Getting In (Amanda's Trilogy)

by Isabella Jones

  There’s that word again. I’m all in. “It sounds great. I’m sure it’ll help. How much does it cost? I’m sure my parents will think it’s great I’m doing something like this.”

  Jennifer’s smile is warm. “Oh, there’s no financial cost to you. It’s all covered by private funding.”

  I feel even better about everything. Maybe that idiot college admissions officer isn’t such an idiot after all.

  “At any moment, you can be expelled from our program without cause. By the same token, you can leave whenever you want. However, we will expect you to honor our program by not saying a word about it. To anyone. In return, we guarantee you complete confidentiality. Do you understand?”

  Not only do I understand, but I’m feeling a strange little thrill in the pit of my stomach that I’ve been selected—chosen, even—for this, whatever this is. I’ve been admitted to some of the most exclusive places in the world—golf courses played by kings, private clubs in London, hotel wings in Dubai, even a secret sex club in Berlin where I witnessed a very famous boy band singer get fellated by an aging film star with a pregnant starlet wife back in Hollywood. Rich people are fucking weird, to be honest, maybe because our senses are dulled by the banquet of excess we’re offered each day. But for some reason, admittance into this strange French-Gothic college prep program feels special, quite unique. And I don’t even have to pull out my Platinum Card to pay for it. Score!

  “I understand,” I say. “Completely.”

  “I want you to trust me, even if every cell in your body tells you not to.”

  “I get it … this is like Outward Bound, but more exclusive. No problem. I can handle it.”

  Jennifer seems to relax. She eases back into her awful sofa and gives me a smile that I can only describe as feline.

  “Would you stand up?” she says. “I’d like to take a look at you.”

  This must be part of the trusting. I stand up.

  “Now take off your blouse,” she says.

  “Excuse me?”

  “Your blouse. Take it off.”

  I open then close my mouth. I can feel myself getting a little pissed off because I don’t like being told what to do. On the other hand, what was it she said? That I need to suppress my nature now and then? Plus, I have no shame about my body. I’m even a bit of an exhibitionist, to tell you the truth. I’ve been photographed topless all over the world … in fact, if this college prep organization has done the research on me I think they have, they probably have some topless photos of me in that folder Jennifer has tossed aside.

  I quickly unbutton the top two buttons on my blouse.

  “Slow down,” Jennifer says. “It isn’t a race to the bottom.”

  I slow down and before I undo the last button, I pause.

  “You can trust me,” she says.

  I let the blouse slip off my shoulders, off my arms, and I fold it up and toss it nonchalantly behind me on the sofa.

  “Now take off your bra,” she says.

  “I … why … but I don’t …”

  “Amanda.”

  She says my name as if she’s warning me I’m about to go over the line, so I grit my teeth, slip my hand up between my shoulder blades, and unsnap my bra. A couple of wiggles and I’m out of it, and like my blouse, it ends up on the sofa. Unfortunately, I don’t think the room is too hot, because I can feel my nipples contract and harden in the cool air. I look down at Jennifer defiantly, who gazes up at me with a coy smile on her lips.

  “Since I caught you looking at my breasts, it’s only fair I see yours,” she says. “Turn around for me.”

  Like an obedient puppy, I turn.

  “Stop there,” she says. I stop. “Turn back a little toward me,” she says. I turn. “Perfect.”

  I stand there like a statue. Jennifer doesn’t move either.

  “Do you like art, Amanda?” she asks.

  “I guess I do. Yes.”

  “As you grow older, you’ll learn to appreciate it. I do love art, although this room may not suggest so, but I think the most beautiful object in the world is the human form. Not a figurine like this.” She shrugs to the crude coupling on the table. “The human form in flesh. The flat plane of a man’s stomach. The angle of his jaw. The curve of a woman’s hip as she turns to that man. Right now, I’m transfixed by the shape of your breast—like a teardrop.”

  I’m not sure what to say, so I don’t say anything.

  “Amanda, you have beautiful breasts. You must know that, though. You’re a woman who has never known what ugliness is.” She watches me for a few more seconds, then asks me to continue turning for her.

  “Well-defined, shapely hips. On the tall side. Stomach flat, but not overly taut.”

