followed. Rachel and Riley skimmed until they got to the final item:
ESSAY QUESTION. Write a brief essay that uncovers the root of the problem: the ONE incident you feel is MOST responsible for nudging your feelings for The Object in an unhealthy direction.
They nodded. This would be difficult, but they had experience; Mrs. Woodlawn loved assigning them essay questions. Underneath, David had typed:
For the sake of this example, let’s say it started on September the twenty-third, at a vintage Formica table in Tilly’s ridiculous fourth-floor walkup. Imagine I had come to review a pamphlet she had written and designed for WAVES. I was preparing for a confidential meeting with the Green-Eyed Monsters, a floundering support group for sufferers of professional jealousy, and I needed the materials to be perfect.
We sat by the window with her laptop. She wore a green dress with red polka dots. A damnably sultry song floated from her speakers, the chipped china plate in front of us held sixteen oatmeal scotchies that smelled of childhood, and her gray cat called Webster purred figure-eights around my pant legs, threatening to charm me.
“I like this part very much,” I told Tilly. “The part that reads ‘Ten times faster than behavior modification…Seventy-six percent more productive than talk therapy.’”
She nodded. There was a stillness to her that surfaced only when she worked. “But…?”
“But you’ve misphrased the key selling point of WAVES. The end goal isn’t to ‘zap away your feelings.’ It’s to free yourself from encumbrances.”
“Ah. Encumbrances.” She tapped careful notes. “Allrighty.”
“You don’t agree?”
“I said allrighty.”
“But you want to say more. Please. Talk to me.”
She grabbed a cookie from the plate and took a thoughtful bite. Then she leaned in close, so close I could smell her Mango Madness shampoo.
“Personally, David? I don’t see the benefit.” She searched my face with her tediously beautiful eyes. “I use all my feelings for something. Even the bad ones—they fuel creativity, determination. I let them all live with me.”
“Yes, but most—”
“Nope! Stop right there. You don’t have to justify yourself. My job isn’t to argue with you.”
“No?”
“It’s to understand you.”
I felt myself smile. She smiled back. No woman had ever smiled at me quite like that, or displayed such a cheerful willingness to understand me. I experienced a dreadful surge of passion, the likes of which I had not experienced since I was sixteen and Lotte Schimmel kissed my cheek in the science lab the day before winter break.
And then, at approximately 1:36 p.m., Tilly Merriam choked on an oatmeal scotchie.
I acted fast. I remembered the precise calibrations of the Heimlich maneuver from my rustic days as head counselor at the Future Scientists of America Day Camp. She stayed in my arms for a moment afterward—breathing deep, murmuring thanks into my clavicle. And in that moment I knew: the exquisite miseries of romantic obsession, so long departed from memory, had come to roost once again.
Her idiot Brit of a boyfriend came home then, clomping up the stairs in black steel-toed field boots. This was Hitch, florid of face and yellow of hair, an uncommonly large head atop a compact, muscular body. He looked like a bobblehead of a street thug. He watched her straighten her dress, then cocked his head at me. You could see him trying to put two and two together, without the aid of his fingers. He said something indecipherable that started with “Oi!” and ended with a wet cough I hoped was terminal.
It figured. The worst ones always made off with the best girls. Tilly’s hand brushed my shoulder, as if she’d read my thoughts and wished to apologize for the natural order of things.
“This is David,” she said. “I think he just saved my life.”
Riley shifted in his seat.
Rachel tapped a pencil on the edge of the desk.
“Aw,” Riley said
ESSAY QUESTION. Write a brief essay that uncovers the root of the problem: the ONE incident you feel is MOST responsible for nudging your feelings for The Object in an unhealthy direction.
They nodded. This would be difficult, but they had experience; Mrs. Woodlawn loved assigning them essay questions. Underneath, David had typed:
For the sake of this example, let’s say it started on September the twenty-third, at a vintage Formica table in Tilly’s ridiculous fourth-floor walkup. Imagine I had come to review a pamphlet she had written and designed for WAVES. I was preparing for a confidential meeting with the Green-Eyed Monsters, a floundering support group for sufferers of professional jealousy, and I needed the materials to be perfect.
We sat by the window with her laptop. She wore a green dress with red polka dots. A damnably sultry song floated from her speakers, the chipped china plate in front of us held sixteen oatmeal scotchies that smelled of childhood, and her gray cat called Webster purred figure-eights around my pant legs, threatening to charm me.
“I like this part very much,” I told Tilly. “The part that reads ‘Ten times faster than behavior modification…Seventy-six percent more productive than talk therapy.’”
She nodded. There was a stillness to her that surfaced only when she worked. “But…?”
“But you’ve misphrased the key selling point of WAVES. The end goal isn’t to ‘zap away your feelings.’ It’s to free yourself from encumbrances.”
“Ah. Encumbrances.” She tapped careful notes. “Allrighty.”
“You don’t agree?”
“I said allrighty.”
“But you want to say more. Please. Talk to me.”
She grabbed a cookie from the plate and took a thoughtful bite. Then she leaned in close, so close I could smell her Mango Madness shampoo.
“Personally, David? I don’t see the benefit.” She searched my face with her tediously beautiful eyes. “I use all my feelings for something. Even the bad ones—they fuel creativity, determination. I let them all live with me.”
“Yes, but most—”
“Nope! Stop right there. You don’t have to justify yourself. My job isn’t to argue with you.”
“No?”
“It’s to understand you.”
I felt myself smile. She smiled back. No woman had ever smiled at me quite like that, or displayed such a cheerful willingness to understand me. I experienced a dreadful surge of passion, the likes of which I had not experienced since I was sixteen and Lotte Schimmel kissed my cheek in the science lab the day before winter break.
And then, at approximately 1:36 p.m., Tilly Merriam choked on an oatmeal scotchie.
I acted fast. I remembered the precise calibrations of the Heimlich maneuver from my rustic days as head counselor at the Future Scientists of America Day Camp. She stayed in my arms for a moment afterward—breathing deep, murmuring thanks into my clavicle. And in that moment I knew: the exquisite miseries of romantic obsession, so long departed from memory, had come to roost once again.
Her idiot Brit of a boyfriend came home then, clomping up the stairs in black steel-toed field boots. This was Hitch, florid of face and yellow of hair, an uncommonly large head atop a compact, muscular body. He looked like a bobblehead of a street thug. He watched her straighten her dress, then cocked his head at me. You could see him trying to put two and two together, without the aid of his fingers. He said something indecipherable that started with “Oi!” and ended with a wet cough I hoped was terminal.
It figured. The worst ones always made off with the best girls. Tilly’s hand brushed my shoulder, as if she’d read my thoughts and wished to apologize for the natural order of things.
“This is David,” she said. “I think he just saved my life.”
Riley shifted in his seat.
Rachel tapped a pencil on the edge of the desk.
“Aw,” Riley said
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