Wrong About the Guy(35)

“How annoying George Nussbaum can be. No, wait—I bet a ton of people think about that.”

“Funny,” he said.

I slumped down in my chair. “I honestly don’t know what to write about other than that trip. The college counselor said it should be meaningful and that’s the only thing I can think of.”

He waited a moment, then said, “So I was reading everything I could find about college essays last night—”

“Of course you were.”

“And I came across this one article by someone who consults about college applications for a living—she gets like thirty thousand dollars per client—and she said the best essay she ever read was about napping. The kid who wrote it just really liked taking naps and he was able to say why in a funny, charming way.”

“I don’t like to take naps. I never know what time it is when I wake up and I feel all groggy and stomachachey.”

He shot me a look. “You may be missing the point here.”

I waved my hand. “I get it. I should come up with something offbeat.”

He nodded, watching me expectantly.

We sat there for a minute and then I shook my head. “I can’t think of anything interesting. My life is boring. I’m boring.”

“That’s it?” he said. “You’re giving up?”

“What was yours about?” I said, almost accusingly.

“About having a lot of older brothers. And about how no matter what I did, I felt like I could never measure up. And a little bit about how I had crushes on all their girlfriends.”

All right, so his was cooler than mine. No wonder he got into Harvard. “Can I see it?”

He shook his head. “Nah, too embarrassing for me to look at it now.”

“Did you have a crush on Izzy? Do you still?”

“If I did, you’d be the first person I’d tell,” he said. “Okay, let’s go over this essay.”

It was painful to read through it with him. I hated every word now that we’d had that conversation. George was right: it was self-satisfied and dishonest. I was trying to make myself look virtuous and caring, when I wasn’t really either.

But the college counselor had approved it and it was safe and I didn’t have any other ideas.

“You’re unusually quiet,” George observed after he’d pointed out some minor edits.

“I’m listening,” I said.

“You sure you’re not getting sick?”

“I am capable of listening quietly, you know.”

He raised his eyebrows but didn’t say anything. The doorbell rang, and I jumped to my feet. “Heather’s turn. Thank God.”

Once she had her own essay displayed on her laptop, I asked if I could read it over George’s shoulder, and she said, “If you want to, but I don’t know why you would. It’s not very good.”

“Stop that,” I said. “You’re always putting yourself down.”

“But it’s not.”

“I bet it’s better than mine. George hated mine.”

“I didn’t say that,” George protested.

“You strongly implied it.” I stood behind George’s chair so we could read Heather’s essay at the same time, George glancing up at me to make sure I was ready each time he scrolled down. Fortunately we read at the same pace.

The essay was about how Heather had found a stray dog when she was ten and helped to rescue it, and that got her interested in animal rights, so now she worked at an animal shelter once a week. She said we all had to speak for the animals because they couldn’t speak for themselves and too many were euthanized or mistreated. The essay finished with “I hope to do something to change this sad situation someday.”

“Well?” she said when we had finished.

“It’s good.” I circled around the table and sat down. “It could maybe be a little less . . .” I stopped. “I don’t know. What do you think, George? You’re the expert.”

“I’m not really an expert,” he said. Then: “You did a good job laying out the issues with stray animals and I can tell you’re passionate about the subject. It’s just . . .” He halted.

“You guys keep stopping!” she said. “It’s okay. I know it’s bad. The counselor at my school said it was fine, though. And my dad likes it.”

“It’s not bad,” George said. “It just needs more of you in it. Why did that stray dog speak to you?”

“It just started barking.”

“No, I mean, what made you want to take it under your wing?”

She giggled. “It’s funny to talk about wings when you’re discussing animals. I just loved her at first sight—she had this silly scruffy hair on top of her head that was so cute.”


“Well, see, that’s a nice detail,” he said. “Details make an essay come alive. You want this to be less about rescuing the dogs of the world and more about who you are.”

“Okay,” she said, and proved over the next half hour or so to be a far more obedient and tractable student than I was, eagerly suggesting new ideas and word choices whenever he asked her for them.

I stayed at the table with them, aimlessly surfing the net on my own computer. George had told me to edit my essay while he worked with Heather, but I just couldn’t bring myself to look at it again right away.