Noah relaxes. “Okay, here’s your trivia question. Think carefully!” He looks very serious and I can tell Noah is a guy who takes looking serious seriously. “Who is Dido?” He holds his breath while I frown.
“Well, you’re a Latin nerd so I assume you mean the Phoenician queen in the Aeneid? Not the pop singer?” I can tell from Noah’s expression that he had no clue there was any other Dido so I was right the first time. He looks like he was struck by lightning.
“That was too easy, Noah! If you wanted a challenge you could have asked who is Lavinia? That might have stumped me, out of context like this. But I must say, while we’re on the subject, that old Vergil did not do right by poor Dido. She was too good for Aeneas and she didn’t deserve her fate.” I cluck my tongue, frustrated with those Dead White Male Authors.
“She was too good for him,” Noah repeats slowly, as if from far away. “But he had to leave her to found the Roman empire….”
“Ha! More imperialist propaganda that!” I grin at him, but he still looks a little dazed.
“You read The Aeneid?” he says with something like awe.
I backpedal, holding up a hand in protest. “In English, buddy! In my Masterpieces class. Don’t get too excited!”
I suddenly notice that everyone else is packing up their bags and putting on their coats so I stand up too. Shit, we spent the whole class on our tests and never got to the work we were assigned. I give Marjorie a sheepish look.
“Hey Noah,” I lean in closer to whisper. “I think we’re partners now.”
“Yeah,” he answers vaguely. “Sounds good.”
As we leave class we trade notebooks and numbers because now we’re behind and we need to come up with a plan to help each other with our so-called problems.
By the next class, when Marjorie asks us all to go around the room and discuss our plans to help each other, we have one. One partner pair, Matt and Annika, who are always fighting, concocted some passive-aggressive ten-step challenges for each other. I know a bit of their history and it isn’t pretty—though they sure are. Annika’s tall and blond and foreign and reserved. I think we’re all a little afraid of her, though that doesn’t stop Matt from provoking her. But then he would because he’s just a spoiled frat boy as far as I can tell.
Another pair, Kyle and Lani, have already tackled his writer’s block and are trying to find ways for her to stand up for herself more. I’ve talked to Lani, who’s smart and sweet, but Kyle seems like a typical macho idiot. It’s too bad she’s not with someone like Noah, but then that would be too bad for me. After we listen to these other plans, ours seems elegant in its simplicity.
“All Noah and I need to do is spend a lot of time together,” I announce to Marjorie and the class. Which will also be fun, I think.
Marjorie’s brow furrows, but it’s Matt who speaks. “Why? I don’t get it.”
I smirk. “We’ve got the same problem from different sides so if we spend time together we can meet in the middle!” We haven’t actually discussed the specifics but I know we’re onto something.
“What problem is that?” Marjorie asks, perched as usual on the edge of her desk. I gesture to Noah to take this one.
“Holly spends too much time in her narrow techie world, and forgets about consequences outside it. I spend too much time in my ivory tower and forget about so-called ‘real life’ outside.” He puts air quotes around real life, which makes me snicker. “So she’s going to bring me into her world and I’ll bring her into mine. More or less.”
I beam at him. “Exactly! We’ll balance each other. My twenty-first century to his ancient world. How ‘bout we meet in the nineteenth century, Noah?”
He smiles, and shakes his head. “Chronologically, that’s way past the midpoint, Holly.”
“My Palo Alto to his Baltimore—that puts us somewhere in Chicago! See?”
Kyle rolls his eyes. “Oh, for fuck’s sake!” Lani shushes him.
Marjorie looks a little dubious. “Well, I think you could challenge yourselves more than that. You both need more grounding, more reasons to get outside your comfort zones. Maybe you're spending too much time in your own heads, working with abstractions like languages and codes. You need to add something physical.” She looks speculatively at me and I freeze. Uh oh.
“Do either of you play sports?” she asks.
Noah and I look at each other warily. “I run,” he admits just as I say, “I swim.” Is it no coincidence that neither of us plays on a team?
