The Unseemly Education of Anne Merchant (6 page)

“What’s a
prosperitas thema
?”
I’ve only just said the words when I realize I’ve heard of it already. “Oh, my PT.”

Teddy points at the sheet dangling between my fingertips as he explains, “Every student declares a PT, which is a statement of the inherent quality each mortal possesses that will make one a remarkable success in life.”

Skimming the handout, I read that my PT is supposed to complete the line:

When I grow up, I will be successful in life by using my

“So, it’s essentially a statement of how we’ll each be Most Likely to Succeed,” I summarize, and Teddy nods, though Villicus sighs as if I’ve just summarized the
Mona Lisa
with a single line about her smile.

“Once identified, your PT will be the ruler against which you are measured,” Teddy says.

Villicus piles on. “Candidates will be judged by their Guardians at every turn on whether or not they are satisfying their PTs.” His eyes land on mine. “You must live and breathe your PT, Miss Merchant, if you wish to become valedictorian.”

“If you don’t mind, what does that mean, practically speaking?” I ask. “How will I
live and breathe
it?”

“Suppose,” Teddy offers, “your PT is to…be selfish to succeed in life.”

“That sounds awful.”

“I would grade your actions over the course of the next two years against that PT. I would expect you to skip to the front of every line, fail to share, sabotage the efforts of your peers, especially those who are most desperate, and—”

“Steal money from a beggar’s bowl,” I suggest.

“Precisely!” Villicus and Teddy exclaim.

“I was joking,” I whisper. Neither hears me.

“Keep in mind,” Teddy adds, “that everyone around you is making every effort to live and breathe their own PTs. You won’t know it’s happening. You won’t know what they’re playing at. But that is precisely what they’re doing.”

Evidently, our PTs are assigned to us by our Guardians. Guardians are selected from the faculty, the housemothers, even the secretaries. One Guardian for each junior and senior—freshmen and sophomores don’t participate.

“I will be your shadow,” Teddy says finally. “Naturally we’ll be cohabitating at Miss Malone’s—”

“Wait, what?” I interrupt. “You’re living at Gigi’s, too? With me?”

“Where did you expect me to live?”

“There’s not even any room there!” I already know, though, that he must have claimed the guest bedroom, which is why I’m stuck in the attic.

“Miss Merchant,” Villicus interjects, his tone flat, “you have put up more barriers in these past ten minutes than the average student does in their entire time on this campus.”

“I’m just surprised—”

“
And
I’ve already considered,” Villicus thrusts on, “the possibility that you are not fit for this institution. Perhaps I ought to send you home. Do you realize that this morning alone I turned away a very wealthy man who implored me to let his daughter into the school? He’s flying out here tonight by helicopter just to see if he can persuade me. And here you sit! Snarling. Making demands.”

That shuts me up. Both Villicus and Teddy notice my reaction, and both smile; they share a joyless grimace. I’d love to be in a position to march out of here and stun them both, but with everything my dad gave up and all the strings he pulled to get me into Cania Christy, that would be a slap across his grizzled face. I wring my hands but know there’s no use in fighting this.

“So we’re living together, Teddy?” I choke out at last.

“The better to oversee your activities,” Villicus says.

Teddy piles on. “You’ll be graded at every turn. Morning, noon, night.”

As a junior, I’m supposed to work with my Guardian to document the activities I’ve completed that prove I’m
living and breathing
my PT. Guardians track progress daily, weekly, monthly. And, on graduation day, if I’ve pleased Teddy, he will argue my case before the Valedictorian Committee, which, with just one member, is the smallest committee in the world: Headmaster Villicus. The student whose case is best argued will be named valedictorian. Along the way, we’re supposed to keep our PTs private—no other students are allowed to know another’s PT as that may give them an unfair advantage.

It’s hitting me now, like lightning bolts shattering a gray sky, that Teddy is going to make or break me. He sneers at me like he knows I’ve just figured that out.

“Success does not happen by accident,” Villicus says. “Success is borne of looking inside oneself, recognizing one’s strengths, and making conscious decisions based on those strengths. That’s what your PT is. Because mankind is rarely capable of seeing its own strengths or flaws, your Guardian will assess you and identify your PT for you.”

I glance at Teddy. He just met me. How is he supposed to know my strengths and weaknesses?

Villicus goes on to explain that, although Cania has formalized and named the concept of the
prosperitas thema,
the greatest success stories of our time—even those who never set foot in this school—are each committed to a personal quality that has led to their success. Steve Jobs
was
innovation. Madonna
is
bold ambition. Warren Buffett
is
investment savvy. Oprah Winfrey
is
empowerment.

“Now, I see that you are already quite late for your scheduled meet-and-greet,” Villicus finishes. “This evening, then, at your shared residence, Ted will determine your PT. And you, Miss Merchant, would be wise not to resist him.”

By the time I race across campus through a rain shower that turns the quad into a slip-and-slide and, huffing, take a seat at the last open workstation in Room 1B of the stony Rex Paimonde building, I’ve already refused to let myself think that things can’t get much worse. I’m learning that they sure as hell can, so I don’t dare tempt fate. Instead, I rush to settle in, apologizing as I get my notepad out of my wet backpack, knowing I’ve interrupted their discussion. After all, I’m fifteen minutes late for a half-hour meet-and-greet.

But the teacher, Garnet Descarteres, this lovely blonde woman who’s
maybe
twenty, smiles and tells me to relax, get settled, I haven’t missed anything critical. She’s so pretty, I have a hard time believing she works alongside fuglies like the secretaries, Teddy, and Villicus. She explains that it’s her first year teaching here—she’s new, like
moi
—and that I should feel free to call her by her first name.

