This was worse than if he’d just said no. Because I would put in the time, I would sit in a chair with my math book in front of me, but to actually work‑the only choice I’d have would be to start from the beginning of the book. I’d always loved the part in movies when a project, or even a person’s whole life, came together: the montage, set to uplifting music, where you saw the spunky multicultural kids set aside their differences and fix up the old man’s house, straighten the hanging shutters, paint the outside, mow the lawn, and weed the flowerbed; or the twentysomething woman who finally lost weight, dancing through aerobics classes, mopping her brow while she rode a gym bike, with a white towel around her neck, and then at last she emerged from the bathroom all cleaned up, bashful but beautiful (of course, she had no idea how beautiful), and her best friend hugged her before she left for the date or party that would be her triumph. I wanted to be that person, and I wanted the in‑between time when I improved myself to glide by just that smoothly, with its own festive sound track. But to really learn precalculus would be laborious and miserable. Plus, it still might not work. The only reason my average was as high as 58 was that in March, Ms. Prosek had let me do a special project for extra credit, and I’d made a timeline of women mathematicians through the ages: Hypatia of Alexandria, b. a.d. 370, inventor of the astrolabe, died when Christian mob attacked her with broken pottery; Emilie du Châtelet, b. 1706, French aristocrat and author of Institutions de Physique, dated Voltaire. I’d made the final woman Ms. Prosek herself, pasting a photo of her from the school catalog onto the poster board and writing next to it, Valerie Prosek, b. 1961, precalculus teacher and inspiration to young math scholars everywhere. Ms. Prosek had hung the timeline in her classroom, above the chalkboard, and she’d given me an A plus.
“If I were going to work very hard,” I said, “where would I begin?”
“It wouldn’t hurt for you to review some of the basics of graphing equations. I can create some problems for you.” Aubrey wrote down several strings of numbers in my notebook, then pushed it toward me. The first one read:
3x – y = 5
2x + y = 5
This should not have been hard, I knew. He’d said himself that it was basic. But I had no idea what to do. And to admit my ignorance would be to truly reveal just how far behind I was.
“Actually,” I said, “I’m thinking‑I’m sorry I just made you write those up‑but maybe it would be better for me to concentrate on the homework for tomorrow. Because that will already take me a long time, don’t you think?”
Aubrey hesitated.
“I’ll take those problems back to the dorm and work on them there,” I said. “Thank you.” I turned back to the textbook and read aloud the next problem: Write out the form of the partial fraction decomposition… Maybe this way, if Aubrey heard my voice, it would seem like I was participating. And it worked, I could sense him caving. All our sessions were like this‑the warm‑up, the persuasion, the part where Aubrey capitulated and just did my homework for me, after stating that he wouldn’t. But even then, we went so slowly, with him narrating his progress, asking me questions, waiting while I made guesses, many of which weren’t even in the right category‑the answer Aubrey would be looking for was an irreducible quadratic factor and the answer I’d give was seven.
Though sometimes I needled him, or acted lazy, I had figured out early on how Aubrey liked me best: trying but not getting anything right. Or maybe: not getting anything right but trying. Either way, the other person’s reaction was the only thing that ever counted to me‑numbers were spiky and indifferent, but a person was warm and breathing, potentially swayable. I often messed up with people, it was true, but it rarely happened because I was reading them wrong; it was because I got nervous, or because I could see too clearly that I was not what they wanted. And, in fact, it was in falling short that I truly excelled. I might fail to be what the other person sought, but as a failure, I’d accommodate them completely‑I could be obsequious or truculent, sad or earnest or utterly silent. If I’d had to guess, I’d have guessed that Cross knew I had a crush on him, and that in not trying to talk to him, in only every so often making eye contact with him and waiting a beat before looking away, I was acting just the way he’d think a girl who liked him but whom he didn’t like back should act. And I might get spring‑cleaned, but I’d be able to go out with everyone on my side‑Aubrey, Martha, Ms. Prosek, and even Dean Fletcher, all of them rueful and sympathetic.
