Admissions Page 5

  “I guess so.”

  “You guess or you are okay?” Helen asked impatiently, and then reminded herself to soften her tone. Oh, dear, she sounded shrill, even to herself. If she didn’t watch it, she would be one of those shrieking harridans she made fun of at school events, nagging both husband and child at every opportunity. She took a deep breath and tried to refocus her energy towards supporting Zoe. “If there are any other schools you want me to call, just let me know, okay, cutie?”

  “Okay.”

  “Have you thought of any that aren’t on our list?”

  “No.”

  “So I take that to mean you’re fine with the choices?” Helen asked, struggling to disguise her frustration.

  “Yeah,” Zoe replied glumly. Throughout most of her childhood, Zoe had been a communicative child. Never shy in the presence of adults, she was always comfortable participating in grown-up conversations, readily offering answers to questions and being generally sociable and charming. Thankfully, she had retained those qualities as she entered adolescence, and her parents often expressed appreciation that their teenager seemed to be more civilized than most. So it was particularly alarming to Helen that this monosyllabic style seemed recently to have crept into her daughter’s repertoire.

  When Zoe behaved in an objectionable way, Helen often looked to Michael for help and was disappointed if she didn’t get it. Her approach was to push Zoe to express her feelings, even when she didn’t appear to want to, whereas Michael took a more passive approach, believing it was important to give Zoe space to withdraw and even to sulk, if that was what she was inclined to do. Sometimes Helen found their family dynamic troublesome; when it came to discipline, she often ended up playing bad parent, which by default made Michael good dad. When Helen felt that her family was ganging up on her, she often retreated to the bedroom, leaving the two of them alone to whisper about Mom’s bad temper.

  Helen thought of the master bedroom as her sanctuary, and it was in this room only that she loosened her insistence that form follow function and indulged in a little whimsy. The centerpiece of the room was the large picture window, which she had draped with a pale, gauzy swag that shimmered at night with the distant twinkle of the lights across Central Park. She was so pleased with its softening effect that on a trip to Delhi she bought yards and yards of richly embroidered silk, with which she upholstered a chaise longue for the corner and made piles of throw pillows to scatter about their dark cherry-wood sleigh bed. But the Dragers’ most prized possession was the huge silk Fortuny lamp shade they had bought in Venice on their honeymoon, and which hung from the ceiling like a huge upside-down parasol. The light seemed to float on the ceiling above the bed, softly emitting an exquisite glow while evoking memories of faraway places. The bedroom exuded exoticism, and Michael frequently called it his harem.

  “Does that mean I have to call you ‘pasha’?” Helen teased.

  “Only in bed,” he responded flirtatiously.

  As Helen settled in with a stack of school catalogues, she glanced wistfully at the framed photographs that hung above their bureaus, part of the small but significant collection of 1920s avant-garde photography she had begun collecting while doing graduate work in Berlin twenty years ago. However, since Zoe began school, whatever disposable income they had was used to pay for tuition, resulting in a substantial reduction in their art acquisition and decorating activity. It was the natural progression to stop buying for oneself and save for your child, but still, Helen longed to go on a mini decorating spree again, just to remind herself that she counted, too. When Zoe got into a good school, she promised herself she would splurge on one more photograph to celebrate. She returned to the catalogues with renewed interest.

  A little while later, Michael joined her and plopped down with the current issue of Gourmet. Reclining against the plump stack of pillows, Michael had a relaxed and blissful air; he got as much pleasure from a four-page spread on Memphis pulled pork as other men got from a Playboy centerfold. Helen glanced at the spare tire that had gradually begun to create a gap between Michael’s T-shirt and boxers, and found herself hoping it was just particularly pronounced in this position. But, appreciative of the fact that he was generally nonjudgmental on the subject of her looks, she kept her thoughts to herself. He still had his boyish face, a disarming, dimpled smile, and some hair on his head, which was more than she could say for a lot of his peers. Eighteen years ago, when Helen first introduced Michael to her family, her mother called him a mensch. He was still that same mensch, just a slightly chubbier one.

