Tiffany knows exactly what she means.
She reads to Rosie and Emma from a tattered corduroy rocking chair. Of all the dazzling furniture, this is Tiffany’s favorite piece. Worn, blue, out of place, and almost ugly, it feels familiar to her. It is the only thing in this house that she is not afraid to break.
James’s habitat exposes a type of affluence that Tiffany never encountered in Vacca Vale before, one she associates with foreign capitals. The wealth that Tiffany has seen before ensures that everything is storyless and new, but James’s wealth ensures that everything is storied and old. It contains art and history. It possesses Tiffany. Her former disgust with fortune once made her proud, but now she sees that all this time, a kind of wonky elitism has been growing inside her. She finds the effects of bewitching real estate on her body deeply troubling, and she cannot reconcile it with her budding ideologies about private property. Who allowed this foster kid to give a damn about artisanal furniture? To value hand-knotted rugs like a fucking aristocrat? Who does she think she is?
These are the contours of her thoughts as she reads a rhyming cartoon to the girls about the evils of capitalism. Rosie snuggles beside Tiffany on the corduroy chair while Emma makes snow angels on the sheepskin rug—“Wool angels!”—quietly reciting the words as Tiffany reads them. Their room is wallpapered to resemble a forest. Fairies crafted from cloth, glitter, and pipe cleaner nest in a web of lights above. Tiffany never dreamed of such a scenic childhood when she was growing up in the system, passed from house to house like a cursed heirloom. Padlocks on the refrigerators.
“When we go to thleep, they wake up,” whispers Rosie, pointing to the fairies.
“Yes, and they change the thermostat,” reports Emma. “They make it colder.”
Before going to bed, the children ask Tiffany to cut the tags from their pajamas, claiming the itch keeps them awake. Tiffany recognizes this as an innovative form of stalling, but their sensitivity, she thinks, indicates that they are geniuses. She snips the tags but saves them for the laundering instructions because she assumes that’s what rich people do. In her own life, Tiffany has never read laundering instructions, much less obeyed them. After she reads the last book of the night—a rhyming cartoon about deforestation—she switches off the light in the girls’ bedroom, descends the stairs, and stands in the kitchen.
It’s the kind of ringing silence that follows a concert. She places the pajama tags in a ceramic fruit bowl, then gazes into a pantry of exotic balsamics. Takes a picture on her cheap flip phone. Deletes it immediately.
She wants to be his kid and she wants to be his wife and she wants to be him.
He’s showing his life to me, Tiffany realizes, so that I don’t murder it.
Actual size.
By the time James drives Tiffany home, it is clear that the night has exorcised them from each other, just as James had hoped. All they had to do was step out of their private, fake world and into the public, real one. The thing that possessed them—call it Ondine—could only breathe imaginary air, in the theater of St. Philomena. Oxygen kills it, witnesses kill it, and now, rejoice, it is dead.
Outside the house on Arcadia, James puts the car in park and pays Tiffany too much money.
“What do you want me to do to you?” James asks Tiffany, his mouth on her neck. “What do you want from me?”
Questions 19–21 refer to the late-nineteenth-century photograph below by journalist Jacob Riis. Advocates for individuals such as those shown in the image would have most likely agreed with which of the following perspectives? Everyone is overreacting. People just want to gossip, there hasn’t been a scandal since Mrs. Lansberry got that DUI. I think he just feels sorry for her. (A) The Supreme Court’s decision in Plessy v. Ferguson was justified. (B) Capitalism, free of government regulation, would improve social conditions. Speaking of scandals, did you hear that Kayla gave three lacrosse guys pterodactyl? Oh my God, you haven’t heard of this? It’s three guys, one girl. The guys stand side by side, in a row. She blows the guy in the middle, then gives the other two hand jobs. So it looks like she’s trying to fly. (C) Both wealth and poverty are the products of natural selection. (D) Governments should act to eliminate the worst abuses of industrial society. But why does Tiffany stay after everyone? My mom says we should tell Mr. Rayo. “The history of mankind is a history of repeated injuries and usurpations on the part of man toward woman, having in direct object the establishment of an absolute tyranny over her. To prove this, let facts be submitted to a candid world. He has never permitted her to exercise her inalienable right to the elective franchise. He has compelled her to submit to laws, in the formation of which she had no voice.” Maybe she thinks she’s too good for boys her age. Seneca Falls Convention, Declaration of Sentiments and Resolutions, 1848. She doesn’t even have social media. Everybody’s always feeling sorry for her, but I think she’s a total snob. Many supporters of the declaration in 1848 broke ranks with which of the following groups by the 1870s? (A) Social Darwinists. (B) Supporters of Southern secession and states’ rights. (C) Supporters of the Fifteenth Amendment. (D) Isolationists. I’ve never seen her talk to another student, except when she was like, dissecting a fetal pig. People try to be nice to her, but she thinks she’s better than the rest of us. What is the direction of the current, if any, induced in the loop as seen in Figure 3? Obviously, she has no boundaries. (A) Clockwise. (B) Counterclockwise. (C) Undefined, because there is no current induced in the loop. Justify your answer. He wouldn’t do anything weird. He’s a good person. If you seem lost, he’s the kind of teacher who will take you under his wing. Select and clearly identify two works of art depicting the male figure that support or challenge attitudes toward men within their cultural contexts. I don’t know. I’ve never seen anyone so deep under anyone else’s wing. An arctic food web includes the following organisms: orca, polar bear, ringed seal, arctic cod, krill, diatom. Note: Figures not drawn to scale. I know everybody thinks he’s a dreamboat, but he’s only hot for a teacher. If you passed him on the street, you wouldn’t look twice. Other than showing which organisms are consumed by other organisms, describe what is indicated by the direction of the arrows on the diagram. Speak for yourself. I have a sex dream about him every time I’m ovulating. You think I’m joking? I’m dead serious. He’s a man, you know? And have you ever seen him play piano? Good God. Pullo attacks and is attacked. Do you think she’s pretty? I can’t really tell. She creeps me out, but I feel like you could use her to sell something. She’s memorable. Translate the following passage: I heard she’s in foster care because her mom was an opioid addict and her dad’s in jail. Yeah, oxycodone. I hear she had to get an attorney at birth because the mom was high and the dad was nowhere to be found. Can you imagine? Needing a lawyer the moment you’re born? Midiocri spatio relicto . . . No, her mom is dead now. Maria has been chosen for the lead role in the play. She is both nervous and excited about this opportunity. Did you hear how she fumbled her lines when he touched her arm? Is he even allowed to touch us? Part A: Explain how each of the following concepts may help her performance in the play. Context-dependent memory Acetylcholine Kinesthetic sense Selective attention. Isn’t she supposed to be a genius or something? She’s top of the class, right? And I hear she got a perfect score on the PSAT. Why do smart people always do such stupid things? She’s putting him in real danger. He has a wife and kids—I met them at the auction, and they’re the cutest family ever. Part B: Explain how each of the following concepts may hinder her performance in the play. Proactive interference Yerkes-Dodson law of arousal *External locus of control. Look at the way she’s staring at him. It’s disgusting. If she really cared about him, she would leave him alone. He has everything to lose. Vous aurez six minutes pour lire le sujet de l’essai, la source numéro un et la source numéro deux. Sujet de l’essai: Do you think they’ll fuck for real? Evaluate (d?2y)/(dx?2) at the point on the curve where X = 1 and Y = 1. He’d never, but I bet she’s trying her hardest. Solve for X in terms of Y. She has no one. She has nothing to lose.
“Can I have,” Tiffany whispers to James in his three-hundred-dollar sheets, “a glass of water?”