Dumb
Questions
a novella
by MJ Halberstadt
For the
one who asked, “I know y’all are in Boston, but is that Boston, Maine? Or
Boston, Miami?”
“We’re in Boston,
Miami.”
1. Portland, OR
Whoever said “there’s
no such thing as a dumb question” never stood behind a table at a college fair.
The trouble is that when you’re representing an institution and your ability to
retain healthcare and keep student loans at bay hangs in the balance, your
snarkiest remarks are reserved for the rich hypothetical world inside your
head; keeping a straight face becomes an exercise in restraint and improve-tragedy.
“So by co-ed, does
that mean I’ll definitely find a boyfriend?”
I’d love to reply, “Not
with that level of willful stupidity!”
Instead I reply, “A
lot of our students lead very rich social lives! We have six different
fraternities and sororities…”
“Do I have to bring my
own bed?”
I’d love to reply, “That’s
assuming we admit you which, by the sounds of it, seems unlikely.”
Instead I smile and
share, “Our housing office of housing provides twin-XL beds, and for a small
fee you can purchase a set of sheets to…”
“How would you compare
the liberal arts classes at your school versus the liberal arts classes at
Brightwater University?”
“Considering the
fact that I didn’t attend Brightwater? Considering the fact that, by virtue of
them being two separate institutions, no human being can accurately compare
them? Considering the gaping and debatable definition of what is meant by
‘liberal arts classes’ in the first place? I’ll let you puzzle that one out.”
“Let me give you the
link for you to explore our general education requirements so that you can
compare them for yourself.”
My name is Marcy
Brooks and I am a Senior Assistant Director of Undergraduate Admission at
Thoreau College outside Philadelphia. I attend college fairs and present
information sessions around the country. When I’m not on the road, I lead our
pre-tour talks on Mondays and Wednesdays. I liaise with our Performing Arts
department chair. I am a full-time member of the review committee, a half-assed
member of our marketing committee and the chair of our scholarship committee.
There are a lot of committees and, spoiler alert, they are the same twelve
people in the office rearranged over and over again; it’s like when you shuffle
the tiles on your little wooden Scrabble shelf over and over again, praying
that something coherent will appear. I read the applications from Alabama,
Arkansas, Michigan, New York (but oddly only North of Westchester County),
North Carolina (except the towns of Cary and Apex), North Dakota (but for some
fucking reason not South Dakota which is absurd because we’ve received
exactly 6 applications between both states in the past 10 years), Oregon and
Texas (excluding Austin). Oh and all six we get from Africa and Germany. You’ll
notice that I’ve gotten really good at reciting them but only in alphabetical
order; throw me off in the middle of my schpiel and we’re all doomed.
You’ll hopefully
forgive the blatant exposition, but I think it’s important you get to know the
institution so that you can understand the nuts and bolts of why it is such an
addicting pain-in-the-ass place to work, and just what personalities are
attracted to such an unlikely place.
Thoreau College was not
founded by Henry David Thoreau, much to the chagrin of aspiring moody
literature majors. Thoreau College was named after Eloise Matilde Thoreau who
would sit somewhere between the B and C list of hotel-industry royalty of
American history.
Today Thoreau College
consists of seven academic departments which all cooperate in the running of a
hotel called the Thoreau Crown Jewel. I stayed there once and would give it
three-and-a-half stars, which, from me, says something. Each academic
department sends some of its seniors to work in some leadership capacity at the
Crown Jewel.
Aesthetic Studies:
Think interior design, landscape architecture and some art for
arts-sake classes. The students here are mostly moody and withdrawn, except
when they’re high – in which case they exist on the fine line between ecstatic
and catatonic.
Business Studies / Practice
This department’s name contains a slash. The students
here are always dressed like they’re ready for an interview, but are consistently
under-slept. Did you know that it is possible to fall asleep standing up while
waiting for the crossing signal? About half of our international population studies
here.
Culinary Arts
The other half of our international population. The
common complaint is that “creativity goes here to die”. The chair is allegedly
very rigid and does not exactly welcome the global perspectives at his
disposal. The good news is that wannabes are scared off by the nutrition and
“palette” classes that are prerequisite to working in either of the Crown
Jewel’s restaurants. The great news is that the wine and beer classes are
technically open to cross registrations from other departments and staff who
want to audit).
Drama (And Its Disciplines)
This department’s name has a pair of fucking parentheses
in its title. The sixteen, count ‘em, sixteen majors here are a
veritable obstacle course in punctuation marks. God forbid you refer to Theatre:
History and Criticism without the colon, Stage-Management without the hyphen,
or Playwriting—Classic Context, Modern Practice without the goddamned dash and
comma. Did you know that there is a difference between a dash and a hyphen? Did
you know, also, that I don’t give a shit, but use the word “play-writer” in one
e-mail to a prospective student and you’ll have a passive-aggressive
masterpiece of e-mail literature in your inbox. Students here mostly wear yoga
pants and the gender ratio plummets to 80: 20, hags to fags.
Hospitality and Hotel Management
These are the bigwigs,
the crown jewel of the Crown Jewel. Students in this program automatically
receive a half-tuition merit scholarship, as it is our most competitive
program. As a result, the last names on the student roster here sound
mysteriously similar to the board of directors and top donors.
International Relations & World Languages
I’d just like to point out that this department contains an ampersand.
The others don’t. This one does. Students who begin this major are mostly
sheltered white girls from New Jersey who switch out of the program, and
sometimes from the school altogether. Students who graduate from this major are
mostly the more sensible, sensitive types from Business Studies / Practice that
internally transferred in.
Web-Based Design
For political reasons,
this is separate from Aesthetic Studies. Aesthetic Studies thinks web design is
below its lofty, snooty cloud. Web-Based Design sees art for arts-sake as a
Papillion dog: cute, but not a dog by dog standards. The gender ratio is
pronounced here – 25: 75, lesbians: anal expulsive young men.
The joke is that six of our departments run
the Crown Jewel and that the seventh - Drama (And Its Disciplines) - staffs its
restaurant. The theatre kids do not help matters with their tendency to be a
self-fulfilling prophecy.
What else? We’re a
4-year private college with guaranteed housing for two years; our overall
gender ratio sits at 55:45, women: men; we offer merit scholarships and need-based
aid; our acceptance rate is 43% but some departments are more selective than
others. In order to keep ourselves at that competitive 43%, however, we need to
have a pool of students with which to be selective, which is why I presently
find myself standing behind a table in a cafetorium at a high school twenty
minutes outside Portland at 8am on a Monday praying I won’t make eye contact
with the wrong “colleague”.
College fairs are, as
Forrest Gump calls life, “like a box of chocolates”. Sometimes you get a
continuous marathon of students from beginning to end; these are the best
because they’re over before they begin. Sometimes you get the initial surplus
and the subsequent drought; these are the worst because then your neighbor
starts to make small talk. Sometimes you might not even talk to a student.
Sometimes, when you’re not in a fucking cafetorium during morning
announcements, you might be in a convention center talking to students,
their parents, their guidance counselors, their mentors, their rabbis, their
sensei, their Rottweilers or, worst of all, independent counselors.
But this particular
fair promises only students, and will run from 8 to 8:45am. That is if the
morning announcement girl ever shuts up.
“Make sure you check
out the bake sale in the lobby if you want to support cancer. Awareness.
Auditions for the fall drama A Midsummer Night’s Dream have been posted
in the theatre lobby. Students must sign up for a slot in order to attend to
the auditions, and slots will fill up fast. Please see Ms. Fitzgerald if you
have any.”
Is she done?
“Questions.”
There it is.
Finally the students
start filing in. We all look towards the door, hold our collective breath, and
assess: what kind of crowd is this going to be?
The girls wander in
first in one solid gaggle, then two couples, then the boys trickle in
reservedly, not wanting to be the first loser to show interest.
One girl with wildly
frizzy hair marches through the aisles. She is on a mission, scanning the table
banners and making her way through the alphabet until she finds what she’s
looking for: “Thoreau!”
“Here I am!”
“Oh my God I’m so
excited you’re here.”
She looks at me
expectantly. Does she think I’m going to initiate this conversation? Am I
supposed to tell her “I’m excited you’re here”? But there’s that pained
young look in her eye that reminds me, after all, she is sixteen years old and
terrified at the prospect of applying to college. Perhaps rightly so, if her
upkeep of her academics is on par with her upkeep of her hair. And blemishes.
And backpack. And oh my God why do I spend so much time judging teenagers?
“So I’m like
ninety-five percent sure that you’re my first choice college.”
“Please tell
me how I can get rid of that remaining five.”
“I’m like, really
interested in the Hotel and Hospitality Management program-“
“Errr. You mean
Hospitality and Hotel Management.”
“Sorry, I mean
Hospitality and Hotel Management. I’m really interested in that. Because I
think it would be so cool to be a part of running a hotel. And, like, Thoreau
is highly ranked on all the major lists. I obviously don’t have any experience
in, like, hospitality other than like, my friends tell me that I’m really good
at hosting sleepovers. God, is that embarrassing to say?”
“Yes,” I think.
“No!” I say.
“Anyway. Yeah. I
guess. I guess, um. I guess I came by to collect more information from you and
hear a little bit more about it.”
Great. One of those
open-ended questions, asked more out of a desire to have asked a question and
less because of an actual pursuit of knowledge. It’s like a floppy handshake or
tug-of-war with a loose rope. I’ve learned to not fall into that trap and to
instead ask questions back at them. This time I go with, “Have you visited the
Crown Jewel before?”
“The what?”
“Oh, just the
highlight of what you just told me is your first choice college.”
“The hotel our students
help run.”
“Oh! I didn’t realize
it had a name.”
I use this as an
excuse to pawn off our literature; that usually occupies their harried minds
for a minute and then they come back with a legitimate question or, even
better, a completed inquiry card and a handshake goodbye.
Frizzy steps back and
flips through the Crown Jewel pamphlet. Her expression is vacant. I can tell
that she’s staring at the words without reading them as her mind races for
something else to say to me.
In steps a pair of
platinum blonds who begin right away by grabbing the same pamphlet. They skim
through it. One of them chews her gum with her mouth open. The other pushes her
hair, which was already behind her shoulder, back behind her shoulder. She does
this at least two more times.
“Thoreau College is a
specialized institution outside Philadelphia with programs related to arts,
business and hotel management. Let me know if you have any questions about the
school.” That usually gets things moving.
Platinum with Gum
never makes eye contact. “Do you have nursing?”
“Do you see Nursing
on the list of majors on the pamphlet that you’re staring at? Do you see Nursing
on the list of majors on the tabletop poster in front of your face? Does
Nursing fit under any of the categories I’ve just recited to you? No, no and
no- so do you think it’s a good use of your, my or the universe’s time to ask
if Thoreau College has a Nursing program?”
“No - here’s a list of
our majors here for your reference.”
Platinum without Gum
flips her hair back again and looks at me, challengingly. “But you have a
program in Hospitals.”
“’Hospitals’ is not
a major. It says Hospitality and Hotel Management. You’re in high
school. Puzzle it out for yourself.”
“I know it can be a
little confusing, but the program is actually called Hospitality and Hotel
Management because it has to do with running a hotel.”
“That’s really
confusing. You should just call it Running Hotels or whatever.”
Her point is salient despite
its idiotic verbiage. Would I could demonstrate that I share her frustration
with the names of the majority of our programs and with the marketing forces
behind their inconsistent and misleading messages.
“If it were up to me,”
I tell her, “maybe it would be.”
Platinum with Gum puts
the pamphlet down and finally makes eye contact. “I mean that’s okay. I’ll fill
out an inquiry card anyway.”
“Even though you
want to major in Nursing? You’re still going to waste one of my cards? So that
you can get e-mails from an institution you don’t care about and who surely
doesn’t care about you?”
Too late, she’s already
scribbling away. Platinum without Gum takes out her phone and texts.
Frizzy looks back up. “Can I fill one out
too?”
“Please
do!”
Then there’s that painful stretch of
silence as the girls fill them out. I observe that some counselors continue to
jabber away at students while they write - but that’s distracting. I observe
that other counselors pick up their phones or talk to their neighbor, but
that’s just rude. I observe that other counselors use it as an opportunity to
mentally undress students, but that’s just trashy. Me? I look around and play
the “Who would I bang?” game among the other counselors.
There are no prospects around me. Thoreau
is usually alphabetically in the neighborhood of Tinsel Aviation Academy in
Augusta, Maine which is what it sounds like and usually manned by one of
several potbellied misogynists all named Chad or something; Thompson University
in San Jose, California is an inoffensive liberal arts university where this
year’s flavor is a harried and fresh-from-undergrad guy named Paul who needs a
lesson with a razor; and Southern Texas Film University, which is as
specialized as it sounds, and is represented by my-mother’s-age Marge, who
plays well to the parent crowd. My taste is traditional compared to some
lesbians: give me a cute number in a well-fitting dress who can look effortless
in heels. Plus or minus five years from me (30), and must love cats.
There’s the rep from Dodd Institute, but I
barked up that tree in vain two years
ago.
There’s somebody new at Anchorage
University, but I see a wedding band.
There’s that one from Schulman College who
I’ve always seen as a last call / final resort kind of attractive.
Oh well.
“So do I give the card to you?” asks
Frizzy, painfully self-conscious.
“No, give it to the asshole at Tinsel
Aviation.”
The
thing about: high school visits
High
school visits are an exercise in improvisation. There is no standard for how
these are supposed to go, and there’s no reliable way to predict what it is
you’re going to get. I’ve shown up for high school visits where a guidance
secretary meets me at the door, tells me that my appointment coincided with a
district holiday, and that there are no students but I should totally leave
some pamphlets behind. I’ve also shown up for high school visits where the
principal had me sign a media release before thrusting me onto a stage where a
local TV station and over 200 students watched me dig up a Power Point from the
bottom of my purse and the back of my memory. It’s still on YouTube, despite my
strongly worded complaints.
More
often, a high school visit begins with me small-talking with the guidance
counselor about traffic, weather, and the quirks of travel. At better visits,
they’ll offer a granola bar and coffee. At worse visits, they’ll look at their
planner for a while because they forgot to jot down your appointment, but then
shrug and say, “Oh well, take a seat anyway!” A handful of students with a
cursory knowledge of Thoreau will come in, and we’ll chat for a period of time
somewhere between five and fifty minutes. I’ll leave my business cards,
information pamphlets, a pennant and a more comprehensive information packet
for counselors.
Admission leadership insists that an recruiting
staff visit at least four high schools in a day; this is because they don’t
realize that such a feat is only possible if you are recruiting in an area
where high schools are that close, and if that area’s traffic is
compatible with getting from school to school, and if you are able to
find four high schools that are strategically important to your school all
within a reasonable proximity to one another, and if the counselors at
those four strategically-valuable schools offer college visit hours at times
that do not coincide, and if those visit times are not already booked.
As long as all those are true, you’re golden! Try for six!
My
very least favorite thing about high school visits is the process of arriving.
Your GPS plunks you down at some freight entrance with a sign that tells you
“DO NOT ENTER” and a resident New Jersey driver honking behind you as you
squint around looking for the entrance to the parking lot. Once in the parking
lot, you’re stuck in a veritable free-for-all, with signs threatening to tow
your car if you park in a faculty spot, or to possess your firstborn if you
park in the student lot without a sticker. There are a few visitor spots, but
they are all occupied.
Wait,
one’s available! Oh, wait, no, a Hummer is parked diagonally and it’s taking up
two spots.
‘Murica.
Once
parked, you pull out your tote bag full of admission documents and head up to
the building. A sign on the nearest door tells you “Visitors must use main
entrance”.
“Well,
no shit. Where the hell is it?”
Another door tells you
to “Please use Door 1”. This door is labeled Door 47.
Choose
a direction, any direction. Start walking. Keep your head up and eyes forward as
you trudge past dumpsters, deliveries of cafeteria food, and a gym class. Decide
against entering the school through the Boys’ Locker Room. Finally you reach
Door 1. Sometimes you have to be buzzed. Sometimes you have to be signed in. Sometimes
you have to wear a visitor badge. Sometimes the school secretary responds to,
“I’m here to see the college counselor,” with a look that makes you feel like
you’ve just asked for “Eel sashimi to go, please, I’m in a rush.” The secretary
shrugs and calls the college counselor, then tells you to go ahead to the
college counseling office or some-such equivalent.
“I’m
wearing a “Visitor” badge - one that’s going to ruin my sweater, by the way. Do
you think I know where the office is?”
“So you just make a
right here. Then you go up the second staircase next to the glass case. Make a
left at the top of the stairs, go down the hallway to your right and through
two sets of double doors. The office is the third door in the fifth hallway
after the half-staircase just before Narnia but if you hit Hogwarts you’ve gone
too far.”
“What’s
the address for this office? I feel like I need to use Google Maps to find it.”
When
you finally walk in, a secretary sees you and says, “Thoreau?”
“That’s
exactly how I define myself too.”
“Good! I was just
getting worried that you’d forgotten to come!”
A
glance at the clock on the wall tells you that despite parking at quarter to
the hour, you’re actually arriving at five-past.
In
short, high school visits are also a crash course in GPS manipulation, speedy
Panera visits, polite exits and holding in pee for hours at a time.
- =
-
Today
I am visiting Babbling Brook High School just outside Portland, Oregon. I come
here every year because we usually get a good dozen applications, and because I
happen to really like the counselor, Joan. She’s got a good sense of humor but
is also no-bullshit.
“You
want coffee?” she asks.
“I
love you.”
“No
thanks.”
Joan
Chu and go way back. We were in the same community theatre production of Bye,
Bye, Birdie in a suburb of Albany when we were in middle school. Her mother
was worried she’d have a hard time making friends, being a first-generation
Chinese-American, and signed her up. My mother was worried I’d have a hard time
making friends, being a grade-A bitch since the age of six, and signed me up.
Joan and I had bonded by making fun of all the other kids behind their backs
and making raunchy jokes out of the lyrics. “He was born in Indochina” became
“He was born in a vagina”. Ah, youth.
We
lost touch after that show because we went to different high schools and her
family eventually moved to Portland.
I
love Joan because she insisted that her Principal designate a sign at the main
parking lot entrance which points to a pair of College Visitor parking spots
which are right near the main entrance. There’s even a little placard in front
of the spot with a little idiot-proof illustration pointing you to Door 1.
There, the secretary refers to a print-out Joan gave her indicating who’s
coming and when, and she says, “Ah, yes, Marcy Brooks,” and hands you a
half-sheet map indicating how to find the College Counseling office. And the
College Counseling office isn’t given some sneaky bullshit name like “Student
Center” or “Success Suite”.
Joan
and I are alone in her office for a few minutes before students arrive. She
clicks open her calendar on her computer, mumbling “Let’s see, let’s see” and
takes a sip of tea. “All right. I’ve got four students signed up so, at their
usual attendance rate, we’ll see one or two of them,” before shutting her
computer.
“How
are you?” she asks. Not “How’s Thoreau?” or “What’s new at your school?”
“I’m
all right! I’m getting promoted to Associate Director this week-“
“I
saw the updated e-mail signature! Congratulations…”
There’s
a hint of a question mark at the end of that “Congratulations” instead of the
usual unabashed and desperate-to-please exclamation point. This is because she
knows me, and she knows that I have complicated feelings on the subject.
“Yeah,
I definitely can’t complain to be making more money.”
“Does
this mean you’ll stay?”
Last
year I made the mistake of admitting to Joan that I was interested to consider
other career options. I didn’t know what those options were, and I’m embarrassed
to admit that I still don’t. “We’ll see,” seems to me to be a diplomatic answer
enough for today. Mercifully, Joan drops the subject.
“I
can’t wait for you to meet Briana,” she says, “she could be a really good fit
for Thoreau.”
Joan
slides Briana’s transcript to me. I’m looking at two columns of A’s. After a
moment I realize that one column is referring to her straight A marks and the
other column is all A’s because it designates all of her classes as AP’s.
Except for the two she’s taking now at a community college “for fun”. Off in a
corner, Briana’s three attempts at the SAT go from great to better.
“Don’t
you know I hate kids like Briana? They make me feel bad about myself.”
“What
does she want to major in?”
“Business
Studies slash Practice.”
Joan
knows to hit the “slash” because she knows how much I hate it.
So far, so good.
Just
then, Briana arrives. The Board of Trustees would choke on their swordfish
dinners; she’s Black. A brilliant Black student from a tertiary market or, as
those familiar with the realistic underbelly of college admission would call
her, a triple threat. “Hi, are you from Thoreau?”
Joan
invites her to sit with us and we breeze through small talk.
“Ms.
Chu tells me you’re interested in our Business Studies / Practice program.”
“Yes!”
her eyes light up.
“Tell
Marcy about your idea,” Joan nudges.
Briana
glances at the floor in faux-bashfulness. “My dream is to open a publishing
house that pairs novellas by famous authors with writing by inner-city
teenagers. Because the market for short-form writing is suffering, and the
prestige from the famous authors will help give attention and voice… to…” she
falters, “never mind.”
“No,
go on,” I say.
“If
I published their work, they’d have hope. Someone would listen. I
don’t know.”
“That’s
amazing,” I tell her, and I hope she believes me. I look at Joan and she’s
equally in love.
But
then, “That’s why I have to go to Thoreau.”
It’s
like when the actors suddenly start gyrating in the aisles tugging at your
sleeve so you can wiggle along to ABBA with them; I had forgotten who I was and
what I was doing there and that I was an active participant in this
conversation.
“Right.
Business Studies slash Practice.”
Here’s
the thing. Thoreau’s Business Studies / Practice major is extremely
specialized, much to the chagrin of wannabe Business majors who would do better
at a Bentley University. It focuses basically on the business of running a
hotel or restaurant. All of the faculty have experience in those areas
and those areas only. It is not a business-for-business-sake program, and it is
not a publishing program. If you want to be an undergrad focusing in untapped
ways to innovate the publishing industry, major in Publishing.
“Where
else are you applying to?”
“I’m
only applying to Thoreau early action.”
Oh
boy.
“What
do you think, Marcy? Isn’t she perfect?”
I’m
afraid that Joan can see the frantic look in my eyes. And Briana. Poor, sweet,
talented Briana. She’s just trying to impress me.
“Yes,
Briana’s absolutely perfect. Your idea is brilliant and it will move
mountains.”
“And
Thoreau is so right, right?”
“Hell
no.”
“Nnnnot necessarily.”
And
I explain. As tactfully as I can. And it’s painful.
“So
you’re saying you don’t think I’d get in.”
“No,
you’ll get in. I just don’t think you’d be happy there. I think you would do
well going somewhere that has a more specialized program in publishing.”
“But
I want to major in business.”
“No
you don’t.”
“Where should I go?”
“Hofstra
has a program, Emerson has a program…”
Worst
of all, Joan’s looking hurt. “I thought Thoreau would be perfect for her - I
thought you’d agree, you know. Don’t you want her to go to your school?”
“Yes,
but I want her to go to the school that makes fucking sense for her,”
“Of
course I would, I just… don’t know if Thoreau’s the best school for her.”
Briana
is back to looking at the floor. Her faux-humility is now vrai-humiliation. I
want to throw myself into a ditch. She sighs.
“I
guess I’ll go back to class.”
She
stands up and starts out. I can’t help myself, “Wait, Briana.”
Briana
looks back to me. I stand up and touch her shoulder. “You are going to be a
success wherever you go. But first you have to figure out which college is
privileged enough to have the academic program that you are meant to be in. You
are blessed because you know exactly what your mission is.”
Joan’s
mouth hangs open in wonder.
“Briana,
you are a powerful trailblazer already. You’re just waiting for the program
that’s going to give your vision a platform. And then the sky’s the limit.”
She
finally looks at me, eyes full of tearful gratitude. The string section swells
and a hopeful clarinet strikes up a-
Instead, Briana’s out
the door.
