“I’m fourth in my class,” I say. “There are three people ahead of me to scoop up the big-time acceptances and scholarships. Not to mention thousands of kids at other schools.”
Maybe I absorbed more of Stuart’s stress and panic than I thought.
“Don’t worry,” Mom says. “Things will work out.”
This is ridiculous advice from someone whose husband is in prison. Someone who’s been living like a cross between a mole and a hermit for the past three years. Someone who, with each passing year, seems to fret more and more about keeping our connection to Daddy secret.
I remember the fear I saw on her face that day we were driving to Ohio, when we heard the radio report about our faked U-Haul destination. It’s like that fear has settled into her face, into her bones, into her soul. It never leaves her.
That’s what changed about Mom over the past three years.
Mostly I try to ignore it, and I don’t talk about Daddy even with Mom. But today there’s something I have to ask.
“Mom,” I say. I start fiddling with the loopy chain of my necklace. It’s one my father gave me, but I didn’t remember that when I put it on this morning. I was just thinking it’s one of the few things I brought from Georgia that doesn’t look too childish now. One of the few things I didn’t outgrow. “Are you sure there isn’t some . . . college fund Daddy tucked away anywhere? Something else we were allowed to keep when they took away all Daddy’s money?”
I dare to look straight at Mom, but she’s not looking at me. Instead, she’s staring down toward the floor, as if the hallway baseboard has suddenly become fascinating.
She’s also shaking her head no.
“I should have been a better businesswoman, selling the house,” Mom says. She looks back up and offers me a pained smile. “I guess there are a lot of things I should have done differently.”
Not marry Daddy, I think. Stopped him from becoming a criminal. Become fabulously wealthy with a legitimate job so it didn’t matter to lose all Daddy’s illegal money.
But I say dutifully, “No, Mom, you did the best you could. It’s not your fault we owed more on the house than it was worth.”
I kind of think it was her fault. Why wasn’t she paying more attention before Daddy was arrested?
Then she would have known too much. The government would have seen her as a coconspirator, and she would have gone to prison too.
No matter what, I lose.
I put on the same kind of grim smile Mom’s giving me. Or maybe it’s more of a grimace.
“Anyhow, Rosa says it’s good to be flat broke when you’re applying for financial aid,” I tell her. As if my grimace isn’t enough, I go for some black humor. “The joke’s on the government—they took all Daddy’s money, they’re going to get stuck paying for my college. It is the government that gives all that financial aid, right?”
Mom’s smile freezes.
“Mom?” I say. “There won’t be any problem with me getting financial aid, will there?”
It suddenly hits me that college financial aid, like free or reduced lunch in high school, would require a stack of paperwork, lots of lines to fill out and boxes to check. Maybe the forms are even online, leaving a digital trail that could link me to Daddy and his crimes forever.
If the government or some college or university—Vanderbilt?—is going to give me thousands and thousands of dollars, they’re probably not going to be satisfied with a “not applicable” answer to such a basic question as “father’s name.”
So what? I think. Surely all that information is kept private. Who cares if some clerk in some office somewhere knows the truth? I won’t have to see or talk to them.
And I am stunned at myself. Have I actually changed that much from three years ago? Strayed so far from Mom’s constant fear? Freshman year, the thought of anyone knowing about my connection to Daddy was enough to make me cower under the covers. It was enough to make me turn in my cell phone and shut down my Facebook page without a peep.
It was enough to make Mom and me move five hundred and fifty miles away from home and cut off ties with all the people we cared about. It was enough to make us deny my father’s existence and abandon my academic records and build a new life that hid the truth from everyone.
I think about how I felt this morning, seeing that picture of Daddy and knowing that every single one of my fellow Deskins High School seniors was holding the same picture. Or this afternoon, talking to Rosa, during that one moment when I thought she’d found out the truth.
I’m not any less ashamed than I used to be, I think. But—maybe I want something else so much that I’m willing to let my guard down just a little?
I am like Stuart, after all. He wants Harvard enough to cheat; I want Vanderbilt enough to . . . well, to tell the whole truth. Just once. It would be worth it to get into Vanderbilt or someplace like it. Someplace that will be a reward for all my golden A’s, someplace that says to the world, “This girl is quality. She’s not a liar like her father. She’s not an ignorant, terrified dupe like her mother.”
All this is breaking over me, and thanks to all my advanced-level English classes, I know exactly how to label it: I have had an epiphany.
Meanwhile, Mom’s frozen smile is cracking. Not in a good way.
“I—I have to check with the lawyer,” she says. She catches a glimpse of my face, and maybe she kind of understands. Because she adds, “I’ll call Mr. Trumbull right now.”
She goes back in her bedroom and closes her door. And I don’t exactly try to eavesdrop, but it doesn’t seem reasonable to walk all the way out to the living room when she’s just going to come back out in a few minutes. She keeps her voice low—and seems to be listening more than she talks—but I hear her say, “Should be able to apply for financial aid” and then, “Why? Why can’t she even have that?” And then there’s a mumbled reference I don’t catch until the third time she repeats the same words: “Unique circumstances . . .”
