Admission

by Julie Buxbaum

  “She’s from New Jersey, not the Midwest,” Isla says, and Paloma shoots her a death glare.

  “We’ll find a photogenic priest looking to build his social. We’ll book you to tell your side of the story on 20/20. Or maybe The View. That’s more your demo. Women thirty to sixty,” Paloma continues, jotting a note, with what I notice is a pink glitter pen. “Maybe you write a book. That might be a win-win. Could be a cathartic way to spend your time while you’re…in…” She pauses here. I think she’s going to say incarcerated. Instead, she reaches for and finds: “Indisposed.”

  “How nice of you to think of hobbies to occupy me in jail,” my mother says, like everyone else in the room is an idiot and keeps forgetting the only relevant point here.

  “Prison,” Mr. Spence corrects.

  “Prison. The clink. Behind bars. Where. I. Will. Be. Locked. Up.”

  “They have a strong case, Joy,” Mr. Spence says. “It’s not a slam dunk, but it’s pretty close. There are arguments we can make in court, of course. There are always arguments. But you have to understand these are very serious charges against you, and you’re in much deeper legal jeopardy than many of your codefendants. Some of them were caught up in the SAT scam, but not the bribing of coaches at the universities themselves, or vice versa. You are charged with both,” Mr. Spence says.

  “I didn’t bribe anyone. I made a donation to a charity,” my mom insists, and this time, it is me who laughs, though it comes out as a desperate puff of air. I reread the complaint again last night, all two hundred pages, and I’m still blown away by how simple the scam was. Parents paid money to a nonprofit, and Dr. Wilson then used that money to pay off coaches at various schools across the country to add students to their team rosters as recruited athletes. Once deemed a recruit, voilà, the student was pretty much an automatic admit, despite, you know, not playing the sport.

  According to the application to SCC that Dr. Wilson submitted on my behalf, I’m a renowned pole vaulter. This is hilarious for a number of reasons, not least of which, I still have a scar under my chin from when I tripped with a pair of scissors in kindergarten. Had to get seven stitches.

  In other words, I learned my lesson early about not running with pointy objects.

  This scheme, falsely identifying me as an athlete, was what Dr. Wilson called the side door to admissions. The front door is the way Levi got into Harvard: blood, sweat, and tears. The back door is the way Xander got into Princeton: His parents donated a library wing. The side door was the only way in for people like me: not smart enough to get in on their own, not quite gilded enough to buy their way in legally.

  “I’m also worried that if you don’t plead guilty, the prosecutor will pile on more charges—tax fraud, conspiracy—that can add additional significant time,” Mr. Spence says. I notice his cuff links are tiny gold handprints, a surprising choice. Mr. Spence must have his own family. Perhaps the four-figure hourly rate he’s currently accruing camping out at our house is being spent on private school for his own precious children so they too can one day go to law school at Stanford and defend actresses from criminal charges.

  “I am not going to prison,” my mother says.

  “I think you should plead guilty, Mom,” Isla says.

  “Me too,” I say, my voice froggy, like it hasn’t been used enough lately. “But not because of my target letter. Because otherwise it’s too big a risk for you.”

  “No way,” my mother says.

  “He said you could get a sentence of twenty years,” I say. “That’s longer than I’ve been alive.”

  “Actually more if you throw in a money-laundering conspiracy charge,” Mr. Spence says, and I can tell, for whatever reason, my mother refuses to acknowledge this possibility. Maybe she thinks he’s trying to scare us. If he is, it’s working on me. “Also tax fraud. If you wrote the donation off.”

  “No one is going to put me in jail for twenty years for doing what I thought was best for my kid,” she says, not answering. “It’s not like I’m one of those antivaxxers who doesn’t care that they are putting children with cancer at risk for getting the measles. Come on. Find me a judge who’s a parent. Put me on the stand and I’ll have them weeping in minutes and convinced they’d have done the same exact thing for their kid.”

