19. Tiffin Talks Early Decision
While we were away over Thanksgiving break, the elves decked Tiffin’s halls.
While the third-, fourth-, and fifth-formers revel in the holly-jolliness of campus, the sixth-formers are distracted. Early Decision emails have started to arrive from colleges.
Madison J. gets deferred from Yale.
Royce Stringfellow gets deferred from MIT.
Willow Levy gets deferred from Tulane.
Tilly Benbow gets deferred from SMU.
Davi Banerjee gets deferred from UMiami.
Pippa Sacks gets rejected from UMiami.
Taylor Wilson gets accepted to Duke.
Taylor appears in the hallway of the first floor of South screaming, “I got in! I got in! I’m going to Duke!”
Tiffin’s Head Prefect, Madison J., makes a point of being the first to congratulate Taylor, even though Madison thinks Taylor broadcasting her success is in very poor taste.
Madison’s deferral from Yale came as a crushing blow, therefore Madison takes solace from the gloomy news of deferrals up and down the hall.
Over in North, Royce Stringfellow is apparently having some kind of breakdown because he was deferred from MIT.
Everyone has been deferred, it seems, except somehow Taylor.
Madison J. doesn’t want to be ungenerous, but she can’t help assuming that Taylor got into Duke because her mother is an alum.
(Madison J.’s mother went to Brown. Should Madison have applied to Brown instead of Yale?) Taylor is the Honor Board chair, and Madison now wonders if Honor Board chairs are viewed more favorably than Head Prefects.
Madison emails Mav to let him know about her deferral, and he responds: There is no rhyme nor reason when it comes to college admissions, Madison. You’re a strong candidate. Keep the faith.
Keep the faith? Madison won’t get a response from Yale regular admissions until March 28—nearly four months from now.
She writes to the Yale admissions rep to emphasize her continued interest in Yale, triple-checking her letter for syntax, usage, and punctuation before she sends it off.
She also responds to Mav: Is there anything else you can do?
She deletes this before she hits send, because she doesn’t want to sound whiny, and also, what is she expecting Mav to do? Wave a magic wand?
Olivia H-T texts Grady Tish, whom she has been (secretly) talking to since the Halloween dance, to say: Deferred from UMiami with the frowny-face emoji.
Grady writes back: Davi got deferred from Miami too and Pippa got *rejected*.
What the helly? Olivia thinks. She knew about Davi—everyone on the floor was talking about it—but Pippa got… rejected? Is this true?
As if reading Olivia’s mind, Grady adds: Pippa was in Liam’s room freaking out about it.
The news softens the blow of Olivia’s own deferral; in the eyes of Miami admissions, she is somehow superior to Pippa Sacks.
Olivia heads down the hall to check on Tilly, who got deferred from SMU. Tilly was already in bad shape when she left for break, and Olivia has genuine concern for her friend’s well-being (even though Olivia knows this concern will never be reciprocated).
When Olivia pokes her head in, Tilly is sitting on her bed brushing out her long blond hair, which Olivia finds surprising. Since the school year began, Tilly has worn her hair in the messiest of buns; when she took it down, it hung in greasy strands.
“Hey,” Olivia says. “You okay?”
“Yeah,” Tilly says, pulling fine blond hairs from her brush and letting them fall to the floor. “Of course. Why?”
“Because of SMU.”
“I’ll get in,” Tilly says. “And if I don’t, I’ll just go to UConn.”
“UConn?”
“Go Huskies,” Tilly says. She meets Olivia’s eye and actually smiles.
Wait, what? Olivia thinks. Tilly has had her heart set on SMU since they were third-formers. “How was your Thanksgiving? You didn’t tell me.”
Tilly flips her hair off her shoulders. “Nothing to tell.” Her tone is so cheerful, Olivia knows she’s lying.
“Did you see… him over break?”
“Who?”
Tilly is just daring Olivia to say: the older guy, whatever his name is, the one who took a dump on your personality, the one you’re always on the phone with, the one who makes you cry.
But Tilly will only tell Olivia to mind her own business, so Olivia says, “Never mind.” She nearly tells Tilly that Pippa got rejected from Miami, but Tilly won’t care.
And so, Olivia leaves the room in search of someone who will care.
Davi barges into Charley’s room, then dive-bombs her on the bed, plucking the copy of Emperor of the Air out of her hands and chucking it to the floor.
“Please,” Charley deadpans, “make yourself at home.”
“Guess what Olivia H-T just told me?” Davi says. “Pippa got rejected from Miami.”
“You’re kidding.”
“Olivia says she has it on good authority.”
“Huh,” Charley says. “Sucks for Pippa.” She nudges Davi. “And good for you, you’re still in the running. You’ll get in, I know it.”
“If karma were real,” Davi whispers, “I would have gotten rejected and Pippa deferred. Because as we know, I got with Pippa’s man. Multiple times.”
“If karma were real,” Charley says, “Liam would have been with you in the first place.”
Or, Liam would have broken things off with Pippa, which was what Davi had hoped would happen.
He and Davi spent all of Saturday and half of Sunday together, emerging from Davi’s room only to get food from the Grille when it reopened.
At noon on Sunday, when they heard Alistair barking in the hallway—Mrs. Wully was back—Davi and Liam kissed as though Liam were going off to war, and when Davi assured him the coast was clear, he slipped out of the dorm.
