“Forgive me,” said Benedita. “I enter your log-in and then your password. I know them.”
“Greer123,” said Alby, and over to the side Cory could see Greer’s pleased expression. He ought to have been furious with his mother for denying him his moment of reckoning, but he wasn’t. Also, she was so happy right now; both of his parents were. Tonight the news would be all over Fall River, and all over Portugal. “Harvard turned you down,” Alby continued breezily. “But who needs them, right?”
The crimson cake, baked alongside the others, just in case, was still in the kitchen, and would later be tossed in the trash. Benedita had spent the day baking with Aunt Maria, whose own son, Sab, wouldn’t be going to college. Out of all the cousins, Cory and Alby had long ago been pegged as the most academic ones. Cory had already proven himself in this way, and Alby was certainly going to follow, and most likely exceed, his older brother. The day they had discovered Alby could read was when, still a toddler, he’d been gazing at a box of Fruity Pebbles at the breakfast table, and in the clatter of the morning kitchen had quietly begun to whisper to himself, “Red 40, Yellow 6, BHA to help protect flavor.”
Now Cory would have to pick between Yale and Princeton. A bulldog or a tiger: what a decision. If he went to Yale, he and Greer would be together. So really, it wasn’t a decision at all. Yale was where he would go. Greer and Cory sat at the kitchen table eating slices of different-colored cake, both of which tasted identical on the tongue. No one in the world had ever eaten sheet cake for taste, only for celebration. “Greer got into Yale too,” Cory told his family, and they exclaimed politely over her success.
“Full ride?” Alby asked.
“I didn’t look yet. I was so excited.” Greer stood up from the table. “I have to go home and see.”
“I’ll come,” Cory said.
Back at the Kadetsky house, they found Greer’s parents staring at the computer. “Shit,” her father said as they approached. “This is not going to work.”
“What are you talking about?” Greer said.
“The aid package.” He sighed heavily and shook his head.
Suddenly Cory understood the whole thing; it revealed itself before him, sickeningly.
“What?” Greer said, still not getting it.
“We can’t swing it,” said Rob. “They were extremely stingy with us, Greer.”
“But how can that be?” she asked. She and Cory examined the paragraph about the “amount of award.” The next paragraph said something like, “Given that you did not choose to provide the appropriate information and documentation . . . ,” and then went on to apologetically say that Yale could only offer so much and no more. The amount it had offered was a token. Apparently Rob, who had volunteered to handle the financial aid forms, hadn’t actually completed them. He had left out parts that had seemed too complicated, or else too intrusive. Rob explained this calmly but haltingly now.
“I’m so sorry, Greer,” he said. “I didn’t know it would have this effect.”
“You didn’t know?”
“I thought they would come back to us—the financial aid people—and say they needed more information. I filled out what I could, and then it got to be too much, and I got pissed off at how much they wanted from me, answers I didn’t know, and would have to go digging around for, and I guess I did a half-assed job.” He paused, shaking his head. “That’s what I do,” he said. “That’s what I always do.”
Laurel picked up a letter that was lying on the table. “There’s one more thing, though. One more place. I just went and got the mail. Ryland,” she said.
“What?”
“You got in! They offered you a really extraordinary package. Room, board, even spending money. I was worried you’d be upset about Yale, so I opened it. This solves the problem.”
“Right, Ryland,” Greer said with sarcasm. “My safety school. Where my guidance counselor made me apply. A school for dummies.”
“That’s not true. And don’t you want to see the letter? You won something called the Ryland Scholarship for Academic Excellence. It has nothing to do with finances, it’s only based on merit.”
“I don’t actually care.”
“I know you’re upset,” Laurel said. “Dad fucked up,” she added, giving Rob a sharp, furious look, and then her face grew pinched and she began to cry.
“Laurel, I thought they would come back and ask for the information again later,” Rob repeated, and he came and stood beside his wife, starting to cry too. Both of Greer’s parents, these hapless, slightly unruly-looking people, were crying together and hugging each other, while Greer sat with Cory at the table with her hands in fists. Cory thought about how your parents brought you into the world, and you were supposed to stay close to them, or at least near them, until the moment when you had to swerve away. This, now, was Greer’s swerve. He was witnessing it in action. He reached across and grabbed her hands and opened them. She relented, let his fingers wind together with hers. His own parents had filled out the financial aid forms perfectly, intimidated, while Cory guided them. He had bossed his parents around, telling them what to fill in on every single line. His parents were innocents, but they had done the right thing, while Greer’s parents, who should have known better, hadn’t.
“But look,” Laurel went on. “We have to move forward now. And this Ryland scholarship is pretty amazing. You’ll do fine. You and Cory both will. You’re both so smart. You know how I think of you two? How I picture you? Like twin rocket ships.”
Greer didn’t even respond. She looked at Cory and said, “Maybe I can call Yale.” So he and Greer went upstairs to her room to make the call. First Greer was put on hold, and finally a harried woman answered. All in a rush Greer started to tell her tale of anguish while Cory sat on the bed beside her. Greer’s voice was soft and unclear, even in this moment of urgency. He’d never understood this about her. He himself was certainly imperfect—defensive, sometimes condescending—but at least he could speak up without anxiety, and his voice came out easily. “I . . . the forms weren’t really . . . and my dad said . . . ,” he heard Greer say. He wanted to tell her, Say what you mean! Speak up, girl!
“I’m sorry,” the woman finally interrupted. “The financial aid decisions have already been made.”
“Okay, I understand,” Greer said quickly, and then she hung up. “Maybe my parents could call,” she said to Cory.
“Go ask them,” he said. “Tell them it’s important to you. Say it in a serious voice, like you mean business.”
So they went back downstairs, and she approached her parents and said, “Would either of you call the office at Yale for me?”
Her mother just looked at her anxiously. “This is your father’s department,” she said. “I wouldn’t know what to say.”
“Didn’t you just call over there? What did they say to you?” Rob asked.
“They said the decisions were already made. But you could try,” Greer said. “You’re a parent. Maybe it would be different.”
“I can’t,” he said. “The bureaucracy of it all; it’s not for me.” He looked helplessly at Greer. “It’s just nothing I could do comfortably,” he added. Then, for emphasis, he said again, “I can’t.”
They actually weren’t going to try to help her, Cory saw with astonishment. He was witnessing a tableau of Greer’s entire childhood being enacted before him, and it created in him an intense fury, as well as a desire to protect Greer and love her harder.