Chapter 6A Leg Up
Blossom Valley, 1981
Was there anything more disgusting than a bunch of boys hanging around the entrance to their stinky locker room yelling and burping and making rude remarks about any girl that walked by? Jackie Carlisle thought not, even if the best they could do was observe that she was too tall. Which if maybe true also meant she could literally look down on most of them, especially now, senior year.
But there was something worse, and it happened at lunch on a February day, in the back of the cafeteria where everyone could witness it: Brad Denton pulled his early acceptance letter to Princeton out of his oversized History textbook and held it up for his whole lunch table to see. It earned him a quick round of cussing and thrown food wrappers from the other guys at the table. His group was nerdy, but smart nerds, guys who did well in school aside from being socially inept. Involved in student government, the debate team, things like that; a couple of them ran track or subbed on the basketball team.
Jackie, two tables over, pretended she had not witnessed any of this. Really, she was too far to see the school’s logo, there was so much yelling in the cafeteria that who could hear anything at all. But she knew inside, exactly what it was, what it meant. He had gotten in early to his first choice, an Ivy, while she would be lucky to get into her number one, Villanova, at all.
“Look at Brad over there, bragging,” one of the other girls said.
Jackie was forced to acknowledge the thing, the boy and his letter. “He’s a legacy, you know,” she told the table. “His dad went there.”
But everyone also knew that Brad was obnoxiously smart. They had been new kids the same year, back in seventh grade. The principal’s secretary had walked them together down to their homeroom that first day – their names being close in the alphabet assuring the always had that class together. That plus they were both college track, so Brad’s know it all face had been nearby in lots of classes. Both worked to push beyond the gets-good-grades loser stereotype at school. And there was just something annoying about him – they were natural rivals.
Now this. The group at her table were already talking about something else, something from TV last night. Picking at their food. It was the early lunch period and nobody felt much like eating, plus the whole cafeteria had that sour bleach on top of overcooked casseroles smell. Jackie stole another look over at Brad’s table. They too were talking loudly, grinning at each other over the general din. He looked entirely too happy for a Wednesday at lunch in a school cafeteria. In his face it was like he had already started his life as a college student.
Jackie was glad for once when lunch was over. Gladder still at the end of school, when she could escape the rest of the seniors – God, other kids could be getting those letters every day now.
Home, she went straight into her room and shut the door. Joy, thank God, had practice or something, probably wouldn’t be home until dinner. She tuned out the noise she could hear in the distance – the hum of a buzz saw their neighbors had going on in their yard, repairs after a recent storm. And whatever JJ was doing, a rhythmic banging, punctuated by his exclamations, hard to tell whether he was excited or mad. Now and then a yell from Mom, who came home from work by three now. Supposedly both the parents had agreed to this, that JJ needed more supervision, though Mom half the time was holed up in her room.
Jackie didn’t care though, about any of them. Any more than they cared or understood her. Maybe Joy did a little, she at least got it about needing to get into a decent college. But it was years away for her, still an abstract. This, Jackie thought, swallowing a large gulp, was real. Daily now, she would be fingering through the stack of mail that Mom left out casually on the kitchen table. Waiting, wondering. Possibly she had screwed up her entire future if anyone found out what she had done.
It’s not that big a deal, she told herself, stop being over dramatic. Worst case, just a worse school, right? She had only faked the recommendation letter to Villanova. As for her fall term English paper – if they had found that out, she would surely know by now.
Not a big deal, Jackie told herself again. Hardly thinking about it, she spread out the paperwork from the colleges. She had separated it all into ranked piles, and from them pulled out the better brochures. It was weirdly comforting, seeing all those photos of students strolling around their campuses, or earnestly raising their hands in class. We all belong here, they seemed to say, and you will too.
Lots of kids got a little help in writing their papers, she told herself. Another girl in class had a dad who was a professor, bet he gave her some suggestions. Jackie rolled her eyes briefly, imagining her own father attempting this. They were lucky if he even remembered what grade they were in. And he was all busy trying to look with it, hair grown out and constantly wearing new clothes; thank God the leisure suit days were almost over. He would be more likely to talk about upcoming dates and new trends in music than express the slightest interest in their school work. Not that he ever seemed very happy with the dates or the music.
Jackie shuddered just thinking about those awkward conversations. The point, though, was that all she had done was gone to the library – carefully driven to one two towns over, where her boyfriend lived – and used a book there to get ideas for her analysis of the themes of The Invisible Man. She had made a point not to copy it word for word, and had even put in a slightly awkward compound sentence, the sort that the teacher often criticized.
The paper got an A. The A raised her grade point average. The grades were important since her SAT scores weren’t the greatest, thank you very much public school with no special preparation for the test. (William’s private school had its own tutor available to help anyone who asked prepare for the SAT or PSAT!) Anyway, she could have come up with all those ideas if she’d time – there was a lot going on in the fall.
