I had taken advanced math classes in junior high because I liked math
and hated idiots and there were fewer of them in hard math class.
What I did not know was that when we were put into the high school
was that all of the good looking quantitatively illiterate senior girls would be taking the same class as advanced sophomores. Never
had I enjoyed the fruits of my above average math skills in my life.
The first day in we sat randomly so I sat by no one I knew but I
noticed that in the class of thirty there were about 20 girls and
most of them juniors and seniors. For those of you that were English
majors or, god help you, liberal artists – that is a ratio of two
to one in my favor. The teacher asked who knew how to solve a complex
problem he was hoping to stump us all with on the board and I jumped
at the chance to show off, solved the problem and made my reputation.
The second class period four older girls, practically women, asked me
to come and sit with them to help them if they got stuck because, as
they had so astutely observed. I was smart. Maybe instead of being
good at math they were exceptional judges of character, it takes all
kinds I guess. I sat with them and helped them and enjoyed the times
they leaned over close to see what I was doing to help someone else.
There was a particularly attractive senior girl who needed to pass
the class to graduate and she had the most delightful disregard for
personal space. She would lean in close enough for me to feel her
body pressing against my arms and back or when we were talking face
to face she would get much to close like she was closing the distance
for a kiss. She would talk to me outside of class and made a point of
saying hi to me even if it was out of her way. All of which I took as
signs she was coming on to me. Hot dang, hot dang. My 15-year-old
brain, drenched in the chemicals that encouraged – nay, compelled-
procreation, fueled exotic fantasies about what would happen if we
spent time alone together. Then one day before a test she asked me if
she could take me over to her house after school to study and then
she would drive me back home afterword. I was nervous with
anticipation, an older woman asking me to come over to her house with
her alone to, wink-wink study. Yes, yes and hell yes. I met up with
her after school and got in her car, because she had a car, because
she was so old and cool. We drove the four or five miles to her house
and we were there alone and we went right to her room and onto her
bed and then we studied math. I felt used and betrayed, and not in a
good way. She had led me to her bedroom alone on false pretenses of
uninhibited debauchery and then quite against my will we studied and
only studied. What a flippin' ripoff. When she had asked me to come
to her house to study there was no wink-wink, I had imagined the
wink-wink and I was sorely disappointed. What good is being good at
math if it cannot get me a little tongue action with a fine older
lady? That was not a rhetorical question, I am actively seeking a use
for the advanced math that I was required to learn and to this day
have not been able to find a practical application for. We stayed
study partners and it never blossomed. She passed the class and
graduated later that year so I guess it wasn't a total loss.
