Admission

by Julie Buxbaum

  Mrs. Oh is right. My essay is a joke.

  “Listen, Chloe. It’s my job to be real with you. Do you want me to be real with you?”

  “Not really?” I say, but I nod anyway. This hurts, though not too badly. It would have hurt more if I had worked harder on the essay.

  “You’re a senior in high school. If you want to be treated like a serious person, you need to act like a serious person,” Mrs. Oh says, and readjusts herself on her chair, stretches her back, and groans.

  “What if I’m not a serious person?” I ask.

  “Listen, you can’t all be academic superstars. I get that. But then don’t bother applying to SCC if you’re going to phone it in.”

  “You’re right,” I say, because she 100 percent is. I don’t want to be a parody. “I’m sorry I wasted your time. I’ll do better with the next draft. I promise.”

  “Good.”

  “Want to hear something weird? My private college counselor said my essay was great.” This is true. He sent me and my mom an email that said: Great job, Chloe! We are full steam ahead on all our big plans! And then he inserted the winking face emoji, which seemed a poor choice, in my opinion. Like it discredited the compliment that preceded it. Then again, in my experience, old people don’t know how to use emojis. My mom always sends the hugging hands when she means to wave hello.

  “Then she should be fired immediately.” Interesting that Mrs. Oh assumes Dr. Wilson is a woman. I don’t bother correcting her. “Honestly, this essay could even jeopardize your chances of getting into your safeties.”

  I glance out the window. Levi’s standing on the green, gesticulating widely in front of a crowd of seated students. He’s running a student council meeting and from this side angle, I can see Sophie’s—his ex—face. She’s watching him the way I sometimes catch myself watching YouTuber makeup unboxing videos, openmouthed and with longing.

  “Are you listening?”

  “Yeah. Sorry. Just Levi.” I gesture out the window, and Mrs. Oh looks at me like she understands. “Anyhow, I promise I’m unpacking your feedback.” I’m parroting Mrs. Pollack, but I like the way it sounds. Perhaps I should use the word unpack more outside the suitcase context. It makes me think of Russian dolls and accordions and unfolding that manual that Isla was born with and I wasn’t.

  Mrs. Oh pulls at her shoulder, sniffs, grimaces. “Goddamn little monster. I was wondering what that smell was and it turned out to be me. Spit-up. Great.”

  “Babies,” I say inanely.

  “Chloe, sorry if this feedback feels harsh. I’m Team Tough Love here at Wood Valley.”

  “Mission accomplished, but no worries.” I live in a world of protected feelings and of cushioned blows; there’s a strange relief in Mrs. Oh’s brutal honesty. “So what should I write about then?”

  “Isn’t it obvious?” She points at me with a pen, and I see her hands are stained with ink. She must have marked up everyone else’s papers, and I feel embarrassed all over again. “You should write about you.”

  “I did write about me.”

  “No, you wrote about how fun it is to live with a B-list celebrity,” she says.

  “Did you just call my mom B-list?”

  “The sleep deprivation makes me loose lipped. Please don’t tell her I said that. I really need this job.” Mrs. Oh looks at me with desperation, and then wipes at her shoulder with a McDonald’s napkin. After a few attempts she gives up.

  I mime zipping my lips.

  “Thank you. Okay, to sum up this meeting, your mom is the best, A-list all the way. You are also the best. You worked so hard to get your SATs up. This essay, however, is not the best. Now get the hell out of my office. I need to pump.”

  * * *

  —

  When I check my email later in the day, I see Dr. Wilson’s assistant’s name pop up in my inbox.

  To: Joy Fields, Richard Berringer

  Cc: Chloe Berringer

  From: drwilsonassist@drwilson.com

  Subject: North Hollywood Testing Center

  Dr. W says got your message but seriously do not stress about essay

  My mother must have immediately called Dr. Wilson in a panic when I texted her after my meeting with Mrs. Oh: Mrs. O says essay sucks. Need to rewrite even for safeties.

