Admission

by Julie Buxbaum

  When we finally reach the end of class, the instructor, a bendy brunette, looks straight at my mother when she says, “Namaste.” It turns a beautiful word into a rebuke. We pretend not to notice.

  “Ready?” my mom says, before we step outside to face the planted paparazzi.

  “No.”

  “We can do this,” my mom says, which is the first time since the scandal broke that I see echoes of the mother I recognize. Cameras have the opposite effect on her than they do on normal people—when they’re around, she turns calm and composed and charming.

  We step outside into madness. I hold my mother’s hand to stay steady and reflexively look down to avoid the assault of flashes and shouted questions, the press of bodies moving in closer. My mom’s wedding ring, which Paloma insisted she wear despite the fact that her fingers swell in downward dog, digs into my hands.

  My mom delivers her speech and it seems to go off without a hitch. I echo it in my head, and make a mental note not to mouth the words along with her. This is supposed to seem impromptu, and ever the actress, my mom throws in a few casual umms and thoughtful looks into the distance so as to appear she’s coming up with the words on the spot. Just as she’s about to deliver her trademark line at the end, she stops, because she notices Paloma pushing her way through the crowd and signaling to cut it short.

  The reporters shout questions into the void—Will you serve time? Why did you do it? Chloe, are you mad at your mom?—as we move toward Paloma’s outstretched arms, her nails spiking at the ends. For the first time in my life I’m relieved to see her; she will use her Jedi superpowers to get us out of here.

  “What do you have to say about the additional charges against you that came down in the last hour?” My head jerks up. I can’t see who is asking, if it’s a real journalist or a tabloid. I’d expected only TMZ here or E!, but there are news trucks lined up the street with legitimate letters along their sides: ABC News, CNN, MSNBC.

  My mother’s phone is currently buried deep in her bag and powered down. 9021-OM has a strict no-cell policy, so I didn’t even bother to bring mine. What have we missed?

  “Conspiracy to commit fraud and money laundering are pretty serious allegations. Each count alone is twenty years. Do you now wish you had pled guilty?” the reporter continues.

  My mother looks up and for a split second I see the fear on her face, a blast of tightness so quick I doubt the camera caught it, and then the actress Joy Fields clicks back into place.

  “Thanks, y’all. You’re the bestest,” she says, with the trademark wink, and then Paloma ushers us into the back of a waiting SUV with tinted windows. Once inside, my mother crumbles.

  “I’m so sorry. I tried to get to you in time but there was traffic, goddamn LA, and I called the studio and they wouldn’t put me through, even when I told the twelve-year-old at the front desk it was an emergency. I tried everything.” Paloma, whose job it is to remain unruffled, looks distraught. She grabs my mother’s hands, and for a minute, Paloma seems like a human who cares about what is happening to my mother. Not like a PR cyborg.

  “More charges?” my mom asks, eyes watery, pupils gigantic. “So if I’m found guilty, that means even more time in prison. More than twenty years?”

  “I’m not a lawyer, but yeah, I think so. We can get Mr. Spence on the phone,” Paloma offers. She’s texting as she talks, probably some sort of SOS to her team. “Or Richard. We can call Richard.”

  “But he didn’t say anything about Chloe, right? They didn’t charge her?” my mom asks, and my stomach bottoms out. Until recently, I hadn’t realized terror was something solid, a physical weight to be borne, a desperate paddling to keep your head above water despite the persistence of gravity. I feel pressure in my chest and a dull humming in my ears. It’s a logical conclusion. If their goal is to break my mother, I’m the best and easiest route.

  “No, I don’t think so,” Paloma says, and I try to still my shaking bottom lip. My mom grabs my hand and kisses it.

  “It’s okay. We’re going to be okay, Chlo,” she says, and uses her inner elbow to swat hard at the tears coursing down her cheeks. I think about the power of telephoto lenses and the mechanics of tinted windows. Whether this scene will play out on television screens across the country tonight. If the world will see what I see: two broken people, a loving mother tending to her daughter, or if they will see something altogether different. Us getting what we deserve.

