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"IF YOU GET a fat letter, it et it"
Becky Margeson ; they’d all heard it before It was part of the college-ad It was one of the myths that had been disproved two years before when the president of the student council had been accepted by an Ivy League college and didn’t know it for a week--didn’t know it until his mother emptied the trash and found the (thin) cruer
Natalie Ar to the two friends ere sprawled in her bedroo about so that she hadn’t told even her closest friends
"Even if I get a letter six inches thick," groaned Gretchen Zimmerman, "it has to say ’scholarship’ at the end of it, or I can’t go" She nudged her sneakers off with alternate toes and exah Natalie’s s "I wish it were suet a tan My feet look like haddock filets"
"I hate this waiting" Becky sighed "Wait for the middle of April, to see if you’ve been accepted Wait for suo to college Then what? I suppose you get there and end up waiting for the next thing"
"To get rinned She folded her bare feet under her and scrutinized her hands, spreading the fingers to i on one
"Ha," snorted Natalie, with disdain
"Ha,""You’ll probably e, Nat You’re so lucky"
"Lucky?" Natalie looked at her in surprise
"You are, Nat," said Becky seriously "Look at you You’re so gorgeous Honestly, if I didn’t like you so much I’d hate you Has your face ever broken out, I hed "I had a cold sore once My dad said it was caused by a virus"
"A cold sore Big deal I’ about zits I’ve never known anyone who doesn’t have zits except you" Becky leaned toward the lanced at her own face, stuck out her tongue, and sighed
"And you have Paul," mused Gretchen "And you’ve already been accepted at MacKenzie And your parents can afford the tuition God, you are lucky, Nat Did your application form have one of those stupid questions on it: ’What do you consider theabout yourself?’ What did you put, Nat: ’Theabout me is that I’m incredibly lucky’?"
Natalie crumpled up a piece of notebook paper and threw it halfheartedly at Becky "No," she said "I put, ’Theabout hed
It was the kind of day when it was easy to laugh at things The snow had melted at last, and the early April sun was the sort that pro The hardest parts of senior-year classes were over; they were all lish teacher had assigned Hawthorne and Thoreau in the fall, and now they were reading Salinger and Vonne-gut Four years of French conjugations had been laid, prettythe about cuisine Some days they borrowed the Hoazine Elle in class, and talked about fashion; the boys groaned and estures in the aisles between the desks, when they weren’t flipping the pages and looking for see-through blouses
Becky and Gretchen would both get into college, and Gretchen, who had the highest College Board scores in the history of the high school, would win the scholarships that would o
Paul had been accepted, already, at Yale That was a long distance from MacKenzie, but it didn’t see vacations; they would write; they would stay close; and they both looked forward to new things
The springti was just part of the senior ritual, part of the boredo to talk about while they waited for time to pass
There was a knock on Natalie’s bedroom door Nancy, her sister, stuck her head inside Nancy was a year younger: sixteen, chubby, blond, and freckled The yearbook would, next year, describe Nancy as "cute as a button" It had already described Natalie with the quotation "She walks in beauty" They were not at all alike But they were friends
"Mom wants you to set the table, Nat"
"Nancy, do rinned and closed the door
"Well, listen," said Gretchen, standing up "I have to go anyway"
"Me too," said Becky "Gotta go check the mail at home"
"Tell Mom I’ll be down in a minute," Natalie said, and listened to the muted thuds of her friends’ feet on the carpeted stairs, to Nancy’s called "See ya!" and to the front door’s open and close
She sat where she was, and noticed that she could see herself in the wall ly blue eyes Her skin was very light now, but she would tan easily and early in the suht; she had never needed the braces that Nancy had worn, now, for three years