“Ilove Gilmore Girls,”says Nicola, right on cue.
Usually Juliana stops there. But there’s something about Nicola’s warm, open face, her ready smile, that makes Juliana keep talking. (Is it possible that Juliana, in high school too lonely and bewildered, in college too socially marginalized and later too driven, too busy for real female friendships, is making anew friend?) “I thought when I got to college I’d finally be on equal ground with everyone else, you know? Because we wereallthere without our parents. We wereallbeginning our adult lives. But it wasn’t like that. It wasn’t like that at all. I don’t think I realized how it all worked...”
Nicola is nodding slowly, chewing, nodding some more. It seems like she might actually get it, and she’s looking at Juliana with a face so full ofunderstandingthat it almost makes Juliana want to cry. “Yeah. I totally see what you’re saying.”
They both let those sentiments lift and settle around them, and then Juliana finds herself saying, “But having acknowledged that, I got a lot out of my education. A lot. I’m the only person from my class with a company about to go public.” She pauses, checks herself. What is shedoing?Has she completely lost her mind? She’s not supposed to talk about this with someone she’s just met. “That’s notpublic knowledge yet. It’s just rumors, for now. So if you don’t mind keeping that to yourself...”
“Oh, don’t worry about me,” says Nicola. “I’m not into gossip. Or fashion.” She gestures to herself; she’s wearing cutoffs and a T-shirt that saysSKIP A STRAW, SAVE A TURTLE. “Obviously.”
One visit to LookBook and Nicola could change that, if she wanted, thinks Juliana. Maybe she’ll offer Nicola a friends and family code. She’d look amazing in a smocked maxi dress, and Juliana would bet she’s never even tried one on.
“The way I grew up,” continues Nicola, “high fashion was like if you went to Target when they put out a new bathing suit line and you could convince your mom to get you one so you could match with your middle school friends.” (Target would have been downright fancy for Juliana in middle school, but she doesn’t say that.) “My whole family is low-maintenance like that,” Nicola adds. She seems to pause to consider and Juliana waits, metaphorically sitting on her hands so she doesn’t raise one out of turn. “Except for one. My cousin David. He married into money. Like, a lot of money. He knows LookBook! In fact, he was shocked when he heard you’re my neighbor. He lives here, on the island, in the summer. He’s the reason I have use of the cottage. Well, his wife is.”
Juliana can feel the blood pulsing to her heart, to her cheeks. She tries not to overreact. She says, “Isn’t that funny.” Acting like it’s no big deal. Lots of people know her company! She can’t say anything more. She’s already shared too much about herself, more than she meant to share, even if she didn’t let Nicola get all the way to the core, where the most naked truths lie. She hadn’t expected Nicola to be so nice, so willing to listen, sointerestedin All Things Juliana. She hadn’t planned to roll over, reveal her soft and tender underbelly. Usually it took much longer than this for Juliana to trust someone.
The bill comes and they both grab for it. “No! You just had me at your party. It’s my turn.” Nicola says this sternly, midwesternly,the accent popping through again, the upward tone at the end of the sentence, the emphasis on therinturn.
“Absolutely not,” says Juliana. “Nope. I told you at the beginning, my treat.” Almost, she comes out with the rest of it right then and there, cuts out the middleman. But she’s already spoken to Jack; the middleman is in place; she shouldn’t muddy the waters by changing the plan.
Deep breath, keep moving, don’t stop.
“Anyway,” she goes on. “I might need a favor from you someday.”
“From me?”
“Yes.”
Nicola squints at her and says, “I can’t imagine whatIcould do foryou.” Juliana produces what she hopes is a Mona Lisa smile, serene and enigmatic.“But, here, give me your phone. I’ll put my number in. Text me with yours.”
Juliana does this, and when Nicola hands her back the phone she feels a childlike thrill. She had planned on this trip to take Nicola’s measure, to see how Nicola might react when Jack Baker talks to her. But maybe in the process she’s done something unexpected: maybe she’s made a new friend.
As they wind their way through the tables and out to the mopeds, what Juliana notices more than anything else, what she’s really been noticing the whole time, is that Nicola moves through the world like someone who’s loved by a lot of people. It would be easy to hate her for that. But if Juliana played by those rules, she’d have so many people to hate.
***
When Jade learned that she was the recipient of a full scholarship to Boston College, the first person she told was her guidance counselor, Ms. Morin, who had shepherded her through the college application process, and who had also found money for the application feesin a mysterious “PTO fund” that Jade suspected was actually Ms. Morin’s own bank account. She helped Jade fill out a FAFSA; she helped her set up a Naviance account to track her applications; she showed her how to do virtual tours on the websites of the colleges she couldn’t visit in person—which was all the colleges, because how was Jade supposed to get to college visits when there were days she could hardly get to high school? When Jade needed a quiet place to concentrate on her applications—and she wouldn’t find this at home, that was for sure, not at foster home number nine—she sometimes sat in Ms. Morin’s office, at a small table in the corner, listening to the tap tap tap of Ms. Morin’s hands on her own keyboard and occasionally her conversations with her husband or children about what was for dinner or whose turn it was to unload the dishwasher.
I’ll unload the dishwasher!Jade wanted to say.Take me in, I’ll unload all the dishwashers forever!
But of course you can’t say that.
One day in late November, staring at the supplemental essays required for her application to the University of Massachusetts, Jade felt a weight on her shoulders and neck so heavy she suddenly could hardly move. Her chest felt tight; her arms were tingling; the words on the screen in front of her began to blur. “I can’t do it,” she said.
Ms. Morin turned from her own screen, startled. “Why not?”
“It’s all impossible. I’m not meant for college.”
Ms. Morin set her lips in a tight line. “Trust me. Nobody is more meant for college than you are.”
“But there are so many steps.” Ms. Morin didn’t understand. Jade shook her head. “I mean, so I get in somewhere, right? Then what? I can’t pay for it. I know we filled out the forms, but—it’s so much money. Those forms don’t get you all the money, and I need all the money.”
Ms. Morin pushed her chair back from her desk and stood up so fast Jade thought she was going to knock over her computer.
“Uh-uh,” said Ms. Morin. “Nope. Absolutely not. I will not hear that from you.” Jade had heard her talk this sternly only one time before, when her children called to tell her that they’d broken a vase Ms. Morin and her husband had gotten as a wedding present. “There’s scholarship money all over this planet if you look hard enough, if you value yourself enough. Might not be to your first choice. Might be to some school you’ve never heard of. But you are valedictorian of this class, Jade Gordon, and no valedictorian inmy school”—she said this as though she personally owned the school, even though it was public and she was not even vice principal, never mind principal—“no valedictorian inmy schoolis going to fail to go to college. You hear me?”
I guess this is what they mean when they say tough love, thought Jade. Didn’t feel as nice as gentle love probably felt, but given the choice between the tough kind and no love at all she’d take it.
So when shedidget the money, and when itwasto a school she had not only heard of but dreamed of attending, her first call was to Ms. Morin. Who was she kidding? Heronlycall was to Ms. Morin. Ms. Morinscreamed. Jade heard her telling whoever was in the room with her that it was okay, it was happy screaming. Then she returned to the call with Jade and said, “You’re going to college, girlfriend. You, Jade Gordon, are going to college.”
