Testing Kate (14 page)

Nick nodded. “But I didn’t think you were back yet.”

“I didn’t get in until around seven.”

“I was going to see if you wanted to drive in to school this morning together,” he said.

“I came in early,” I said. “I went to the bookstore before class started, and then I did the reading assignment over at the student union. You know…avoid my mistake from last semester.”

“No Hoffman this semester,” Nick said. He raised his hand, and I slapped it lightly.

“Thank God,” I said.

“Hey,” Dana said, dropping breathlessly into the empty seat to my left.

“Hey, Dana. How was your…” My voice trailed off when I turned to look at her. Dana had her dark hair back in cornrows, like Bo Derek wore in the movie
10,
exposing lines of pale white scalp. There were beads on the end of each skinny braid that clattered as Dana busied herself getting out her class supplies. “Ummm…I take it you went to the Caribbean?”

Dana nodded happily. “My parents took me to Jamaica for Christmas,” she said. “I got my hair braided on the beach. What do you think?”

“It looks nice,” I said, hoping I sounded more sincere than I felt.

“I’m only going to keep them in for a few more days,” Dana said, shrugging. “Although, actually, it’s a really effective way to keep my hair out of my face when I study.”

“You could just shave it off,” I said. “You’d look cute bald.”

“Mother of God,” Addison said, sounding aghast.

“What?” I asked, turning back toward him.

But then I saw what was spooking Add—and my mouth sagged open in horror.

Hoffman.

Professor Richard Hoffman was walking to the front of the class, in all of his pouched-belly and balding-head glory, the familiar worn leather folder that held his lecture notes tucked under his arm. Hoffman stepped up onto the raised platform, dropped the folder on top of the metal lectern, and then turned to the erasable pen board. With a thick black marker, he began writing on the board: C
ONSTITUTIONAL
L
AW
, P
ROFESSOR
H
OFFMAN
.

What the…?

No way…no
fucking
way.

“No way,” Nick whispered, echoing my thoughts. He pulled his schedule out of the front pocket of his messenger bag and unfolded it, smoothing the creases in the paper. “It says right here that our Constitutional Law professor is supposed to be Chai. Doesn’t it? Doesn’t it say that
right here
?” Nick asked. He shoved the piece of paper at Addison, looking a little wild-eyed as he did so.

“Maybe Hoffman came into the wrong classroom by mistake,” Addison whispered back. “Maybe he had some sort of an emotional breakdown and can’t remember what class he’s supposed to teach.”

“Stop talking,” I hissed at them. The first rule of surviving Professor Hoffman was to never, ever bring attention to yourself.

I’d learned that one the hard way.

“Welcome to Constitutional Law. I am Professor Hoffman. If you are in the wrong place, please leave. For those of you who are in the right place, I’m going to go over the ground rules. First, do not be late to my class. We will begin promptly at ten-thirty on Monday, Wednesday, and Friday mornings. If you walk through those doors even a minute late, you will not be permitted to stay for the lecture that day,” Hoffman announced. A hush had fallen over the class when Hoffman began to speak, although it was a charged silence, full of a shared dread and horror.

It was like some sort of an awful time warp that was looping me back to that first day of law school, when Hoffman had forced me to stand up in front of my gaping classmates and proceeded to humiliate me.

“Excuse me, Professor?” a loud voice to my left said.

I startled and then froze when I realized that the voice belonged to Dana. I immediately reverted to jungle law and tried to avoid making any sudden movements that might cause Hoffman to take notice of me. I slid only my eyes in Dana’s direction. She was sitting at the edge of her green task chair, her back straight and her hand waving slightly as she held it up over her head.

“What is she doing?” Nick hissed.

I didn’t dare answer. Hoffman had stopped cold and turned on Dana, his features contorting with a just barely concealed rage at the interruption. I’d seen that expression before and knew what it meant: danger.

“Excuse me, Professor Hoffman?” Dana said again. This time her voice quavered a bit. Hoffman had never targeted her during Crim—Dana’s voluntary participation in class had earned her his grudging approval—so she’d never fully appreciated the force of his withering scorn.

