11
THERE
Wednesday, November 26, 2008
(the day before Thanksgiving)
You have already told us about yourself in the Common Application, the Short Answer, and the Personal Essay. Please tell us something about yourself that you believe we cannot learn elsewhere in your application.
I stare at my blinking cursor. I should be thrilled that the prompt is so vague. But what if everything about you is already covered “elsewhere in your application”? What if there’s nothing left to say?
“See, this is why I’m not Yale material,” I mutter. Why am I even doing this? Why am I filling out the application if I’m not going to apply?
I start typing. The Lure of the Ivy, by Abigail Barnes.
“There are those who have never wanted to go anywhere else,” I type, reading my words aloud as I go. “The moment they learned what college was, they set their sights on the Ivy League. Awed by its exclusivity, inspired by its excellence, enticed by its promise of a bigger and brighter future. I have never been one of those people. That is, until the Yale application packet arrived in my mailbox. It was that moment that I felt it: the Lure of the Ivy.”
I charge through another four hundred words, then reread what I’ve written. Definitely not what the Yale admissions committee is looking for, but that’s fine, since I’m not actually applying. If I wasn’t certain before, I am now. My own words convinced me. I’ll admit, when I saw that my SAT score was within the median, there was a moment—a millisecond—when I considered it. It’s hard not to be enticed by all that history and prestige. But that’s not a reason to apply.
And fear isn’t a reason not to.
I push this thought from my mind. Yes, the fact that the odds are stacked against me has intensified my conviction. Why shouldn’t it? Strong sense of self. That’s my thing. I know what I’m good at, and I stick to those things. What’s wrong with having a realistic grasp of my potential? It’s not like I’m resigned to mediocrity. I just know my limits.
Your limits or the edge of your comfort zone?
“Enough,” I mutter. I’m ready to stop thinking about this. I promised my mom that I wouldn’t make a hasty decision, and I haven’t. I’ve thought it through and come to a reasonable and rational conclusion. Yale is not for me. As if to make the point, I drag the “Yale Application” folder from my desktop to the trash where it belongs.
I don’t even know why I bothered filling it out. There’s a good chance I’ll hear from Northwestern today, and if I do, that will be that. Early Action decision letters were sent on November 20, and a bunch of people on the NU admissions blog have already gotten their acceptance email. Mine could arrive any minute. Just thinking about it makes me shaky. For the sixtieth time today, I click on my mailbox icon.
No new messages.
I wonder if Caitlin’s heard from Yale yet. Even though we haven’t spoken since our fight, I’m praying she gets in early. Thanks to Grandpa Oscar, it’s the only place she’s ever wanted to go. Unceremoniously, I pick up the phone and dial her number. Her voicemail picks up immediately.
“Hi, this is Caitlin. Leave me a message and I’ll call you back.” Beep.
I quickly hang up.
In twenty-eight days, I’ve called her twenty-eight times. Sometimes it rings a couple of times first. One time the line just went dead. Most of the time it goes straight to voicemail. I’m terrified of an in-person confrontation—I avoid her at school and stopped going to the frozen yogurt place we both love—but I’ve called her every single day since our fight. I’m not sure what I’d say to her if she ever picked up, but I keep calling anyway. Afraid of what it’ll mean if I stop. In my head, I know there’s a good chance our friendship is already beyond repair, but in my gut, I still believe there’s a scenario in which we move past this and go back to being Caitlin and Abby. The hardest part is knowing what to do in the meantime.
Time to get moving. The crew team’s first-ever pep rally picnic starts at noon, and I’m still all sweaty and windblown from practice this morning. Ever since my foot healed, Coach Schwartz has had me jogging with the team before practice and doing push-ups and crunches with them after, so I end up just as nasty as everyone else. Since I’m pretty close to pre-injury form, I thought about asking Coach P to let me run in the state cross-country meet this weekend, but decided that I couldn’t abandon my teammates for the Head of the Hooch. It’s the biggest regatta of the fall season. Coach wants us at the boathouse ten minutes before the picnic starts to hand out our boat assignments. Close to a dozen college recruiters will be there, so everyone is on edge—Josh in particular. This is the first (and only) time this season that scouts from the West Coast will see him row, so if he wants a crew scholarship to a PAC-10 school, Saturday is his make-or-break moment. Not that he has anything to worry about. Our star stroke hasn’t had an off day all season.
