Getting In: A Novel by Karen Stabiner

Author:Karen Stabiner
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
Tags: Fiction - General, College applications, Admission, Family Life, General, United States, American Contemporary Fiction - Individual Authors +, Fiction, High school seniors, Universities and colleges
ISBN: 9781401322465
Publisher: Voice
Published: 2010-03-16T07:00:00+00:00

Brad felt like a buffoon. In a giddy, disoriented moment he had ordered a Black Forest Ice Blended, in which coffee was merely the vehicle for lots of chocolate espresso beans and maraschino cherries, all of it blanketed by a pyramid of whipped cream. Liz was sitting across from him with her chaste chai latte, and he had ordered a clown drink. He poked at it, took a small sip, and grimaced, in the hope that she would find the drink dumb, and not him. So much for the scion of the Bradley family and his inherited social graces.

“I have no clue how to eat this thing,” he said.

She smiled.

He could not recall the last time he had had a conversation with a new person, let alone someone who did not go to Crestview. His friends might talk about joining Doctors Without Borders or studying at the London School of Economics, but they were isolationists when it came to friendship and romance. They rarely ventured outside the Crestview family, and their conversations were studded with incestuous references to what went on at school. Brad was out of his element and wanting to impress, a deadly combination, a minefield. There were probably a dozen things he could say to Liz that would put her off irrevocably, and another dozen that would endear him to her, but he had no idea which was which because he did not really know anything about her, except that he did not know anything about her, which was the allure. It might be safe to talk about celebrities and rehab, or the health-care crisis, or the Middle East, or how about those Lakers, those Dodgers, those eco-terrorists, but there was no way to tell until he opened his mouth and put his foot in it. If this was a preview of life as a college freshman, he might never leave his dorm room.

“So. Can you believe graduation is so close?” Dumb, pale, vague. He sounded like his grandfather, who began every long-distance phone call with “How’s the weather?” because he could not think of anything else to say.

Liz took a sip of her latte and waited, and it hit Brad that she was waiting because she assumed, charitably, that he had more to say.

“You wouldn’t believe the Crestview graduation. Very formal. White caps and gowns, jackets and ties, dresses. No denim. They have a rule, no denim.”

“Nice,” said Liz, with the little smirk he remembered from the financial aid meeting.

Brad abandoned the straw and concentrated on folding the whipped cream into the body of the drink with a spoon, which turned it the color of mud. “It’s no big deal,” he said.

“Right,” she replied. Liz was prepared to like Brad, primarily because he seemed to lack Katie’s snobbishness, but she had her guard up. She expected private school kids to be spoiled unless they convinced her otherwise—and if he turned out to be one of those entitled kids, then at some point he would be condescending about her life and that would be the end of it.

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