Agents On Campus

Queenbees and Wannabees

One guy in the second row raised his hand.

"Yes?"

"I was confused about why the imperfect tense was used for number three and not preterite. Could you explain it?"

As I glanced over at the guy who asked the question, I was surprised to see that he didn't look confused at all. In fact, he was watching the teacher with a cocky smile, as if waiting to see how she'd react. Looking around at the rest of the class, students were sharing knowing smiles and many began looking at their phones again.

Mrs. Cwakenbush didn't seem to notice anything. She said, "Number three...hmm, well, it would be the imperfect because it describes an emotion, which is a temporary. I know it can be confusing, believe me. When I was in college, I always had trouble with preterite and imperfect. So when I was sent to Spain, many of the Spaniards thought I was this odd American who mixes up her tenses. The people there were very nice about it, though. If any of you ever live in a foreign country, you have to keep track of your tenses. And avoid using words you don't understand. I remember this one lady who thought I was insulting her..." she continued on and on about her time in Spain. Not a single person was even listening to her. Everyone was either on their phone or talking to their neighbor. I smiled. Now I understood what was going on. She must get off-topic a lot, which would be why that boy asked a question. I bet my thousand dollar shoes he didn't even read question three.

"She'll probably talk for about ten minuted before she realized no one is listening," said Veronica sardonically. Looking back at her, I saw that she was filing her manicured pink nails.

"Hey, Veronica!" said the blonde girl, spinning around in her seat to face her. "Elise and Jack broke up," she said in a rush.

"What? Give me that," she grabbed her phone out of her hand and read what was on the screen. "How did she find out?"

"She didn't say," responded the blonde girl in a gossipy way, "but if I definitely don't think he told her."

Veronica shook her head in disbelief. "No way in hell would he come clean, not after all the trouble he went through to cover it up."

"Cover what up?" I asked, doing my best to sound like I was very interested in why Elise broke up with Jack.

Veronica smiled as if she would like nothing better than to share that piece of information. "Jack was cheating on her with Andrea Myers. Everyone knows."

"Except Elise," added the blonde girl, "she was head-over-heels for him. I think someone tried to tell her, but she wouldn't listen. She must've found it somehow, I can't imagine her breaking up with him over anything else."

"Hmm..." said Veronica, "you know, if I had to guess, I would say she probably saw them. She wouldn't believe it if someone told her, and Jack would never tell her, so the only logical explanation would be that she witnessed them together in a not-so-platonic way."

"Whose side are we taking?" asked the blonde girl.

"Well, I want to side with Elise, but I'm friends with Andrea and, Daniel is teammates with Jack, so—"

"Who's Daniel?" I asked.

Veronica smiled proudly. "My boyfriend. He's the quarterback of the football team and his parents are the top editors of People magazine."