I Was Told It Would Get Easier(30)
EMILY
I saw the kid whose mom fell on the dance floor last night and decided to delete the clip I had. He looked like crap, even though no one blamed him for his mom’s deeply embarrassing behavior. You can’t blame kids for their parents, any more than you can blame parents for their kids, though they all seem to feel responsible for everything we do. We do have autonomy, you know.
Will and Alice were chatting next to the coffee machine. They were probably discussing the variety of pods available, but I wasn’t convinced Alice needed to touch Will quite so frequently in order to choose between French roast and hot chocolate. I couldn’t decide whether to go over there or not, and then I reminded myself that I was allowed to get coffee, too, for crying out loud. I was losing my mind. I needed to text the group chat and get talked off the ledge.
JESSICA
With shaking hands, I looked at the itinerary—Emily said she’d get me tea, but she was talking to the other kids and I AM DYING HERE—and prayed I wouldn’t throw up on the bus. If I’m driving I’m fine, but several family vacations with my parents were paused for me to throw up on the side of the road, much to Emily’s horror. I made a mental note to get Dramamine. And Advil. And possibly a hip flask.
“Emily?” I tried to keep my voice reasonable, but from the way she jumped I guess I sounded more desperate than I felt. Actually, I was pretty desperate. She came over with the tea, which was delightfully strong and sweet, but then she went right back to the other kids. I sipped my tea and ruminated on getting old.
I’ve become painfully aware of my age lately. I’m not springing back the way I once did, and if I’ve been sitting for a while, I make sad noises when I stand and start walking. People I grew up with are starting to die of cancer; the children of celebrities I’d loved in my teens are becoming famous. Is this what aging is? A gradual loss of the faces you remembered, and as gradual a replacement of those faces with ones whose names you can’t be bothered to discover.
Just as I was sinking into a genuine decline, Cassidy blew into the room, moving with determination, verve, and the accompanying scent of coconut shampoo.
“Good morning, people!” Cassidy was clearly a morning person. “Quick housekeeping: Any minibar or video purchases you made are your responsibility, so be sure to settle up with the hotel before we all check out. I see all the bills, and I don’t want to chase you for a packet of M&M’s.” She grinned mischievously, but none of us wanted to see Cassidy’s dark side. I wondered if any of the parents had bought embarrassing movies they suddenly realized Cassidy would know about, or decimated the minibar because they thought it would be their secret. Huh, Cassidy would say to herself, Mrs. BlahBlah and her son Barry BlahBlah bought Air Bud, Air Bud: Golden Receiver, AND Air Bud: World Pup while completely emptying the minibar. Yet they seemed so normal.
Cassidy had moved on, even if I couldn’t. “We’ll be leaving to visit American University at nine, the tour starts at ten, so please gather in the lobby. If you’re not there on time, we will leave without you, so consider yourself warned.” She looked as if she hoped her smile conveyed the friendliness of the warning, but the glint in her eye made it very clear to everyone that getting left behind was not an option. “After American we’ll be getting on the E3 bus and driving an hour or so to Johns Hopkins. The tour there finishes with a question-and-answer session with current students, so please bring at least one question each. Last year nobody wanted to know anything, and it was pretty embarrassing. Then we will be boarding the bus again to drive to Philadelphia, where we will check into the hotel.”
I was exhausted simply hearing about the day to come and tottered over to the bagel selection in the hopes that a sudden spike in blood sugar would propel me through the darkness.
Cassidy beamed around. “In order to foster closer friendships, breakfasts from now on are going to be in small groups. I’m going to switch the seating around every morning so we get to meet as many of our fellow parents and kids as possible during the week. Won’t that be fun?”
A short but heavy silence, interrupted by a mother who’d clearly not been listening, and who suddenly said, loudly, “Fantastic.” Then she clapped a few times before sinking back into silence. Her child got to his feet and left the room and, for all we know, the country. That’s not true. He just wanted to.
Then Cassidy read off the morning’s happy little groupings, and Emily and I were with a boy and his mother I hadn’t spoken to yet. The boy was fairly nondescript, apart from his T-shirt, which featured the table of elements. His mother was slender and small, with pale golden hair curving under her chin. She looked like a fourteen-year-old pretending to be a librarian, but she probably wasn’t.
“And to break the ice, I’m going to pose a question for discussion: What are your dreams for college?” Cassidy beamed around. “Take it away.”
EMILY
Mom and I ended up sitting with Casper and his mom, who honestly didn’t look old enough to be on a college tour for herself, let alone her son.
“I’m Jessica,” said my mom, reaching across the table. “And this is Emily.”
Casper’s mom nodded. “You failed to qualify for the Olympics and she folds origami.” She smiled at us. “My name is Jennifer, and this is Casper.”