“Hmm. Well consider training for something or….” She shrugs. “Balance seems like a great goal for you both, but maybe think about it more broadly. Don’t take it too easy.”
I’m a little unsettled by this. “Okay!” I say and it comes out a little forced.
When the class is dismissed Noah and I linger awkwardly. I see Annika bolt out of the room like her pants are on fire. Kyle and Lani exit together, looking preoccupied. Noah runs a hand through his messy hair and stands, watching me silently.
“You okay?” he asks abruptly, shoving a notebook into his backpack with a little more force than necessary. He picks up his coat and shrugs into it.
I lift my shoulders. “Sure.” Then I sigh because I don’t want to fake it with Noah. “It’s just that physical isn’t my forte. My boyfriend always says I’m all brain.”
Noah flinches like I’ve slapped him. “Your boyfriend says that?” He sounds incredulous.
“Yeah. So?” Now I’m even more uncomfortable than I was before. Somehow we’re edging closer to things I really don’t want to talk about. Or think about, actually.
“Idiot,” he mutters. And I’m afraid he may mean me.
3
Noah
Of course she has a boyfriend!
I wonder if this is what love feels like. I shake my head, trying to clear it as I wander to my next class. I still feel blindsided. And the funny thing is that I never understood the part where Cupid shoots an arrow to make Dido and Aeneas fall in love. I mean, what? Love doesn’t work like that! Attraction maybe. Or lust. But love? Love is about liking someone more and more and more until slowly, over time, it becomes love. It’s like churning butter or mixing paints. It’s gradual.
But Holly just hit me like a freight train. One minute I’m chatting with a perfectly attractive, perfectly nice girl and the next minute BAM! She’s teasing me, tearing up about some hypothetical moral dilemma, and defending Dido…and suddenly she’s the most perfect girl in the whole world and I have to have her. Have her? Where does this caveman come from? That’s not me at all.
This whole thing is weirding me out. There’s really only one person who might help so as soon as I have some privacy back at my dorm room I call her.
“Hey! What’s up?” Rachel’s voice makes me feel a little better already.
I pause. “Nothing.” Now that I’ve called her I don’t know what to say.
“Nothing? Just spit it out, bro! And please don’t tell me you’ve called because you got an A minus for once in your 4.0 life!” Rachel is pre-med and seems to think that being a Classics major is a walk in the park.
“Nah, it’s not that.” I sit on my desk and swing my feet, feeling like an idiot.
“You called me, Noah, so don’t make me play twenty questions,” she warns.
“Sorry, you busy?” I still don’t know her class schedule for this semester.
She makes an impatient sound. “Quit stalling!”
In fits and starts I manage to tell her about Holly. She’s silent for a moment, then she starts giggling. “Dido, huh? You’re so screwed, Noah!”
“I know!” I groan. “I walked right into this, didn’t I? Do you think it’s only because she knew who Dido was?” As I say the words I picture Holly’s face—her bright eyes, her rosy mouth—then my brain skitters down to her tight tee shirt.
“No,” Rachel says, more seriously. “It’s more likely the other way around. You liked something about her already and pulled that question out
as a sort of test. That’s just like you.” I can imagine her shaking her head but I can’t take offense. She knows me better than anyone.
“So what should I do, Rache?”
“Why don’t you ask her out?”
The question makes my heart seize up. “We’re partners! And….” I trail off helplessly.
She sighs. “We talked about this, remember? What did we agree on?”
“That if…,” I mumble.
“If….”
“Another situation comes up,” I add reluctantly.
“Like the others.” She is relentless.
“Umm. That this time I’ll act.” I pause. “And tell her how I feel.”
“And so…? It’s this time.”
I chew on my lip through the awkward silence. She’s right. I know this. But….
“She’s too good for me,” I blurt out.
“What? Are you on crack?” She screeches so loud that I have to hold the phone away from my ear.
There’s a pause before she says in a regular voice. “She must have big boobs. You probably still think girls with big boobs are above you in the social hierarchy. That’s so middle school, Noah!”
