SAT: a test of reasoning; fortitude

7:45 AM. Government-approved SAT testing facility. The room is as silent as a chewed wad of mint gum; as though the teenagers therein are preparing their minds for the reason-based gymnastics ahead. The red-lettered index card labeling my desk says: Duck, C. My first name is Alyssa, I think with mild alarm, and that does not start with a C. I consider raising my hand and alerting the testing instructor to this discrepancy, but she has fallen asleep at the podium. Instead, alternate identities begin clicking through my head like quick insects: i could be any variety of new and fascinating names: I could be Catherine, Clara, Charlotte, Constance. My eyes drop to my legs, which currently inhabit Sperry's and pink gingham shorts. Perhaps Duck, C is a yuppie: Perhaps I am Cansley or Corbin or Cotton. A smudgy-eyed male in gelatinous basketball shorts slides into the seat next to me. Guthrie, P. Guthrie. What a fabulous last name, Guthrie; how fabulously incongruous. You do not deserve such a fabulous last name. I slide my name card inconspicuously into his line of vision and he bites; checks the bait out of the corner of his eye. Duck. Duck, C. Who is this girl in the pink gingham shorts? I bet tantalizing mystery seeps out of me; i bet he can taste it like pepper.

My eyes wander to the namecard on the desk in front of me. Choi, M. Alas! Who are you, Choi? Will you erupt from the shackles of Heaven to rescue, to love me, protect me? Will you do well on your critical reading? You must be wonderful: and from this dearth i fantasize: and suddenly, unexpectedly, the door swings open and glory erupts our banality: six feet of unadulterated Asiatic beauty appears in the doorway, sweeping a long thrush of black hair from his forehead. He walks in beauty to his chair. Of course i retreat demurely, to my pink gingham shorts and the infinite mystery of my namecard, when his eyes meet mine: and they are the color of the inside of a clam: "That grandiose colossus who/ Stood astride/ The envious assaults of sea/ (Essaying, wave by wave,/ Tide by tide, To undo him, perpetually),/ Has nothing on you,/ O my love, O my great idiot..... O my great borrower of light; be my leech and i will lord you." Such he remarks, Remarks my Choi; Choi, M--

Matthew? Maddox? Michael? Mathis? Mark?

A wave of noxious reality sees me clank into oblivion; McDonald, J has arrived, ceremoniously enveloped in a four-foot cloud of Axe. I align my spine straight with the back of the chair and arrange my three pencils alphabetically. I will be Charlotte, a gingham-wearing, love-drained Charlotte Lucas, and commence to let all stray emotion shrivel and drain at my feet. But Charlotte has too many memories; too much distraction in remembering that play where i was Miss Lucas and broke up with my stage-Mr.Collins the week before the show. No, I think smugly, smarting at my rebirth and recovery: today I shall be Chavi; chavi, Hebrew, life.

The door opens and fifteen pairs of eyes gallop to the front of the classroom; could it be: one of our elusive missing Twelve? It is not my Prince but a portly Aryan with a bad crew-cut. He slumps gelatinously into the seat in front of me; an efflorescent heaven deteriorates: Oh, Lord of Hosts: this is my Choi. He scratches unceremoniously at the fluff near the back of his neck. Choi, I think with dignity. And I have let you tamper with my dreams.

The test instructor has awakened from her slumber and commenced to gaze sternly about the room. She lowers her eyes ominously, in case someone was planning on bursting into something from Cats!. I think fondly back to yesterday's poetry-picnic with Lena, to first-period Calculus; to anywhere but this deoderant-saturated labarynth of viscous adolescents. I stare disenthralled in front of me. Choi is nervous; large beads of sweat begin to soak through the brown back of his shirt. I crane my neck and see Caroline through the doorway, in the M-Z room; she has folded her arms around her notebooks and is sleeping on her desk. I wonder if she is as disenchanted as I. The test instructor unenthusiastically distributes our answer booklets; and, disillusioned, I pick up my pencil.