You'll Miss Me When I'm Gone

Dear Tovah,

We have completed our initial review of your application and have decided to hold it for further consideration in March. Please do not be discouraged by this. We had a record number of applicants this year, and the majority of students who applied early decision were deferred. . . .

I read it again.

Deferred. The word is foreign. Not part of my vocabulary. I hold it in the center of my tongue. Taste it. Deferred. Right now all it means is “not accepted.”

Over and over I read the e-mail, as though I’m expecting it to tell me something different on my twenty-ninth time through it. The words blur and my thumb smudges the phone screen because of all the scrolling I’m doing and something deep in my chest winds itself into a tight, tight ball.

My phone blinks with a new message, and I half believe it’s another e-mail from Johns Hopkins telling me they made a mistake, that they’re proud to welcome me into next year’s freshman class and they’re so sorry for the confusion. But it’s spam. Sexy singles in my area want to meet me.

I’ve molded myself into exactly the kind of person Johns Hopkins should want, and I don’t understand what it means that they haven’t given me a yes or no yet. I’ve always planned ahead—but the problem now is that I suddenly can’t think past today. My mind spins with too many questions I can’t answer. What happens next and what do I do and there is still a sliver of a chance, but what if I wait and wait and wait and they reject me in the spring anyway and early decision was binding and I haven’t applied anywhere else but now I need to and, and, and . . .

Two child-size skates appear in my line of vision, and I follow them up to my sister’s face.

“What’s going on?” she asks, pointing to my phone. “Is it something with Ima?”

“No.” I shove the phone back into my pocket.

“Then what is it?”

Maybe if I rip it off fast, it won’t hurt. “I got deferred from Johns Hopkins.” I grit my teeth. It sounds even worse out loud.

“Oh.” Adina furrows her brows. “What does that mean, exactly?”

“It means I didn’t get in early decision. My application’s been moved to the pool with everyone else who applied regular decision.” I wince, steeling myself for another verbal attack.

Instead my sister’s expression softens. “I’m sorry,” she says, and the genuineness in her voice surprises me. Then again, she knows how much this school means to me. She understands passion. Ambition. “Do you want to go home and wallow about it?”

Maybe she’s being kind because of what she did to sabotage me sophomore year. Maybe she realizes this could be her fault.

I push those thoughts away. We’re getting along: that’s more important right now.

“A little, yeah. Is that okay?”

“God, yes. We can get ice cream on the way home and find a shitty movie to watch. I think Mystic Harbor is on Netflix.”

The tension in my chest eases slightly. My sister is back, for now.

We stop at the organic market near our house and spend way too much on three flavors of ice cream, hot fudge, and a jar of maraschino cherries. When we get home, I kiss my fingers and touch the mezuzah, but Adina doesn’t. I wonder if she forgot.

We rearrange the pillows on my bed and position my laptop on the edge of my desk. My bed isn’t big, but our bodies don’t touch, like there’s an invisible line down the middle neither of us is ready to cross yet.

“The rink was pretty bad,” I admit between bites of mint chocolate chip, “down to the Christmas decorations.”

“Thank you.” She aims her spoon at my laptop screen. “I forgot how much I love this movie. What is it about bad movies that makes them so much better than good movies?”

“It’s more fun to talk about how shitty something is than about how good it is,” I say, making a mental note to introduce her to The Room later.

Halfway into the movie, my attention wanders, flicking between the screen and my phone. On Facebook, Emma Martinez from student council and Henry Zukowski from AP Bio and Raleigh Jones from AP Calculus are celebrating early acceptances to Brown, Swarthmore, Wesleyan. Jealousy turns me manic. I open my essay, wondering if there’s any way I submitted the wrong version, or if my recommendation letters weren’t as glowing as they could have been, or if something was missing from my résumé. . . .

“Are you on your phone?” Adi asks.

I scan my essay. “Maybe I had some typos on my application essay? Or I somehow sent the wrong file? Maybe there was a mistake.”

I need a reason. A why. I need this to make as much sense as aerobic respiration or photosynthesis. Was I deferred because of that B-plus in Introduction to Drawing, the only flaw on my record? Because I took six AP classes this year, not seven, though my non-AP is student council, and don’t schools want to see leadership experience? Because my application didn’t stand out enough?

Because of what Adina did?