Joan’s
eyebrows shoot up. “I always thought your job was to try to get the best
students to go to Thoreau.”
Maybe
she’s right. Maybe I’m bad at my job.
- =
-
Later
that day, I arrive at a different high school visit (Trent College Prep) an
awkward fifteen minutes too early (and that’s not including fifteen minutes
grace time). This is a problem because fifteen minutes is not enough time to
justify going to Starbucks, let alone Panera. Fifteen minutes is also too much
time to walk into the college counseling office and pretend I’m elated to see a
college rep from another school.
This
is a problem because my best option is - it actually is - to sit alone
in my car in a high school parking lot for fifteen minutes. And behaving at
such a level of creep for even one minute is one minute too long.
So
I read an e-mail from our beloved Director of Undergraduate Admission:
From: Mary Ann
Banister-McCloskey
To: Marcy Brooks
Marcy-
I’m besides myself.
I just got another box of business cards
because I pointed out that they were missing the hyphen. Instead of putting it
in as “Banister-McCloskey”, they’ve made my first name “Mary-Ann” and when I
called the print services office, the brat working the desk told me that’s how his
mother spells her name. Well good for Mrs. Brat’s Mother but not good enough
for me. They seem to respond to your style of communication better than mine,
so would you see if you could get them to get my name right?
- Mary(no hyphen)Ann
Banister(yes-hyphen)McCloskey
I’ve been delegated the
office’s grammar Nazi, in as affectionate a way as any designation referring to
a genocide-inciter can be. This started with me proofreading e-mails, but
translated into me becoming the point person to authorize all of our print
material, and then somehow sticking me as middleman between our office and the
miserable crew in our Print Office. Mary Ann hates confrontation but loves
complaining.
I flag this so that I can reply when I’m
more caffeinated. Or tipsy. Or both. Or just never.
Then I realize I’d better check in on
Daisy.
Gina picks up right away, “Heyyyy!” Gina came
on as an Admission Counselor two years ago. She knows her shit, and doesn’t
complain. This makes her easy for other staff to take advantage of, and
difficult to advocate for. My hope for her is that one day she snaps and says
some words that she’d usually find dirty, like “heck” or “crap” or “no, I’d
rather not”.
Even though she’s watching my cat while
I’m away, I believe I’m among the people who don’t take advantage of her
chipper and naive persona. I asked her to watch Daisy because I know she likes cats.
“Daisy’s doing just fine, she says hello!”
I know people like to say their cat is
different from other cats. They’re full of shit, but I’m not.
Daisy is an unusually friendly cat; she
doesn’t do any of that passive-aggressive crap that so many others do. You know
exactly where you stand with her, and she doesn’t play games about it. If
you’re cool with her, she’s cool with you. If you want to pet her, she’ll let
you know if she’s down. If you talk about her like she’s not there or hold her
like she’s a pan you took out of the oven, then, naturally, she’s not going to
give you the time of day.
“Will you get a dog one day?” my sister
Molly asked me once when she came to visit.
“No!” I said, perhaps more
emphatically than was required, “I’m a cat person. How could you ever
think I was a dog person?” It occurred to me afterwards that my delivery
accentuated the point.
At that point, Daisy pounced on her shoe
in the corner of the room and started tearing apart her laces. As a matter of
decorum, I distracted Daisy away from the shoe.
“This is why I don’t like cats,” Molly
said.
“And this is why they don’t like
you.”
Daisy knew what was up. She always does. I
honestly think she’s picked up language. I’m not stupid enough to think she
understands all of the words, but she gets tone. And certain letters have
certain connotations so I think, you know, if she hears a lot of harsh K and T
sounds, she can sense aggression.
My point is: Daisy is super different from
other cats.
Gina tells me that she’s eating fine, and
that she yakked on the carpet she always yaks on, and got stuck in a shoebox
under my bed. For Daisy, life continues as normally without me, and that is a
huge comfort to hear.
“And how are you doing, Gina?”
“I’m… good. I have to go to a college fair
in Pittsburgh tomorrow, though.”
This is, no doubt, the handiwork of our
Senior Associate Director who oversees our recruitment travel with the grace
and deliberateness of one of those tubular vinyl torsos that wave and wiggle in
the wind outside car shops. The one thing that’s cohesive about our Travel
Coordinator is that his name happens to be TC, which stands for something
Indian I can’t pronounce right.
“Is TC giving you a comp day?”
“No…”
The problem is that Gina oversees our tour
guides, so she has to stay on campus, which TC uses as his cue to send her to
“local” fairs. Because it’s a breeze to drive six hours from Philly to
Pittsburgh and I’m sure that’s exactly how Gina wanted to spend her Saturday.
“I’m telling you you get a comp day.”
“Oh, I can’t do that,” Gina says, “I have
to make up for the meeting I went to on Wednesday.”
“When will you get it through your head
that if you miss work because of work, you should not let somebody else bully
you into making up for lost “work”? Tell TC to shove the phrase “occasional
night and weekends” up his ass.”
“The way I see it, Gina,
you’ve been giving weekend and evening hours without complaint, so if TC takes
issue with you missing some typical Monday-Friday nine-to-five hours, ask him
to count how much extra you’re working and then see if you need to make
up lost time.” Gina gives a nervous laugh, so I try to goad her. “Don’t you
think that the hours of work you’ve done outside office hours is at least two
times the office hours you’ve missed?” Silence. “All right, I have an
assignment for you. Keep exact count of the hours you’ve worked extra. Count
the time you spend driving - everything from the moment you leave your
apartment to the time you come back. Let me know what you come up with.”
Gina sighs. “Don’t worry, my roommate’s
going to take care of Daisy while I’m gone. I’d better go, TC needs me to transpose
our travel calendar by the end of the day.”
TC was supposed to make and distribute
that calendar before we all left for travel. That was three weeks ago.
“Give her a kiss for me.”
I hang up and I am transported back to my
reality: I am still sitting alone in a car in a parking lot at a high school,
and there are still twelve minutes before it is socially acceptable for me to
come in.
Sitting in silence makes me feel like a
creep, so I turn on the radio.
Sitting here listening to NPR makes me
feel like a creep, so I change the station.
Sitting here listening to Taylor Swift
makes me feel like a creep, so I turn off the radio.
The thought of calling my parents passes
through me as quickly as it occurs to me.
You know what? I’ll read my book. I picked
up Wild by Cheryl Strayed in the airport; that’s the true story about
the woman who went through a grand and poetic grief after her mother died and
decided to hike from Southern California to the border of Washington State.
It’s book club gold if you’re an idiot, or a kick in the pants about
perspective if you’re not. And it’s in my purse which I now realize is in the
trunk, which is too much work to go get right now. I don’t think I’m made of
the same tenacious stuff as Cheryl.
Eleven minutes.
Ughhhhhh.
Do you go there?
That night I go to
another college fair.
I like to set up my
table pretty simply. Two standing boards list our majors in the back, a pile of
general pamphlets on one side, a small stack of Crown Jewel pamphlets on
another, a pile of inquiry cards in the middle in front, my business card stand
in the middle near me. Some colleges have a dozen pamphlets, each one
addressing details of the school: athletics, scholarships, such-and-such-major,
housing. I once pointed out the irony of Braemore University printing a trifold
pamphlet about their efforts to be environmentally sustainable, but it went
right over the rep’s head. As I see it, trying to capture all of the bits of
information in print at a college fair is counter to the purpose of a website.
Colleges need one pamphlet each, and it basically needs to contain the phrases
“Thoreau College”, “Philadelphia, Pennsylvania” and “visit thoreau.edu for more information”.
Anyway, having just the two pamphlets helps to curb my perfectionism; about
twice a minute I have to nudge the pile back to a perfectly straight stack. If
we had as many pamphlets as, say, Thompson College does, I’d never get anything
done.
I notice that as I’m
setting up, one of the Chads from Tinsel Aviation undresses me with his eyes.
“How’s it going?” he drawls.
“Fine, thanks. Long
day.”
“-so fuck off.”
He seems to find
amusement in the fact that I’m being bothered by the way our new slightly
glossy pamphlets frictionlessly slip off of one another. Finally I get them to
stay and start making my way around the table.
Chad inserts himself
in front of my table. “What would you do if I went like this?” he asks.
And this is flicking the pile of pamphlets so they fan out across my
whole set up.
“I still wouldn’t
sleep with you, if that’s what you mean, you walking, balding textbook example
of a midlife crisis.”
Instead I turn my palms
and face to the ceiling and pretend-shout, in order to mask the fact that I
really want to real-shout.
“Women are such
perfectionists,” he contributes. Such sage observation. I notice that his
wedding band is gone, and I’m at least 85% sure that this Chad is one of the
married ones. Or was, I guess.
Marge from Southern
Texas Film University rolls her eyes in our direction for my benefit. Fifteen
years ago, she would have been Chad or Chad or Chad’s victim.
Mmmm… make that
twenty.
The fair begins.
“What majors do you
have?”
“They’re listed
right in front of your vacant-looking face. Just tell me what you want to study
so we can both move on; we already know you’re going to say something like
neuroscience, which makes me more nervous about what might happen if I got a
brain tumor than I should be.”
“Rather than dictate
them to you, take a look here and read them at your own pace.”
“Do I gotta do alotta
studying?”
“By the sounds of
it, yes, you do.”
“Thoreau definitely has
definitely a rigorous, hands-on curriculum.”
“Theatre.”
“What is the study
and craft of storytelling through performance, Alex Trebek?”
“…we do have a “Drama
(and its Disciplines) program. What in particular are you interested to learn
about it?
A young man behind a
curtain of pimples picks at a whitehead at the corner of his mouth as he stares
at the major board.
“We’re a fairly
specialized college in the Western part of Philadelphia. Let me know if you
have any questions about our programs or application requirements!”
Then he starts
focusing on the inquiry card.
“You can feel free to
fill that out if you’d like to be added to our mailing list!”
Then he starts
fixating on my business card.
“If you have any
questions after tonight, don’t hesitate to get in touch!”
Then he starts
scrutinizing my name-tag. I’m suddenly very self-conscious of its position, and
the palpable silence. Some counselors would just keep talking. I’m not about to
do a one-man show about Thoreau without some type of deliberate
demonstration of actual interest in the school.
Finally he looks up at
me. “Do you teach there?” he asks.
“No, I-“
“Do you go there?”
“Oh, honey-“
“No, I graduated quite
a few years ago.”
“Oh, so you’re just an
alum.”
“No, I actually also
work there professionally.”
“Like, just in
admission? You just go to college fairs?”
“JUST‽”
“No… admission is
quite a bit more than that.”
“Oh. What do you do?”
This is actually a
funny question to me – not because it’s dumb, because it’s obviously perfectly
valid. It’s funny because I’m rarely prompted to reflect on what it is exactly
that I do. Other people with more common jobs are able to furnish a single word
that communicates exactly what they do: teacher, lawyer, engineer. When we
picture one of those people, we have a concept of what their job looks like; it
may be a misconception, but it’s a conception nonetheless. So what about an
admission counselor?
Our jobs exist on a revolving carousel of
three basic tasks: recruit, read, yield.
Recruiting season
takes July and August to plan, and keeps us on the road for most of September
and October. When we recruit, we’re driving around in a rental car visiting
about four high schools a day, and attending a bunch of college fairs. Fun
fact: when you’re talking about college fairs, remember that childhood is dead
and that the word “fair” should not imply rides, candy or even a modicum of
fun. This part of the job doesn’t have a uniform, but if it did it would have
to include our square rolling suitcases whirring behind us as we rush into a
high school or a convention center or onto a bus. Your stock image should also
include an iced coffee, a purse filled with receipts, and a fuck-ton of small
talk about hotel and airline reward points.
Reading season takes
all of November thru February. When we read, we’re sitting in our living room
with a laptop and an extra monitor and a folder full of worksheets that help us
to decode transcripts and remind us of our school’s admission criteria.
Depending on your school’s reading process, we might read anywhere between 30
and 60 files a day. Thoreau reading is around 40. This part of the job also
doesn’t have a uniform, but if it did it would have to include sweatpants that
have been owned for at least four years. Your stock image should also include a
hot coffee, blotchy eyes behind glasses, and a fervent glance towards a bottle
of wine that won’t stand a chance as soon as file 40 is submitted.
Yield season takes all
of March thru May. When we yield, we’re in a series of “committee meetings”-
arranging and rearranging the handful of people working in your office in every
possible permutation: scholarship committee, transfer committee, international
committee, Drama (and its Disciplines) committee, AHANA committee, discipline
committee, home school committee, wait list committee. All among about twelve
staff. Then once our letters are out, we play whack-a-mole with e-mails and
phone calls.
Scholarship appeal -
WHAM.
Withdrawal - WHAM.
Deferral - WHAM.
Scholarship appeal -
WHAM.
Scholarship appeal -
WHAM.
“My daughter is
born to be on Broadway-“ - WHAM WHAM WHAM!
Withdrawal - WHAM.
“What do I do while
I’m on the wait list?” - YOU WAIT, KID! WHAM.
Scholarship appeal -
WHAM.
Deposit!
We politely open a
bottle of champagne in the office, and not-so-politely empty a bottle of
Maker’s at the bar. This part of the job does have a uniform, or at
least a dress code.
That brings us to
June, when we begin planning for next year’s recruitment, but it’s unofficially
turnover season. Planning next year’s recruitment involves booking hotels and
college fairs and flights, but it also involves the subtle science of shiftily
looking at your colleagues in order to guess who might be leaving. It becomes
like Clue; you’re sharing bits of information confirming or denying the
validity of your peers’ suddenly frequent “doctor’s appointments” and the
nature of how they spend their vacation time. There’s usually one person
everybody expects, “He has been here a long time..!” and one
person nobody expects, “I thought she was happy here!”
All the while I
fantasize about giving my own two weeks. Or maybe I’ll get stuck and retire and
they’ll give me a watch for fifty years of service to the college and I swear to
God I will throw that Rolex into the trash.
But I don’t tell all
that to Pimples.
I tell him, “I do a
lot of things,” and he actually seems pretty content with that answer and
shrugs off, and I notice he’s gone too deep picking on that whitehead and
there’s a trickle of blood starting to pool in the corner of his mouth.
I accidentally make
eye contact with Chad from Tinsel as I follow Pimples away with my eyes. He’d
been watching that whole interaction.
“Think he’s got a
crush. Can’t say I blame him.”
“Even if I were
straight, you would nauseate me.”
I’m surrounded by
adolescence - of both the delayed and right-on-time varieties.
- = -
During
the last fifteen minutes of college fairs, the reps start to get shifty.
Usually the crowd has totally died down and everyone’s waiting for someone to
be the first to pack up and go. This is called the art of the Slow Pack.
The
Slow Pack involves putting away the less important admission materials, so that
a cursory glance at one’s table would suggest that you’re still in business.
Your definition of what’s “important” starts to get more and more conservative.
Pens go first. Maybe secondary pamphlets next. Personal items after that.
Then
once you hear the first “click, click, click” of someone putting away their
metallic major-list board, all bets are off and it’s a race to stow away your
own major board, the inquiry cards, the table banner.
Then
– and this is scientifically proven – some kid always comes up to my table and
goes, “Oh! I’ve been looking for you all night.”
And
I glance around at my surroundings to be sure I’m not in the Twilight Zone.
“Did it not occur to you to look among the
letter T?”
And
by the time you’re done with him, everyone else has gone; the Slow Pack becomes
the Fast Pack and you get the hell out of there.
2. Ann Arbor, MI
The thing about: alumni volunteers
Alumni volunteers’ attendance rate at
events they commit to is, in general, 35%. That number actually begins at 23%
for the first five years after they graduate, goes up to about 57% for a decade
or so, then plummets to 19% once they’re past child-bearing age and trickles
slowly down until they ominously stop replying to e-mails altogether.
When they do show up, they are lucky bolts
of lightning. They look fresh, they are excited to be there, and they know more
about the college than most professional staff. They bring buzzword-filled
Thoreau-success-story anecdotes, an unironic chipperness, and a fresh sense of
humor. But then they’re gone, like a one-night stand, the only evidence of
their ephemeral visit being a lingering scent and a wave of euphoria. After
they’re gone, the next event feels that much lonelier.
Alumni volunteers are most often at our
“yield events” where we host hors-d’oeuvres hours and the evening takes the
form of a cocktail party without the cocktails (remember, we’re marketing to
17-year-olds, and only through legal channels). At some point you remember
that, as an adult, parties are mostly only fun after the second drink. Alum
volunteers are mocktail lubricant. Without them, I’d be standing around in a
stilted silence, trying to fill the void with the admission schpiel that sits
in the muscle-memory part of my hippocampus. Alums somehow know how to appeal
to teenagers and their parents by telling stories that somehow straddle
the line between PC and interesting with such seamless grace. I think they’re
better at it because professional staff know they’re fighting for their lives
and that any misconstrued language could turn into an office-wide e-mail
reminder of professional etiquette or worse. Alums can poke the bear a little
bit. This makes them appear human and, therefore, likable in a way no admission
counselor will ever be.
In the end, the cost-benefit analysis
would probably prove that they benefit Thoreau but probably deficit an
emotionally unstable counselor. Moi.
What can you tell me about your Musical
Theatre program?
GLACAC stands for Great Lakes Association
for College Admission Counseling, and captures major admission events and
efforts in Wisconsin, Michigan, Northern Ohio, Ontario and upstate New York.
It’s one of many -ACAC acronyms that only admission counselors can say with a
straight face. -ACAC fairs are pretty big, so I tend to request the help of an
alumni volunteer whenever possible. Alumni volunteers are assigned by one of
our Senior Assistant Directors, (Adewale Adekoje ’12); in the case of GLACAC, I
am being graced by the assistance of Jaymes George Jerome ’15.
I looked him up and immediately little
bits of his review came back to me; I had recruited him myself five years ago,
since he’s from Detroit, and that was one of the years my territory included
Michigan (I have on/off relationships with most of the states).
We had needed to take his file to
committee to discuss further. He was a rare Black applicant (✓) from a tertiary market (✓), a boy (✓) applying for Musical
Theatre (X), high need (X) with B’s (✓-), some C’s (X) and a D
(X!). His essay was earnest enough that it caused my eyes to roll but evidently
made it into the “favorite” folder on the Drama (and its Disciplines) Chair’s
computer, and despite my suggestion that we offer him need-based aid and leave
it at that, our then Director suggested we supplement with merit scholarship in
order to whet his appetite; the implication being that it would contribute to
our diversity quotients. I took issue with the fact that we were offering him
scholarship dollars from our (unfortunately named) White Scholarship fund (it’s
named for the late philanthropist Greyson White who, by further twist of irony,
was of Japanese and Nigerian descent). The White fund is for students with
meritorious academic records; I felt that offering Jaymes the White scholarship
was dishonest and invited a pretty fair criticism of our willingness to bend its
criteria. Before you start calling me completely heartless, I instead advocated
for our establishing a separate scholarship fund for Drama (and its
Disciplines) to do with as they please. This went over as well as the times
I’ve suggested establishing a First Generation Scholarship, an Outstanding
Leadership Scholarship and a Hawaiian Scholars Program; somebody started waxing
poetic about glass ceilings and wore me down.
One day, I’ll find a way to justify a
recruitment trip in Oahu… and I will pry it from TC’s cold, dead hands.
Anyway, you probably know the rest: Jaymes
took the bait, was a Thoreau celebrity for four years, has his face plastered
on three different pages on our website, graduated in May, and has just arrived
on the 1:05 bus from Detroit to Ann Arbor so I can have his help for the
four-hour GLACAC fair. While I waited for him, I reviewed my instructions from
Adewale.
From: Adewale Adekoje
To: Marcy Brooks;
JaymesJeromeActor94@gmail.com
CC:
AlumniVolunteers@thoreau.edu
Hey Jaymes-
Thanks again for working
together to tag team the GLACAC fair! You’ll be taking the 1:05 bus from
Detroit to Ann Arbor. Marcy will be waiting o pick you up at the Ann Arbor
transportation cener at around 2:00pm on
Saturday. The fair goes from 4 to 8 and we’ve set you up at the Marriot Ann
Arbor and we’ll take care of your dinner. She’ll drive you back to the
ransportation center the next morning in time for the 9:05 bus back.
Have a grea time!
Adewale
The T key on Adewale’s keyboard has been
sticky for at least two years, which I’m sure make people picture him as some
tribal chief with an impenetrable accent; he is a first-generation
African-American but he was born in Virginia and literally went to private
school in England until he
matriculated at Thoreau. He speaks English as fluently as Nigerian (and
Italian, incidentally). It’s just that the guy who coordinates technology
across our division has not approved his request for a new keyboard
(“unnecessary expense”) and Adewale has lost patience slamming that one key. I
suggested spilling coffee on it and making the expense “necessary”, even
offering to spill the coffee myself; Adewale is too much of a rule-follower,
and politely laughed me off.
Incidentally I hate when people ask me
questions about “if you were straight”, but if I were straight, Adewale would
be my first phone call.
Anyway… I’m a little confused why we’re
going to such lengths to secure an alum for the GLACAC; yes, I did request one,
but this seems like a lot of unnecessary expense when I could just as easily
handle the GLACAC myself.
Jaymes sees me and smiles, bounding over.
His smile is an orthodontist’s wet dream and is his jaw line predicts he will
be straight-up handsome in about five years. For now, he’s still shaking off
the features that make him kid-like, like the loose-fitting zippered hoodie and
Chuck Taylors. As soon as he makes that invisible transition from boy to man,
someone will suggest modeling.
“Marcy?”
“Hi, Jaymes!”
He’ll break many womens’ hearts, and not
just because of the looks…
“Heyyyyyyy. PHEW! I don’t know why I was
worried I was gonna show up here and realize I’d gone to the wrong place or
something.”
…Jaymes is also gay. Of the mile-a-minute
talking variety.
I ask if he’s hungry and he pats his
backpack (from the boys’ section of Target or something), acknowledging, “I’ve
got snacks,” before tossing it into the passenger seat and a navy duffle bag
into the backseat.
I realize I’ve forgotten to clear the
passenger seat and start to hastily toss its inhabitants into a wayward CVS
bag. With my back to him I try to conceal the wasteland from him: a half-empty
bottle of Diet Coke sagging from the temperature, my Avis contract, Panera wax
paper, two empty bags of Sun chips, and at least four wrappers from Nature
Valley bars. And crumbs. Lots and lots of crumbs from said Nature Valley bars.
Seriously, fuck them.
Did I mention I rented this car less than
24 hours ago? There you have it: this is where I’m at.
All the while, we’re making small talk:
“How was the bus?” “How’s recruitment travel been?” “What’ve you been up to since
graduation?”
Finally we’re on the highway. The road is
foggy, and every once in a while I’m needing to turn the windshield wipers on
to deal with the suggestion of condensation. It’s all very autumn-limbo. He’s
digging into a Ziploc bag of log pretzels. As he eats, he sprays. I’m thinking
about how wood-like pretzels are and how much wood would a wood chuck chuck…
“…I’m actually really excited for this, it
feels like, I don’t know, it feels kind of like a real person responsibility,
you know? I did some summer stock in July, and I just closed a small
professional production of Rent, but other than that I haven’t really
done something that felt like work in the typical way, you know?”
“Instead of competitive make-believe.”
“I’ve been trying to
figure out what to do next, you know? I could always stay in Detroit and live
with my parents because I know lots of theatres around here - I mean there.
I keep forgetting I’m in Ann Arbor. I have connections there, but I also
have a lot of friends who are trying the whole New York thing but I don’t know
if that’s what I want to do. It feels a little risky.”
“A little?”
