FROM: Josephine Bordelon—[email protected]
DATE: September 24, 2018
CC:
BCC:
SUBJECT: RE: Introduction to our son, Harrison Rutherford Lawton
TO: Meredith Lawton
CONGRATULATIONS, Meredith! You indeed were the first family to submit your application for this coming fall with a post time of twenty-eight seconds after the WeeScholars common application website opened. Our 110-year-old bylaws state that ruthless competitiveness, punctuality, and lama reincarnation are three of the four criteria to qualify Harrison for the golden ticket (YAY! Envision 24K gold confetti raining down, the confetti being compostable, of course), which means he’s automatically accepted into the Fairchild Country Day School class of 20-and-who-fucking-cares. No need to tour, attend an open house, or show up for the admissions visit date and parent interview. In fact, you don’t even have to wait until March 15 to find out Harrison’s elementary school fate like all the other die-hard parents out there.
Fairchild has been waiting years for a family as touched by perfection as yours to attend our school. Please let me know how I can best serve what I can only imagine will be endless, relentless needs and wants every step of Harrison’s educational path.
With complete ambivalence that you know Beatrice,
Josie Bordelon
DIRECTOR OF ADMISSIONS
FAIRCHILD COUNTRY DAY SCHOOL
“I’ve never worked in a school, but I’m pretty sure you’ll get fired if you swear in a work e-mail.” I didn’t even notice Etta hop off the carpet to come snoop over my shoulder. “And you should have a comma after . . .”
DE-LEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE-TE.
Grammar show-off.
Etta certainly did not get her punctuality from me, but her sarcasm—100 percent Bordelon.
As director of admissions this has become my free therapy to keep all the over-the-top parents from chipping away at my sanity. I say my piece and I erase. Then I move on.
“I’m having a hard time rallying for the ridiculousness of the entitled this year. I just want to find some old-school families who parent like it’s 1986: roof, food, clothes, water, manners, and if you don’t get good grades your ass will get whooped ’cause you gotta earn your keep. I’m looking for black-to-basics parenting.” That’s my knee-jerk reaction. When I grow weary of the rich, I fall back on my Nawlins Ninth Ward background. Or really Aunt Viv’s, since I can only kinda claim my Southern black Baptist roots.
“You’re not helping the cause with that e-mail.” Etta points to my now-empty screen.
“Yeah, I know, but sometimes it feels good to type the conversation that’s going on in my head instead of official director of admissions missives. If only once I could push send on my real thoughts, maybe I could save a privileged child from a life of indulgence and complete cluelessness about the other 99.9 percent of the world. It could be my own act of social justice—to help a rich kid lead a normal life. It’s got potential, don’t you think?”
“Nope, not at all.”
“I’d give my firstborn for the chance to point out to one parent, any parent, when they’re in the early stages of ruining their child.”
“I’m your firstborn.”
“Right, and if I give you away before next August someone else can pay your college tuition.” I blow Etta a kiss with a wink. She knows I’d never abandon her; we’d be lost without each other.
“Tell me again why you work in a school? Seems to me at forty you should like what you do. Especially since I’ll be gone next year and the only reason you’ll have to come to Fairchild is to work hard and watch Headmistress Gooding take all the credit.” Etta raises her eyebrows at me.
“Clearly I work here for the fame, money, close relationship with my boss, and, of course, the lice. And because I’ll still have to feed you in college—it’s called a meal plan. And I do like what I do, sort of, mostly, kind of.” Etta turns and pretends to barf in my wastebasket. “And I’m not forty.”
“Yet.”
Daughters are the worst.
With one Josie minute to spare to get Etta to ballet, I chop out the e-mail that will allow me to pay the bills and keep my kid in leotards.
FROM: Josephine Bordelon—[email protected]
DATE: September 24, 2018
CC:
BCC:
SUBJECT: RE: Introduction to our son, Harrison Rutherford Lawton
TO: Meredith Lawton
Dear Meredith,
Thank you so much for applying your son, Harrison, to Fairchild Country Day School. We look forward to seeing your family at the first tour.
Warm regards,
Josie Bordelon
DIRECTOR OF ADMISSIONS
FAIRCHILD COUNTRY DAY SCHOOL
Send.
“Good job playing nice, Mama. Now, come oooooon, we gotta go. I’m begging you, don’t make me late,” Etta stresses, stuffing her headphones in her dance bag, her booty in my face. I know that booty and those endless legs. That was my body eighteen years and twenty pounds ago, strutting down the runway in Tokyo in nothing but a thong, pasties, and an open Jean Paul Gaultier kimono with Japanese characters hand painted on the back. If I had known then what I would know a few short weeks later when I couldn’t button my jeans, the characters on that kimono should have read baby on board.
“Mama, just send me to ballet in a Lyft. You know how you are the minute admissions opens up—it’s like a car crash, you can’t stop rubbernecking, or, for you, reading e-mail.” Etta huffs at me, a side effect of being artsy and a teenager. I toss her the car keys only because she’s not entirely wrong; I do completely lose myself during admissions season.
“I don’t have my license yet.” Etta says as she deftly snatches my keys out of the air.
“What are all those classes I’ve been paying for the last three months?”
“Driver’s Ed. And it doesn’t end until next month. Then I take my driving test.”
“Well, I’m not paying for a Lyft when I have a perfectly good car, and I still have the handicap placard from when I sprained my ankle, so drive carefully and park for free. Just don’t get caught and text me when you get there.” I’m not sweating Etta driving, but I still want to know she’s arrived in one piece.
“You’re a terrible parent,” Etta reprimands, turning to head out of my office. For an on-time ride she’s willing to turn a blind eye to the law and drive, but I know she won’t use the parking placard; that’s playing outside her moral boundaries.