Page 36 of Trust Again

At this exact moment, I doubted I’d ever keep anything down again. I stashed the little bottle from Sawyer in my backpack.

“Get ready to go. Then you can go through your index cards one last time. I’ll even listen this time,” she said and grimaced. But I was impressed that she was trying.

Isaac and I met in front of the Campus Café, where he was picking up yet another coffee. He looked kind of the way I felt. He had dark circles under his eyes and his bow tie was crooked. I straightened it while we stood in line.

“We’ll be fine,” I said, trying to be enthusiastic.

“I feel like I’m about to die,” Isaac said. “And he wasn’t even as mean to me as he was to you. How are you managing to look so calm?”

Of course, the opposite was true. My hands were trembling and as clammy as my armpits, which were surely staining my shirt with sweat.

“I puked my guts out this morning and I’m still pretty much a nervous wreck.”

“Maybe I should give that a try,” Isaac mused.

I patted his shoulder. “No. You’ll be fine. You’re the best, you’re so smart, and you’re going to make Professor Walden choke.”

Mission accomplished. My classmate flashed me a grin.

We grabbed our coffees and sipped them on the way to the lecture hall. Gradually our nerves took over and we stopped talking. The pressure I was putting on myself was greater than any that Professor Walden had placed on me. My main goal was to prove that there was no need for me to drop the class. I belonged there, and even if it took a huge effort to make it happen, I was going to give a great presentation.

Just before we entered the room, I dug into my backpack and took out the pill bottle with Sawyer’s tablets.

“What’s that?” Isaac asked.

“Some kind of herbal medication that my roommate gave me to calm my nerves,” I mumbled and took off the cap. By now, I was willing to try anything that would help me get through our presentation. I shook out three green tablets and looked at them in my hand for a moment before tipping them into my mouth and washing them down with a sip of water.

“You want some, too? They’re Sawyer’s, but…”

“Nah,” said Isaac, lifting an eyebrow. “I’ve got… my coffee. Though it’s probably not the best idea to drink it right now.”

I clapped him on the back again. “We’re going to do great.”

He just grunted at me. We entered the lecture hall together, arriving a bit early to plug everything in and get ready. The room filled up pretty quickly. When Professor Walden arrived and sat in the front row, right in front of us, I greeted him with a smile and gave him a copy of our handout, where we’d listed all our main points.

“And? Is he in a good mood?” Isaac asked when I returned to him.

I shrugged. “Hard to say. His beard hides his facial expressions.”

“True. Oh well. It’ll be all right.”

We took our places at the podium. My entire body was electrified. I fidgeted with the index cards in my hands, bending the edges.

When the room grew quiet, Isaac introduced us, gave a brief introduction to American romanticism and named the texts we’d selected. We didn’t even get past the first slide before Professor Walden made a noise that threw Isaac off track. He hesitated and took a moment to continue. When he had picked up speed again, Professor Walden snorted again. Isaac paused and swallowed. He fumbled at his collar, loosening his bow tie.

Without skipping a beat, I took over the last part of the slide, which was linked to a chart that listed all the most important writers of the time and their works. I explained each of them with a couple of sentences. Somehow, my anxiety had evaporated and I gesticulated wildly, paced energetically and talked without pause. When I clicked on the next slide, Professor Walden cleared his throat loudly.

His bushy eyebrows were pulled together and he’d crossed his legs, resting his elbow on one knee. He rubbed his beard between his thumb and index finger. With a sour expression, he read the bullet points on our slide, shook his head slightly and then scribbled something in his notebook.

“Is there some kind of problem, Professor Walden?” I asked, pausing in my presentation.

The entire class held their breath.

“Your chart is incomplete,” said our professor, unblinking.

“If you mean that Whitman and Hawthorne are missing, please be patient,” I said, cheerily.

Someone in the back row tittered.

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