“We’ll use the ED day party tonight to gather intel.” Avery assesses the group. “The question is how to divide and conquer. Some of you need to figure out who got into Harvard. The others suss out who didn’t get in ED and will be throwing themselves into the RD cycle. Get top-choice schools if you can, obviously. Then we can strategize on how to knock back anyone applying to my top schools.” Avery scrunches her nose, unsure. There is no plan for how to sabotage the competition this late in the game. We stopped most of our work months ago. Almost everything is locked in by first semester senior year.
My hand shoots up. “I’ll ask around about Harvard.”
“Me too,” Sierra volunteers, just a shade of panic in her voice. She whacks me on the thigh when the others aren’t watching. We share a look. Why have I done this to her? Volunteering was an impulse, but my logic is sound. Avery can’t find out about me if I’m the one telling her about…me. Or not. I’ll find out who the other one or two people are and throw them under the bus. Easy.
“Good. Then Emma, Margot, and I will compile a list of RD competitors.” Avery worries her lip. “For now, let’s look out in particular for anyone applying to Yale, Penn, Columbia, Wellesley, and Georgetown.”
Margot adds each school to Avery’s list in the Google Doc. Sierra and I keep mum about Avery applying to “our” schools regular decision. All bets are off now that Harvard has rejected her. I’m one to talk, anyway.
Not much else needs to be said. Avery has spoken, and we all know the drill. We’ll do our reconnaissance at the party, feeding any critical updates into the Google Doc via our phones. It won’t be our first intelligence-gathering mission. The CIA should call us. But then, we probably wouldn’t pass the lie-detector test.
We skip dinner in the dining hall, using the time to get ready. The ED day party is a Claflin institution. After a week of ED results, you drink either to celebrate the school you got into—or to obliterate the sting of rejection. There’s also pizza. Sierra sends me a series of texts in the interim. All skull-and-bones and dagger emojis. She’s still pissed that I’ve dragged her into my ruse. Fair. The other person I can’t keep this from? My mother.
“Harvard?” She shrieks on the line, nearly puncturing my eardrums. “Olivia, that is incredible! How much are they giving you?” Right down to brass tacks. That’s my mom.
“They gapped me by about fifteen thousand,” I say. The less-than-silver lining to my dream school acceptance. The Ivies may not get it, but my mom does. She lets out a deep sigh. I concentrate on Emma’s Marie Antoinette movie poster across the room, let it distract me from my mom’s disappointment.
“Sixty thousand is a lot to take in loans. Have you put any more thought into the University of Maryland?”
I want to scream at her, I got into Harvard! Who cares that I didn’t apply to UMD? But I don’t, because I know she’s right. This launches us into an hour-long talk about regular-decision strategy and merit aid. She reminds me for the thousandth time that the University of Maryland is a great school, and did I remember to apply by the priority aid deadline? I tell her yes, even though it’s a lie. Some things I just can’t tell my mom. I want her to be proud of me.
Emma bursts into our room, eyes wild, and when she sees me on the phone, she makes a slashing motion across her neck. I take the hint and wrap things up with my mom. I cross the room to my closet to get out the mint-green A-line dress that will make my eyes pop, when Emma cries out dramatically, “I can’t take it anymore!”
I round on her and find that she’s thrown herself backward onto her bed, like a tragic princess. “What?”
“I got into Harvard!”
I blink slowly. Shake my head as if to clear it. Because I must have misheard.
“I’m sorry, what?”
“Harvard…I got in.” Emma bites her lip. “I know you’re in charge of finding out who took Avery’s spot. It was me. I can’t take the guilt anymore. Had to tell you. You’d figure it out eventually.”
“But you’re Brown,” I say. “You applied to Brown.”
She shrugs, guilt seeming to have evaporated. “Avery decided on Brown, based on something I told her when I was eleven. Like everyone wasn’t a bit in love with Emma Watson, right? And it’s not even the best school for STEM, and you know how into FIRST Robotics I’ve gotten. It’s the linchpin of my application. So I changed my mind, and Joe didn’t seem to think it was a big deal….”
“Joe?”
Emma hops up, heads over to her dresser to touch up her curls. “Mr. Tipton. College counselor? It’s his job to control who applies, so I figured Avery was number one, and I was number two….”
“You know that Rebecca Ito was number two. Which makes you number three.”
And me four. So, if Emma got in, and so did I…does that mean Rebecca did, too? Could I tell Avery that it was Rebecca and Emma who caused her rejection, saving myself? It was reasonable to assume Harvard had accepted only two students this year ED, but not only one. If Rebecca didn’t get in, Avery would find me out—
“Liv? Hello?”
I snap back to attention. “I don’t know what to do,” I say honestly.
“What do you mean? I’m telling you the truth now so you don’t have to spend all night looking for, well, me. And I’ll tell Avery. We’re both big girls. She’ll deal.”
Emma crosses over to her closet and starts to thumb through dress options. She selects an azure-blue wrap dress and pairs it with a bright red sweater. That’s Emma: seems sweet, but then she punches you in the face. I wish I had her confidence.
But confidence can also mean stupidity.
“You can’t tell her.” I find her eye in the mirror, make sure she sees how serious I am. “Lie and say you got deferred from Brown. She doesn’t have to know. Yet. We’ll figure something out.”
“What, you’ll lie about who got in? That’s dumb. She’ll find out eventually. Anyway, friends shouldn’t lie to each other.” She purses her lips, concentrating on tugging on a curl so it spirals gracefully down her shoulder. “Not directly, anyway. Lying by omission is one thing….”
“That’s what I mean. We just…don’t tell her for now.”
But Emma shakes her head. “No, it’s better to rip the bandage off. I’ll tell her at the party, so Avery can get drunk, put on her big-girl pants, deal, and move on. We can cry it out or some shit.”
It amazes me that Emma thinks Avery is going to cry anything out with her. This can only lead to carnage. But the most horrible part of me is glad Emma is willing to come clean, so I don’t have to. My number one goal at the party will be to confirm another Harvard acceptance to assuage Avery. My own version of lying by omission. The safe kind of lying.