“Or maybe I could give a
secondary city a shot. Somewhere like Boston or Seattle or Austin where there’s
a theatre scene but I won’t feel like such a small fish, you know? Because I
know I have what it takes, but it’s just so competitive. It’s not a
matter of how good you are, it’s being in the right place at the right time. My
professor at Thoreau, Hilda Matilda. Oh, you probably know Hilda-“
This nervous-monologuing goes on until we
get off of the exit. I’m actually grateful for it because it takes the pressure
off of me. The pretzels, however, don’t stand a chance; they’re about 50% eaten
and 50% sprayed from the intensity of his speech. Then we pull into the parking
lot. College reps are playing Frogger crossing from row to row at this
convention center, some balancing boxes of materials on their shoulders or on
their travel cases. At this point Jaymes suddenly gets quiet and I know
something’s on his mind. It’s not until I pull the key out of the ignition that
I learn what it is.
“So… what do I need to know before
doing this.” There’s a surprising amount of urgency in his voice.
“You don’t have to worry about it, really.
I’ll take the lead, and you’ll just answer questions.”
I undo my seat belt but he doesn’t.
“What kinds of questions?”
“You really don’t have anything to worry
about. If anyone has any admission questions, I’ll take those. You can just
talk about your experience and about the theatre program… really you’re just
back-up.”
I open my car door but he doesn’t.
“What if someone asks me something I don’t
know the answer to?”
“It’ll be fine. I’ll be right there the
whole time.”
He isn’t moving at all.
“This really isn’t rocket science,
Jaymes. We’re gonna talk to a bunch of seventeen-year-olds about things you’ve
been taking for granted for years, so just rally.”
Instead I shut the door
and face him. “What’s up?”
I hate to see people upset; it’s
completely humbling and you can’t help but feel bad for them, which you know
only makes them feel worse. Also, they should just bottle that shit up until
they’re on their couch in their PJ’s.
He starts by trying to play it off, “I
don’t know why I’m so nervous all of a sudden,” and all that.
“You’ve performed in front of hundreds of
people,” I remind him.
“I know, but onstage I’m hiding behind a
character. That’s less scary to me than being myself in front of just
one stranger in a way, you know? With a college fair, all of Thoreau College is
depending on me…!”
“It’s really not quite as profound as
all that. Thoreau College will live.”
Instead I ask what it is we can do now to
make him less nervous. Hopefully not any breathing exercises or massage trains;
I observed an acting class once and it was horrifying. The closest phenomenon I
can compare it to is an exorcism. He shrugs. “Look, I can understand how this
is making you nervous. I’m not going to tell you you shouldn’t be, because
that’d be… mean of me to say if that’s how you’re feeling. So how about this:
we go in there, I’ll be right there near you, and if you need to remove
yourself there’s a closed-off section for reps where you can take a breather or
whatever you need.”
I figured that’d work because it sounds
kind of like what a camp counselor would say, and he’s a theatre kid so he
probably eats that feelings-stuff up. But he’s stock still as he mumbles, “I
feel like I’d be letting you down.”
“You’re under the mistaken impression I
give a shit.”
“Honestly, Jaymes, I reallllly doubt you
will. You’re overcomplicating it. We’re here to talk about Thoreau. I know
you’re a huge fan. You went there. These kids are not going to ask you stuff you
don’t know. They’re here to get a very first impression of like… what programs
we do and don’t have and what city we’re in…”
“That’s it?”
“Yes, that’s like 95% of the dumb
questions they ask,” I think.
And then “Yes,
that’s like 95% of the dumbass questions they ask,” slips out.
I think the word “dumbass” takes him aback
and he looks at me. Somehow I’m a person to him now.
“That’s not so bad,” he says, as he
rallies and unbuckles his seatbelt.
“It’s the worst, actually,” slips out;
lucky for me, it’s overpowered by the closing of passenger door.
Tough love, huh. Sometimes it works.
Is all of the school’s technology state of
the art?
Without going into too much detail, the
fair we’re headed to is one of several GLACAC fairs, meanwhile GLACAC is one of
over a dozen sub-organizations within NACACAC, which stands for the North
American Continent Association of College Admission Counseling. These
sub-organizations capture college admission events, regulations and, yes, fairs
all across Canada, the United States and a few in Mexico. NACACAC fairs all
feature acutely measured booths, regulations for what can and can’t be done in
those booths, and a bar code feature. Registered students who attend the fair
print out a bar code on a slip of paper; admission counselors hold digital
readers that allow them to scan the bar code and download students’ contact
information. Basically, this is a paperless (or, at least, less-paperful)
stand-in for inquiry cards. The bar code feature is an incredible convenience,
in theory, but it is seriously bogged down in GLACAC’s case because of the pair
of dingbats who distribute and collect them.
One is burly and bearded. The other is
even bigger and bare-faced. I’ve just always called them Beard and Belly in my
head for years. The line of reps creeps along slowly. If there is something
complex about looking up a registration number on a sheet and distributing a
correspondingly-numbered little box, I’m unaware of what that might be. For
some reason, this process is painfully protracted though, to the point that
reps have learned to budget this into their schedules and choose to arrive 45
minutes early.
The woman standing just ahead of me (and
Jaymes) in line is finishing up a chapter in her book. The guys behind us are
catching up with one another, a little too loudly. I take the opportunity to
explain the bar-code system to Jaymes. Finally, it’s our turn.
“How can I help you?” Beard asks. This is
odd to me.
“Let’s see. I’m an admission counselor.
Your job is to give admission counselors bar-code scanners. I’m gonna let you
intuit this one for yourself.”
“I’m here from Thoreau
College.”
He scans a sheet of paper looking for
Thoreau. I consider spelling it for him, but that may be too bald, even for me.
His finger makes its way to the end of the S’s and through to where the T’s
begin, but the page ends at Teeters College.
“Hm. We don’t have you registered. Are you
sure you’re registered?”
I tell him I am sure and to keep looking
on the next page.
His finger repeats the journey and he
looks towards Belly. “Hey Matt, she says she’s from Thoreau College.”
Belly turns away from the rep he’s helping
and looks at his own sheet.
“It’s on the list,” he says, before
retreating back to his work.
“But it’s not on mine!”
You’d think Jaymes was trying to smuggle
something through airport security with the look of terror on his face. “What
if we’re not registered?”
I assert my elbow onto the counter.
“Thoreau is registered. We’re on the next page.”
“I looked at the T’s-“
“You looked at the T’s until Teeters.
Thoreau comes after Teeters.”
“How is that spelled?”
I pick up my travel case by the handle
with both hands and just start whirling around and around with it. First it
swipes the computer monitors off Beard and Belly’s desks, scattering and
shattering them to the floor. The flimsy makeshift desks take the next hit,
splintering into bits. The other reps back away, though somehow Beard is still
puzzling out the T’s on his page, unbeknownst. Jaymes emits a war cry from deep
within his belly. Finally Beard admits, “Oh, it is here.”
I slam the travel case down
and glare him down, snorting breaths through my clenched teeth.
“I told you it was,”
then snatch the bar code scanner and storm-
“T-H-O…”
Beard nods his head. He found it. Jaymes
deflates in relief. We collect the bar code scanner and are on our way.
What’s the student body like?
The fair is pretty
straightforward. It takes until about ten minutes in that the first students
make their way to our section. Jaymes straightens up, checks his teeth from his
phone’s reflection, and says an eager “hello” to a pair of girls who were walking
past.
“Hi…?” one of them
says, and they’re gone.
His face falls.
Defeat, or something.
“We’re not trying to
get everyone to talk to us, you know. A lot of them are just going to walk past
us and that’s fine.”
“So we just stand here
until they come to us?”
“Yep.”
“Is there something we
should do while we wait?”
“Quietly judge them
in our heads.”
A lone wolf kind of boy
makes his way through our section. He takes a pamphlet from each table. As he
approaches ours, I chop the air horizontally behind our major board - a signal
to Jaymes, saying “don’t bother”. And as quickly as the lone wolf arrives, he
is gone, glancing at the Thoreau pamphlet only so he doesn’t have to make eye
contact.
Jaymes eyes ask why we
didn’t do anything about him.
“He’s a Grazer,” I
tell him.
“A Grazer?”
I guess I never really
thought to describe the categories of college fair visitors fully, but today I
give it a shot, because now I have a captive and captivated audience member.
Fourth-wall builders
If you’ve ever wondered
what it feels like to be invisible, just make a point to try to engage with
these students. They walk up to your table acting like you’re not there. They
often come in pairs, talking aimlessly about which of them would make the
better roommate, or why Rebecca is dating Julian.
Best bet: Say “hello”,
and let them do their thing. Perhaps throw in a “let me know if you have any
questions about our programs!” if only to remind them that it’s poor manners to
ignore a human being they are standing right in front of.
Average GPA: “Probably
higher than Jenny’s but definitely not higher than Sow Chan Pak or whatever her
name is.”
First-choicers
These students - usually girls, because girls are on top of their shit
- find you at your table early and arrive out of breath. She has dreamt
of going to Thoreau since she was in sixth grade. She’s a junior but she’s
planning on applying Early Action and wants to know if we have a summer program
for high school students because she just can’t stand not being a Thoreau
student for much longer.
Best bet: Smile. Nod. “Oh great!” Repeat.
Average GPA: 3.2 weighted on a 4.0 scale.
Grazers
Grazers are like that
lone wolf guy. A grazer does not know what they’re interested to study, only
that they’ve been told they should go to these college fairs and see what they
can find. They’re doing due diligence, but just barely. In this case, it’s best
to feed the animal and let him be on his way.
Best bet: “Lone wolf” is
actually pretty apt. Stay back and be quiet until they pass. Actually I don’t
know if that’s how you’re supposed to behave around wolves. Maybe Cheryl
Strayed knows.
Average GPA: unknown,
probably either 2.5 weighted on a 4.0 scale or 4.0 unweighted but definitely
not anywhere in between. That, or some made-up home school designation like
“Comprehensive” or “Mother’s Favorite”.
Hard-hitters
For some reason these
students have a permanent chip on their shoulder and their current target is
Thoreau College. Someone told them that four students got food poisoning
in the dining hall last month, or that it’s not a great place to go if you’re
Jewish, or that the teachers are all really mean (literally all of them). Or maybe they’re interested to compare
curricula and want you to rattle off course descriptions for the Culinary Arts
major. As you confess that you haven’t committed the entire course catalog to
memory, the bug-eye look says, “Well that just seals the deal, doesn’t it?” and
they’re outta there.
Best bet: Fend them off
with e-mail addresses and URLs to the departments and offices that deal with
the minutiae that are giving them agita.
Average GPA: 4.2
weighted (a.k.a. “What does unweighted mean? That’s just my GPA…
right?”)
Journalists
Not to be confused with prospective Journalism majors.
These students are identifiable by the sheet of stock questions that was
probably furnished by their school counselor or parent. They show up while
you’re in the middle of a great conversation and just start rattling the
questions off. Oddly enough, these questions do not help them to learn anything
meaningful about the colleges they’re talking to. Stuff like “What’s the average
GPA for incoming students?”, “What’s the four year graduation rate?”, “Are
there dorms?”
Best bet: Deflect their questions by asking them what
they want to study, or rather, what they’re looking for in a college. They will
reply that they’re looking for a major we don’t have, or a liberal arts
program, or a school in a rural setting. Gently describe that Thoreau is not
that school or does not have that program. Unfortunately, this strategy
actually only works half the time, and you may have to wait until they fill in
their whole sheet.
Average GPA: 3.0
unweighted.
I’d be amiss not to also prepare Jaymes for a few designations of
parents as well. They are arguably an equally important market when it comes to
college admission.
Helicopter parents
So-called because they
hover over their children and micro-manage their every move. Their antics
inspire many rolled-eyes and exclamations of “Mooom!” “Dad-uh!” Helicopters
parents often accidentally say, “When I filled out the applic- wait, I mean, we, heh-heh-heh… so when we
filled out the application…”
Best
bet: Continue to make eye-contact with the student, sending a cue to the
parents that they need to hand over controls to their child now as a
practice round for when their kid doesn’t call them twice an hour next
September.
Curling parents
Picture that weird
Olympic sport with the people sweeping the friction away from the ice and the
big stone sliding along behind. These parents are the ones with the brooms.
Curling parents are a toned-down version of helicopter parents, but are still
more high-maintenance than they realize. They fill out the inquiry card for
their child, telling them, “I’ll fill this out, you ask the rep
questions. This is your decision!” And the kid will ask some question or
other, but their parent will contribute suggested follow-ups and their child
has to behave like Pete the Repeat Parrot. Remember him?
Best bet: Try to find
the student an hour later, having escaped their parents. You’ll have much
better luck at an actual conversation.
Know-it-all parents
This is a variation on
the fourth-wall builders, except the parent tries to sell their child an
interest in a college, any college. They point out items on your major board
saying, “Oh, look, they have Business Studies, you like business; didn’t you
say you might major in business?” then aside to me, “Most kids make lemonade
stands in the summer, she made an iced tea stand! Always such an
entrepreneur.” Warning: they will recite facts about your school that are
simply not true. “Peggy told me they have great pools,” or “You remember Mrs.
O’Sullivan’s son? He went here and majored in… what was it… bio-engineering!”
or “You were in the news the other day for being a top pre-law program.”
Best bet: Jump in with a
pre-determined schpiel. Mine is, “Thoreau College is a highly specialized
college in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Our programs all relate to areas of business,
hotel management and the arts and here’s a list of all of our current majors.
Let me know if you have any questions.” Eye contact with the student. If all else fails, jokingly ask the parent
to stand behind the table if they know so much about Thoreau. One parent did
take me up on that offer, but that was a pretty exceptional case and once I
explained I was being sarcastic, he stalked off.
There are those students (and parents) who are outside these
categories, of course. The ones who ask intelligent questions and demonstrate
an earnest interest in learning what Thoreau is. They’re the ones who usually
say, “This might be a dumb question…” Those students are actual prospectives, and finding
them is, to me, the whole point of suffering the other 85%.
Throughout the fair,
Jaymes keeps stage-whispering to me what types of people he sees students as,
and soon the pulse of ignoring grazers, giving hard-hitters our website URL,
and ignoring parents is in his veins. He’s a natural, and has potential to be
better at it than I am because his smile is disarming and I kind of have
resting-bitch-face.
By the way, if you
think that observation is self-deprecating, you forget that I do not have an
ego about this kind of thing.
- =
-
(Seemingly) before
long, it’s 8pm and the fair is done. With Jaymes there, it really did seem to
go much quicker.
One thing college
fairs have not managed to get right is the timing. 4pm to 8pm does not
just mean 4pm to 8pm. It really eats 3pm to 9pm, which means you won’t get to eat in that window between
getting dressed, driving in, finding parking, picking up the bar-code scanner, et
cetera. By the time the fair is done, you’re hangry (hangry = hungry +
angry) (for me, hungry = angry, to begin with) (come to think of it, one begets
the other). Which means as you’re orienting yourself post-fair, your M-O
becomes finding food as close to your bed as possible; thus, eating at the
Marriott hotel looks realllll pretty.
Given that Jaymes has
volunteered to help at such a long fair, Adewale coordinated putting him up and
paying for his dinner, the best deal we can give a “volunteer”.
“But if you want a
drink, that can’t go on my work card, unfortunately,” I tell him.
“That’s okay, I don’t
need to drink,” he says politely.
“Bullshit.”
“I do,” then to our
server, “A glass of Malbec, please.”
I catch Jaymes’
darting eyes. He wants to order but is afraid to. I rescue him and order a
vodka tonic for him. “On me.”
“That’s exactly what I
would have ordered,” he confesses, awestruck, “How did you know‽”
“I know gay actors.”
That he’s given his
affinity for vodka tonics away forbids him from decrying my political
incorrectness.
He recaps the fair for
me, as though I weren’t there. It feels like a play-by-play, though I’m sure
Jaymes doesn’t know what that is. “I feel like I learned so much! It was kind
of cool, telling students really basic things about college, you know? I never
realized how much you can help
them! Can you imagine how good it would feel to-“ he stops, reaching for his
pocket, then glances at his phone. His smile evaporates. I nod my head in that
way that says, “Fuck politeness, take it.” He takes it, but he doesn’t look
jazzed about it as he disappears around a corner.
While he’s gone the
server comes back with our drinks. I hold off on drinking mine out of habit.
For some reason I find myself staring straight ahead at Jaymes’ empty chair
with the white cloth napkin heaping off the plate. In that moment, I don’t need
to be checking my phone or scanning the menu, I’m happy to zone out. It’s then
that I realize how often I find myself sitting opposite an empty chair. Usually
I’m very comfortable with this, but now that I’ve had a person in front of me
for a few moments, the phenomenon strikes me again as incredibly lonely.
I shake it away,
remembering that the reason I’m feeling this melancholy vulnerability is
probably because I’ve been in high school visits and a college fair all day and
haven’t had a second to stop. Right, that must be what it is.
Jaymes returns with a
“Sorry about that.”
“I’m not going to
ask what that was about.”
“That’s all right. Your
vodka tonic came.”
He dives in as though
I’ve pried - elbow on table, face on fist. “So I’d been seeing this guy.”
Suddenly my glass is
half-full. No, half-empty.
“He’s a bit older than
me. A lot more experienced. And he has like, a real job and stuff, something
called “wealth management”. Talk about White - no offense.”
He is right. “None
taken.”
“Anyway, I thought
things were going well, we would mostly hang out and stuff when I was back for
summers, and we kept talking about being together after I was done with school
and stuff and so he’s kind of the whole reason I came back to Detroit.”
“Mistake number
one.”
“We weren’t, like,
officially anything so it’s not as though we talked about like establishing
what the rules were or anything.”
“Mistake number
two.”
“And now that I’m out
of school, there’s, like, this block. Because I think he expects me to get a
real job, but I don’t think he gets that that’s kind of not what I really
want.”
“I’m actually with
Mr. Wealth Management on this one…”
“So now I don’t really
know where things stand and he’s kind of hot and cold and last week he was
saying he wasn’t sure where he wanted things to go, but now that I’m out of
town for one night, he’s all bent out of shape saying he wishes I could come
over…”
“Why are you
telling me this?”
As if he heard my
thoughts, he adds, “I don’t know why I’m telling you all this.”
Jaymes swigs his vodka
tonic. I think he’s copying his motions from when someone drinks straight
bourbon, his angst part-choreography, part-earnest. Even when he’s not
performing, he’s performing.
“It’s fine,” I lie. “Let’s
just end this merry subject here then, shall we?”
“Do you have a
boyfriend?” he asks.
I leave it at “No”
because unlike Jaymes, I’m uninterested in selling the movie rights for my
personal life, and if I tell him I’m gay he’s going to get way too excited at
our shared homosexuality which, as far as I’m concerned, is really two ships
passing in the night.
“I don’t know what I
should do.”
“Forget him,” I say,
lubricated with wine.
“I can’t just forget
him.”
It spills out, “You
spent a lot of time just now talking about what he wants and what decisions he gets to make about your
relationship. If I were you, I’d spend less time worrying about that and more
time focusing on what it is you want and need.”
“But-“, he begins, but
“but” doesn’t lead anywhere. “But,” in this case means, “but you were supposed
to just feel bad for me and just nod and smile and say he’s being ridiculous
and I deserve to win his love.” But no, Jaymes, “That’s not how relationships
work, they’re not a prize to be won because you earn them. If you don’t like
the answer, kid, don’t ask the question. Especially to a stranger.””
Fortunately for us both, Jaymes doesn’t continue after “but” because he did
ask me what I thought, and I don’t continue because I just don’t want to go
down the rabbit hole.
Wine suddenly makes a
lot of sense.
I flip through my
mental rolodex desperately searching for a new topic. Jaymes, of course, finds
one first.
“Did you watch Sex and
the City?”
“Yes,” I admit. And that
subject keeps us in the clear until the bill comes and we retreat to safety in our
own separate rooms.
- = -
Back in my room, I make the mistake of
looking at my work e-mail before I’ve changed into sweats.
From: Mary Ann Banister-McCloskey
To: Marcy Brooks
Marcy-
Good news: my business cards say “Mary Ann”.
Bad news: they also say
“Banister McCloskey”.
Hate to bother you while you’re
on the road but it looks bad as I’m giving out business cards where I’ve inked
in the hyphen myself.
Mary Ann Banister(HYPHEN)McCloskey
Add that to the to-do list.
- = -
From: TC Schenone
To: Marcy Brooks, Gina
Gutierrez, Adewale Adekoje, Noam Schwartz, Christie Oberther
CC: Mary Ann Banister-McCloskey
Hi all!
Just a gentle reminder
that I haven’t received any travel logs from you. Please review the guidelines
for these as soon as you can, and remember to input them in the proper format,
upload them into our server, and then also use the online form.
Travel logs are very important when it comes
to planning future travel! :)
TC
This one makes me toss my phone on the
desk in fury. A little context is necessary. TC makes loose use of the term
“Coordinator”. He’s bopped around six undergrad admission offices in the last
ten years, always citing professional development opportunities as his reason
for departing. To my observation, this development has not actually occurred;
despite being Senior Associate Director of Admission (second only to Mary Ann),
he continually demonstrates what I’d call “selective professionalism”. He’ll
politely come down on you for your dress code one week, then show up in costume
the next. He’ll passive-aggressively remind you of the protocol for indicating
time off one day, then unceremoniously take off the next. My problem with this
e-mail is that even though it makes me and the other recipients look like
delinquents, I’ve already told him, in polite terms, that I know very well that
his habit is to collect these travel logs and lose them. This is frustrating
because they take hours to tediously put them into the format he prefers (see:
picked out of a hat), and while I do see their usefulness in theory, I’m aware
that an e-mail in TC’s inbox sits in a sort of Russian Roulette toilet. I’m
uninterested in spending hours of my time on formatting travel logs that won’t
be used, and if it only goes to him it’ll never actually improve how we execute
our recruitment and the weeks during which our team puts their lives on hold
will be for naught and the pointless cycle is propagated. This is why I’m creating
my own travel log on my personal Google Drive and I even told TC that I will
yield this travel log to him next year when he requests it for his planning purposes,
and will only reformat it if he can resurrect me my travel logs from last year
and explain why his format is necessary.
This latest e-mail from TC affirms my
suspicion that he did not read that e-mail. I delete it, needless to say.
- = -
Another e-mail pops up.
From: Mary Ann Banister-McCloskey
To: Marcy Brooks
How did today go? Can you take a 2 minute call
soon? V important.
Mary Ann
I look at the clock. 9:57. All right, Mary Ann,
you get me until 10:00 exactly.
“How’s
the road?” she asks.
“No
small talk. What do you want?”
I
opt instead for seeming concern. “Is everything all right?”
“Oh
yeah,” she drawls. I’m regretting not ignoring her e-mail until the morning. “I
wanted to know how Jaymes was at the fair today.”
To
be honest I’m surprised Mary Ann knew I worked with a volunteer today at all.
“Good!”
She pushes the subject, though. “He was great! He had a lot of good questions.
After I explained how things work he took to it. He’s a little talkative, you
know.”
“Well
he’s a Musical Theatre major,” she reminds me as if she were the one who just
spent 8 hours with him.
“Right.
So what’s up?”
“And
he was on the train on time and dressed professionally and all that?”
I’m
dying for her to get to her point. That’s Mary Ann for you, though. Finally I
get an “All right…” at 10:02. God damn it. “Well just so you know the
promotions will all be announced in our phone conference staff meeting on
Monday morning.”
I
know I’ve been promoted and that still needs to be announced, but I wasn’t
aware there were others.
“You’ll
hear all about it on Monday…!”
While
I’m not into the suspense game, I am interested. Just not at 10:03pm in a
Marriott in Ann Arbor.
“Good
night, Mary Ann.”
“And
don’t tell me a phone call is important unless you’re telling me something new.”
What
percentage of graduates are employed within their field?
