It’s Monday afternoon and it’s the first time I’ve seen Jessie since our class together Friday. I spent all weekend thinking about her, about the Halloween party. Whatever small, insignificant crush I had on her before last Thursday has transformed into a very real, I-get-butterflies-when-I-think-about-her crush. It occurred to me at some point this weekend that maybe she’s mad at me for not texting and all I need to do is apologize so we can move forward.
I check my watch: two minutes until our meeting.
“Hey, Jessie, I just wanted to—”
“Mac, Jessie, hi.” Ava Gold opens the door to her office early.
Damn it.
Ava adjusts her oval glasses on her face and gestures for us to come in. Jessie puts her phone away without so much as a glance at me, and I follow her into the office. Ava gestures for us to sit in the two chairs across from the desk.
The chairs are surprisingly comfortable—something I don’t normally expect of vintage furniture. Being in Ava Gold’s office reminds me of being in an antiques shop, and I only ever visited those with my grandmother, my mom’s mom. She loved antique everything; her house was covered in treasures. It bordered on cluttered, much like this office. Everything is vintage or antique in here. Old newspapers and funky wallpaper cover the walls. Quirky, unique items sit next to books on various shelves. There’s a mix of decades—the forties, the sixties, the eighties—and it totally works for Ava, who regularly dresses like she lives in the 1940s. My family is more modern and minimalist, and that style has extended to me. My apartment is mostly neutrals and sparsely decorated. It’s a calming vibe, and I can’t really say the same about this office.
“Thanks for coming in, you two. I have an opportunity I wanted to present to both of you, so I hope you don’t mind that I made this a joint meeting.”
“Not at all,” I say as Jessie says, “Totally fine,” in a pitch she only uses with teachers.
“There’s a scholarship opportunity for seniors that is typically associated with valedictorian—”
“The Walden Senior Scholarship?” Jessie says, straightening in her chair and leaning forward. It sounds familiar to me, and if my memory serves, one or two of my brothers must have won it when they were here. They all graduated valedictorian.
Because that’s what Baldwin boys do.
“Yes! And I have the application just…here… One moment—I seem to have misplaced it.”
She starts rooting around on her desk for the applications, lifting a pile here and checking under a pile there. She opens and closes drawers in her desk, but to no avail. She stands to check the piles of papers on a shelf behind her and then moves to a filing cabinet when the shelf search proves fruitless.
I glance over at Jessie, who’s playing with the ends of her hair while her leg bounces violently. It gives me the sudden urge to reach out and place my hand on her leg to steady her. I don’t because unsolicited touching is weird. Instead, I clasp my hands together in my lap to keep from reaching out. Her eyes dart around the room, looking at everything except me. Even nervous and ignoring me, I find Jessie almost overwhelmingly adorable.
I must be staring too hard, though, because Jessie’s eyes finally land on mine. Instead of looking away like I expect her to, she mouths the word “what,” her expression pinched.
But I don’t get a chance to respond because Ava Gold finds the papers.
“Here they are!” she announces and hands a shiny green folder to each of us.
Jessie opens hers, devouring the words on the pages within. I set the folder on my lap unopened.
“There’s a sample application in there, but you’ll fill out the application and submit your essay online. You can find the web address for that at the top of the first page. The winning student is awarded a generous scholarship their senior year, and I assume you both know almost all the valedictorians here at MPC are Walden Scholars. There’s a prize for second and third place as well, and the details of that are in the packet.”
“Thank you so much, Ava,” Jessie says, her voice wobbling a little.
“Yes, thank you for thinking of me for this,” I say. I don’t need the money, but this could certainly earn me a celebratory dinner with my family. I imagine the smile on my dad’s face when I tell him I’ve won, the handshakes from him and my brothers. The Walden Senior Scholarship may come with money, but more importantly, respect from my father.
“When is this due?” I ask.
“December first. They’ll review the applications and send out an email a week later or so.”
December first is a month away, which is a year in college time, and although I won’t know the results by the time I go to dinner with my family, or even by Thanksgiving, just knowing I have this in my back pocket is fortifying.
“This is great. Thanks again, Ava,” I say.
I glance at Jessie. Her eyes are glossy, and she’s stopped jiggling her leg. I thought her constant movement was concerning, but her stillness is even more unsettling. I stand, but when Jessie doesn’t follow suit, I give Ava a nod before heading out of the office.
“Do you have an extra minute, Professor Gold?” Jessie asks, her voice growing distant as I close the door behind me.
Obviously, that meeting was not the place for me and Jessie to discuss what happened last Thursday, but the way she wouldn’t look at me is confusing… Is she really that mad at me? Or is she embarrassed about that night?
Fuck, maybe she regrets what we did and now she doesn’t want to face me. Maybe she wasn’t as into it as I was.
