Page 93 of The Academy
A bland, baffled expression crosses East’s face. “Miss Bergeron? Nope, haven’t seen her.”
Rhode holds East’s gaze. Is the kid lying? There’s no way to tell.
But then, Rhode sees something on the floor over by the foot of East’s bed: a wine cork.
“Excuse me,” Rhode says, and he nudges past East to pick the cork up. “What isthis?”
East gives Rhode his seductive half smile. “It’s a cork.”
“What is a wine cork doing on the floor of your bedroom?” Rhode asks, though he knows. Obviously! Simone was up here drinking wine with East—and maybe more than that. It’s nowonderSimone lost her floor fellow position at McGill.
“It must have fallen out of my duffel,” East says, reclaiming the cork from Rhode. “My mom and I went to Pasjoli in Santa Monica. Have you ever eaten there?”
“No,” Rhode says. He’s never been to LA, though there was, for a hot minute, talk of adaptingThe Prince of Little Twelfthinto a feature film. But that had died on the vine.
“Well, you should,” East says. He palms the cork. “Thanks for checking in, Mr. Rivera. If you need me to run you to the market tomorrow for provisions, just let me know.”
Rhode thinks,I will not be distracted by your charming use of the words “market” and “provisions”! I know you’re lying to me. I just can’t prove it.
“Thanks,” Rhode says. He has no option but to leave.
The instant he gets back to his room, he texts Simone:Guess who else is back early? Andrew Eastman! Hard to believe you didn’t bump into him when you were prowling around North.Rhode adds the head-scratching emoji.
Three dots rise, then disappear, which is all the confirmation Rhode needs. Simone’s key card didn’t work at Classic North. East let her in and they drank wine!
Rhode may not be justified in calling Simone a bitch—if she doesn’t like him, she doesn’t like him—but he feels just fine calling her a liar.
23. Ivy Day
Honey Vandermeid wakes up with a fuzzy head. She took two Ambien the night before, a completely irresponsible move when she was in charge of eighty girls’ welfare (thank god there wasn’t a fire drill or some other middle-of-the-night emergency). But history had proven that, above all else, Honey needed a good night’s sleep in order to face whatever news was delivered on March 28.
Ivy Day.
Honey allows a moment of nostalgia for the good old days of college admissions, back when schools—the private institutions, at least—notified applicants of decisions by letter on April 15. It was well-known that if you received a thick letter, it was an acceptance; a thin letter meant rejection. When Honey was a student at the Winsor School in Boston, she had gotten into Harvard (where her father was an endowed chair) and Davidson; she had been wait-listed at Brown (her mother’s alma mater) and rejected from Cornell, which was Honey’s first choice. Due to her burning desire to get away from Boston (and her parents), Honey attended Davidson, where she ended up being very, very happy. She regularly shares her own experience to make a point: The Ivy League isn’t always the best answer. Most kids agree with her; the typical Tiffin student prefers to apply to “fun” schools like Tulane, Miami, SMU.
But for Annabelle Tuckerman, it’s Princeton or the apocalypse.
Decisions usually arrive at five o’clock, but because thetwenty-eighth falls on a Saturday this year, the release time is eight a.m. EST.
It’s now five minutes to seven.
Honey wonders how Annabelle Tuckerman is faring. Did she sleep last night? Honey should have checked in, but that would have been showing blatant favoritism.
The biggest surprise of Honey’s year is that Annabelle Tuckermanhassort of become Honey’s favorite—all thanks to Zip Zap. Annabelle had flat-out fabricated her senior speech, “Three Brushes with Death,” then planned to use it as the topic of her college essay. When Zip Zap called this out, Annabelle confessed to Honey: She’d lied. That meant it was back to the drawing board on the essay. Annabelle had so many false starts on her new essay (first, she wrote about her decision to go to boarding school, then about her attachment to her teddy bear, then about her summer service trip to Ecuador) that she missed Princeton’s Early Decision deadline. Not applying ED would set Annabelle back even further, Honey knew, though she respected Annabelle’s decision to get her essay right.
Only a week before Princeton’s regular decision deadline, Annabelle emailed Honey her new essay with the subject lineI’m using this one.
The title was “Zip Zapped.” The essay told the whole sordid story about how Annabelle had lied in her senior speech and her original college essay—because she wanted to stand out and seem extraordinary—and how she’d gotten busted by Zip Zap, then faced scrutiny and scorn from the entire Tiffin community.
I didn’t want anyone at Princeton to find out about this,Annabelle wrote.But then I realized that college admissions officers understand they’re admitting human beings who are not only learning, winning, and succeeding, but also failing, losing, and making mistakes. I’m sure most students don’t amplify their failures, but I’m doing so because getting caught in this lie is the most significant thing that has ever happened to me. It changed how I viewed who I am, and more importantly how I visualize the person I want to become.
Wow,Honey thought when she finished. It was a gamble for sure; the Ecuador essay, although run-of-the-mill, might be a safer bet. But Annabelle was resolute.
I’m using this one.
Now Honey texts Simone Bergeron:How’s Annabelle doing?
Simone answers:Okay, I guess. Why?
