Second Helpings (7 page)

Step 3: Eliminate any school located in a remotely urban setting . My parents have ruled out Columbia, NYU, U. Chicago, Northwestern, U. Penn, Georgetown, and Johns Hopkins because they are all located in ghettos. (Note: Pay close attention to this eliminator, as it will come into play later.)Number of Schools Left: 22 HHHH

Step 4: Eliminate any school in California .

The California sunshine has fried my sisters and brother-in-laws brains. Bethany and G-Money were always scary, but never as much since they moved to the dot commune. As if the state werent overrun by blondes already (most of whom are of the fake-titty variety), Bridget flies out there all the time to visit her dad and further her career. Furthermore, I find Califomians compulsive friendliness unsettling. I think these are enough reasons for staying away from that freaky state.Number of Schools Left: 20 HHHH

Step 5: And Canada, for that matter .

Celine Dion. Enough said. (Note: Another chuckle from Paul Parlipiano. I was on , baby. On.)Number of Schools Left: 19 HHHH

Step 6: Eliminate any school that any of my classmates have the slightest interest in/chance of getting into .

My only competition for valedictorian, Len Levy, has made it very clear that if he doesnt get into Cornell, he will drive up to Ithaca and hurl himself into one of its infamous suicide gorges. I am afraid that he isnt entirely kidding. Do I even need to mention that there is only one other person at PHS who is smart enough to get into any of these schools?

And He has kept his preferences to himself. Or maybe He hasnt. But He hasnt shared them with me .Number of Schools Left: 18 HHHH

Step 7: Eliminate any women-only schools .

I WANT TO HAVE SEX. Is that so wrong? Im not ready to give up and take a four-year lesbian vacation. (Note: I didnt get into the specifics with Paul Parlipiano on this one, lest he think Im homophobic, which Im not.)Number of Schools Left: 14 HHHH

Step 8: Eliminate any school conveniently located for unannounced parental visits . Duh.Number of Schools Left: 11 HHHH

Step 9: Eliminate any school where Id be the dumbest first-year student . This is probably the most surprising eliminator, so Ill explain.

For my first three years of high school, I was obsessed with getting into Harvard or Yale. Then I toured both campuses last spring and discovered I was the only prospective freshman who hadnt won an Academic Decathalon or developed opto-electronic semiconductor het-erostructures in my downtime, you know, for kicks. Im not kidding. PHS hasnt prepared me for cutthroat academics. I am a big, brainy fish in a tiny, toxic wastefilled pond. I dont want to be reminded every day for four years that my SATs can only do so much in the effort to transcend my white-trash roots.

Plus, theres something kind of sick about the over-the-top sense of pride my parents would get from slapping a Harvard or Yale sticker in their back windshields. My mom didnt go to college, but she wants everyone to know that her very own flesh and blood is smart enough to attend one of these super brand-name Ivies. She wants to take credit for my intelligence like a classic parensite, aka any adult who tries to leech a life out of his/her kid. Yikes.Number of Schools Left : 9 HHHH

Step 10: Eliminate any school that could not serve up sweet undergraduate eye candy while I was on the campus tour .

Very shallow, I know. But let me reiterate: I WANT TO HAVE SEX. Remember, its not like my idea of cute is brainless and beefcakey cute. So the built-in intelligence factor counteracts the shallowness of this requirement. Almost. (Of course, I kept these details to myself.)Number of Schools Left: 4 HHHH

Amherst, Piedmont, Swarthmore, and Williams, I repeated, coming to the conclusion of my dissertation. And thats where I stopped.

Four seemed like a manageable number to me. But I could have kept right on cutting. Im sure if I thought hard enough, I could have come up with a deal breaker for every school in the book. I swear, I would thrive in a communist regime. See, when I have too many choices, its my own fault if I make the wrong one. I am much better when decisions have been made for me. It not only gives me the right to complain, but a sense that Ive had to overcome overwhelming odds in the struggle to become the success that I am.

