The Admissions (23 page)

Angela’s hands were shaking so much she had trouble pushing the Fletchers’ doorbell. From inside she could hear multiple chimes, a piece of music that was vaguely familiar to her but that she couldn’t place. Didn’t matter, but it gave her something to think about instead of what was coming. (She should know the music, though, after all those flute lessons.
Did you practice, Angela?
)

Footsteps, then the door opened to reveal Mrs. Fletcher, who smiled a half smile and said, “Angela.”

“I came to apologize,” said Angela. (I came to
expiate
my selfishness. My felony. For which, of course, the evidence is
incontrovertible.
) She coughed to cover the fact that her sentence accidentally went up on the word
apologize
like a question. She knew better. Ms. Simmons was all over them for that, in class. Especially the girls.
(Never sound uncertain, ladies! It diminishes how hard you’ve worked to get where you are. Never ever ever.)

Mrs. Fletcher didn’t say anything. She appeared to be waiting. Probably to hear Angela say the exact words, like how if you went to Alcoholics Anonymous you had to come right out and say,
My name is so-and-so, and I’m an alcoholic.
At least on television. Angela had never been to a real Alcoholics Anonymous meeting. She thought of Edmond gulping down his chili beers. Maybe he should go.

Mrs. Fletcher was still waiting. Ugh.
Fine.
Fair enough.

So she said, “I apologize for taking Joshua’s pills. I don’t know what got into me.”

Mrs. Fletcher’s smile stretched out: it was now approximately three-quarters of a smile.

“I’m really sorry. I’ve brought them back, what I took.” Angela had put the rest of the pills in a Baggie like the kind her mom used to pack Cecily’s and Maya’s lunches in. (Though Angela, as part of the Green Team, had tried to get her to switch to something reusable.)

Angela presented the Baggie to Mrs. Fletcher, who accepted it and nodded quickly. God. They were practically doing a drug deal. They may as well be standing on the street corner in West Oakland. She wondered what would happen if she tried to make a joke about that. Nothing good, she imagined. Drug jokes probably didn’t go over well with someone from whom you’d actually
stolen drugs.

Angela was hoping that was that, but. That was not that. Mrs. Fletcher motioned to Angela to come inside. She led her through the kitchen, where she stopped to place the bag on top of the refrigerator. Out of Angela’s reach. As though Angela might feel compelled to steal the pills a second time! Please.

Angela followed Mrs. Fletcher out to the patio (into the
maelstrom,
she thought), where Mrs. Fletcher poured two glasses of lemonade from a pitcher in the outdoor refrigerator and handed one to Angela. Angela’s mother, by the way, would kill for the Fletchers’ outdoor refrigerator. Or so she always said. Angela looked around for Colton and Joshua. All things considered, as far as little boys went, they were pretty cute. Colton always smelled like cinnamon.

“The boys are with their dad,” said Mrs. Fletcher, before Angela had a chance to ask. “A little getaway down at the beach.”

“That sounds nice,” said Angela. Mrs. Fletcher pointed to a chair and Angela sat down in it. She wasn’t going to disobey, at this point. Geez. Imagine. She was here seeking
clemency.

Mrs. Fletcher didn’t sit. She leaned against the bar—the outdoor refrigerator was built into a granite bar with a sink and cabinets and a shelf fully stocked with all kinds of liquor—and shook her head. “It isn’t nice. It’s horrible.”

“Oh,” said Angela.
Whoops.
“Why is it horrible?”

“He loads them up on sugar and forgets to put sunscreen on them. And then they come back all hopped up on crap and it takes them
days
to get back to their normal routine. Just
days.
” She scratched vigorously at the nape of her neck and said, “It’s awful, I hate it.”

“I’m sorry,” said Angela. She took a sip of the lemonade. Mrs. Fletcher turned to face a collection of bottles on top of the bar and tipped a little bit of vodka into her lemonade, then considered Angela for a long moment. It seemed that Angela was expected to say something. (What, though?) Eventually she said, “I’m not using pills anymore. I’m not, like, addicted to them or anything. I just needed them to get through a really tough time this fall. And I’m really, really sorry.” She folded her hands contritely next to her lemonade glass. She
was
really sorry. She felt terrible.

