Another point of pride at FATE are the extracurriculars, which are, in fact, curricular here and mandatory for students. From chess to basketball to fencing, you can do anything here at the highest competitive national level, but you have to pick one, which explains my presence on the debate team. On paper, debate was the right fit for me according to Mr. Vu, my academic adviser. “Charming and unafraid of public speaking! You’d be wasted anywhere else. It’ll be a breeze for you.”
At the time, he had failed to mention that the debate team’s current iteration is the prized child of Greg Polan, the team captain who insists on three practices every week. We placed third in the state last year, behind The Chapin School, and Greg sees it as his mission to get us the gold trophy before the end of his tenure in another year and a half. Sophomore students can afford to have these lofty goals—we seniors can’t think about much beyond the C word these days.
This explains why I’m now rushing back to FATE for yet another practice, late again due to a rush-hour train delay at Times Square. On the way in, I spot Corinne Troy, already sitting pretzel style on the bench outside the classroom. Mass of curly hair, stuffed under a pink beanie, and thick horn-rimmed glasses; it would be very easy for a boardwalk artist to turn her into a cartoon. She has the room booked right after us on Wednesdays.
“You’re late,” she notes without looking up from the chemistry book she is currently reading. “Again.”
“Happy New Year to you too, Troy,” I say, jumping over her backpack. I throw her a wink, which lands like she just smelled a fart.
“How vile,” I hear behind me as I sneak into Room 402-B, twenty-seven minutes late.
I can’t help it. Corinne Troy is one of those hyperfocused FATE students you just kind of have to shake your head at sometimes.
Also: she lives in my building. She and her mother moved in a few years ago. Maybe it’s the fact that I’ve seen her in slippers and a fuzzy purple bathrobe with lime-green flower petals after she locked herself out of her apartment and needed Dad to go let her in one Sunday morning, but I simply can’t be afraid of her after that. Dark-skinned Black people don’t tend to blush easily, but she was ten shades of red that morning—a stark contrast from the terrifying Type-A-with-extra-assignments-and-perfect-attendance-on-the-side Corinne Troy who stomps around FATE Academy.
And one last fun fact. That interview for a new dog I mentioned earlier? It’s with her mom, Chantale Troy. I can’t wait to see the look on Corinne’s face when she finds out I’m going to be walking her adorable new pup.
I stand in the back of the mostly empty classroom, hearing a snatch of Greg’s monotonous and stilted rebuttal to today’s topic. Something about “Texting Spaces Being Allowed in Movie Theaters,” according to the emailed schedule. Yadira is taking notes, fighting back a yawn. She’s adopted a pretty drastic hairdo over the winter break, and the shaved side of her wavy black hair has externalized that intimidating part of her personality that previously didn’t come out until she actually, y’know, spoke. On the stage, Yadira is a debate chimera of perfect posture, piercing eyes, and retort that always skirts the line between well read and downright condescending.
“Now, a typical LED headlamp puts out roughly five hundred to a thousand lumens. Your average smartphone can easily meet that wattage,” Greg sputters.
He’s panicking, even with Yadira being the only person in the room. His facts are correct, I assume, but as always, his voice is full of contradictions, stilted and frantic. To say that public speaking does not come naturally to Greg is an understatement. He is phenomenally smart—three of his essays have already been featured in small print magazines and one of them even won a statewide contest. But unfortunately for Greg, he is also the embodiment of the word “harmless”: cursed with big innocent eyes and curls so bouncy you have to control yourself not to pull one to watch it boing.
“Multiplied by the average number of times people check their phones, with check ranging at less than two minutes of continuous usage, the cinematic viewing experience becomes a veritable, um, ordeal.”
“All right, I’m calling it, Greggers,” Yadira says, putting down her pencil and making a T with her hands. “You’ve officially lost me.”
There are no big real-world topics at these debates. No gun control, no immigration. Nothing that could derail a YouTube comments section. We’re high schoolers, after all. We tend to be given topics that audiences might discuss among themselves in the hallway after the competition.
Yay or nay: should J. K. Rowling have come down on Dumbledore’s sexuality or leave the page to speak for itself? Double-dipping a chip at a party: ethical or monstrous? Rushing to the airport to declare your love: romantic or emotional coercion? I swear, they just go by TV sitcom premises. Where the rhetorical academic rigor comes in is in the soundness of the arguments, thoroughness of counterarguments, and creativity of delivery of the three-person teams.
“I was building up to my thesis,” Greg says defensively, catching me out of the corner of his eye. “I’m highlighting the clear link between the luminosity of phone screens and the theater experience.”
“Yes!” Yadira says, rolling her eyes. “And the strongest argument against this premise is obviously the disturbance of aggregate luminosity. That’ll get us a round of applause.”
Greg doesn’t take notes well. And Yadira doesn’t give them that well, to be completely honest. Not a fan of the soft touch, that one.
“She has a point there, Greg,” I say, clearing my throat and stepping into the auditorium. “Hello, children.”
“You’re late, Haltiwanger!”
“Which does not negate her point, Greggers,” I continue, because the best way to defuse Greg’s annoying thing about punctuality is to ignore it until he forgets. “You don’t want the judges to check their phones while you’re actively making a point against using phones in theaters.”
“Thank you!” Yadira exclaims. “But you are late, Henri.”
“Aye, aye, captain!” I salute jokingly.
The worst thing about being on a debate team with Greg and Yadira is being on a three-person debate team with Greg and Yadira that’s been on a winning streak all semester. The momentum is . . . suffocating.
“H!” comes a familiar voice as a silhouette appears in the doorway.
“Hey, Evie.” I smile as Evie Hooper peeks her head into the room.
“I thought I heard your voice. What are you guys doing in here?” she asks, leaning against the door and smiling in that way she tends to do. Like the whole world is a photo shoot.
“Debate practice,” I answer. “You?”
Yadira throws her hands up as though she’s given up any idea that we’d get back on track for the remaining few minutes of practice.
“Film.” She shrugs. “I was editing something in the lab.”
Two short film competitions and an internship at Fox Studios last year. Evie may come off as a detached, white downtown girl who likes to knot her uniform blouse and defiantly wear her tie undone around her neck and her fingernails black, but she’s by all accounts the next Greta Gerwig.
“So, I’m having a party Saturday,” she says, stepping into the room as if no one else is around. “Will a wild H appear?”