I Was Told It Would Get Easier(18)
“I’m sorry, baby, you’re totally right. I’m being pushy, I’m sorry.”
She was surprised but pulled her hand away and opened the menu. The college process makes you think in terms of points or scores, as if everything they do in eleventh grade is subject to ranking. Please, god, let that not be true, because unless they’re looking for champion sulkers with a minor in toneless insolence, Emily isn’t going very far.
And then I felt guilty about thinking that and hid behind my menu, too.
EMILY
Mom was being pushy again, so I told her I liked the girl who was showing us around, even though she was actually kind of a bitch, and kept saying, “Well . . . IF you get in,” which wasn’t exactly encouraging. Now we were waiting to order lunch. I might have been dying of hunger, btw, just saying. Presumably if I died right here and now, Mom would prop me up and carry me around on the tour like nothing was wrong. God forbid we stand out in any way.
I wish Mom would realize there’s nothing I’d like more than to walk onto a college campus and feel immediately at home. That would be awesome, because right now all I know is I don’t know. I don’t even know what I like anymore. I used to like drawing and horses and taking things apart. I used to like reading books about wizards and witches and talking animals. All that really stuck from that time were horses and drawing, although I do still have my Pokémon card collection. It’s going to be worth money someday.
I know Mom wants me to be happy, and if I knew what happy looked like, I’d be glad to help her. The happiest I’ve ever been was hanging out with my grandmother at the country place, the smell of her cigarette smoke sticking to my clothes along with those fuzzy little cannonball weed things that get everywhere. We built forts and dug holes. There was a stream we could dam up, or redirect, and we’d get covered in mud and sit there and smoke—her, not me. I’d eat candy. Her pockets were always mysteriously full of candy, although I never saw her eat any. She taught me how to unclog a toilet and use power tools. We never talked about anything except the job we had in front of us, and it was fantastic.
But lately everything feels like it doesn’t fit right, and I don’t honestly know if the misfit is everything else, or me. And seriously, if I didn’t get food soon, I was going to expire.
JESSICA
I kept smiling behind the menu and counted slowly. I’ve read that there are over two thousand accredited universities in the US. Surely to goodness one of them will appeal to Emily? Then we can start actually trying to get in, which these days is part political campaign, part American Ninja Warrior competition. I swear to you my parents didn’t do any of this. My dad managed to convey the importance of working hard in school using a subtle blend of emotional blackmail (I’m paying for the best high school in New York, don’t make me regret it) and fear (if you don’t work hard now you won’t get into a good college and you won’t get a good job and you won’t meet a nice man and you’ll end your life filled with regret and fast food). It was incredibly effective.
He was right, of course. I went to a very good high school, filled with the daughters of professionals both male and female, and a lot was expected. Having run straight As the entire time, I met with the school counselor once. She asked me what I wanted to do. I laughed and said, Not disappoint my parents, which she didn’t think was funny, so I coughed and said, Become a lawyer. She said, Columbia will take you. Your grades are very strong and their law school is first-rate. I said, Fair enough, and I swear to you that was it. I think I applied to four other colleges, but Columbia let me in, so I couldn’t even tell you what they were. Bear in mind I was not only running As but also trying to make the Olympics, and there are whole swaths of eleventh and twelfth grade I literally don’t remember because I wasn’t getting enough sleep for my brain to function properly. And where was my mom in all this? She was busy with her own projects and only ever said, Choose work that makes you happy while you’re doing it, because you’ll be doing it a lot, which might be the best life advice ever.
When Emily started eleventh grade, the school sent out an email letting us all know that college was now a thing we needed to think about. This was funny, of course, because we’d all been thinking about it, on and off, since the moment the obstetrician cut the cord. I’d dutifully attended every informational session, read everything they told us to read, and tried not to get infected with the panic that was palpable every time a dozen mothers got together—which of us was going to be triumphant in the grocery store, loudly and clearly announcing all the Ivies her daughter was admitted to? Which of us would be pretending not to care at carpool when the news wasn’t good, or wasn’t as good as everyone else’s? Conversations at Whole Foods were about schools and majors and empty nests, but the subtext was how well you managed your children and how secure their trajectory would be now. As if the future is ever secure for anyone. As if anything your own parents did mattered now, thirty years on.
I’d started this process a year or so ago, convinced I was going to be calm and Zen and 100 percent real about it all, emphasizing the wide variety of colleges and encouraging Emily to follow her heart. But honestly, right now I’d be satisfied if she expressed any interest in the college process at all. When I give her my opinion she just shrugs. She’s certainly not scared of disappointing me, that’s for sure. I couldn’t tell you if that means I’m a worse parent than my dad, or better.