Mrs. Fletcher nodded, as though that was just a casual comment, not the reason Angela was here. In fact she sort of brushed over it. Then she said, “You know what’s funny, Angela?”

Angela shook her head: she did not know what was funny. She drank more lemonade.

“I used to be so envious of your family. Your parents with their perfect marriage, and you three perfect little girls.”

Angela tried not to be offended at the word
little.

Mrs. Fletcher tasted her lemonade, shook her head and frowned, and tipped a little bit more vodka in.

“This was a few years ago. When I felt like I was spending all my time just trying to get Joshua to sit still, pay attention.
Focus,
I used to tell him. You’re just not
focusing.
I didn’t know there was something
official
that could be done, in the beginning. To help him. God, it was so hard! Every single day was exhausting. The fights Alan and I had, you can’t imagine. And I would look across the street and see the five of you piling in your car, or playing soccer on the front lawn—and I was just so envious. Those pills saved Joshua, you know.”

Angela shifted her weight in the chair and tried to nod and smile bravely. How much easier this conversation would be if she hadn’t actually
stolen
the pills that had
saved
Joshua. Mrs. Fletcher’s face was open and honest and under any other circumstances Angela might really have enjoyed talking to her. But. She wanted to bolt like it was the last two hundred meters of a 5K. Finally she said, “I understand.”

“I don’t think you do,” said Mrs. Fletcher. “But why would you? I don’t expect you to, not really. You’re, what? How old are you now? Seventeen? Eighteen?” She looked over her yard, which was small, but meticulously maintained, with not one stray leaf or weed. There was a lemon tree in the corner.

“Almost eighteen.”

“Okay. And I’m sure people tell you these are the best years of your life.”

Angela nodded. Actually nobody had told her that in a while. (If this was the best, she wondered, what was the worst? Man oh man.)

“In some ways they are. Your metabolism, for example, will never again be as good as it is now.”

Angela never thought about her metabolism. Was she supposed to?

“But the truth is, Angela, I remember being your age. And it’s not that easy.”

“Thank you,” whispered Angela. More lemonade, down the hatch. “Thank you!” It really wasn’t easy. It was really, really hard.

Mrs. Fletcher drank lustily, put her glass down, and said, “It’s confusing. It’s really fucking confusing. Life, all of it, whether you’re eighteen or eighty. I know that. I’m not as jealous of you all now as I used to be. It’s hard for everybody in some way, right?”

Angela wasn’t sure how she was supposed to react. In general, in her day-to-day life, adults did not say
fucking
anything to her. There was a
paucity
of cursing adults in her life.

“But you know what else?”

Angela’s lemonade was gone. The ice cubes hit her teeth as she took her last sip. Carefully she asked, “What?”

“It’s no prize being my age either. Divorced. Single mother. Shuttling the boys back and forth. Do you know Colton left his gym sneakers at Alan’s house two weeks ago and you cannot imagine the drama we went through trying to get him to school without them. It was gym day, and we didn’t notice until the morning, and all hell broke loose. Seriously, all hell. Not a tragedy, right, in the big scheme of things?”

Angela wasn’t sure if this question was rhetorical or not but after some time she whispered, “Right.”

“But it almost undid us, I swear.” Mrs. Fletcher was now looking off into the middle distance, as though she were an actress in a play talking to an unseen audience. Monologue time. “Just those sneakers.” Now she looked directly at Angela. Angela held her gaze. Mrs. Fletcher must have gotten those eyelash extensions that many of Angela’s mother’s friends were getting. “I never thought this would be me. I thought Alan and I were going to be together forever and then he just…Oh, never mind, I shouldn’t have brought any of this up.” She put her face in her hands and let out a noise that sounded like
ppppuft.

“I’m sorry,” whispered Angela. “I’m sorry about everything.” And she wasn’t being
specious.
She meant it.

“I know,” said Mrs. Fletcher, her face still packed away inside her hands.

Angela said, “I’m really sorry I took the pills. I will never, ever do anything like that again.” She stood. “Thank you for the lemonade. Thank you for not—” She paused.
Pressing charges
seemed too crime-drama-ish. (Seriously, though, thank God she hadn’t…)

Finally she said, “Thank you for understanding.”

