The Rules of Fortune

by Danielle Prescod

“Please,” Jacqueline said with a practiced smile, thinking it best for her to keep her words to a minimum. The less said, the better. It was easier to let people write their own story. Any good actress knew that the audience should be able to see themselves in her, that she was a mechanism for their own projection.

Casual dress is a privilege for those given the benefit of the doubt. It is for people who will be accepted without question, and that’s not you. It might be one day, but right now, that’s not you. I don’t want to have to tell you that you’ll have to negotiate for your humanity, but it would be a lie to say that you don’t, and one thing that we will never do in this room is lie to one another.

William was gripped with the fear that his ignorance of this world would lead to his downfall. Some of these boys looked incredibly comfortable, their body language indicating that they’d heard speeches like this before. But William sat up and leaned in. This was the first time that anyone had even bothered to concede that this school was overrun with invisible obstacles and populated by many who were very determined to exclude the people in this room from accessing the spoils that came with a Harvard degree.

Jacqueline liked to remember what was real before she said what wasn’t. The truth could be a terrific anchor for fantasy, what every great actress knew. Sitting in front of a camera, Jacqueline looked her daughter in the eye and with total confidence said, “Well, I met your father at a fundraiser, as you know.”

Her father would always say, “You deserve what you have the courage to take.” There was a faint feeling that this was still not quite right. The taking was the problem.

He watched the color rise in her neck and cheeks, but his mother would never surrender to the indignity of an honest emotion.

“I chose the better life for you,” she said. He knew that that was the truest thing she had ever said to him, and though he was not as misty-eyed as Kennedy, it touched him because in that act, the love was implied.

“Of course it is. Money doesn’t really matter when you have a lot of it, but it matters a great deal when you don’t have any. We can change your life in this room, so just let us, and then we’ll be done with it.”