  “It doesn’t work that way,” Mr. Spence says. “We don’t get to choose our judge and we can rehearse, but we can’t urge you to lie.”

  “Don’t be ridiculous. Put me in, Coach. I’m an actress. I can make them understand.”

  “Mom,” Isla says. “You know what a judge is going to think? They’ll think how unfair it is that their kid had to play by the rules when yours didn’t. Or maybe they’ll have a kid who needs a legitimate accommodation, who has a real disability, not a made-up case of ADHD, and because of you those will be harder to get now.”

  Isla is unintimidated by this room full of lawyers or my mother. She’s riding that same wave of righteous indignation that has fueled angry op-eds across the country, all calling for us to get the book thrown at us, or maybe it’s more personal than that: She’s pissed because my greedy mother took her down too. I understand the rage, the desire to yell in my mother’s face, to ask her to get this part over with so we can move on to the next. I think this not-knowing has to be worse than whatever is to come. It’s the waiting that kills you.

  Or maybe Isla is being Isla. Practical to the core. My mom should plead.

  “And then what happens? We have to visit you in federal prison every weekend for twenty years. Take a plea and do a few months, Mom. Grow up. Take some responsibility,” Isla says.

  “I didn’t know,” my mother says.

  “Didn’t know? That’s all you and Dad and Chloe can say. I didn’t know. What does that mean? Tell me!” Isla is yelling, and the lawyers shuffle through files and stare at their phones to pretend they’re not watching this shitshow unfold. Or perhaps one of them is live tweeting our disaster in real time.

  “I didn’t know it could land us here. I mean, jail.”

  “Prison, Mom,” Isla says snottily, in a voice unlike her own. Like she’s borrowing a persona to get through this.

  “Screw you,” my mother says, slamming the glass of water down on the table. This time she leaves the splashed droplets. “Screw all of you.”

  My mother storms out of the room and slams a door behind her.

  “Well, that went well,” Isla says, eerily calm. She remains dry eyed, while tears streak my face. I feel messy and unhinged. I’ve been so worried about my mom, I haven’t really considered what this all means for me, especially if she doesn’t take a plea. What if the US attorney isn’t bluffing and they’re serious about charging me too? “We should have Aunt Candy tell her that she’d plead guilty. That will get her on board.”

  “You didn’t have to push so hard, Isl. She’s scared. She’ll come around,” my dad says. I can’t see if he’s wearing cuff links, because his sleeves are buried underneath his suit jacket. If he is, they’re likely diamond inflected. He’d never wear tiny handprints.

  It’s weird to imagine him deciding to put on his suit upstairs knowing the only place he was headed was our dining room.

  “She doesn’t have time to come around,” Mr. Spence says. “The longer she waits—” But he doesn’t get to finish his sentence because phones all around the table blink, buzz, and beep at the exact same. A New York Times alert: Silicon Valley mom Penelope Wallingham is first parent in the college admissions scandal to plead guilty.

  “Time for a new plan,” Mr. Spence says, and throws up his hands. Apparently my mother’s phone is also signed up for news alerts, because not two seconds later, we hear the sound of something shattering upstairs.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

  Then

  “Things are blowing up. Did you hear about that letter Mrs. Oh sent out to the parents of all senior
s?” Shola asks. We’re in English 4, and we’ve broken into small groups to discuss whether we agree with literary scholars that the epilogue of Crime and Punishment, which neatly ties up the novel, cheapens the rest of the book. I still have not read it, though I did read the SparkNotes. The dude gets sent to prison in Siberia for murder and falls in love. I decide I’m a believer in tidy endings, of bad guys getting their due.

  Epilogue for the win, I write in my notes.

  “What letter?” I ask.

  “Mrs. Oh is pissed. She’s been getting anonymous phone calls from parents trying to sabotage other kids’ college applications,” Shola says, whispering, because Mrs. Pollack is making the rounds. I read notes over Shola’s shoulder: Thematic tie in to consciousness of guilt and whether R. actually “owns” his actions. Does he truly atone? What about S.? I have no idea what any of that means. She might as well be speaking Yoruba, which, incidentally, she can understand. Reason #495059 why Shola should and will get into every college she applies to.