“Unique circumstances”? I think. She’s talking to Daddy’s defense attorney! He hangs out with criminals and their families all the time! In his eyes, we’re not the least bit unique!
Mom steps back out of the bedroom, and she looks worse than ever. Her face has a clammy sheen and she keeps gulping hard, like she’s trying to hold back tears. Talking to the attorney always sets her off.
I really can’t look at her now.
“Let’s hold off on anything like that,” she says, and it’s painful to hear how hard she’s trying to sound normal for me, how hard she’s trying to make this an ordinary-mom answer to an ordinary-teenager question. “It’s not a definite no, but . . . for now you can’t apply for financial aid. It’s not due anytime soon, is it? Probably you’ll get so many scholarship offers, it’s not going to matter. I have faith in you.”
I can’t let myself think about why she’s so distraught—or about how likely it is that “for now you can’t” will eventually turn into “you won’t be able to, ever.” That’s how these things work. Instead, my brain skitters off in a rebellious direction: Is “I have faith in you” the kind of thing she said to Daddy when they were newly married? Before he’d done anything worse than stretch the truth about his educational background? Before he’d turned to crime as the only way to give her everything she had faith in?
Now
(Why, oh, why aren’t I in a different now?)
Ever since that awful winter of my freshman year, the rules of my relationship with Mom are that I don’t argue with her. No matter what she says, or what Mr. Trumbull tells her we have to do. Even now—especially now, when I have all those furious and unfair charges flashing through my brain—all I can do is look away and mumble, “Okay.”
I am a terrible person. It is unforgivable that I can blame Mom for any of this. Everything is Daddy’s fault.
Why can’t I believe that?
Mom has her hand stretched out to me, like she wants to draw me into a hug. But I pull back.
“I need to get started on my AP physics homework,” I say.
Mom opens her mouth like she wants to say something else. But she doesn’t.
“Maybe you should just lie back down,” I tell her. “This will be quiet homework. I’ll mute my calculator.”
Mom touches my cheek, moving quickly enough that she actually makes contact for an instant.
“You’re a good kid,” she says. “You deserve—”
“Yeah, yeah,” I interrupt, before she can tell me what I should get, but won’t. “Who ever gets what they deserve?”
And then the answer is huge between us: Daddy. Daddy got what he deserved. Only, we got punished too.
Neither of us says it.
“Good night,” Mom says, yawning. “Er, afternoon.”
She goes back into her bedroom and shuts the door. I head into my own room, but I don’t drag the physics homework with me. I fire up my laptop—the same laptop that was confiscated three and a half years ago with all of Daddy’s computers, the day he was arrested. I was so mad that day, so indignant: “How could anyone do this to me? How am I going to check Facebook? How am I going to get into my iTunes account?”
Then I found out they were taking Daddy away too.
I remember him bending down to my level and looking me straight in the eye right before they took him away. He kissed me on the forehead and said in his calmest, most soothing voice: “Honey, this is all a mistake. You know I didn’t do anything wrong. We’ll get it all straightened out and you’ll get your computer back and everything will be fine.”
But it turned out that my father had done some of his crimes on my computer—mine! So it was evidence, and I didn’t get it back until after the trial. Daddy’s attorney had to mail it to us after we moved.
At least it still works, I tell myself, though sometimes that’s a little iffy, too.
I go to the Vanderbilt University website and learn that 60 percent of its undergraduate students get financial aid. I learn that 89 percent of first-year students were in the top 10 percent of their class.
I learn that I got a better SAT score than most of those students.
So, maybe . . . I think.
I switch over to the website Stuart and Rosa were talking about at lunch, collegedata.com. Right in the center of the home page, it says, “Will you get in? Find out! Estimate your admission chances at any college, and see how to improve your odds.” But when I click on the strip that says “Calculate your chances!” it turns out that the site wants all sorts of information from me first: name, birthdate, address . . . I put my finger on the B key for “Becca,” but I don’t press down. I am remembering.
There was a no-man’s-land of time after the verdict but before the sentencing, after Mom and I decided to move but before we left Georgia. It was like our old life had ended but nothing else had replaced it. My most vivid memory from that time was an afternoon Mom and I spent in Mr. Trumbull’s office. He was talking to Mom, but looking at me: “You two, of all people, should realize that you’ll have to be very, very careful about what you do online. You log in somewhere to get some, I don’t know, free iTunes download or something, and the next thing you know, anyone on the planet can find your new address.”
This is why I never opened a new Facebook account.
This is why I barely use my computer except for homework.
This is why, when I look at my laptop, I don’t see it as an innocent companion, a fun way to pass the time. Even with my old sixth-grade Hello Kitty sticker peeling from its case, I see the computer now as a grenade ready to blow up in my face, a ticking time bomb that might explode at any minute.
Collegedata.com has reassuring letters in green at the top of its page: “https,” meaning it should be a secure site. And I am not looking for anything as frivolous as a free iTunes download. I am looking for my future. I am looking for permission to be a high school senior like Stuart and Rosa and Oscar and Clarice, people who think they can plan their futures.
But I take my hands off the keyboard. I reach for the mouse and shut everything down.
