When I arrived at the house, a cold sweat ran down my back. I rang the doorbell, and a woman with large eyes and a windblown appearance opened the door. She looked surprised at first, giving me a quick up and down, but quickly recovered.
“You must be Maya. I’m Suzanne Fuller. Please, come in, come in.” Before I’d walked through the door, Mrs. Fuller yelled into the house. “Calum! The tutor’s here!”
A golden retriever ran up to me and began licking my hand. Pleasantly surprised, I reached down and ruffled his head.
“Oh, that’s Gus. I’m sorry. Goodness. Gus!” Mrs. Fuller pulled the dog by the collar and I got a whiff of her heady perfume.
“It’s okay, I love dogs.” I brushed myself off before taking a look around. It was an older house and had a homey feel to it, with a wreath over the fireplace and the smell of freshly baked cookies wafting from the kitchen.
“I don’t know where he is,” she said, flustered. “Calum! Get down here, now!”
Mrs. Fuller gestured for me to follow. When we reached the kitchen, she told me to sit. “Can I get you anything? Some water?”
“Oh, I’m okay, thank you.” I set my bag down on a chair.
After scurrying around the kitchen, Mrs. Fuller brought over a plate of cookies and a glass of water and disappeared into the hallway. I nervously set my books and supplies on the table.
When Mrs. Fuller returned, a dopey-looking teenager followed, with deep bags under his eyes, acne, and a swoop of white-blond hair. His mother pulled out the chair next to me and the boy slumped in, neck hunched so far over his phone I thought it might break. His skin was such a pasty white, like he’d never seen the sun.
“Give me that.” His mother snatched away his phone. “I told you no more games.” He shrugged and looked down at his hands. “Say hello.”
“Hello,” the boy said as he picked loose skin from his thumb.
“Hi there,” I said. “I’m Maya…I know you’d rather be hanging with your friends. But we’ll make this fun. Promise.”
The boy looked up at me; his eyes were big and green like his mother’s. I sat up straighter. “Well, what’s your name?”
“Calum.”
This seemed to satisfy his mother, who gave a little nod and left the kitchen. Calum eyed the chocolate chip cookies sitting in front ofus.
“Pretty nice of your mom.”
He shrugged. “I guess.”
I opened the notebook. “One thing I like to do before starting these personal essays is to make it a sort of game.” I drew a line on the paper and wroteFUN.“What are some things you like to do?”
Calum shrugged, grabbed a cookie, and started picking out the chocolate chips.
“Oh, come on. Music? Sports?”
He ate the chocolate chips one at a time. Once they were all gone, he set the cookie on the table and licked his fingers.Gross.When the dog came over and started sniffing, Calum stroked his back, running his hand all the way down the dog’s tail.
“I like the way his tail feels after he comes back from the groomer’s,” he said, gripping onto it tightly until the dog whimpered. I swallowed, forcing myself to look away.
After a half hour, Calum grew distracted and pulled out his phone, like he thought I was going to write the application for him.
Frustrated, I went to the other room where Mrs. Fuller was on the phone. “Are you sure she’s the most qualified person for this?” she said in a whisper, obviously talking about me.
When I got back to the kitchen, I said firmly, “All right, Calum, enough of this. Time to get to work.”
An hour later, Calum had written a few activities he enjoyed—a video game calledHalo,golf, and Tarantino movies. It was a start. When we were wrapping up, I noticed that Calum was staring at me with a peculiar expression. “You have really nice eyes.”
I sat back, disquieted. “That’s…nice. Thank you.” I forced a smile and focused on packing the notebooks and pens.
But Calum kept staring. “So you’re the one taking the SAT for me in March, right?”
“What?” I looked at him, confused. “I’m not sure what you’re talking about.” DuPont had never mentioned an SAT. Plus we looked nothing alike. And also, that would be wrong. And illegal.