  “These schools all look excellent. Listen to this: classics, ecology, biogenetics, printmaking, architectural history, Iranian literature. I wish I could be in high school again,” she mused. “Without the raging hormones this time.”

  “I wish I had known you when your hormones were raging. That would have been exciting.”

  “If you think I’m moody now, I was truly impossible back then.”

  “You mean like Zoe is now?”

  “Worse.”

  “That’s hard to imagine.”

  “Trust me. But really, Michael, all these schools look great. I hope Zoe is able to figure out which is best for her.”

  “Of course she will.”

  “But then she has to get in.” Helen sounded doubtful.

  “Helen, why are you being skeptical? Zoe has always landed on her feet. Have a little confidence in her. It will be helpful to both of you.”

  “Mea culpa,” Helen admitted reluctantly, and returned to perusing the catalogues.

  “Are the tuitions at these new schools much higher than we’re paying now?”

  “Uh-huh,” she muttered.

  “Do you think we would ever qualify for financial aid?” he asked.

  “I doubt it.”

  “Do you think I should talk to my parents about their maybe contributing a bit?”

  “That would be nice.”

  “Do you think we should be looking at public schools as well?”

  That got her attention. She put down the catalogue and yanked off her reading glasses, suddenly bringing him into sharper focus.

  “Michael. We’ve had this conversation umpteen times already. We agreed that we would have just one child so we could afford to stay in New York and send her to private school. I’m working my ass off, juggling articles and multiple exhibitions so that we can do that. I don’t want to discuss this again!” She flipped off the light and turned away from him, glad that they had finally invested in a king-sized bed. But even the new bed did not help her to get the sleep she so desperately needed.

  Helen had always been a sound sleeper, rarely suffering from the sleep deprivation many of her friends complained about. That is, until recently. Since the beginning of August she had experienced the horrors of insomnia, awakening at three a.m., unable to fall back to sleep until five or six, when it was time to wake up again. During these hours she found herself obsessing about admissions. Which schools had vacancies? What were considered acceptable test scores? Would Zoe’s make the cut? How many kids were applying from The School? Would Pamela give them the help they needed? Would they be able to afford the tuition for the next four years and then pay for college on top of that? Would Zoe interview well? Would Michael interview well? Were their professions interesting enough? Would her presidency of the Parents’ Association be helpful? Would Zoe’s musical talent help? Did she prefer girls’ schools or coed? Which was best for Zoe? Around and around she went, never finding answers to any of these questions, tossing and turning for hours while Michael was snoring away beside her. At one point she sneezed, reached across him for a tissue, and then accidentally grazed him with her elbow. He groggily asked her what was wrong.

  “Nocturnal admissions,” she moaned.

  Sara spent the morning briefing Brandi on the tricky art of scheduling tours and interviews. As soon as the applications arrived and the checks were deposited and cleared, Brandi was instructed to phone the family
to set up their appointment. Sara had learned from experience that it was best to get a jump on this before the applicants’ agendas filled up. With every imaginable lesson, enrichment class, therapy session, play date, prescribed uptime, downtime, quiet time, nap time, vacation time, and time-outs, not to mention visits to other schools, the four-year-old applicants were scheduled within an inch of their lives. Add to that the difficulty of synchronizing the schedules of all three family members, and Brandi could count on taking up to ten minutes to pin down a single appointment—and those were the easy ones.

  With a whole pile of applicants ready to be scheduled, Sara pulled up a chair and coached Brandi through the first call.

  BRANDI: Hello, Ms. Riley? This is Brandi McHenry in the admissions office at The School. We’ve received your application for Butterscotch and would like to set up a visit for you. The visit will include a tour and an interview, and you will need to be with us for about two hours. May I suggest a date? How about October fourteenth at eleven a.m.?

  MS. RILEY: Let me get my Palm Pilot . . . (forty-five seconds pass) . . . Hmmm. The fourteenth is difficult. Butterscotch has Merry Music Makers that morning, and I have an appointment with my Reiki practitioner.