  As usual, my mom is incapable of digesting anything calmly. This is not an emergency. I spent two hours working on this draft. It won’t kill me to push a little harder.

  I reply to the message—I’m not stressed, happy to revise—and before I hit send, I notice that there’s a trail of emails below between my parents and Dr. Wilson and his assistant. Apparently, this crew likes to communicate without cc’ing me.

  To: Joy Fields, Richard Berringer

  From: Dr. Wilson

  Cc: drwilsonassist@drwilson.com

  Subject: North Hollywood Testing Center

  Woot woot

  Woot woot? Seriously? I guess I’m not missing much. The email is dated the day after I took the SAT. I scroll down farther, to the previous email from my mother, same date.

  From: Joy Fields

  To: Dr. Wilson

  Cc: Richard Berringer, Wilson-assist

  Subject: North Hollywood Testing Center

  So happy! All went smoothly. Thanks for everything.

  I can’t imagine what my mom had to be so thrilled about the day after the SAT? It wasn’t like I left the test feeling optimistic. Maybe she was convinced the accommodation had worked its magic? Or maybe they worried that someone would question whether I was actually ADHD at the exam? That doesn’t make sense. Dr. Wilson took care of the paperwork, but I got the clearance from the SAT board directly. I saw the letter with my own eyes. It was 100 percent official, 100 percent legit.

  From: Dr. Wilson

  To: Joy Fields

  Cc: Richard Berringer, Wilson-assist

  Subject: North Hollywood Testing Center

  It’s a go

  This last one was dated three days before the exam. I read through the emails again, this time from bottom to top. I feel a little queasy but can’t put my finger on why. Like when you walk into the gym locker room and sense, by the sudden awkward quiet, that the girls were talking about you but then the moment shifts and you tell yourself you’re being paranoid.

  What’s “a go”?

  My phone buzzes and I click away from email and over to my text messages.

  Mom: Don’t worry darling. Spoke to Dr. W. He’ll get someone on staff to rewrite

  Me: No! I want to do it

  Mom: You did do it, sweetie. Rewrite was wrong word. They’ll clean it up, add a little sparkle

  Me: Mom!

  Mom: What? You’re so stubborn. Like your father. I know you have a lot on your plate lately

  Me: It’s my essay!

  Mom: Of course. Still, nothing wrong with a little help

  Me: Let me try again first

  Mom: You sure?

  Me: YES

  Mom: Okay. By the way, it wasn’t a Chanel bag. It was a Birkin.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

  Now

  Isla pokes me awake with her Converse-clad foot, square in my ribs.

  “Just checking to make sure you aren’t dead,” she says.

  “Aren’t you supposed to be at school?”

  “It’s four in the afternoon.” I would have guessed it was still morning, and yet I take that as my cue to pull my bright white comforter over my head and burrow back into the mattress. I’ve always been a little shy about my undercurated bedroom, which, if I’m being honest, was modeled directly from a page in the Restoration Hardware Teen catalogue.

  Isla’s room, on the other hand, has a shelf crowded with all her various academic awards, a Malala poster, and an overflowing bookcase. Her bulletin b
oard, which hangs above her desk, is crammed with her favorite quotes and Polaroid pictures of her friends smiling and holding up stick mustaches.

  You walk into Isla’s room and you think, I know who lives here.

  You walk into mine and you think a designer decorated the place for a vapid, generic teenager.

  Today, I take refuge in its blandness. Maybe, if I’m forgettable, this entire scandal will be too.

  “Chloe!”

  I can’t think of a single reason to get up. I realize my not going to school is a situation that will eventually have to be addressed, but not today, not when any moment the feds could arrive to arrest me. When everyone at Wood Valley hates me. When it feels like I no longer have anything resembling a future.

  If I leave the house, I’ll be accosted by the paparazzi. Not that I have anywhere to go.