Later that afternoon, Davi drove East’s truck to the bus station to pick up Charley, and when they pulled into the Back Lot, they watched Liam climb into Pippa’s vintage Land Rover.
The roller bars of the Rover were wrapped in evergreen garland, and there was a wreath on the front grille; in the driver’s seat, Pippa wore a Santa’s hat, which Liam stole and put on his own head.
They were, it seemed, very much still together.
“I feel like everyone got deferred,” Davi says to Charley now. “Is it possible that Mav is hot, but not very good at his job?”
“It’s not Mav’s fault nobody got in,” Charley says.
“Whoa,” Davi says. “Defend your boyfriend much?”
“Oh my god, he’s not my boyfriend,” Charley says. She clambers over Davi to retrieve her book. “Everyone got deferred because getting into college is hard, Davi.”
“Taylor did it,” Davi says. She likes Taylor—and is now wickedly jealous of her. How amazing must it feel to be into college right now? “I want to be Taylor.”
Taylor has spoken to her parents, her younger brother, her grandma, and her best friend from home. She has received congratulations from Madison J. and Willow (though she’s not sure these were genuine). She got a big hug from Mrs. Wully, who said, “Duke is lucky to have you.”
During Intervis, Taylor races over to North so she can hang with Hakeem and Dub in Hakeem’s room. “Everyone hates me,” she says. “I was literally the only person to get in anywhere ED.”
Hakeem pulls the Evian bottle filled with vodka out of his mini fridge, along with a Celsius Fuji Apple Pear. “Shall we celebrate?”
Dub raises a Heisman hand. “I can’t, bro. I have to study for pre-calc. If I don’t pass the final, I won’t be going to college at all. Let’s wait for the weekend.”
Taylor is glad Dub’s the one who said it. She loves how proud Hakeem is, but all the excitement is making her queasy. The mere thought of doing a shot makes her…
“I feel dizzy,” she says. “I need to go back to my room.”
“You can lie down here,” Hakeem says.
“That’s my cue to go,” Dub says.
“No, really, I’m unwell.” Taylor kisses Hakeem and gives Dub a hug. “Love you guys.”
“Proud of you, Tay,” Hakeem says.
Taylor races down the stairs, breathing in through her nose, out through her mouth. It doesn’t help that the stairwell smells like cigarettes. Is someone smoking? Taylor hears a girl talking through tears. “It just makes me want to blow my whole life up. Because what does anything matter now?”
The girl, Taylor realizes, is Pippa Sacks; she and Liam are talking on the second-floor landing, which is against the rules (only residential students are allowed in the dorms at Intervis, as per page 9 of The Bridle, and smoking is a Page 1 infraction, punishable by Head’s Detention, as Taylor, who is the Honor Board chair, well knows).
Taylor hurries past with a wave meant to convey, I acknowledge you, but I’m not going to turn you in.
Liam says, “Hey, congrats on Duke.”
News travels fast, Taylor thinks. She has, of course, already heard that Pippa got rejected from Miami.
“Thanks so much!” Taylor can’t get out of the dorm fast enough. The instant she bursts out into the sharp December air, she thinks, Oh no, oh no!
Oh yes: She vomits into the bushes in front of Classic North.
Gross, she thinks as she wipes at her mouth. But her disgust lasts only a moment. She’s going to Duke!
Cordelia pops into Audre’s office first thing on Wednesday morning. “I always forget how Early Decision ruins the holiday spirit around here.”
Audre clicks out of the operating budget.
It’s December 2, and the account has gained back only 312,000 dollars since the start of the year—and Audre has the faculty’s health insurance premiums due.
She hopes Jim Benbow’s donation really is substantial, because at this rate, they might not even make it to April.
She turns her attention to Cordelia. “The news wasn’t good,” she admits.
“It was dreadful,” Cordelia says. If Cordelia isn’t mistaken, every student except one was either deferred or rejected. Cordelia is tempted to text Honey. Honey’s ED results were always above 50 percent. “Are you going to speak to Mav?”
“I’m not sure that’s a good idea,” Audre says. “He’s swamped making sure everyone else meets regular decision deadlines.”
“He should probably be fired,” Cordelia says.
“Fired?” Does Audre need to remind Cordelia that she’s the one who hired Mav in the first place? “Let’s give him the benefit of the doubt. We’ll see how things go in the spring before we make any permanent decisions.”
“You’re the boss,” Cordelia says.
Yes, Audre thinks. I am the boss, thank you very much. And yet they both know Audre would be lost without Cordelia.
Cordelia turns to go. “I have our own admissions to worry about. Applications are up eighteen percent.”
“Don’t forget to be on the lookout for—”
“The best and the brightest, as long as they’re the children of billionaires.” Cordelia winks. “And good-looking too, of course.”
That night in the Paddock, dinner service is interrupted by the music teacher, Mr. Chuy, and a group of choir kids who serenade us with “It’s the Most Wonderful Time of the Year.”
Is it the most wonderful time of the year? we wonder. The sixth-formers who just got deferred don’t think so.
Taylor Wilson, who should be feeling wonderful, side-eyes a piece of toasted focaccia before pushing it away and dropping her forehead onto the table.
All of us are staring down a week of finals—and although our teachers are urging us to lock in and focus, we still scroll on our phones.
We could all use a distraction.