Getting In: A Novel

by Karen Stabiner

  “I don’t think so,” said Chloe, who was dying to go. “I try to limit myself to being jealous maybe once or twice a week.”

  Normally, Lauren would have preferred the beach to being Katie’s handmaiden, but October of senior year was a tough time to kick back on the sand. Not having anything to do, usually a welcome state at some point on the weekend, inevitably devolved into having too much to think about—like the fact that Ted had added UC Irvine to her list of Best Chances when she returned from the college trip without a better solution. People drove to Irvine for an afternoon of antiquing, and Lauren thought that college ought to be more of an adventure than looking for a vintage lamp, but Ted had insisted, and her parents, the traitors, had chimed in about what a great writing program Irvine had. She did not want to sit on a beach towel and think. Busy was better, even if it meant listening to Katie agonize over which expensive dress to buy or whether she would get any long-term use out of the adorable little clutch purse the salesgirl had suggested to go with one of them.

  “Fine. We’ll go,” said Lauren, wondering if at this time next year she might be sitting at the edge of Lake Michigan, talking to girls she did not yet know. “We can get sushi after.”

  “Sushi at the Farmers Market?” asked Katie. “I can’t believe you eat at that place. How fresh do you think it can be?”

  “I love that place,” said Chloe. “I’ll go.”

  “It has a really good Zagat rating,” said Lauren, defensively. “My mom loves them too.”

  “Well, fuck me,” said Katie. “Fine. The Co-op and then sushi, and if I have to leave early to get ready, you can both make fun of me behind my back for being a food snob.”

  “I don’t need to wait until you’re not here,” said Chloe.

  “Oh, I’m sure of that,” said Katie, fighting a sudden urge to get up and stomp away. “Honestly, Chloe, you know, I invite you so we can all do things together and you are such…”

  “Oh my God,” said Chloe, nudging Katie with her foot, on purpose, to make her move over a half inch.

  “You’re kicking me,” said Katie, her voice starting to tighten.

  “I am not kicking you,” Chloe replied. “Maybe you could take up less than most of the blankets.”

  “Maybe you could move closer to the edge and we wouldn’t all feel so crowded.”

  “I don’t hear Lauren complaining about me. Lauren, am I shoving the two of you off the blankets?”

  Lauren got up and grabbed her tote bag. “Will the two of you stop it? You sound like…like…”

  “My parents?” said Chloe.

  Lauren started to laugh. “Exactly.”

  “Thank you,” said Katie. “Because that’s how I want to think of myself, as…”

  “Stop,” said Chloe. “Only I get to bad-mouth my parents. C’mon. Let’s go watch you spend money.”

  “Already?” said Katie. “Okay, fine. Whatever you say.”

  They gathered their belongings and headed across the sand toward the parking lot. Katie drew up close to Lauren.

  “Haven’t you filed?”

  “It’s not like they start reading before the first,” Lauren snapped, surprised at the exasperation in her voice. “I’ve got a week yet. I want the essay to be right. I mean, you don’t get points for being there early.”

  Katie was offended at Lauren’s response—she had filed already because she was efficient, not because she was looking for an edge, which implied self-doubt—but she worked hard to maintain a tone of sincere concern.

  “Maybe not,” she said. “And I can imagine, I mean, it’s got to be hard, them not deferring. I mean, you’re out, you’re out. That’s tough. Well, see you guys there.” She turned away and headed for her car.

  Chloe grabbed Lauren’s arm and propelled her in the opposite direction. “When she doesn’t get in and you do,” she said, “promise me you’ll make her life hell.”

  chapter 7

  Nora should have questioned the order when it first came in. The talent agency that was one of her biggest regular customers wanted its usual Halloween party order, three dozen each of the pumpkin mini-cupcakes, the white chocolate ghost cupcakes, the gravestones made from iced slabs of sheet cake, the chocolate skulls with edible pearls where their eyes used to be, the gingerbread bats—and eight dozen of the mini-coffins made out of chocolate wedges robed in powdered nuts.

  No, they wanted three dozen of everything, as always, which the delivery boy discovered when a new agency assistant, who had spent her first workweek enduring all manner of verbal and psychological abuse, started her second week by unloading on him in the agency’s towering two-story lobby. The eight was obviously a three. The delivery boy could turn around with those extra boxes and take them right back where they came from, and the screeching assistant was going to watch for the bill to make sure nobody tried to pull a fast one on her.

  So the delivery boy came back to the bakery, dumped the extra boxes of chocolate coffins on one of the prep tables, repeated exactly what the assistant had said to him, punctuated by the frequent repetition of the epithet “that little bitch,” and stormed out without another word to take the rest of the afternoon off. Nora gave a dozen coffins to each of her two bakers and a dozen to the woman who had taken the order, because everyone made mistakes and it was just as likely that the agency kid was being obnoxious to cover her own error. She took the last two dozen home with her, hoping that they would give Lauren a laugh, and that a laughing Lauren would take the overstock to school.