And, since we started dating, neither have I. The past twenty-six days have been like nothing I’ve ever experienced. Feast and famine. Fire and ice. My days break down into two categories: moments with Josh and moments without him. When I’m with him, my mind turns off. I don’t think. I don’t plan. I don’t worry. There’s no room for thoughts or plans or worries. Every space and crevice is stuffed with happiness, so full it feels like my soul might burst at the seams. Minutes speed by, rushing us to the next and then the next, until our time is up.
That’s when I’m with him. When I’m not, time slows down. Seconds crawl by. I watch the clock, counting the hours until I see him again, as I think and plan and worry. About him, about us, about the future. I replay our last kiss and try to plan for the next one. I wonder if he’s feeling what I do, simultaneously convinced that he can’t and he must. I worry about what it’ll be like to leave him, even though graduation is still six months away.
“You’re in love,” Mom said when I came home last Saturday night, clutching a giant blue teddy bear. Josh had taken me to the fair, where we’d shared cotton candy and ridden the rickety roller coaster, and he’d won me the biggest stuffed animal on the wall. Afterward, we went to our swing in Josh’s neighborhood, neither of us caring that the moon was too bright to see any stars. I could still taste his gum on my lips. Big Red. The kind he always chews.
“What?” I said, even though I’d heard her fine.
“You’re in love,” she repeated, her smile knowing and kind. “I’m glad.”
I blushed and looked away, not ready to acknowledge it, but not arguing with her either.
I’m in love.
“Abby!” I hear Mom call from downstairs, startling me back to the present. “Isn’t the picnic at noon?”
The party is about to begin when I arrive at the boathouse at quarter till. In the time since practice ended, the Brookside booster club has turned the boathouse grounds into a wonderland of blue and orange streamers and balloons. The Peppery Pig has set up shop under a huge tent in the shape of a Spartan’s helmet, giving the crisp autumn air that great charcoal-and-roasted-meat scent. I inhale deeply, relishing it.
My teammates are gathered around the picnic table closest to the river, munching on chips and dip while Coach hovers nearby, holding his ubiquitous clipboard. Josh, as usual, is the last to arrive. He’s never actually late, he just doesn’t show up until the precise time we’re supposed to meet. Class, practice, our dates. Always right on time.
At 11:49, his Jeep pulls into the parking lot. I smile as he comes down the hill. Untucked polo shirt, Converses replaced by canvas loafers. Hanging out with Tyler is clearly rubbing off on him. He’s also stopped parting his hair, and right now it’s damp and messy, like he got out of the shower and shook it.
As he gets closer, my mind quiets and everything gets brighter. The blue of the sky, the green of the pine needles, the yellow paint on the boathouse door. My teammates are talking, laughing, buzzing with adrenaline and caffeine, but they’ve become background noise. The Josh Effect.
“Okay, people,” Coach calls over the hum of chatter. “We only have a couple minutes before the crowd shows up.” The team gets quiet. “We’re mixing things up this week,” he announces. “In the stern, anyway. Megan, I’m moving you to the men’s B.” Megan’s jaw literally drops. She’s been coxing the 8A all season, and the buzz is she has a tentative offer from the College of Charleston, contingent on her performance on Saturday. When the COC coach sees that she’s been bumped from the A boat, he’s going to assume she did something to warrant it. “This isn’t meant to be a punishment,” Coach is saying to Megan. “I still want you on the women’s A. I just want to give Abby a shot at the men.”
Did he just say Abby?
Since Josh is currently grinning at me like the Cheshire cat, I assume the answer is yes. My hand shoots up.
“You don’t have to do that,” I blurt out. “Megan deserves to be in the A boat. It should be her, not me.” I flash a smile in Megan’s direction, but she doesn’t return it. Meanwhile, Josh is staring me down.
“I don’t have to do anything,” Coach snaps. “But last time I checked, I was the coach of this team. Which means I make the boat assignments. Not you. Not Megan.” I nod glumly. “The rest of the assignments are the same as last week,” he continues.
He drones on, but I stop listening. I’m coxing the 8A? At the Head of the Hooch? There’s no way that’s a good idea. Yes, I’ve gotten better at this, but I am not A boat material. I’m not even B boat material. Every Saturday I’m amazed that my shell makes it to the finish line without crashing into the riverbank.
