Jubana! by Gigi Anders

Author:Gigi Anders [Gigi Anders]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9780061745997
Publisher: HarperCollins
Published: 2007-08-22T04:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER SEVEN

A Marzipan in the Second Act

Could there be a more unfortunate, anti-Jubana color combo than maroon and gray? Maroon and gray were the official Sidwell Friends School colors. I was a turquoise-violet (faux) Pucci gal who would soon discover the thrill, sensation, and rightness of coral and tomato-red lipsticks. I was also a nine-year-old public school fourth grader being interviewed for possible admission into the toniest, most competitive, most elite, most overwhelmingly Anglo-albino private prep school in the most powerful city in the world.

At 9 A.M. sharp I was seated on a maroon sofa in the admissions office in a stone cottage called Zartman House on the grassy fourteen-acre campus. It smelled smart and rich and old, and musty, like faded, dusty Persian carpets and ancient, mildewed books. My interviewer was the middle school principal, Mr. JohnF. Arnold (B.S., Washington and Lee University; Yale University; University of Houston). He was a Southerner, I believe, an un-Valerie kind of WASP with big pink ears that stuck out like Dumbo’s. Mami had taken me to see the animated movie, and she said that elephants are supposed to have excellent memory. So I knew this blond pachyderm was mentally recording every word I uttered and would never forget anything I said.

Not that I was worried about it. I’ve always aced interviews. Remember the skinny gringa principal with the pearls back in kindergarten? Please. Cubans are congenitally charming. We’re social mariposas, butterflies. Besides, Sidwell was the fourth private school I’d been to visit in that spring of 1967, and so, to answer Jimi Hendrix, yes, I was experienced. The school board in my Southwest neighborhood had elected to enact the Tri-School Plan, basically a forced reverse integration program involving my school, Amidon, and two other inferior local public schools, Syphax and Bowen. My parents rightly did not like the idea and were by then in a position to afford full tuition for virtually any private school for me. Their D.C. friends suggested four top area schools: Sidwell, Georgetown Day School, Maret (all in D.C.), and Burgundy Farm Country Day School (near Alexandria, Virginia). The friends said Sidwell was far and away the best and most prestigious, which is technically true. However, my parents knew nada about the subject, so they automatically wanted Sidwell whether or not it was the right school and best fit for me.

As I sat there in my patriotic thick cotton piqué mini-dress (white bodice, red empire waist, navy blue skirt), white knee socks, and orthopedic saddle shoes, engulfed in that big old dark maroon velvet sofa with a gray pillow on my lap, I couldn’t have cared less about the school’s putative cachet. Actually, I was hoping I wouldn’t get in. For one thing, I’d heard the place was academically demanding, and I was really, really busy with other things; 1967 was an amazing year for pop music, and I wasn’t sure how I’d squeeze that much “studying” into my already crammed music listening schedule, not to mention my magazine and book reading, not to mention all my TV show viewing.

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