  This might be what jail is like, I think optimistically, and then remember that jail will not have Netflix, two-ply toilet paper, or Intelligentsia coffee on demand. It will not have my delicious pillow-top mattress or hot showers or Fluffernutter.

  I cannot go to jail. Neither can my mother. My mom can take or leave the dog, but when we were on vacation in Saint Martin, she freaked out when Carrie forgot to pack her La Mer.

  I need to come up with a better strategy than simply repeating “I didn’t know” over and over, like those words are a magic spell. How do you prove a negative? Ironic that my best defense is exactly what got me into this mess in the first place: Your Honor, I was too oblivious to realize what was happening. Exhibit A, the SAT. Even my own parents think I’m a moron.

  I saw Proctor Dan on the news yesterday and wouldn’t have recognized him if it weren’t for the caption under his picture: BREAKING NEWS: ACCUSED TEST TAKER TO ENTER GUILTY PLEA IN COLLEGE ADMISSIONS SCANDAL. Gone were his tie-dyed T-shirt and flip-flops and chill vibes. Instead, he was grim-faced and clean-shaven and wearing a blue suit. According to the reporter, who looked eerily like a younger version of my mother, all smooth hair, giant lips, and tiny hips, Dan has been proctoring as a side hustle since he graduated from Yale five years ago. Apparently, he’s presided over hundreds of SATs and ACTs at three test centers around the country “controlled” by Dr. Wilson.

  The scam was simple; after the student left, Proctor Dan would fill out and submit a completely different Scantron. He guaranteed a score within a twenty-point range.

  I’m impressed despite myself.

  Then I wonder: Did my mom specifically request a 1440? If I were paying $15,000, the amount she is alleged to have paid for this part of Dr. Wilson’s services, I would have gone for the full 1600. Or maybe not. No one would have believed I could score that high on my own.

  When the breaking news alert came on CNN last night, which has been on silent in the background downstairs all day every day, my mom let out a string of expletives that would have made even my father and Paloma blush. Kenny later explained why this was more bad news: Proctor Dan’s plea means that if my mom’s case goes to trial, he will likely testify against her. If I get charged, he could testify against me too.

  I never should have eaten his chips. I should have suggested he trim his toe hairs.

  “You need to get up,” Isla says. “Mom is bombed out of her mind on Xanax. I think yesterday put her over the edge. Dad is locked up in his office with the lawyers. He’s hired his own separate team too. I need at least you to be okay.”

  “I’m not okay.”

  “Yes, you are. We’re going to get through this,” she says in the steely, determined tone she usually reserves for her academic life, student council meetings, or class presentations. The we is mighty generous of her, considering.

  I wonder if she’s still getting death threats on her old phone. I check mine regularly to see if Shola or Levi has reached out, which, no surprise, they haven’t. Instead, I’m still assaulted by hate texts: die cheating bitch. The number of messages has decreased; their nastiness has not. I read every last one of them. Sometimes I read them twice. In the shower, I repeat the words out loud under the rush of the faucet: lying scum of the earth, lying scum of the earth, lying scum of the earth.

  “You should pack a bag and get as far away from this family as you can. You deserve better than us,” I say.

  “Aww, did you just say something nice to me? That’s a first,” Isla says.

  “Don’t get too excited. We set a low bar. I assume you haven’t committed a felony lately.” I sit up and examine my sister, who is wearing ripped jeans and an old T-shirt, and looks as underslept as I feel. I mentally bump her higher on my worry list, which is long and overcrowded, and bleats like rolling credits in my brain.

  “How’s school?” I hold her gaze so she has to tell me the truth. Unlike my mother, who is after all, a professional, Isla is a terrible liar. She looks away, pretends to be fascinated by the window. My curtains are drawn, and in a burst of paranoia last week, I duct-taped their edges to the wall. No way am I going to fall victim to a telephoto lens.

  “Tell me,” I demand.

  “Better than being here, I guess. Some jerk vandalized my locker, though.” Isla pretends this is no big deal.

  “Who? I’ll kill him.”