  On any other night, Nora would have regaled her family with the story at dinner, complete with an impression of the delivery kid doing an impression of the assistant, but ten o’clock that night was midnight in Chicago, the last minute of the November 1 deadline for early-decision applications, and for some reason Lauren had yet to send off her application. Nora intended to keep as low a profile as humanly possible, to get her family fed, fast and early, so that Lauren could get back to work.

  She was in hiding in her bedroom when Nora got home; still in hiding when Joel breezed in the front door an hour later. He tossed his briefcase on the couch, pulled a sheet of paper from it, and came toward his wife with one of his big, lifesaving smiles.

  “You have to take a look at this,” he said, “because it’s going to keep us from going nuts. Somebody at the office printed these up.” He yelled, “Lauren!” and turned back to Nora. “Where is she?”

  “Upstairs. The better question is what she’s doing, and…” She broke off when Lauren appeared in the doorway.

  “Dinner ready?”

  Joel held up the sheet of paper, puffed out his chest, and began to read.

  “The Jeopardy! list of famous college dropouts. Listen to this. Tolstoy. Rush Limbaugh, okay, nobody wants you to grow up to be Rush Limbaugh, but how about Carl Bernstein. Yes, indeed. No degree after his name. Or Bill Gates.”

  “Joel…”

  “Dad…”

  “Okay, I have more, which do you want? Stupid people who went to great schools or great people who went to stupid schools?”

  Lauren covered her face with her hands.

  “Dad, what are you doing?”

  “It doesn’t matter,” said Joel, triumphant. “You go to a great school, you start a war over oil. You go to a crappy school, you start spending money on women’s health.”

  Lauren grabbed the piece of paper out of her father’s hand, crumpled it up, and threw it into the kitchen sink. “Okay, I get it. Great school, bad person, not great school, better person—wait, if I don’t go to college at all I can be the best me ever.”

  “Lauren, honey, I don’t think your father…”

  Lauren glared at them. “I’d be worried if I were you two. If I get into Northwestern who knows what might happen? I might turn into…”

  She hesitated, and her parents waited, silent, rapt.

  “A spoken-word poet. And I could have a geeky boyfriend and you’d never know it.”

  Joel and Nora wait
ed to see if additional threats were coming, but Lauren had run out of steam. She moaned, “Really, I can’t believe you did that,” and then she slumped onto a kitchen chair.

  Joel sighed helplessly. “I thought it would give you a laugh,” he said. “Take the edge off. Clearly, I miscalculated.”

  Nora was stuck several steps back. “Why a poet?” she said.

  “Why not?” said Lauren. “You don’t really think you get to pick out my entire future, do you? Call me when dinner’s ready.”

  The house was locked down before nine, the dinner cleared, the dishwasher loaded, the daughter, despite her parents’ attempts to find out how she was doing, once again sequestered in her room. There was nothing left for Nora and Joel to do, so they retreated to their room and pretended to read sections of the New York Times, which could just as well have been upside down for all the information they retained.

  Since the start of Lauren’s senior year, Nora had set aside time each night to read the international and national news, with the same grim diligence with which she approached the stationary bicycle. Before Lauren was born, Nora had had an opinion about everything, but once Lauren arrived she settled for asking other people questions and switched her attention to whatever Lauren happened to be reading in school. It was a conscious and happy choice. She could have done a better job of keeping up with the news, but she preferred to be ready in case her daughter ever felt like chatting about fate and free will, or social caste and destiny, or Jane Eyre or Daisy Buchanan or anything at all.

  But in a year she would be back at the adult table, so she had to get into mental shape. She relied on mnemonics to help her remember who, exactly, was trying to topple whom. If there was a story in the paper about Iraq, she chanted, “Shi-I-tes say, I am in power, while Suuunnis say, Our day is coming soon.” She had more trouble when there was a triumvirate, because the dynamic lacked logic. For weeks she had worked hard to process the relationship between the Sudanese government and the insurgents and the Janjaweed, only to learn that the current strife was an overlay on an older civil war: same region, completely different set of combatants. How did anyone know whom to shoot at when they went to battle every morning? Did they wear colored jerseys, like sports teams? She yearned for the era when nighttime reading meant Charlotte’s Web, for a world where moral intervention made a difference and death had at least a glancing acquaintance with nature, but she doubted she would be invited back to anyone’s house for dinner next year if all she could talk about was the larger meaning of Wilbur’s spared life.

  At nine thirty, Lauren wandered into her parents’ room to say good night, praying that they would not say anything about anything, not her dad’s list, not her reaction, not her application, not her nerves, not anything.

  “So,” said Nora, cautiously. “Early night. You’re all set.”

  “You bet,” said Lauren. She dove in for two quick kisses. “Night, Mom. Night, Dad.”

  “Night, honey,” said Joel, who had started channel-surfing.

