Page 41 of Eye of the Beholder
“And when you say ‘we,’ you mean…” she says, trailing off as she starts up the stairs.
“You and me,” I say, following her. “But we’re meeting up with some other people there. The point of this is to let you interact with Jack. I can help figure out where your social skills are…less proficient.”
“Right,” she says. “That’s a good idea.”
I frown at her back retreating up the stairs and then down the hall to my room. “Really? Because you fought me pretty hard about it on the phone.”
“I mean, I don’t like it,” she says, her voice reluctant as she waits for me to open my bedroom door. “I’m not big on socializing. But it’s still a good idea. It just makes me nervous.”
When we’re in my room, she pulls a big paperback book on the desk and then sits on the edge of the bed. “Sit,” she says, pointing at the desk chair.
“Still bossy,” I say, but I sit.
She ignores me. “And turn to chapter 5. I looked at your practice test,” she says, and I’m suddenly nervous, “and it looks like what you’re struggling with most is word choice and punctuation.”
I find chapter 5 as I listen to her talk. She speaks easily, like this is something she does every day.
“We’re going to start with punctuation, because it’s something you might just have to memorize. Some people have a knack for it; some people don’t. Which is fine,” she says quickly. “Different people are good at different things. I did the worst on the math section. Math isn’t my thing. Punctuation isn’t yours. Do you have chapter 5 yet?” she says.
“Yeah,” I say, and she comes to stand behind me. She’s wearing the perfume from the purple bottle again; it floats around me distractingly, but I force myself to focus on the book in front of me.
“Okay. So here,” she says, leaning forward over my shoulder and pointing at the first question. “This question wants to know the correct punctuation for this sentence.” Her hair falls in a curtain as she speaks, making it hard to see the page in front of me.
“Sorry,” she says. “Hang on.” She straightens up, and I turn to look at her just in time to see her pulling her hair into a ponytail. “All right. The thing is, people always speak with the correct punctuation, if that makes sense. If you know what different types of punctuation sound like, you can almost always tell what’s right and what’s wrong. Commas, for example, create a slight pause. Periods make a full stop. This long dash—well, it’s called an em dash, but you don’t need to know that—the long dash is sort of like a comma, but it’s a bigger pause. So if you read the answer options aloud, using the correct sounds, you can usually tell what the correct option is. Here, for example. The first option sounds like this: ‘The farmer’”—she paused—“‘milked each cow.’ Is that how you would say it?”
I shake my head. “You wouldn’t pause in there.”
“Right,” she says, nodding. “This comma doesn’t work in here. That option is out.”
“Huh,” I say, leaning back in my chair.
She backs up quickly and sits back on the bed. “Does that make sense?” she says.
“Yeah,” I say slowly. “It does, actually.”
“So what you’re going to need to do is get a feel for how these punctuation marks sound. There are more technical rules for all of this, I think, but this is a pretty useful way to do it.”
I swivel around in my chair and smile at her. “You’re really smart,” I say.
She blushes and shrugs.
“I’m serious,” I say. “Hey, where are you applying? For college, I mean.”
Her face turns redder, if that’s possible. “Actually, I’d like—well, maybe it’s dumb. But I sort of just want to be a florist, or an interior designer. Maybe have my own business, kind of like my mom does. I love making things beautiful.”
I tilt my head, studying her, running my thumb absently over my scar. “I could see that,” I say. “That’s not dumb.” Then something occurs to me. “Why don’t you work with your mom? She’s a florist.”
Mina sighs. “She doesn’t own a shop or anything. She’s more freelance. And we did think about it, but ultimately I wanted a job working for someone I wasn’t related to. I thought it might look better on any future applications or whatever.”
I nod. “That makes sense. So…school?”
She smiles hesitantly. “There’s a place in Massachusetts that has a really good interior design program, but I don’t know. It’s far away.” She shrugs. “I don’t know yet. And there aren’t really degrees in floristry. You can take classes on floral design, but it’s not generally something you can find a degree about.”
“You should do it,” I say, smiling at her. “The interior design thing. You’re coming out of your shell, remember? You could at least apply. What do you have to lose by applying?”
She shrugs again. “What if I don’t get in?”
“Then you go somewhere else. But at least you try. Not trying is something you regret later,” I say.
