Early Decision by Lacy Crawford Read Free Book Online Page A

beginning of a thought about women alone in their rooms in the bright mornings, fretting over men and boys, but the receiver came alive again. “Okay,” said Mrs. Pfaff, squaring herself to the task. “You there?”
    â€œI’m here.”
    â€œHere we go. Red-light schools: Amherst Princeton Penn Cornell. Yellow light: Middlebury Tufts Bates Hamilton Davidson. But Middlebury’s orange, if you can believe it. Whatever that means. Green light: Denison Champaign-Urbana St. Lawrence Elon. I mean, Elon ? What is Elon ?”
    â€œUp-and-coming, small, North Carolina.”
    â€œWell, yeah. No. I mean, Gerry went to Cornell, and don’t tell him I told you this, but it always smarted because he wanted to go to Yale. And now this. I don’t think she’s factoring in Hunter’s tennis. And what about peer counselor? There are only twelve of them, you know, six boys and six girls. It’s a big, big honor! So I just, I don’t know what to think!”
    What Anne thought is that Hunter’s school college counselor was spot-on, but her loyalty mustn’t seem shaky. “What’s the counselor’s name?” she asked.
    â€œTiffany Schmitz.”
    Anne knew just the one. She was a pro. “All right, don’t panic,” Anne said. “Tiffany’s job is to manage expectations. She needs parents to feel that their children succeeded, not failed, right? So she’s going to go out of her way to be careful with her recommendations. She’s not making the decisions here, remember.”
    Though, of course, to some extent, she was; Tiffany Schmitz had just signaled to the Pfaffs that she would not be pounding the table for Hunter at Amherst, Princeton, Penn, or Cornell. It would cost her too much with the admissions officers, and there would be other, much stronger candidates in Hunter’s class.
    â€œYeah, I guess that makes sense,” sniffed Mrs. Pfaff. “But, Anne, what can we do?”
    â€œWell, we’re going to be smart and thoughtful and realistic. Tell me, first, where does Hunter most want to go?”
    â€œOh. Well, we’re just positive Amherst is the best fit for him. I mean, a small school, lots of faculty attention. Hunter really thrives with mentors. He’s got a cousin there, she’s going to be a junior, and she just loves it. She tells us all the time that he would be perfect there.”
    â€œHas he seen it?”
    â€œNo, we couldn’t quite make it there last summer. It’s so remote! But he really liked Middlebury when we saw that; we had a wedding in Woodstock, so, anyway, it’s similar—in the mountains, you know, the rural thing, trees. He keeps talking about Montana but that’s just a nonstarter.”
    â€œAnd the rest of the list? Has he seen any of those?”
    â€œLet’s see, Cornell, yes, with his dad, and Princeton, and Yale, but that’s off the list. I’m forgetting the others, but yes, I think he has. No to U of I and this Edon.”
    â€œElon.”
    â€œUh-huh. Oh, and he liked Davidson well enough. Gerry took him to look. Said it was kind of southern, but the tennis might be a good fit.”
    It was almost always the case, Anne reflected, that the kids knew where they belonged. If left to their own devices, they rarely set their hearts on impossible schools. “Okay,” she replied. “I think it would be good to think about which schools Hunter’s seen and really liked—we should put those at the top of our list. We’ll just rewrite it according to his interests, and worry about the red-light–green-light stuff later. It’s good of Tiffany to be so tough; it’ll help us think clearly about all of this. Has Hunter been in touch with the tennis coaches?”
    â€œYes. I called all of them except for—what was it?—Tufts. Didn’t try there. But I mostly left messages.”
    â€œHas Hunter been in touch with