Perfect Fifths_ A Jessica Darling Novel - Megan McCafferty [60]
“That’s a relief.”
“It should have been.”
“What do you mean?”
“A big part of me agreed with the Addisons. I was a fraud. I had willfully deluded myself into thinking I was anything other than a deviant low-life dreg. They were right! I didn’t belong in the Ivy League! I didn’t deserve to walk among their privileged ranks! And why would I even want to?”
“Marcus, you’re being way too hard on yourself.”
“I second-guessed my reasons for applying in the first place. What was I hoping to gain from a diploma from Princeton that I couldn’t get anywhere else? Sure, a Princeton diploma is a passport to opportunities, but I was motivated by far more than job prospects.”
“Validation, maybe? That you had transcended your trashy roots? I felt that way after I got in to Columbia. After all, our town had semifamously become the representation of dumb, debauched suburban youth.”
“Maybe. But more of a redemption, I think. Applying to Princeton made me both a con artist and the conned.”
“How so?”
“I knew the Office of Admissions would come all over itself at the sight of my application. See? The American meritocracy is not a myth. I could serve as living proof that anyone who works hard enough can rise above his station into the upper tiers of society. Which, of course, is total horseshit. Because the moment I found myself among the elite, the elite—as personified by the Addisons—wanted no part of me. I kept asking myself: Does being here make me a better person, or even a different person, than who I was before? I felt like a fool, a millennial Fitzgerald simultaneously trying to fit in to and fight against the hypocritical foundations of the American class system.”
“Uh, wow. To quote you from earlier: You’ve obviously put a lot of thought into this.”
“And to quote you right back, Jessica: more than you know.”
“You said yourself that a lot of that dregginess was an exaggeration.”
“A lot but not all. Despite my best efforts to be the biggest fuckup I could be.”
“I don’t believe that you went out of your way to make bad choices when you were a kid.”
“I beg to differ, Jessica. I was held back in kindergarten. Do you know why?”
“You sexually propositioned the lunch lady?”
“That was fifth grade.”
“Late bloomer.”
“No, I was held back for being an underachiever. I was this close to being a kindergarten dropout.”
“Just like the book.”
“There’s a book?”
“Yeah, there’s a book. Kindergarten Dropout: Underachiever at Six, Unwanted at Eighteen, Unemployed at Thirty, Dead at Sixty. Or some crap like that. It’s a huge best seller. I’ve seen the MILFs poring over it at Bethany’s place.”
“You’re kidding.”
“I’m not. I wish I were. I think the child psychologist–slash-author–slash–evil genius appeared on Dr. Frank Show a few years ago. You obviously predate the book and the hysteria that followed it.”
“Gee, I’m so proud to be a part of the slacker vanguard. Let’s just say I scored extremely well on a pre-K IQ test, and my parents thought I wasn’t living up to my expectations in kindergarten. So they held me back to teach me a lesson, I guess. I needed a strong dose of discipline to rise to the standards of my IQ test. The only lesson I learned was that I was bad.”
“You weren’t bad. You were probably just bored.”
“You’re right. But I grew up feeling like I was always already in trouble for one reason or another. After a while I decided to live up to that rebellious reputation, since I was getting punished for it anyway. And guess what? It turned out that I was very, very good at being bad. Too good. And now, years later, that disreputable label still clings to me, Jessica.”
‘We are what we pretend to be. So we must be careful what we pretend to be.’
“Exactly. That’s exactly right. Who said that?”
“I can’t remember who said it first, but I heard it from Mac—you know, Samuel MacDougall—years ago, and I never forgot it. He has a habit of offering inspiring quotations for every occasion. I wish I could remember who originated the pretend-to-be quote. I like to give