“So then I said no because it wasn’t going to work, and he just stood there like okay,” I said as my mom cleared the dinner table after our bimonthly dinner.
“What does that mean?” she asked, her tone as clipped as mine.
“It means that there is no way this kid is going to tutor me. First impressions mean a lot, Mom, and this was not a great one,” I said, recalling my real first impression of Hudson, which had taken place on the first day of French 102, when I couldn’t keep my eyes off him the entire class period.
“I’m not sure I understand what you’re going for here, Edie. Of all people, you should be the last person to judge someone based on a first impression. You hate it when people judge you because of the way you dress and the way you do your hair and all that.”
She looked frazzled, her dress pants and silk blouse wrinkled from a day of sitting behind a desk. Her almond-colored hair was frizzy, like mine, from the drizzle that had been falling all day. My mother’s face was longer than mine, oval with high cheekbones. I looked more like my father, who had a heart-shaped face, round cheeks, and a subtle chin.
She wasn’t wrong. First impressions were what always got me teased. I hated it, and now I was doing it to someone else.
“But I didn’t even tell you the worst part,” I said, resting my arms on the table and then my chin on my arm. “He told the secretary that I have a hearing problem and that I need a special room to study in.”
“Maybe he wanted to give her a heads-up that you weren’t a typical student. Who knows?” she said, defending someone she didn’t even know.
That was so my mother. She was always defending someone or something. It was what she was born to do. She was a stay-at-home mom as my brother and I grew up, and when the school discovered I was having a hard time learning, she became a parent advocate, too. Not only did she sit in on every single one of my meetings to ensure I got everything I needed, but she also volunteered to sit in on other people’s meetings to make sure their child got everything they needed. She was perceived as a bit of a beast by my teachers, but she didn’t care how the school viewed her.
“Mom, you don’t even know him. And plus, shouldn’t he be tutoring me like I’m a typical student? Why can’t I just be a student who needs help? I didn’t have to tell anyone any of this last year, and now all of a sudden everyone and their brother needs to know.”
“Because you aren’t just a student who needs help. What you need is different from what other people need, and the only way to get that help is to let the person helping you know. Just let him try to help you in a different way. It sounds like he was just trying to be conscientious.” She pointed the mashed potato spoon at me with a smile. “And besides, even if you hadn’t told him about your CAPD, he would still have to try to tutor you in a way that worked for you. So, in essence, you’ve saved yourself and him a lot of time trying to figure out what works and what doesn’t.”
“But that’s not fair,” I whined, sinking my head into the crook of my arm, the tip of my nose touching the table. “I just want to be like everyone else.”
“But you’re not and you don’t, not really. We’re not having this conversation again, Edie.”
She was right; I didn’t really want to be like everyone else. I truly wanted to be me and that me was not ashamed of my disability. That me was going to fight for what I needed to be successful. That me might end up punching Wesley Hudson, though.
“You need to pass this French course, and you need help to do it. Be thankful you did okay last year and didn’t need to go through all this trouble. But you need the help now, and you’re going to get it. Accept that and move forward.” She walked out of the dining room and into the kitchen. She banged around a few pots for emphasis before coming back into the dining room.
“Every time you get frustrated with this tutor, just remind yourself that it’s all for Paris.”
I sighed. She was right; it was all for Paris. It was also for a general education requirement, but there was a bigger picture. There was more at stake than checking a box.
Paris. Paris. Paris. My new mantra.
“What about the spy kit?” she asked. I pulled my head out of my arms. “It could work. The professor did tell you to come back with a better plan.”
“I don’t know. I mean, would it even still fit my ear? I haven’t touched it in years.” I wasn’t entirely against the idea, but memories of middle school filled my head quickly and I didn’t think I could go through that again.
The spy kit was an FM transmitter I used to wear in school, from first grade through seventh grade. It was two pieces. A microphone that hung on a lanyard around the teacher’s neck and an earpiece that went into my ear. It allowed the teacher to talk directly to me, minimizing as many distractors as possible. I’d stopped wearing it because the other kids relentlessly teased me. Because wearing it made me different, and at the time there was nothing more I wanted than to be the same as everyone else. Even though nowadays there was nothing more I wanted than to be exactly who I am, I couldn’t help but worry about history repeating itself.