Go ahead and bash my methods all you want, but its not any more or less of a crapshoot than if I had followed the advice of my guidance counselor, my parents, or the Princeton Review. The odds are 1600 to 1 that Ill pick the perfect school. So I might as well go with my own dubious logic.

When I finally finished my spiel, Paul Parlipiano looked at me and said, Youre making a big mistake.

The fact that Paul Parlipiano had formed such a definitive opinion about me and my life was too much for me to handle, and I coughed half a cup of coffee out of my nostrils. Our history made this humiliating hurl all the more so. Need I remind you that this is the same person whose shoes I puked all over at a farewell-to-summer beach party one year ago? After I pledged my undying love? Before I passed out? I shudder at the memory. The fact that he graciously neglected to mention that last regurgitative gift as he mopped up todays mess is proof that Paul Parlipiano is a perfect human beinggay or not. Oh, how I wish he were not.

After I had run out of apologies and lied about a lingering case of bronchitis that had the annoying habit of sneaking up on me when I least expected it, our conversation resumed its course.

How am I making a mistake ?

Well, Im biased, of course, but you should reconsider your No Urban Setting rule. Columbia changed my life.

Really?

Yes. New York is the best place in the world for an education.

I was skeptical. This was only the second time Id even been to the city, which is unbelievable since we live less than two hours away. And the first time barely counts because it was with my grandmother to see The Lion King .

No offense or anything, but what makes you so sure Id love living in New York? I mean, I cant watch thirty seconds of Sex and the City without wanting to puke.

Well, because of the editorials you write for The Seagulls Voice , mostly, he said. Like the one you wrote about the uprising in response to the social zoning in the lunchroom

Vegetable Medley Mayhem: A Food Fight Against Cafeteria Tyranny.

And the one about the slumming socialite, Hyacinth something

Miss Hyacinth Anastasia Wallace: Just Another Poseur.

Yeah! Thats the one!

You couldve struck me dead right then and there and it would have been okey-dokey with me.

But you had already graduated when I wrote those

My sister sent me your columns in The Seagulls Voice last year, he said. Shes a big fan of yours. She loves your editorials.

Your sister? There wasnt another Parlipiano at school.

Stepsister, he corrected himself. You know her.

I do? How could this be possible?

Sure you do, he said. Taryn Baker.

Taryn Baker is Paul Parlipianos stepsister?!

Holy shit.

Very few people remember Taryns brief but big-time impact on Pineville society. Most have already forgotten about how she got suspended from school a year ago for peeing into a yogurt cup to provide He Who Shall Remain Nameless with a clean urine sample for his surprise drug test. I am definitely the only person (besides He Who Shall Remain Nameless, of course) who knows that she was lying about having done that, and only did it in a pathetic attempt to propel herself into popularity. WeHe Who Shall Remain Nameless and Iare the only two people on earth who know who really squatted over the yogurt cup. We know who, though I doubt either one of us knows why.

I certainly dont know why I did it.

Of course, Taryns plan backfired miserably. After a few weeks, Pineville had erased the Dannon Incident from its collective unconscious, and Taryn in particular. Thus, she went back to being a fade-into-the-paint wallflower.

But what makes this step-sibling revelation even freakier is that I spent a bizillion hours with Taryn last spring, tutoring her so she wouldnt flunk tenth grade. I agreed to help her because I felt I needed to pay her back in some way for taking the fall for me. Of course, it helps that her parents paid me ten dollars an hour to ease my guilty conscience.

Taryn is not dumb. Just abysmally unmotivated to do any work in her classesexcept English and Band. But getting suspended by the administration, then shunned (as usual) when she came back to school, has left its mark. Taryn is the most reluctant conversationalist Ive ever met. And this is coming from me , so you know it must be bad. Compared to her, Im like, well, Sara . Whenever I tried acknowledging Taryns presence when we passed each other in the halls, she focused her sad brown eyes elsewhere. She spooks me out a little bit. In fact, shes got definite Noir Bard tendencies. I still cant help but wonder how she mustered the courage to confess to a crime she didnt commit.

