rims. She thought of King Lear’s vile jelly. She wanted this man to howl in pain on the great barren heath of his existence.

  “So we just wanted to be sure,” Margaret Blanchard was saying, “that there was no conflict between you two.”

  “Not at all,” Anne managed.

  “So what, then?” challenged Mr. Blanchard.

  As if on cue, Charles said, “Sadie was crying!”

  Anne took the only option she saw, substituting the already miserable son offstage for the boy in front of her, who was still young enough to sport hair that had been painted down with a wet comb and who in his alarm had let his video-game player drop into his lap unnoticed. “I had another student there last night,” she told them, “a very nice boy. He had been kicked out of his home after a terrible fight with his father. I was talking with him, and Sadie grew upset just hearing about it.”

  Gideon Blanchard smiled.

  “Oh, she does that, our Sadie,” said Margaret, nodding deeply. Anne watched relief move through her. “She does. She gets so caught up in other people’s problems. I think it’s the mark of confidence that she can so easily find her empathy.”

  Anne felt she might be sick. She was the little girl again, opposite a grown opponent who was carefully, methodically, trapping her in a corner. She struggled to remember how she’d ever gotten free. How did she win? Did she ever win? Did she always go to bed with, as her father put it, “more to learn”?

  Just then Sadie appeared. Anne noticed her because of the heads that were turning—this girl who had appeared on the lobby carpet and was threading her way past the banquettes, a lovely young woman in a blue dress. She held her overcoat draped over one arm. Her hair was dusted with bright drops where the snow had landed. Something hidden propelled her, some certainty Anne hadn’t seen before, and Anne wasn’t the only one to notice. Sadie wasn’t tall or draped in jewels or angular as a model, but she moved through the room like a bird on a thermal, and everyone turned to look.

  A waiter hurried to set her chair.

  “Sorry I’m late,” she said. “What’d I miss?”

  “Nothing,” said Anne.

  “Good day, sweetie?” asked her mother. “You look so much better.”

  “Feeling good,” she said. “Got my application in.”

  “We’re so proud of you,” said Margaret Blanchard.

  “We were just talking about last night,” said her father. “And what upset you so terribly. And Anne has explained to us about the other student, who was going through some trauma with his family, and how that may have upset you, too.”

  “Did she?” asked Sadie.

  Her mother was staring at her. Sadie really did look radiant.

  “I wasn’t sure how much it was appropriate to share,” explained Anne.

  “Mmm.”

  Anne watched Sadie’s hands, the corners of her mouth, for any signal that she should have told the truth. Sadie sat, composed.

  Her mother reached out a hand to her daughter’s cheek and brushed at something with her thumb. Sadie shook her off.

  “Quit,” she said.

  “There was something there, is all,” said her mom. “A lash.”

  Sadie shook out her hair so that it resettled over the collar of her dress. The portrait neckline showed off her collarbones and a small gold chain across her throat.

  “That’s such a pretty dress,” said Anne. “Where’d it come from?”

  Sadie opened her mouth to answer, but her mother beat her to it.

  “You know,” said Mrs. Blanchard, still gazing at her daughter, “when I met Gideon, I was wearing a blue dress. He fell in love with me because of my blue dress.”

  Anne turned to her, astonished. Gideon Blanchard shifted in his chair.

  “Yes, he did,” Margaret continued. She had forgotten them all; she was enchanted. “It was long, with a fluted waist.” She leaned forward against the edge of the table to reach up to her daughter’s hair, which she pushed aside. “A collar that dipped like this”—gesturing now toward her own fallen bosom—“and I had this bracelet with little sapphire flowers all around it, tiny, to match.”

  Half smiling, Sadie suffered this display.

  “I looked so pretty,” finished Mrs. Blanchard.

  There was a terrible quiet at the table. Around them the room grew louder. Champagne flutes chimed on the tabletops. Anne had a moment to think. Witnessing Margaret Blanchard’s embarrassing recollection, her slip back up the river from daughter to mother, something came clear. Something hard and bright and terribly freeing. It was so simple, it took only time to understand it—only time, but time alone: how very much this woman envied her daughter.

  It was envy.

  My God, it was envy. Anne thought certain parents hijacked their kids’ applications and tortured their essays because they wanted to give their children the world, which of course they did. But there was something more. Something ugly in their vigilance that tasted of ownership. Money made it worse but did not explain it away; rich parents were not necessarily bad parents. Nor was it a class concern. This madness was not, in the end, about the preservation of means or the perpetuation of a self-assuming elite. No.

  It was about the hoarding of time. The one resource parents could not renew, try though they might. This generation would not go gentle. Gideon and Margaret Blanchard, Gerald and Marion Pfaff, all of those baby boomers aging now in the soft fields of Darien, Palm Beach, Summit, Mill Valley, Lake Forest, in the high floors and single townhomes of cities from New York to Boston to Seattle: they had made their choices. They were not seventeen. They were deep in their ruts and shuttling at top speed through middle age. It must have terrified them. They couldn’t release their grip, though their children heading to college meant that their time up front was just about done.

  But these kids? Well, they had it all to play for. Everything lay ahead for them.

  Anne looked at S
adie and was able to imagine her whole life, just waiting. The cities, the people, the parties, the work, the home, the love. Surely love.

  How very much some parents wanted to take it all back.

  “Well, you can’t,” Anne said, and only when the table turned to her in puzzlement did she notice that she had spoken.

  “Can’t what?” asked Sadie.

  “You can’t take back what’s happened.”

  Gideon Blanchard stiffened. “What is it you’re saying?”

  Anne bit her lip. They were all looking at her. She saw the dominion in the faces of the adults—Gideon’s indignation and his wife’s blind hauteur—and was stunned by how little they understood. Did they notice Sadie biding her time, her knowing patience? Or detect the alarm in the eyes of their confused little boy? It was easy to think, You fools. To love a child, you launch the child, and then you get the hell out of the way. But it was not so easy for her to admit what followed: that it’s the child’s job to let go of everything else. Poverty tours and cruel chessboards and whatever hell Anne would visit on her own children, because someday she would—all parents did—it was a kid’s job to jettison all that, and put on her best dress, and say what it was that she wanted.

  “It’s up to Sadie now,” Anne said at last. “You’re done. And, in fact, I have her essay with me. I just happened to print it out.”

  Sadie widened her eyes, first in surprise and then in anticipation. Anne felt a shiver of pleasure. Sadie said, “Perfect.”

  Anne tugged the page from her pocket and smoothed it flat on the tabletop. She spun it on the glass and slid it across. Beside her, Sadie took a deep breath. Mrs. Blanchard reached her claret nails to the page.

  “It’s terrific,” Anne said. “You should be very proud of her.”

  She stood, gathered her coat, and set a hand on Sadie’s shoulder. “Bye,” she said. “Congratulations. Call if you need to.” Gideon Blanchard’s hands were flat on the table as though he was about to rise, but he stayed put. To him Anne said, “You can just mail a check for the remainder of my fee.”