  “Seriously? This is a thing that people do?”

  “Yup. Happens a lot. Rumor has it that Axl’s mom anonymously reported that Simon was arrested for underage drinking last year but his parents got the charges dropped. She called from a blocked number, but Mrs. Oh totally recognized her voice. It’s super nasal, like if a pug could talk.”

  “Why would Axl’s mom do that?”

  “I guess the hope was that Mrs. Oh would be required to notify the colleges Simon applied to.” Shola raises an eyebrow, like she’s not at all surprised, cynicism being on brand.

  “But Simon and Axl are best friends. They do everything together.” I try to imagine my parents, who have clearly lost their minds about the admissions process, resorting to that kind of direct sabotage, especially targeted against someone I care about, like Shola. They would never. Not in a million years.

  “Apparently they’re applying to the same schools, have pretty much identical applications, because they do all their extracurriculars together. Except Axl is number fifteen in the class and Simon is fourteen, and his parents are like super-entitled bazillionaires, so…” Shola shrugs, as if this is all to be expected when rich people play a zero-sum game. It occurs to me that maybe she’s not a cynic but a realist.

  I still don’t understand why they make the stakes feel so high. Maybe it’s because where we end up going to college is on the final parental report card. Maybe our parents have grown accustomed to the adult equivalent of A pluses in the rest of their lives. Or maybe they truly buy into the foolish belief that where you end up going to school defines who you are and who you will one day grow up to be.

  “Everyone has gone bananas,” I say. I look over to Axl and Simon. They are mid-debate with Levi, who apparently has strong views on epilogues. Levi catches my eye, smiles, and then goes back to his argument. I think back to Saturday night, and my hand reflexively touches my neck.

  Even if I somehow manage to avoid being dumped before summer, Levi and I have a built-in end date. No one who looks like Levi—and who also happens to be cool and smart and kind—goes off to Harvard with a long-distance girlfriend.

  “No kidding. I had a stress dream last night that the Littles tanked the ISEE and didn’t get into Wood Valley and I didn’t get in anywhere, not even my safeties,” Shola says. “Then my parents made us form a family singing troupe to make money, like the von Trapps.”

  “You could work the Santa Monica pier,” I suggest.

  “I could spray myself gold and stand on Hollywood Boulevard. Be a human statue,” Shola says. “I’m tall enough.”

  “It’s all going to be okay, you know,” I say. “Everyone ends up where they’re supposed to go.”

  “How very Zen of you, Chlo.” Shola jots down more notes about the book, somehow managing to have a full conversation with me while simultaneously processing the thematic underpinnings of Crime and Punishment.

  “Just so you know, I’d never call the school and tell them about the time you pocketed that nail polish from CVS,” I say.

  “That was an accident!” she says, eyes wide. “And I returned it.”

  “I know. You went up to the cashier and offered to pay double,” I say, and laugh.

  “Whatever. I’m a Goody Two-shoes. This is not new information.”

  “It’s annoying. You don’t even let me copy off you,” I say, trying to grab her notebook, which she blocks with an elbow. “What’s the good in having a genius for a best friend if you don’t let me cheat?”

  “Somebody’s got to keep you honest,” Shola says.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE

  Now

  On the forty-second day of what I’ve come to think of as my house arrest, Mrs. Oh calls on my new cell. I have no idea how she got the number, though I’m guessing through Isla. For a minute, I wonder if I should hang up and call Kenny. Could I incriminate myself with Mrs. Oh? Could she be subpoenaed to testify against me or my mother or both of us? Could she already be working with the authorities to entrap me?

