Fourth Comings_ A Jessica Darling Novel - Megan McCafferty [59]
For as excited as she sounds now, I’m afraid that this early success, when coupled with a desperate and scary need for achievement among her peers—the most privileged kids in this world—will only set her up for future unhappiness. I’m worried that no matter how brilliant and accomplished Marin proves herself to be over the next fourteen years of school, she will feel like a worthless loser if she’s not in the .5 percent of applicants who get accepted for the Harvard Class of 2024.
“Okay! I’ll pick! I’ll do it by fives because I’m going to be five on my next birthday. Five, ten, fifteen…”
The OTB nursery school is the portal to all things OTB. Actually, it starts even earlier with the OTB Mommy & Me. Then moves on to the OTB Pre-K. OTB K. OTB Primary School. OTB Secondary School. OTB High School. All this OTBing is just to get into the OTB University, a distinction that is forever bestowed onto Harvard. Seriously. There was a recent study conducted by a consortium of educational institutions that asked five thousand college applicants to name the one college that was perceived as the best in the country, and the Crimson Tide tsunami-slammed the competition. I can’t remember the numbers exactly, but it wasn’t even close. So all the rest who are less than Only the Best can just look on, and up, with envy. And how do we know this? From the romans à clef written by former nannies, private-school packagers, and college coaches. From celebratory essays in the New York Times Styles section, or critical exposés in Time magazine. From status car commercials, talk-show segments, and subplots on family dramas.
“Thirty-five, forty…”
Surely the woes of the super-rich have been manipulated into a “phenomenon” by relentless media coverage. I honestly didn’t think that these people really existed in the real world. The real world is filled with families who have two mortgages, never consider private school, and can’t afford to pay a pimply thirteen-year-old babysitter five dollars an hour, let alone hire a live-in nanny. (The real world is where Bethany and I grew up, even after my mom returned to work when I was about twelve, and my dad made his way up the pay ladder by putting in about twenty-five years as a teacher, then as an administrator, with the Eastland School System.) At best, these hyperpriveliged families represented just a teeny, tiny fraction, and those top one-percenters surely didn’t come in contact with the lower ninety-nine….
Until I met them at Columbia. Marcus, you’ll meet them at Princeton, too, the ones who are merely putting on a brave face for the next four years and beyond. They’ll trash-talk at the annual Harvard-Princeton grudge match. They’ll attend the Princeton reunions, don the orange-and-black beer jacket worn by the rest of the members of your graduating class, and strut down Nassau Street in the obnoxious celebration of Tiger pride known as the P-rade. But deep down, they know that there is something missing, the certainty of being OTB.
It would be funny if it weren’t so sad and totally true.
And it doesn’t even matter that Princeton technically ranked ahead of Harvard this year. Education experts have to mix up their annual “Best College” rankings because hysterical parents wouldn’t bother buying their guides if they knew Harvard was going to be number one again. This is why these “Best College” publications are divided into so many inane categories: Best Colleges Named After Important Historical Figures. Best Colleges Seen on TV. Best Colleges That Accept Anyone—and We Mean Anyone. Duh. Even the poorest, podunkiest school gets to be the best in its own unique way. Everyone is a winner! Hooray! It’s not all that different from those end-of-the-year ceremonies in nursery school, when even the dumbest, sloppiest, meanest, clumsiest, ugliest kid in the class walks away with a certificate celebrating his Satisfactory Effort.
Of course, Marin is attending a nursery school where