  I’m facing her again. Jennifer’s cheeks, which were pale, almost ghostly, when we first met, are now flushed pink. She seems to be in a trance.

  “Very nice. You can put your blouse back on.”

  The most awkward part of all this is putting my bra and shirt on in front of her, but Jennifer turns back to my folder, seemingly unaware of my dressing. When I’m finished I sit back down, and she closes the folder and gives it an efficient pat.

  “One more question before we call it a night. What do you think of me?”

  “What do I think of you?”

  “Do you think I’m beautiful?” she asks.

  I pause, not sure how to answer. So in an instant, I decide to tell the truth. “No. But you’re interesting to look at.”

  “Interesting,” she says. I’ve hurt her feelings.

  “I think you’re very pretty. But your clothes are all wrong.”

  “Are they?” she says, looking down at her blouse and sad schoolmarm skirt.

  “A style makeover …” I start to say, but Jennifer interrupts me.

  “You liked my breasts.”

  I blink with the rapid shifts in conversational direction. “I was wondering if they were surgically enhanced,” I say truthfully. And part of me is wondering—wishing, even—that she’d take off her blouse so I could get a better look.

  “They’re not,” she snaps, and with that, she gathers up her ratty sweater, the folder, and stands up. As if on cue, Naoko enters the room, and Jennifer shrinks back from me, as if I’m a cobra.

  “Naoko, we’re done here. You can show Miss Prescott out.” Jennifer fumbles to reach her hand out to me and in a formal tone says, “Amanda, it was a pleasure meeting you. I look forward to working with you in the coming weeks.”

  I take her hand. “Thank you. Me too.” I’m actually kind of proud she wants to work with me. Why? I haven’t quite figured out yet.

  Then she slips back out of the room, using the same door as before, and Naoko touches my elbow, ushering me out of the God-awful boudoir of a sitting room. I wonder if she’ll be hurt we didn’t even touch the tea she brought in, but given how strange this place is, I doubt unsipped tea is the worst thing Naoko has ever dealt with around here.

  She hands me my Tod’s, which, oddly enough, look as though they’ve been cleaned during my visit, and I hand her the slippers, which Naoko brings behind the security counter. She slips me the eye mask.

  “For your ride home, miss,” she says with a slight bow. Then the buzzer rings, and I hear Naoko greet the driver as I pull the eye mask over my head.

  “Ready?” the slightly familiar male voice asks me.

  “Ready,” I respond, and I’m surprised when tears squeeze out of the corners of my eyes as he leads me up the stairs, my arm in his, to the waiting Town Car. I don’t think I’ve ever been as happy and relieved to hear someone’s voice in my life.

  CHAPTER FIVE

  “Mom, do you know a Jennifer Angstrom?” I ask as I walk into the kitchen the morning after my previous night’s I-show-you-mine-now-you-show-me-yours. “She may have been at Lexington when you were there.”

  My mother is fussing over the eggs she’s trying to make for my father, since our housekeeper is off for the day visiting a new grandson. On
her good days, my mother is a helpless cook. On her bad ones, it’s all firemen and insurance claims.

  I notice my mother’s eyes widen a bit as she attempts to crack an egg against the edge of the gray granite countertop. “Jennifer Angstrom? The name isn’t familiar. Why? Does she say she knows me?” The egg cracks and the insides slide down the front of the cupboard below. “Oh, fudge!” she exclaims, looking around for something to wipe the mess up. “How come there are no towels around here?”

  “Because you told Clara not to leave them out because they ruin your aesthetic,” my sixteen-year-old sister Anne intones from the breakfast nook. Anne’s got what looks like a mountain of homework piled up on the table. The kid is always chasing a goal: straight As at Nightingale-Bamford, competing in the ITF junior circuit, a career as a neuroscientist as soon as she gets her Ph.D. She’s my father’s pride and joy. If she weren’t my little sister, I’d hate her on principle. Her saving grace is a mile-wide sarcastic streak.

  I open a cabinet under the sink and pull out a roll of paper towels. I may not have Anne’s brainpower, but I’m not an unobservant member of the household. My mom gives me an embarrassed smile as I hand them to her.

