“This won’t happen with calculus,” I said.
“No?”
“If I had it to do over, it would be different,” I said. “I know it would.”
She was quiet again, and then she said. “I think it would, too. I think we let this get away from us. But you have to realize that our concerns are academic, not personal.” She was squinting into the sun and because of this, it was difficult to discern her expression when she said, “I really don’t think they’ll spring-clean you.”
The first thing I thought was, They? Maybe when it came down to it, she could not save me, but wasn’t it a lie to act like she couldn’t prevent the situation from arriving at that point? Surely, if she wanted to, she could give me a D; she could fudge and never discuss it, even with me.
The second thing I thought was that I’d have to tell Martha-contrary to what she’d said, apparently teachers did use the expression.
Classes ended that Friday, and for the week before that, we hadn’t been doing much anyway; in Latin, Mrs. Pfaff brought in Rice Krispie treats her ten-year-old daughter had made, and in Spanish, we watched Mexican soap operas. In the dorms, some people had already started packing, which I hated doing-I saw the naked walls and cleared-away surfaces as unkind reminders of just how fleeting it all was, just how illusive the idea that any of it belonged to us.
After classes ended, I saw Aubrey every night, even Saturday, and I found myself practically looking forward to our meetings. Without classes, the days seemed stretched beyond use, like old rubber bands; it was good to have a few hours of structure. Also, the weather was pretty then, which always made me feel crazier. I heard about other students swimming down in the river, jogging together, riding their bikes into town for ice cream. To participate in such activities would have been like flaunting something; even if I wasn’t really studying, it would look better later on, after I’d failed the exam, to have stayed in the dorm.
On Wednesday evening, the night before my math exam, on the terrace outside the dining hall, we voted for senior prefects. No faculty members were there, only Gillian and Darden, who distributed the pieces of paper themselves. Afterward, they were the ones who’d tally the votes.
“I can totally imagine Gillian stuffing the ballot,” I said to Martha as we walked back to the dorm.
“She’d get kicked out,” Martha said. “It’s not worth the risk.”
“Who did you vote for?” I asked.
“Aspeth, of course. She’s such a natural leader.”
“Ha ha,” I said. “But I actually meant who did you vote for for guys?”
“Oh. Darden. Did you vote for your lover Cross?”
“Martha,” I hissed. Jenny Carter and Sally Bishop were walking behind us.
“Sorry, I meant Purple Monkey. Here, I’ll make it up to you. Get on.” She had stepped in front of me and was squatting, her back to me. “Climb aboard,” she said over one shoulder.
“Get on your back?” I said uncertainly.
“I’m taking you for a ride on the Marthasaurus.”
“Are you drunk or something?”
“Not unless someone spiked the juice dispenser at dinner. Get on.”
I turned back to look at Jenny and Sally, then waited for them to pass us. “Hi,” I said, and they both smiled. “I think I’m too heavy,” I said to Martha.
“Have you not seen this?” Martha flexed one arm-she was wearing a tank top, red cotton with a scalloped neckline-and her bicep rose. She was an inch shorter than I was and thinner as well, but she was definitely stronger.
“Okay,” I said. “Get ready.” I stepped forward and draped my arms over her shoulders. As she rose, she reached around to catch my legs, and my leg sockets locked into her arm sockets. She staggered a little, and I made an involuntary whoop, but then she steadied herself.
“Where do you want to go?” she said. “You name it.”
“Boston?”
Martha made a snoring noise.
“Okay, fine. How about Bombay?” I tried to say it in an Indian accent.
“Much better.”
“How about Mother Russia?” I tried, with about the same degree of success, to use a Russian accent, and Martha laughed. “To my dacha!” I cried and knocked my knees against Martha’s sides. “Vamonos!”
She tried to gallop, but she was laughing too hard. She stopped and bent over, with me still on her back, and just stood like that with her shoulders shaking. Being able to feel her laugh made me laugh, too.
“To fin de siècle Paris,” I yelled, and Martha said, gaspingly, “I think you just spit in my hair.”
This was definitely the weirdest I had ever acted in public at Ault; it was still light out, and people were standing on the steps outside the library, throwing a football on the circle. To my surprise, none of them seemed to be paying attention to us. Martha righted herself, and I said, “Am I strangling you?”
“Yes, but it’s okay.”
In the courtyard, just outside the entrance of Elwyn’s, I slid off. “Thanks for the ride,” I said. “And by the way, you’re so strange.”
“I know. I blame my parents.”
“I’m not kidding,” I said. “You’re nuts.”
“Lee, everyone is nuts. I promise.”
“I don’t believe you,” I said, and she said, “But I’m right.”
Who knew what would happen, as we walked up the steps of Elwyn’s, with the election or the math exam? The probable outcomes were not in our favor; we were hovering in that thin space before resolution, when the cards still might, but probably would not, fall in our favor. Usually, I just wanted to learn the ending. At that moment, however, the suspense didn’t bother me so much. It was a warm spring night; at least for a little while longer, it was almost nice not to know how it would all turn out.
After chapel, when everyone was walking en masse to the schoolhouse for roll call, Aubrey materialized beside Martha and me and said, “I have something for you.” He looked at Martha, and she said, “I’ll leave you two alone. Just find me inside, Lee.”
Aubrey passed me a manila envelope with my name written on the outside in capital letters.
“Is it the answers to the exam?” I asked.
He looked appalled.
“I was kidding,” I said. I pulled out a card, handmade, that said on the front, in spindly boy letters, GOOD LUCK! Inside, it said, I hope that you do very well on your exam, Lee! From, Aubrey. He had not, as a girl would have, decorated the page with stars or flowers or balloons.
“It didn’t take me long.” He was blushing. “Do you have any final questions?”
“I don’t think so. But thank you-I appreciate the card, Aubrey.” I did appreciate it, and I also felt a little baffled by it. It was the kind of thing I would make for someone else, what I would spend an evening on instead of math homework; but no one had ever made a card like this for me.
“When you’re isolating a variable, remember to go one step at a time. You’ll only become confused if you attempt to solve for both variables simultaneously.”
We were just inside the study hall. Because he was a freshman, Aubrey had an assigned desk for roll call; my classmates and the seniors stood in back, or sat on the wooden boxes covering the radiators along the far wall.
“Thanks for all your help, Aubrey,” I said.
He didn’t move immediately.
“I guess this is it, huh?” I said.
He still didn’t move and, because I didn’t know what else to do, I extended my hand. Roll call was starting. We shook.
I remained near the door listening to announcements-the Minority Student Alliance was having an end-of-the-year dinner in the activities center Sunday night, and also Mrs. Morino hoped we’d all congratulate Adele Sheppard on the good citizenship award she’d just received from the Raymond Long-Term Care Center where she’d been volunteering every week since her sophomore year. When Mr. Byden stepped forward-he stood just behind the prefects during roll call, and when he had an announcement, he usually went last-I felt a sudden quickening of my heartbeat. He was going to say who’d won the election; I was sure of it. The year before, he’d made the announcement at formal dinner, but I realized elections must have been held earlier, because formal dinner was now finished for the year.