“I’m preparing stat sheets for each of you to give to scouts on Saturday,” Coach says in conclusion, replacing the top sheet of his clipboard with a blank piece of paper. “So write down your email address before you go. And I better not see ‘crewgirl’ or ‘mrstroke’ or any of that shit. Like I said last week, college scouts are looking for mature rowers, not punk-ass kids. Okay, you’re dismissed.”
“‘It should be her, not me’?” Josh asks. “What was that about?”
I shrug. “She’s better than I am. And this matters more to her.”
“First of all, she’s not better than you. More experienced, maybe, but you’ve got better instincts. Second, impressing recruiters on Saturday could mean a crew scholarship. Or a leg up at a great school.”
“The only ‘great school’ I’m interested in going to is Northwestern,” I remind him. “And they don’t have a varsity team.”
“I know you’ve got your eyes on Northwestern. But the Ivies are always looking for rowers. Crew could be your way in.”
“I don’t want to go to an Ivy,” I snap. “I want to go to a school with a journalism program.”
“Doesn’t Columbia have one?”
“Not undergrad. Look, I get it that it’s most people’s dream to end up at Yale or Harvard or wherever. But that’s not what I want.”
Josh holds his hands up. “You won’t get any argument from me. If it’s not what you want, it’s not what you want. I thought you weren’t applying to those places because you thought you couldn’t get in, and I wanted to make sure you knew that rowing could be a way in. If that’s what you wanted,” he adds. “If it isn’t, it isn’t.”
“It isn’t,” I say firmly.
“Okay. So what about USC? A journalism program and a great rowing team.”
“Do you ever give up?” Did he just suggest I apply to USC? As amazing as things are between us, we haven’t gone down that road. There’s been no discussion of applying to the same schools, because we both know that would force one of us to forgo our top choice. I look at him, waiting for this conversation to become that conversation, but Josh just kisses me on the nose. “Hey, there’s Tyler.”
When I turn to greet him, Tyler doesn’t return my smile. He looks uncharacteristically glum.
“Is Caitlin coming?” I ask, even though I already know the answer. Caitlin hasn’t come to a single party or school-related event since our fight. She spends every evening and most weekends at the Tech astrophysics lab. At least, that’s what she’s told Ty every time he’s tried to make plans with her. He and Caitlin are still friends, but it’s different now that she knows how he feels about her. Complicated where it used to be so effortless. No wonder Caitlin’s been living at the lab, a place where order is imposed on chaos and not the other way around. It’s her escape from the havoc. A haven from Tyler’s searching eyes and my incessant calls.
“Haven’t talked to her,” he says, looking past me to Josh. “Let’s get some food while it’s hot.”
“So I have something to ask you,” Josh says as he’s walking me to my car, under the close watch of the two park rangers patrolling the parking lot. They showed up about an hour ago, when the sun disappeared behind the pine trees that line the riverbank. The picnic lasted way longer than anyone thought it would. It’d still be going if the park rangers hadn’t kicked us out. Josh and I are the very last to leave. We hung around under the guise of cleaning up, but really we wanted to watch the sunset through the pines. Just before the sun sank behind the horizon, he kissed me. Pressed up against him, I could feel his heart through his chest, beating as wildly as my own.
“Uh-oh. Should I be nervous?”
“Only if you say yes.” He smiles at my quizzical look. “Come over tomorrow,” he says. “For Thanksgiving. My mom is cooking enough food for a small army, mainly because she’s anxious about my brother being in town, and cooking keeps her busy.”
“Your brother’s in town?” Josh has mentioned his brother only a handful of times and never by name. I didn’t quite envision him as the home-for-the-holidays type.
“He will be,” Josh replies. “He flies in tonight and leaves Friday morning.”
“Quick trip,” I say, and then wonder if I should have.
“Yeah. He never stays more than a day. Which is good for all of us, believe me. Things are pretty tense when he’s around.”
“Sounds fun,” I joke.
“Not in the least,” Josh replies, still smiling, but his voice is less joking than mine. “Which is where you come in. I’m hoping you’ll deflect some of the tension,” he admits. “So you’ll come? We usually eat around two.”
“I’d love to,” I tell him, suddenly thrilled that my grandparents decided last minute to spend this Thanksgiving in the Caymans. When my grandma cooks, the meal starts promptly at one, and she expects us to spend hours at the dining room table, relishing every course. With my mom at the helm, there’s no way we’ll eat before sundown. I’ll easily be back from Josh’s in time.
“Great,” he says. “So I’ll see you tomorrow, then.”
