Parallel

.”
    “I told you we’re not close,” Michael says evenly. “You had a boyfriend when we met?”
    Crap.
    For a second, I consider telling him the truth. The collision, the entanglement, all of it. The words start to form in my mouth. “It’s the craziest thing,” I start to say. But Michael cuts me off.
    “Look, I don’t want my brother to come between us,” he says. “He’s not worth it.” Michael steps down off the porch so we’re eye level. “Whatever happened between you guys is over, right? One hundred percent?”
    “One hundred percent,” I say firmly.
    “Good,” he says, and touches my cheek. “Now let’s eat.”
    The meal goes surprisingly well considering the massive elephant in the dining room. Two seconds after we sat down, Michael launched into the Josh story, sparing no detail (not even the front porch kiss). My parents smiled politely, but I could tell they were horrified by the notion that their daughter might have broken up with her boyfriend for his older, cuter (and thus, in their mind, less trustworthy) brother.
    “I didn’t know they were brothers,” I offer by way of explanation.
    “How is that possible?” my mom asks. “Didn’t you know Josh had a brother named Michael at Yale?” The problem, of course, is that I don’t know if I knew that. Fortunately, no one else at this table does, either.
    “There are a lot of Michaels at Yale,” I reply defensively. “And Michael didn’t tell me he had a brother, so I didn’t make the connection,” I add, glaring at Michael. He brought this up. He can deal with it.
    “Josh and I don’t exactly get along,” Michael tells her calmly, spooning sweet potato soufflé onto his plate. “Before this morning, we hadn’t spoken since last Thanksgiving. Wow, these yams look amazing, Mrs. Barnes.”
    “Thank you,” she says, then turns back to me. “The name Michael Wagner didn’t ring a bell?” she says pointedly.
    “His last name isn’t Wagner,” I snap. “It’s Carpenter.”
    “Oh, so you’re step brothers,” Mom says, as though this makes everything better.
    “No, we have the same parents,” Michael tells her. “My stepfather adopted Josh when he married my mom two years ago. I respectfully declined the offer.” Somehow I doubt there was anything respectful about it. Michael can’t even say the word “stepfather” without contempt. How can two guys have such different opinions of the same man? Even from my limited memories, I know that Josh adores Martin. Michael, for some undisclosed reason, hates him.
    “How’d your mom and Martin meet?” I ask in an effort to both change the subject and gather some clues about the source of Michael’s ill will toward the man his mother married.
    “He and my dad were best friends,” Michael replies.
    “Yikes,” my dad says under his breath. I shoot him a look.
    Mom holds up the platter in her hand and smiles. “Balsamic-glazed parsnips, anyone?”

11
    THERE
Wednesday, November 26, 2008
(the day before Thanksgiving)
    You have already told us about yourself in the Common Application, the Short Answer, and the Personal Essay. Please tell us something about yourself that you believe we cannot learn elsewhere in your application.
    I stare at my blinking cursor. I should be thrilled that the prompt is so vague. But what if everything about you is already covered “elsewhere in your application”? What if there’s nothing left to say?
    “See, this is why I’m not Yale material,” I mutter. Why am I even doing this? Why am I filling out the application if I’m not going to apply?
    I start typing. The Lure of the Ivy, by Abigail Barnes.
    “There are those who have never wanted to go anywhere else,” I type, reading my words aloud as I go. “The moment they learned what college was, they set their sights on the Ivy League. Awed by its exclusivity, inspired by its excellence, enticed by its promise of a bigger and brighter future. I have never been one of those people. That is, until the Yale application packet arrived in my mailbox. It was that moment that I felt it: the Lure of the Ivy.”
    I charge through another four hundred words, then reread what I’ve written. Definitely not what the Yale admissions committee is looking for, but that’s fine, since I’m not actually applying. If I wasn’t certain before, I am now. My own words convinced me. I’ll admit, when I saw that my SAT score was within the median, there was a moment—a millisecond—when I