Mrs. Fletcher opened her arms, and there was nothing for Angela to do but step into them. Mrs. Fletcher’s hug was surprisingly strong—almost violent—but Angela didn’t let herself squirm or pull away. She had sinned, and this was her penance. She even hugged back, just a little bit at first, and then, when she found she was still entrapped, a little bit more. Mrs. Fletcher’s back was firm and muscled; hugging her was like hugging a bunch of tennis balls. It wasn’t bad, the hugging, though admittedly it was a little strange. Angela hadn’t hugged anyone not related to her in a long time. All in all, though, the hugging made Angela feel a little better about everything. Not just about what she’d done—but maybe like she was helping Mrs. Fletcher out too. Maybe Mrs. Fletcher didn’t get hugged enough, now that Mr. Fletcher—
Alan
—had left her and was busy getting the children sunburned and feeding them bad food. So: a net gain.

Eventually Mrs. Fletcher released her and held her by the shoulders and looked deep into her eyes. Definitely, on the eyelash extensions. Nobody had eyelashes like that naturally, except maybe babies. “Be careful out there, honey. It’s a wild world. You take care of yourself. You have no idea what you’re in for.”

“Okay,” said Angela.

When she was outside the front door, and sure Mrs. Fletcher couldn’t see her, she ran.

10:14 p.m.

Dear Marianne,

I’m not even attempting to go to bed yet (tonight, at all? not sure yet) because I know I won’t sleep. Everybody else is in bed (even Gabe! he’s snoring a little bit in that way that gives me a hint of what it might be like one day to be married to an old man). Maya is sleeping with no fewer than fourteen stuffed animals (I counted) but her favorite is still that pink unicorn you gave her two Christmases ago. Angela is never, ever in bed this early, and maybe she’s not asleep, but when I crouched down to look for the strip of light under her door I saw nothing. So I didn’t even knock; I just slunk off.

I remember when she would never go to sleep without a goodnight kiss. Even when she was eleven, twelve! Then all of a sudden it stopped. All of a sudden, I didn’t know when her day ended.

A couple of hours ago I got off the phone with Pinkie’s mom (Cathy, not that you need to remember that). She was livid! Absolutely livid. I don’t remember a time when Cathy Moynihan has actually been angry with me. She’s one of those extra-sweet, super-cheerful, always-on-top-of-things people who never seem stressed and volunteer for everything and then take on work the other volunteers (me, often) sign up for and never get to. She does it all with a smile, etc., while at the same time baking healthy muffins with ingredients like hemp and chia seeds. And pinning things on Pinterest. She’s like a movie version of a mom.

Of course she has only one child and she doesn’t have a job. I can’t help thinking that makes it easier on her.

Anyway. She was livid because earlier today when Pinkie and Cecily were watching what I thought was an innocent documentary about the building of the Golden Gate Bridge for a school project they were actually watching—on
my
iPad, using
my
iTunes account—a documentary about all the people who have committed suicide by jumping off the bridge. It’s called
The Bridge,
and I guess Pinkie was so upset by it that she couldn’t go to sleep tonight.

Don’t you dare watch it, Marianne. I sat down with it after I got off the phone with Cathy. (Luckily the rental was still good; you know how much I hate renting something twice, Marianne. It rankles my frugal nature.) It’s beyond upsetting. Seriously, don’t watch it. Whoever made the documentary interviewed the parents of these poor souls, so you get a lot of regular people sitting on plaid couches and petting their lap dogs and wondering where they went wrong in their parenting.

One guy took out the recycling for his parents before he went and jumped. Like it was any other day.

Can you imagine? And Cecily and Pinkie watched the whole thing.

I see that bridge every day. It’s the backdrop to so many of the homes I sell. The sun rising near it, setting over it: it’s a symbol of all that people love about this city.

After I watched it I marched into Cecily and Maya’s room and I said, “This is the information you need, Cecily. The main span is 4,200 feet. The total wire used is 80,000 miles. That’s what your teacher wants to know. Not this other stuff.”

And you know what she said, Marianne? She said, “If I was there, Mom, I would have saved him.”

I said, “Who? The guy who took out the recycling?”

She said, “Any of them.”

I see that comment as proof of Cecily’s essential, irrevocable goodness. She has a solid gold heart, this child of mine.

She must have inherited it from you, Marianne.