Pascal's Wager Read Online Free PDF

them because the mail is so slow—”
    â€œWell, good. Whatever works for you,” I said. It was no wonder she talked like she was hoarse, I thought. Overuse of the vocal chords. “I have to ask, though, how do you deal with steps?”
    Tabitha cocked her head, her short, blunt-cut, reddish hair spilling against her cheek. It would have fallen straight into her eyes if she didn’t have it pulled back with the clips that made her look even more like Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm. There was a small outbreak of tiny pimples on her forehead, but she was obviously making no effort to conceal them.
    â€œI can’t skate down them,” she said, “so I just walk down backward. I don’t know why, but I just tried it and I haven’t fallen yet, but I do wear these kneepads so—”
    â€œGreat,” I said. “Have a seat.”
    I pointed to the chair, and she skidded crazily toward it, sank into it, backpack and all, and let her feet roll out halfway across the room. She really did have the longest legs I’d ever seen on a girl, accentuated by the shorts she was wearing. Only the pink top that was fluttering at her waistline assured me that those legs didn’t come straight out of her neck.
    I sat down in my desk chair and looked at her, waiting for her to state her business. She just looked back at me, eyebrows furrowed over her big gray eyes in an expression of deep consternation. Her face wasn’t bewildered and confused like the rest of her; it was just concerned.
    â€œSo,” I said. “What can I do for you?”
    â€œI need help.” Then her arms came up for no apparent reason and flopped back down on her lap.
    â€œWith Math 19?” I said.
    â€œYes,” she said.
    â€œOkay,” I said. I flipped open my grade book and ran a finger down to Lane, Tabitha. Yeah, she needed help, all right. She’d failed the first quiz, and although she turned in every homework assignment, it was clear that calculus was still a mystery to her.
    â€œWhat exactly is it that you’re not getting?” I asked.
    â€œAll of it.”
    â€œOkay,” I said. “Let’s start with my explanations in class. Are they confusing you?”
    Her eyes got bigger, if that was possible. “Oh, no!” she said. “No, you’re a great teacher! I totally understand everything you say! It’s just when I get back to my room to do the problems, it’s, like, gone. Plus, I can’t even study in the dorm. It’s so noisy all the time—people are talking and going in and out all hours of the night. It’s like, yikes, you know? So I go to the library and I look around and see all these people who are so smart and they obviously understand everything they’re doing and I don’t and I just start thinking I’m going to flunk out and be so humiliated and then—I just can’t do the problems.”
    Fortunately, she had to stop to take a breath. I took the opportunity to offer the only really compassionate thing I could ever think of to say to kids who were in over their heads.
    â€œLook, math isn’t for everybody,” I said. “I’m sure you do a lot better in courses for your major.”
    She blinked. “Math
is
my major.”
    I had to bite my tongue to keep from saying, “What are you, a masochist?” Instead I flipped open my date book and picked up a pen.
    â€œYou’re going to need tutoring at least twice a week,” I said. “When can you come in?”
    She disentangled herself from the backpack and pawed through it. I stifled a groan. Spending two hours a week with an eighteen-year-old who was short on confidence and long on nonstop monologues punctuated with the words
like
and
totally
wasn’t what I’d had in mind when I applied for the coveted fellowship at Stanford.
    I told Alan Jacoboni about her that afternoon while he was waking up over a cup of Starbucks