The next morning I’m driving Jayson to the
transportation center and he has been talking at me since the moment we left
the Marriott twenty minutes ago. I used all of my usual tactics. When I turned
on the radio, Jaymes got excited about the first song that played and shared
all about his high school chorus teacher; when I suggested we stop for
Starbucks, Jaymes got all excited that it’s Pumpkin Spice Latté season and
shared choice anecdotes about his brief career as a barista; when I asked if he
would plug our next destination into the GPS, Jaymes shared that he once got a
gig providing the voice for a Mattel action figure but would love to be the
voice on a GPS. His BFA in Musical Theatre in action.
The GPS’ voice was a
welcome relief every few minutes or so because it allowed me to shush him for a
half a second so I could “pay close attention to the directions”.
I can navigate Ann
Arbor in my sleep.
Then Jaymes did one of
those things that conversation steam-rollers do that piss me off the most: they
ask a question abruptly.
“So what made you go
into admission?”
“The ability to
earn health insurance doing a job that consists of talking about the college I
went to.”
“Oh, um. After I
graduated-“
“Where did you go?”
I couldn’t finish a
fucking sentence.
“Thoreau.”
“Really? I didn’t
realize you actually went to Thoreau.”
“Of course you
didn’t, you haven’t invited me to join your monologue”
“Yeah! And I was a tour
guide and, well, they had an opening. It’s a good job for right out of school…”
“…and it’s all
downhill from there.”
“Huh,” Jaymes deflated,
“I didn’t know all that.”
“Well, we’re never
going to see each other again so I don’t really feel all that invested in
making sure you know details about my life.”
“It sounds like fun,
working in admission. You get to travel-”
“-to hotels and
high schools.”
“-you get to read all of
those interesting essays-“
“-recycled
garbage.”
“-and you get to really
be a part of shaping the future of the school.”
Hmph. I’d never looked
at it through that particular pair of rose-colored glasses.
And then he got quiet.
I hoped he was just deep in thought. After a minute - call it masochism - it
actually concerned me enough to glance at him to see what cat got his tongue.
He was staring straight ahead, brow slightly furrowed, looking lonely and
uncomfortable. We reached a red light and the silence became palpable. Here was
my chance to fill that silence and offer something. What, a glimpse of honesty?
“Working in admission
is for two kinds of people: lifers, who actually like something about higher ed
management, and people like me, who stumble into it somehow and use it as a
stopgap.” He finally looked at me. I went on. “To delay making the decision of
what we want to do when we grow up.” I sighed. Before I could help myself, “Not
all of us have a clear-cut passion like you do.”
And then he gave me
this look of fresh, tender pity and I wanted to crawl out of my skin. An overly
jolly radio commercial teased the moment, so I blindly swatted at the power
knob until it shut up.
“Green light,” he
whispered.
And we went.
He probably thought I
envied him. And on a certain level, I do, because it’s kind of great to know
exactly what you want from the world. But I also kind of pity him, because it
must be maddening to see that goal and know that you’ll almost definitely never
achieve it. Still, I’d hate for Jaymes to sense that that envy, but it’d be
cruel over-compensation to play the pity card instead.
I hate it when
prospective students tell me that they’re destined to be on stage. I hate it
even more when their guidance counselors are taken into that delusion. And I
hate it the most when parents buy into it and tell me that their child is born
to be on Broadway. It makes me want to scream, whether the conversation happens
before the kid has applied, while their begging to be accepted or after they’ve
been rejected. As if I owe it to them to attempt to override the fact that the Drama
(and its Disciplines) department – not me – has already definitively ruled them
out. Even if I had the authority, I wouldn’t, and it’s not because I enjoy
being cruel, but because I want to shatter the myth that any person, regardless
of their talent, is “destined” for fame in theatre.
But hear me out before
you write me off as being hardened and unfeeling: it does nobody any favors to
feel entitled to something like Broadway. It absolutely negates any
amount of hard work or God-given talent necessary. If some goddamn kid’s
success is already written in the stars, then why doth thou family protest so
goddamn much on my voicemail? I didn’t get my job by telling Mary Ann I felt destined
to eventually become an Associate Director of Admission. We have affinities and
we exercise them if that’s what we want. Or, in my case, if it’s what we need
to pay the bills.
I want to tell these
kids that no, they are not born to be on Broadway so stop letting your teachers
and relatives inflate your ego. Recognize if it is within your potential.
Recognize that it is your ambition. Recognize that it is within the realm of
possibility of what you can achieve – but that it is not the only possible
outcome. There’s a certain amount of practice, sacrifice and, yes, ass-kissing
required. It is not my job to usher you to your destiny; if you have complaints
about that, well, you can address them to God because that’s above my pay grade
by a lightyear.
What do I know. Maybe
Jaymes is smarter than those students. Maybe he’s got a plan I’m not aware of.
Maybe he’s flying out to New York tomorrow to meet his agent and get cast in an
August Wilson play opposite Laurence Fishburne. I don’t know.
I don’t just plead the
fifth, I live by it.
We pull up.
“This was fun,” Jaymes
says, unsmiling.
“Then why do you
look like you want to die?”
“Thank you again for
all of your help!”
He reaches across for
what I think he thinks is an obligatory hug.
Right, theatre kids.
They’re touchy.
And then he’s gone. I
reach into the trunk and reclaim my preferred passenger seat companion: my
purse. I have to spend a minute brushing the pretzel crumbs out the door; I’m
not even going to touch the passenger side carpet.
“Sunday,” I say to no
one. The day is young and it is mine.
The
thing about: traveling alone
The strategic Sunday
is one of my favorite recruitment travel tricks. The novice traveler will see
Sunday as a convenient time to capitalize on traveling between locations in
order to maximize weekdays for school visits. The expert knows to book
obligations in the same city on Friday and Monday and necessitate travel during
business hours, that way Sunday is freed up for Me-Time.
Everyone says, “That’s
so cool that you get to travel for work!” And when you complain about it, you
go through the cycle:
1) Unforgiving rant
about the distinction between traveling for recruitment and a vacation.
2) Backpedaling to
revert to only a socially acceptable level of snark.
3) Selection of anecdote
to demonstrate the pitfalls.
4) Bumbling as you
recall that your conversation partner did not ask for this and that it requires
having a tremendous amount of privilege to have the luxury of complaining about
being paid to go places.
5) Non-committal “shrug”
of a sentence, like “But I shouldn’t complain really” or “But that’s what comes
with the job” or “I guess I’m being ungrateful.”
But traveling alone for weeks at a time is
a lonely endeavor, even for the most introverted misanthrope.
I’ve noticed that when you check into a
hotel, the concierge will ask how many keys you want, and even though you say,
“One is fine”, they’ll give you two.
I’ve noticed that when you’re feeling
lonely as you walk through an airport, every pairing of people seems cartoonishly
happy and rudely attractive.
I’ve noticed that when you’re sitting at a
bar alone and someone asks if the seat next to you is taken or if you’re
waiting for someone, it feels like an insult even though they’re being polite.
For these reasons, I avoid contact with the
human species altogether on Strategic Me-Time Sundays.
The “do not disturb” sign ostensibly has
one job: to stay on the doorknob. For some reason though, Marriott hotels have
not yet implemented a version that can survive the speed of the closing door
that they are meant to be on. If you’re not careful, they whip around as the
door closes, eventually fluttering daintily to the ground. I’ve made a habit of
holding them on as I shut the door, then opening it a crack to make sure it’s
stayed on. Then I unnecessarily bolt and lock the door. It’s not that I’m
afraid of being murdered or something, it’s that I’m petrified of someone
interrupting my secluded little hermitage. I don’t need people to know what
daytime TV or in-room movies I watch, or what humiliating level of undress I
allow myself when alone, or that I’m hiding out in a hotel room for an entire
day rather than doing something expected like, I don’t know, shopping or
sightseeing or picking up a one-night stand. I’ve done all those things. I
prefer zoning out and staying in my room.
But there’s no avoiding the fact that
hunger will come, and for whatever reason I find room service both too tedious
and invasive, so I’m more familiar with Marriott hotels’ restaurants than I
should be and, in most cases, will choose hotels based on their restaurants.
There is nothing lonely in quite the same way as walking up to a tired
hotel-restaurant host and committing yourself with “Table for one”. It says I
have settled here. I have made the conscious decision not to look on
Yelp and identify a restaurant in the area that will introduce me to this
city’s culture, cuisine, or – God forbid – people. Although in some cases
it says We are in Bumblefuck, Vermont and you are receiving my business
because you are effortlessly capitalizing on being the only restaurant in a
five-mile radius and/or I’m too hungry to fumble around the parking lot for my
rental car. And then they say, “Just one?” and you want to smack them. “This
is painful enough, ma’am, no need to rub it in and look so shocked.” They
seat you and you notice that, once again, your table is one of only three with
people and your server asks if you’d like something to drink and you realize,
“Yes, I’d like a glass of Merlot” even though you’d told yourself you wouldn’t
drink because you have e-mails to respond to after dinner. But fuck that,
you’ve been working all damn day and where is your Merlot and would it be
shameful to ask for a straw to go with it?
- =
-
It’s a good thing I
wake myself up at 11:07pm. I fell asleep sitting up with my mouth open and the
smell of wine breath wafting. Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix
ended at least 4 hours ago, and made way for some thinly-veiled softcore porn
posing as comedy called Eating Out. My left hand sits in a box of Whole
Foods trail mix (created by: Marcy) that is beginning to spill between the
sheets. My neck is killing me, so I pop two Advil, set my alarm, brush my
teeth, and properly put myself to sleep.
A wayward almond is
getting frisky with my boob. I eat it without thinking.
Ladies, meet Marcy
Brooks. She is the total package.
What
are some recent developments at your school?
“How’s everybody doing?” Mary Ann asks.
Mary Ann has a lot of good ideas. Our
weekly meeting at 9am on Mondays is not one of them. Our remote weekly
meeting over phone conference at 9am on Mondays is even worse.
There are ten people on this phone
conference. Questions addressed to a group do not work. I know better than to
answer. In fact, I have my microphone muted and am brushing my teeth. A chorus
of voices mumble variations of “pretty good” until the TC aria begins: “I was
thinking of you all yesterday - I got drinks with my good friend Sean who works
at NLCU at this really great beach resort and I was talking about what a smooth
travel season this has been!”
“Thank you for reminding us that you’ve
blatantly privileged yourself to the most desirable territories.”
TC reads and recruits
Florida, California, Hawaii, Alaska, Washington (his immediate family and
girlfriend live there), US Minor Outlying Islands, the Caribbean, India (his
extended family lives there) Australia and all countries bordering the
Mediterranean. I’d love to know why Mary Ann overrode the Director of
International Admission’s complaint that a staff who is not on the International
Committee has no business reserving the sexier international territories for
himself.
“Oh how sweet,” she croons. “I’m thinking
of you all all the time, too. Thank you all for calling in, I know these can be
kind of a pain in the neck sometimes, but I’ve got a lot of exciting
announcements so this meeting was particularly important.”
Here we go: the announcement of my
promotion.
“As you all know, Shauna’s last day with
us was last Monday, which allowed us to take another look at our organizational
structure and make a few changes. So it gives me great pleasure to tell
you all, officially, that Marcy Brooks has been promoted to Associate
Director.”
A polite round of ooh’s, ah’s and golf
claps ensue. “Thanks everyone,” I say.
“Marcy, are you there?”
Oh shit, the mic was still on mute. I
unmute and repeat myself.
“So Marcy will continue to supervise Gina,
and our new incoming Admission Counselor. She’s going to continue to chair our
Scholarship Committee, and oversee our communication with Drama. She’s also
going to take more of a lead with overseeing our day-to-day operations in the
office, you know, who’s on duty, who’s on deck, communication plans, reading
training and supervision, that sort of thing.”
“That’s perfect,” TC contributes.
“It is perfect for you, TC, because
it’s less responsibilities you can be blamed for neglecting.”
“Meanwhile Gina
Goody-yahr-ez has been doing a great job as an Admission Counselor for the last
two years,”
I hate hate hate when Mary Ann
mispronounces some of the more ethnic names in our team.
“She’s going to take on some of Marcy’s
reading for the White Scholarship essays, and we’re promoting her to Assistant
Director!”
I actually didn’t know about this, and I’m
honestly excited for Gina. She’s deserved a raise several times over. She
needed and deserved this boost.
“Get the fuck out!” I say, which is
hopefully hidden under the layers of “Wow!” “Good for you!”
“Thanks guys,” she says. I can picture her
hiding behind her hair as she says it.
We’re also in the midst of hiring two new
Admission Counselors - one that’s posted right now to replace Franklin, and the
other who we have hired to help meet some of our new goals for recruitment
travel.
“New goals for recruitment?” I echo.
“Right.
That’s the other thing,” she begins like a sigh. “TC?”
“Hey everyone.”
“Hi TC!”
“Everyone’s been doing a
really great job with their recruitment for the most part, but I decided that
we’re going to slightly redesign the way we execute recruitment moving
forward.”
“For next year,” I say. I hope. I pray.
“No, effective immediately.”
“What kind of redesign?”
“Yep, I was just about to get there. I’ll
be e-mailing you all with more detail about how exactly this is going to work,
but at its most basic: everyone’s going to be traveling in pairs from now on.” He
pauses, perhaps for response, but gets none. “I’ve heard from my friend Sean
who works at NLCU and a bunch of others that a lot of admission offices are
doing it this way and that it helps make the experience a lot less stressful.
Two people at college fairs help us answer more questions, two people at high
school visits helps us to engage guidance counselors and students
simultaneously, two people giving information sessions is a lot easier on the
vocal cords.”
“I’ll go easy on your vocal cords.”
“TC - I understand how
traveling in pairs might be less stressful, generally speaking. But we’ve all
got flights and hotels booked and our travel was planned in a way that, you
know, assumed we’re all traveling individually.”
“Don’t worry, Marcy,” he says, “it’s all
worked out. Some staff from Graduate Admission, Financial Services and Student
Life were kind enough to volunteer to help us out.”
“But that volunteerism wouldn’t have
been necessary, if you hadn’t tried to rebuild the ship while it was out to
sea…”
This happens now and then: TC gets a
convoluted idea and Mary Ann must love him because she lets him do it. She also
lets it slide when executing said idea consumes his bandwidth and he abdicates
the responsibilities he actually should be overseeing. But shifting us into
partnered-travel while we’re partway through travel season and dragging staff
reluctantly from other departments has got to be TC’s worst and most
shittily-timed idea.
A chilling thought
occurs to me: if this is a done deal, then I have a travel buddy. I have a
travel buddy “effective immediately”.
“Who are we all partnered with?”
“That’ll be in your e-mail which I’ll be
sending… um… probably later today,” which, in TC talk, means after 10pm tonight
or else at 4:59pm tomorrow on the dot.
Thankfully Mary Ann steps in and suggests
TC list our travel partners since we’re all present.
“I’ll be with Jordan from Grad,” he tells
us, which I expected. They have a weird dynamic. Possibly an affair. Possibly
polygamy?
“Gina and Yul,” which makes sense, he can
help train Gina up.
“Mary Ann with Billie from Student Life,”
which makes sense, they’re both grandmothers and would be hard to partner with
anyone else.
“Noam with Drake from Financial Services,”
makes me nervous. They’ve had an on-again-off engagement for the last three
years. Hopefully it’s on again.
“Adewale will be with Aina,” convinces me
that he’s pairing people up based on demographics.
“and Christie with Park.” Would I could be
a fly on the wall for those car rides.
Which leaves me and… someone from another
department?
“Oh yeah, and you’ll be with our new
admission counselor hire.”
Oh dear. “Thanks, asshole, if I was
uninterested in specifics I wouldn’t have asked about it.”
“Who did we hire?”
“Someone who you’re actually familiar
with,” Mary Ann teases. “Jayson Jerome!”
Of course.
From this angle, the
prospect of traveling alone doesn’t look so bad.
3. Quebec, ON
When
I was little, my sisters and I used to play Mario Kart on Super Nintendo. My
brother-in-law (my older sister Mindy’s husband) never stopped playing Mario
Kart games, and continues to buy and play those and other games despite being
on the other side of 30. The last time I got stoned with Mindy, we decided to
try playing one of the new Mario Karts. This one was called “Mario Kart: Double
Dash” and involves pairing up two characters in a car. I paired up Donkey Kong
with Mario, she paired up Princess Toadstool (now, apparently “Peach”) with
some freak named Waluigi or something. My point is it was a terrible game and
so I’ve officially dubbed TC’s idea “Recruitment Season: Double Dash”.
So what's a disgruntled employee to do?
Confront it head on to try to prevent a complete disaster? Try to trust that TC
knows more than he's letting on? Sit around and complain about it? Well, yes,
that last option is clearly what I do best, but I'm also going to try to use
this disastrous plan to my advantage.
I decide that I'm going to sit back and
let this play out. If there's any justice in the world, Double Dash will crash
and burn and everyone will remember that this was TC's idea and maybe we'll
finally be rid of him when he cites "creative differences" as he
finds another college to haunt. It can't hurt if I can find little ways to push
Double Dash's wretchedness along on its miserable little way; oddly enough, my
best tool in this dastardly plan is none other than my new travel companion,
Jaymes. If I can make him somehow
implode while making my behavior look like professional mentorship, then Mary
Ann and the rest will have to appreciate that Double Dash is a bust.
With any luck, the poor suckers from other departments and/or awkward pairings
among my colleagues may help corroborate my point.
What am I, a goddamn Shakespeare villain?
Anyway, that will have to wait. First
things first: TC has taken the liberty to register Jaymes as my plus-one at a
conference in Québéc, so I'll only be able to actually urge my plan along once
that's done.
Is it true when they say “Gay by May”?
QAQAC stands for the “Québécois
Association for Queer Admission Counseling”. I wish I came up with this shit,
although if I did, I probably would have forbidden the duck-bill kazoo “quackers”,
but I guess when you’re dealing with a highly-niche higher ed market, you work
with what you’ve got. QAQAC is our first stop on Double Dash.
I’ve gone to QAQAC a few times over the
years. It’s official mission makes it clear that it doesn’t (read: can’t) only
pander to LGBTQ admission counselors, guidance counselors and prospective
students, but it does “target LGBTQ-inclusive institutions and individuals”.
That it’s in Quebec is more a means than an end - members span the whole of
NACACAC. The conference is just based in Québéc because the founder lived there
until he tragically passed this March from complications due to HIV / AIDS.
This year’s itinerary:
Friday
10am - 4pm: Registration and check-in
12pm - 2pm: Cafeteria lunch
5pm - 6pm: Welcome ceremony
6pm - 8pm: Formal dinner
8pm - 11pm: Bingo, trivia, mixer
Saturday
Session 1 / 8am - 9:45am
A) The “T” in LGBT: How to be a
trans-inclusive campus.
B) The Pink Ceiling: Overcoming xenophobia
and having
the career you want.
Session 2 /
10:00am - 11:45am
A) What does it mean to be an LGBT-friendly
school?
B) Your life, your rights: Navigating an HR
department that doesn’t want to recognize your civil union / same-sex marriage.
12pm - 2pm: Cafeteria lunch
Session 3 / 2pm -
3:45pm
A)
Beyond the binary: Creating an
application that goes beyond “male and female”.
B) Does LGBT matter?: Why sexual orientation
matters in college admission.
4pm - 6pm: College fair
6pm - 8pm: Awards dinner
8pm - 12am: Cocktail hour
Sunday
6:30am: Yoga with YAYA award-winner Olivia
Lytle
Session 4 / 8am -
9:45am
A) Queer but not queasy: An argument for a
sober lifestyle
and a dry campus.
B) Mining the generational divide: An LGBT
mentor match- making event
Session 5 / 10am -
11:45am
A)
The other, other need: When the
FAFSA doesn't capture the realities of LGBT youth without support.
B) FABULOUS!: The phenomenon of LGBT-specific
scholarships.
12pm - 2pm: Lunch
2pm - 3pm: Closing ceremony
I have a very hot and cold relationship with QAQAC
and its individual components. Some of the sessions are actually really great,
but the pageantry is kind of awful. The dorm situation is questionable - we’re
living in dorms, but given the nature of the nature of the event, grouping us
by gender seems futile. There’s a painfully PC survey that attempts to be
sensitive to every possible gender expression and dorming preference. The end
result is that the whole thing ends up being wildly cruisy; no complaints from
me.
The thing about: flying
I “wasn’t able” to book
Jaymes on the same flight out of Detroit. So sue me for white-lying, but it is very
awkward flying with another person unless they’re a loved one. Come to think of
it, that’s usually pretty awkward too.
I remember a time when Americans dressed
up to get on a plane. It was an occasion. You were dignified about it. You
brushed your hair about it. These days people at airports seem to behave as
though they’re in their living room. Open nose-picking, flagrant disregard for
others’ personal space, iPad games with vivid soundscapes set on high volume.
People are desperate to bring their carry-ons.
They will sometimes forego offers of over a hundred dollars to check their
bags, but bafflingly prefer the privilege of dragging their suitcase with them.
They will beg and plead and bargain about the likelihood of the suitcase
fitting in the overhead storage; it won’t. They clamor, cheat and wrestle to be
the first on the plane so they can stake out the most convenient over-head
storage. This confuses me because at no point in time will they require
anything inside the suitcase.
I want to ask, “Are you planning on
changing your underwear on this flight? Are you planning on changing it five
times? Why do you need your carry-on?”
Meanwhile, there are those people who
completely ignore the flight attendants’ repeated requests that we turn off our
phones before take-off. And it’s always some benign and personal stuff too. “I
would have put the dog down years ago! Because it’s suffering, and I
don’t want it to suffer, you know? But she just loves it so much, I
don’t know what to say. She loves him!”
“Hey ma’am. I don’t know
about you but I’m not in the market to die today, so would you quit hogging
precious radio wave space or whatever-the-fuck and kindly shut that shit down?
For all of us?”
While the plane’s in the air the rules
change minute by minute. Dinner-time meal service is free. Snack service will
cost you, and you can only use Visa. Drinks are free. Drink-drinks are not. You
can use the restroom. You can’t get out of your seat. You can use the restroom
but you can’t get out of your seat to get to it. This announcement will pause
our in-flight entertainment for a moment in order to tell you about our
in-flight entertainment. You must be sentient and speak English to my eyes in
order to sit in an Emergency Exit row.
“Can you all turn down the intensity
and let me zone out on this flight? I’m just trying to sleep.”
Then the plane lands, and everyone’s a
horse in the gate clawing at the ground waiting for the “Fasten Seatbelt” sign
to go off so they can bust out of chairs and insert themselves into the aisle
and grab their suitcase right away.
After the death march of debarking
subsides, we’ll all find ourselves at the Baggage Claim anyway. Everyone lines
up with their ankles right on the metal edge of the belt. They have got
to be there the very second their bag bumbles along.
I’d like to make a Public Service
Announcement to the universe:
“Excuse me,” I’ll say, jumping onto the
island at the center of the baggage carousel. The word “carousel” fits because
the crowd around me is appropriately a carnival of gawking faces. “Excuse me
ladies and gentlemen. Would you all please take a step back. Would you all
please take another step back. There is no reason for you to be standing
directly in front of the conveyor belt. It’s inconvenient to you. It’s actually
inconvenient to all concerned!”
“But I want to see my bag
when it starts going around!” cries one passenger.
“That’s my dolly.” cries their
daughter.
“Okay,” I say, “but look!
When you all step back, you can all see all of the bags!”
A few members of the crowd
nod approvingly. One doesn’t.
“But I need to be in front
for when my bag comes.”
I won’t have this. “Then
when you see it, you simply step forward, grab your back, and walk away! It’s
not more fucking complicated than that! That's the way they do it in subway
stations in Seoul.”