  I’ve turned so paranoid, for a second I wonder if this was Paloma’s plan after all—to reveal this moment, us at our most vulnerable and not the sturdier version in front of the yoga studio that preceded this. Nah. Even Paloma is not that diabolical. She’s recovered, though, and looks away from our emotion. Her AirPods are back in her ears, her eyes on her phone.

  “Can someone please text Carrie and let her know we need more ice cream?” my mom asks.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR

  Then

  Levi, Shola, and I lounge on oversized floats in the pool—a swan, a unicorn, and a flamingo, respectively—trailing our fingertips lazily in the water. It’s eighty degrees in early December, and though we’re supposed to be long past wildfire season, the hills up and down the coast are ablaze. The hint of smoke hangs in the air, like a distant barbecue, or a warning.

  “No one is talking to each other. Like Axl is super pissed at Simon, because he told his mom about the drinking thing, which he only did because he thought it was a funny story. He never thought his mom would call the freakin’ school and report it. And Simon is pissed at Axl, because I don’t even know why, and he’s like, ‘Even if we both get into Penn, we’re totally not rooming together now,’ ” Levi says. His face has that fresh-from-Vail chap, and he’s mussed his wet hair into spikes. I wonder when I’m next going to get him alone. Since Thanksgiving break, he’s been either away snowboarding or with the fencing team on weekends, and his schedule is too packed for him to see me after school. I guess that’s the price you pay for a fighting chance of getting into a school like Harvard—you sacrifice innumerable opportunities to hook up with your ready and willing girlfriend.

  “Boring,” Shola says, sipping from the LaCroix she tucked into her float’s cupholder.

  “Weird question: Did you guys have to submit a photo with your college applications?” I ask. I’m wearing a two-piece black tankini that shows only a sliver of skin between top and bottom, though my mom suggested I borrow one of her sexy white suits that has full side cutouts and connects in the middle with a gold O. Even in this one, I feel naked and exposed, and I hold myself low in the bucket curve of the raft.

  “Of course not,” Shola says.

  “Not like a head shot or anything. Though I think we might have put one in my athletic profile, of me in my fencing gear,” Levi says, and then without even being discreet about it, he checks out my mother, who strides over in a tiny, hot-pink bikini, cell phone pressed to her ear.

  At least she didn’t wear her thong.

  “Right,” I say.

  “Hold on, Candy,” my mom says into the phone, and then she stops in front of me. Her toes are also painted a hot pink, and she wears a thin ankle bracelet and the sort of leather sandal you’d imagine came from a beach vendor in Mallorca, though they really came from Barneys. Her face is swallowed by enormous sunglasses and a giant straw hat—my mother takes no chances with sun damage. My guess is that the swimsuit and accessories and shoes and even the nail polish were all bundled together in her closet and labeled pool day by her stylist. “Sweetheart, don’t forget we have a conference call with Dr. Wilson in half an hour.”

  “I couldn’t forget if I wanted to. Carrie put five different alarm reminders on my calendar,” I say, and blow out a puff of air. Most of the time, I’m happy to be the daughter of Joy Fields, and for all the privileges that come along with it. Today, I’d prefer she took herself elsewhere.

 
“Thank God for Carrie,” she says, and then into the phone: “Thanks again for the Dr. Wilson reco. That man’s a miracle worker.”

  “Who’s Dr. Wilson?” Shola asks after my mother has finally walked away. My mom lounges on the opposite end of the pool, far enough away that we can’t hear her chatting away to Aunt Candy, but close enough that we can see the long expanse of her tanned legs. “You okay?” Shola asks, redirecting my attention. She drops her voice to a whisper so Levi can’t hear. “Is this about your ladyparts?”

  “My ladyparts are fine, thank you very much,” I whisper back. Then in my normal voice: “He’s my college admissions counselor.”

