My eyes dart to Mr. Strane sitting behind his desk, bent over his own stack of papers. Shrugging, I say, “I’ll keep reading. It’s ok.”
Jesse squints at the page in my hands. “Zoe Green? Isn’t that the girl who lost it during the debate tournament last year?” It was—Zoe, assigned to argue for the death penalty, broke down in tears during the final round when her opponent, Jackson Kelly, called her position racist and immoral, which probably wouldn’t have rattled her so badly if Jackson weren’t black. After Jackson was declared the tournament winner, Zoe said she’d felt personally attacked by his rebuttal, which was against the debate rules, so they ended up sharing first place, which was bullshit and everyone knew it.
Jesse leans forward and pulls Zoe’s story out of my hands, marks a check-minus on the right-hand corner, and tosses it in the “no” pile. “Voilà,” he says.
For the rest of the hour while Jesse and I read, Mr. Strane grades papers at his desk at the back of the room, occasionally leaving to make photocopies or get water for the coffeemaker. At one point, he peels an orange and its scent fills the room. At the end of the hour, as I stand to leave, Mr. Strane asks if I’ll come to the next meeting.
“I’m not sure,” I say. “I’m still trying out different things.”
He smiles and waits until Jesse leaves the room before saying, “I guess this doesn’t offer much for you socially.”
“Oh, that doesn’t bother me,” I say. “I’m not exactly a super social person anyway.”
“Why’s that?”
“I don’t know. I guess I just don’t have a ton of friends.”
He nods thoughtfully. “I understand what you mean. I like to be by myself, too.”
My first impulse is to say no, I don’t like being by myself at all, but maybe he’s right. Maybe I’m actually a loner by choice, preferring my own company.
“Well, I used to be best friends with Jenny Murphy,” I say. “From English class.” The words tumble out, catch me off guard. It’s more than I’ve ever told a teacher, especially a man, but the way he watches me—soft-eyed smile, chin resting on his hand—makes me want to talk, to show myself off.
“Ah,” he says. “The little Queen of the Nile.” When I frown, confused, he explains that he means her bobbed haircut, that it makes her look like Cleopatra, and as he says this, I feel a prick of something in my stomach, like jealousy but meaner.
“I don’t think her hair looks that good,” I say.
Mr. Strane smirks. “So you used to be friends. What changed?”
“She started going out with Tom Hudson.”
He thinks for a moment. “The boy with the sideburns.”
I nod, thinking of how teachers must recognize and categorize us in their minds. I wonder what he might associate with me if someone mentioned Vanessa Wye. The girl with the red hair. That girl who is always alone.
“So you suffered a betrayal,” he says, meaning by Jenny.
It’s something I haven’t considered before and warmth fills my chest at the idea. I suffered. It wasn’t that I drove her away by feeling too much or getting too attached. No, I was wronged.
He gets up and walks to the chalkboard, starts erasing the notes left over from class. “What made you want to try out the club? Weak spot on your résumé?”
I nod; it seems ok to be honest with him. “Mrs. Antonova said I should. I do like to write, though.”
“What do you write?”
“Poems, mostly. They’re not good or anything.”
Mr. Strane smiles over his shoulder in a way that is somehow both kind and condescending. “I’d like to read some of your work.”
My brain catches on the way he says “your work,” as though the things I write are worth taking seriously. “Sure,” I say. “If you really want to.”
“I do want to,” he says. “I wouldn’t ask if I didn’t.”
At that, I feel my face flush. My worst habit, according to my mother, is how I deflect compliments with self-deprecation. I need to learn how to accept praise. It boils down to confidence, she says, or lack thereof.
Mr. Strane sets the eraser on the chalk rail and contemplates me from across the room. He slips his hands into his pockets, looks me up and down.
“That’s a nice dress,” he says. “I like your style.”
I mumble thank you, manners instilled so deep they’re reflexive, and look down at my dress. It’s hunter-green jersey, vaguely A-line but mostly shapeless, and ends above the knee. It’s not stylish; I only wear it because I like the contrast in color against my hair. It seems strange for a middle-aged man to notice girl clothes. My dad barely knows the difference between a dress and a skirt.
Mr. Strane turns back to the chalkboard and starts erasing again even though it’s already clean. It almost seems like he’s embarrassed, and part of me wants to thank him again, sincerely this time. Thank you very much, I could say. No one has ever said that to me before. I wait for him to turn back around, but he keeps swiping the eraser back and forth, cloudy streaks across a green expanse.
Then, as I edge toward the doorway, he says, “I hope I see you again on Thursday.”
“Oh, sure,” I say. “You will.”
So I go again on Thursday, and the next Tuesday, and the next Thursday. I become an official member of the club. It takes Jesse and me longer than expected to finish choosing pieces for the lit journal, mostly because I’m so indecisive, going back and changing my vote multiple times. Meanwhile Jesse’s judgment is swift and ruthless, his pen slicing across the page. When I ask him how he can decide so quickly, he says it should be obvious from the first line if something is good or not. One Thursday, Mr. Strane disappears into the office behind his classroom and comes out with a stack of back issues so we can understand what the journal is supposed to look like, even though Jesse was the editor last year so of course he already knows. Thumbing through an issue, I see Jesse’s name listed in the table of contents under “Fiction.”
“Hey, there’s you,” I say.
At the sight of it, he groans. “Don’t read it in front of me, please.”
“Why not?” I skim the first page.
“Because I don’t want you to.”
I slip the issue into my backpack and forget about it until after dinner, when I’m drowning in incomprehensible geometry homework, eager for a distraction. I take the journal and turn to his story, read it twice. It’s good, really good, better than anything I’ve ever written, better than any of the submissions we read for the journal. When I try to tell him this at the next club meeting, he cuts me off. “Writing isn’t really my thing anymore,” he says.
Another afternoon, Mr. Strane shows us how to use the new publishing software to format the issue. Jesse and I sit side by side at the computer while Mr. Strane stands behind us, watching and correcting. At one point when I make a mistake, he reaches down and guides the mouse for me, his hand so big it covers mine completely. His touch makes my whole body go hot. When I make another mistake, he does it again, this time squeezing my hand a little, as though to reassure me that I’ll get the hang of it, but he doesn’t do the same to Jesse, not even when he accidentally x-es out without saving and Mr. Strane has to explain the steps all over again.