  “Chloe. First of all, are you okay? How are you holding up?” Mrs. Oh asks, and the concern in her voice, the fact that she might actually care how I am, instead of hating my guts like the rest of the world, makes me want to weep with gratitude. I’d assumed she was furious with me. Wood Valley, which used to be known for their academic rigor and astronomically high percentage of Ivy admits, is now synonymous with the college cheating scandal. Since the news broke, Mrs. Oh’s letter last fall, the one in which she complained about parents behaving badly in the admissions process, has gone viral, prompting an op-ed in the New York Times about the death of empathy and how unethical parenting is creating a generation of entitled monsters.

  It was strange and disorienting to realize they meant me.

  I’m the monster.

  And just as strange and disorienting to realize they weren’t wrong.

  “Hanging in,” I say.

  “You’re a tough kid. You’re going to be fine.”

  “What do you mean by ‘I’ll be fine’?” I ask, and hope she realized that I’m not trying to be a smart-ass. “I’m sorry. I’m honestly asking.”

  I lie on my bed and stare at my chandelier, which has become my new favorite pastime since I’ve given up social media. There are no answers for me up there, though. Only a lonely light fixture, currently overused because I’m still too scared to open my curtains.

  “You’ll put this behind you and maybe even be a stronger, better person for the experience. You’ll go on to live a long and authentically good life. You’ll end up more empathetic and ultimately have a fuller understanding of your own privilege not in spite of this mess, but because of it. That’s what I mean by fine.”

  “Huh. Thank you.” I savor her words for a minute. I wonder if there’s any chance for me to emerge from this as someone who feels anything but pure self-loathing. I’ve spent much of my life feeling stupid, and now I feel stupid and dirty and ashamed. I’m not sure I’ll ever feel worthy of Mrs. Oh’s definition of fine. “Hope you’re right.”

  “I keep remembering when we talked in the fall about your SATs. I should have done something. I should have listened better. I think you were trying to tell me what was happening, in your own way, and I might have saved you from this going so far—”

  “Let’s not. I mean, I’m not supposed to talk about it.” It occurs to me that if called to testify, Mrs. Oh could mention that meeting in her office, and my obvious suspicions that something was off with my test. Can she incriminate me? What did I say exactly? Or did I make it clear that I knew?

  No, that’s not possible. Because I didn’t. Not really.

  Did I?

  “Fair enough. So we have some orders of business.”

  “Okay,” I say, when I really want to say is Mrs. Oh, I’m sorry I let you down. Mrs. Oh, I’m so bone tired of bad news. Mrs.
Oh, please don’t testify against us.

  And also, this: Mrs. Oh, your baby is very lucky to have you as a mom.

  “We need to set out a plan for you to graduate. I understand why you haven’t been in school, but you can’t just stop coming and still expect to get your degree.” I hear the bell in the background, and then the jumbled noises of five hundred kids finding their way to class. I’m hit with a sudden longing for my normal life and for the old, clueless me. I want to throw books into my locker and eat frozen yogurt with Shola and be bored senseless by calculus. I want to gossip about prom and eat Friday tacos and float on an oversized flamingo raft in the pool without thinking about telephoto lenses. I want to go to Wood Valley Giving Day, even though I complain about it every single year because you have to wear a hard hat and use tools and the dusty construction site ruins your sneakers. I want to visit Cesar after school and hear all about how he’s been doing on his weekly spelling quizzes.

  “I’ve reached out to your mom and dad to discuss these arrangements, but they haven’t returned my calls,” Mrs. Oh says.

  “Yeah, they’re a little distracted.” The irony isn’t lost on me that my parents, who have micromanaged every moment of my life at Wood Valley, who have literally become the poster children for the term snowplow parenting, are now not legally allowed to talk to my school advisor, or at least my mother isn’t. “So how do I graduate? Obviously I can’t go back.”

  “The year is winding down anyway. It’s already May. We can offer you independent study, assign final projects and special exams for you to do from home. Everyone understands there are extenuating circumstances.” Right. Again, this is not what I expected. I thought Mrs. Oh would have tried to convince me to return to school. Clearly, they don’t want me spreading my cheating cooties all over campus.