Carrie Pilby by Caren Lissner Read Free Book Online

much symbolism. But what the heck. It was just one assignment.
    During the second and third classes, Harrison didn’t mention the essays we’d turned in. We dissected various modernist authors. One kid in the class, Brian Buchman, was the biggest kiss-up I’d met yet, and at Harvard that was quite an achievement. If he’d been sincere, I would have admired him, but he had a tone that was clearly false. Half of what he was spewing was stuff I’d learned in high school, but he made it seem like he was discovering nuclear energy.
    When the third class ended, and everyone was shoving their books into their natty black backpacks, Harrison called me up to his desk.
    I stood there while Brian Buchman said goodbye.
    â€œDo you have a few minutes, or are you in a rush?” Harrison asked me. “Do you have time to come to my office?”
    â€œI have time.”
    We walked down the hall to a pentagonal cul-de-sac with a wooden door in each wall. A few of the doors had yellowing newspaper cartoons taped to them. Harrison’s door was blank except for his name. We entered his office and he sat at a rusty metal desk. He had a few newspaper clippings taped to the painted-white cinderblock walls, and there were papers piled high on a broken chair. I’d heard before that academics got no respect, and the size of Harrison’s office proved it. He was a well-regarded professor, and this was what he had to work in.
    Harrison leaned back. “I found your introduction very interesting.”
    â€œThanks.” I noticed there were no photographs on his desk.
    â€œYou said in your essay that you study too hard.”
    â€œWell, maybe there isn’t such a thing,” I said, trying not to be nervous. “But some people say that.”
    I remember noticing that he had a maroon sweater on and suddenly thinking it looked good on him. He had slightly wavy hair and intense brown eyes. He said, “Starting college at fifteen doesn’t sound easy.”
    â€œWell, it’s not so hard academically. But…”
    â€œSocially, it could be hard.”
    I nodded.
    â€œYou sure you don’t have somewhere to be right now?”
    â€œNo,” I said. “I mean, yes. This is my last class on Thursdays.”
    â€œYou the oldest in your family?”
    â€œI’m an only child.”
    â€œMmm,” he said. “I had a younger brother. It created some tension when I got so much more attention in school.”
    â€œDid you skip grades?”
    â€œI only skipped one grade. But I found it hard. For you to have skipped three…that must have been quite an adjustment.”
    I nodded again.
    â€œHow are you finding school?”
    He looked straight at me. I hadn’t found anyone that interested in me since back when I had interviewed for college in the first place.
    We ended up talking for more than an hour. We got to things I hadn’t told anyone. I told him about sitting in my dorm room freshman year, after my roommate had moved out, feeling miserable even though everyone kept saying how lucky I was to have the room to myself; I talked about the earliest smart things I’d said to adults that had made their eyes widen, like going up to a woman in the library when I was seven and pointing to her copy of Call It Sleep and saying, “That’s a good book.” I talked about figuring out how to play “Für Elise” on the inside of the piano when I was five. I stopped several times for fear I was boring him, but he kept urging me on. At times, he would reciprocate, telling a story about something smart he’d done as a kid, ora time he had felt out of place, and I almost felt as if he thought he needed to impress me. That was strange.
    â€œOne day, the boy who lived next door to me was reading a comic book on his stoop,” Harrison said. “He wouldn’t show it to me, so I stood in front of him and started reading it upside down,