“You’ve been to Seoul?”
someone inquires. “Yeah, for work,” I admit, and there are mumblings of awe
which I try to dispel with, “It was work travel, I didn’t really get to do
much,” and someone points out, “But you rode the subway!” and I just have to
let it drop.
I get us back on track. “The
point is, you’re all being assholes. You’re making claiming bags far too
complicated, which means everyone tries to fit their luggage onto the plane in
carry-ons which makes them all have to be assholes. So if we all can
just band together and simplify the baggage claiming process, then
people won’t mind checking their bags as much.”
Somebody’s grandmother says,
“I don’t check bags unless I absolutely have to. I hate waiting to pick it up.”
This drives me nuts. “Don’t
you get it? The airline is offering you a service where they relieve you of
your heavy belongings the moment you enter the airport. Then, they make them
available to you just before you get in your taxi-“
“I’m taking the train,”
someone butts in.
“What the fuck ever, man,
that’s not the point. If we all just took advantage of this service, then
without the luggage we could all get on the plane about ten times
quicker, and we could all get off the plane about ten times quicker, and
we would shave off precious minutes in getting here! Yeah, you’d have to wait
at the baggage carousel but just buy a fucking book and be a little patient.
It’ll be worth it.”
“It costs to check multiple
bags,” says some teenager.
“Then learn to pack better.”
I look around me to gauge
how the rest of them are feeling about this. There are some approving nods,
there are some scowls, but mostly there are people on their phone. One is
recording me, so I’m sure this’ll be on YouTube. A wary security guard has an
eye on me and a thumb on the talk button of his walkie talkie.
“Who’s with me? Check your
bags! Check your bags! Check your bags! Check your bags!”
It doesn’t catch on.
I hop off. As I do, I notice
that my suitcase is coming around. I grab it, and it’s really easy to get
because I’ve asked everyone to step back. But as I walk away, I hear
pandemonium behind me.
“Hey, you’re standing in
front of me, I can’t see my bag!” “It’s a free country!” “But didn’t you hear
her speech?” “Who the hell is she to tell me where to stand!” “That’s my bag!
Get out of my way!” “I’m looking for mine! You get out of my way!” And
so on.
As I’m lost in thought,
a flight attendant asks me a second time, louder, “Would you like a snaaack?”
Snack is a three-syllable word in her Long Island drawl. “We’ve got pretzels,
cookies and snaaack mix.”
I opt for cookies. I saw enough pretzels
last week, and now that I’m with Jaymes for good, I have a feeling I’m going to
see a ton more.
“That’s five dollars on Visa, ma’am.”
They say life is a journey, not a
destination. But sometimes it’s just about getting to the fucking destination.
Is the food in the dining hall
good?
Because we were on different flights, the
first time I see Jaymes isn’t actually until the cafeteria lunch on Friday.
“Heyyyyy! Congratulations!” we say to one
another simultaneously at the salad bar.
“I didn’t think I should tell you that I
had applied for the Admission Counselor job while we were at GLACAC, you know,
in case it didn’t work out. And I know Mary Ann asked you how it went, and you
must have said something good because, well, here we are!”
“Here we are!”
Now I understand the actual urgency
of that late-night phone call with Mary Ann last weekend. I had unwittingly
been Jaymes’ best reference by brushing off her questions with canned positive
responses. It dawns on me: this is my fault.
The cafeteria is a free-for-all. Jaymes
and I are just one pair of reuniting admission professionals.
“Are you in line?” someone asks,
rhetorically. We’ve backed up the line at the salad bar.
“Would you give us a minute? We’re oblige-politing.”
“Go ahead,” Jaymes says.
So here’s the part where I’m supposed to
invite Jaymes to sit with me so I can start introducing him to people I vaguely
know. I’m supposed to take him under my
wing and make sure he’s not feeling overwhelmed. I’m supposed to-
Jaymes cuts me off, “A bunch of us are
sitting at that table by the window, do you want to join us?”
I look over at said table. It’s a United
Nations-style spectrum of pretty men all 22 years old and perfect 10’s,
including a couple that seems to have forgotten they’re in public. Or maybe
they know very well they’re in public and think this level of cuddling is
adorable to anyone else. If I sit with them, one of them will certainly tell me
he loves Ellen
Degeneres.
Then I spot Elaina just arriving at a
sparser and much more respectably mixed table. I no-thanks Jaymes and head over
there.
Elaina and I go way back. We met at the NACACAC
first-timers conference the year we were both green and excited. The year was
2005, the city was New Orleans, and the wine was still an innovation to us
22-year-olds. It all seems so ridiculous in retrospect that we hooked up after
playing footsy in a Marriott hot tub. The thought of those hot
tubs generally provokes bile in my throat nowadays, but at the time we felt
ambitious and bold and adult. We were employed and we were entitled to
health insurance. I’ve been casually trying to pick back up with her without
trying to seem deliberate or invested. But I am invested, and my strategy of
being deliberately casual hasn’t worked. I was afraid she might be here - but
in this case “afraid” shouldn’t be mistaken for dread; I’ve also been hoping
like crazy.
And here I am, about to try to sit with
her. Literally in a school cafeteria.
To my relief she sees me, and her eyes
widen with excitement. She pushes her tray away, dabbing at her face with her
napkin and trying to swallow the bite of food in her mouth so she can finally
squeak out, “Marcy!” She’s actually thrilled to see me.
We hug and exchange cordialities and she
introduces me to the people at her table. Jayne so-and-so from San Francisco
something-or-other, Elizabeth (possibly? or Emily?) from I-think-it-was
Milwaukee?, and a guy whose name starts with T at a college whose name I forget
but I think is somewhere in Toronto. I don’t know, I’m half conscious at the
moment. Elaina is loosely holding my elbow and I swear the contact is tingling
with sex.
“Can we just go back to my dorm room? I
don’t think I’m going to be able to concentrate until we’ve fucked.”
Finally we sit and I play normal. Elaina
pulls a seat out for me right next to her.
“So what’s going on?” she asks, and I give
her the abridged version of the Recruitment Season: Double Dash update and
gently point towards Jaymes for reference. “You could have a worse companion,
I’m sure.”
“But it’s not you.”
“What about you, Elaina? What’s going on?”
Elizabeth/Emily butts in at that moment with
a knowing look and a blatant throat-clearing that Elaina disapproves of.
“Stop!”
For half a second I worry Elaina’s about
to tell me she’s engaged. Instead, she rolls her eyes and stares off to the
side as she recites, “I was nominated for QAQAC president but I am not
counting chickens. It’ll be fine either way.”
I pay her the obligatory “Oh wow!” and a
few opportune nods and smiles as she describes the circumstances but really I’m
just observing the way that her face has matured and she’s actually more
attractive for it and then I remember to throw in the proper amount of “good
luck!” as the subject peters out and we both know we’d rather talk about other
things.
"And a little birdy told me that
you've got some exciting news."
I do?
Elaina goes "hmmm?" a few times.
I still don't know what she's talking about until she whispers, "Associate
Director?"
Oh. That.
"Yeah! I'm… overwhelmed." My
attempt at diplomatic modesty has instead made me sound like a weenie.
"You'll be fine. You'll be great."
she says.
Some intern who's evidently somebody's
awkward red-headed nephew comes by and grabs Elaina from the table.
"I've gotta run," she says,
"I'm helping at the opening event. I'll see you later!"
And she's gone. So I resign myself to
small talk with Elizabeth/Emily, Jayne and T-something.
I enter professional auto-pilot for the
rest of the night.
What’s the average class size?
For the first session, I chose to go to
the trans-inclusivity conversation instead of the one about overcoming xenophobia
because I work at a school that gets gay but doesn't get trans. The session is
actually very thoughtful, and provides a glossary of terms and resources. I
make a mental note to casually slip my attendance of this panel into
conversation with Director for BGLTQ Student Life.
For the second session, I chose to go to
the LGBT-friendly school panel because if I went to the one about civil unions
/ marriage, I'd start to feel bad for myself about being single. Also, Elaina
was presenting.
"Hi, I'm Elaina Rodriguez, Associate
Director of Admission at Pittsburgh Conservatory and advisor to Spectrum, their
Sexual-and-Gender-Minority-interest student organization."
She acts like she didn't expect a
smattering of applause at that mention.
"Hi, I'm François Jerome,
Assistant Director of LGBT Student Services at Seidner U here in Québéc."
It always catches me off guard when a
person interrupts their sentences with phrases in other languages in an
unironic accent.
"Hey everyone, Tracy Nevins, Director
of Admission at the Broadway Institute, which hardly needs its own Gay Striaght
Alliance, HA HA HA HA HA HA!"
The belly laugh pulses down to our toes
but no one joins in. I think I'm mildly offended?
"Hello, I'm Deb Kenney from Braemore
University, a mid-size women's college in Boston. Oh, I work there as Associate
Director. In Admission. Undergrad Admission."
It goes more or less as you'd expect.
Elaina, François and Deb keep bringing up interesting points and Tracy prevents
us from accessing them with any real depth. For example, Deb talks about how
sexual orientation and gender identity are inseparable but distinct concerns,
and how a trans student ran for student government president and was in hot
water with the school's administration until he eventually withdrew from the
college. Interesting, yeah? Tracy, a cis gay guy, puts the whole thing on hold.
"Wait a second. I thought Braemore is
an all-girl's school."
"The phrase you're looking for is
"women's college"."
"…and a transguy
was going there?" He sounds disgusted, having tuned in right at the very
end of Deb's account.
"Yes, I just finished talking about
him while you were on your phone," Deb says, "but we can connect
about it later if you want to hear about it."
Tracy shrugs - he doesn't want to - and
goes back to Grindr.
Elaina talks about how Pittsburgh
Conservatory was under scrutiny from its students when their application began
to ask students to share if they identified as lesbian, gay or bisexual and if
they used pronouns other than he/him and she/her. Some felt that it was a
breach of privacy. Rather than combat their angst with administrative rhetoric,
she sicced her "Spectrum" students on them with an evening of one-act
plays, stand-up comedy and poetry addressing why those things mattered. The
stunt received mixed reviews, which is a hell of a lot better than the
uniformally livid criticism the school would have gotten if the response came
directly from the admission office. I admired her chutzpah until the attendees
started clapping as she wrapped up her story. She acted all bashful but then
squeezed out a, "I have some pictures from the event if you want to
see."
Wait a second, is she subtly campaigning?
Tracy pointlessly adds that Tony Kushner
once taught a master class at the Broadway Institute.
Then it occurs to me: we're not talking
about how we can all help make our schools more LGBT-friendly, we're watching
PittsCon, Broadway Institute, Seidner U and Braemore all masturbate to their
own successes.
Everyone's applause dies down, and I
realize that my hands have been in my pockets.
- = -
For the third session, I go to
"Beyond the Binary" so that I can come armed to Mary Ann with
requests that will make our application more progressive. This was pretty
sparsely attended, and actually had more to do with the programming side of
overriding questions about sex and gender, so I was way bored. Everyone else
went to the one about whether or not sexual orientation matters in college
admission, but I already know that the answer is going to be, "kind of,
sometimes, depending on certain circumstances, but you can't make it look
like it does".
After that, it's the QAQAC College Fair. I
break out my Drama (and its Disciplines)- specific literature which I requested
specifically for this fair. Anyone who says that this practice is generalizing
is welcome to take a look at our data. What you call “stereotyping”, we call
“predictive analytics”.
Tinsel Aviation did not come to
QAQAC, but my other usual neighbors are accounted for. Southern Texas Film
University sent an androgynous-looking alum with tattoos and piercings poking
out of every gap in clothing. Thompson sent Wilfred Jr., an exhausting
26-year-old twink who's so fabulous that his name transcends irony and somehow
works for the Provincetown crowd.
Jaymes comes back with the barcode
scanner. "It was the same guys at the scanner pick-up who were in Ann
Arbor!" It's like he found all three differences in the picture in a
Highlights magazine.
"No wonder it took fifteen
minutes."
"You're funny!" he says as if it
just dawned on him.
The
attendees are the friendliest bunch of teenagers you could imagine - and how
could they not be? They're a bunch of LGBT youth who are interacting with their
LGBT peers for probably the first time ever. That, and they were loaded with
carbs, coffee and quacker-kazoos before they came in.
Even I have a hard time getting jaded when
a sixteen year old boy saunters by in a ball gown and quacks in my face.
Standing back and watching the kids file
through is like a pride parade, but without the egotistical queens. They're just
happy to be among people who understand them. I'm on the brink of sentimental
when one of them breaks the fourth wall and asks, "How many books are in
the library?"
Jaymes and I look at each other.
"Couple million, I bet."
"Really? You don't know exactly
how many?"
Aaaaand we're back.
"How good is the dance team?"
"On a scale of 1 to 10? Soooooooo
good."
"You should see for
yourself on their YouTube channel: Thoreau it Down."
"What's the most popular major?"
"Popular? You mean which
major sets all the greatest fashion trends? Which major throws all the best
parties? Which major is dating the cutest boy?"
"The most populous
programs are Business Studies / Practice and Drama (and its Disciplines)."
"If I have, like, a C-plus average do
I have the same odds of getting in as someone with, like, straight A's?"
"Do you hear yourself? What do you
think is the answer to that question?"
"The important
thing is to have a strong finish to your senior year…"
A redhead girl bounded over our table. Definitely
a First-Choicer. She and Jaymes started bantering back and forth about Musical
Theatre.
Generalizing is an ugly practice and it is
wildly unfair to make assumptions about people based on their physical
qualities. That said, every red-head girl ever was interested in Musical
Theatre when she was seventeen years old. Every year I read about a dozen
essays that go roughly like this:
- My red hair used to make me
sad.
- Then my read hair made me
feel special!
-
Then I auditioned for the musical. I had never been a musical before, so I was
scared!
- But then I got the lead
role!
- The show was Annie, so my
red hair probably helped me get the role!
- This experience helped me
learn that I'm born to be onstage!
- Who knows what I'll get up
to… "tomorrow" ;-D
Little Orphan Annie asks, “Are there any
scholarships for performing arts majors?”
“You’re entitled to the same
scholarships as everyone else. There aren’t really any special ones for you.
Stop thinking you’re special.”
“Yeah!” chirps Jaymes.
“Well…” sneaks out of me. Jaymes and
Little Orphan Annie look at me. Well, now I have to go on. “Performing
arts majors can earn all the same scholarships as anyone else. Which are
primarily academic.”
“So there aren’t any scholarships based on
auditions?”
“Yeah, ten of them for the entire Drama
(and its Disciplines) department and they don’t go to actors because they’re a
dime a dozen.”
“Yeah!” chirps Jaymes again.
This time I don’t have to say anything; my
face betrays me. Little Orphan Annie asks me to explain. The teacher /
apprentice dynamic of Jaymes and I is now pretty apparent.
“There’s just very few of them. We don’t
usually advertise them.”
Little Orphan Annie looks like Daddy
Warbucks just spotted a cuter, more musically-talented orphan and is reviewing
Miss Hannigan’s exchange policy.
Jaymes, now realizing his role is to be
good cop, adds in, “Look, between my financial aid and merit scholarship
packages I basically got a full ride - and I was a B-minus student, so you
never know what’s possible!”
Oh boy. I don’t know where to begin with
this one. It is not productive for a high-need, artistically talented Black guy
who squeeked a merit scholarship in for the wrong reasons to talk about his
aid packages to an international White girl - especially because financial aid
only goes to domestic students. At best, this pep talk is misleading. At worst,
it’s boasting.
“Oh, wow! So you’re pretty liberal about
giving merit scholarship!”
I burst out laughing and walk away to score
some weed from someone in the parking lot and leave Jaymes in the dust while I
blaze with a carful of complete strangers.
I say, “You can’t know
until you try!”
Little Orphan Annie smiles, says thanks,
has Jaymes scan her bar code and runs off to join her friends.
“How was that?”
“Practically a punishable offense.”
“We should probably workshop the answer to
that question.”
“What should I say differently?”
“Let’s talk about it later.”
“No, I want to know for next time.”
“Let’s talk about it later. Just let me
handle aid questions for the rest of the fair.”
A few more families come by and Jaymes
holds back from them all. He excuses himself to the restroom, goes to the
hospitality area to get us water, replenishes the table - all to avoid talking
to any more families. As the fair slows down he asks me, again, what he should
do differently. I’m acutely aware of the reps from other schools and the
potential for us being overheard, but Jaymes is not going to let this go.
“It’s just that your… experience
of… how do I put this…”
“… your experience of being both
unusually talented and having desirable demographics doesn’t apply to a bunch
of White girls-“
“…your experience was
pretty exceptional, and given the fact that we are very selective about
our merit scholarships… well… it can be difficult to…”
“-you’ve got to learn the
difference between inflating their expectations and encouraging them to apply-”
“…adjust applicants’
expectations appropriately…”
“-so when they end up getting rejected
they don’t call us, furious that they didn’t get in with a full ride because
you suggested they might.”
Jaymes is still hung up
on, “Exceptional?”
“Well, yeah. Not too many kids get in with
a full ride like you did.”
“But I got a White scholarship with a
B-minus GPA.”
I could white lie and tell him that it’s
just gotten more selective. I could inflate his ego and tell him that he got it
because of his audition. I could kill him with honesty. This is exactly why I
wanted to call his merit scholarship something, anything, other than the White
Scholarship.
“I have a feeling,” I tell him, as though
I don’t know, “that a lot of your scholarship had to do with your being a
strong actor from a desirable market.”
Jaymes swallows this. “What, being Black?”
“Being a talented male actor from a
state we were trying to build our apps from and-“
“-and Black.”
“that certainly helps.”
“Wow,” he says. “Wow,” he says again. “I
didn’t realize it was so… calculated.”
“Welcome to college admission.”
Why do I feel like I just told a toddler
Santa Claus is dead?
Jaymes is withdrawn for the next family,
and then a funny thing happens: he jumps back in for the family after that, and
they have an uneventful talk about the Dramaturgy emphasis in Drama (and its
Disciplines). I’m glad Jaymes is there because last time I talked about
Dramaturgy, some sixteen-year-old laughed in my face for mispronouncing it.
What’s the guest policy in the dorms?
Now that I'm Associate Director, I've got
two staff reporting directly to me - and with Jaymes glued to my side, I have
to check in with the other remotely. Rather than arrive at the Awards Dinner on
time, I take the opportunity to call her.
Gina
doesn't pick up the first time I call her, but she calls right back. "Hey,
sorry, I was in the bathroom."
She was partnered with Yul, who's been at
Thoreau for four years. Part of the logic of pairing them is that Gina doesn't
usually travel because she supervises our student employees and generally holds
down the fort when everybody else is away - and Yul's territory is, very
simply, Philadelphia and Pittsburgh which, given our proximity, is more than
enough work. So there is a logic, it's just faulty. Sending Gina out of the
office means the students are on their own; traveling within Pennsylvania is not
the same as not traveling.
"Ummm… it's going fine." She
sounds unsure.
"How's traveling with Yul?"
"Great!" comes a little too
quickly and emphatically.
"What's happening."
"Nothing! …much."
"Tell me it's a disaster. Tell me
one of you's handing in your two weeks' notice. Tell me both of you are!"
"You were just thrown into traveling
all over Pennsylvania with Yul and nothing of note is happening?"
"It only happened once!"
I'm about to ask what "it" is,
but then it slaps me in the face. I sometimes take peoples' straightness for
granted. Of course the well-mannered, well-groomed Yul would complement
the eager-to-please Gina.
"But what about-"
"-they broke up. Last night."
Oh boy. We have a forbidden office romance
on our hands. It occurs to me that this is actually an argument against Double
Dash on a level I never would have dreamed up.
"What do I do?!" Gina says - it
sounds like she's whispering from a bathroom. "No, I'm at my apartment,
we're back in Philadelphia for the night."
"Wait, is he-"
"No! No, he's not here. What do I
do, Marcy? I'm having an affair!"
"You let it get back to Mary Ann
and then point out this never would have happened if you didn't spend hours in
a car with a good-looking colleague."
"I don't think it's an affair unless
one of you is married…"
"Whatever it is! What do I do? Do I
tell HR? Do I keep it a secret? Did you watch The Office? What did Jim
and Pam do? I’m trying to read Wikipedia summaries."
"I guess wait and see if it's
anything significant and then take it from there. If it's a one-time thing,
then maybe you just let it die. If you think it's gonna become a relationship…
well… then we should regroup."
She makes me swear not to tell anyone.
Then she confesses that when she said "it only happened once", she
meant they only had sex once, but they fooled around two times before
that. "Is that significant?"
I tell her everything's going to be fine.
Then I ask her how Daisy's doing.
"Um, she's kinda cranky lately. Every
time I leave for the night she throws up on my pillow."
"That's my girl…"
"Oh, gosh, I'm sorry."
"It's fine, I've just delegated a
separate pillowcase for when I leave. But she's getting on fine with my
roommate. She kinda fucked up the slipcover on my Ikea couch."
"I'll buy you a new one."
"You don't have to…" she says
out of obligation. But I will, I'm not a monster. “By the way, I noticed a spot
on her belly…”
“Oh, that’s her scar,” I explain.
Daisy is super interesting-looking. She’s
mostly black but with a lot of white features, so she doesn’t look like, like,
a Halloween Black cat, you know? Her paws and belly are mostly white, and her
face has a bunch of white blotches. Oh, and she has this one weird white spot
by her hips.
When she was little she got caught in a
box of kitchen stuff and ended up puncturing a spot on her belly with one of
the utensils or something. Literally, this was the scariest day of my life. I
had to get her stitches and now she has a scar there.
I once tried to make her an outdoor cat,
but she wasn’t into it and she started acting differently, so I gave that up. A
few months later, she was still acting weird, and it turned out she had somehow
gotten pregnant during the one week she was outside. Such a slut.
Anyway, she had six kittens (which was an incredible thing to behold)
and I got them all adopted by friends and grad students. She still kinda has
the like stretched-out-pregnant-belly wobble, but she also might just be
getting fat.
Lately she’s been getting little grey
hairs at about the same rate I am. I pluck mine. I’m not allowed to pluck hers.
She likes hers. I like hers too. I don’t like mine.
“Okay,”
Gina whimpers, “I’m pretty tired.”
- = -
Next I call Adewale – not for any
officially professional reason, but I consider him one of my best allies at
Thoreau. Besides, I want to see how he's getting on with Aina. He picks up
after a ring or two.
"Hey - everything all right?"
"Yeah, just wanted to see how you're
getting on."
"I'm at dinner with Aina."
("Tell Marcy I say hi!")
"Aina says hi."
"Hi Aina."
("How's she doing?")
"Aina asked how you're doing."
"Tell her I'm good."
"She's good."
("Oh good!")
"Pretty weird plan, huh."
Oh thank God, he hasn't completely drunk
the Kool-Aid.
Our conversation is pretty brief. He tells
me he and Aina are making a good team, which makes perfect sense, and I don't
think he's just saying so because she's there. He adds that they had a hard
time rearranging both of their individual travel plans; rescheduling high
school visits is rarely successful and doesn't make Thoreau look awesome. They
also sunk a lot of money in flights they had to cancel, and even more in
flights they had to book.
"I hope we can all talk about this
together in staff meeting in November," he summarizes. The thing I love
and hate about Adewale is that he is completely on the same page as me but he's
incapable of being anything other than diplomatic about it.
"All right, good night."
("Good night, Marcy!")
"Aina says good night."
"Good night, Aina."
"Marcy says good night."
"Talk to you later."
Click.
Are there fraternities?
That night it's time for the Awards
Dinner. It occurs to me that the Awards Dinner is when they give two awards,
but the main feature is the announcement of the QAQAC board, which is ostensibly
an appointment, not an award. Further confirmation, to me, that this is
a beauty pageant-style industry and more about status than responsibility.
Elaina invited Jaymes and I to sit at her
table. Thankfully he obliged - and he is now the only guy at a table full of
lesbians. Somewhere, a straight man is jealous.
