from our homework, punching away on a giant calculator on the table in front of him.
“I think you missed something in your calculation,” Blondie interrupted him.
Wow. That was bold of her. Telling our tutor he was wrong.
“I have a completely different answer, too.” I finally gave the other girl a good look. She sported short hair and an old man cardigan in olive green. Not unattractive, just plain. Especially when Blondie occupied the same space.
“I don’t think so.” Joe shoved his notebook in our direction. “Check it.”
Blondie studied his calculation, then stood up and walked over to the big white board behind him. After copying the formula and Joe’s numbers onto the board, she paused.
“I see where he went wrong,” other girl said.
Wrong? He was supposed to be teaching us this shit and he got the problem wrong? I stole a look at Blondie’s notes. She’d already done all the work. I could see she had a different result for this problem.
“He missed the seven.” I pointed at the error on the board.
Blondie smiled at me in thanks for taking her side.
I cocked my head in reply. I’d be on her team any day, especially if it was a doubles team.
Joe stared at the board. “You’re right. Excellent catch.”
I shot him a sidelong glance. Was he testing us by making mistakes and hoping we’d catch them? This being my first study group ever, I had no idea how these things worked. I’d never had to put much effort into studying or classes before. Somehow, I coasted. Smarter and more clever than was probably good for me.
Blondie resumed her seat, slid Joe his notebook, and then turned to me. “Did you bring your homework?”
Oh, right. I pulled everything out of my backpack. “I did.”
“What are you stuck on?” Joe asked. “Let’s have it.”
I shuffled through papers, looking for the worksheet. Next to me Blondie sighed and tapped her pen on the table.
“Here it is. I had an issue with the population variance on the second question.”
“Oh, that’s an easy one.” Blondie once again went up to the white board. Erasing the previous equation made her ass wiggle in her jeans. No baggy man cardigan for her. Her figure looked athletic and toned, not like a jock, though. She probably worked out in one of those thong leotards like on Jane Fonda’s aerobics videos. A guy could hope.
She wrote everything down and then turned to me expectantly.
I stared at Joe, waiting for him to speak up and guide us.
“Wanna take a shot?” Blondie asked me directly.
I scratched behind my ear and squinted at the numbers. Everyone focused on me, waiting for me to solve it. If I could have figured it out, I wouldn’t need this weird ass study group.
Sighing, Blondie began adding to the formula while explaining her work. I couldn’t figure out if she were a kiss-ass or one of those know-it-all girls who had to always be right.
“If you’re doing simple random sampling, use the sample standard deviation?” Joe’s voice went up at the end like he didn’t know the answer.
“That’s the most basic approach.” Other girl’s voice held the same disbelief at this clown I felt. I gave her and her ugly sweater a mental high five.
“I understood that part. The calculation at the end throws me off.” I pointed to the board.
Blondie explained her work, slowly and thoroughly. She was much better at this than Joe. Maybe he was some sort of savant. Like he could count cards at casinos, but didn’t know to look both ways when crossing the street.
We worked through the rest of the questions. At the end of the session, I felt better about the equations. Maybe I wouldn’t bomb this week’s quiz.
As we packed up our stuff, we agreed to meet again on Wednesday after class.
I found myself following Joe out the door.
“Thanks for the session, Joe.” Slinging my backpack over my shoulder, I caught up to him.
“I don’t think she heard you.”
I flinched. “She?” Whoa, what?
“I’m
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