  “Isn’t Mrs. Oh everyone’s college admissions counselor?” Shola asks.

  “Yeah, but my parents hired him privately. To help ‘package’ me.” I do gross air quotes and roll my eyes, to signal to her that I realize the whole thing is ridiculous.

  “Do you have one too?” Shola asks Levi, her voice turning up in panic. “I thought Wood Valley recommends against them.”

  “I’m using the lady my sister used when she applied to Harvard,” Levi says. “She’s the one who suggested I take up fencing a few years ago, because it’s one of those sports that’s not available everywhere.”

  “Your sister goes to Harvard?” Shola repeats. Although she likes Levi the person, because everyone likes Levi the person, she hates Levi the applicant. She calls him “an admission officer’s wet dream.”

  “Went. She graduated last year,” Levi says.

  “So is this another one of those things everyone does and no one talks about? Everyone pays for a private college counselor even though we are not supposed to?” Shola asks.

  “Not everyone,” I say.

  “This feels like the time I found out all those summer community service programs you guys do cost thousands of dollars, when you could, like, drive fifteen minutes to Skid Row for free,” Shola says.

  “Hey, I don’t pay to work at the RRC,” I say defensively.

  “Didn’t your parents give a giant donation last year?” Shola asks, and I regret telling her this fact, which, for the record, wasn’t some quid pro quo to let me volunteer, but something I was genuinely proud of. Because of my parents, the Reading and Resource Center was able to hire another full-time coordinator and triple the number of new books in their library. “Sorry, that came out wrong,” Shola says.

  “My guy has that sleazy-car-salesman vibe. I kind of hate him.” I paddle over to her so that our rafts are side by side. “You would definitely hate him. But, Shols, don’t worry. You don’t need some idiot holding your hand. You’re going to get in everywhere.”

  “I really wish you’d stop saying that,” Shola says, and when she gently pushes my flamingo away from her unicorn, I pretend not to notice.

  * * *

  —

  “Great job on that essay, Chloe! Really unique perspective on your mom’s career,” Dr. Wilson says over the phone half an hour later. I’m in my bedroom, wrapped in a towel, while both of my parents are also on the line downstairs in my dad’s office. I bet my mother is still in her bikini. Thank God we aren’t on FaceTime.

  “I appreciate that but I switched essays, remember? I wrote instead about discovering who I am in college?”

  “Right, right, forgive me, of course. Yes, loved the new one. Even better than the one before. More honest,” he says. “The real you.”

  Dr. Wilson is presumably somewhere on the East Coast, though for the life of me I can’t remember where. Connecticut, maybe. I picture him outside, perhaps on the veranda of a country club, a gin and tonic in hand, a sweater tied daintily around his shoulders. Then I remember it’s December and likely cold. I revise the image in my mind’s eye. He’s by a fire in a fancy lodge sipping bourbon. He’s the kind of jerk who would wear loafers, without socks, and I bet when he goes on vacation, he shoots large animals and calls it a sport.

  “Thanks,” I mumble.

  “We’re all systems go at this point. I just need your common app log on,” he says.

  “Why?”

  “Because it’s my job to make sure this all goes off without a hitch. That all the proper paperwork is in, all the boxes checked. I’ve learned from experience that it’s best if I do it myself,” he says. I hate his condescending tone, the insinuation that I can’t manage to get my own applications in without somehow screwing it up.

  “But it’s done,” I say. “All I really need to do is press submit. I was waiting for the final go-ahead from you.”

  “Chloe,” my mom says in her warning tone, the one that means stop being a pain in the ass.

  “This is how everyone does it. I do the final send-off. That way I can sleep at night knowing we made every deadline. Senior year at Wood Valley is no joke. Let me take this small thing off your plate,” Dr. Wilson says. I don’t bother arguing, because I see no harm in it. Maybe he’ll have better mojo somehow.

  “Okay, just please make sure you have the right essay,” I say, and then give him my password.