The housing meeting, which was the meeting I’d thought was occurring when my class had nominated senior prefects, happened the next day. At morning break, all the juniors assembled in the first few rows of the auditorium, and Dean Fletcher sat on the edge of the stage swinging his legs. He gave the same speech we’d heard the last few years‑it was impossible to accommodate everyone, etc., etc., and he added that as seniors, we’d set the tone in the dorms. When the meeting was finished, Martha left the auditorium to check her mail, and I began filling out both our request forms; we’d already decided we wanted to stay in Elwyn’s, the dorm we were in this year. As I pressed the paper against my thigh, writing Martha’s name and then my own, it occurred to me that perhaps this was a futile act‑if I were not returning to Ault, certainly there was no point in making a rooming request. But how could I not be returning? What things would I think about if I were not an Ault student? At Marvin Thompson High, the cafeteria floor was mustard‑colored linoleum with black and gray flecks; the sports teams were called the Vikings and the Lady Vikings; there was an ongoing debate about whether to let the pregnant girls attend classes after they started to show.
“I’ve always thought that the rooms in Elwyn’s smell like cat pee, but I guess that doesn’t bother you and Martha.”
When I looked up, Aspeth Montgomery was sitting to my right, sitting, in fact, so close to me that I felt the physical self‑consciousness I usually experienced only with boys‑did my pores look huge to her, I wondered, and was the skin around my mouth flaking because I’d forgotten my chapstick in the dorm and been licking my lips a lot? As my eyes met Aspeth’s, out of nervousness, I licked my lips again.
“I’ve never noticed that,” I said.
“Well, you lived with that squid in your room in Broussard’s, too, before you got Little kicked out. You must be used to gross smells.”
I said nothing.
After a beat, Aspeth said, “So I hear you think I won’t make a very good senior prefect.”
It had occurred to me that Dede might repeat my comments to Aspeth, but it had seemed too predictable‑childish and vindictive in just the ways I knew Dede to be‑and therefore I’d decided she wouldn’t; people rarely did exactly what you expected.
“You’re not denying it,” Aspeth said. “God, Lee, you’re shameless.” She leaned back, her left arm slung over the seat, and she did not seem angry but more amused; she hadn’t had anything else to do before morning break ended, so she’d come over to needle me.
“Dede probably told you stuff out of context,” I said.
“You think?”
“What do you want, Aspeth?” I asked. “Why do you care what I said to Dede?”
Aspeth seemed to reconsider me. She removed her arm from the seat back, sat up straight, and folded one leg over the other. “Does Martha really think she’ll get elected?” she asked, and the lazy, teasing quality was gone from her voice.
“What are you doing?” I said. “Campaigning?”
An odd look crossed her face‑a recomposing of her features to form the same expression they’d formed before‑and it dawned on me that campaigning was precisely what Aspeth was doing.
“Martha won’t win,” she said. “This is what will happen. About half the class will vote for Gillian, maybe a little less. And a little more than half the class will vote for me, except let’s say a tenth of the class will vote for Martha. You see what I’m saying? She’ll get my votes. And that means Gillian will win.”
I couldn’t help smiling. “You
just said yourself that those aren’t your votes. They’re Martha’s.”
“You’re missing the point. Do you want Gillian to be senior prefect?”
I shrugged.
“Of course you don’t. Gillian’s a fucking pill. But all these dimwits in our class will vote for her because she’s been sophomore and junior prefect, and they’re little status quo lemmings.”
“Why don’t you like Gillian?” I asked. Gillian and Aspeth were in more or less the same friend group, and I’d never heard of friction between them.
“Who does?” Aspeth said. “Gillian’s a bore.” During our conversation, Aspeth had never once lowered her voice, and she didn’t now, though dozens of our classmates were still milling around the front of the auditorium; for the fearlessness of her bitchery, I felt a surge of admiration. “The only person more boring than Gillian is Luke,” Aspeth continued. “She probably falls asleep while he’s boning her.”
I felt a brief wish for Aspeth to ask what I thought of Gillian, so I could voice my assent; she didn’t.