Even though it qualifies as bizarro behavior, it wasnt all that surprising that she never mentioned Paul. She never revealed anything personal about herself. Ever. Anyway, her quasi-relation to Paul Parlipiano explained his otherwise inexplicable concern for my well-being. Thank God my mouth was empty or I surely wouldve spewed more fluids all over this poor boy.

Well, Taryn never mentioned that she liked my editorials.

She really looks up to you.

I had no idea, I said, strangely proud to be admired by Paul Parlipianos semi-sister. She never mentioned that you were her sorta brother.

His face dropped slightly. Well, she got into some trouble when she was a freshman. He was intentionally vague, but I knew all too well what Incident he was alluding to. And it made her lose her sense of self. She has no confidence.

Yeah, I replied.

She doesnt have a problem with my sexual orientation, but she knows that PHS isnt the most enlightened place on earth.

Now, I wasnt exactly sure how to handle this moment of semi-disclosure. I mean, I already knew that he was gay. Should I just wink to let him know he didnt have to say more?

Thats why she loved your editorials. They made her feel like she wasnt alone, he continued. Its tough to be different at Pineville. Whether its her type of different, or my type of different, or yours.

Tell me about it, I muttered.

Coming here has been so great. Its the first place where I felt like I could finally be myself, and find others who are just like me. Or people who werent like me at all, but would accept me as I was, anyway.

Could such a place exist?

I got involved with PACO, People Against Conformity and Oppression.

Is that, uh, a gay and lesbian organization?

Well, there are gays in the group, but thats not what were about. Were an organized resistance to a world of greedy narcissism and complacency.

Like Key Club on steroids?

Not exactly.

Are you socialists?

Some of us are, but were really a true democracy. There are no elected leaders; theres no hierarchy.

I couldnt really think of anything legitimately cool to say, so I just said, Cool.

It is cool, he said, smiling. Unlike other, more notable anarchist groups, we believe firmly in nonviolent protest. We work within the system to try to effect change, and work outside of the system to put the heat on those who can make change. Just like you did with your articles.

Wow. Wow. Wow. Holy shit. Wow.

We dont think that your beliefs should be one thing and your actions another, Paul Parlipiano continued. They should be one and the same.

I do, too. I really do. Yet I still manage to have an easier time thinking about things instead of doing things. Maybe an organization like this is what I need. There was something I needed to know, though.

Do you feel like I grasped for the right word, couldnt find it, then just went with the first one. Like a moron at Columbia?

Duh. Duh. Duh. I felt moronic as soon as I said it.

Not that youre a moron! I mean, its just that it was a huge deal when you got into Columbia, because its a huge deal whenever anyone from Pineville gets into an Ivy League school, because its only had about three students get accepted to Ivy League schools in a bizillion years, and I think two of them dropped out before the end of freshman year to go to Rutgersnot that Rutgers is a bad school or anything, but its not Columbia, you know

He sipped his coffee while I babbled on.

And I know Im not a moron, either. But I worry that Im only Pineville smart. And if I went to an Ivy League school with real students from real high schools

I realized that my get-into-the-Ivy-League intensity hadnt faded after all. It had just transformed itself into dont-get-into-the-Ivy-League inadequacy.

I know what you mean, he said when I had finally faded out. It was a little intimidating at first. I felt really ignorant about cultural things that were embedded in my classmates DNA. But thats no reason to go to another, less-intimidating school. Do you want to live in your ignorance forever? I think you could use a challenge, dont you?

I nodded my head. Yes, I did.

Everyone could benefit from a challenge. His voice grew stronger, with more conviction. I could imagine him rallying a crowd before a demonstration. Thats whats wrong with our society, weve all grown so content to sit on our asses and settle for what comes easy. Accept the challenge, Jessica!