My phone buzzes. Why can I not resist?
From: Mary Ann Banister-McCloskey
To: Marcy Brooks
Marcy-
Now that the hyphens are
squared away, the morons in print services have taken to butchering the
spelling of my last name. Here’s what they dreamt up this time: Mary Ann
Bannister-Mccloskey
There are 3 things wrong with this
spelling:
1) Banister contains one “n”.
2) McCloskey’s second “C” is capitalized.
3) This is the third time
our office has needed to spend $50 to print my business cards.
Can you please try them
again? I hate imposing, but you’re the only one who seems to be able to get
through to them.
Like, did I really need to see that when
there's a bottle of beer in front of me? I put my phone in my purse so I can't
feel it buzz again.
Elaina's doing a really good job of acting
collected. She's doing that thing where she's having path-of-least-resistance
conversations. She started by talking with Elizabeth/Emily about JetBlue
points, made her way to someone named Esmé and they're trading Thanksgiving
traditions, and then makes small talk with Jaymes and asks him to tell her a
little bit about theatre.
"…and I love Beckett even though I
don't totally understand all of his plays, I still kind of like the tone, you
know? My dream is to make it big as a musical theatre actor and then surprise
everyone by taking a dramatic role. Now that I've graduated it's kind of hard
to stay in shape - you know, vocally - but now that I'm moving back to Philly
I'll be able to pick back up with my coach. Have you heard of Hilda Matilda?
Oh, you haven't? She's like the premiere vocal coach in all of
Pennsylvania. She's trained… oh, who has she trained…"
Elaina is nodding her head and taking
measured sips of her wine. I'm positive that in her head right now she is
rehearsing, "I'd like to thank my colleagues at Pittsburgh
Conservatory…"
Dinner is fine.
Dessert is fine
Drinks are amazing. Not in quality,
necessarily, but in principle.
The Awards Ceremony begins. I've been
preparing for this. My trick when it comes to tedious events like this is to
try to memorize something. Presently I'm working on the Periodic Table of
Elements. I figure one day if I'm on Jeopardy or trying to impress someone at a
bar, I wow them by being able to perfectly replicate The Table on a cocktail
napkin.
"Welcome to the QAQAC Awards Ceremony
everybody! Can I get a quack-quack?"
"Quack-quack!" everyone shouts
back.
"Hydrogen. Helium. Lithium.
Beryllium. Boron. Carbon. Nitrogen."
We get through the two awards - which
includes about three minutes each of vaguely describing that person's work
before actually identifying who they are. I think they do this to create
suspense. I also think it's stupid because there's only a 2% chance we know who
they are. Then there's the acceptance speeches; I've never wanted to hear an
orchestra so badly.
I happen to spot Elaina glancing at index
cards in her purse mouthing her speech.
Meanwhile I'm just slipping glances at the
index cards in my own purse. "Aluminum.
Silicon. Phosphorus. Sulfur. Chlorine."
We get through the appointments of the
supporting board members: secretary, treasurer, vice president of
communication, vice president of events. There's a shuffling of symbolic hats.
I glance around me to see if other people are as uninterested as I am. Looks to
be a mix.
Elaina has a shallow smile and is taking
deep breaths through her nose.
"Oh my god, what comes after
iron?"
"Now the moment
you've all been waiting for," is a pretty gross assumption. Unsurprisingly
the applause starts at the moment Elaina's identity is implied through the
description that "next year's President has revolutionized the student
experience at her institution of Pittsburgh Conservatory."
"Cobalt!" I
say.
I've said it aloud. Fortunately, Jaymes is
the only one who heard me, so I wave him off and join the applause. Finally the
announcer gets around to saying Elaina's name and she gets up there and gives
her acceptance speech. "…I promise to honor QAQAC through careful
listening and careful communicating…" and so on.
As she wraps up, she holds the hat to her
chest and looks to heaven as she shakes her head in amazement. You'd think she
was Sally Field, shouting, "You like me! You really like me!"
And then she's back in her seat and gets
kisses from all around the table. Finally she sits down and downs her drink.
Elizabeth/Emily goes to refill her glass, and finally Elaina looks right at me.
I give her a thumbs-up and a stupid grin.
And I see her proud smile. Is she wanting
to… run a victory lap with me?
And then I feel her foot on mine. Yes.
Yes, she is.
Thank God I shaved my legs yesterday.
But I find that I don't think I'd care if
I hadn't shaved my legs. That whole sex-pulse thing I used to feel when she
touched me is dead. This time around, her toes are toes and I don't
really like feet. Marcy of two days ago would kill Marcy of today, because
Marcy of today isn't giving Elaina any feedback.
Elaina must have caught on, because after
another round of congratulations with a colleague from another table, she's
smiling at Jayne-or-whatever instead. The jealous pit in my stomach is
noticeably absent.
- =
-
I head to the bar to
get myself another drink and am politing my way out of conversation with some
guy who worked at Thoreau fifteen years ago when someone behind me says
"Hey." It’s Jaymes.
“Hey!”
The bartender hands
him a glass of wine. The lankiest guy I’ve ever seen tries to pull Jaymes away
but he waves him off, “I’ll be over in a few minutes.”
“So I hope I didn’t
come off as too angry with you about the whole… financial aid, White
scholarship thing earlier today.”
He’s looking down at
my feet, clearly making an effort to articulate himself carefully.
“No, I get it. I’m
sorry if I burst your bubble or something.”
“It’s unfair for me to
get mad at you about something like that because it’s not like you represent
all things… I don’t know… affirmative action-guilt. Am I making sense?”
He takes a sip of his
wine and sits down. Maybe it’s the wine, maybe it’s his earnestness, but
something tells me I can level with him.
“Look… you absolutely
deserved the scholarship you got. And it’s probably a weird pill to swallow
that part of the reason you got it is because of something out of your
control.” I take a deep breath and plunge in. “I remember the scholarship
committee meeting about you.”
“What happened?” he
asks, staring at his wine glass on the counter as he twirls it around and
around between is fingers.
“I requested that we
establish a separate scholarship for students like you who were, you know, good
fits because of their qualifications for the program. Which doesn’t always
overlap with a strong GPA, no offense.”
He nods. He gets now
that his high school B-minus is not meritorious by our standards. “So, not
simply for students of color.”
“Not specifically,” I
admit, “but for any student who has needed to overcome adversity.”
“Hm,” he says. “What’s
it called?”
“It didn’t take. They
weren’t into it.”
His eyes narrow.
“That’s bullshit!”
“I fucking know!”
Then he swivels in his
chair and looks me in the eye. I feel like I’ve earned his trust back or
something. “I want to make that a thing. Can we make a thing?”
“We can try! I think
I’ll stand a better chance if I have you backing it up.”
“Why, because I’m
Black?”
“No - because you can
lay on the guilt.”
“I am a
youngest child…”
“No shit.”
“Let’s do it,” he
says, jumping up. “That’ll be our project.”
I feel the vibration
in my beer bottle before I see that he’s clinked his wine glass to it. “Our
project,” I repeat. And it feels nice, this feeling of being on a team with
someone about something that makes sense to us both.
“All right, I’ll leave
you alone,” he says, but somehow without passive-aggression. It makes me feel
known.
But I also know him.
And I know he wants to hug. Because he’s a theatre guy. So I jump up and open
my arms and wave him in for one. He smiles and brings it in, and heads back to
the lanky guy.
Shit. It occurs to me
that I’m supposed to be sabotaging our partnership. I make a mental note to do
that once we’re in Albany.
Elizabeth/Emily
appears from nowhere. “Are you going to the cocktail hour? We're going to
pregame in Elaina's suite.”
“I’ve just got to get
changed!”
“Yeah, into
my pajamas.”
I'd better get to Netflix now - I've got a party to skip
tonight and a yoga class to skip tomorrow morning.
The
thing about: staying in Marriotts too often
The day the concierge
tells you you've reached Gold status is as close to coming-of-age as you get in
the admission world. Yes, moreso than promotions. This is because your status
in your school lives in a vacuum, but Marriott points are for life. Those belong
with you. Wars have been waged in many a Human Relations office over
those points.
I learned of my Gold
status eight years ago in Cleveland. I was so green at the time, I didn't
realize that this entitled me to access to a lounge area with crucial snacks
and crucialler drinks. If you play your cards right, you could skip
restaurants and wait-staff altogether!
But after a while your
expectations lower; the more obscure your hotel is, the less likely it is
they'll have a lounge like Cleveland's, and the less impressive your perks
become. Maybe they give you a bigger bed (which I don't like because I actually
dislike having even more emptiness in bed with me). Maybe they give you
a coupon for a nearby restaurant (which I also don't like because, as I've
said, I hate leaving my room at all). In one hotel my reward was not
being charged for opening the Poland Spring bottle in my room (which just makes
me mad that I would have been charged for water in the first place).
The pillowcases and
sheets are sometimes scratchy. The pillows themselves are huge but give too
much, you know, the way cotton candy dissolves. The bedside lamp is harsh. And
all of the power outlets are accounted for by the hotel-designated lamp and
alarm clock and anyway, they’re out of reach.
But my phone is at 6%.
Ughhhhhh.
I get on my hands and
knees and go through the painstaking motions of sliding the bedside table out
and craning my arm behind it to plug in my phone. It’s unusually difficult to
pull out the plug for the alarm clock. It’s unusually difficult to plug the
charger in, too. And when I finally push the bedside table back into place, the
other end of my charger slips out of my grip and back into the narrow space
between the bedside table and the wall.
Ughhhhhhhhhhhhhh.
It’s times like this
as I groan aloud to an empty hotel room about my war against inanimate objects
when I’m reminded both that I am single and why.
My last girlfriend was
an MSW candidate named Addie (for Addison). We were together nearly a year, my
longest relationship since undergrad. She came over one night during reading
season last year. I’d set aside a few choice college essays to share with her.
“The writing level is
below high school… the guidance counselor must have seen this and said,
‘Yes, writing about playing with a dead iguana is great fodder
for a college essay’…”
That’s me. Addie,
however, clicked around the application and looked at the personal details.
“Poor thing,” she said, “he goes to a super underprivileged high school. His
guidance counselor probably has a caseload of 600 students and probably doesn’t
have the time to review all of her students’ essays.”
“Right, but-“
“And his parents both
work two jobs each according to the family details thing here. No wonder he
spends so much time with his pets, he must be so lonely.”
“Okay, but did you
read the short essay-?”
Addie shook her head
and said, “I just feel so bad
for him. Is that why you showed this to me?”
“No,” I wanted
to say, “I don’t want your psycho-analysis of them, I don’t need to feel bad
for them, I just need you to validate my need to hate on seventeen-year-olds
because it is the only thing that gets me through three and a half months of
reading forty applications a day.” But you can’t say that to someone
who spends her time helping underprivileged teenagers access resources that
keep them sober, fed, off the streets, and without child.
My theory is that
relationships crumble in the first year when partners can’t agree on where to
draw the relationship’s starting line and/or when to cross it. Over and over
again I wanted to quantify when the relationship began. Was it when Addie and I
were “dating”? Was it when we were “seeing each other”? Was it when we “became
exclusive”? Was it when we started calling each other “girlfriends”? Was it
some future date when we were supposed to start cohabitating? Was it some
hypothetical marriage proposal? Addie asked me to just go with the flow.
Poor Addie. She wanted
a lazy river, she got a Super Soaker.
The ghosts of your
failings always have access to you when you're in an innocuous room. Over the
weeks the walls shift, the color scheme changes, the pamphlets are
city-specific, but you're always bunking with the same loneliness sitting on
your chest.
I try to put all this
out of my mind so I can focus on the mixed blessing that is tomorrow morning:
Jaymes and I fly to Albany, NY first thing tomorrow morning, which means he
stays in a Marriott, and I get a few nights off from hotels.
I'm staying at my parents'.
4. Albany, NY
Allow me to paint the Brooks family
portrait for you:
Mom and Dad met in college when they were
both biology majors. Mom went on to medical school and became a gynecologist,
Dad is her bookkeeper and was very much a stay-at-home parent to their three
daughters, Mindy, me, and Molly.
My older sister Mindy is following in our
mother’s footsteps - she’s just gone back into practice after a brief maternity
leave. Her husband, Al Thorp (more attractive than his name suggests), is a
software engineer but works mostly from home and is primary caretaker of their
eighteen-month-old, Allison.
Our younger sister Molly is following
Mindy’s footsteps in her own way - she’s been dating Al’s younger brother Nate
for the last five years. They’re both in med school and every time she calls
(all four times a year) I expect it’s with news of pregnancy and/or proposal.
Basically my family is a giant echo
chamber, and I’m a swath of fabric that refuses to echo back. If all goes
according to plan, I’ll one day be the last Brooks in a family of Thorps; the
weird lesbian aunt with a job no one understands.
Tonight, I'm eating dinner with my parents
and Molly (younger sister) who drove in from Rochester when she heard I was
coming. I wonder why?
"Sooooo…" she hoots.
"Uh-huh?" Dad says as he puts
down a big bowl of penne a la vodka on the lazy Susan and gives it a spin.
"Bon appetit!"
"I have some news…"
"You just saved fifteen percent or
more on your car insurance."
"Uh-huh!" Dad
shouts, and I brace myself for it - not the announcement that Molly's engaged,
but the inevitable Dad shout after. Somewhere in there is an "I knew
it!"
Mom and I lock eyes. We're certainly
excited, we just have a different way of showing it.
Hugs all around, yadda yadda. Mom dishes
some penne onto his plate and starts in.
"Lisa!" Dad says, mocking her
timing.
"Christopher!" Mom says, mocking
his tone.
I help myself too.
"Let's raise a glass," I
suggest. The kind of gesture that's more my pace. "To Molly and
Nate."
"Here here," Mom says.
"That's not a proper toast," Dad
says, "I had one saved just in case! Because I haaaaad a
feeeeeeling…!" When Dad's very happy, he drags out her vowels and kind of tweets them.
Dad finds an earmarked and sticky-note-ful
book called "Toastmastering" and finds the one he's looking for.
"Everyone needs a glass!" he shouts. We all already have one.
"Okay, okay. Here it is: A new chapter of your life begins," Mom
instinctively grabs his hand because she knows the water works are about to
begin. "You're about to begin the journey of a lifetime together. It's not
easy for a father to watch his daughter grow up - to see her learn to crawl,
then walk, then ride a bike, then drive a car." He snarfs all over
his sleeve. "But I can't imagine a better man than Nate to share her life
with."
"To Molly and Nate," I repeat.
And we drink.
It all makes sense now why she drove all
those hours - so she could tell us all at once.
Molly reviews the details of the proposal
(they were watching the sunrise from their porch on the morning of their
anniversary), the plans they've laid out so far (they'll looking at venues
around Albany for August 8th), the people they've told so far (very
few, she assures us), and the handful of details they're committed to (Molly's
best friend Mia is the maid of honor; Mindy and I are the bridesmaids; Al is
the best man; two of Nate's cousins are the groomsmen).
"But I came here to see Marcy,"
she says, "we've been talking about me this whole time. What's up
with you?!"
Mom and Dad swivel to me.
"Still gay."
What am I supposed to do, tell them I've
been promoted and feel like I'm trying to match an engagement?
"Nothing compared to your engagement,
Molly! I want to hear more about that!"
"Well, didn't you tell me on the
phone they were going to promote you?" Dad offers. I think he thinks he's
being helpful.
"That's awesome!" Molly says.
"So what does that make you now?"
"Spread thinner."
"Associate Director," I mumble.
"And what new things will you be
doing?"
"Wait," Dad says. "What's
the color scheme?"
I stealthily make myself scarce by making myself useful: I
refill the glasses and let Molly stay in the spotlight. I honestly prefer it
that way; I'd rather hear about good news than my own shit.
Who does our laundry?
I pick Jaymes up from
the Albany Marriott bright and early. We've got a full day ahead of us: four
high school visits and a college fair.
"Hold on," he says, "could
you take a picture of me for my mother? She wants to see my outfit for my first
day of recruiting."
It takes a guy with a certain kind of
build to pull off a sweater vest. Or a lesbian. With horror I realize that I'm
wearing one too. I'd take mine off out of shame if this fashion crime alone
weren't evidence enough to dismantle Double Dash.
Look out, Albany, we're fresh from QAQAC
and here to bring your children onto our team.
Our first high school visit is delayed as
Owen, our harried host, rushes in bemoaning traffic but toting a brand new
Dunkin' Donuts iced coffee. Oddly, the name scrawled on the on the side is
"Renée". Traffic was bad enough for him to be late, but not bad
enough to prevent him from making a pit stop to steal some poor woman's coffee.
"Which school are you from?" he
asks me, and I tell him.
"Which school are you from?" he
asks Jaymes, and he does as well.
He looks from Jaymes back to me. "Oh,
you're together. Is that the Thoreau uniform, or?"
"All jabs at the awkwardness must
be submitted in writing to Mary Ann Bannister-McCloskey, that's Mary Ann, no
hyphen, Bannister with two N's-"
Owen brings us to a
conference room to speak with a trio of prospective students and then makes to
return back to his office and leave us alone with them. "Well, one of us
can speak with you and the other can stay with the students. That's the point
with this whole double-team travel." Does my tone betray how much I hate
this idea?
Owen looks back at me, like he's been
caught with his hand is in the cookie jar. "I have… a meeting. With a
student." It kind of sounds like a question. Or, you know, a lie.
I hate when guidance counselors don't see
a problem with college reps coming to only speak with students. I hate it as
much as when they don't see a problem with college reps coming to speak only
with a guidance counselor. In theory Double Dash would rectify that, but really
this problem can only be solved by a cooperative guidance counselor.
"If there's time after my
appointment, I'll come back to chat. Safe travels!" And he's gone.
Our second high school visit involves
another one of those signs telling visitors to go to the main office. The first
student we ask for directions shrugs and mumbles something resembling, "I
don't know." After some shuffling of a parking pass and a guest pass and
another bug-eyed response to Double Dash, we're in an office with one counselor
and one student.
Alexandra, the counselor, looks affronted
when we suggest dividing and conquering. "Nnnno, I kind of like to be a
part of the conversation."
"That's because you're a good
guidance counselor."
Though apparently not, because when Jaymes
asks the student what he's interested to study, he says,
"Bio-engineering."
Alexandra looks back at her notes and
goes, "Ohhhhh. I think I mixed you up with another school."
"I think you did."
School three is slightly more productive
than the others. It's the first time we actually successfully divide and
conquer: I give a somewhat formal schpiel for a room of eight students.
I first realize something's gone wrong
when I notice Jaymes sheepishly appear in the back of the room with the
counselor, Jess. I get through the rest of my presentation, field some
questions, and the students hurry out when the bell rings.
"Sorry, Marcy - could you field some
of Jess's questions? She asked me a bunch of things I didn't know."
"Right, of course. Because no
one's offered you a formal training. Did TC think of that before he sent you
out with me or did Mary Ann just expect me to train you without any
instructions?"
So I rattle off our retention rate,
graduate employment, percentage students of color and international, gender
ratio, and 6-year graduation rate.
By the way: why, oh why, do schools not
calculate their 4-year graduation rate? And why, oh why, do guidance counselors
keep asking for it? Don't they know?
Jaymes is taking notes as quickly as he
can.
At our fourth and final visit, I tell
Jaymes I'll field the guidance counselor questions and let him chat with the
students. Naturally, the counselor, Noah, runs off because he also leads Guitar
Club, so I tell Jaymes I'll sit back and let him take the lead.
I respect Jaymes' noble effort at
recreating my presentation. Here's the thing: when someone, anyone, tries to
repeat someone else's presentation complete with word choice, tone and
anecdotes, the end result is awkward. A no-nonsense young critic threw him
several unforgiving what-does-that-means and that-doesn't-make-any-senses.
"Would you give the man a fucking
chance?"
But as painful as it is to watch, I
realize that this means that all this pain is necessary if I'm going to
leverage Jaymes against the unfair position Mary Ann and TC have put him in.
Jaymes puts his face in his hands when we
get back into the car.
It would surely push him over the edge if
I were to ignore it and just put the key in the ignition, and while that might
be the more strategic thing to do, it's also inhumanly shitty.
"You all right?"
Jaymes takes a deep breath, then sits way
back in his seat. "Yeah, fine."
But of course he's not, I'm no idiot.
"I'm sorry," he says, finally.
"You're not the one who needs to
feel sorry."
But no, that's not helpful yet. For now,
"You have nothing you should feel sorry for," will do.
"I feel like I let you down. I don't
know any of the things I'm supposed to, I totally fucked up my presentation… I
haven't studied up on the on the school. I've been cocky, I figured I would
know everything just because I graduated but…"
"That's not your fault."
"But what would I have done if I were
alone? What if they sent me here without you?"
A scary thought indeed.
"I'm going to spend all night
reviewing the admission page and reviewing my notes from today so that doesn't
happen again."
"You know what you should do," I
begin, "is ask for training materials."
"Yeah! I never got any."
"That's because there aren't any."
There's
two hours before our 6pm fair, so we stop off for an easy dinner at Panera and
work on e-mails. Jaymes composed this e-mail, with some guidance from me.
To:
Mary Ann Bannister-McCloskey
From: Jaymes Jerome
CC: Marcy Brooks
Hey Mary Ann-
Marcy and I just
finished our first day of high school visits today, and it went all right. I
definitely learned a lot, but I definitely have a lot still to learn. I
realized that I never got the training packet from you, probably because it's
in the office. Can you send it to me as a PDF? What's in it, by the way? Marcy
said she wasn't sure because it's been so long, but I kind of want to know what
information I need to know that guidance counselors might ask, what the
official marketing talking points are and what the expectations are for my
presentation. Marcy says that everyone does them differently, but I kind of
want to know what's an absolute MUST. I feel like I need to know what I
need to know. I know that's a vague request, but I'll feel a lot more prepared
if I have something to review.
Thanks!
Jaymes
While
he worked on that, I silently worked on my own e-mail to TC.
When is parent weekend?
"We'd be applying from New York, so
does that qualify us for some kind of dual citizen-thingy?"
"Despite the fact you're
apparently residents of another universe…"
"Nope! Dual
citizenship is only usually a concern for applicants from outside the US.”
"What's the best font for my
recommendation letters?"
"Wing Dings. Definitely."
"I'd say that's a stylistic choice -
but we do recommend text be no smaller than a size 12 font."
"If I earned an award for the school
newspaper I write for, is that the kind of thing I should include in my
resume?"
"Right next to your ability to
humble-brag by asking a question you already know the answer to."
"That's exactly the kind of thing
we'd love to see!”
This fair is in a high school gym with
tables set up in neat wide rows. It's actually pretty inoffensive as far as
fairs at high schools go -- they even have a "reps only" table with
snacks, water bottles, and lozenges. Someone here knows what's up! It’s
also only 90 minutes long, which is great news because I have never once heard
anyone say, “The last half hour of that two-hour high school fair was crucial.”
More often they’re glancing shiftily around to watch someone else make the
first move to start the Slow Pack.
We're completely outside of alpha order,
so when I happen to turn around I see a school I've never seen before called
the Fisher School of Mortuary. The rep has the color scheme of the Queen of
Hearts: black hair, white skin, red lipstick, gold jewelry. She's actually very
pretty and has a very sincere smile. She's not getting a ton of traffic but it
doesn't seem to be any fault of her own. When I first saw her I thought, "How
inappropriate!" but the more I think about it, the more I realize that
when I or anyone I know is gonna get embalmed, I'm going to want someone with a
certificate in mortuary science to be the one holding the cotton balls.
The Queen of Hearts smiles politely at me
and straightens her pile of business cards - which are arranged lovingly in a
tiny coffin on her table - when an overzealous voice behind me half-sings,
"I want to know more about your schoooool!"
