“Some very exciting news.” She slapped my hand.
I glanced around at the rest of my family for a clue. The twins were sprawled on the living room carpet watching a beauty vlogger, mouths slightly open and eyes glazed. Dad was in his armchair reading—I had to do a double take—a book calledThe Mask of Masculinity. (Honestly, what was it with him?)
“Are you going to tell me?” I asked, following Mom to the dining room with a bowl of hot and sour soup.
She set a dish down on the table and turned to me with her hands clasped under her chin.
“We talked to that wretched man, and everything is fine. It’s all over.”
What does it say about me that when she said, “wretched man,” my first thought was of Christopher Butkus?
“I’m not quite following. What’s over?”
“The ridiculous matter of cheating on the SATs.” She waved her hand indignantly.
“Mom!” I looked around at the twins. “I thought you didn’t want them to know.”
“Oh, they know. They had to be questioned by him too.”
“By who?”
“The man. The detective.” She opened a cupboard and extracted the Shabbat candles.
I clapped my hands to my mouth. “You guys were actually questioned by a detective?”
“Yes, and according to our lawyer, that’s the end of it. We might even get some of the settlement money when it’s all sorted out. As an innocent party swept up in this illegal scheme.”
“But—you—innocent?” I glanced at Jane, who pressed her lips together.
“Yes, dear.” Mom stopped her bustling and turned to face me, her large, guileless eyes betraying no hint of anything. Her acting ability—or is it cognitive dissonance?—is shocking, to say the least.
“Well.” It took me several moments to adjust to this new version of reality. “Mom, was it really an accident? Did you know what you were doing? Because it’s wrong on so many—”
“Rachel,” my dad interrupted, his voice low. He shook his head in a bemused sort of way. “She didn’t.”
“She didn’t?”
“She heard about this guy from a friend of a friend who swore he was the best tutor on the West Coast. That he helped so-and-so’s son get his SAT scores up by six hundred points. She didn’t know it was a scam.”
“I wouldn’t call it a scam, I would call itblatantly cheating! And our current finances aside, we are the definition of privilege, Dad. It just doesn’t seem like you all are taking it seriously.”
“But if she didn’t do it on purpose,” Jane added, sounding hesitant.
“It’s just…” I wasn’t sure what my point was, but I knew that I wanted to make them understand. I swear, it’s like parents have never heard the termprivilegebefore in their lives.
“Do youwantyour mother to get in legal trouble?” Dad asked.
“What—no! But…”
Mom looked at me balefully. The twins swiped on their phones, not listening to a word.
“What kind of life lessons are you teaching them?” I gestured wildly to my little sisters.
“Oh, they wouldn’t pay attention to any type of lesson from me, even if I were to teach it buck naked with a hedgehog on my head.” All of us (except the twins) simply stared at her. “Anyway,” she continued, “I still have to share the big news!”
“That wasn’t the big news?”
Jane shrugged; apparently she was still in the dark about this part as well.
