Admission (73 page)

“Well, I’m sure you had to argue for him. I know he couldn’t have been an easy kid to say yes to. I’m very grateful, too.
I was going to write to you,” he said, looking away. “I really was.”

“It’s okay,” she told him. “You gave me some good chances, and I really blew them.”

He looked at her carefully. He took a long time. She was, she realized, inviting him to make his own conclusions, and when
he did, she let him know that they were her conclusions, too.

“Hartland, Vermont?” he said, looking pleased with himself. “That’s courtin’ distance in New England, you know.”

“I beg your pardon?” Portia said.

“Up here in the mountains, courtin’ distance is… let me see, as far as a cow can travel between milkings.”

“Well, I don’t know very much about cows, but that does sound unlikely. I mean, it’s got to be fifty miles from here to Hartland.
You can’t expect a cow to walk that far.”

“Did I say walk?” he said archly. “You’re totally allowed to load the cow in a truck. Absolutely. It’s the twenty-first century!”

Portia laughed. “And you are the authority on this? Do I need to remind you that you grew up on the Main Line?”

“No, please don’t. They say it takes three New Hampshire generations before you’re not a Flatlander. I’m trying to pass here.
If you blow my cover, I’m going to look very uncool.”

“Oh yes, I can see you’re trying to pass,” Portia told him, fingering the sleeve of his blue button-down shirt. “You look
quite the native in this fine Brooks Brothers ensemble.”

“I am attempting to put the ‘gentleman’ back in ‘gentleman farmer,’” he informed her.

“Well, good luck with that.”

He smiled at her. He had, she now recalled, a beautiful smile.

“So you’ll stay.”

Portia looked again at the volleyball game, in time to see Jeremiah and Nelson, each reaching for the same high ball, crash
into each other instead. Jeremiah’s parents, it suddenly occured to her, must be here, somewhere. Their son was graduating
from high school, and this day with him did not belong to her.

“No. Thank you,” she told John. “I’d better keep going. My mother has never asked me for help in her life, but her phone calls
are getting a little frantic. I don’t think she really remembered how hard it was, having a baby in the house.”

“It is hard,” he agreed. “But worth it.”

“Yes,” Portia said carefully. “I’m sure that’s true. And I would love to stay, but as you’ve so charmingly pointed out, I’m
going to be close enough to drive a pig on a motorcycle. Or something like that. So another time, yes?”

“Yes.” He nodded. “Absolutely, yes. I really am sorry, but I think I need to get back to my post. We have a few end-of-year
meetings next week, and then I’m free. Can I call you?”

“Can you ride your heifer over the mountain?” She smiled.

“Yes, exactly.”

“I don’t see why not. But when you meet my mom, I’d maybe lose the gentleman farmer getup. You know what snobs radical women
can be.”

“I’ll come with my copy of
I’m OK—You’re OK
.” He grinned. “I know how to get on her good side.”

He didn’t seem surprised to be swatted in response to this.

“You don’t want to just say hello to Jeremiah?”

Portia turned. She looked for him again and saw that the game was over. Nelson already had drifted off, rubbing an elbow.
Jeremiah and another boy were taking down the net, pulling up the stakes. His black hair lifted in the breeze. He seemed to
be laughing at something. She wondered what he was laughing about but understood that she could live with not knowing. For
today, it was enough that she loved him. Merely loving him—that felt miraculous.

Portia opened her car door. “Another time,” she told John. “But congratulate him for me, would you? You’re right, it wasn’t
a straightforward thing, but I don’t think I’ve ever admitted anyone I felt so confident about. He’s going to be amazing.
He’s already amazing. You should be really proud.”

John shrugged. “Just a little nurture. He already had the nature, wherever it came from.”

He said this in a distracted way, as he was simultaneously pulling her against him, in farewell or in greeting, she wasn’t
sure. Portia closed her eyes. A number of surprisingly cheerful things occurred to her in rapid succession, but she said none
of them out loud. Instead, she hugged him back and said, “Come see me soon.”

He laughed. He said: “I’m on my way.”

Admission
is a work of fiction. With the exception of the Princeton location, all of the events, people, and stories depicted in this
novel are wholly products of my imagination. Apart from the not insignificant qualities of integrity, capability, and dedication
to the very complex and difficult work they do, none of the admissions officers in the novel have counterparts at the real
Princeton. Any similarities, therefore, are entirely coincidental and not to be considered real.

I would like to thank, in particular, the admissions officers I worked with at Princeton, in my capacity as outside reader,
during the 2006 and 2007 admissions seasons. Former Director of Admission Chris Watson (now Dean of Undergraduate Admission
at Northwestern) answered my many questions with openness and humor and once told me that everyone who leaves admissions writes
a book about it—why shouldn’t mine be a novel? Keith Light (Associate Dean of Admission at Princeton and now Associate Director
of Admission at Brown) and Assistant Dean of Admission Chris Burkmar were great supervisors. My fellow outside reader Suzanne
Buchsbaum sensitively thoughtfully read the manuscript. Former Dean of Admission Fred Hargadon provided a historical perspective
and was so generous with his time. Finally, I am very grateful to Dean Janet Rapelye
for hiring me; I truly loved the work and regard her as the embodiment of grace under pressure.

Others across the admissions landscape gave me their time and insights. I thank Bob Claggett (Dean of Admissions at Middlebury
College), Maria Laskaris (Dean of Admissions at Dartmouth College), Holly Burks Becker (Director of College Counseling at
the Lawrenceville School), Maggie Favretti (history teacher, Scarsdale High School), and Eli Bromberg (Assistant Dean of Admission,
Amherst College) for their time and perspectives.

Lisa Eckstrom donated her close reading, great friendship, and add-a-pearl tales of life with a philosopher. Gideon Rosen,
professor of philosophy at Princeton, cheerfully supplied nearly everything in this novel that implies a knowledge of matters
philosophical. (Who knew that zombies had anything at all to do with philosophy? Not I.) I can never adequately thank Debbie
Michel, the Florence Nightingale of plot, for getting me out of tight places and being such a spectacular reader, writer,
and all around individual. Suzanne Gluck, the best of all possible agents, and ably supported by assistants past (Georgia
Cool) and present (Sarah Ceglarski), has beautifully represented this book. I am incredibly lucky to be in her orbit. I have
waited precisely twenty-one years to work with Deb Futter. What can I say? It was worth the wait. (Thanks, too, to her great
assistant, Dianne Choie.)

Of the many books on college admissions I have read over the past several years, I particularly admired and made use of two:
Jacques Steinberg’s
The Gatekeepers: Inside the Admissions Process of a Premiere College
(still the best available depiction of how the process currently works) and Jerome Karabel’s
The Chosen: The Hidden History of Admission and Exclusion at Harvard, Yale, and Princeton
(an exhaustive and fascinating history).

Anyone who manages to get their hands on a copy of the 1928 Harvard Yearbook will find a class poem very like the one referred
to on
page 192
. The poet was Charles Cortez Abbott (1906–1986), who would go on to write several books on finance and found
the Darden School of Business at the University of Virginia, but not—alas—to publish his poetry. His poem has resonated for
me since I first read it, thirty years ago, and I still find it terribly current.

Finally, as the dedication reflects, my greatest thanks must go to my parents, Ann and Burt Korelitz, who have waited far
too long to have a book dedicated to them, and who—as they would be the first to tell you—could not have cared less where
I went to college.