The Admissions (22 page)

She snorted. “Yeah. That’s about all we agree on.”

He was momentarily thrown off balance by the venom in her voice. His little girl, sneering at him! “What’s that supposed to mean?”

It didn’t take long—three seconds, four. She turned the full force of her fury on him. “You expect me to do all of this!”

“All of what?” He was genuinely confused. He felt exposed, nearly naked.

“You expect me to be
perfect
at
everything.
To win every race, be first in everything. You always have. And you expect me to do it without any help. And you’re shocked when I can’t. Well, I can’t. Nobody can. So there.” Childishly, she stamped her foot. He almost laughed, except this wasn’t funny. None of this was funny.

“I do not—”

“Don’t think I couldn’t tell that you were disappointed about that race, the one that the Harvard coach was at.”

Gabe swallowed.

“Ha!” she said. “That’s why I didn’t tell you. If you could see your face now, how disappointed you look, how worried. You’re frantic.”

Carefully, Gabe rearranged his features, made them as neutral as possible. He said, “I’m not—”

“You are! Of course you are! I don’t know if the coach was there or if he wasn’t, and I don’t know if he was watching me or the girl from Novato or Henrietta Faulkner. Who knows. But I ran like crap, I think we can all agree on that. So that’s one more disappointment for you.”

“For me?”

“Yes, for you. You want me to go there so badly, Dad, it’s so obvious. That’s why I’m working so hard, that’s why I took the pills. That’s why.”

“But.” His voice came out smaller and altogether less manly than he wanted it to. “But
you
love Harvard.
You
want to go there.”

“How do I know if I want to go there? I never had a chance to decide. It’s
your
school that
you
went to that
you
picked for me that I never had any say in.” Her voice broke, and then recovered. “You don’t do that to Cecily, decide things for her like that. You don’t do it to Maya.”

Gabe couldn’t stop pacing, back and forth, back and forth, a lion in its den. Pacing was a way not to have to look directly at Angela—maybe not to have to absorb what she was saying. He said, “Cecily is only ten. She’s a long way from the SATs. Maya is seven!”

“You bought me a Harvard sweatshirt when I was two.”

Gabe nodded. This was true. Point to Angela. He tried another angle. “Cecily,” he said, “is a different person altogether. Our expectations for her are different. As they should be. And Maya is different from both of you. But let’s get back to the case in point, which is the fact that you stole prescription drugs. Something like this, it could
ruin
you. All this work you’ve done, all these years. Gone. Just like that.” He snapped his fingers. He had a very effective snap, louder and assertive. He’d honed that skill on the ranch, where it had come in handy in myriad ways.

Angela bent and peeled off her running socks. They were old and battered, gray from too much washing. Gabe felt exactly the same way as the socks looked. She tucked them into a neat little roll and put them on one of the kitchen stools. Her toenails were as short, as ravaged, as her fingernails. (Did she chew those too?) “Well, this is what it takes to get there, Dad, into your precious Harvard.”

Gabe winced. Then he thought about Abby, and about his job, and he winced harder.

“Maybe not when you went there, but now.
This is what it takes.
”

Even so. He was the father here. “You think so? You actually think you can convince me that that makes it okay to do something illegal? You think every person who is going to get admitted to Harvard this year is a felon?”

She evaded that question handily. He could see her working the angles in her mind. This kid was going to be a phenomenal businesswoman one day. Then she set her lips together, the pretty little lips with which she used to proffer a goodnight kiss from the safety of her princess comforter, and said, “You try it.”

Gabe said, “Huh?”

“I challenge you. Try for a month. Trying living in my shoes and see if you can do it. Do my homework for a week and see how that goes. Go to these practices, listen to the kids at school talk about their GPAs and their class ranks. All. Day. Long. Do it.”

“Don’t be ridiculous. I’m not going to—”

“One week! Kill yourself for one week, working for something you don’t even want.”

“We’re back to that again? This is now, officially, something you don’t want?”

“I don’t know if I want it. I don’t know! I never had a chance to figure it out! Like I said, it was all decided for me.”

Where was Nora? Gabe was foundering in this conversation. He cast a hopeful look at the driveway, wondering when she might turn up. Nada. Empty. Across the street Anna Fletcher was climbing into her Infiniti, sunglasses on. No kids with her; maybe the kids were with Alan.

