COLUMBIAUNIVERSITY
COLUMBIA COLLEGE
Dear Princess Amelia:
Congratulations! The Committee on Admissions joins me in the most rewarding part of this job—informing you that you have been selected for admission to Columbia University in the City of New York. We are fully confident that the gifts you bring to our campus will be unique and valuable and that your abilities will be challenged and developed here—
HARVARD UNIVERSITY
Dear Princess Amelia,
I am delighted to inform you that the Committee on Admissions and Financial Aid has voted to offer you a place at Harvard. Following an old Harvard tradition, a certificate of admission is enclosed. Please accept my personal congratulations for your outstanding achievements—
BROWN UNIVERSITY
Dear Princess Amelia,
Congratulations! The Brown Board of Admission has completed its evaluation of more than 19,000 applicants, and it is with great pleasure that I inform you that your application has been included among our acceptances. Your—
Daphne Delacroix
1005 Thompson Street, Apt. 4A
New York, NY 10003
Dear Ms. Delacroix,
Enclosed please find your novel,Ransom My Heart.Thank you for giving us the opportunity to read it. However, it does not suit our needs at the present time. Good luck placing it elsewhere.
Sincerely,
Ned Christiansen
Editorial Assistant
Brampft Books 520 Madison Avenue
New York, NY 10023
Dear Author,
Thank you for the submission of your book. Although it was carefully read, it is not what we are looking for here at Cambridge House. Best of luck in your future endeavors.
Sincerely,
Cambridge House Books
Dear Ms. Delacroix,
Thank you so much for your submission,Ransom My Heart . We here at AuthorPress were highly impressed by it, and we think it shows a lot of promise! However, it’s important to keep in mind that publishing houses receive well over 20,000 submissions a year, and in order to stand out, your manuscript needs to be PERFECT. For a nominal fee ($5 per page), your manuscript,Ransom My Heart , could be on store shelves by next Christmas—
The Senior Class of
Albert Einstein High School
requests the pleasure of your company at
the senior prom
on Saturday the Sixth of May at seven o’clock in the evening at the
Waldorf-Astoria ballroom
Thursday, April 27, Gifted and Talented
Mia—We’re going shopping for prom dresses—and for something to wear to your birthday shindig—after school. Bendel’s and Barneys first, then if we strike out there, we’ll hit Jeffrey and Stella McCartney downtown. You in?—Lana
Sent from my BlackBerry wireless device
L—I’m sorry. I can’t. Have fun, though!—M
What do you mean, you can’t ? What else do you have to do? Don’t say princess lessons because I know your grandmother has canceled them while she gets ready for your big pahtay, and don’t say therapy either because you only have that on Fridays. So what gives? Don’t be such a byotch, we need your limo. I blew all my taxi money for the month on a new pair of D&G patent leather platform slingbacks.
Sent from my BlackBerry wireless device
Wow. Coming clean about Dr. Knutz to my friends was freeing and all of that, just like he said it would be.
Especially since it turns out most of them have been in therapy, too.
But some of them—such as Lana—tend to treat the subject way too casually sometimes.
I’m staying after school to help J.P. with his senior project. You know he’s putting on his final performance piece for the senior project committee next week. I promised I’d be there for him. He’s worried about some of the performances his actors are giving. He thinks Amber Cheeseman’s little sister, Stacey, doesn’t really seem to be giving it her all. And she’s the star, you know.
OMG, that play he wrote? God, what are you two, attached at the hip? You can spend ten minutes apart, you know. Now come shopping with us. Pinkberry after! My treat!
Sent from my BlackBerry wireless device
Lana thinks Pinkberry solves everything. Or, if not Pinkberry,Allure magazine. When Benazir Bhutto got assassinated, and I couldn’t stop crying, Lana got me a copy ofAllure magazine and told me to get in the bathtub and read it cover to cover. Lana was seriously all, “You’ll feel better in no time!”
And I’m pretty sure she really meant it.
The weird thing was, after I did what she said, I sort ofdid feel a little better.
I also knew a lot more about the dangers of SmartLipo. Still.
Lana. It’s an artistic thing. J.P.’s the writer/director. I have to be there to support him. I’m the girlfriend. Just go without me.
God, what iswith you? It’s PROM. Fine, be that way. I’ll forgive you, but only because I know you’re freaking out over this election thing of your dad’s. Oh, and where you’re going to go to school next year. God, I can’t believe you didn’t get inanywhere . I mean, evenI got into Penn. Andmy senior project was on the history of eyeliner. Good thing my dad’s a legacy, I guess.
Sent from my BlackBerry wireless device
Ha, yeah, well, it’s true! I got the lowest math SAT score you can get. Who’d want me? Thank God L’Université de Genoviahas to accept me, on account of my family being its founder and major benefactor, and all.
You’re so lucky! A college with beaches! Can I come over for spring break? I promise to bring plenty of Penn hotties…Oops, gotta go, Fleener is breathing down my neck. What is UP with these pinheads? Don’t they realize we only have two weeks left at this place? Like our grades even MATTER anymore!
Sent from my BlackBerry wireless device
Ha, I know! Pinheads! Yeah! Tell me about it!
Thursday, April 27, French
Okay, it’s been four years since I started going to this place. And it still feels like all I ever do is lie.
And I don’t just mean to Lana or my parents, either. Now I’m lying toeveryone.
You would really think, after all this time, I’d be getting better about that.
But I found out the hard way—a little less than two years ago now, actually—what happens when you tell the truth.
And even though I still think I did the right thing—I mean, it did bring democracy to a country that has never known it before, and all—I’m not making that mistake again. I hurt so many people—especially people who I really care about—because I told the truth, I really think it’s better now just…well, to lie.
Not big lies. Just little white lies, which don’t hurt anybody. It’s not like I’m lying for personal gain.
But what am I going to do,admit I got into every college I applied to?
Oh, yeah, that would go over really well. How would all the people whodidn’t get into their first-choice colleges—especially those of them who deserved to…and that would be approximately eighty percent of the current AEHS graduating senior class—feel then?
Besides, you know what they’d say.
Sure,nice people—like Tina—would say that I’m lucky.
Like luck had anything to do with it! Unless you count the “luck” where my mom ran into my dad at that off-campus party where they met, instantly hated each other, which of course led inevitably to sexual tension and then tol’amour , and one broken condom later, to me.
And—despite Principal Gupta’s insistence—I’m not convinced hard work had very much to do with me getting in everywhere, either.