I turn around. "Dad!? What are you
doing here?"
Evidently I left my itinerary out in my
bedroom.
"Oh my gosh, is this your Dad?"
Jaymes asks.
"Chris Brooks," meets
"Jaymes Jerome".
"You look like you could be an
actor."
"I am an actor! Did you tell your
father all about me?"
And now Marge from Southern Texas Film
University has overheard and is coming over.
"Turn your ass around and do not
make this worse than it is."
"I remember you telling me that you
grew up in Albany!" Marge says.
Why is it that everyone else is so good at
remembering personal details about my life and I can't manage to even pretend
to give a shit about theirs? Great, and now my father is kissing Marge's hand.
“What school do you work at?” he asks her.
“STFU,” she tells him.
Oh my God. How did I not see it until it
was pointed out to me?
"So this is a college fair, huh. How
does it work? You all get a commission for each student you recruit?"
If only.
Dad's scoping out the situation, surely
nostalgic for the good old days of having high school-age daughters. He even
asks, “Is your friend Joan here?”
“Joan works in Portland, Oregon,” I remind
him, “she’s a college counselor, not an admission counselor.”
Marge, I remember, is a widow, and is
currently smiling wider than I've ever seen her.
"College fairs keep me young,"
she's telling him, "my favorite part is looking at the family
resemblance!"
"What do you think of me and
Marcy?"
Marge looks from Dad to me, then back to
Dad again. "She gets her best features from you."
I walk over to the Queen of Hearts and ask, "Is there
somewhere I can sign up to be a volunteer subject for your students?"
- = -
Molly knocks at my door. One-two. Three.
“Hey Moll.”
She comes in looking bashful and sounding
overly polite. “Hope I’m not disturbing you.”
The more things change the more they stay
the same. The relationships I have with my family sits secure on tectonic
levels of love and nosiness. We practice wearing this exhausting veil of
“adult” behavior, but there’s no changing the fact that this is the little
sister who broke my wrist, who came to me sobbing when she shat her pants, who
kept my made-up secrets. We retreat into our own lives when we’re apart, but
once together, we’re back in our unspoken shorthand.
“What’s going on?” she asks.
I know she’s not asking about the book I’m
reading, or what’s going on at work. She knew from dinner last night that
there’s something going on behind my eyes, even if it’s not something I can
articulate.
“I’m deeply unhappy and I feel like I
don’t have control of my life anymore.”
“Nothing, just finishing
this chapter.”
She skims the contents of my desk. Not
much has changed since the day I left for college. Sure, I’ve come back for
holidays and occasions over the years, but I never did that whole
post-college-home-coming bit. She grabs the rolling chair and knows to yank it
up to pull it past the end of the rug. She sits in the chair and lays her head
on the edge of my bed. I withdraw from my book and lie on my side facing her.
I’m sure it looks juvenile, but here we are.
“I can’t believe I’m engaged.”
She’s not bragging, she’s terrified.
“How do you think I feel?” I’m trying to
suggest sarcasm but we both know there’s some real bile in it.
“It all feels so adult. We have a niece
who’s walking, I’m gonna get married, you just got promoted to a senior
position. All of us are so accomplished.” She grabs my stuffed rabbit
and tugs at his tail absently. “I’m so proud of us.”
I’m too tired to feign enthusiasm. After a
minute, she readjusts and faces me. “I thought you fell asleep or something.” I
sigh. “What’s going on, Marcy? Aren’t you excited about your promotion?”
My sigh answers the question.
“So if you don’t like it, just quit.”
“It’s not that easy. I’m not qualified to
do much else, I need the health insurance, and working at Thoreau is better
than working at some other school I know nothing about.”
“Also the crippling sense of failure is
too much for me to bear.”
“I find it hard to
believe you don’t actually like it. You’ve stuck with it for so long! And
you’re obviously good at it… how can you be good at something you don’t like?”
“Come to a college fair and find out.”
I’m not saying much to her.
“I’m getting tired,” I lie.
She tosses the stuffed rabbit at me and whispers,
“Fuck you.” then she lies down next to me in the bed. “Talk to me.”
There’s not much to say.
“What do you picture your future as? Do
you want a new job?”
“I do, but I’m not qualified for anything
else. I was an idiot and stuck with the easy job rather than put myself out
there and try something new, and now I’m paying the consequences of it and I’m
being ungrateful and feeling sorry for myself and it makes me a shitty person
to travel with and it’s turning into me literally turning students off
of Thoreau which is the whole point of my job-“
“Would you cut it out?” Molly snaps, a
little too loudly. She shoves me to prop herself vertical and faces me square.
“You’re being really mean to my sister right now.” I realize she’s talking both
to and about me. “You’re really good at being critical and calling it like it
is with everyone and everything else, but you can’t do that to yourself. It’s
unfair.”
I know I’m giving her nothing to work with
as I shrug. As much as I can while lying on my shoulder.
“For what it’s worth,” she says, “I’m
proud of you.”
“I’m proud of you too, Molly.” And I am.
Molly had a rough go of it in high school - always a hard time making friends.
She withdrew for a semester from college because of anxiety. Then she pushed through
and managed to still graduate on time. Her boyfriends were always vaguely
abusive; Dad even had to step in with one of them. But then she met Nate at
Mindy’s wedding and it was pretty textbook from there. But throughout it all I
know that even as she’s proceeding through a healthy relationship, she’s doing
it while putting on a brave face and facing her fears of rejection - and you’d
never know it.
For the rest of my time at my parents’ I
forget what I’m in Albany for. I’m glad to be Home for a little while instead
of in a Marriott. I’m glad my mother still misses that the milk expired and
that my father hasn’t taken the hint that I don’t need him to buy three dozen
eggs any time I’m home. It’s all a healthy reminder that the world does not
begin and end with college admission. There’s more to it.
There’s more to me, too - if I can find
it.
Do you get a free computer
if you’re accepted?
I'm
standing in line at the gate for our flight to Houston with Jaymes behind me
when I read the following e-mails.
To: Marcy Brooks
From: Alice Zumbo
Hi Marcy-
Thanks again for attending
the Ann Arbor GLACAC fair. We received your feedback form and were surprised to
find some quite strongly worded criticisms of the way the fair was run. I
wanted to reach out to connect a little further about some of your concerns and
suggestions that we are out of touch with college recruiters; I left several
voicemails on your office phone but haven’t heard back. Please let me know when
you have the chance to take a phone call.
Alice Zumbo
President Elect, GLACAC
Delete.
- =
-
To: Marcy Brooks
From: Joan Chu
Hey Marcy-
Hope the road’s treating
you all right. My same old office is the same old. Grass is greener, huh.
Thought you’d appreciate
this: one of my students handed this
in as a rough draft for her college essay. I’m trying to talk her out of making
the argument that her red hair would contribute to a college’s diversity. Figured you could use a
laugh.
Diversely yours,
Joan
Attachment:
BeccaRubenCollegeEssay.pdf
Archive for later.
- = -
To: Marcy Brooks
From: TC Schenone
Marcy-
Great questions! Boy, you know how
to keep me on my toes! I've answered
all your questions below, in italics.
> Hey
TC -.
> Jaymes
and I just finished up our first day of high school visits > together
and it raised a lot of questions. I'd be interested in your > input.
> 1) I appreciate that the
goal is to have us divide and conquer > so
that one of us can speak with guidance counselors and > the
other can talk to students. This is a) not always possible, > b) not always welcomed by guidance
counselors, c) not > necessary (as evidenced by decades of reps
going solo). > You know the reality of high school visits…
how do you think > we should
actually approach these visits? I've only heard > about
your ideas briefly over the phone in our last > conference call, but you haven't sent any directions.
1) I'll get back to you
about how we plan to do paired high school visits. That's weird that some
counselors aren't welcoming to having two of us there. I bet that's just a
fluke.
> 2) Given that Jaymes is
brand new, he's not yet comfortable > speaking
one-on-one with guidance counselors and I don't > blame
him; he's extremely knowledgeable, but has a lot of > gaps
in knowledge because he has never been to campus > for
a formal training. How shall I utilize him effectively in the > weeks to come? When will he be
trained? Who is > responsible for his training? I know
we have a method that > we use with new counselors on campus, but
with us being > on the road, it looks bad if he's
training while simultaneously > trying
to make progress in our recruitment, especially given > that
this was not my expectation when I planned eight weeks > of travel.
2) Jaymes should shadow
you for now. Mary Ann showed me an e-mail that he sent and it sounds like there
are a lot of things you haven't gone over with him. For the time being you
should train him. Sorry! I know you'll do great :)
> 3) Jaymes has not yet been
given a work credit card, but you > have
us planning to have him with me in Houston, Raleigh > and
Montgomery. Are you planning to arrange his flights and > hotels? I'd book them myself, but as you
know, I'm quickly > approaching my card's limit. Also, I'm
concerned because I > was able to get reasonable rates on my
own flights because > I booked them
in June, but we won't be able to get him on
> flights at a
reasonable rate given that some of these trips are > as soon as Thursday.
3) Another good
point. You should get him on your flights, and don't worry about the expense. I
never do, when Thoreau's buying! ;)
> Hope
you're enjoying Paris .
Paris is great. Jordan
and I just got back from the Louvre. did you see my Facebook album? Are we even
Facebook friends? Have fun in Albany!
Growing
pains necessary to growing strides! :)
TC
Behold the art of fluff. TC managed to reply to
every one of my concerns seemingly without understanding a single point,
answering a single question, or addressing any real concern. He's checked my
arguments off his mental checklist and is probably searching for "absinthe
bar" on Yelp at this very moment.
Part
of me had hoped that he would have ignored my e-mail and we'd get all the way
to the day we're supposed to fly out of Houston before shit hits the fan. Now
he's passed the buck and made it look like it's my fault… unless I go over my
credit limit. I rattle off a quick e-mail thanking him for permission to go
over my limit.
He ignores that one.
5. Houston, TX
“I’m positive it was
here,” I tell the concierge.
We’re standing in the
Marriott parking lot in Houston. We are in the third row of cars from the front
entrance, directly to the right of the anachronistic palm tree. I made a mental
note of this location. My rental car was a red Ford Fiesta. There is no red
Ford Fiesta in sight.
“It must have been
stolen. Do you have a security camera in the parking lot? You have to have a
security camera in the parking lot.”
She takes a deep
breath. Her Marriott nametag gleams from the reflection of the hung-over
sunrise. “I could request the tape, but it takes a while to access.”
I catch her looking
around for a red Ford Fiesta somewhere else.
“I already looked,” I
tell her.
Because when you’re
missing something, you go through several phases. Right now she’s in denial.
I’m long past denial. I’m past hyperventilating, I’m past getting angry, I’m
past realizing that Thoreau will be the one to foot the bill, and I’ve arrived
at doing something about it. All I wanted was to get Panera before my day was
wrested out of my grip and handed over to the randomness of recruitment travel.
I just wanted an egg and sausage sandwich on an everything bagel and a hazelnut
coffee. And I wanted to enjoy it alone and without ceremony.
Somewhere there is a
Panera Bread location, and while Panera is not aware of it, it is actually the
Marcy Brooks Panera Bread. It is thus designated because its construction and
all other costs associated with its establishment are all paid for from the
millions of dollars I have pumped into Panera over the years. Sure, the money
came from my Thoreau credit card, but it was my lazy judgment that resulted in
my eating one and sometimes two meals a day there every recruitment season for
the last nine years.
“It was a rental?” she
asks. Then she asks for the license plate number.
“I don’t know the
fucking plate number, I just told you it was a rental.”
“Usually the plate
number is on the key they give you.”
I pass the key to her
and she glances at the tag. An eyebrow shoots up. Then she pushes a button on
the key ring and the Blue Mazda Protegé in front of us lights up and blips in
front of us.
“Red Ford Fiesta?” she
asks, pointlessly.
Right. That was my
rental in Albany. It occurs to me I shouldn’t be looking for my Albany car when
I’m in Houston, Texas.
“I am so sorry,” my
tirade begins. She waves it off as if this has happened three times this week.
The shade she could throw is so self-evident that it doesn’t need to be
audibly implied. “Anything else I can help you with.” There’s no question mark
at the end of this question.
“Yeah, you can
stoop over just enough so I can smack the hospitality off your face.”
Just then, Jaymes
emerges out of the hotel looking uncaffeinated and tender. He spots me right
away and asks where I’m headed.
“I was just about to
figure out breakfast too! Do you mind if I join you?”
“Yes, I mind. This
is my time for me this morning. And part of the reason I need my me-time is
because of you and your questions and your naiveté and that look you are giving
me right now.”
“Sure. I’ll drive.”
The
thing about: e-mails
Here’s my game:
- Drink when a prospective student calls herself a
“perspective” student.
- Drink when a guidance counselor asks you to send
a “pendant”. I want to wear a pendant that says, “Those little flags with
college’s names are called pennants.”
- Drink when a staff member asks you to come
participate in an interview with a “potential candidate” for a staff position.
“Potential candidate” is an oxymoron; they were a “potential candidate” when
they were considering applying for the job, but once they clicked “submit” they
became a candidate. They’re a potential employee, but they’re definitely
a candidate.
- Any time you’re asked a question for the third
time, add your answer to the “Frequent Questions Answered” word document on
your desktop. Then, any time you copy and paste your answer from it, drink.
- Go get a shot any time someone doesn’t include
the attachment they’ve alluded to.
- Have a sip of water any time the sender’s
question is not your job. Forward the e-mail to the right department.
- Drink when TC replies to an e-mail. Drink water
when he doesn’t. Reply to your own neglected e-mail, passive aggressively.
Drink every time he makes an excuse.
Of course, though, I’m at Starbucks when I
play this game, so “drink” refers to coffee and I’m desperately hyped up by the
time I finish, and the people around me think I’m suffering from a UTI based on
the sheer frequency of my bathroom breaks.
Another thing that senior leadership
doesn’t get is that when they send you out on travel recruitment with the
aforementioned unrealistic expectation of four high school visits in a day,
they also seem to think you’re sitting at your e-mail the whole time. Your
inbox reflects several patterns: the steady drip of Gina’s questions, the
sputtering splats of TC selecting what he wants to reply to, the occasional
geysers when Mary Ann gets a new idea, the jazzy rhythms when Adewale steps in
and artfully counters wayward reply-all’s, and always always always the stream
of
Can
you please let me know when you get Shanaé’s recommendation letter for me?
My
daughter applied to your Musical Theater program and I’m wondering when she
will receive her audition appointment.
Is
it possible for me to apply Early Action for next year? I’m a junior currently.
Save
the Date: South Side High School’s 5th annual college fair on December 15th!
Did
you receive my SAT score? (No name or identification on this one.)
I
can’t find on your website whether or not you have a nursing program.
Can
you tell me a little more information about your university? I’m very
interested to apply.
Please
schedule an appointment for me to meet one of your professors of business.
Did
you-
Can
you-
Can
I-
How
many-
Are
there any-
Hello,
Marcy-
Dear
Ms. Brooks-
Greetings
Mrs. Brooks-
To
Whom It May Concern-
I’ve
made a new rule. Once I’ve used a Starbucks bathroom three times I have to
leave. Usually I go to another Starbucks. Sometimes I mix it up and go to
Panera instead.
Do you have a school newspaper?
Beard
and Belly, the barcode distributors, have haunted me all the way to Houston.
The line to pick up has extended across the conference center lobby and is now
spiraling inwards. Reps who are just arriving try to figure out a way to get to
the back of the line. I’m angry at everyone.
When I
finally pick mine up, Belly asks, “Do you know how to use them?”
“I point
the light at my eyes, right?”
“Uh…
no,” he tells me very matter of fact, “you scan the bar code.”
-
= -
I’ve
been keeping my eye on a Journalist who is making her way down the row,
spending five minutes at each table, filling out her stupid form, and moving
on. As I watch, I realize that I’m trying to remember what the eternal
punishments are. Is there a finite number or something? I know one of them is
counting all the grains of sand on Earth, and one of them is pushing a boulder
up a never-ending hill, and one of them is planning a wedding. Whatever the
deal is, this Journalist’s partly self-imposed task of drilling every single
table with the questions is up there.
She makes her way to us
and turns to a fresh blank questionnaire and, without looking up, asks what the
name of my college is.
“Thoreau,” I oblige.
“College or university?”
“Do you know the difference? Do you
also know that it’s plastered on our materials?”
“College.”
She jots this down. “How big is the
school?”
“Four acres. Just kidding, I don’t know
how big an acre is.”
“Four-thousand students and change.”
She jots this down. “What sports do you
have?”
“You don’t look like an athlete - why
are you asking me about sports?”
Maybe it’s exhaustion or maybe something
breaks in me, but I somehow don’t have the patience in that moment to pretend I
think this is okay.
“What’s your name?” I ask.
She tosses “Christie” over her paper.
“Christie - where did you get that form?”
“My guidance counselor makes us do it,”
she mumbles.
“Okay. Christie, those are all bad
questions. You are not getting to know these colleges as you go around asking
them these things.”
At this point Christie finally puts down
the form to look at me. Jaymes can’t believe his eyes and ears and has not yet
formulated a response.
“What am I supposed to do?” she asks.
“Ask us about things that are important to
you. And then figure out if it’s the right college for you.”
“That’s what these questions are for.”
I grab the sheet from her and skim the
list.
“Do you know what the difference between a
college and a university is?”
“No,”
“Then don’t ask. Do you play sports?”
“Then why does it matter? Do you actually
want to join a sorority?”
“Maybe.”
“Okay, that’s something. ‘What city are
you nearest to?’ You should just look at the table banner, asking it out loud
is dumb. ‘What’s your graduation rate?’ That’s a bad question for a lot of
reasons, but do you really care? ‘What are your most popular majors?’ That’s
not actually a question.”
“So you don’t think majors are important?”
Christie shoots at me.
“Of course I do! But what do you
want to study?”
She shrugs. “Something in science.”
“Great!” I practically shout. “We don’t
have any, but now you can at least start by looking for schools with
science majors, then you’ll pull up closer to the right school.”
“I would have figured it out with the
form.”
“Yes but only after spending precious
minutes at each table asking us about…” I look at the form “…how many dining
halls are on campus.”
Christie seems to get that this process is
tedious but still doesn’t seem to appreciate that I’m trying to do her a favor.
She looks around and stomps her feet and groans, “But how do I know who has
science?”
“You go up to the table and ask smart
questions.”
I look around for someone harmless behind
another table. One of the Chads from Tinsel Aviation - hell, no. Someone other
than Marge from STFU - not worth the risk. Paul with the scraggly beard is here
from Thompson University. He’ll do.
“Try Thompson,” I tell her.
“Do they have science majors?”
“I don’t know!” Honestly, I don’t.
“So why are you telling me to go there?”
Jesus Christ. “So you can find out.”
Christie leaves her form on my table. I’m
almost annoyed that she left her crap on my table, but I’m too glad she’s
abandoned it. As she makes her way to Alex, Jaymes asks me what I’m doing.
“I’m… counseling,” I make up.
Faintly I hear Paul say, “Yeah, we have a
few science majors - biology, biochemistry, chemistry, physics, environmental
science, neuroscience and behavior…”
“What’s biochemistry?” Christie asks.
Hey, you know what? That’s not a dumb
question. I certainly don’t know.
What advising services does the school
have?
Jaymes
asks if I can get a drink after the fair.
“If
I can? Yes, Jaymes, I can, in fact I must.”
Between
sips of wine he tells me, “One of my friends from my BFA class lives in Houston
and she invited me to see a show here so I’m meeting up with her when she gets
out of her temp job so I had an awkward amount of time to kill.”
I’ve
noticed that kids in Musical Theatre programs never identify their program by
name, only by title. I wonder why kids who earn their BS in Biology don’t do
the same?
It’s
freshly October, so I order a pumpkin beer. Jaymes orders, “What she got,” but
I can tell he regrets his decision both the second the words come out of his
mouth, and the second the beer goes into it.
“So
I wanted you to know that I broke up with Robby.”
Fortunately
I have the bottle to my lips, otherwise my face would have betrayed me with “Who?”
“You
know, the guy I told you about when we were in Ann Arbor. The guy in Detroit.”
“Oh
yeah.”
The
bartender psychically senses Jaymes’ affinity for pretzels and puts a little
bowl of pretzels in front of us. Jaymes scoops them by the fistful and sprays
salt as he goes on. “I was thinking about what you said, about how I wasn’t
placing enough value on what I want, and if I’m being honest, I wanted to be
with him for all the wrong reasons. Like it’s not that he’s not nice or that
he’s not attractive or anything, but that’s not what mattered. What matters is
that he was really emotionally unavailable to me, and anyway I’m traveling all
over and when it’s all done I’m moving back to Philly, so it’d never work.”
“You
look like you want me to congratulate you on making an obviously beneficial
decision. One that I don’t need to know about,” I want to say. But I
remember what it feels like to be twenty-two and to still have the fresh
smarting of your flesh being burned by love the first time. The groping blindly
around for validation, any validation that I was worthy. The steps, the endless
steps forward keeping my chin up - every single one of them an effort and an
accomplishment.
And
who am I to claim I’m far past all of that? After all, it was only two weeks
ago I overcame the spell of Elaina’s feet under the table.
So
I simply say, “That’s big.”
“Yeah.”
We
sip. We glance at the TV but it’s the first game of the World Series and we
didn’t even know Kansas City had a team (and anyway, which Kansas City? Never
mind, I don’t care.)
“And
I don’t want to say I did it because of what you said but that really
helped get me there. Even though…” he scans my face, maybe gauging my mood,
before plunging in, “…even though it really actually pissed me off at the time.
But you’re kind of the quintessential tough-love-giver.”
“Be
careful with the word quintessential, Jaymes - we’re in Texas and
you’ll blow our cover in this sports bar you dragged me to.”
He
takes out his phone and pulls up a picture of Robby. I’m not sure what he wants,
“You’re better-looking than him”? “It must have been so hard to break
up with someone with such a great jaw line”? I’m just nodding my
head. He pockets his phone and sighs.
“Do
you think I should unfriend him on Facebook?”
Adult
conversation, you know?
Eventually
we get off of Robby or whatever.
“I’m
really glad I ended up getting this job,” Jaymes says.
I
grab his beer and chuck it on the floor, then grab his collar and make him look
me directly in the eyes. “Run,” I say.
“W-w-what!?"
“Run,”
I say again. “I’ll make up a cover, but you have to get yourself out before you
get in too deep! You’re better off trying to make it as an actor in New York.
Or going back to Robby. Or working at Whole Foods. Whatever you do just don’t
work in Thoreau admission!”
He
backs up away from me and off the bar stool with terror in his eyes.
I
point to the door at the bar. “Go!”
Jaymes
doesn’t break eye contact as he grabs his trendy leather man purse thing, his
hat and then finally tucks tail and bolts to the door. I follow him there
shouting, “Take care of yourself! Don’t ever look back!”
Jaymes
darts from one pool of street light to another and I stand silhouetted in the
warm light of the sports bar, hoping to become a distant memory to him.
Elsewhere a wolf howls.
Jaymes tilts his head.
“You don’t look convinced that I’m glad for the job.”
Where
do I begin? “I’m just surprised, is all,” I admit. “I just figured, you know,
with you being an actor, this would just get in the way for you know, you
know?”
“Well,
the way I see it, I’m the only one from my BFA class-“
“-Musical
Theatre program-“
“-who’s
entitled to health insurance and making a regular income. So I can build up my
résumé doing fringe stuff in Philly for a while. Meanwhile… I don’t know… I like
making a difference with the Performing Arts applicants! I feel like I’m making
a difference by helping them navigate the application process. And, I don’t
know, maybe one day I could be a college audition coach, once I know a little
more about the process.”
I
nod my head and say, “Okay!” but not convincingly enough, it seems.
“Nothing’s
ever simply one way with you; you have to qualify everything.”