  BRANDI: Are afternoons better for you?

  MS. RILEY: It depends on the day. What do you have available?

  BRANDI: October twenty-third at two p.m.?

  MS. RILEY: Hmmm. I’ll have to check with my husband’s secretary. I have penciled in “away,” and I don’t now remember what that means. It could mean out of town . . . but then again . . . it could mean . . .

  BRANDI (interrupting, which earned a thumbs-up from Sara): How about the afternoon of October sixteenth? Two p.m.?

  MS. RILEY: No. Harold and I are at Canyon Ranch that week. We simply have to get away—these applications have been so stressful! Josette, our caregiver, could bring her. Would that work?

  BRANDI: Afraid not. We would like to meet you and your husband and assume you both would like to meet us and see The School. What about October twenty-seventh at ten a.m.?

  MS. RILEY: Let’s see. Butterscotch has her Mandarin lesson, but I could switch that to Wednesday. I have fencing, but I’ll leave a few minutes early and have Josette bring Butterscotch and I’ll meet them there. Harold should be in town that day. I think that works. Touché.

  BRANDI: Okay. I’m slotting you in. Please come a few minutes early so we can get started punctually.

  MS. RILEY: Oh, dear, I might not have had time to shower first. But I’ll bring clothes with me and change quickly and I can do my makeup in the cab and—

  BRANDI (she interrupted again, scoring a beaming nod of approval from Sara): We’ll look forward to meeting you on October twenty-seventh.

  MS. RILEY (unaware Brandi had hung up): . . . my hair may be a bit of a mess but I can get . . .

  “Touché to you, too. Now you understand what I meant when I said these people act like they’re doing us a favor,” Sara sighed. “One down, hundreds more to go.”

  Brandi took a deep breath and picked up the phone to call Mr. and Ms. Jackson, who were divorced and had phone numbers with different area codes. “Does this mean they live in different states?” Brandi asked nervously. Sara bent over to take a look.

  “Different boroughs. He’s in Manhattan; she’s stuck out on Staten Island. Typical.”

  Sara had a free moment and, disgusted by her own participation in the ridiculous standoff, decided it was time to go and try to speak to Pamela. What kind of adult shut down like a petulant fifth-grade queen bee just because she was told something that she didn’t want to hear? Sara became riled up every time she thought about it, and decided that her anger was beginning to have a deleterious effect on her mental health. She took a moment to visualize a positive encounter, then climbed the stairs to Pamela’s office.

  “Do you have an appointment?” Margaret asked curtly, guarding Pamela’s office like the palace sentry.

  “No. I thought I would just pop up for a quick chat,” Sara replied casually, as though she were still on pop-in terms with Pamela.

  “I don’t think that’s going to work today. She’s in with Mrs. Winter now and then has to leave immediately for an appointment.”

  Sara shook her head conspiratorially and stood with her ear cocked towards Pamela’s door as a distraught Dana Winter carped about her daughter, April.

  “I really thought the visit to Justine’s cooking school would solve all our problems. I had hopes that April would enjoy the food and eat enough to put on a few pounds. April did eat, but then she developed a new trick. She chewed her food, then spit it into her napkin and hid it. I spent the whole vacation worrying that Justine would discover a wad of premasticated foie gras in an armoire. You were there with us. Do you think Justine saw what was going on? I would just die if she knew. What do you think she thinks of April?” Dana whined plaintively.

  “It doesn’t matter what Justine thinks of April. If The Fancy Girls’ School is your first choice, then that is where April shall go. Justine and I have an understanding—a, shall we say, quid pro quo,” Pamela declared imperiously.

  “Oh Pamela, you are the best. I’m so relieved,” Dana sobbed. “Patrick will be, too. He thought the summer trip was a big waste of money. Now he will see it was worth it. And now I’m sure I can get him to contribute our home in Telluride and his corporate jet for the spring auction.”

  Margaret shook her head and said softly to Sara, “Now you understand why they all go to that cooking school.”