  “I just wondered if you might know her since she could be about your age. She’s married to a Stefan Angstrom.”

  I had spent a few minutes before coming into the kitchen, poking around the Web. There really wasn’t much about Jennifer; I only figured out she was married to this Stefan because there was a picture posted of them at a Nobel Awards ceremony a few years ago. Stefan Angstrom is reportedly a billionaire, the CEO of a family-owned company headquartered in Stockholm. He was dark-haired, like Jennifer. Tall and thin with wire-framed glasses. Unsmiling. Severe. The quintessential cold Scandinavian. Jennifer, in the picture, was smiling broadly, her arm wrapped possessively around his waist.

  My mother shrugs. “Honey, half the girls in my class were named Jennifer. It was Generation Jennifer when I was growing up, you know.”

  As my mom’s about to wipe up the egg, my father strolls into the kitchen. When he sees my mother’s ass wiggling in the air, I can see his eyes widen. He drops the newspaper in his hand onto the counter, grabs her around the hips, and pulls her torso up and toward him, twisting her around for a kiss that’s not appropriate for kids to see. For any human being, really.

  “Aw, geez,” I groan, mock covering my eyes as they go at each other like a couple of monkeys. “Gross.”

  “Go back to your bedroom!” Anne barks. “That kind of behavior isn’t sanitary in a kitchen.”

  My mom pulls away from my father’s passionate kiss, looking even more flustered than when she dropped the egg.

  “What are you making me, love?” He peers at the mess on the counter.

  “Well … I was trying to make you egg white omelet.” She runs her hand over the slight paunch over his belt. “I’ve got to keep you slim and trim for the next fifty years.”

  He braces himself against the counter and runs his own hand over his abs, or what’s left of them.

  “I know how you can keep me slim and trim, but it’ll take you a hundred years …”

  My mother giggles. I roll my eyes and grab the towels from my mom, who’s all googly-eyed over the impromptu make-out session. “Christ, you guys, really. Have you no decency?” I begin wiping up the mess my mother’s made with the egg. Inside, I think it’s kind of cool my parents are still crazy about each other after twenty-something years. Most of my friends have parents who hate each other, and if they don’t hate, they ignore.

  “Mark, do you know someone named Jennifer Angstrom? Or a Stefan Angstrom?”

  He’s pouring himself a coffee. “Don’t know them, but I’ve heard the guy’s name before. Natural resources in Sweden. I wouldn’t have any contact with that sort of business, though.” He takes a sip from his mug, looks at my mother, then at me. “Why? Am I supposed to?”

  “Amanda here …”

  “A name that came up during my admissions interview,” I interrupt. “I was simply curious.”

  My father puts his mug down and crosses his arms across his chest. “So you’re still on for Lexington,” he says in a mock-menacing tone. “Your mother and I are not going to be disappointed, are we?”

  My mother slaps his arm playfully. “Oh, Mark, of course she’s still ‘on’ for Lexington. The interview went swimmingly. She loves the place. They can’t wait to have her. Right, honey?”

  They both look at me with such hopeful, expectant looks, I muster up a big smile and say, “I’m counting the days.”

  CHAPTER SIX

  After thinking about it, I’m a little freaked out by what happened in Jennifer Angstrom’s French whorehouse drawing room and kicking myself for agreeing to do things like trust and obey, two concepts that are totally alien to me. On the other hand, there’s something so freaky and weird about this Getting In place that I want to know more. So for the first time in my life, I do as I’m told and keep my mouth shut. Hey, Jennifer even said it was good to go against your true nature to develop soul. This may be a soul-building experience for me. Then later I can tell all my friends about it.

  The instructions for my second visit with Jennifer Angstrom arrive the following Tuesday afternoon, delivered by hand on the same ecru stationery as her business card. George the doorman hands me the small envelope with his usual joviality, and I eagerly tear it open once I’m on the street. The note is concise: the car will pick me up at seven-thirty p.m. this Friday. Please give twenty-four hours notice if the appointment is inconvenient.

  My friends are peeved when I bag out of our Friday clubbing plans. One of them has even flown in from Palm Springs for some NYC-style R&R. I blame the schedule change on my parents (“They’re riding me about this college shit like you wouldn’t believe!”), for which I receive sincere sympathy and promises to neck vodka together another night.