“I
don’t know what that means.”
He
puts down the beer and swivels in his chair. “Nothing can be just nice
to you, it has to have some like, undesirable consequence too. And with, like,
everyone you meet, you have something you want to change about them. No one’s
good enough and no idea’s functional enough and no question’s… not-dumb
enough.”
“You
mean “smart”?”
“Like
just now!” a feel a little fleck of spit on my cheek. “You’ve got this look on
your face like “you should have said ‘smart’ instead of ‘not-dumb’,” I can
tell!”
“Honestly,
I think I just have resting-bitch-face.”
“But
I’ve heard what you think already about like, every prospective student
and every college rep and every guidance counselor.” I can’t argue with him. I
know I hold them all to a high standard of my own design. “And, I don’t know. I
just get the feeling that you don’t like me either - which would suck - but at
least that’s better than the alternative.”
“What
alternative?”
“That
you’re really just sad.”
He
checks his watch, maybe wanting to end it there and go find his friend.
“Jaymes,
it’s not as simple as that…”
“Didn’t
you tell me I should break up with Robby because I wasn’t focusing on what I
wanted?”
“Are
we back on that?”
“No,
I’m making a point. You’re in an abusive relationship with your job. I
think it’s time you focus on what you want. Because you’re a pain in the
ass to deal with the way things are now.”
Now
he grabs his bag and hat.
“Sorry
if that was harsh,” he says.
“We’ll
talk later.”
And
he goes.
I
stick around a bit longer to kill my beer. At one point I impulsively check my
phone. I have three missed calls and four text messages from Gina, but I’m not
ready to talk to her yet.
“Why
do you only call me after, like, eight?” Adewale asks.
“Because
that’s the only time we’re not working,”
“That’s
true, actually.” He sighs, then plunges in. “Traveling with Aina is great but
it’s a lot. It’d be a lot with really anyone, so it’s not anything
personally about her.”
I
tell him about my recent heart-to-heart with Jaymes and he’s quiet for a while.
“That’s not good.”
“Thank
you, I know.”
“You’ve
just got to push through it. I know it’s hard, but it’s our job.”
This
isn’t the relief I wanted so I pull myself out, white-lying that I just got the
messages from Gina.
“Maker’s
on the rocks,” I say, and call Gina back.
She
doesn’t pick up the first time, so I’m sipping on my whiskey when I hear her
crying.
“I
don’t know what’s wrong, Marcy, I don’t know if we did something wrong or what
but I followed your directions exactly…”
Oh
Jesus. Shit with Yul? Or Double Dash? The student staff?
“What’s
going on?”
“Daisy’s
not doing well. We just left her overnight at the cat hospital.”
“I’ll be on the next plane,” I say, without having even thought
it through. But you know what? TC built in my understudy, so I’m going to take
advantage of it. Jaymes will be fine on his own recruiting in Raleigh and
Montgomery… right?
6. Philadelphia, PA
I put Daisy to sleep,
which was eleven kinds of awful. She had developed a tumor on her spine that
obviously wasn’t anybody’s fault - but of course Gina blamed herself.
I know I’ve talked
about enough gruesome things here, but putting my cat to sleep is a step too
far for me to talk about.
During my last year at
Thoreau, my parents told me having a cat would make me less mobile in case I
wanted to move. And plenty of things seemed desirable: moving, having a
girlfriend, traveling around Europe for a while - but having a cat trumped them
all. So against all advice, I got her for myself as a graduation gift, and
she’s been my companion ever since. I’ve had to find a different cat-sitter
each year I traveled, but when you work at a college, there are droves of
willing undergrads and colleagues, so you really have your pick of the litter
for your pick from the litter.
Gina was my first
repeat-sitter. She insisted on meeting me in my apartment when I got back, and
was smiling weakly next to a giant swath of lilies when I came in. She’s one of
those people who gets it. She knew it’d be too much to come back to a
totally empty apartment. I brought lunch and we got tipsy off wine even though
it was mid-day on a Sunday.
We talk about
everything other than Daisy and the whole thing feels like a blur.
“Yul’s going to apply
to jobs at other schools,” she tells me, “he wanted to leave anyway, but it
looks like we’re getting serious, but we don’t want to face Thoreau’s HR.” A
fair point, a solid plan.
“And you’re going to
stick around at Thoreau?”
She nods. “Especially
now that I’ve been promoted. I actually really like admission.”
“Why?” I try really
hard to make it clear that I’m honestly interested to know.
“I thought I wanted to
teach and stuff, but I realized that I actually just care about, like, access
to education. And I want to eventually get my masters and you know, do stuff
like figure out how to bridge the achievement gap. But if I want to do that, I
need to have a few years working in higher ed under my belt. Maybe I’ll bounce
around higher ed – get some experience in financial aid or college counseling
or academic advising too. I don’t know, I’ll figure it out.”
It strikes me that
when she talks about this, she loses the unsure-little-girl act she often puts
on and assumes a comfortable-with-uncertainty tone.
“Right on,” I say,
“you’re super responsible and motivated. Once you learn to stand up for
yourself, you’ll do great.”
“Gee, thanks. I think
it kind of helps that I got this promotion. Now I have a little bit more power.
Now I can maybe do things, you know?”
We wrap up our little
hang out and she picks up that I’m ready to be alone.
I close the door behind
her and go straight for my couch and sit still, listening to my Felix the cat
clock tick and tick and tick.
I’m alone. For the
first time in nearly two months, I felt truly alone. No Jaymes. No college
reps. No college applicants. No parents. No cleaning lady knocking on the door.
No Daisy.
Felix continues to
tick and tick and tick.
Five-thirty. Jaymes
must be arriving at the college fair by himself now. I’d covered my bases -
Jaymes, Mary Ann and TC all knew that I had come home. TC sent me a hugely
insensitive e-mail to tell me to take care of things with Daisy and then meet
back with Jaymes in Raleigh when I was ready. Which assumes I’d be ready while
he was still in Raleigh and prepared to pick up at that awful place where we
left off.
Fuck that.
The thing about: coming back to the office
When you get back to the
office from being away for a long time, the staff from Operations, Marketing, Financial
Aid and all the various and sundry Office Assistants suddenly want to make
small talk.
“How
was it?” they ask.
“It
was travel recruitment again, what do you think?”
“What
was your favorite place you visited?” they ask.
“The
bar.”
“What
else is going on?” they ask.
“My
cat died, so please fuck off.”
Eventually
you can push through them all and get as far as your own office with the
blinking red voicemail light, a pile of mail with a one-way ticket to the
recycling bin, and a garbage pail with a fresh bag that’s been there since
mid-September.
But
your desk isn’t what you came for, so you put your purse down, check your hair,
and make your way towards the rest of the Undergrad staff offices.
There
are more people from other offices to push through, though.
“Vicki
got engaged!” they tell you.
“That
is surprising to no one.”
“We
put up some new art!” they tell you.
“Those
are production photos from shows our students put on six years ago.”
“Did
you meet the new grad assistant, Sheldon?”
“I
never remember the grad assistants and, if all goes to plan, this is the last
time I’m going to be seeing you, Sheldon.”
I’m
disappointed to see Adewale’s office is empty.
I’m
disappointed to see Gina’s office is empty.
But
I’m thrilled that TC’s is empty too.
Quickly
I glance around to make sure the coast is clear. I’m right by the office
kitchen and notice that someone’s sandwich lies half-eaten in the trash. Tuna. Perfect.
Carefully, and with a paper towel, I extricate the sandwich from the trash and
bring it with me into TC’s office and shut the door.
In
the TV show I saw, a furious young woman accomplished this trick by slashing a
hole in the bottom of her cheating ex-boyfriend’s mattress and slipping the
sandwich in there. I don’t have the luxury of a mattress, but it is one of
those ceilings with square panels that easily lift up.
Standing
on his desk, I accidentally knock over a picture of TC’s dog. I push the
nearest ceiling tile up and am surprised to see that the space is already
occupied. I’m unsurprised, however, to see that it’s occupied with tequila and
rum. I try a different tile and put the sandwich there.
That
should start to rot right around the time he gets back from the Virgin Islands.
I carefully hop down, slip back out of his office unseen, and
head to Mary Ann’s.
How many letters of rec should I send?
“I’ve got to give in my two weeks.”
Mary Ann returned that news with one of
those searching blank stares. Searching for the social acceptable reaction.
Searching for the carefully-worded response. Searching for the quickest way out
of the most awkward conversation you can have with a colleague. Or so I
thought.
Instead she simply said, “No.”
And then I’m sure I repeated her reaction
back to her. “Sorry?”
“No, Marcy. That’s not good for anyone,
least of all you.”
I tried my best to vary up my language
when I reiterated how unhappy I was in my job, how badly I’d fucked things up
with Jaymes, and how poor a fit I am for college admission. There’s only so
many ways to thesaurus-ize these things.
She said, “No” again. “You’ve given nine
years to Thoreau. That’s about three times as long as the average tenure in
this field. You’ve trained some of the best staff who have come through here.
I’d list your accomplishments but I know you’d rather die. You are too talented
a professional for me to let you throw away your career by resigning without
having something else in place.”
“Mary Ann… you see me. You know how
unhappy I am here.”
“I’m more savvy with what goes on in this
office than you think.”
“Then what the fuck is Double Dash?” I say
without thinking.
“What’s Double Dash?”
Oh, right. I explain the nickname.
“Well… you know TC. He’s always looking
for an opportunity to insert himself into a position of higher power and lower
responsibility. And when I told him I thought the idea was questionable, he
went over my head and brought it to the VP.”
“Nooo!” I say in a voice that
sounds eerily like someone who gives a shit about office drama.
“Yes, and so I let it go. TC thinks sixty
is code for near-retirement but I’m not going anywhere. So I’m going to sit
back, watch the idea burn, and then watch TC get bored and move on like he
always does.”
Whoa. Mary Ann had the same idea.
“So. Now that you know I haven’t had a
complete moment of abstraction, let’s figure this out. I know you’re not long
for your job. So. What do we do?”
I assured her there was nothing the office
could offer me that I would want. I want out of admission counseling, not a
slightly adjusted job description. “But something attracted you to this job in
the first place, right?”
“Yeah, health insurance.”
“…other than health insurance,” she added,
smirking. “When you think back to all of the things you’ve done here, what have
you really enjoyed?”
I must have looked like a disgruntled
teenager when I shrugged. To be honest, I was keeping my mouth shut because I
knew if I tried to speak my voice would be choked up and that’s uncomfortable
for everyone. Mary Ann continued looking at me and through her overly
eye-shadowed gaze I realized that she was asking me these questions in earnest.
Because she cared for some reason. It was like staring into the sun. She pushed
away from her desk and stood up, and bent over to dig through her filing
cabinet. While her back was turned, I quickly dabbed at my eyes with my sleeve
lest I blow my cover.
“Here.” She passed me a letter on Thoreau
College stationary.
To
Whom It May Concern;
(I
resisted mumbling, “That shouldn’t be a semicolon.”)
I have had the unique pleasure to work with Marcy
Brooks in Thoreau College’s Undergraduate Admission office for the last four
years. In that time, I have been her supervisor, but she has been my teacher.
She is an outspoken advocate for every large and small concern she believes in,
and is well-liked by her colleagues and by applicants to the college. On
multiple occasions I have received feedback that her candid words with a
rejected student have been inspirational and empowering.
I skimmed a bit, not wanting to stew too
long in this particular moment. The middle section caught my eye; Mary Ann
employed the usual trick guidance counselors do where they include quotes from
other school community members.
“Marcy
makes us laugh every day in the office. She takes work seriously without taking
herself seriously – I love having her in my corner, no matter the issue.”
- Adewale, Senior Assistant Director
“I came into this job a nervous wreck. Marcy
taught me everything I know about how to stay firm in a kind way, especially
during difficult conversations. I honestly feel like I’m a better admission
counselor and a more confident person as a result.”
-
Gina, Admission Counselor
“I don’t always agree with Marcy, but unlike every
other person I disagree with, she actually takes the time to hear my ideas and
thoughts and respond to them in a thoughtful way. I always feel understood by
Marcy.”
-
Pierce, Admission Marketing
Mary Ann slid her computer monitor towards
me. “I wasn’t too sure about Pierce’s quote, so I’m thinking of pulling
something out of this e-mail from Jaymes.”
Oh, Jesus.
“Would you just forward it to me? I’ll
read it later.”
“Sure,” she says – but then she starts
reading it: “Marcy helped me figure out who I am and what matters to me-“
“I said I wanted to read it
fucking later.”
“-she has totally shaken my foundation of
everything I thought about higher education. No one else has caused me to think
as critically about how I define success.”
Mary Ann took off her glasses and looked
at me. “So clearly you’ve done something right. No one accidentally makes a
huge difference in something they completely hate. So think back. Really think
critically at what you’ve been doing, the way you’ve helped Jaymes. What about
your job has felt right to you?”
What was this, guidance counseling? Am I
really going to think about all the ways that I failed as an admission
counselor by not engaging enough with NACAC and GLACAC and QAQAC and all that
pageantry Elaina’s so good at? Was she expecting me to think about
regurgitating information about Thoreau and inadvertently convincing students
to go a different college that’s better for them? Am I supposed to sit here and
think about training Gina and Jaymes and all the rest and how they’re all on
track to find jobs they love?
“Well,” I sighed, “come to think of it, there are a few things
I’ve kinda dug.”
7. Portland,
OR
The following
October
It was a pretty strange feeling sitting across the same desk as Joan a
year later. Mostly the same posters hung on the walls. The same hum and clang
of students migrating outside the door. Joan hadn’t aged any noticeable amount,
and I hope I hadn’t either. I very may well have been wearing the same outfit,
I’m ashamed to admit.
There was one significant change this
year: we were sitting on opposite sides of the desk.
“That’s interesting, putting the desk over
here.”
“Yeah, I wanted to be able look up quickly
from my computer when someone walks in, I don’t like being snuck up on.” I
hoped I didn’t sound like I was being critical.
“I wish I’d thought of that…” she
relented. I like Joan. Joan’s the best.
Last year after our come-to-Jesus meeting,
Mary Ann made the suggestion. She knew I liked Portland because I mentioned
once that it was gay-friendly and had good food; she figured I might like
college counseling because the major thing I liked about my job was advising
students and training my direct reports; she noticed that Joan was applying to
jobs in admission and knew the job was vulnerable. She’s so thoughtful it
almost makes me angry. Two months in and I’ll admit it: I’m loving it. And I’m
making several thousand more and while that’s not what matters most, it sure
fucking matters.
Not that I needed the validation, but I
did feel validated when this popped into my inbox:
From: Mary Smith
To: Marcy Brooks
Marcy-
I just wanted you to know that I’ve split with Seamus. It’s for the
best. So while the business cards on my desk are finally the way we ordered them,
I’ve decided to lose the stupid “Mary Ann” nickname Seamus liked so much and reassumed
my maiden name. We miss you at Thoreau and hope you’re enjoying the other side
of the desk— let us know if you’re ever in Philly!
Mary Smith
Director of Undergraduate Admission
Thoreau College
Smith? After all that, of all names,
Smith‽
I
have three pictures on my desk – there’s one with my sisters and I at Molly’s
wedding, which really was a lot of fun even though I went stag; there’s one of
Daisy; and there’s one of the Thoreau crew at my going-away party. Gina and I
have our arms together, Mary Ann’s posing with a cake from her family’s bakery,
Adewale’s flashing a handsome smile, Jaymes is carefully pointing his chin in
the way someone must have told him looks good for headshots or something, and
TC’s been cropped out. Incidentally he cropped himself out of the Thoreau
picture and got a job as the director of graduate admission somewhere else. I
figure he’ll do less damage there.
Jaymes
covered Raleigh and Montgomery just fine on his own (after Mary Ann
strong-armed TC into giving him an emergency training session over Skype). He and
I had the chance to debrief from our spat in Houston after that, which was
okay. Then when TC left (which was right before our Early Action decision
release, by the way), we had another, more honest and satisfying debrief about
Double Dash and about admission in general. Jaymes may be a talker, but he’s
also a really good listener as it turns out.
Anyway, Joan was visiting today as her
first stop on The Slider Route.
Let me tell you about The Slider Route.
Nothing would give me more pleasure:
The Slider Route is my brainchild:
Admission counselors fill out an online form, and I assign them one of several
“routes” which automatically signs them up for visits with me at Babbling
Brook, and my counterparts at Green Street Academy, Trent College Prep, and
Wilson High School – all of them high schools within a five-mile radius.
Depending on the route, their order will change, but there’s always a lunch
break at a sandwich shop (hence “Slider”) between schools 2 and 3. I even hook them up with a 25% off coupon.
The Slider Route helps spread out the volume of appointments, admission
counselors don’t have to stress about scheduling four individual visits, and it
helps with exposure on both sides of the desk. It’s brilliant because it just
makes fucking sense.
Principal McMurtry gave me a hard time
when I first proposed this, and declined to approve the additional costs
associated with new print materials for the increased volume of admission
counselors. She was never supportive of the program on grounds that it might
overwhelm high school students and cause them to feel stressed about the
college admission process.
I had opened with, “The college admission
process is stressful, and nothing I or any other guidance counselor does is
going to reverse that. And I’m aware that making these maps is an extra cost,
but this is a goddamned brilliant plan that’s going to be very popular with
admission counselors, believe me, and it’s going to expose our students to a
ton of colleges they might not have considered. You can’t have it both ways,
Linda, you can either spend a little extra to keep our alumni going to good
schools and keep your precious status as principal at a top-ranking high school
in American Education Weekly, or you can be frugal and give our students the
message that their future matters less than new athletic uniforms.”
She looked at me with fish eyes, evidently
asking herself who the hell she had just hired. I don’t think she’s used to
being spoken to bluntly.
“Let me see what I can do,” she gulped.
“Thanks! Just doing the job you hired me
to do.”
To her credit, this was my first day on
the job, and two hours later, the Slider Route was funded. She invited me to her big Christmas party and
I politely declined, so we’re at the exact level of friendship I want to be on with
her.
“That’s exactly where you want to be with
her.” Joan agreed as I passed her her coffee (black, with cinnamon). “At an
arm’s length.”
“And tell me, what’s new at STFU?”
Yes, the institution that won Joan Chu was
none other than Southern Texas Film University.
“Oh, there’s a new Game Design
specialization, some young alum just got hired by Blue Fog-“
“What’s that?”
“I have no clue, but every time I tell a
prospective film student he goes nuts.” Then she lowers her voice, “Oh,
and we hired a new agency to handle our print marketing and we had a bunch of
prototypes of new materials to try out before travel season. A lot of it got
rejected, but I grabbed a little present for you.”
She rummages through her travel case and
pulls out a bumper-sticker sized sticker that reads, very simply and very
boldly, “STFU”.
“I love you I love you I love you.”
“This is, without a
doubt, the best present I’ve ever gotten.”
“You’re welcome. We were this close
to distributing these en masse until one of the new staff opened his big mouth
and told our director what “STFU” usually stands for. Now he’s trying to change
the name of the whole college to “Febres University” after the guy who founded
it, so stay tuned if we just become “FU”.
This is probably my only STFU sticker I’ll
ever get, so I think carefully of where I could put it. If I put it on my car,
I’m sure some leader of a family values coalition will slash my tires; if I put
it anywhere visible in my office, I’m sure Principal McMurtry will have
something to say about it; if I put it on my forehead, it’ll lose its stick
when I shower. Then I spy a wayward ping-pong paddle some other college rep
gave me last week. The sticker fits perfectly, and I find a nice convenient
spot to place my new “STFU” sign so that I can grab it right next to my
keyboard whenever I need. The thought of whipping that out at an opportune
moment actually causes my eyes to fill with giggly tears. “Thank you, Joan,” I
manage.
“So what’s on the docket today?”
I tell her we’ve got one student signed up
to speak with her and I can tell from the way her lips purse just a little that
this feels disappointing.
“Okay, but you don’t want to meet seven
students who aren’t good for the school. You want to meet the one who’s
perfect for it. I invited her personally.”
She perks up at “her”.
“But what about all the seniors in the
Film Studies course? Aren’t there supposed to be-“
“-twenty,” I finish for her, “but hardly
any of those boys has above a 3.0, except for the ones whose parents will never
let them apply to film school, so I’m gonna work them into a larger university
where they can change their major sophomore year. You’ll meet Liz and you’ll
know why she has to go to STFU: she’s ambitious, she’s got a good head
on her shoulder and will hold her own surrounded by boys.”
“All right. I just figured with all your
innovative methods of arranging high school visits you’d be getting more
students through the door.”
And I get where she’s coming from. I do.
When you’re trying to recruit, it can feel like your goal is to meet the
highest volume of students and come back to the office with stacks of inquiry
cards stretching their rubber bands until they burst. I know, I’ve been there.
But not all colleges are necessarily gunning for the valedictorian
overachiever; not all students have an interest in Harvard. Everyone wants you to think that college
admission is a beauty contest, but I’m of the mind that it’s more like
match-making. We all define success in our own terms, even in our adulthood. And,
as I see it, matching Liz with STFU rather than getting a roomful of boys in
the room with Joan based solely on their shallow action-movie-inspired dreams
of filmmaking is a waste of everyone’s time. I’ve got other plans for them.
Liz knocks on the door just then, and
introduces herself and makes eye contact with Joan and basically ignores me,
which is exactly how I like these meetings to go. I tell students, “This is
your process, I’m just a facilitator.” When I first met them, they asked
cursory questions like, “What’s your average SAT?” and “What’s the best thing
about your school?” Liz asks Joan what makes STFU’s film classes special, and
to name some accomplishments of recent alums.
“Blue Fog‽ Seriously‽” Liz practically
shouts.
If a shrug could be a glance, that’s what
Joan and I exchanged.
“Seriously.”
“All right, you’re due at Trent in twenty
minutes, you should get going soon.”
I know this because the Slider Route is so
brilliant. And because the conversation was reaching its natural end, which I
knew it would because these visits never need to be more than forty minutes if
you do them right.
“Who are you seeing next?” she asks, and I
don’t have to look at my calendar because I’ve been anticipating this one for
weeks.
“Thoreau.”
“Uh-oh.”
“Wipe off that smug look, I’m actually
looking forward to catching up with my old tribe.”
“It’ll be interesting,”
I say.
I’ve been ready for this one; three
students are on their way from their theatre class, and I’ve stocked my snack
cabinet with pretzel logs. When he made his appointment, Jaymes told me he has
an exciting new development called the Hilda Matilda Scholarship. I think I
know where this one’s going.
One
of my students knocks on my door. “Ms. Brooks, sorry to interrupt, I’m filling out
the rec letter request form and I have a dumb question.”
“Come on in, Dana. There’s no such thing as a dumb question,” I
lie.
MJ Halberstadt is a playwright and proud alumnus of Emerson
College and Boston University. Full-length plays include i don’t know where we’re going but i promise we’re lost (Boston
Teen Acting Troupe), The Launch Prize (Bridge Repertory Theater), not Jenny (Bridge Repertory
Theater) and That Time the House Burned Down (Fresh Ink Theatre). He is a playmaker with Bridge Repertory
Theater and a proud member of the Dramatists Guild of America, Inc. His work
has been acknowledged with honors and invitations from the BCA / CompanyOne
PlayLab, Boston University Creative Writing Global Fellowship, Elliott Norton
Award for “Outstanding New Script”, and Last Frontier Theatre Conference. That
said, his most widely presented script is the 2013 Emerson College On-the-Road
Information Session which enjoyed revivals for two years and received such
praise as, “very informative”, “actually pretty entertaining”, and “for a
presentation about a communications school, I was disappointed that the
projector cut out.” He has since resigned from his Muggle job in college
admission, and works as affiliated faculty at Emerson College. Learn more at
MJHalberstadt.com.