“He’s so dreamy,” she said while we climbed the stairs to the third floor. “So manly. So American. So...tan.”
“So rehearsed,” I said, opening the door to Philosophy.
The classroom had high-beamed ceilings and two windows that overlooked the green. A few people were already sitting down, talking or shuffling through their papers. We took seats in the front, and I couldn’t help but scan the room for Dante. He wasn’t there.
Nathaniel scurried in behind me, his skinny frame hunched under the weight of his backpack, making him look like a turtle. He sat down in the desk next to mine just before the bell rang.
“Hi, Renée,” he said, winded and sweating. He pushed his hair out of his face and adjusted his glasses. “Did you finish your essay? I stayed up almost all night doing it. I had to rewrite it four times before I got it right.”
A wave of queasiness passed over me. “Essay?” I looked to Eleanor, hoping it was news for her too, but she pulled hers out of her notebook.
“Yeah, about a myth that we want to believe in. You didn’t do yours?”
“No, I had to miss class because Mrs. Lynch sent me home to change. Remember?”
“Oh, right …” Eleanor gave me an apologetic look. “Sorry. I thought you knew. You looked so busy during study hall that I figured you were working on it.”
I sighed and tried to figure out what to do. “No, it’s my fault. I should have asked.”
“I have a couple of my drafts,” Nathaniel said. “They’re not that good, but you can use one if you want.” He handed me a few crumpled sheets of paper.
It was a sweet gesture, but I wasn’t keen on cheating. Plus, even though everyone knew Nathaniel was a math prodigy, I wasn’t so sure that his brilliance transferred to writing. “Oh no, that’s okay. I’ll just explain what happened to the professor.”
But Nathaniel wouldn’t let me refuse. “I really don’t mind,” he said earnestly, holding the essays in front of me. We both stared at them. With nothing else to do, I took them and began to read.
His handwriting was messy and there were smudges of eraser marks all over the pages. The first one was titled, “I Want to Believe in Myself.” I flipped to the next draft. “I Want to Believe that Calculators Can Replace the Human Brain.” And “I Want to Believe in Imaginary Numbers.” The last one was the most promising, though it looked more like a math proof than an essay, and it didn’t really fit the assignment.
I bit my lip. “These are really...good,” I said, handing them back to him, “but I’d feel bad passing in your work. I’ll just talk to the professor after class. Hopefully he’ll understand.”
Nathaniel shrugged and stuffed them back into his notebook. “It’s a she.”
As if to complete his sentence, a woman entered the room, carrying an armful of papers. She set them on the desk and walked to the front of the class, holding a book. I gazed at her in awe. It was the same woman who had saved me from going to the headmistress’s office.
Annette LaBarge wasn’t beautiful. In fact, she was quite plain. Her clothes were functional and basic, comprised mostly of earth tones: today a linen skirt that exposed her slender ankles and cork clogs. I pictured her in one of those women’s catalogs, posing on a rocky beach while holding a long twig or a piece of driftwood.
“Fairy tales.” Her voice carried like a wind chime. “What if they were true?”
She glanced around the room, her eyes wide with excitement. She was a small woman, thin and fragile looking, though her presence seemed to fill the room with energy. “What if the world once had giants and witches; animals that talked and monsters that threatened all that was good? These stories are the foundation of our society, and what most of Western philosophy is based on.
“I want you to think of the books we read this year not only as philosophical stories, but as realities.”
She opened her book and flipped to the first page. “So let’s go there, to that faraway land where ‘Happily Ever After’ still exists, and see where it takes us.”
She began to read. “Once upon a time...”
And listening to the delicate sound of Miss LaBarge’s voice, I was lulled into a daydream; a simpler place where people were either good or evil, and love lasted forever, where problems could be solved just by believing, where fairies and fauns helped you find your way when you were lost.
After class, I waited until everyone filtered out, then approached the front of the room. Miss LaBarge was standing behind her desk, organizing some papers. I cleared my throat, and she looked up. “Oh hi, Renée.” I was surprised that she remembered my name. It made me feel even more terrible about not doing my homework. “Professor, I—”
“You missed class earlier this week and didn’t know there was an essay due. I know.”
I looked at my feet. “I’m sorry.”
“Just do it for next week,” she said gently. “Write about something you don’t believe in, but wish you did. And next time, just ask.”
I nodded and hugged my books to my chest. I thought about my parents. About Benjamin Gallow. About the graveyard behind the chapel. What did I want to believe in? Life after death.
When I got to Crude Sciences at the end of the day, Dante was waiting for me at our table. This time, with no Latin book, no journal.
“Hello,” he said, pulling my chair out for me.
Surprised, I sat down next to him, trying not to stare at his perfectly formed arms. “Hi,” I said, with an attempt at nonchalance.
“How are you?” I could feel his eyes on me.
“Fine,” I said carefully, as Professor Starking handed out our lab assignments.
Dante frowned. “Not very talkative today, I see.”
I thrust a thermometer into the muddy water of the fish tank in front of us, which was supposed to represent an enclosed ecosystem. “So now you want to talk? Now that you’ve finished your Latin homework?”
After a prolonged period of silence, he spoke. “It was research.”
“Research on what?”
“It doesn’t matter anymore.”
I threw him a suspicious look. “Why’s that?”
“Because I realized I wasn’t paying attention to the right thing.”