I can’t help but wonder how much one needs to detoxify prior to a colonic. Doesn’t that completely clean you out? But I know it will serve me well to accept her offer and not ask too many questions.
“Yes, I would love to try your tea, thank you.” I fill our cups with water and carry them over to the coffee table, so we can sit down and get started. Before Meredith drops the two tea bags, which smell like rancid garden fertilizer, into our cups she chants something vaguely Hindi under her breath.
“Do you mind if I leave the door open a crack, so Beatrice will feel comfortable walking right in when she gets here?” Meredith asks once her tea ceremony is over. Not waiting for an answer, she opens the door. “Christopher so wishes he could be here, but his company is opening an office in Abu Dhabi, and he has to be there for a few weeks to get everything up and running. He invited me to join him, but I told him I absolutely cannot leave the States during admissions season, impossible.” Meredith is excitable as she talks, playing with her rings and wristwatch while checking the door every ten seconds. I notice she seems to lack the confidence that she will be enough tocarry the Lawton family interview. “I just don’t know what could be holding Beatrice up. She promised she would join me today in lieu of Christopher.”
“Well, since this meeting is aboutyourfamily, why don’t you start by telling me what activities you, Christopher, and Harrison enjoy doing together?”
Meredith is momentarily put off by my disregard for Beatrice joining the interview, but then reconsiders and launches into the story about the first Lawton family vacation to Bali when Harrison was six months old. As the urban legend of the rich and well-traveled goes, he was swimming on his own in the resort pool and in that moment Christopher and Meredith considered contacting Michael Phelps’s head coach to find out the proper age to start training Harrison for the Olympics. He has continued to show swimming prowess, and they are currently lifting up the four-story mansion they just built and putting an indoor swimming pool underground, so Harrison has a place to train. I stare out the window and wonder why she can’t just take his butt down the hill to the YMCA for guppy swim team like a normal kid. I nod my head to encourage her to keep going... The Bay sparkling in the sun is one of the most beautiful sights on earth, a view I can lose myself in again and again. Or perhaps that’s not actually Mother Nature doing her best work; it’s just Meredith’s enormous diamond stud earrings reflecting off my windows.
•••
Etta and I are heading to the school parking lot when I hear Nan calling after me. I keep walking, not feeling up to engaging with her at the moment, but Etta, always kind, stops and waves.
Ignoring Etta, “Josie, was that Meredith Lawton I saw leaving the campus around lunchtime?” Nan huffs, a bit out of breath. I wouldhave thought those five-mile early morning runs she takes along the waterfront would be doing a little more for her cardiovascular system.
“Yes, it was. I had the Lawton parent interview today.”
“Remember, Josie, they’re on my list of for-sure acceptances. You cannot, under any circumstances, blow this for me. For Fairchild. The Fairchild community needs the Lawtons. They will be integral to the capital campaign I’m launching next year to build the new STEAMS building.”
“What’s the S at the end for?” I ask, genuinely curious. Schools all over the country are building STEM and STEAM facilities, but STEAMS is new to me.
“Science, Technology, Engineering, Art, Math, and Social Responsibility. Being a school in the Bay Area, the technological epicenter of the world, it is never too early to grow a new type of generation: a Larry Ellison meets Al Gore type. I want to make sure we are the first STEAMS school in the country because this is my brain baby and I want to be recognized for, I mean, I want Fairchild to be recognized for it. The project must start next year, and I need the Lawtons to lead the campaign effort.”
I have to give it to Nan; sometimes her insecurity and need to win at all costs does lead to great thinking and fast action. I decide to throw her a bone and make her afternoon.
“Nan, that’s truly brilliant. You’ll make my admissions job so easy with a STEAMS facility; everyone will be begging to come to Fairchild. Well done.” I wear a look of mock amazement knowing she will thrive on the facial as well as verbal adulation.
“Well, everyone already wants to come to Fairchild, but this will place us so far in front of the competition that I’m sure the National Association of Independent Schools will want me to be the keynote speaker at an annual conference in the next year or two. It is a brilliant idea, isn’t it? This is why they pay me the big bucks, Josie.” Nanbeams and points to her brain. I stand motionless. When I don’t agree with her she turns to head back into the building.
I might have actually meant the compliment I dished out if she could have just said, “Thank you” and left it at that.
THIRTEEN
FROM:Krista McCann
DATE:November 12, 2018
SUBJECT:Etta’s college essays
TO:Josephine Bordelon
Hey, Josie,
Well, no easy way to say this, but I know you like things told to you straight so here it is... Etta’s essays suck. There’s no way she can send these to Dartmouth and Cornell early decision (or any school for that matter, that’s how bad they are). And there’s no time to fix them since they are due in two days. Actually, there’s nothing to fix; she needs to scrap them and start over for regular decision. I think you and Etta need to meet with me today after school. Can you guys swing by before ballet?
Please try not to kill Etta between now and 3:00 p.m. I’m sure she has a good explanation.
See you later,
Krista
DIRECTOR OF COLLEGE COUNSELING
FAIRCHILD COUNTRY DAY SCHOOL
Deep breath. Even I need some of that namaste, crystals, and higher-power voodoo right now to keep me from marching into Etta’s first block Calculus II class and dragging her bony booty out by her ballet bun. What has gotten into that child? Krista was so nice to offer to read Etta’s admissions essays last minute. The school rule is that college counselors need a minimum two-week lead with each essay before it’s due or it’s a no-go on feedback. Krista made an exception for Etta, and I made sure Etta knew that Krista had gone above and beyond by reviewing her essays this late in the game. Etta insisted that though she was late with her essays, everything was under control. And I believed her because she has had everything under control for her whole life.
When Etta was working on her essays I tried everything I could think of to let her know I was available to help. I folded laundry in her room while she was on her computer. I made her bed while she was on the common application website. I was even so brave as to ask her straight up if she would like my help with her applications. That was a terrible idea. I was met with stone-cold silence and then a surprising teenage tantrum that started with, “You don’t think I can do anything right! You’ve never believed in me!” and ended with a heartwarming declaration of, “YOU ARE THE WORST MOTHER EVER!!” If Etta had ever talked to me like that in the past I would have grabbed a duffel bag, stuffed her clothes in it, thrown it on the front stoop, and told her not to let the doorknob hit her in the ass on the way out. But against all instincts I bit my lip, gave her a dark stare that said,One more word out of you and your life will be over in thirtyseconds or less, and walked out of her room. Or really my room, she is simply a boarder on a fourteen-year lease—payment due immediately if she does not change her attitude and get these applications in on time.