• • •
I barely sleep that night. In the morning I am waiting outside the guidance office when Ms. Stela arrives.
She’s juggling a Starbucks cup and a briefcase and such a huge sheaf of computer printouts that it might be the records of every student in the school. Or maybe, everyone who ever attended the school.
“Please don’t tell me your schedule’s messed up too,” she says, somehow finding a spare hand to push back a strand of her long hair before it snakes down into the coffee. But she’s off-balance now; I grab the coffee cup to keep her from spilling all over the computer printouts.
“Thanks,” she says, using the briefcase to motion me to follow her through the waiting room into her office, which she unlocks with a key hanging from a lanyard around her neck.
She drops the printouts and briefcase on a chair, searches for a pen and a Post-it note, and then says, “Now, Becca. Which class do you want into or out of?”
“This isn’t about scheduling,” I say. “I need to find out about applying for scholarships.”
Ms. Stela puts down her pen.
“I told Mr. Gordon we had that assembly yesterday too early in the year,” she mutters. She seems to realize she shouldn’t criticize the principal in front of a student and puts on a comforting smile. “Look, you don’t have to worry about scholarships yet. Those deadlines are later. Right now you should just think about where you want to apply, do any remaining college visits, and work on your essays. Remember, if you go to the guidance website, there are links to help. And, of course, you need to focus on keeping your grades up, so when you send out your first semester grades to colleges, they’ll see . . .”
She seems to be shifting into some guidance-counselor spiel that she gives so often, she doesn’t even have to think. She’s glancing toward the printouts as if she’s already mentally sent me on my way.
“I do need to start thinking about scholarships now,” I interrupt, with an edge to my voice that I don’t usually have with grown-ups. Or with anyone, really, except Stuart yesterday. That was dangerous—I lost control. But I have to make Ms. Stela see how important this is.
I try again.
“I . . . might have a problem applying for financial aid,” I say. “I may not be able to do that. So I’ll have to get scholarships. I need to know what’s possible.”
Ms. Stela stops gazing toward the computer printouts. She studies my face in a way that makes me think she may be a more observant guidance counselor than I ever suspected.
It makes me nervous.
“Why, Becca Jones,” she says, emphasizing my last name oddly. She looks puzzled. “Are you an illegal immigrant? I mean, an undocumented alien?” She jerks her hands up like a traffic cop signaling “Stop!” Or, as if she’s trying to take back her own words. “No, no, don’t answer that. I don’t need to know.”
“I’m not an illegal immigrant!” I say. Though a split second later I wish I’d let Ms. Stela believe that. It would be easier. “There are just some . . . issues with my family’s finances.”
“Right,” Ms. Stela says, nodding sagely. “Lots of families have . . . issues.”
I don’t like the way she says that. Or the fact that she steps past me to pull her door shut, making our conversation private. If any of the guidance secretaries were listening outside, this probably convinces them that I am an illegal immigrant.
From where? I think. From the land of kids with imprisoned parents?
I tell myself I’m being paranoid, and push on.
“Anyhow, that’s why scholarships are so important,” I say. “And why I need to know how much scholarship money I’ll get so I’ll know if I need to . . . to fill out the financial aid forms or not. You know.”
What I really mean is, Will I need to fight with Mom and Mr. Trumbull to get to fill out financial aid forms? Is that a fight I can run away from, like everything else? Or is my choice fi
ght that fight or don’t have a future?
Ms. Stela turns into some version of a deeply concerned guidance counselor I’ve never seen before. She clears off the stack of paper from her least cluttered visitor’s chair and gestures for me to sit down. She waits until I obey. Then she eases into her own desk chair.
“Becca,” she says gently, and I imagine her using that same tone of voice with girls with unplanned pregnancies. Or maybe with actual illegal immigrants. “The timing isn’t on your side for deadlines and announcement dates. For pretty much any college application you’d turn in, you need to check a box about whether you’re applying for financial aid. Those applications are almost all going to be due by the end of December. The FAFSA—the federal financial aid form—that’s due in mid February. Depending on where you apply, you may not know about certain school-related merit aid until well after that. And the local scholarships, the ones that are for Deskins students only—the ones that are easiest to get—we don’t announce those until the senior awards assembly in May.”
I knew that last part. As a National Honor Society member, I’d handed out the programs to proud parents at the senior awards assembly last May. I’d glanced at the lineup of scholarships and prizes during lulls between families coming in.
The information just hadn’t seemed so devastating last May.
“So you’re saying, if I don’t fill out the FAFSA, I may not even be able to go to college?” I nearly wail to Ms. Stela.
I must look and sound thoroughly shell-shocked. Ms. Stela starts patting my knee.
“No, no, that is not what I’m saying,” she assures me, shaking her head for emphasis. “But if you really can’t fill out the financial aid forms—and your family doesn’t have the money to pay full freight, which, who does these days?—then you’re going to have to be strategic about where you apply. You’re a good student. The University of Toledo has really started offering a lot of merit aid to attract top students. So has the University of Kentucky. Depending on what you want to study, there are other schools, too, which may not be terribly well known or prestigious, but you would be pretty much guaranteed—”