“What was that. I can’t hear you.”
Etta replies in a small voice, “Yes, that’s right Mama, but I still have a chance of getting in. The interviews aren’t required, they’re optional.”
“Oh, yes, I know. BUT any student who WANTS to go to Duke does everything in their power to make sure they have an alumni interview. Only uninterested, unqualified applicants are stupid enough not to have an interview.” At this point I need to calm myself down, ’cause I’m getting heated. “It’s called ‘building your admissions case,’ of which you now have none. So now you have not only disqualified yourself from any kind of early college action or decision due to your juvenile first round of essays, but now we can also cross Duke off your college list.”
“I never put Duke on the list, you did.”
“Excuse me?” My voice is rising, again. I’m no longer accountable for what may happen.
“She said it was you, not her, who put Duke on her college list,” Jean Georges offers snidely.
“Director Martin, yet again, you’ve offered unsolicited counsel toour family. This coffee date is over. Etta, get your backpack, we’re heading home to review how you have successfully managed, before even graduating from high school, to narrow your life choices. That’s something even I didn’t do.” I swivel my neck to glare at my next target. “And you, Director Martin, go find another ballet protégé to lead astray ’cause I swear I’ve never laid hands on a soul in my life... don’t you be the first.”
“Au revoir, Etta,” Jean Georges says, standing to pick up his fedora and meticulously place it on his head. “Her ballet arrangement for Juilliard is incredible, Josie. Just remember, it’s human nature to put effort into the things we really care about, the things we really want. Be the mother who knows what’s best for her daughter because she knows who her daughter is down deep in her core and what it is she wants most out of life.” Swiftly Jean Georges pivots on his toes and heads out the door, leaving me with my lying teenage prima ballerina.
Etta would have looked so good in Blue Devil blue.
TWENTY
FROM:Josephine Bordelon
DATE:February 18, 2019
SUBJECT:My aunt, Vivian Bordelon
TO:Beatrice Pembrook
Dear Beatrice,
I hope this e-mail finds you happy and healthy and enjoying our beautiful weather. If I remember correctly, Dash finished law school and is now working in Boston. He must be enjoying the city; it’s a fun place to be in your twenties.
I’m not sure if you’ve heard, but my aunt Viv is celebrating her 50th year at Fairchild School. While Nan has been kind enough to plan the Viva la Viv party for her (I hope you and Ethan will be able to make it), there’s one specific thing Aunt Viv would like most to commemorate her fifty years at the school.
I looked at Aunt Viv’s finances and between the two of us we can put together $1,000 a year to contribute to a Vivian Bordelon tuition assistance scholarship to support a single parent who is applying their rising kindergartener to Fairchild. The school was so generous to Aunt Viv when she was raising me. Then, a generation later, the school stepped up and has been equally kind as Aunt Viv and I have raised Etta. Aunt Viv would like to pay it forward to another parent who is working hard to do it all on their own and wants to provide an education of a lifetime for their child. I am hoping to start the Vivian Bordelon Scholarship.
One thousand dollars a year is not going to make much headway in a tuition payment. I’m writing to ask, with great humility as I know you have already been overly generous with Fairchild, if you would be willing to do any sort of match with us to help me bring Aunt Viv’s scholarship closer to life. Again, I know this is an unusual ask and one that under other circumstances would come from the head of school, but given that this is my aunt Viv, I would like to establish the scholarship myself.
This is a surprise to reveal to my aunt Viv at her party so please keep my request between the two of us. I thank you for considering a $1,000 matching donation and if you are unable to make a gift at this time but have some advice on how I may go forward trying to build the Vivian Bordelon Scholarship, I would greatly appreciate it.
Warm regards,
Josie Bordelon
DIRECTOR OF ADMISSIONS
FAIRCHILD COUNTRY DAY SCHOOL
My finger hovers over the send icon knowing when Nan gets wind of me going around her to ask Beatrice Pembrook to fund a scholarship in honor of Aunt Viv, she’s going to hit the roof. Nan is the monarch of our small nation, but all the buildings and portraits occupying her land feature men who have instrumentally forwarded the mission of the school. NEVER would Nan allow the first female publicly named anything on the Fairchild campus be for a woman other than herself, particularly not for a cook. Her story will be one of a woman who played with the big boys at Fairchild—and won. If I hit send, Nan will see my e-mail as a complete and total act of insubordination and toying with her legacy. If I don’t hit send, Aunt Viv will think I was blowin’ smoke at her request. It’s an ugly choice either way.
Send.
I mumble a small prayer, asking whoever is up there listening to make sure Nan doesn’t learn about the scholarship before the one minute she has allotted for my remarks at Aunt Viv’s party. Fifty-nine seconds is long enough to present Aunt Viv with the surprise scholarship as long as I talk quickly and take minimal breaths.
Nan has made it clear since the beginning of her tenure that only she and the director of development can approach the monied families of Fairchild to ask for cash to fund a project. And if it’s the director of development who does the bidding, Nan still gets credit. Nan has always held the Fairchild purse strings tight and I imagine Beatrice is on her short personal ask list for her STEAMS program or maybe an unnamed TBD legacy project like a Gooding Art Gallery. I know if the Vivian Bordelon Scholarship takes a dime from any Nan initiative I’m toast at Fairchild. Hell, I may be toast at the school simply for not telling Nan that I’m doing this, but if I don’t get the scholarship up and running as I promised Aunt Viv, I’m toast at home. Rock, meet hard place.
I’m momentarily drunk with power from sending one e-mail. I’msick of Nan man-, well, woman-handling commemorating Aunt Viv’s fifty years of dedication to Fairchild when she has only been around a small fraction of that time. Really, I’m just sick of Nan and her disregard for the hard work of everyone at Fairchild. Yes, me included. I want ownership back over the Bordelon destiny. I want...
Ding.Shit! Is that Nan already? How does she know?
