One of the reasons I was happy to come here with her was my interest in how the other students reacted to Ava and how she reacted to them. Would it be different from the way things were for me in high school? The moment we entered, I saw how the boys were looking at her and smiling. To my surprise, she smiled back and even said hello to some. Although she didn’t introduce me to anyone, there was no avoiding anyone, either. She could tell that I wondered why she hadn’t introduced me.
“Let them all wonder who you are,” she said. “Mystery is an aphrodisiac.”
The class in nineteenth-century American literature was in a small theater, so there were plenty of seats. Nevertheless, she had us sit away from most of the others. I looked around and saw how so many of the students were staring at us, especially the boys.
“How do you keep those boys from asking you out on dates?” I asked her.
She smiled and showed me her left hand.
“What is that?”
“An engagement ring,” she said. “I slip it on before I come to class.”
“Did you think of doing that?”
“No. It was Mrs. Fennel’s idea,” she said. “I had the feeling it was something she once did, too.”
“I can’t imagine her our age.”
“Oh, she was,” Ava said. She smiled and added, “And for a long time, too.”
Her teacher entered and went to a lectern. He wore a light blue sweater and jeans and had a dark brown goatee, but he was mostly bald with two even strips of hair just above his temples. From where we were sitting, they looked painted on his head. He was giving a lecture on Mark Twain’s Huckleberry Finn.
“Did you read it?” I asked Ava.
“The first ten pages,” she said. “Boring.”
“Boring?”
I had read it in eleventh grade and thought it was one of the most fun and interesting novels taught that year. How could she call it boring? Despite her attitude, she looked as if she was listening attentively but took no notes. Others were either writing in notebooks or typing on little portable computers. The point of the lecture was what exactly the importance was of Huck saying, “All right, I’ll go to hell.”
The teacher encouraged some discussion then. A tall, very thin girl, with glasses thick enough to be called goggles, raised her hand and pointed out that Huck believed slavery was right because his society told him it was. In his heart, he didn’t think so, and because of that, he was willing to help the slave Jim escape, even if it meant he would go to hell. I had known that and even had the urge to raise my hand.
“Exactly. And so you see,” the teacher concluded, “why I call Huck Finn the most courageous literary character.”
The bell rang. Although she looked as if she had been listening, Ava jumped as if the sound had woken her.
“Is it finally over? What did I miss?”
“A very important point.”
“Really?” she said.
“Yes. What your teacher means is that what’s right and wrong isn’t something for a government to decide. It’s for you to decide inside yourself.”
“I didn’t need him to tell me that. Didn’t Daddy ever tell you that?”
“Yes.”
“Thought so,” she said. “C’mon. I’m hungry, and I don’t want to eat what Mrs. Fennel made for our lunch.”
We followed the other students out. Some paused to talk to Ava. She was as normal as anyone else, talking about her vacation, the class, whatever subject was mentioned. How different it was for her, I thought. She was relaxed and not on any special guard, and all because she wore that engagement ring.
“I’ll give it to you when I leave,” she muttered as we continued to walk out.
“What?”
“My engagement ring.”