“See you tomorrow,” I reply, and touch my lips to his. He steps forward, resting his hands lightly on my hips as his lips move against mine. We’ve kissed twenty-three times, but I still get light-headed when it happens. The two on the roller coaster last weekend (numbers nineteen and twenty) nearly made me pass out.
“Hey, you two! The party’s over!” An exasperated park ranger is idling in his truck, waiting to shut the gate to the parking lot.
“Sorry!” we call in unison, swallowing smiles. Josh kisses me one more time, earning us a honk from our chaperone.
“If she was your girlfriend, would you want to leave?” Josh shouts to the park ranger as he jogs to his car. He turns back and blows me yet another kiss.
Then, suddenly, it’s as if everything slows down. Even the wind that right now is rustling Josh’s hair. Details I didn’t notice a second ago now jump out at me. The old gnarled tree at the head of the path down to the river. The Sprite can someone left in the parking lot that got crushed by a car tire. The small brown bird perched on the edge of the entrance sign. And, at the center of all of it, Josh. His hand at his mouth, palm open, his kiss having just taken flight. A grin just beginning to take shape. The dark gray USC T-shirt with a bleach spot on the collar.
The moment feels like déjà vu, but more precise. Déjà vu isn’t detailed. This moment is all about the details. Even Josh’s tiny mole stands out.
Then, as quickly as it slowed down, everything speeds up again, and Josh’s back is to me as he jogs to his Jeep.
I’m surprised to see my grandparents’ maroon Buick LeSabre parked in our driveway when I pull in. They’re supposed to be boarding a Seniors at Sea cruise ship right now.
There’s much commotion in the kitchen when I open the back door. My grandma is holding a syringe full of dark brown liquid over a massive raw turkey. There are brown grocery bags on every available countertop.
“Grandma, I think he’s dead already,” I say as I step inside.
“She gets her sarcasm from you,” my grandmother says, looking pointedly at my father.
“Better that than my hairline,” Dad replies, and kisses me on the forehead.
“Still waiting,” my grandpa says, the same thing he says at the beginning of every visit. I walk over and plant a kiss on his cheek. “That’s better,” he says, folding me into a hug. “How’s my girl?”
“I’m good, Grandpa,” I tell him, burrowing my nose into his leathery skin. Tobacco and Lagerfeld cologne. He always smells the same. I smile against his neck. “What are you guys doing here?” I ask, resting my cheek on his shoulder. “I thought you were supposed to be in the Caymans.”
“We were,” my grandmother replies, squinting at the turkey.
“Thwarted by a hurricane,” Grandpa says. “So here we are.”
“Surprise!” my mom says cheerily, between large gulps of wine. Grandma shoots her a look, then stabs the bird with all the force her tiny frame can muster.
“So does this mean we’re eating at one o’clock tomorrow?” I ask.
“Of course,” my grandmother says as she pumps our turkey with brine. “We always eat at one.” My mom and I look at each other and mouth Grandma’s words with her as she says them in her thick Tennessee drawl: “It’s tradition.”
“Their flight from Nashville to Miami was canceled because of the hurricane,” I tell him, “so they drove down here instead.” I called Josh as soon as I could escape the kitchen.
“That’s good news, right? You were bummed you weren’t going to see them.”
“Yeah, but it means I can’t come over tomorrow. We sit down at one o’clock and, no joke, we don’t finish till five. It’s the longest meal of the year. At the end of it, both my voice and my ears are tired.”
“You’re lucky,” he says. “We speed through ours in awkward silence.”
“What time does your brother get in?”
“His plane lands at nine,” Josh replies. “My mom’s at the airport picking him up.”
“Are you excited that he’s coming?” I ask. I don’t mean to pry, but I can’t help it. I know so little about Josh’s relationship with his brother, and why his presence puts everyone on edge.
“Excited? No. But it means a lot to my mom that he comes every year, so I’m glad that he does. But he treats Martin like crap.”
“Why?” Josh idolizes his stepfather. What would make his brother feel so differently? When Josh doesn’t answer right away, I quickly backpedal. “I’m sorry, I’m being nosy.”
“Don’t be silly,” he says. “You’re my girlfriend. You’re allowed to be nosy.” He hesitates before continuing. “It’s complicated,” he says eventually, “but the gist is, Michael thinks my mom and Martin were having an affair before my dad died. My mom says they didn’t, and I believe her. Michael claims to have forgiven my mom, but he still hates Martin. He refused to come to their wedding.”