“It’s worth trying,” she said as she headed toward the designated junk drawer in the oversized mahogany credenza we never used. “I imagine we could buy a different earpiece if we needed to.”
I watched her rummage through the drawer. The transmitter was a good idea, but I wasn’t feeling overly confident about it. Dr. Clément had already denied my request to record his lectures, despite having explained my situation to him. What if he said no to this, too?
“Aha!” My mom turned around, holding the earpiece in one hand and dangling the transmitter in the other.
“Oh my God,” I said, laughing at the look on her face and the state in which she’d found the device’s lanyard. “I’m pretty sure that thing had a fancy case to it. Where the heck is it?”
“Hell if I know.” She dropped the pieces on the table and turned back to the drawer, rummaging again.
“You never should have let me get the microphone and earpiece in pink. No wonder I got picked on so much.” I smiled as I attempted to untangle the microphone strap.
My mom sighed as she lowered herself into the chair next to me. She opened her hand, dropping two AAA batteries and a watch battery onto the table. The small battery rolled on its side before falling close to my pinkie.
“What?” I asked, catching her eyes as she bit at the dry skin on her bottom lip. I scooped up the batteries and began clicking them into place.
“Nothing.” She waved at me dismissively with one hand while the other traced the orange and white paisley pattern on the tablecloth.
“Yeah, okay.” I knew she was lying. I laid my hand on hers, stopping the tracing.
My mom was a busy-hands kind of person. If she was feeling even the slightest bit uncomfortable, her fingers would pick at nonexistent lint or trace designs on tablecloths or run through her hair. Or fiddle with my hair.
“I just don’t like to talk about how you used to get bullied,” she said, swatting my hand away from hers.
“First of all, I wasn’t bullied, I was teased—there’s a difference—and second of all, it made me a stronger person, so whatever. What doesn’t kill you and all that…”
“Oh, is that why you almost failed the eighth grade?” She narrowed her eyes.
Eighth grade, the worst year of my life. The year I stopped growing up and started growing out. The year I grew a butt and boobs. The year I decided to take back control over my life by putting my foot down about the FM transmitter.
“I didn’t almost fail eighth grade. And besides, I needed to learn how to learn without this.” I dismissed her words, holding up the pieces. I’d spent most of the first two marking periods of eighth grade staying up half the night trying to memorize the Hebrew of the haftarah for my bat mitzvah.
I pushed aside my other work to concentrate on that. At the time, I was more concerned about letting Mrs. Leventhal down than I was about letting down my teachers at school. My teachers in eighth grade saw me as a hassle; Mrs. Leventhal was kind and caring and patient. She raised the bar, knowing it would be hard for me, and her. She challenged me, and that had made me want to put in the work to accomplish something the school district told me I’d never be able to do—hence the language exemption.
So yes, I had almost failed eighth grade. I’d barely made it through, but I didn’t sink. I swam. It may have been a doggie paddle, but I didn’t drown. My mom didn’t know that the pressure of getting my haftarah perfect for my bat mitzvah was almost too much for me to handle, and she never would. But the truth was I focused so much on that, on learning to read Hebrew, because part of me wanted to prove I could. After years of feeling like I couldn’t, all I wanted to do was achieve.
“No, you didn’t need to learn how to learn without this. That was the whole point of having this stuff. Because you needed it. Because it helped you.”
She ran her hand down my arm, smoothing the fuzz of my ivory cardigan.
“I know, I know. It leveled the playing field. I understood it then and I still get it now,” I reassured her as I moved my hair to one side and fumbled with the earpiece to fit it against my now adult-sized ear.
“Does it fit?” she asked.
I placed the device snugly around my ear, adjusting it before letting go.
“Yup,” I said, revealing it game-show-host style. I flipped my hair back into place, covering the earpiece behind a curtain of waves.
“Hand me that.” She pointed at the microphone.
I handed her the untangled transmitter and watched as she walked out of the kitchen and into the foyer.
I listened for that familiar click the earpiece picked up when the transmitter was turned on. No click yet, but I could hear the heat blowing from the floor register. The hum of the refrigerator. The ice falling into the tray. A car driving by. The dog barking two houses down.
Click. Static.
“Testing one, two, three.” My mother’s soft voice came through.
It still worked. I sighed as I slid down the chair, my legs splayed out under the table. Now if I could get the professor to wear this gaudy thing, then I wouldn’t need Hudson as a tutor.