I’m about to smile when I glimpse someone I hadn’t expected to see: Harper. And, just like that, things go from bad to worse.

In total, there are twelve of us in the Junior Arts Stream, and, although we’ll have different classes, we’ll all meet daily for a morning workshop with Garnet. I’m relieved to find Pilot here and all the more relieved that Ben isn’t in this group—I’ve already guessed he’s a senior, so I shouldn’t have expected to see him. But a part of me, against my better judgment, did.

There’s also a very smiley girl, who must have declared a PT to be as sweet as cherry pie because she couldn’t appear more friendly and cherubic. The other nine students—including Harper and her Thai friend—engage actively with Garnet but practically snarl when someone else talks. Either everyone’s taking the Big V competition ultra-seriously or they all declared PTs to be gigantic snobs in life.

“We were just introducing ourselves,” Garnet tells me. “You’ll have plenty of time to get to know each other at the dance this weekend, but why wait until the weekend to make friends when you can start now?”

At the mention of making friends, smirks and sneers appear one by one, like fireflies in the night, on the brooding yet beautiful faces of most of the students.

Harper whispers to her Thai friend, “Even if I were open to knowing this bunch of losers, ain’t nothing gonna make me like Trailer Park Tramp.” She gestures my way. I’m meant to see it; I’m meant to hear her. “We don’t do charity in Texas.”

Ignoring Harper, I organize myself and ask, “Are we saying anything in particular in our intros, Garnet?”

“The usual. Where you’re from. What brought you here.”

“We don’t have to share our PTs, do we?” I ask, hoping to hear what the others will be “living and breathing” in the hopes of getting the Big V but knowing I’d have nothing to share yet.

No sooner have I uttered my question than everyone—even Pilot and the smiling girl—gapes at me like I just said Picasso is irrelevant.

“No, Anne,” Garnet explains slowly, tucking a lock of her gorgeous blonde hair behind her ear. “Students are meant to keep their PTs private. Only you and the school’s Guardians will know your PT.”

“Unless you don’t have one,” Pilot tacks on. His eyes meet mine and he flashes me a bright smile. “Some of us choose not to. It’s your right, you know.”

“Excuse moi,
Garnet,” says a brown-haired boy with a tiny whiff of hair above his lip. He has a French accent so thick, it sounds like he’s eating peanut butter while fighting a head cold: every sound he makes is stressed, dragged out endlessly, or shoved to the back of his throat. He glances from Garnet to me. “Do you think we should continue to tell all our specific details?”

“If you don’t mind me adding, I was just thinking the same thing Augusto was,” the smiling girl adds, tossing me an apologetic grin before looking again at Garnet. “I would appreciate some clear guidance, if you wouldn’t mind, considering the, um, present company.”

“Well, Augusto and Lotus,” Garnet says, though she’s clearly talking to all of us, “why don’t you share as much with the group as you
think
you should, okay? Can we all self-edit? That’s an important skill for an artist.”

The introductions pick up where they left off before my interruption, with Augusto. He’s from Quebec. His parents own luxury ski resorts in Montreal, Banff, and Colorado.

“Before I came here, I was very much in love with a boy,” Augusto begins timidly, his cheeks flush. “The son of my own
au pair.
We could not share our love because my father is very traditional. So,” he flicks his sad gaze at me and fidgets with his pen, “I was at one of our family ski resorts with my love. And, holding hands, he and I boarded off the most incredible cliff together, soaring into the crisp and cool air. It was, without question, the most profoundly amazing moment of my life.” His eyes begin to water. “Unfortunately, my
mère
discovered us when we reached the bottom, and that was that. I was sent here after. I was a freshman at the time.”

Pilot has an intriguing twinkle in his eye that makes me think he probably wasn’t listening very intently to Augusto’s tale of forbidden love. “Can I go next?”

“If you’d like, Pilot. Now, tell us, is your father the California senator Dave Stone?” Garnet asks.

“Until the DNA results come back,” Pilot groans. “Yeah, he’s my dad. Real shining star, that guy. Anyway, let’s see, before I came here, I was at a prep school in sunny C-A, and I got caught up in some stuff my dad didn’t want me doing. It wouldn’t be good for his political career, see. So, long story short, I ended up here last November. Shipped away like so much riff-raff.”

Next is Lotus Featherly, the smiling girl and the personification of the word
saccharine.
As she talks about her life before Cania, I begin to look around the table. To really look. And I notice this: all of the students are flawless. I’m not exaggerating. These kids are perfecto-mundo.

Not gorgeous, per se. Not models.

Just unblemished. And pristine.

Lotus is so free of acne, she’d put those ProActiv spokespeople to shame; her skin shines. Augusto’s hair is almost too shiny. Pilot’s teeth are
so
perfectly straight and white. Harper’s figure is
so
Scarlett Johansson–voluptuous. They look like the untouched manifestation of perfect DNA. Flawless…and here I am. Swelling out of my little uniform. And with a crooked tooth and wild hair that’s starting to frizz up thanks to the rain.

“What brought you to Cania Christy?” Garnet asks Lotus, snapping me back into reality.

Like a waterline has erupted, tears spring to the girl’s eyes. Oh, no! There is no faster way to get on the Loser List than to cry publicly in school; that’s what bathroom stalls are for. “There was a situation,” Lotus whimpers, “and my dad was presented with an ultimatum concerning me. But he didn’t take it seriously. And so my parents ended up sending me here.” She drops her gaze and folds her hands. “It’s for the best, but I desperately miss home sometimes.”