  On Friday night, it’s the same routine with the car and driver and the silly mask I have to wear in the backseat. Only this time, the experience is completely different once the driver passes me off to Naoko.

  The blindfolded girl in the white satin robe trembles before me. Standing in the harsh light of the Spartan room, her every shiver, every twitch is revealed without mercy. She is so close, and while I can’t quite reach her from where I’m sitting, I can almost smell her apprehension.

  Jennifer Angstrom stands behind the trembling girl, her expression serious, much like the one I’d seen on her face when we last parted. Gone is the schoolmarm skirt, the slinky blouse, the Grandpa sweater of last weekend. While she wears a blouse, another silky one, I can discern a flesh-toned demi-cup bra holding her tits in place. And her skirt this week is a huge improvement: black gabardine that ends above her knees, proving that Jennifer Angstrom has one sweet set of pins. The expensive-looking leather stilettos accentuate them nicely. Thumbs up.

  This room is on the right side of the entryway, through another camouflaged door directly across from the room I’ve begun thinking of as “The Liberace Salon.” The voluptuous excess of the Liberace Salon contrasts sharply with the Zen simplicity of the room we’re in now, with its white walls, recessed lighting, and minimal decor. The only furnishings are two red lacquered chairs, one of which I’m sitting in, some lacquered cabinets of indeterminate Asian influence, and an industrial-looking contraption of bars, ropes, pulleys, and handcuffs anchored into the ceiling and positioned over a sheepskin rug. Definitely not Outward Bound.

  I’m not stupid. I’ve been around enough crazy shit to know what’s about to go down. I hate to say it, but I’m kind of wondering if this scared-looking girl has any idea of what’s going to happen to her. Somehow I don’t think she has a clue. I’m also wondering if this is a test for me. I remember reading about this experiment where researchers made subjects give electric shocks to people who were really actors, but the subjects didn’t know it. The experiment proved that even normal people can be turned into sadists. This girl has probably been hire
d to freak me out. I’ve got to hand it to Getting In: this is certainly a creative way to get through to slackers like myself.

  “Lisette, do you know what’s expected of you tonight?” Jennifer asks.

  The girl, Lisette, trembles afresh. “I’m not sure, ma’am. I think so.” Damn, I think. Her confusion is a bit of a turn-on, even if she’s faking it.

  “It’s a yes or no question.” Jennifer’s voice is sharp. Annoyed.

  “Yes.” Another shake.

  “Are you prepared for this?”

  Pause. “Yes.”

  “Do you want to do this?”

  “Yes.” It comes out as a whisper.

  “Louder, Lisette. Do you want to do this?”

  “Yes!”

  Jennifer is quiet for a minute, and she walks back and forth behind the girl, studying her thoughtfully. Then she glances over at me in the chair.

  “Lisette, we have a new student with us tonight. She’s sitting in front of you. Her name is Amanda. Say hello.”

  “Hi, Amanda.” It strikes me as funny to have a blindfolded girl my age standing in front of me, chirping out a greeting like we’ve bumped into each other at H&M.

  Jennifer lashes out and slaps Lisette’s bottom through the silky robe. Lisette flinches.

  “Hi, Amanda!” Jennifer mimics her high-pitched greeting. “Is that what I asked of you? Can you get anything right? Should we stop right now and call it a night?”

  “No, please no,” Lisette says. “Let’s do this. I’m ready. I’ve been thinking about it all week.”

  Jennifer laughs. It’s not a nice one. “I don’t really care what you think about all week. All I care about is that you start obeying. And listening. Your listening skills aren’t improving that much.”

  Lisette’s shoulders droop. I recognize the reaction as one of defeat, discouragement. This girl is very good. Jennifer steps close to Lisette’s side and lifts her chin up with her index finger.

  “Amanda’s here tonight to help you, Lisette. You see, Amanda’s very good at critique. She’s honest, she’s direct, she tells it like it is. And she’s got very good taste, the kind you can’t buy. I want you to listen to her, to really hear what she has to say about you. Are you ready for that?”