The Unseemly Education of Anne Merchant. Joanna Wiebe

outside, the oddness of the day, my jet lag, and my strange encounter with Molly might have made me a little jumpier than usual. Those shots we heard? I’ve dreamt up a million more explanations. Could have been barking sea lions. Or wailing loons. Or someone scattering gulls. Or a starting gun.

      “Yeah, a starting gun,” I tell myself. “Starting gun for a running club.”

      Doesn’t matter that, if the list of clubs in this handbook is exhaustive, there’s no running club here. There is, however, every other club known to man. A Model UN. Something called the Pil-At-Ease Club. Economics Club. Glee Club. The Social Committee. Swimming. Tennis. Mathletes. Everything.

      What will I sign up for?

      “What would Mr. Ben Zin be likely to take?” I ask myself and just as quickly fling the handbook down. “Why am I even thinking about the snobby son of some gun-firing power tripper?”

      Just before I blow out the candles, I hear a motorbike in the Zins’ driveway, and I jump out of bed, flying to the window in time to see not a Harley but a yellow Ducati disappear under the Zins’ porte cochere. For what feels like hours, I stand in the shadows, looking out my window, watching their house, watching lights fill and disappear from one window after the other.

      In reality, I know guys like Ben don’t associate with girls like me. He’s a gorgeous senior; I’m a lowly junior. And I saw his reaction to my crooked smile. There’s no denying that. If his grades were poor, at least I could console myself that he might one day deign to discuss persistence in stochastic environments with me—but he’s set to get the Big V this year.

      “Nothing could possibly interest Ben Zin in me.”

      I turn to the small mirror on my dresser. And I rub my eyes.

      It must be the candlelight. Or maybe there’s something in the water here that makes people look better than we otherwise would. Sure, I’m nowhere near as flawless as the other kids I encountered today, but I can’t help but notice that I don’t look quite as unfortunate as I normally do. Flattering light—that must be it.

      Sweeping my hair away from my face and holding it high in a ponytail, I turn side to side to see my profile in the reflection. I look…hmm, not all that bad. It’s sort of like being introduced to myself, like my brain is temporarily allowing me a second chance to make a first impression. I definitely look more like my mom than I used to (a good thing). I can see similarities with her bone structure, her eyes, and her lips. Sure, I’ve got a blemish near my jawline, but I’m sixteen! I’m supposed to.

      Gradually, I let my eyes fall below my neck, but it’s like this chore to get them there—to get them to my actual body, not just my face and hair, knowing that I’m about to check myself out. One part pathetic; one part intriguing.

      Like a lot of girls, I guess, I’ve built an uncertain existence in the shadows of my most prominent flaws, which are the very qualities that make me different, which is only good on good days. But here I am now. Standing in my pajama shirt and undies. Tracing my fingertips over my collarbone in the dark. Dropping my arms to my side and letting my hand hover at the hem of my pajama shirt. Holding my breath, I lift it slowly. Take it off. And blush at my reflection. Because my body is so unrecognizable to me, it’s almost pornographic.

      “Not bad,” I whisper, looking at myself as I never really have before. Something inside me stirs—not because I’m attracted to myself. It’s something else. It’s realizing, for the first time ever, that I may possess a teensy tiny bit of sexual power. It’s realizing, in spite of my will to succeed based on intelligence alone, that Teddy might not have been entirely crazy to suggest my body could be a strong asset for me.

      There’s a knock at the door. I clasp my shirt to my chest and pray that Teddy doesn’t come marching up the stairs to find me like this.

      “Annie? You awake?” Gigi loud-whispers. “My feet are killing me. Would you massage them?”

      I don’t make a peep, and she finally pads back to her room. I slip my shirt back on and decide to force myself to sleep (because I’ll be joining Ornithology Club, which starts at 7:00 A.M., which is 4:00 A.M. back home, which will feel terrible tomorrow). I reach to draw my shade. And at that exact moment, just as I let my eyes fall on the Zin mansion for what I thought would be a nanosecond, I glimpse someone standing at a window there.

      No, not someone. Two people.

      I can see only their silhouettes, but it’s clear one is a man and the other a woman, and something tells me the man is not Dr. Zin. Too lean. Which means it’s Ben. With a girl. A girl who is reaching for him…not in a motherly way.

      The air empties out of my room. Everything deflates at the unmistakable sight of Ben with some girl.

      “Of course he has a girlfriend,” I sigh, drawing the shade. He was out with her tonight, and he brought her back to his place on that Ducati. “Of course.”

      And just like that, everything I thought I saw in the mirror disappears like the candlelight I extinguish between my fingertips. As I get into bed, my new confidence, like a stream of smoke, floats away, rising to twist around the beams of the attic ceiling and, in the darkness, disappear. Just in time for my door to squeak open. Just in time for Teddy to tiptoe up the stairs, stand over me, and scribble something on his notepad.

five

       THE SCREAM

      THE ART OF THE STRIPTEASE. REMOVING LAYER UPON layer of clothing to expose the flesh in small, seductive increments. Tantalizing. Like Salome’s dance of the seven veils, Mata Hari’s gradual shedding of nearly every garment save one, the burlesque dancer’s beginning to end. Enticing…

      …and clearly not something our nude model has even considered, given how rapidly he drops his robe. Blink and you’d have missed it.

      Somehow I’ve made it through a night of tossing and turning, nightmares of finding my mom on the kitchen floor plaguing my mind. Somehow I’ve endured a broken coffee maker at Gigi’s. And a cold sprint to school, during which Ben zipped by me on his Ducati—without even pausing. And an hour spent craning my neck as I watched the sky during Ornithology Club.

      Somehow I’ve survived the night to make it to my morning art workshop led by Garnet. This week’s lesson will be on the human form. Which is why a grown man now stands completely naked just beyond my reach—not that I’m about to reach.

      Somehow I’ve made it here. To where a penis dangles in front of me.

      As the swoosh of his robe leaving his body still reverberates, as we sit at our workstations with pencil in hand, twenty eyebrows go up and ten chins go down. Only yours truly and Garnet seem unfazed by this man’s very exposed, very chiseled self. (And I’m sure Garnet’s lack of surprise isn’t due to the fact that she’s helped her dad dress hundreds of naked cadavers.) To my surprise, even Harper is blushing. To no one’s surprise, Lotus looks like she might cry.

      “Feast your eyes,” our model Trey exclaims, drawing his hand down his body. He’s a member of the faculty, though you wouldn’t know it to look at him. He’s nowhere near as hard on the eyes as most of the teachers here. “I am man. Hear me roar.”

      Pilot, who sits across from me, snickers at the same time I do. But no one else makes a sound. Probably because they’re all shocked, some with jealousy, some with fear—others, dare I read into Plum’s pout, with lust.

      Garnet simply sweeps the robe from the floor and tries to keep a straight face. “Thank you, Mr. Sedmoney,” she says. “We appreciate you taking the time out of your teaching schedule to help us this week.”

      “I don’t have any