two #2
Sam, but I certainly had never sniffed a D before.
“I had extenuating circumstances,” I said.
Her eyes widened. “I see. What might they be? I see you were a good student for much of your high school career. But then,
last year was the first year you started taking AP classes. It can be a big adjustment.”
I couldn’t look at her. I stared at the transcript sitting between us. There wasn’t any kind of contextual explanation for
your GPA ever on your transcript. It was just a bunch of letters, just your high school achievement boiled down to a single
decimal number. It wasn’t as though there could be an asterisk appended to my senior year, indicating that my brother had
died. If I wanted people to know that, I would have to tell them.
I realized that this was the beginning of it all.
I would have to tell this woman, whose name I couldn’t even remember, whom I just met minutes ago.
I’d have to write it down in the Common Application so I could tell colleges, probably in response to one of the inane essay prompts like Recount a time when you faced a challenge, setback, or failure; how did it affect you and what did you learn from the experience?
Whenever I explained my transcript, I’d have to do it within the structure of that crude framing—something that happened to
me and what I learned from it. It felt infantilizing and cruel to assume that there was anything that could be learned from
Sam’s death, and it also seemed unbearably crass to use it as a shield for my academic performance.
The woman was waiting for me to respond. I couldn’t.
“It was nothing,” I said finally, my throat so dry I could choke.
She closed her laptop. “It’s fine. It’ll be less stressful this way. You’ll see.”
“How was your first day?” Baba asked at dinner.
We were eating simply because we hadn’t fully unpacked everything yet. Mama had made one dish of tomatoes and eggs and a pot
of rice. The rest of the pans were still in boxes.
The house was bare, uncomfortably bare. Everything around us, from the cardboard to the blank walls, reminded me that we were
no longer home. I would be here for eight months before college—if that happened—and then I’d be gone. Not enough time, in
my opinion, to ever adjust to this place.
In the room between mine and my parents’, Sam’s things sat in boxes stacked high to the ceiling.
I knew they would be the last to be opened.
We all seemed to walk more quickly past that doorway, until finally, someone had shut it so we wouldn’t have to see the everlasting reminder of unfinished business.
“Fine,” I said.
“Everyone nice?” Mama asked.
I nodded, although I did not talk to anybody, other than in passing and to introduce myself in each of my seven classes. Nobody
was mean, but neither was anyone interested in getting to know me. It seemed that I barely existed. That was okay, though.
It was what I expected.
“Good, good,” Baba said. Everything was going according to plan. “Did you see Alan today?”
I shook my head. He was the one person at Weston I knew, and our families went way back.
“It’s a big school,” I said, not wanting to put any significance on whether I’d seen him or not.
Quickly, I changed the subject before they could pry further. “How was your job?”
“Great,” Baba replied. “They have food trucks in the parking lot for lunch. Can you imagine? Food trucks, every day.” He shook his head, like this was an unbelievable extravagance.
Toto, we were definitely not in Kansas anymore.
I thought about telling him about the outdoor hallways and orange trees, but we were not in the business, ever, of sharing much about our lives.
For years, I didn’t even know what my father did.
I always said he was a systems analyst, but I wasn’t really sure what it meant, and he never bothered to tell me.
Baba was efficient in his actions and his words.
He elicited exactly what information he wanted and never anything more.
Mama worked as a program manager, but she was still interviewing for jobs. All the more time for her to hover. I needed her
to be gainfully employed again, and soon.
“Did you fix your class schedule?” Mama asked.
“I’m working on it. It’s going to take a couple of days.” I wasn’t sure what I was going to tell her when my schedule stayed
the same through the rest of the semester. But I would buy myself some more time to figure it out.
She frowned. “You have to fix it quickly. You don’t want to miss too much time out of your classes. You’ll fall behind. Especially
at a new school. You want to end high school on a strong note. Besides, you have so much to do with college applications.
It’s a lot.” She was sharp, apprehensive.
I absorbed her anxiety like a sponge. “I know, Mama.”
Baba cleared his throat. “We have been discussing, and your mother and I—”
My chest constricted, suddenly fearful of what they might say next.
“—decided it might be a good idea to do some college visits this month in California. You’ll qualify for in-state tuition
since we’ll be California residents, and there are some very good schools here.”
I put down my chopsticks. This was not what I was expecting. I tried to draw out how I felt about it. Not good.
“In the next few weeks, before applications are due. I know you are still working on them. Maybe this will give you the inspiration you need. What do you think?”
It was clear that this was now going to be my parents’ North Star, getting me into the right college. I was no Sam, of course.
With him, going to an Ivy was a given. For me, the expectations were a little closer to earth, but I knew they were still
thinking a UCLA, maybe. A Berkeley.
They believed that getting my applications finished was a simple matter of dedicating time and effort. I hadn’t told them
the truth. In the past month, as the deadline approached, I’d realized I had a more complicated problem than I could describe.
I was afraid of going to college.
For many people, it was a normal rite of passage. The next step toward independence and adulthood. But eight months ago, my
brother had died in his dorm room at Harvard. It would be ridiculous to think that we would all just come out of that unscathed.
Yet my family was desperate to try.
The idea of going to college made me ill, filled me with this uncontained fear, no matter how much I tried to reason with
myself. I was mostly dealing with the problem by putting it off, thinking maybe it would just go away by itself. Time was
the great healer, but I was running out of it. The application deadline for the UCs was in under a month.
“It will take some days away from school,” Mama said. “But this is so important, you know.” Her throat seemed to quaver. “We
worry about you, after everything that has happened.”
Baba threaded his hands together on the table, a position I knew to mean he was about to say something serious.
“There are moments in your life that are critical and shape the future direction. College is the most consequential decision so far for you. Without it, you cannot succeed in this country. You cannot make a life for yourself. That’s why we worry for you.
Do not lose focus. We need to know that you are still on the right track.
We are thinking this trip will help you. ”
They were both looking at me with a mixture of hopefulness and uncertainty.
I could hardly stand their expressions. The expectation laden in their eyebrows. The desperation pulling at their cheeks.
But it was easy to make their troubles slide away. It was a gracious power, and I exercised it generously. I could always
say the right things, put forward the words they wanted to hear, and they would fade back into a numb comfort.
I shaped my face into an imitation of a smile. “Okay,” I said. “That sounds like a good idea.”
Their faces gleamed back at mine, two worthy mirrors.