I’m glad Rachel can’t see my red face. “Uh—” It sounds ridiculous, but I was thinking that, yes.
“Oh, Noah. You’re so full of crap and yet so deserving of a fabulous girlfriend! I don’t even know where to start, dude!”
We’re both silent for a moment and I feel better just for talking to her. “When…?” she starts.
“Not til March. Spring break.”
“Sucks.”
“Yeah,” I agree. “Thanks, Rachel. You’re the best.”
“Don’t I know it! Call me if you need me, ‘kay?”
I hang up and fall backwards onto my bed. Being in love is exhausting.
I must have fallen asleep because I’m startled awake by a pounding on my door. I have a single so my door is my door. There’s no living room or common area. Which is what I prefer: peace and quiet…though there’s little of that right now.
I squint at the clock on my night table and kick myself mentally. It’s 8 p.m. already, which means the dining hall is closed, which means I missed dinner, which means I’ll have to scrounge for food at the convenience store, which means Cup A Noodles or granola bars… and now I’m hungry. But first there’s still someone banging on my door. Still bleary, I stumble over to open it.
And it’s…Holly? I rub a hand over my eyes, wondering if I conjured her up from a dream. “Holly?” I croak, just to be sure.
She grins and pushes past me into my room. I wake up fast then, suddenly aware that I’m more than usually wrinkled and scraggly. I straighten my shirt so it covers me better but not before Holly pokes a finger at a bare patch of my stomach. I flinch and raise both hands as if to ward her off.
“You’re so cute! Were you sleeping? Sorry! Are you hungry? I brought food!” She dumps her winter coat on my desk chair and casts an eye around my room.
“Neat, aren’t you? And nice. And cute. And smart. What’s your fatal flaw?” She tilts her head to look up at me because she barely reaches my shoulder. I’m hoping the question was rhetorical. I’m relieved when she just grins some more and plops down on my floor, pulling bags out of her bag.
“What are you doing here, Holly?” I manage. I realize I’m still standing at the open door and shut it reluctantly. I don’t know what to do with myself so I just copy her and sit on the floor too.
“I’ve been thinking about what Marjorie said today. We gotta work harder and catch up.” She holds out a wrapped sandwich. “Wait, do you eat pork?”
I shake my head automatically, thinking I’ll never catch up to her. She takes back the sandwich and swaps it with another one. “Then you’ll have to make do with the vegetarian. Too bad because the classic banh mi is the best.”
I take the sandwich and she starts to unwrap hers. “Where did you find Vietnamese sandwiches on campus?” I have so many questions that I might as well start there. I start unwrapping my sandwich too and I have to admit it looks delicious.
Holly shrugs, her mouth full of food. She’s sitting cross-legged on my floor, looking more than a little delicious herself. Her wild hair is escaping its ponytail and her bright blue eyes are practically dancing. She passes me a can of Coke.
“Thanks,” I say belatedly. “How did you find my room?” I take a bite and chew slowly, processing.
She rolls her eyes. “Internet security at this school is pathetic, Noah! All I had to do was hack into the student admin system and look you up—Pie!”
I swallow. “Umm. Suddenly I have a suspicion of how you landed in our class.” I watch her closely and she flushes a little.
“Yeah, well…. They make it too, too easy! If they really wanted to keep the information private they’d encrypt it so lil ole me couldn’t just sashay into their database. I mean, I’m just a sophomore!”
She spreads her hands out and widens her eyes. I snort, taking another big bite of my sandwich while I watch her performance of innocence.
“Besides, you’ve got nothing to hide on your record. You’ve got a 4.0 GPA and just that one little disciplinary problem….”
I choke on my food and sputter. “You…!” I pause to swallow. “Holly! That’s an invasion of my privacy!”
Her face falls. “You mean you mind?”
I stare at her in astonishment. “You could steal my social security number! Run up bills on my account! Of course I mind!”
“Noah! I’d never do that! How could you think that? I thought we were friends—” She sags against the wall behind her, biting her lip. I wonder if she’s going to burst into tears again.
