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coffee, and to be more nurturing toward Vanessa, since their own parents were too busy being art-hippie freaks up in Vermont to nurture her themselves. Vanessa was pretty sure Ruby was only calling to ask when she’d be home so Ruby could have the meatloaf and mashed potatoes all done when she got there, but it was so unlike Ruby to call Dan’s phone right in the middle of the school day that she couldn’t resist answering.
    She took the ringing phone from Dan and clicked it open. “Yeah? How did you know where to find me?”
    “Well, good afternoon to you, darling sister o’ mine,” Ruby chirped cheerfully. “Remember? I stuck your schedule up on the refrigerator so I’d know exactly where you are and what you’re thinking about at all times, like the new and improved version of Big Brothers Big Sisters. Anyway, I just wanted you to know that the mail came and there was a suspicious-looking envelope from NYU addressed to you. I couldn’t help but open it. And guess what?
You got in!
”
    “No fucking way!” Vanessa’s body was already shot through with adrenaline from saying, “I love you,” and now
this
. Not to be cheesy, but talk about orgasmic!
    She’d never been sure of her chances of getting in early, and just to show the NYU admissions office her artistic range and to prove how serious she was about being a film major, she’d sent them the New York film essay that she’d shot over Christmas break. Once she’d sent it in, she’d worried they’d think she was trying too hard. But now her worries were over. They liked her! They wanted her! Vanessa could finally shake the bitchy, shallow shackles of Constance Billard for good and focus on her craft at a place for serious artists like herself.
    Dan was gazing up at her from the bed. His sweet brown eyes seemed to be shining a little less ecstatically than they had been before.
    “I’m so proud of you, sweetie,” Ruby crooned in her most motherly voice. “Will you be home for dinner? I’ve been reading Eastern European cookbooks. I’m thinking of making pierogi.”
    “Sure,” Vanessa answered quietly, suddenly concerned about Dan. He hadn’t applied anywhere early, so it would be a couple months before he found out where he was going next year. Dan was so sensitive. This was just the sort of thing that could throw him into an insecurity-induced depression, the kind where he locked himself in his room and wrote poems about dying in a car accident or something. “Thanks for letting me know,” she told Ruby quickly. “I’ll see you later, okay?”
    Dan was still staring up at her expectantly as she clicked off the phone and dropped it on the bed. “You got into NYU,” he said, trying but failing to hide the note of accusation in his voice. Oh, how skinny and stupid and inadequate he was! Not that he wasn’t happy for her, but Vanessa was already into college, and he was just this scrawny guy who liked to write poems and who might never get into college at all. “Wow,” he added hoarsely. “That’s great.”
    Vanessa flopped back on the bed and pulled the sheet up around them. The room felt colder now that the sweat of passion had cooled on their bodies. “It’s really no big deal,” she argued, trying to play down the excitement she’d exuded when she’d heard the news. “You’re the one with a poem about to come out in
The New Yorker
.”
    Over Christmas break, Vanessa had submitted Dan’s poem “Sluts” to
The New Yorker
without his knowing, and it had been accepted for publication in the Valentine’s Day double issue, which would be out later that week. “I guess,” Dan agreed, shrugging his shoulders dubiously. “But I still don’t know anything . . . I mean, about my
future
.”
    Vanessa encircled Dan’s waist with her arms and pressed her cheek into his pale, ribby chest. She still couldn’t believe she was going to NYU in the fall. It was a sure thing, her destiny. Still trembling with excitement, she tried to