I stayed awake in my room until my eyes nearly fell out of my head, scanning as far and wide as I could. Without the height advantage that Quentin’s leaping provided, it took a lot longer to get a decent area covered. I began to feel like a human lighthouse, casting high beams into the endless sea.
With nothing better to do in between sweeps, I worked on my college application essays. If guilt and fear weren’t going to let me sleep, I could at least be productive.
I wrote in a pensive, dreamlike state in the wee hours of the night. Hopefully that introduced a touch of whatever magic was missing, because I sure as hell didn’t know how to add it on purpose.
I made so many revisions I might have created a wormhole in space-time. On the advice of some admissions blog, I interviewed myself in my head, using posh Oxbridge voices reserved for world leaders. I even tried staring at the page with true sight, and I felt pretty dumb when all it did was show me the raccoons eating our garbage in the yard.
The sheer amount of effort I was putting into these essays had to add up to something. It would be a violation of thermodynamics if it didn’t.
The end of the month arrived. I bounded down the stairs to make my pilgrimage to Anna’s.
“Wait.” Mom pounced as I passed her. “You’re going to let her see you wearing those?”
I patted myself down, confused. My clothes should have been fine. She’d never objected to how I looked on any of my city trips before.
Then it hit me. I hadn’t seen Quentin in a while, which meant the spell that kept my (ugh) golden eyes hidden was long expired. I’d been going out every day “wearing contacts,” often right in front of my mother.
“I’ll, uh, take them out,” I said. “Why didn’t you say anything about them earlier?”
“You’re at that age.” She made a face of intense bitterness where another woman might have been pleasantly wistful. “I can’t stop you from doing everything. Even if you want to look like a cheap Internet girl.”
I stared at my mother for a second, and then I wrapped her in a big hug.
“But if you dye your hair I swear I’ll throw you out of this house,” she muttered into my shoulder.
My knee was bouncing up and down so much, I was afraid Anna could feel it all the way through her thick, solid floors. I couldn’t stop it. I was too nervous.
She had already blown past the amount of time she’d ever spent reading my essays before. A new PR. K-Song would have been proud.
Anna opened her mouth. I hitched in anticipation, fearing the worst.
Then she chuckled.
“Genie, this is a hoot,” she said. “I had no idea you could be this funny.”
Huh. My hope sprouted like the first daisy of spring. Ready to be obliterated by the slightest breeze, but present regardless.
“I, um, did what you said and focused on my own thoughts. I wasn’t too familiar in my tone?”
“Not at all. I can’t get enough of this bit about your parents. This is a major improvement in your writing, by leaps and bounds. Any reader would be happy to get this in their pile.”
My god.
I’d done it. I’d gotten past the barrier of “If you have to ask, you’ll never know.” I was seeing the inside of their secret club, even if they’d only let me in through a case of mistaken identity.
I resisted the urge to run into the street and fist-bump the oncoming traffic in celebration. “Thank you,” I said. “I guess once I get to Harvard I’ll go out for the Lampoon.”
My joke fell flat with Anna. She looked disappointed, like she wanted to stay in the happy place a little longer.
“We . . . should talk about that,” she said, putting my papers to the side.
I didn’t like how far she’d put them to the side. Had she kept them a little closer to her elbow, I could have pretended all was well.
“Genie, I played a little loose with the rules the other day. I called up a contact at . . . I won’t say where exactly, but I talked to a relevant decision maker, let’s put it.”
Oh damn. She’d gone to bat for me. She’d gone. To bat. She really did have guanxi. And here I was thinking all I’d get from her was advice on how to articulate my inner nature.
“Now I didn’t mention you or anyone else specifically,” she said, “but I was able to talk about your scenario in a fair amount of detail because it applies to many applicants. And therein lies the problem. Based on how the conversation went, I think we need to adjust our expectations.”
She was pulling a reality show host move. There would be dramatic music leading to a commercial break, after which she would complete her sentence. Higher! she’d say brightly. We need to be aiming even higher, with how strong you are! There’s a secret exclusive university on the moon!
“I—I don’t understand. What problem are we talking about? My grades? I have perfect grades.”
“You do,” she said. “But so do a huge number of students, from great schools just like yours. Your writing is great, and so is theirs. This is the point I’m trying to make, Genie. The very reason why I could get away with talking about you anonymously is the fact that there are a lot of applicants with your exact candidacy profile.”
I could feel the floor spinning away from me. I was being ensorcelled.
“Colleges care about geographic diversity as much as any other kind, and right now you’re swimming in one of the biggest, most competitive pools,” Anna said. “That’s going to have a material effect on your application experience.”
“I think I get it,” I said. “Your contacts told you there’s only so many Bay Area Chinese they’re willing to take.”
Anna looked pained. “Genie, that’s not what I’m saying.”
Yes it was, even if she didn’t know it.
I didn’t blame Anna. Hell, I didn’t even blame the colleges. SF Prep was full of people like me. Grasping, thirsting, dying to get ahead. We were like roaches, and only multiplying by the day. I didn’t want to be around my kind any more than the admissions boards did.
I had done everything I could to declare myself a real person. But it didn’t matter. It still boiled down to a numbers game, and not one that tilted in my favor.
“I wish I had better news,” Anna said. “I called my old office up because I can see how hungry you are. But my duty as your advisor is to help you make the right call in the long term, not just that one moment when you tear open the envelope. Your financial aid needs—they’re not trivial. None of your top choices give athletic or merit-based scholarships. We have to consider what to do if they end up out of reach.”
I closed my eyes.
“Out of reach,” I said. “That’s ironic, given that I’ve made my arms longer than this room.”
“This room’s not very big,” she responded.
I stood up from my chair. “Colleges like well-traveled applicants, right? I’m well-traveled. I went from Chang’an to Vulture Peak to recover the sutras. It only took me a couple of years.”
“That was a long time ago. A million tourists have completed the same trip since then. With selfies.”