“Wow.” I was expecting a story about a missed curfew or a wrecked car, not something this heavy. “Poor Martin.”
“Yeah. It’s even worse because he loved my dad so much. They were best friends,” he explains. “College roommates. Martin never would’ve done something like that to Dad. But he can’t even defend himself, because he doesn’t know what Michael thinks.”
“Michael’s never confronted him about it?”
“My mom won’t let him,” Josh replies. “When Michael came to my mom with his theory about the affair, my mom told him that if he ever said anything to Martin, she’d stop paying his Yale tuition. She also made him promise to come home for Thanksgiving every year.” He pauses, then says, “Wow, it sounds a lot worse when you say it out loud.”
“Where’d the theory come from?” I ask. “If your mom and Martin weren’t having an affair, why did Michael think they were?”
“According to my mom, he misunderstood something he overheard. She’s always been really vague about it.” His line beeps with another call. “Oh, hey, that’s her calling on the other line. Call you back?”
“Of course,” I say, and we hang up.
“Whatcha doin’ in there, sitting in the dark?” It’s my grandpa in the doorway, an unlit cigar between his lips.
“Looking at the stars,” I tell him, and point at my ceiling. He looks from me to the stars and back again.
“You know there are real stars outside,” he says. “A whole universe filled with ’em.”
“I’ve heard that, yeah.” I smile in the dark.
“C’mon,” he tells me, beckoning with his arm. “Take a walk with an old man.”
My grandfather’s idea of a “walk” is going to the end of the driveway and back—eleven times—while he smokes a cigar. As we’re on our third pass, he pats the arm that’s linked with his and says, “I think it’s time I told you what happened the night you were born.”
“The night I was born?”
He puffs his cigar and nods. “Your dad called around eight o’clock that night to tell me your mother was in labor. We had strict instructions not to get into the car to drive down here until you’d officially arrived, so there was nothing to do but wait. It was a big deal for us, first grandchild and all. And since your parents had waited ten years to have you, we figured you might be all we’d get.”
A wave of sadness washes over me. While my mom’s the youngest of six, my dad and I are both only children. From what my mom’s told me, my grandma struggled with infertility back before there were treatments for it. She lost six babies before having my dad. And my mom, she only ever wanted one. How lonely it must be, to be in your eighties and to be able to count your family members on one hand.
“So, we waited,” my grandfather continues, pausing for a few more puffs. “Your grandmother was a mess of nervous energy, banging around in the kitchen, making all this noise, so I went outside. There wasn’t a moon that night, so the stars were especially bright—much brighter than they are tonight.” A perfect moon, I think, elated to tell Josh. Grandpa stops walking and tilts his head back. “And I stood there,” he says, “just like this, watching the sky and praying that the Lord would bring you here safely. And then . . . zzzoom!” His hand zips through the night air for effect. “A star shot across the sky.”
I smile, imagining it. Grandpa turns to look at me. “And that would’ve been something—a shooting star always is. But then there was another one. And one after that.” He looks back up at the sky. “They just kept coming,” he says. “Nine altogether.”
“You’re making that up.”
“I most certainly am not,” he replies, crossing his heart with his free hand. “And after the ninth one, they stopped. A few minutes later, I heard the phone ring inside, and a few minutes after that, Rose came out to tell me you’d been born. At nine-oh-nine on September the ninth.”
Goose bumps spring up on my arm. That’s a lot of nines.
“I’ve spent the last seventeen years trying to figure out what it meant,” he says then. “‘Just a coincidence,’ most people would say. And maybe it was. But I’ll tell you what, it sure didn’t feel like one.”
“What’d my dad say?” I ask.
“I never told him,” my grandfather replies. “Or anyone else.”
“Why not?”
“Because I wanted to be the one to tell you about it,” he says, giving my arm a squeeze. “When you were old enough to really hear it. As much as I love my son, he can’t keep a secret for shit.” I stifle a giggle. No argument here. “I always planned to tell you on your eighteenth birthday—9/9/2009 seemed fitting somehow—but I reckon you’ll be off at college by then. Figured I’d better tell you now.”
“So if it wasn’t a coincidence,” I say when we start walking again, “then what was it?”
“A sign, maybe. That your life would be special.” He chews thoughtfully on his cigar. “That’s what I always thought, anyway.”
“Special how?”
“That depends,” he tells me, his face suddenly serious.
“On what?”
“What you decide to do with it.”