“I am not racist.” Andrea looked stricken. “I just wouldn’t make a stereotype of my family for a laugh.”
“Omigod, I’m messing with you. And anyway, they’re my family, so joking about them is my prerogative, isn’t it?” Ranjoo said.
Andrea raised her eyebrows.
“What’s that face?” Ranjoo shot back.
Andrea’s smile remained impassive as a doll’s. “Both my mother and my father went here, it’s where they met. In fact, this was my mother’s room freshman year.”
“Seriously? That’s wild, what are the odds?” Cady interjected in an attempt to defuse the situation.
“I heard they sometimes do that for legacies,” Ranjoo said. “Makes you feel like your family is part of Harvard’s ‘living history.’ One of their many tricks to secure alumni giving.”
“Regardless.” Andrea frowned. “I’m proud that I can live up to my family’s expectations, even if they set the bar high. And I wouldn’t denigrate my own parents to two strangers, but that’s just me.”
Cady stepped in. “She was just joking.”
Andrea took a deep breath. “You’re right. I really don’t know your situation. I’m sorry if I offended you.”
“Whatever, it’s fine.” Ranjoo bit into the words.
“Friends?”
“Yeah, friends,” she answered, smiling tightly.
“Now if you’ll excuse me. I have to use the ladies’ room.” Andrea walked out into the hall.
As soon as the door clicked shut, Ranjoo whirled to face Cady. “Ugh, can you believe her?”
“That was weird,” Cady agreed, eager to prove her loyalty. But in the back of her mind, she’d heard what Ranjoo had said about tricks for legacies. Although her parents weren’t alumni, she guessed that a sibling at Harvard could count almost as much. She wondered about a dead one.
“I mean, we just met, and she’s already judging the shit out of me. Like, we have to live together, can you show a little manners?”
“I know.” Cady had assumed the housing was random, but if the college intentionally placed Andrea in Weld, was Cady intentionally kept away from Grays, Eric’s freshman dorm?
“And the truth is, I know I joke about my parents, but they’re my parents. I get it, they get it, I don’t need to explain it to some girl I just met.”
And she hadn’t gotten into Princeton or Yale. The fact was, Cady had applied to Harvard when her brother was a junior there, but she had gotten in three weeks after he jumped out the window of his dorm room. Was her acceptance don’t-sue-us insurance? Was she a pity admission?
“You can’t judge the dynamic in someone else’s family, you know?”
Cady refocused on Ranjoo. “I really like your parents. And I can tell how much you guys love each other.”
“Thanks. They’re pretty awesome. I’m sorry I missed your mom and dad.”
“Yeah, actually, you missed my dad and my aunt, but, whatever.” Cady shrugged it off, but something on her face must have betrayed her hurt, because Ranjoo’s brows lifted in sympathy and embarrassment.
“Oh, I’m so sorry. Is your mom…?”
“Dead? No, no.” My brother is. “My mom just wasn’t up for the trip.” It worked as a vague, passable excuse, as long as you didn’t know that the relative who was “up for the trip” was wheelchair-bound.
Ranjoo’s father returned from taking the broken-down boxes to the basement to report that the trash area was “quite tidy” and added, “Ah, and before I forget, Cady, please tell me, where did you buy your sweatshirt?”
She froze—she had forgotten she was still wearing it.
“Oh, no, Cady, don’t tell him!” Ranjoo called out from their bedroom. “He’s gonna buy them for the whole family. The campus store won’t have any left.”
Cady yanked the sweatshirt over her head, muffling her weak claim about its being too hot for it.
“My only child gets into Harvard, and you think I want to keep it a secret?” he yelled back.
Ranjoo came out of the room, still needling her father. “You know, I bet Harvard makes them in India, tell the fam to go factory-direct and save on shipping.”
Cady darted behind her into the bedroom and tossed the wadded-up sweatshirt onto her bed, then popped back into the common room.
“Such a wise guy,” Dr. Vasan said. “Tell me, Cady, how can a good daughter give her father so much grief?”
Cady huffed out her anxiety in a laugh. “You should ask my dad about that.”
4
IT WAS EVENING when Cady again found herself alone. Ranjoo and Andrea had each gone out to dinner with their parents. Cady had gotten a salad from a chain restaurant in the Square and eaten it hunched over on the futon in the common room, studying the pages of Eric’s notebook.
She heard noises outside and crossed the room to peer out the window. Cady watched as boisterous groups of other freshmen barreled around the darkened Yard, their laughter amplified within the quad of aged brick, oak, and ivy. A wave of loneliness washed over her. She had thought that since she and her classmates were all strangers together, a merry spirit of collective neediness would suck her into a burgeoning friend group like a social undertow. She had hoped that she would at least get to hang with her roommates, or that somehow it would be easier than this. Looking out the window, it seemed that for many, it was. She had wanted to feel swept up, but Cady had gone through the day feeling isolated. Secrets had that effect.
The ability to keep a secret was an Archer family trait. Cady remembered the day she heard back from the first batch of colleges. Harvard’s acceptance letter hadn’t been among the envelopes she pulled from the mailbox after school. That was because her mother had already checked the mail for it, taken it, and hidden it. What her mother hadn’t known was that Cady had signed up to be notified by email. The first line of that email—Congratulations! It is our pleasure to inform you that you have been accepted to the Harvard College Class of 2023—had been bubbling inside Cady’s chest since lunchtime. It was only later that afternoon, after she told her mom she was accepted, that her mother produced the paper version. Her mother said she’d thought it would upset Cady to see it, which was plausible, as Cady had been keeping the secret from her mother of why she actually wanted to go.
But this wasn’t what she had thought her first night here would be like. When she first applied to Harvard, she had imagined she and Eric would be moving in at the same time. She mourned that alternate reality, the way it could have been if he were still here. He would already know how everything worked, where you pick up your keys, where you park, whether you got a good dorm. He would introduce her to his friends, and she would be automatically cooler for having upperclassmen who knew her name. He would carry the heavy stuff with his string bean arms that were weirdly strong. He would give her a gross, sweaty hug on purpose.