“Martha needs to drop out of the election,” Aspeth said. “There’s nothing at stake for her. If she had a shot at winning, it would be one thing, but I think we’ve established that she doesn’t.”
Again, I couldn’t help but be impressed by the purity of Aspeth’s condescension, her utter lack of interest in wheedling or bribery. Martha should drop out of the race simply because Aspeth was Aspeth; for the same reason, Aspeth should be elected.
“Maybe you should talk to Martha yourself,” I said.
“Why? I just talked to you.” Aspeth unfolded herself‑she had the longest legs of any girl in our class, fantastic legs, and she was wearing a khaki skirt that ended six inches above the knee‑and stood; apparently, her business with me was finished. She seemed about to walk away, but then she took a step toward me and leaned over. Her honey blond hair fell in front of my face, and when she pressed one finger against the rooming sheet still on my lap, I could feel her fingertip on my thigh, through the paper. “I’d give the cat pee thing some thought,” she said. She turned to look at me, and our faces were so close, how could I not have thought of kissing her? She tapped her finger a few times, smiled knowingly, and said, “Just some friendly advice.” Then she was gone, the smell of her shampoo lingering in the air. I actually knew what kind of shampoo Aspeth used because Dede used it, too, though its scent didn’t cling to Dede’s hair like it did to Aspeth’s. When I was at Ault, that shampoo was the smell of popularity; after I graduated, it became the smell of Ault itself. One afternoon after work, in my early twenties, I was at a CVS and I held a bottle toward a friend and said, “I think this is the best‑smelling shampoo in the world,” and she gave me a bemused look and said, “So buy some.” And I’d thought by then that I’d outgrown my Ault self, but still, the suggestion was revelatory; paying for it at the cash register, I had the same residually fraudulent sensation you experience the first time you buy alcohol after turning twenty‑one.
After lunch, as Martha and I were leaving the dining hall, I saw Ms. Prosek thirty yards in front of us, walking by herself. I grabbed Martha’s elbow and stopped walking. “Hold on,” I said. “Just let her get a little further ahead.”
At exactly that moment, Ms. Prosek glanced over her shoulder. Seeing us, she motioned for me to approach.
“Did she just hear me?” I asked.
“She couldn’t have.”
“That was totally weird.”
“Catch up with her. She’s waiting for you.” Martha pushed me forward a little. “You’ll be fine.” After I’d walked a few steps, she added, “Take deep breaths.”
“I was hoping I’d run into you,” Ms. Prosek said when I was alongside her. “How’re things?”
“They’re okay.” As we walked, I snuck a look at her.
“I know about your conversation yesterday with Dean Fletcher,” she said, “if that’s what you’re wondering. I’m curious about how you’re feeling.”
I didn’t say anything‑I honestly didn’t know what to say‑but when my self‑consciousness about the silence overrode my confusion about how to respond, I said, “Fine.”
Then it was Ms. Prosek’s turn not to talk.
The problem was, Ms. Prosek was not just the teacher whose class I was bombing, whose flunking grade might result in my expulsion‑she was also my adviser, and, until quite recently, even for the first several months after my math grade had plunged, our relationship had been nothing but chummy. I’d gotten to know Ms. Prosek freshman year because she was the thirds basketball coach. She didn’t seem personally offended when we lost a game, as some of the other coaches did, but we somehow got her to promise that if we ever won, she’d do three back handsprings right there on the court‑she’d been a college gymnast‑and she did; it was the day we played against Overfield. Afterward, when she was standing there a little unsteadily, with her hair askew and the other team gawking at us, Ms. Prosek said, “I definitely should have worn a different bra.” On the days when we weren’t playing the same school as JV and varsity, instead of riding the bus we rode in a van that Ms. Prosek drove, and on the way back to campus, she’d take us to McDonald’s.