“Let me ask you this, Dad. Why do you want me to go there so badly?”

Here was a question Angela had never asked him; he’d assumed, he supposed, that they all already knew the answer. But what was the answer? Did
he
know it? He wound his way through the bewildering maze his brain had become.

“Because,” he said finally. “It’s the best.”

Angela smiled: a knowing smile, not very sincere. The problem with having a smart child, he thought, as he had many times in the past seventeen years, is that they were more than able to outsmart you. “Technically,” said Angela, “by the way, according to
U.S. News and World Report,
Princeton is better.”

“Touché,” said Gabe. “It’s one of the best, then. And I want the best, or one of the best, for you. I always have, and I always will.”

“But,” said Angela, “why?”

“Because you deserve the best. You’re so smart, Angela. You work so hard. Your potential is limitless. So shouldn’t you be among other people like that? Shouldn’t you have the chance to spread your wings as far as they’ll go?”

“Why?”

This line of question was becoming borderline annoying; hadn’t Angela given up the
why why why
game at age three? It was highly unoriginal. She was better than this.

“So you can get a good job,” he said finally.

“Like yours?”

“I have a good job, yes. That I worked really hard to get, and that I work every single day to do well at. Every single day. So I don’t need you to teach me about hard work.”

“So you want me to go to Harvard
like you did
and get a job
like you have
so I can, what? Stress about living in an expensive city and struggle to buy a house and raise a kid who I can then put pressure on to do the exact same thing?”

Gabe stared at her. Put that way, it seemed an unappetizing choice. He didn’t answer; his energy was flagging. But it seemed that Angela had plenty for the both of them. She regained her seat at the island and considered Gabe. “Would you say that you, with your Harvard degree, are, say, happier than the guy who pumps gas at the Fuel and Save down the street?”

Gabe cleared his throat. “I don’t know that guy.”

“The one with the snake tattoos up his arms. Always wears a white T-shirt.”

“I don’t know,” said Gabe. “I don’t know him. But if you held a gun to my head, yes, I would say I probably am.”

“What about the rangers at Muir Woods? The nurses at Pacific Medical Center? The guy who blows our leaves?”

Gabe didn’t know what to say to any of this. Finally he said, “I don’t know.” Really, truly, what did any of them really know of other people’s happiness?

“When I look at you,” Angela said, “I don’t always see happy.”

Gabe shifted uncomfortably. “What do you see?”

“I see worry,” she went on. “I see stress.”

“It’s a stressful year,” he said. “Lots of pressure on everyone.”

“I know,” said Angela.
SMILE ALL DAY LONG
, the little Post-it notes had said. He had saved that one; he should pull it out, stick it back on his mirror. Might be helpful. Then he thought,
Damn it. She’s turning the tables on me.

He was struggling to find a way to turn them back when they heard the Audi pulling up outside. And gone, suddenly, was the confident negotiator, the CEO in training. Angela’s voice became tiny, childlike. She looked like a little broken bird. “Who are you going to tell? Are you going to tell Mom?”

“I don’t know. Yes. No. I don’t know.” He was genuinely perplexed. What good would it do to tell Nora at this point?

“What is Mrs. Fletcher going to do?”

“She said as long as you apologize, she won’t do anything. Won’t press charges. But you need to do it. You need to go over there as soon as she’s home and apologize. In person. Sincerely.”

“I will. I definitely will.” She put the hat back on, scooped the socks from the stool.

“And,” he said. “It wouldn’t hurt if you apologized to me too.”

“Oh! No, you’re right. I’m sorry, Daddy. I’m really sorry.”

She was halfway down the hall on the way back to her room when he heard her turn back. He was watching Cecily and Nora disembark from the Audi. Cecily held a giant paper bag from the hardware store with some official-looking metal tubing poking out of the top. Geez. What kind of science fair project were they in for this year? Last year they’d had to put up with a thorough swabbing of the kitchen counters and the toilet seats and even the inside of Gabe’s cheek so that Cecily could then grow batches of bacteria in little petri dishes.

“Dad?” said Angela. “Daddy? I didn’t mean it, what I said.”