There were many justifications. About the paper. The forged letter, that would not be easily explained. Of course any kid in her class would understand it, at least anyone who wanted to get into a decent school. Probably half the senior year teachers just weren’t who you’d want to write those letters. A couple of them, including the English teacher, where just mean, mean and sarcastic. Another was sweet but seriously old, as in probably couldn’t even use a typewriter anymore, and another was practically senile.
And guess what, they were the ones that taught the classes where Jackie had the better grades. The math teacher was cool, but she sucked at math. She did okay in Bio, but she didn’t think that teacher would say anything good about a girl. Anyway, she had given it a lot of thought, laid it out like an Algebra equation to solve, and the best option was to write one of the letters herself. Access to the school’s stationary was easy, since she worked on the school paper and was regularly in and out of the front office. She even had the teacher’s signature, from a sample business letter used by the Future Secretaries.
Jackie had written it, typed it, scribbled the signature with a flourish, and mailed it, even thinking to use the mailbox in front of the school. As far as anyone would know, it was a perfectly legitimate, strong recommendation.
JJ’s voice pierced her concentration. He was yelling Mom, Mom, like the house was on fire, except that he did this all the time. Jackie rose from her bed, scattering the glossy brochures, and whipped open the door. “Shut up! God, JJ, what’s your problem.”
Her little brother’s head appeared at the foot of the steps, red faced. Jackie glanced across the hall – Mom wasn’t in her room.
“I’m hungry,” JJ shouted up. “I want a snack!”
“Look in the driveway, is the car there? Did Mom tell you she was going somewhere?”
“Oh yeah,” he answered in a normal voice. “She had to pick up milk and eggs.” He stared back up. “Are you staying upstairs, Jackie?”
Jackie rolled her eyes. She knew exactly what he had in mind. “Yes, but Mom can tell if y
ou sneak food, she knows how many cookies there are all the time. Just wait a little while.”
He didn’t answer, just stood there with his little boy arms crossed comically. Jackie went back to her room. She lacked energy to manage him, plus she didn’t really care if he wrecked his appetite for dinner. Anyway, he was harder and harder to control as he got bigger. He was Mom’s problem; she would be gone soon enough.
Still, she always had to be a little wary, careful with the kid. JJ had stumbled on her secret, for instance. Back when she was writing that recommendation letter. She had needed several drafts on the family’s typewriter, getting the words just right and fixing typos. The kid had been underfoot as usual and had pulled discards out of the wastebasket. (This sort of thing drove her crazy – no privacy even for her trash.)
He barely could read, but there he was asking questions anyway, why was there a picture of the high school on the paper, why was she writing a letter about herself. And Jackie – knowing JJ’s honing ability to sniff out people hiding things – had blithely assured him that this was completely normal, that students often wrote drafts of letters for their teachers in high school as part of practicing typing skills.
Jackie returned to her doorway. JJ was no longer visible. It was utterly silent, which, she thought with a laugh, was almost a sure sign that he was doing something he wasn’t supposed to. She imagined the sound of chairs crashing, cookie boxes falling, if Mom’s car was to suddenly pull up. Then what, another trip to the emergency room? No good. She pointedly clomped down the stairs. Giving him time to retreat with his plunder, keeping Mom out of it for both of them if she could.
She didn’t talk to William that night, or the next. They had vague plans to go out Saturday. Or maybe it was just to watch the first part of Saturday Night Live. Anyway, usually she liked it if they could at least talk a little, but she realized, thinking about how many days it had been, that she was afraid he would get his early acceptance letter too. Letters, maybe, he had applied to several schools. One was in Chicago, another in Washington, others in Boston. He claimed not to have a favorite but that he would have to take into account the “whole package.”
Jackie smiled to herself, thinking that sometimes William sounded like a 30 year old lawyer without even trying. She checked around to see that the rest of them were still downstairs, and then bounded quickly up before anyone noticed. The upstairs phone was placed awkwardly on a small table in the middle of the hallway, but it was possible to drag it then stretch the cord into the entrance of her room for some privacy. If she spoke quietly and they had the TV on, it was almost like having a private conversation.
William was home, studying, he said, though she could hear the TV when she answered. William had his own TV in his room – which he still complained about, because it was the family’s old black and white. Some people just don’t appreciate what they’ve got, she thought, sounding like her mom on one of her annoying tirades.
He didn’t say anything about college letters. Or weekend plans. Instead he told a long story about some guys on his school’s basketball team, or some other guys, something they did during a game. Jackie was only half listening. It occurred to her that either he didn’t know that she didn’t care about sports, or knew and didn’t care. Not sure which was worse.
It struck her, not for the first time, that they would have to break up pretty soon. The best part of going out with William was doing things together, in person. He was busy a lot with school stuff anyway, it seemed like he had something he had to do after school almost every day. And they definitely weren’t going to the same college next year, and probably wouldn’t even be in the same city. She could hardly imagine having this conversation and having to pay long distance for it.
