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Chapter One
Edith
I slam my head down on my desk as the nameless, button-down wearing TA shoves another exam paper in front of my face. Groaning, I peer up and, with shaking hands, flip the blue book open to the back page. Again, in big fat red marker that looks like someone bled all over my quiz assignment, is written…69%
It’s been underlined three times…three times. Dumbfounded, I stare at it. My brain doesn’t want to compute this level of failure this early in the day. On the previous exam, I scored a meager 76% which, if we’re splitting hairs, is technically above average. I can’t afford to be average. I’m here on a scholarship and anything less than a B grade puts me at risk of losing my scholarship money and sending me right back to bumble-fuck obscurity in a South Jersey trailer park. The last thing I want is my drunk parents rooting me to their sucky life. I’m already working two part-time jobs to make ends meet. I lied on my application about health insurance so I could save that cost off my already steep in-state tuition. I’ve donated blood, shopped at thrift stores, and sold my car. I’ve saved every damn penny I’ve earned to keep myself afloat. I’m pretty much out of financial options, besides prostitution. I can’t stomach the thought of selling myself in hopes that some rich guy will politely render my virginity and fall madly, obsessively in love with me. Frankly, that’s too much to ask and reads like a drug store romance novel my mother used to keep next to the bed. My damn freak of nature disability is rearing its ugly head just like my parents said it would. I squeeze my eyes shut and try to breathe through the tears that threaten to fall down my cheeks and choke me. The old record keeps playing…You’re stupid, you’re nothing, you can’t read and write like everyone else. I’m a senior, a damn senior. I’ve made it this far. I have to keep doing this.
I barely make it through the TA’s lecture before he informs us that our current hard-ass Statistics professor, Dr. Roth, will be out the rest of the semester due to heart surgery. I fail to see how that’s my problem. I found his pop quizzes pretty heartless, so I don’t know why the hell they’d be conducting surgery on a person like him anyway. Dr. Roth has been the enemy since day one and, for the past month of this fall semester, I’d been slowly sinking on his ship of word problem T and Z scores. I tried to get a tutor but, apparently, there’s a waiting list a mile long and even us scholarship students don’t merit preferential treatment. I could have used my disability status to get one, but how freaking embarrassing would that be? Yes, let’s announce to the world that I’m an idiot. That feels just about right. More time for tests and quizzes I’d be failing anyway? No, thanks. I just can’t get the material to stay inside my brain long enough to regurgitate it inside those damn blue books. I tried online help, with no success, and a study group, but all those kids showed up hung over and high. I should be studying to be a gym teacher, not some business major. I was the epitome of perfect health, not some entrepreneurial wiz.
The TA only kept us long enough to assign some graded word problems for the following week that would likely have me crossing me eyes once I got home from work and sat down to look them over. I always needed an extra hour or two to finish homework for this class. Time I just didn’t have. Leaving class, I see Shelby and Aiden waiting for me. At least my two best friends understand my pain.
“Uh oh, I think Edie needs an espresso, stat.” Aiden curls his arm around me and hugs me to his chest. His other arm is around Shelby, who is smiling and joining in on our group hug.
“That bad?” Shelby asks.
“A 69%,” I sigh, forcefully pushing the breath from my body. “It’s seven points worse than last time. My grade is falling into the gutter and I can’t even get a tutor for this class. Plus, they just advised that Dr. Roth, the devil, likely won’t be back for the rest of the semester. One of you just shoot me now. Please,” I whine into Aiden’s chest.
“Ah, lovey, you know I’d help you out, but I’m pre-med, and Shelby is all art and hippy shit. The last time we tried tackling your homework, we almost killed each other with the calculators.” Aiden gently rubs my back. It’s not in a pervert way. He is just that touchy-feely with everyone and it almost makes me feel comforted.
“That’s because you were quizzing me while Shelby was drawing nude pictures of you. I can’t concentrate with that shit going on.” I make a circling motion with my hand, trying to inject some sarcasm, earning me a blushing grunt from Aiden.
“Yeah…because, apparently, bell curves and penises are fucking hilarious,” Shelby mutters and we both poke her, making her eyes roll. Our study session actually got Shelby the lowest grade in her art class, as if drawing penises was something you could objectively grade.
“Besides, as your medical consult, I’d be forced to remove the bullet and staunch the bleeding, should you be shot in my presence.” Aiden ignores my comment about his nude modeling. It’s probably a good thing he is dating Shelby because we didn’t have to deal with any jealousy issues between us. We were like the Three Musketeers, and I never wanted that to change. My life had sucked balls until I escaped high school and got this scholarship to attend Rutgers, meeting Shelby and Aiden three years ago in a freshman seminar. None of us quite fit in and here we are, years later, thicker than thieves.
“Come on, Edie. Let’s drown our sorrows in coffee and cake. I’
ve got to draw some elderly male model in my Life Drawing class, but all I can do is imagine his body with Aiden’s penis.” Aiden rolls his eyes as Shelby makes rude gestures with her hands.
“Shelby, I don’t know how you and Aiden have made it this far, but I can pass on the penis comparisons. Thanks.” I mutter, disentangling myself from them to walk ahead to the Starbucks.
“Oh, please. It’s my appreciation of his penis that’s made us last this long.” Shelby shrugs and pecks a very red-faced Aiden on the cheek. I pray Shelby does not start chanting penis just to embarrass us in public… It would not be the first time she did it. He must be a saint among men to tolerate Shelby’s candid mouth, which makes me wince because I don’t want to think about her mouth and Aiden in the same sentence at this moment.
“Arrrg, please. Enough!” I cup my hands over my ears. “La, la, la,” I sing as loud as I can. We walk down the block together, laughing and joking. Coffee is the only acceptable cure for this conversation between my two friends.
Jack
“Mr. Hamilton, you have a call from Rutgers on line one,” Tom, my PA, buzzes me from the front office. I am shuffling papers around on my desk, getting contracts ready for signatures and reviewing files Tom had brought into me earlier. A small headache is forming behind my left eye and the buzz of the office phone is not helping. Looking around my very sleek and modern office, I think this is really not how I wanted to spend my adult life.
“Thanks Tom. I’ll take the call. Can you order some Pad Thai for lunch?”
