I had gone to a class which was being conducted by a man who looked like judge Gaither. Probably 20 other people were in the class, including attorney O'Connor. She and I were in competition with each other. Today we were going to be given a test and we were each trying to beat the other on the test. We sat down next to each other, as we usually did. What seemed strange to me was that although we were competing against each other, I had developed an attraction for her. I was surprised by this because I hadn't previously thought there was anything attractive about her.

I doubted she was attracted to me. For one thing, she seemed to be much more studious and more prepared than I. In fact, I knew there was practically no chance I was going to be able to beat her on the test. I had hardly studied at all, and I knew she was fully prepared.

Gaither stood in front of the room and began lecturing. Apparently he was going to lecture for a while before giving the test. That was fine with me, because I wasn't going to know what to write on the test anyway, so the less time I had to fool with it, the better. I was watching my watch as he talked, and when we reached get the point where only about 20 minutes were left in the class, he handed out the test papers.

Once I had my paper, I took my time looking over it. It consisted of two parts. The first part had lists of strange words which we were supposed to do something with. The words were arranged in columns of five words each, and next to each word was a space where we were supposed to write another word. But it was confusing to me and I wasn't really sure what I was supposed to do.

The second part of the test was an essay question. Apparently we were supposed to write a short story in three parts. It seemed as if the story was supposed to resemble something Mark Twain might have written. I thought I would do much better on that part. But the problem was that the story was supposed to be 20 pages long, and when I looked at my watch I saw that I only had about 10 minutes left to take the whole test. I looked over at O'Connor's paper – she was busily completing the first part of the test, and I hadn't even started.

***

The test was over and O'Connor and I were lying in a grassy place in the back of the class. We were right next to each other and our faces were practically touching. Her skin looked so soft and smooth, I could hardly resist touching it. I began thinking she might have some affection toward me if she was this close to me.

***

O'Connor and I were walking out of the class. I thought this was my chance, I needed to ask her out. Or perhaps I would just ask her to have dinner or lunch with me. I felt rather awkward, because she seemed so much more sophisticated than I. But if I didn't ask her now, I might never have another chance.