  “Kid pro quo.” Sara shook her head in disgust and headed back down to the admissions office.

  With a pounding headache that threatened to develop into a full-blown migraine, Sara decided she needed to get some air. It was a beautiful Indian summer day, and she counted on a short walk to help clear her thoughts and relax her throbbing temples. As she strode down the avenue, she recounted all she knew about the megalomaniacal woman who was her boss.

  Pamela Rothschild was inscrutable to the point of unknowable, a master at cultivating an air of mystery by mixing and swirling the details of her past. She had an upper-class English accent and High Church manners, but her swarthy complexion, propensity to parlez français, and penchant for spicy foods and sunny climes befuddled anyone who tried to decipher her actual ethnic identity. If her father were one of the Rothschilds, as Pamela often implied, then that would make her Jewish. But she often spoke about going to church, made a big fuss over Christmas, and was compulsive about eating fish on Fridays, which suggested something else entirely. Then there was the question of her age—she could be thirty or fifty; it was impossible to tell.

  Sara seemed to recall that Pamela had been enrolled at some point in an English school, but something made her think it might have been in India. But then again, Pamela often spoke about a Swiss boarding school, which would explain her annoying use of French, unless it was the German side of Switzerland . . . It was impossible to know. The questions went unanswered, the stories remained muddled, and Sara was never any closer to knowing who the real Pamela Rothschild really was.

  Then there was the ultimate head-scratcher: the embarrassing incident last May when, together at a private school expo, they ran into a British gent who claimed to recognize Pamela from their days together in Manchester.

  “Oh, my, Pamela Wickham?” the man ventured as he approached them out of the blue.

  “It’s Rothschild. And you are . . . ?” she replied icily as she dramatically swept her hair off her face, charm bracelet clanging noisily.

  “Benjamin Whyte?” he answered in the self-effacing form of a question, clearly unsure whether she recognized him.

  “Oh, yes, hello.”

  “After all these years, it’s good to see you. Let me introduce my wife. Clarissa Whyte, this is Pamela Wickham—I mean Rothschild—um, ah, from The Manchester School. Luvvy, do you remember Pamela? She and I taught together for several years. And what brings you to New York?” he asked.

&n
bsp; “I live in New York and am head of The School,” she announced grandly.

  “That’s a jolly bit of good luck. We’ve just moved across the pond with our five-year-old munchkin, Oscar, and are thinking about applying to The School for next year. It’s been touted as one of the best. And just imagine, Clarissa, we now have an in,” he said, using his pasty fingers to emphasize his quote-unquote use of the word “in.”

  “By all means. I’ll look forward to personally reviewing your application,” Pamela responded flatly. Sara, irritated by both Pamela’s breach of school protocol and by her manners—she’d been standing there unintroduced the entire time—insinuated herself into their tight little Anglo-Saxon circle.

  “Hello. I’m Sara Nash. I work with Pamela. I’m the admissions director of The School,” she asserted brightly.

  Clarissa and Benjamin lit up. With big smiles they both reached out, grabbed her hand, and pumped it up and down as if they were churning butter in a Devonshire creamery.

  “Brilliant,” beamed Clarissa, an apple-cheeked milkmaid type. “We’ve been warned about the difficulties of New York school admissions and have not been looking forward to beetling about, trying to find a spot for our little kipper. Now that we have a friendly face—or two—to attach to The School”—she giggled nervously—“maybe the bits and bobs will fall into place.”

  “I will look forward to meeting Oscar,” Sara said pointedly, making it clear that she was more interested in their child than she was in getting chummy with them.

  “Super. Lovely. Thank you,” Ben chimed.

  “Yes. Super,” Clarissa repeated. “Pamela, so, so good to meet you. I know Benjamin has talked about you in the past. Um, I’m just not sure in what context.”

  “I can’t imagine. Au revoir.” Pamela was obviously anxious to leave.

  Sara remembered the awkwardness between them as they walked uptown after the unanticipated meeting with the Whytes.

  “I’m confused,” Sara had said.