“Holly—” I try to sound patient despite my exasperation. “It’s not about you or me. It’s the principle of the thing.”
She raises her eyes to mine, her brow furrowed. Her pale skin is lightly flushed and her mouth trembles. Her mouth! It’s curvy like the rest of her, with a plump lower lip and a bowed upper lip.
“Nothing’s ever just a principle, Noah. It’s always something specific, a situation in a context…. This isn’t someone breaking into someone else’s account. It’s me breaking into yours. That makes all the difference!” Her voice is gentle, coaxing, and I have to laugh. She is just too irresistible.
“Ah, of course!” I wave a hand in the air. “Never mind then. Do as you will with me.”
She smiles slyly. “Okay.” She moves abruptly to my side and nestles her head against my shoulder. I tense.
“Sorry, Noah,” she whispers. “I didn’t mean anything by it.”
I sigh and relax against her warm, soft body. No, she doesn’t mean anything by this either. I wrap an arm around her and lean my chin on her head, taking a deep breath of her fruity shampoo.
After a pause she turns to look up at me, her very blue eyes very near mine. “You’re a good guy!” she announces, then she pushes away from me, reaching for her bag. “And we should get to work!” She rubs her hands together like she can’t wait. “I think I know what got you in trouble, but I want to hear it in your own words.”
I hesitate. I’ve found that people I tell tend to laugh at me. In general, I’d say the people around me don’t always share my priorities.
“Don’t laugh!” I warn, holding up a finger and looking as stern as I can. Holly suppresses a giggle and pretends to zip her mouth shut. As if!
So here goes. “The Provost of the college, a very unenlightened bureaucrat, decided that the Classics department should merge with the Philosophy department!”
I wait for the indignation that should follow that statement, but Holly looks calm.
“That’s just ridiculous, Holly! Classics and philosophy overlap but they are hardly the same discipline—in fact, one could argue that Classics include much more literature than philosophy. By that logic why not merge the department with literature! I mean, the idea is that absurd!” I pause again and Holly purses her mouth, which is a littl
e distracting.
“Okaaay. Then what happened?”
“I collected letters—from the professors emeritus. Emeriti, really, and alums. I circulated petitions. I made an appointment to reason with the idiot Provost. Holly, I swear I tried every standard procedural approach to get him to change his mind. But he wouldn’t listen to reason! I wonder if he ever took Elementary Logic. That would explain a lot.”
I’m getting riled up thinking about this again.
Holly still looks solemn. “And so you did what?”
“I staged a sit-in in his office. I was prepared to go on a hunger strike but it didn’t come to that. The campus police charged me with trespassing after fourteen hours. Then I spent another twelve hours being lectured in various offices all over campus. Then I was remanded to Marjorie’s class. The chair of Classics got a temporary stay on the decision to merge the departments, but it’s probably a done deal now.” I clench my teeth in frustration. I still can’t believe it.
Holly doesn’t laugh. “Oh, Noah!” Her expression is full of something warm and alive.
“What?” I ask warily. She looks like she’s about to spring into action and that’s a little worrisome. She restrains herself though, shaking her head.
“Nothing,” she says with a smile. “It’s just…you’re one of a kind.”
“In a good way?” I wonder out loud.
Her smile spreads wider. “In the best way.”
4
Holly
He’s too much! He’s genuinely distressed by this campus politicking—even appalled! It charms me. He looked so woeful while he told the story that my heart went out to him—he’s so cute in that lanky, angular way I like too, with warm greenish-brownish eyes and thick wavy brown hair that’s a little too long and always a little too messy. For a moment we just look at each other.
Then he interrupts the silence. “Your turn.”
Oh. Right. I inhale and fake some nonchalance. “Well, you know I know my way around a computer network already. So, think about that network as if it were a house. This house has a leaky window that lets air in and out. I just opened the window.” I shrug like it’s no big deal. It sure was easy enough.
The Lesson Plan: Extra Credit, Book 3 Page 2
