"Your first project will be pretty simple," Ms. Piper began. "I just want to see what's what, who's in here to begin a journey, so to speak, and who's in here to pass the time." She looked around. "I have no problem with the second kind of student, it's a perfectly legitimate thing to take drama for that purpose. That's what electives are for.

"However," she continued. "For some people, this class will be a starting point of a journey they'll be on for the rest of their lives."

Ruthie felt a shiver go up her spine at her teacher's words. She desperately wanted to be one of those people. She had taken voice and dance lessons until she started high school, and enjoyed and excelled at both, but she'd quit when she realized her dads expected her to really start focusing on school and preparing for college.

Next to her, Gordon looked over and smiled. He knew how she felt. They'd even talked about going to New York together, about being drama nerds at NYU and sharing a tiny apartment.

"In groups of two, you'll be working on short scenes of your choice. You need to choose them from books, novels, not plays, okay? They need to be about five minutes long, for two people, and you need to sit and read them, and convey the scene with no props or movement," Ms Piper said. There was a brief silence as she looked around the room. "That's the only direction I'm going to give," she finished. "The rest is up to you.

"Oh, hold on, hold on," she added, as she saw the students starting look around for potential partners. "I'm going to assign the partners, just for my own sanity, okay? No, no, sorry," she said, her voice rising to carry over the general unhappiness she was hearing from the kids. "I can't deal with trying to learn your names if you're all over the place, and you won't get much work done if you're being all social with your friends and boyfriends." She looked at Amelia and Brett when she said this last bit.

"So, here we go," she said. She began calling out names off her roll sheet, and the class began pairing up.

Gordon looked at Ruthie, eyes sad as he grasped her hand. His last name was Miranda, nowhere near Grimaldi. He would probably get paired with Beverly Michaelson, who was nice enough, but was completely and totally obsessed with Kpop and anime, and talked about nothing else.

Ruthie looked around the room, trying to figure out who she'd get paired with, but she couldn't remember anyone whose name started with G off the top off her head.

"Elliott Banks, you'll be paired with Ruth--uh, wow, forgive me if I mangle this--Barakat-Grimaldi?" Ms. Piper looked around with a smile. "How'd I do?"

Ruth could only stare. She finally spoke up when Gordon nudged her, hard, with his elbow.

"Yeah, that's me," she said, with a little wave. "You got the name right, too, so thanks."

Elliott was looking at her with a glint of knowing amusement in his eyes. His hands were jammed in the pockets of his skinny jeans, his hair was in a pony tail. He was almost too carelessly handsome to be believed. Ruthie couldn't help but feel that he needed a good slap, though she couldn't figure out why. Of the hopelessly weeping boy of the night before there was no sign.

"Oh, you're the very exotic girl," Ms. Piper said with a laugh. "I guess it makes sense that you have such a wonderfully exotic name. How lovely."

Next to her, Gordon spoke up. "But Ms. Piper, that's not her last name. I mean, it kind of is, but usually she just uses Grimaldi as her last name." He turned to look at Ruthie. "Right?"

Ruthie nodded. "Yeah, I kind of just use 'Barakat' as my middle name," she explained.

"Oh?" Ms. Piper looked at her attendance sheet. "But my roll sheet says that it's a hyphenate. Is it wrong?"

Ruthie shook her head.

"No. I'm adopted, and those are my dad's names," she began. "I don't really have a middle name-"

"They're gay," Leroy Cox put in helpfully.

The class laughed, though many of them were uncomfortable.

"Thank you for your elucidation, Mr. Cox," Ms. Piper said drily.

"Don't interrupt me, Leroy," Ruthie said, looking at Leroy with her eyebrow raised.

He closed his mouth, looking apologetic.

"Anyway," Ruthie continued, looking back at Ms. Piper. "My dads didn't give me a middle name because they wanted my initials to be RBG, like Ruth Bader Ginsburg, because I was born on the day President Clinton appointed her to the Supreme Court, and they're both lawyers, and they really admire her."

"That's really, really wonderful," Ms. Piper replied, smiling. "What a great origin story."

"You a liberal?" Tim Caldicott asked. Tim was a friend of Brett's. "You one of them Democrats?"

"Why?" Ms. Piper asked.

Tim shrugged. "Just wondering."

"I don't think my political orientation is relevant to anything." She looked around. "Where were we?"

"Ruthie's last name doesn't start with B," Gordon supplied. "She shouldn't be paired with Banks."

Elliott was looking at his feet, though he did look up at Gordon briefly when he spoke.

"Well, I'm not going to change everything around, you guys, it will just be too confusing," Ms. Piper said. "I'm sorry, but I've already got it all written out, okay?" She looked at Elliott and Ruthie. "Is this going to be a problem for you two?"

Elliott gave a sardonic little smirk as he shook his head. "Not on my part," he said in his deep voice. He swept his hand slightly in Ruthie's direction. "I can't speak for her, of course," he went on.

"No, not a problem for me, either, of course," Ruthie responded, shaking her head.

"Wonderful," Ms. Piper said, looking back and forth between the two of them. "How did we end up spending so much time discussing that, then?"

"I believe Mr., uh, Miranda, is it?"--Elliott glanced inquiringly at Gordon, who nodded, looking uncomfortable,-- "originally brought it up."

Elliott quirked his eyebrow as he walked over to where Ruthie and Gordon were standing. He looked at their hands, which were still joined, and moved to stand on Ruthie's other side.

Ruthie got a whiff of whatever aftershave he was wearing, and was momentarily nonplussed. Elliott didn't seem like the aftershave type. He looked like he'd be proud of having greasy hair and dirty jeans, but up close he was very clean-looking, almost crisp. His hair was shiny and looked neat in the pony tail, and he'd obviously shaved just that morning.