There were two things I admired deeply about Ms. Prosek, and they reinforced each other. The first thing was that she seemed liberal‑she was, though I did not completely understand the meaning of the word at the time, a feminist‑and she was neither belligerent nor apologetic in the expression of her views. She once drove a van of students into Boston for a pro‑choice rally (I didn’t go because I was a freshman and I thought maybe I wasn’t supposed to) and she wore no makeup and, on Sundays, she wore a blue bandanna that pushed back her curly hair. The second thing about Ms. Prosek that impressed me was that she had an extremely handsome husband. His name was Tom Williamson, he worked in D.C. as a speechwriter for a Democratic senator, and he wasn’t around much except on the weekends, but sometimes he’d just materialize for formal dinner in a coat and tie, or you’d see them running together, and girls would elbow one another: There goes Ms. Prosek’s cute husband. Ms. Prosek herself was attractive but not beautiful, maybe not even what most people would call pretty, and it filled me with wonder‑that she was not beautiful and he loved her, that she was smart and opinionated and he loved her, that it seemed, from the way you’d see them talking or touching in a casual, not particularly romantic way (his arm around the back of her chair with his fingers just grazing her shoulder, his head tilted toward her as she said something while they made their way down the crowded steps outside the dining hall after dinner) like maybe he even loved her a lot and like she really loved him back.
“I won’t lie,” Ms. Prosek said. “I’m worried about you. Do you and Aubrey have a study plan?”
“Kind of. But I guess I don’t understand if the exam is only a week away, why did Fletcher wait until yesterday to threaten me with spring‑cleaning?”
I wanted her to refute that Dean Fletcher had made any such threat. Instead, she said, “Are you telling me you would have done things differently if you’d known what the consequences were?”
“No,” I said, and I could hear how defensive I sounded.
“Lee.” Ms. Prosek set her hand on my shoulder. I stiffened, and she removed her hand. We had reached the entrance of the schoolhouse and stopped walking, as if we’d agreed ahead of time not to carry the conversation inside.
I looked at her with what I hoped were widened, receptive eyes; the stiffening had been involuntary.
“Just focus on the math. I want you to be really familiar with the exponential and the logarithmic functions. Okay? Let’s cross those other bridges when we come to them.”
Easy for you to say, I thought, and it was unpleasant to feel animosity toward Ms. Prosek. Starting in the fall and continuing into March, I’d gone over to her house on Sunday afternoons, after her husband had left for D.C. for the week. (Though once he’d still been there and he’d answered the door and said, though we’d nev
er met, “Hi, Lee,” and I had felt excited enough to take flight.) Ms. Prosek and I would review the material, and she’d be making soup or vegetarian chili and she’d give me some. When we talked about math, I tried, out of respect, to concentrate, but often I got distracted just as I got distracted with Aubrey. I was completely attentive, however, when the subject wandered to a recent chapel talk or an article in The Ault Voice, or to speculation about other students and teachers. Ms. Prosek never expressed her own views, she often shook her head when I was critical of someone, but she was usually smiling as she did so, and I could tell she found me interesting. Maybe, after all, it wasn’t her cute husband or her politics or her sportiness that made me like her‑maybe it was only that she found me interesting and that in her presence, even more than in Martha’s, I felt interesting. And then one afternoon, shortly after spring break, she seemed subdued, she kept steering us back toward math when we swerved away. When I’d arrived, she’d said she had a headache, and I thought that was why, but after perhaps half an hour‑I was in the middle of explaining why I thought Mr. Corning was in love with my old dorm head Madame Broussard‑Ms. Prosek said, “Lee, I want to tell you something. I had to send a letter to your parents. I could get away with not sending one last semester because you’d just gotten the C on the midterm, and things were looking up. But now I’m really concerned.”
I wanted to reassure her that I didn’t have the kind of parents who would freak out over such a letter, but I wasn’t sure that was the point. And still, then, I didn’t feel real panic about my grade. What I felt was shame that I’d been gossiping so casually, that I’d made myself so at home here at her dining room table. I’d imagined that she was charmed by me, when really I was a bad student eating up her free time, making inappropriate comments about her colleagues.
“Your grade last semester was a D,” Ms. Prosek said. “That doesn’t leave you any wiggle room. If you flunk for the semester, you flunk for the year. And you’re flunking now. You have a forty‑nine.”