“This guy in school got his early acceptance a couple days ago,” Jackie interjected in a break in William’s monologue. “Princeton, la-di-da. He even brought the letter to school.”
William snorted. “People would laugh if you did that at my school. Although, Princeton, that’s pretty tough to get into.”
“So have you heard anything?” Jackie asked, after an uncomfortable pause. She’d been waiting for him to make some crack about public schools.
“Nah, not yet. I don’t think most of them send until March anyway. I’m not worried.”
“Yeah, me either, at least not yet.” He didn’t ask whether she had heard, Jackie thought. Or just assumed she hadn’t, probably.
After they hung up, she realized they never had clarified what they were going to do on Saturday. If anything. Pretty much at this point her main reason for wanting to go out and do anything was to occupy her mind from endless worrying about the college letters. About being found out.
She dragged the phone back to its table. Joy ran up the stairs, and Jackie gave her a brief look, a half smile to show her appreciation that Joy tried not to just butt into their room when she was on the phone. Ever since she’d started ninth grade, and started hanging out with the girls on the volleyball team, she had gotten nicer, Jackie thought. Too bad, now that she was going away next fall. Probably.
“He’s driving her crazy,” Joy said. No need to explain she meant JJ and Mom. “You should go down there.”
“Yeah, that’s a great reason,” she answered, her sarcasm sliding out before she could think about it. She knew what Joy meant – often having another person in the room kind of spread out JJ’s energy, dissipating it at least a bit.
Joy just shrugged. “So listen to them yelling later.”
“I’m done with my homework, I can go.” Jackie turned to the stairs. Not that she’d actually done her reading. She could skim it later.
“Can’t you girls get along?” Mom demanded the minute Jackie sat down on her end of the sofa, nudging JJ over into the lumpy middle part. “It’s possible to share a room.”
Where Jackie might have once been smart aleck or defensive, pointing out that Mom failed to notice that she and Joy got along better now, that neither of them were 12 anymore, she just shrugged it off. “I finished my homework,” she said. “I just wanted to see what was on.”
The TV was on, but the sound was off. Some cop show, it looked like, probably a rerun. Still, JJ wriggled around, his fists curled into imaginary guns, shooting wildly.
“Nothing’s on at all until this one gets to bed. It’s almost nine, JJ!”
“I already brushed my teeth!” he yelled back.
Jackie hid the laughter that bubbled up. The contrast between her mom, leaning back in her chair looking too tired to even make a move towards JJ, and the kid, who was wired and looked like he could stay up babbling and making excuses for hours, was funny. Or would be, if it wasn’t happening every stupid night.
She leaned toward her brother, play wrestling. “She’s just going to turn off the TV until you get out of here. Or do you want us to give you big sloppy bedtime kisses?”
At that he roared in disgust and bolted off the sofa. Mom sank further into her chair. Both knew JJ would be in and out a few more times.
“I’m going to miss you next year,” Mom said softly. “And not just because you’re so good with him.”
Jackie shrugged again, looking away. Lately her mom was getting misty eyed over every little thing, it was embarrassing.
“My first baby, old enough for college,” Mom continued.
“Mom, jeez.” Jackie glanced over – at least Mom was smiling now. She talked as though next year was just days away sometimes. As if the whole thing was already settled, that there was no question about Jackie getting accepted somewhere, packing her bags, knowing what to take, how to fit in. Jackie used to take for granted the confidence her mom had always had in her. Now, though, the pressure of waiting – of waiting and knowing what she had done, how she could still possibly be caught – made her nerves jangle so badly it was hard to just sit quietly in the room with her.
Both turned toward t
he sound of JJ dropping something in the hallway and yelping in surprise. Mom rose stiffly out of her chair.
Jackie stayed put. She would chase him up next time. She looked toward the TV, but left the volume down – hearing it would just get JJ back in here quicker. She tried to imagine sitting around in a college dorm instead. Dorms had common rooms, right? Only instead of an exhausted mom and misbehaving brother, she would have sophisticated friends. All of the poring over their books together, writing long essays, or dashing off to the library to do research.
Mom returned, part of a cookie still secreted in her hand. That was one of JJ’s tried and true stalls: cookies or candy to quiet down, but then another round in the bathroom, complaining he’d already brushed his teeth, and on and on until you just wanted to swat him or chain him to his bed. “You were always the sensible one,” Mom told her.
This time, Jackie couldn’t even meet her eye, and busied herself, instead, poking through the newspaper for Dear Abby. Something to remind her that other people had worse problems than she had.
Even as she read it, though, something nagged at her. In the back of her head, murmuring, distracting her, the thought that all that confidence might just be false. That just as easily as JJ made everybody think he was sorry, he’d be good now, when let’s face it, the kid seemed pretty much lacked a moral compass – what if she was the same way? Fooling Mom, and Dad (talk about easy to fool), and everybody to think she was smart and capable when it turns out she needed a leg up to for the simplest thing. If she had to cheat to get into college, what would she have to do in order to succeed there?
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