“Which part?”

“I do want it. I do want to go there. I just—I just lost it back there.” She came all the way over to him, stood on her tiptoes, kissed his cheek. He didn’t even mind the sweat.

“You do?”

“I do.”

He felt his heart swell and then constrict as he watched her disappear back down the hallway.

He’d started this train, and now he couldn’t get off.

He watched from the window as Nora and Cecily carried their packages toward the side door.

It was all going to be all right.

Wasn’t it?

“Hey,” said Nora, handing him a bag, kicking off her shoes. “What’d we miss here?”

5:20 a.m.

Dear Marianne,

You didn’t tell Mom about what I told you about the Millers’ yard, did you? I didn’t think so. I knew you wouldn’t. You’ve always been such a good keeper of secrets.

You know, sometimes when I’m awake in the middle of the night it seems
almost
funny, what happened there. I mean, can you picture it? I was dressed like a burglar! I had a child’s backpack! I was ready to steal an endangered plant! Which is absolutely a crime.

And then I couldn’t even find the plant. I am not worth my salt, as a criminal. Marianne, your clients would be ashamed of me.

Thank goodness that housesitter was as nice as she was. I’m not sure I would have been, in her place. I promised her that when the Millers come back from Maui I’ll take Loretta Miller out for coffee and tell her everything. And by everything I mean a tale I will concoct that will not involve the fact that I was going to dig up the plant. I will paint it more like an exploratory mission, totally inappropriate, but not as illegal as it was going to be.

I think, if I play my cards right, I can keep from telling Arthur about it. If I do a really super good job with Loretta Miller. If I turn on the charm full-force. And I will be the best realtor he ever saw from here on in. I will find new buyers for the Watkins house if I have to scrape the pavement for them. I will make myself indispensable. I will prevail.

Do you think I can prevail, Marianne? I really, really want to prevail.

Cecily and Pinkie were bent over the iPad, their heads so close that if Cecily’s hair hadn’t been darker than Pinkie’s it would have been impossible to distinguish one from the other. They reminded Nora of sisters, of what she and Marianne must have looked like thousands of years ago, bent over the Monopoly board or a vigorous game of Clue. Marianne was aces at Clue—it was no wonder, really, that she’d gone into criminal justice. Nora constantly guessed Miss Scarlet, even when all evidence pointed to the contrary. She just didn’t trust the look of her.

“What are you girls doing?” asked Nora, flying through the living room on her way to the kitchen. Maddie had called in sick today, very inconvenient, so Nora had come home early from Sutton and Wainwright to collect Maya and the fourth graders at school—she had promised Cathy ages ago that Pinkie could have a playdate at their house.

“Nothing,” came Pinkie’s answer, and “Research,” came Cecily’s, or perhaps it was the other way around. They were basically the same person, so it was hard to tell.

Cecily was “taking a break” from Irish dance. She might go back after the holidays; she might not. She didn’t want to talk about it.

“Think of all the time you’ll have,” Nora had told her, even though it seemed to her like the wrong decision. “You’ll have your afternoons back.” Though, in truth, as the number of things to do had decreased, time itself had, unfairly, done the same. The Hawthorne family seemed to be exactly where they had always been, without enough hours in the day. It was the perplexing equation of the modern age.

Nora passed through again—she was trying to get ahead so that when Thanksgiving came she’d be able to take a couple of days and relax after the big day itself. Maybe with a book! Nora couldn’t remember the last time she’d read a full book, cover to cover. Maybe she’d finally get around to finding out what all the fuss was over
Gone Girl.
Grace from the office had lent it to Nora ages ago and Nora hadn’t even cracked it.

This time the girls had moved slightly apart from each other, the iPad on the table between them. Nora paused. “Is that the Golden Gate?”

“Yes.” Cecily placed her body slightly in front of the screen. “We’re supposed to do a report on a state landmark. Three pages.”

“What have you learned?”

“Opened on May 28, 1937,” reported Pinkie. “Six hundred thousand rivets in each tower.”

“We found a documentary. We’re renting it from iTunes, on your account. Is that okay? It’s just a rental, two ninety-nine.”

“Okay,” said Nora. “Sure. I’m glad you’re getting ahead of it.”