My smile only falters for a second, only because for the first time in weeks, I forgot about the Twitter war altogether. The moment feels like a stolen one, until it isn’t. Jack leans back and so do I, and the moment goes on for just long enough that I almost wish I could stay here instead of having to face what’s on the other side of our stop.
Pepper
We make it to Columbia with a truly miraculous two minutes to spare. Jack knows exactly where to go, sprinting up ahead of me so I’m clunking behind him in my too-tight shoes, eventually admitting off my confused look he’d done a round of interviews with Columbia the week before.
“What?” I wheeze. “And you’re only just telling me now?”
“It’s not like I’m going to get in. What’s there to tell?”
“Everything they asked you in the interview!”
Jack gives me a quizzical look. “Well, that’s easy,” he says. “Brag about your grades and just tell them what you want to do. What you’re passionate about. That’s it.”
I open my mouth. Shut it again.
“Books. Wrecking grade curves. Tweeting mean memes,” Jack supplies for me.
“Right.”
Jack tilts his head to the side, his eyes searching my face before creasing into a frown. “These are the Ivy Leagues, Pepperoni. If you don’t know what you want to do, you’d better at least come up with a decent lie.”
“Patricia Evans?”
My ears perk at the sound of my full name, which I only ever hear once in a blue moon. It’s the interview coordinator, who has just stepped back into the lobby and, by the grace of whatever gods are in charge of college admissions, did not just see me sprint in here like a total doofus.
That small mercy was not, apparently, extended to Jack’s mockery.
“Patricia?”
I lean in close to him while the coordinator’s still out of earshot. “Utter that name one more time and you’re dead meat, Campbell.”
The grin is slower and softer than I’ve ever seen it, and this time more than a half. He nods at me, somehow both impetuous and sweet at the same time, and says my name the way I’ve never heard it before: “Patricia.”
My heart stutters under his eyes, cuts me off before I can even think of something to retort.
Then Jack’s eyes go wide and he gestures down the hall, where the coordinator has already taken off. “Go!”
I hustle down the hallway, feeling like there’s a strange aftertaste in my mouth. At least come up with a decent lie. It was the most helpful thing he could have said to me walking into this, because of all the things I’ve prepared and overprepared for to the point of exhaustion in the last four years of trying to keep up with the madness of this school, I have no idea what I’m going to say.
And more to the point, I have no idea what I want to do.
It shouldn’t be a surprise. I’ve had years to think about it. That, and just the other day I was pestering Wolf about what he wanted to do — talk about the pot calling the kettle black.
But that’s just it, I guess. I’ve never had to think about it. I have very diligently kept all of my options open. The AP classes, the killer GPA, the SAT scores in the 99th percentile, the varsity letters from swim team, the debate club, the fundraising … I’ve taken on everything and succeeded at it. There is not one weak spot that can be pointed to in my resume, not a single thing that would make an administrator say, “Yes, but what about her…”
Except maybe this. Except the part where it’s suddenly clear to me why I’ve been struggling so much with my college essays, with articulating who I am in so few words. How can a person even know who they are if they don’t know what they want?
“She just needs a few minutes to grab some water and freshen up,” the coordinator tells me. We’ve reached the end of the hall and are standing outside of an office door. “She’ll let you know when she’s ready.”
The door opens, then, and out comes Landon. He looks every bit as unfazed as he always does, as if he’s walking out of practice instead of out of the office of someone whose thumb is basically on the pulse of our entire futures. He smiles when he sees me, like it’s a reflex, and the smile immediately falters.
“Pepper. Oh, man. I meant to — I meant to apologize.”
I’m just rattled enough that I can’t keep the skepticism off of my face until it’s already there, furrowing in my brow. Landon doesn’t miss it.
“It’s just — uh.” He glances at the office door, which is still shut behind him. “My dad’s so — he’s always trying to drag me on these business things with him. He’s so pissed I’m going into app development.”
To be fair, I didn’t make it easy for him to apologize. Even though we’ve crossed paths at practice, I’ve spent the last week avoiding him, trying to convince myself he isn’t Wolf. I couldn’t let myself believe a person I’d shared so much of myself with would ditch me in real life. It would only confirm the worst fear — that the person who likes me as Bluebird wouldn’t like me half as much as the person I actually am.
But I haven’t stopped wondering, even if I stopped trying to connect the dots.
“And — and you want to go to Columbia for that?” I ask, because it’s subtler than, Are you the reason I’ve been having stellar mac and cheeses at every place within a five-block radius of my apartment the past few weeks?
Landon relaxes, assuming he’s been forgiven. “No. I’m just interviewing because he’s an alum.” He doesn’t even bother to keep his voice down — I wonder what it’s like, being that sure of yourself. Knowing what you want so definitively you don’t even care about keeping doors open. “Truth is, a few buddies and I are gonna launch a startup as soon as we’re out of here.”
I feel faint. “Sounds … risky.”
“Yeah, well. The internship’s been a real help. I think we’ve got a shot.” Landon rolls his eyes. “Either way, it’s better than all the money-pushing my dad does, that’s for sure.”
Wolf develops apps. Wolf talks about his parents trying to pressure him into the family business. Wolf never chats me during swim practice.
“Anyway — let me make it up to you. I’ll buy you dinner on Senior Skip Day.”
“Oh, uh — you don’t have to…”
Is this a date? Should I tell him I know who he is before I agree?
Do I know who he is?
“A bunch of people on the swim team are hanging,” says Landon. “You in?”
I’m expecting the air that blows out of me to be disappointment, but instead, it feels a little too close to relief.
“Yeah. Yeah, sounds fun. I’m in.”
Landon smiles, and the door opens, and I snap myself back into Studious, Goal-Oriented Pepper so fast, it’s like the encounter never even happened. I walk into the room so composed, the interviewer immediately smiles at me in that satisfactory way adults always smile when I put on my game face. I shake her hand, I make small talk, and I lie to her face — tell her I’m interested in studying world affairs, and basically parrot everything Paige has been telling me about her studies at UPenn. By the end of the interview, I can tell I have won her over the same way I’ve won over every teacher, every administrator, every object of my people-pleasing for the last four years.
I walk out, expecting to be buoyed by the same satisfaction I usually feel, but I’m completely spent. That, and a little terrified — it occurs to me as I walk down the long hallway back to the lobby that I have no idea how to get back home. The same bus that brought me here isn’t going to take me back.