“Ms. Mallick, is that you? I hardly recognize you with your new hairstyle,” Hoffman said. His voice was dripping with condescension.

Dana smiled serenely, as though completely unaware that he was mocking her. “Excuse me, sir, but my schedule says that I was assigned to this lecture hall for Con Law, but I’m supposed to have Professor Chai. Am I in the wrong place?”

For a moment, hope dawned. Maybe it was all just a clerical error—right class, wrong teacher. Please let it be a mistake, I prayed.

“Professor Chai has had to take a medical leave of absence, and I was asked to take over this class in her place,” Hoffman said. “And today we’ll begin by examining the limitations the Constitution imposes on governmental power.”

I groaned inwardly. It wasn’t just some dreadful—but fixable—error. We were actually going to be stuck with Professor Satan for another semester.

At least this time I knew my foe. Ducking my head down in an obvious attempt to avoid eye contact would alert Hoffman that I didn’t want him to call on me. So instead I drew in a deep breath and forced myself to look right at him. His pale eyes slid from Dana’s face to mine, and I saw his thin lips twist up into a malevolent smile that made my fingers tingle with dread. But I forced myself to stay steady, and even raised my chin up a few millimeters in a silent challenge.

I dare you to call on me, I thought. I dare you, you son of a bitch.

My bluff worked. Hoffman’s eyes continued to slide past me.

“Ms. Jans, give us the Court’s holding in
Marbury v. Madison,
” Hoffman said, calling on a chunky brunette sitting in the row in front of me.

I exhaled slowly and deeply, uncapped my pen, and started taking notes.

“Grades are out.”

The announcement spread through the Con Law class almost immediately after Hoffman had finished his lecture. My stomach lurched, and my heart felt like it was thudding against my rib cage. This was it.

“Did you hear that?” Nick asked, turning to look at me.

I nodded slightly.

“What?” Dana asked.

“They’re saying that grades are out,” I said, jerking my head toward the back of the classroom, where, I assumed, the rumor had started when the students sitting in the last row had heard the chaos break out in the student lounge.

“Oh, good,” Dana said, standing up briskly, swinging her knapsack over her shoulder.

“You’re not nervous?” I asked.

Dana shook her head and looked surprised. “No. I don’t want to sound conceited, but I’ve always gotten good grades.”

“We all have,” Nick said. “Everyone who gets into this school was at the top of their undergrad class. We’re all A students.”

“And now some of us are going to be B or C students,” I said. My throat felt like I was trying to swallow a handful of sharply edged stones.

“Or worse,” Addison said cheerfully, also standing. “Let’s go get the verdict.”

The buzz in the room was louder, more manic than usual, as we filed out of the room.

“I heard that they give out only one A in every class,” Dutch Jackson muttered as he stacked up his books.

“No, they give out more than one A per class, but there are more Cs than As and Bs combined,” Alicia Ramirez replied.

Nick turned and rolled his eyes comically, mocking our classmates who were desperately trying to quell their own anxiety by freaking out their friends.

“I heard that Hoffman gave out three Ds this year,” Brad Sobel said.

“Aw, man, then I’m doomed,” Scott Brown replied in his thick Southern accent, grinning good-naturedly. He nodded at Nick and winked at me.

Three Ds.

I remembered the dot that Hoffman had placed on the corner of my blue book and felt queasy.

It seemed like the entire One-L class was gathered around our hanging mail folders, jostling to pluck the crisp white envelopes out. I saw a broad-shouldered black student with a shaved head whom I recognized from one of the Bar Reviews—he was the guy Jen had wanted to set Addison up with—tear his envelope open and unfold the paper within. His shoulders sagged, and at first I thought he was getting bad news, but then he turned and I saw that he was smiling, the relief etched on his face.

“Here, I got ours,” Jen said, appearing out of the crowd that she’d pushed her way into. She handed the envelopes out to Lexi, Dana, Nick, Add, and me. I looked down at mine. It felt light and insubstantial in my hand. My name was visible through a window in the envelope: B
ENNETT
, K
ATE
E.

Lexi started to tear at hers and then hesitated. “Let’s go outside,” she said. “I don’t want to do this in front of everyone.”