  “I guess we officially have an early-decision candidate in the family,” said Nora as Lauren got to the doorway. “How does it feel?” She regretted having asked the moment the words were out of her mouth, but old habits died hard. Did you go potty? Did you finish the broccoli? Did you brush your teeth, floss your teeth, put in your retainer? In the early days, the last question of the night had been code for undying affection, one final maternal inquiry to bridge the time to a wakeup kiss. Lately, it felt tacked on. Nora vowed for the umpteenth time to try harder not to finish the day with a knee-jerk question, even as she waited nervously for the answer.

  Lauren turned and shrugged.

  “Night,” she said again.

  Joel waited until he heard Lauren’s door click shut, and then he hit MUTE.

  “You asked the wrong question,” he said. “What you wanted to know was, did she file yet. Not how does it feel. You’re always going to get a shrug with how does it feel.”

  “Well, I couldn’t ask did she file yet.”

  “Why not?”

  “Because it would sound like nagging.”

  Joel rolled toward her and kissed her cheek.

  “And you wouldn’t be nagging, no, not you.”

  “So how do we know she filed?” asked Nora.

  “The deadline’s midnight, Chicago. Twenty-seven minutes. Of course she filed.”

  “But how do you know that?” She turned toward him. “You like that question better? Don’t play hotshot journalist with me, bub. Maybe I got fired, but it wasn’t because I didn’t know what I was doing.”

  Joel sat up, disoriented. He had no idea how to behave in this situation, and yet it was clear that he ought to do something.

  “I’m going to have coffins and milk,” he said. “Want some?”

  “No. Honey?”

  “Yeah?”

  “See if she wants some. I mean, she’s being a jerk, but it’s a big day.”

  The big difference between Katharine Hepburn and my mother is that Katharine Hepburn kept her job in the research department even after the computer moved in. In Desk Set, one of my favorite movies, technology comes to a publisher in the form of a huge computer that’s supposed to be smarter than the research department staff. But it’s a romantic comedy, so of course the star gets to keep her job, and she gets the guy as well, in the form of Spencer Tracy, the consultant who’s brought in to improve efficiency.

  Real life is something else again. My mother used to run the research department at Events, the news magazine where she met my father, but three years ago that department disappeared in a wave of cutbacks. She likes to say she was replaced by a search engine. Whatever you call it, she lost a job she loved, along with four other people, and now research involves an IT employee who fields requests from the few writers who don’t know how to do searches themselves. My dad, who’s still an editor at Events, says that those reporters will likely be the next ones to go.

  But this isn’t an essay about getting fired. It’s about what comes after you get fired. In my mom’s case, she turned her life around because she was not about to let circumstance do her in. She says she spent a good month feeling entirely lost, and then she made a list entitled Other Things I Do Well. Now she runs a local bakery. She has successfully reinvented herself.

  I was frightened when she got fired, because it was the first time I’d seen someone’s life change from the outside in. It would have been different if she had decided to switch careers. With the decision made for her, she had to get past a lot of negative feelings pretty fast, and she had to think for the first time in a long time about what she wanted to do. I think she was really brave not to run out and look for another research job right away. I think probably the hardest part of what she did was to try something new just because she thought it would be a satisfying way to earn a living. And my dad was great to support her in her decision.

  What I learned from what happened was that I need to have faith in myself, even if the world hands me a major disappointment. It will, at some point, because nobody’s life is smooth forever—and whatever it is, whenever it happens, I have to believe that I can get past it, and that I can create a solution. A lot of my friends think that deciding right now on what they want to do is the best way to move ahead, but for me college means the chance to explore my interests further and then to decide where my focus is. If I get fired a quarter of a century from now, I’ll have other skills to fall back on!

  It was still fifteen words too long. Lauren grabbed a pencil and scratched out “big,” “one of my favorite movies,” and “of course,” and then she counted the number of words in the sentence about the reporters who would get fired next, scratched it out, and put the other words back in.

  She turned out her bedroom light and crawled into bed with her laptop and her cell phone. She had twenty-five minutes before the filing deadline, twenty-five minutes to wrestle one last time with Northwestern’s no-deferral policy. Other schools gave their ma
rginal early-decision candidates a slim thread of hope, a deferral that dumped them into the regular applicant pool and gave them four more months to send letters reaffirming the spurned applicant’s devotion to her first-choice school. Not Northwestern: the moment she sent off the application, she made herself vulnerable to a flat rejection in mid-December, just in time to be upbeat enough to complete the rest of her applications and ace her first-semester finals.

  She texted Chloe.

  “What are you doing?”

  “You done?”

  “Almost.”

  “Just do it. The moms are going to the financial aid meeting together.”

  “Fun.”

  “Need me to call?”

  “No.”

  She texted Brad.

  “You are so lucky not to have early decision.”

  “Filed anyhow to shut my dad up. What are you waiting for?”

  “Who said I am?”

  “Did you file?”

  “Sure.”

  “Cool.”

  She thought about texting Katie and flipped the phone closed, as Katie would only make Lauren feel crazier than she already did.