First & Then(32)

Ezra wasn’t asking colleges if he could go there—colleges were asking him. And what about me? No one was knocking down my door. And why was that?

I wouldn’t say that I was lazy, necessarily. I had always done what was expected of me. I checked off all the boxes. Showed up on time. Passed every class. But I wasn’t … well, I wasn’t Ezra. I didn’t have a talent like that. But I didn’t have the work ethic to make up for it, either. I guess Ezra had both.

I wrote him back. Just a quick “Thanks” and a smiley face. And Ezra replied with a “No problem” followed by a reciprocal smiley face. I almost laughed, thinking he should’ve used one of those slanted-mouth emoticons to indicate how he actually looks in real life. Then I remembered my calculus homework, vowed to put in the extra effort, and started back in on it.





15


“Did you talk to him?” Rachel Woodson strode past me in the hall on my way to American History the next day, slowing just a notch to indicate that I was meant to walk with her.

“Sorry?”

She was typing on her phone, thumbs tapping furiously. “Ezra. Have you conducted your interview with Ezra?”

Conducted my interview. Rachel made this venture sound a lot more legitimate than it ought to have sounded.

“Yeah, actually—”

“Why haven’t you sent me your write-up yet?”

“Uh, he sent me some … expanded thoughts on some of the … more critical issues. I just need to compile them with my interview.” Now I was making it sound more legitimate than it ought to have sounded.

“Oh. Okay.” I think this was what passed for pleased with Rachel.

I decided to take this opportunity.

“Hey, Rachel?”

“Yes.” She was really flying on that phone.

“Do you … I mean, would you mind, maybe, helping me out with some of my college stuff? You know, like, looking over my application stuff, and maybe giving me some pointers?”

She actually glanced over at me for a second. “My schedule’s pretty tight at the moment.”

Understatement of the year. “I know. I just … well, you’re the best at it, obviously, so I just thought if anyone could help me, you could.” I wasn’t sure if Rachel was immune to flattery, but I was about to find out.

“How many schools are you applying to?”

“Well, just one, right now.”

The look on Rachel’s face told me that that statement may have ranked among the saddest things she’d ever heard.

“I mean, I’ll add some others,” I said quickly. “But this one … it’s a good one: Reeding University.”

“You want to go there?”

“I mean—yeah?”

She raised one eyebrow.

“Yes,” I said, definitively, though I had very little to back this up.

I had gotten a postcard from Reeding in the mail, and I liked the picture. It showed an old building with white siding and black shutters, a porch running along the front. Some students were sitting on the porch steps, grinning at one another in that kind of not-so-candid candid way. OFFICE OF STUDENT AFFAIRS, the text said in little letters below them.

The back of the card proclaimed Reeding’s small class sizes and its history of diversity and its study-abroad program. ACHIEVE YOUR GOALS, it said. START YOUR FUTURE.

That was the kind of thing that normally made me roll my eyes. It was like that smug lion on the wall of Mrs. Wentworth’s office. BE BETTER THAN YOU ARE RIGHT NOW.

But there was something about this postcard that I latched onto. I couldn’t tell Rachel what, or why, because I hardly knew myself.

There was a pause, in which Rachel did not type, or check the Dow, or e-mail the Secretary of State, or do whatever it was she happened to do on that phone. Maybe she knew. Maybe she was just taking pity on me.

“Send me your résumé and meet me in the writing lab at three,” she said. “I have fifteen minutes between meetings.”




What could Rachel Woodson possibly accomplish in fifteen minutes? I was about to find out.

“Your résumé is terrible,” she said.

“Okay. Yes. Constructive criticism. Let’s do this.”

“You know that the point of a resume is to make yourself sound good, right? Where are your special skills? Where are your awards?”

I won a writing award in fourth grade. My essay on the subject of “pay it forward” won me a one hundred–dollar gift card to Target. Ignoring a stunning opportunity to actually pay it forward, I bought a bike with pink and purple streamers coming out of the handles.

I didn’t tell Rachel this anecdote. Something told me she wouldn’t find a fourth-grade writing award amusing. That bike really did kick ass, though.

I watched over Rachel’s shoulder as she gave my résumé an overhaul. At the end of roughly seven minutes (I honestly think she was timing it), she had burrowed deeper into my academic career than I had ever really thought to, grilled me on each of my extracurriculars, and recommended two ACT manuals so I could retake the test, because “obviously” I would want to raise my science score.

“You don’t have any volunteering,” she said. “You need to volunteer.”