an 800 on the verbal section of the SATs, and I
hadn’t even batted an eye.
“ I take improvement into
consideration when I assign final grades,” he shuffled the last of
his papers together and placed them inside a tattered leather
briefcase. “So this grade doesn’t have to determine anything,
unless you let it.”
I nodded, clenching one fist in my
pocket as he closed the briefcase.
“ I look forward to reading
your assignment this week,” he said, dismissing me.
I felt my lip tremble, and turned to
leave the classroom as quickly as I could.
The paper was due in six
hours.
And I hadn’t even started the
book.
Chapter Ten
I went straight to the library, flying
through the first hundred pages of the book in three hours before
resorting to the Wikipedia summary for the rest of it.
I strung together three pages on
feminine identity and naming conventions, and then deleted half of
it, started over with a focus on Biblical references, and then
deleted that too.
My cell phone buzzed twice, but I
ignored it, typing furiously on my laptop.
Ambiguity, I thought. The language in
the Handmaid’s Tale is clearer than our last book, but the same
ambiguity is underneath. We don’t know what happened to change
society into the setting for the book. We don’t know what happens
to the characters when the story ends (courtesy of Wikipedia). Just
like Oedipa Maas, I wrote, ignoring the red squiggly spell-check
line that was trying to make me look like an idiot again, we follow
the story with a veil over our eyes, trying to find answers that
the author purposely left out. The important question, I typed,
feeling a smile creeping onto my face, isn’t always what we’re
given, but what we’re not. The Handmaid’s Tale doesn’t have to tell
us how society got to its dystopian landscape. It’s enough that we
believe that it could.
Good
enough , I thought to myself, hitting the
button to print what I’d written and saving the document on my
laptop. I took a deep breath and closed the computer, feeling the
tension in my back start to let up.
It was after three o’clock and I was
starving. I’d read over my paper in the dining hall and then turn
it in on my way home. I texted Blake where I was heading and packed
up the rest of my stuff, opening my bag as I left the library so
the guard could make sure I hadn’t stolen anything.
I had a voicemail from my mom and my
younger brother. They’d called as she was picking him up from
school, and I hadn’t even heard the phone vibrate. Trevor started
fifth grade this year, and apparently was on his way to his first
school dance that night. I smiled, thinking about my goofy younger
brother asking some girl to slow dance.
I picked the dining hall closest to
our dorm and started towards it, figuring it was my best chance of
seeing someone I actually knew, and not having to sit at a table by
myself.
An hour later, I’d suffered through a
forty five minute lunch with our hall’s residential adviser, a
mousy girl named Jillian – “not Jill,” she’d corrected me — who was
the only person I’d recognized eating lunch at 3 o’clock on a
Friday. Darby still hadn’t called me, so I figured I’d run by our
room and make sure she hadn’t gotten rejected from Kappa and
started contemplating suicide.
Standing outside my dorm, though, was
the last person I expected to see.
“ Snow,” Tanner Cole said,
looking rugged and annoyingly handsome in a shearling leather
jacket and jeans.
I narrowed my eyes. “Are you stalking
me?”
He laughed, shrugging his
shoulders. “I’m here to see Blake,” he said. “But it turns out the
registrar won’t just tell you which room on campus is Blake Parker’s.” He
shot me a sly smile. “Probably overly cautious on their part,” he
said. “Blake’s not really my type. Your room, on the other hand —
that one, I might be interested in seeing...”
I rolled my eyes so he wouldn’t see me
blush.
“
hadn’t even batted an eye.
“ I take improvement into
consideration when I assign final grades,” he shuffled the last of
his papers together and placed them inside a tattered leather
briefcase. “So this grade doesn’t have to determine anything,
unless you let it.”
I nodded, clenching one fist in my
pocket as he closed the briefcase.
“ I look forward to reading
your assignment this week,” he said, dismissing me.
I felt my lip tremble, and turned to
leave the classroom as quickly as I could.
The paper was due in six
hours.
And I hadn’t even started the
book.
Chapter Ten
I went straight to the library, flying
through the first hundred pages of the book in three hours before
resorting to the Wikipedia summary for the rest of it.
I strung together three pages on
feminine identity and naming conventions, and then deleted half of
it, started over with a focus on Biblical references, and then
deleted that too.
My cell phone buzzed twice, but I
ignored it, typing furiously on my laptop.
Ambiguity, I thought. The language in
the Handmaid’s Tale is clearer than our last book, but the same
ambiguity is underneath. We don’t know what happened to change
society into the setting for the book. We don’t know what happens
to the characters when the story ends (courtesy of Wikipedia). Just
like Oedipa Maas, I wrote, ignoring the red squiggly spell-check
line that was trying to make me look like an idiot again, we follow
the story with a veil over our eyes, trying to find answers that
the author purposely left out. The important question, I typed,
feeling a smile creeping onto my face, isn’t always what we’re
given, but what we’re not. The Handmaid’s Tale doesn’t have to tell
us how society got to its dystopian landscape. It’s enough that we
believe that it could.
Good
enough , I thought to myself, hitting the
button to print what I’d written and saving the document on my
laptop. I took a deep breath and closed the computer, feeling the
tension in my back start to let up.
It was after three o’clock and I was
starving. I’d read over my paper in the dining hall and then turn
it in on my way home. I texted Blake where I was heading and packed
up the rest of my stuff, opening my bag as I left the library so
the guard could make sure I hadn’t stolen anything.
I had a voicemail from my mom and my
younger brother. They’d called as she was picking him up from
school, and I hadn’t even heard the phone vibrate. Trevor started
fifth grade this year, and apparently was on his way to his first
school dance that night. I smiled, thinking about my goofy younger
brother asking some girl to slow dance.
I picked the dining hall closest to
our dorm and started towards it, figuring it was my best chance of
seeing someone I actually knew, and not having to sit at a table by
myself.
An hour later, I’d suffered through a
forty five minute lunch with our hall’s residential adviser, a
mousy girl named Jillian – “not Jill,” she’d corrected me — who was
the only person I’d recognized eating lunch at 3 o’clock on a
Friday. Darby still hadn’t called me, so I figured I’d run by our
room and make sure she hadn’t gotten rejected from Kappa and
started contemplating suicide.
Standing outside my dorm, though, was
the last person I expected to see.
“ Snow,” Tanner Cole said,
looking rugged and annoyingly handsome in a shearling leather
jacket and jeans.
I narrowed my eyes. “Are you stalking
me?”
He laughed, shrugging his
shoulders. “I’m here to see Blake,” he said. “But it turns out the
registrar won’t just tell you which room on campus is Blake Parker’s.” He
shot me a sly smile. “Probably overly cautious on their part,” he
said. “Blake’s not really my type. Your room, on the other hand —
that one, I might be interested in seeing...”
I rolled my eyes so he wouldn’t see me
blush.
“
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