Confectionately Yours #4: Something New by Lisa Papademetriou

head out into the light drizzle.
    “So, how did it go?” Dad asks once the door to the admissions building has closed behind us.
    “I don’t really know. Well, I think.” I’m pretty sure Ms. Stoneham liked me. She smiled at my report card and laughed twice during the interview. But I’d never had an interview before, so I wasn’t really sure what they were supposed to be like. Maybe laughing is bad.
    The campus is made up of several classical brick buildings, and you would think that it might look dreary on agray day. But the light rain is actually making the lawns look brilliant green. “It’s so beautiful here,” I say.
    “Isn’t it?” Annie agrees. “Wow. Can you imagine going to school here? My school back in Thailand was a single building! And not even a very big one.”
    “Hayley’s current school looks more like an old mental institution,” Dad says.
    “Dad!”
    “Sorry. But it’s that old giant prison style….”
    I shake my head. What he’s saying is true. But still. I like my school, even if it’s kind of ugly. I mean, it can’t help being ugly.
    A knot of girls in pastel denim skirts and pretty sweaters heads toward us. Two of them have brightly patterned umbrellas, and the third has a black one with a lining that looks like a blue sky dotted with white clouds. Those umbrellas reek of expense, and I can’t help glancing up at my somewhat lopsided red one, which is coming off the spoke in one place.
    One of the girls — the one with long, glossy black hair — smiles at me as they all three keep walking down the path toward the arts building. Yes, they have a wholebuilding for the arts. That’s just the visual arts, by the way: painting, sculpture, photography, and so on. Dance and theater have a separate building. So does music.
    “That girl is carrying a Marc Jacobs bag.” Annie sounds shocked.
    “Is that —” My dad shakes his head. “What is that? Is that good?”
    “It’s expensive ,” Annie says.
    “Even I’ve heard of it,” I say, to give Dad some idea. He knows I have zero clue when it comes to clothing brands.
    “My parents never would have let me have a bag like that when I was a teenager,” Annie says. “Not even if they were zillionaires. Which they were not ,” she adds quickly.
    “So … it’s bad?” Dad seriously doesn’t know what to make of it.
    Annie and I exchange a glance. “It is what it is,” I say to Dad. But I know what Annie is getting at. These people are zillionaires. At least, they dress like it. And they — I don’t know — they walk like it. They have umbrellas like it.
    The truth is, I’m feeling a little shabby.
    I can’t really picture myself at Islip Academy. Mostly because I can’t picture someone in jeans with pistachiocupcake batter on her sweatshirt roaming across these perfect green lawns. And I can’t see myself wearing a skirt and a button-down shirt for a regular old school day, like the girls we just passed.
    I’m too busy wondering how those girls manage to have gleamy hair and glowy skin to notice the puddle in front of me, so I step in it. “Ugh!”
    “What’s wrong?” Dad asks.
    “Oh — the water just sloshed through the hole in my shoe,” I admit. Now my shoes are squish, squish, squishing and my toes are cold.
    “Why don’t we get you some new shoes?” Dad suggests.
    “Well — I don’t wear fancy shoes much,” I admit.
    Dad is looking at me with his head cocked to the side. It’s the same look Tessie gives when she’s trying to figure out what we mean when we say “sit.” It’s like, “ Yo no comprendo .” “Does it make sense to have nice shoes with a hole in the bottom?” Dad asks.
    “Uh, no.” I feel a blush creep to my cheeks.
    “Let’s go downtown and get the shoes,” Annie says. “Then we can go out to dinner.”
    I have to laugh a little. Annie’s always up for shopping.
    “Well, there is a pair that I saw at Frantic,” I admit.
    “So, let’s get them!” Dad crows.