important.â
âMale guidance,â she said.
âRight.â
This was just after my mom broke up with Loser Tom, who followed Total Loser Phil (preceded by Absolute Disaster Chris), and right before she started dating Lawyer Rick. She signed me up for a Big Brothers thing where a guy came by once a week, a guy who decided that the ideal shared activity would be basketball. Which I think is called misreading your audience.
âMale guidance,â repeated Mrs. Jensen.
âYes.â
âMaybe you just need to pull your head out of your ass.â
Tough but fair, that Mrs. Jensen.
She ended our conversation by saying, âSomeday, youâll figure out what your problem is, and
maaaaybe
youâll achieve something. For now, do yourself a favor and try to focus more on the smart part, and less on the âtard, okay?â
Less on the âtard. Copy that.
Today, and going forward, is all about smart, and not about âtard.
Smart not âtard. Physically and fiscally. Smart not âtard.
I get to the classroom. I pause outside the open doorway, making sure Iâm clear of the sightlines of anyone in the room, reshoulder my backpack, rehearse my excuse/apology for missing the Monday session of summer school, and go in.
And stop.
Thereâs a girl in the room. A girl my age, blondish hair. Sheâs standing on the other side of the conference table that dominates the space, focused on putting books into her own backpack.
Thereâs a shallow part of my brainâââokay, itâs mostly shallow partsâââbut a specific part whose job it is to alert me to the presence of attractive girls. And that part says,
Oh, hey.
And then another part immediately says,
Really?
Because sheâs not at all the type of girl Iâd usually notice. Not that sheâs
bad
-looking or anything, and from what I can tell she does have a pretty good body, particularly herâââ
Which is precisely when she chooses to sense my presence and look up.
Erp.
Our eyes lock. Weâre both motionless. She has the book halfway into the backpack. Thereâs something about her gazeâââI feel pinned by it, a thief in the spotlight, guiltyâââand Iâm waylaid by a sudden and nearly overpowering urge to start babbling an apology.
Then she returns her focus to her book, shoving it the rest of the way into the bag, and the moment is over. âI was just leaving,â she mutters. She zips the zipper.
âOh,â I say. I recognize her now: Sheâs in my grade, one of the Smart Kids, student government and debate team and math club and all that. I feel like Iâve seen her somewhere else, too. Jessica? Geraldine?
She fixes me with that X-ray gaze again. âThatâs it?â she says. ââOhâ?â
âUm . . .â I say.
Oh, youâre really weird?
âYou donât have to leave . . . ?â I venture.
âYouâre over thirty minutes late.â
Now Iâm
really
confused.
âIâm here for a tutoring session at nine thirty,â I say.
âNo, it was scheduled for nine.â
âHow do you know? Are you here for a tutoring session also?â
âUh, yeah, I suppose you could say that.â
The force of sarcasm is strong with this one.
âOkay, well, even if it was supposed to be nine oâclock, the tutorâs not even here.â
â
Iâm
your tutor!â she practically shouts.
I probably should have read the email more carefully. It probably specified the correct time, and also that my tutor is a
peer
tutor. Then I remember that Devon had made some joke about it, because he did the same program last summer. Itâs called Peers Helping Peers, which Devon shortened to âPHaP,â as in, I gotta go do some phapping.
So here I am, late for my first phapping session, and my peer doesnât look at all eager to help out
Rebecca Hamilton, Conner Kressley