Rules for Being a Girl - Candace Bushnell Page 0,32

wasn’t that.

I’m opening my mouth to apologize, but he holds up a hand to stop me.

“See?” is all he says, and his voice is so, so even. “I knew you’d have an opinion.” He nods at the door as the bell rings for the end of the period. “Class dismissed.”

My interview at Brown is first thing Saturday morning. I wake up as dawn is dragging itself blue and gray over the horizon, then spend close to an hour obsessing over my outfit: if I wear a dress, does that make me seem unserious? If I don’t wear a dress, am I saying something else? I finally decide on a pair of skinny black pants and a lacy blue button-down, plus an off-white cardigan that belongs to my mom. I add a lucky bracelet that used to be my gram’s, then steal my wedge booties back out of Gracie’s room and head downstairs, where my parents are drinking coffee at the kitchen table.

“You look fierce,” my mom says with an approving nod.

“‘Though she be but little,’” my dad says, raising his mug in a salute. “That’s Shakespeare, in case you want to work it into your interview. You know, show ’em how smart you are, tell ’em you got it from your old dad.”

“She’s not so little anymore,” my mom reminds him, rolling her eyes affectionately before turning to me. “You ready to go?”

I hesitate for a moment, all the uncertainty that has been building up the last couple of weeks cresting inside me like a wave. “I mean,” I say, and I’m only half kidding, “I don’t actually need the Ivy League, right?”

“Get out of here,” my dad says, pulling me close with his free hand and dropping a kiss on top of my head. “No time for cold feet.”

My mom pours the rest of her coffee into a travel mug before ushering me out into the garage and turning on both seat warmers. Theoretically I could drive myself—Providence is only about forty-five minutes away—but I’m happy for the company. I lean my head back against the seat and watch the barren trees out the window, listening to the hum of the college station out of Boston she likes to listen to.

Eventually we pull off the highway and into downtown Providence, past the big mall and the river and the cute shops and restaurants nestled along Thayer Street.

“I’m going to go find a Starbucks to read in,” my mom says once she finds a place to pull over near campus, leaning across the gearshift and wrapping me in a lavender-scented hug. “Text me when you’re done.”

She leans back and looks at me for a moment—tucking a piece of my hair back behind my ear, then smiling. “You nervous?” she asks.

“Nah,” I lie.

“Mm-hmm. Just be yourself,” she says—unfooled, clearly, and reaching over to hug me one more time. “If they’re smart, they’ll love you for it.”

I can’t help but smile as I shut the passenger door behind me: after all, it’s exactly what I told Grace the other night, isn’t it? Just be yourself. Never mind the fact that lately I’m not 100 percent sure who that is.

I’ve got a little time to kill before I meet my interviewer, so I take a lap around the bustling campus—I do find Beckett Auditorium, and my stomach turns a bit—before taking a seat on the student center steps to wait. I spy a girl in a head scarf with a guitar case strapped to her back and a dopey-looking white guy with an absurd hipster handlebar mustache and two pretty brunettes sharing a green-tea doughnut, their gloved hands intertwined. The best part is the way none of them are gazing back at me with any particular interest, like in this place I could be whoever I want.

My interviewer is a Brown alum named Kalina who graduated a few years ago but stayed on campus to work in the admissions office; she’s tall and willowy-looking, her dark hair in long dreads down her back. We sit in the café on campus while she asks me about my classes and my extracurriculars, what projects I’d worked on that meant the most to me.

“I read the piece you sent,” she says, taking a sip of her latte. She’s wearing a bright orange silk blouse and a slouchy pair of wool pants, and I immediately want to be exactly like her when I grow up.

“‘Rules for Being a Girl.’ I have to tell you, I was really