A woman I didn’t recognize burst into tears and sat down in one of the armchairs that lined the student lounge, staring disbelievingly down at the paper in her hands. Her friends squatted down next to her, patting her arm, but the woman was inconsolable.

“My life is over,” she wailed.

“Yes, outside,” I agreed, and our group moved quickly to get away from the frenzied crowd. The shouts of triumph were as disconcerting as the bitter moans. I clutched my envelope a little tighter, so that it creased in my hands, and wondered what it contained. A plum job at a top law firm, or years spent slogging it out with a firm of ambulance-chasers that ran cheesy commercials during daytime television and officed in a strip mall?

“Out here,” Jen said, and she darted to the left, into the center courtyard of the law school. I’d never been back here before. The patio was full of wrought-iron garden tables and chairs, and apart from the six of us, it was deserted.

“Are we supposed to be back here?” Dana asked doubtfully.

“Not really,” Lexi said. She dropped her leather bag on a table and tore open her envelope, hesitating before she pulled the paper out. “Come on, you guys, don’t watch me. Don’t you want to open your own grades?”

I looked down at the envelope. No, I did not want to open it. But my shaking fingers started to tear at the seal, acting all on their own. I heard the quiet sound of envelopes ripping around me, and I turned, so that my back was to my friends, before I pulled out the paper containing my grades and unfolded it.

BENNETT, KATE E.

I stared at the paper, my eyes running over the list of grades again and again.

Hoffman had given me a C.

In theory, the As should have cushioned the C, but I’d never gotten a C before in my life…. The lowest grade I’d received in college was a B in my Mythology class the semester my parents had died, when I’d been walking around in a thick cloud of grief, wondering if I should have, as my adviser urged, taken the semester off.

“So who’s going to go first?” Addison’s voice cracked through the silence. “Should we go around in a circle, or just announce it all at once?”

I turned around, taking in the pale faces, the tight jaws, the hands clenching the thin papers that foretold our future more surely than a deck of tarot cards ever would. Dana alone was folding her paper back up and tucking it into the outside pocket of her knapsack.

“I have to go,” she said abruptly, turning and walking quickly to the door that led back into the interior of the law school.

“You okay, Dee?” Addison called after her, but she didn’t respond or look back, and we watched silently while the door closed behind her.

“Maybe one of us should go after her,” I said.

Addison shook his head. “She’ll be fine. She’s tougher than she looks,” he said.

I looked at him quickly, but Addison’s face was closed. If he knew any of Dana’s secrets, he wasn’t sharing them.

“Shit,” Jen said softly. She was staring down at her paper. “This isn’t good. I got two Cs and two Bs. That gives me a solid 2.5 GPA. Guess I’m out of the Law Review race, not that I had any hopes I’d be in it.”

“I didn’t do much better,” Addison said. “I got a C-plus—in Contracts, that exam kicked my ass—a B-minus, and two Bs. Thankfully, they’re not going to tell us what our class rank is until the end of first year. I can only take so much bad news in one day.”

“I actually did okay,” Lexi said. Her voice was thin with relief. “An A-minus, two B-pluses, and a B. I can’t believe I actually got an A-minus from Hoffman. I was sure I’d bombed that test.”

A poisonous stream of jealousy snaked through me. Lexi had done better than me in Criminal Law? I’d studied twice as hard as she had. Hell, I’d been the one who outlined Crim for our study group. Lexi—who’d never even gotten the principles of Resulting Harm down—had used
my
outline to get a better grade than I had.

“Nick? Your turn,” Jen said.

Nick colored, but he was smiling. “I did pretty well,” he admitted. “I got an A in Contracts, two A-minuses, and a B-plus.”

Addison whistled. “Dude, that’s amazing.”

“You’re going to make Law Review,” Jen said.

“I don’t know about that,” Nick said, but I could tell that he was pleased.

“All right, Kate, your turn,” Lexi said.

“Hoffman gave me a C,” I said tightly. “And that was the class I was the most prepared for.”

Jen sucked her breath in sympathetically as she lit a cigarette. The smell of butane from her Zippo lighter—a Christmas present from Addison to make up for all the cigarettes he bummed off her—floated through the air.