Page 3 of Giving In

‘Survival of the richest’

New Americana – Halsey

Two months earlier …

Jamie

I don’t realize that the bus enters Stoneview. I’ve spent the last fifteen minutes trying to follow the text argument the girl in front of me is having with her boyfriend. I am one hundred percent out of line since I don’t know who she is, but my curiosity is almost an illness. If I could control it, I would, but I can’t. Mom loves repeating the story that my first steps were to walk over to our living room window to follow a heated conversation one of our neighbors was having with the mailman. I don’t do it to gossip, I do it because I find everyone’s life so interesting, especially compared to mine. I feel like everyone could be the main character of a film or a good book.

When I finally notice that we’re parking, I’m the first one ready to hop off the bus. Thinking again, I’m probably the only one getting off in Stoneview.

“Alright, let me park young lady.” I hear the driver. I can’t reply, I’m just too excited to see my mom.

Spending the summer at Harvard Summer school was exciting, especially since the city paid for it, but I’m buzzing to be at home again, eat my mom’s cooking, and just be with her and my best friend in general. The doors open and I jump out, my backpack hitting against my back in the process.

I take a deep breath, simply happy to be back in Stoneview, Maryland. The air is not as hot and heavy as when I left seven weeks ago. I spot my mom right away and run into her arms. She grabs me tight as I push on my toes so my head rests on her shoulder.

“I missed you so much,” she says, her face in my hair.

“I missed you too.” My voice is overwhelmed by the happiness of smelling her strong perfume and feeling her soft skin. For a second I’m five again and she’s cuddling me after kissing my booboo.

Mom and I share this special bond. The kind when you have only one parent left, and she has only one child left. The kind of bond where you have to have been hurting an enormous amount of pain together to know that you need the other to survive. That you are all you both have left.

She grabs my backpack off my shoulders, and I run back to the bus to grab my small suitcase. We throw my stuff in our old red pickup and I hop in the passenger side.

In the car back to the house, mom tells me all the gossip I missed while I watch the huge mansions as we drive past them.

Stoneview is…wealthy. That’s the least I can say. Only the elite of the elite makes it to this town. And by elite, I mean footballers or their freshly divorced wives, politicians, CEO’s, founders of billion-dollar-companies, senators, ambassadors and so on.

Naturally, they come with their lovely ‘I’ve never been refused anything in my life’ children. And these children go to school with me at Stoneview Prep. I am surrounded by people who wear $800 dollar uniforms during the week and snort cocaine on Chanel powder palettes throughout the weekend. They always make sure to cut their powder with their black amex. The lifestyle of the rich and famous.

The only reason I’m in Stoneview Prep, or that we’re still living in Stoneview at all, is because dad was the Sheriff and the town pays for the children’s education up to five years after the Sheriff passes away.

Mom works at a café on main street and that pays for the rest of our lives. It’s not much but once we relocated to a two-bedroom house it turned out to be enough for rent, food on the table, and a trip to the movies every now and then. That’s all we need.

Stoneview is not only wealthy but also small. Not too small, because we still have to drive pretty much everywhere, but small enough to know who you’re talking about when you mention a last name. Like, who the parents are, what they do, how many kids, whattheydo, their reputation.

Mom is currently updating me on the Joly’s. Judge Hope Joly, her husband – who owns one of the biggest law firms on the East Coast – Carl Joly, and Emily, my best friend, their one and only ‘miracle’ child.

Just as she starts telling me about Carl and Hope’s latest parade of Emily at a summer junior debutante, I feel my phone buzzing in my pocket and pull it out to see a text from my friend.

Emily: Please come get me. This is what they want me to wear for the Christmas ball.

She’s attached a picture of herself in a long white dress. She doesn’t look terrible but it’s definitely hiding her gorgeous curves.

Emily’s parents are working hard on getting her an invite to the International Debutante Ball in New York for next year and she hates it. She is the furthest thing from a debutante. Whatever the opposite of a debutante is, that is Emily. Her passions are all about sports and exercise. She dances, cheers, runs, gyms...anything that has to do with being fit, developing your muscle and looking the opposite of those poor starved girls on a juice cleanse that parade during the debutante balls. The only sport Em hasn’t picked up in our school is lacrosse. This one is my jurisdiction. She’s always there to support me on the sideline, though.

I smile and shoot her a quick response about helping her tear the dress to pieces with her dad’s shredder.

“...anyway, needless to say Hope wasn’t pleased with her when she signed up for that Triathlon. I say she needs to let the kid do whatever she wants,” Mom keeps going. I’ve missed half of the conversation. Mom notices and changes the topic quickly:

“School is going to start quicker than you think, ‘Me.” Mom’s voice is always soft when she uses the strange nickname I’ve come to love. “Have you thought of how you’re going to train your team this year?”

Myteam. I like the sound of that. I’ve been elected lacrosse team captain for the second year in a row. Not that the team actually likes me, but I’m good. Last year, I took us to the top of the mid-Atlantic top ten, so I was made captain again this year despite being completely unpopular at school.

Now, have I thought of how I’m going to take us to national number one this year? Of course I have, I’m surprised mom even has to ask. She knows I am the kind with plans A, B, C to Z. I’m not ‘work hard, play hard’, I’m ‘work hard, then work harder’. I’m top of the school, ready for college, and captain of the team. I don’t need popularity; I need to meet the conditions for my scholarship to UPenn. I want to become a surgeon, not miss America.

“‘Course,” I reply to mom with a smile. “Hey, so I applied for a scholarship to Harvard when I was there.”

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