Ruthie watched Amelia and Brett as Ms. Piper paired Brett with Pam Davidson. Amelia hugged Brett like he was marching off to war. Ruthie shook her head slightly and crossed her arms. Brett walked over to Pam, who smiled at Brett in what could only be called a flirtatious way.

Gordon grinned as he watched, and raised an eyebrow as he turned slightly in Ruthie's direction. The sparks were going to fly, he seemed to be saying.

Finally, the class was paired off (Gordon had indeed been paired with Beverly the anime queen), and everyone sat down to discus what they'd be working on.

"Well," Elliott said, smoothing his hair back into his pony tail. "I should probably leave the choosing bit up to you, I reckon, since I don't know much about American novels." He looked at Ruthie to see her reaction to his words.

"But she didn't say the novel had to be American," Ruthie responded. "I mean, we could pick a really great passage from Chaucer, or George Eliot, or Oscar Wilde."

Elliott just stared at her.

"What?" Ruthie asked. "Do you not like those guys? I don't care, you want more modern? Like, um, Tolkien, Richard Adams, uh, Douglas Adams, Clive Barker?" Ruthie wracked her brain, but finally had to say, "I'm about tapped out, man, unless you want to read a dramatic interp from Harry Potter or something..."

Now Elliott actually laughed out loud. "No, no, I was just waiting to hear you say 'Shakespeare," he told her. "That seems to be the extent of everyone's knowledge of English literature around here." His voice held scorn.

"Well, yeah, this is a pretty small town, and lots of people who grew up here were raised primarily in an agrarian environment," Ruthie said, her voice serious. "Most of them never went to college. This school had a huge ag department until about twenty years ago, and had a separate degree for boys who wanted to become farmers until the late seventies, did you know that?"

Again, Elliott was staring at her. "No, I didn't know that," he finally said, his voice soft and placatory. "I'm sorry if I offended you, I didn't mean to."

"So anyway, you want to be Harry, Hermione, Ron, or Draco?" Ruthie asked with a straight face. "I'm more of a Hagrid kinda gal, if you don't mind," she added, looking up at him expectantly.

Elliott looked at her for a few beats, then let his breath out and bit his lip as he finally laughed, a real laugh this time, not derisive or deprecating.

Ruthie joined him, throwing her head back, curls shaking as her smattering of freckles drew together on her face.

Around the classroom, people heard them laugh and looked over, some with interest, some with scorn, and more than a few with open jealousy.

"So you really like those guys?" Elliott asked when they finally caught their breath.

Ruthie nodded. "Dad taught me to read when I was three, and I've been a reading fiend ever since."

"How do you differentiate between them, if you don't mind my asking?" Elliott queried. "Your dads?"

"Oh, well, Todd Barakat was my Daddy when I was little, and he's my Dad now," Ruthie explained. She pulled up a picture on her phone to show Elliott as a visual aid. "See? He's the handsome dark one. His parents emigrated from Egypt and he was born here. They were really poor, and he worked his way through UC Berkeley on scholarships and stuff.

"Phil Grimaldi was my Papa when I was little, and he's my Pop now," Ruthie continued, pointing to the other man. "He's the handsome blonde one. His family's been here a while, though they originally came from Sicily in the early nineteen hundreds. They're what you call 'comfortable.' That's code for 'rich,' and he went to Stanford, which is where all the Grimaldis go, even though it's super expensive and private and snobby and all that." Ruthie smiled, and Elliott looked over at her, enjoying the vivaciousness of the pretty girl next to him. He pointed, not wanting the exchange to end.

"And this little toddler here?" he asked, pointing to the the chubby, freckled baby they were holding between them, who had so much hair it was actually tickling the chins of both men as they smiled at the camera. "Who's this?"

"That's just some doll they picked up somewhere," Ruthie answered, looking up at him and shaking her head. "They didn't keep her because she was too fat and too ugly. See her legs, how big they are? See the rolls of fat around her neck and arms? And look at all that hair, and those crazy freckles."

"I can see," Elliott said, and when Ruthie looked at Elliott, she was dismayed to see he was looking right at her, his face much too close to hers.

She quickly looked away, putting her phone away as well.

"Right," Elliott said, taking a breath and letting it out as he smoothed his hair back. "Let's get to it, then, shall we?" He sat down, across from Ruthie, with quite a distance between them.

"Do you like Nabokov?" Ruthie ventured. She was silent.

"What?" Elliott looked at her. "Oh, you're concerned because the only male character is a pedophile."

Ruthie had to smile at how Elliott pronounced "pedophile," and reminded herself to binge watch "The IT Crowd" when she had the chance.

"Yes," she replied. "But I'm glad you've heard of it, and have read it, I guess? Most people our age haven't."

"Really?" Elliott asked. "How old are you? And how old do you think I am?"

"I'm just fifteen," she answered, obviously embarrassed. "And I guess you're sixteen?"

"Close enough," he answered. "I'm seventeen."

She nodded. "Anyway, how would you feel about reading as Humbert Humbert?"

"I think the bigger question is 'how would you feel reading as Lolita?'" Elliott countered. "Would you feel comfortable reading with me as a twelve year old victim of sexual abuse?"

Ruthie considered. "Yeah, I'd feel fine," she finally answered. "I mean, it's fake, it's drama, that's the point, you know?"

Elliott nodded. "I happen to agree with you, though I bet most people in this room wouldn't."

"Most people in this room are dumber than a sack of hair," Ruthie replied, not even bothering to lower her voice. "So let's not even worry about that, okay?"

"Okay," Elliott said amiably.