The New Rules

The Choice

Clara ignored the weighted stack of envelopes that hid under her pillow.

Each paper covering had a different emblem: a star, a lion, an eagle, or a tree, generally representing strong animals, or the liberty that comes from nature. The symbols belonged to different post-secondary educational institutions, or colleges, as most people would call them. Clara overlooked them the way she put off getting a pedicure, until the minute she had to go to the beach, hoping she could dig her clawed nails into the sand if anyone inspected. Every time she lifted her pillow, and looked at the stack, she heard her mother Grace's voice escaping from the sealed flaps.

"As a woman, you must stand on your own. Education is your path to success, there is no more important decision."

Clara admired her mother, and yet her words always felt suffocating, like she was stepping on Clara's neck, pushing down with enough force to turn her face blue. Grace was part of the generation of women who received an education, who became independent. She was a biomedical engineer who worked her way through college as a waitress at a breakfast restaurant. "Serve 300 hung over students every weekend, and then tell me about problems," she'd say.

Through her research, she would change the face of medicine, discovering and creating medical devices that would help with diabetes, cancer, and childbirth in developing countries.

Tonight, her mother was off to yet another gala, accepting a women's achievement award. Clara watched as she floated down the stairs in a sequinned navy strapless ball gown. Clara, in her pyjamas, sat slumped on the couch eating a bagel.

"Make sure to study your chemistry textbook tonight, finals are only six weeks away," her mother said, cocking her head sideways and reaffixing the clasp on her earring. "Also, it wouldn't hurt to go for a little jog in the morning." Her mother eyed the bagel in Clara's hands, and furrowed her brows so an "x" formed in-between her eyes. Her father, Jack, noticed, and pulled his wife away.

"Eat whatever you want dear. Love you," he shouted.

Jack helped with half of everything. As a grade school gym teacher, he had the time to be that kind of dad. As a child, if her mother only had a minute to braid one side of Clara's head, Jack would be there in a flash, on bended knee, twisting her hair until he got it right. He spent hours watching videos online from beauty bloggers to learn different hairstyles; if Clara wanted buns with cornrows, Jack learned how.

Clara stood in front of the oval mirror in her bedroom. She felt ordinary; not smart enough, or beautiful enough, and bored of the questions about her future. The furry carpet under her feet was soft, and her four-poster bedroom set looked silly to her, as she got older. I'm 17 years old, not a four year old duchess, she thought. The silk robe she wore over her pyjamas was monogrammed, as her mother ordered five different versions for every member of her family, including mini ones for her younger brother and sister, Ella and Kyle, twins. The lavender shade brought out the touch of hazel in Clara's dark eyes, but nothing could save her natural hair after she took a shower: kinky and curly in a pouf of frizz.

It was just five months ago that she sat at the kitchen table with her parents and siblings when the broadcast broke about The New Rules, a new law, for the graduating class of 2030 stating that family lineage was the new academic lifeline.

The New Rules meant she could attend college for an engineering program, or teacher's degree without paying a cent, as long as she had the grades, and credentials to enter those programs. When The New Rules were passed, a lot of youth who were hoping for a better life were stuck choosing what their families did. The only other option was to apply and pay out of pocket but the acceptance rate was low, and it would cost quadruple the price, as banks were no longer providing student loans, since the North American economic crash of 2022.

It wasn't that Clara didn't take it seriously; she created a colour-coded chart on her computer that documented all the pros and cons of each college she had applied to, under the top engineering and teaching programs in the country. Even without opening the documents, she knew the places that were better, more prestigious. But the problem was Clara didn't want to be an engineer or a teacher. She didn't like kids, except her sister and brother, and she struggled through math and science, even though her grades were half decent.

Lately, she kept having a reoccurring dream she was trapped in a glass box, and she couldn't get out. Her hands pressed up against the edges, while the faces of her mother and father peered in, smiling feverishly and clapping their hands together, in unison, repeatedly, like monkeys with cymbals, even though she was doing nothing. That's how she felt most of the time: adored for breathing or scolded for not being "Grace" enough. She stopped staring at her reflection when she heard her father's voice.

Clara loved the rush of reading celeb gossip and memes. She scrolled through endless feeds of trashy headlines, and the articles about worst dressed and best dressed, and who's divorcing whom. Grace thought that celebrity worship, or media, was the lowest of the low on the totem pole to success, "These people who write about frivolous things like lipstick and affairs when they could use their time to write about world hunger, or human rights."

Clara always nodded and pretended she was reading The Economist on her phone at breakfast. Before the New Rules, Clara thought she might get into something like publicity, or media buying but she never told her mother about that.

"Clare bear, time for breakfast!" her father shouted.

Clara pushed the stack neatly under her bed, tied up her robe, and walked down the mahogany circular staircase that led to the first floor of the large country-style home her family lived in. She watched the sunlight flood through the crosshatched windows, as her father whipped eggs in a bowl, and her mother read the newspaper at the marble island. She sat beside Ella in their custom-designed half-moon breakfast nook that rested against the south-side window. She gave Ella a pinch on the nose, and Ella snuggled up under her armpit. Kyle was playing video games with one hand, and shovelling cereal in his mouth with the other.

"Any word on college letters dear?" her mother asked, barely turning around. "I ran into Carol this morning and she said Amy's already received four offers?"

"None yet, mom, I'll check my email again today, and the mailbox when I go for my run," she responded promptly, the ever-dutiful daughter.

But even she had some secrets.