  “Of course,” he says.

  “So, wait, does that mean I’m done? Like done-done? I’ve officially applied to college?”

  “Yup. I’ll email you confirmation tomorrow morning when everything has been sent in, but yeah. You wait for the acceptances to roll in,” he says, and I snort. Despite all the professional help and the SAT bump, none of us believe I’ll have a large number of schools to choose from. My list, as Mrs. Oh has pointed out innumerable times, is full of mostly reaches. “You worked hard, Chloe. You should be proud of yourself.”

  “Thanks,” I say, accepting a compliment I’m not sure I deserve. I sometimes think about what would have happened had I put in the hours over the last few years on my schoolwork, like Levi and Shola obviously do. I decide not to dwell on that. As our meditation teacher taught me, no need to stress about that which we cannot change.

  “You can hang up and get back to your Saturday afternoon. I have some bookkeeping stuff to handle with your mom and dad,” Dr. Wilson says.

  “All right, thanks again.” I tap the phone, as if to hang up, and then on impulse decide instead to continue listening. I’m not sure why. Maybe residual anger at my mother for flaunting her bikini in front of Levi? (Is it flaunting when that’s how you look? Isn’t my mother allowed to wear a bathing suit?) Or perhaps Dr. Wilson’s casual dismissal chafed? Like I’m not central to this process.

  “So yeah,” Dr. Wilson says. “It’s two hundred fifty k now, and two fifty on acceptance.”

  I assume I’ve misheard him. Two hundred and fifty thousand dollars? That can’t be right. That’s what k means, though, right? Thousands?

  Are they talking about payments?

  I’m not great at math, but that’s more than double four years’ tuition at a place like SCC. Dr. Wilson hasn’t really been much of what my dad calls a “value add.” It’s not that hard to push the submit button on the common application. Even if he wrote the entire thing himself, which of course he didn’t, five hundred thousand dollars? I feel sick.

  “We make the checks out to that Horizons Unite and Cares International, right?” my dad asks.

  “Yes. The underprivileged children thank you,” Dr. Wilson says, and barks a laugh, which my parents awkwardly echo. “Plus, it’s totally tax deductible.”

  That makes a whole lot more sense—my parents making a charitable donation—though it is far larger than what they normally give, and I don’t understand why any of it’s funny. Or why it would be conditional on my acceptance.

  Just two weeks ago, my parents had a fight about buying a table at yet another fund-raiser Aunt Candy was throwing in San Francisco. The buy-in then was twenty grand. I know this because my dad kept repeating it over and over again: Twenty grand, Joy, twenty grand. That ain’t peanuts, especially for something to blow smoke up Candy’s ass. W
e just gave to Chloe’s reading thing. We’re not like Charles. I’ve done the math. His money is so busy making money that, literally, when he pees he makes twenty grand.

  I know my parents are, relatively speaking, well-off. Most people might see us as rich. But we aren’t rich-rich. We aren’t Aunt Candy rich. Or even Xander’s family rich. We don’t have homes scattered around the globe or a private jet or a yacht. Why would they write a five-hundred-thousand-dollar check to Dr. Wilson’s charity?

  That’s half a million dollars.

  It makes no sense. I decide I must have misheard them. My head swims as I tune back in to the conversation.

  “Nothing warms the cockles of my heart like the words tax deductible,” my dad says, and this time my mom delivers her on-camera version of a laugh, which sounds like a box opened, an explosion of confetti. I can picture how she must look too—her eyes wide, white teeth gleaming, her neck pale and exposed, the delight of a mom seeing her toddler after a long day of work. A magazine once remarked that my mother had a Katharine Hepburn laugh, and I know back in New Jersey, when she was a waitress-slash-actress, she’d watch old movies and re-recite the lines because she couldn’t afford acting classes. I bet she sat in front of a mirror and perfected that laugh, just as she perfected crying on cue, and the one-two punch line on sitcoms.

  I think: What the hell is going on?