  “That’s what you need. A murder charge on top of everything else.” She says this with a half-smile, and I surprise myself by smiling back. I hold up the sheet and pat the bed, which is not something I’d normally do, not now that we are grown, and Isla hesitates for a minute. I think she’s going to say she has to do her homework or study or research legal precedent. Instead, she surprises me by crawling in beside me. She feels warm and small and I’m gripped with a sudden fear that this will be the last time we ever get to do this. We used to snuggle all the time when we were kids, and chat late into the night in our matching footie pajamas. But somewhere along the way, like how we stopped playing with dolls or baking together or racing to avoid being a rotten egg, we stopped this too. Without fanfare or a decision.

  I imagine it was my fault. I met Shola and banished my precocious little sister to her room across the hall.

  “I saw Shola.” She says this quietly, tentatively, as if reading my mind. I haven’t told her Shola has gone radio silent, but she knows. Otherwise, Shola would be here.

  “You did?” I swat at the renegade tear snaking down my cheek. Sometimes it astounds me to think about how much I’ve messed up my life. I remember how once, when we all had to go visit Hudson in rehab, he stood in front of us in this room that smelled of nicotine and stale coffee and read a letter detailing all the ways he’d wronged us with his addiction. Apparently, he stole money from my backpack. He missed pretty much every one of Isla’s birthday parties. He once fed Fluffernutter a laced cookie. The list was long. As he talked, his hands shook, and when he said the word sorry, his voice cracked. That I think was the hardest part for him—that single word—and I remember thinking that he, and his therapist, had it all wrong. We were family. We weren’t tallying his sins. I didn’t care that he stole my money. I was waiting for him to promise to never use again.

  “She stopped me in the hall. Asked how you were,” Isla says.

  “What did you say?”

  “I told her that she should call you if she really wanted to know.”

  “You’re a good sister.”

  “Duh,” Isla says.

  “Seriously. I don’t say it enough.”

  “Dude, you don’t say it ever.”

  “Sorry,” I say, thinking of how maybe Hudson didn’t want to make promises he didn’t know if he could keep.

  “You know that picture of Mom with her dummy?” When my mom was sixteen, she competed in a Junior Ms. New Jersey pageant and her talent was, I kid you not, ventriloquism. There’s this great picture of her, with ’80s bangs, in a taffeta pink ball gown, smiling at the brown-haired dummy in her lap. My dad had it framed for her fortieth birthda
y.

  “Yeah.”

  “I wonder what she was like back then.”

  “I bet pretty much the same—well, before this all happened—though with more hair spray.”

  “Yeah,” Isla says, and I can feel it. We are both thinking about that young, naive version of our mother, whose greatest hope was to be Junior Ms. New Jersey. Who even learned to talk out of the side of her mouth because she was so desperate to win. “So can I borrow your clothes when you’re in jail?”

  I stick my pointer fingers in Isla’s armpits in that way she’s hated since she was tiny. For a moment, it feels like before, when I hadn’t yet ruined everything. When poking at each other was only a game.

  “Okay, too soon for prison jokes,” she says, tucking her elbows close to her sides. “Got it.”

  Later, I check my Signal, and there they all are, my fellow college scammies, swapping messages, like a Greek chorus.

  ALC: My sister got a target letter

  Slyse: I got one too

  TheIgster: Yeah, turns out they are OUT FOR BLOOD. No one is off limits

  PhinnyB: We’re all so fucked. My parents are taking a second mortgage on the house to pay legal fees

  PrettyPen: My little sister was like, “Are we going to be poor now?” And my parents laughed. First time I heard them laugh since this all happened, so at least I think we’re good on that front

  PhinnyB: Shut up Penny. You and your Instagram and YouTube are the reason why the whole world hates us

  PrettyPen: WTF did I do? What’s your problem?

  PhinnyB: All those ridiculous lipstick tutorials and whining into the camera. “College is a state of mind.” You have no idea what the real world is like

  PrettyPen: Give me a break. People need to chill