Ming’s own responses were always factually complete in point form, convenient to check off for a perfect score. Fitzgerald seemed to disregard the assigned value of questions, and in some three-inch spaces he cramped his writing into tiny letters in order to include the essay-length breadth he felt was appropriate. In another section where a page was allotted, he wrote four lines and drew a diagram that, to him, encapsulated the entire issue.
It was Ming’s cousin Karl who had taught her the rules of academic success: be meticulous about details because it’s easier to lose two marks than to earn eight, understand what will be asked and prepare to deliver it, expect that the next test will be harder and that this is your reward for success. When Karl was eighteen and Ming was twelve, it was as a big favour to her father that her uncle had agreed to allow Karl to use some of his valuable time to tutor the B student, Ming. Karl was the shining boy who filled her uncle’s mantelpiece with academic trophies. He was on scholarship in his first year of university biology while Ming blundered through junior high.
Ming’s father impressed upon her the importance of learning from her cousin, of not bringing shame to her parents. She admired Karl’s easy confidence and the way he grasped everything he wanted—each award, each prize. He taught her a system—a way of breaking knowledge into manageable packages that might be related but didn’t have to be, that didn’t even have to matter, but the facts of which must be internalized, mastered, and displayed without so much as a momentary lack of confidence. To lose sight of any of these lists, subjects, or compartments would be to fail, and if you failed any part—whatever else had been learned would not matter when the time came to see if you would be allowed to write the next, tougher test.
“Well, congratulations, Doctor Ming,” said Fitzgerald, his grin too wide. She knew he genuinely intended it, but that it was hard to smile through his frustration.
“That’s a bit premature,” she said. She rolled his biochemistry final into a tube in her hand and said, “How was your Plato?” This was his humanities elective, and she did not take the same course so there could be no comparison.
“Top of the class,” he said.
“Wonderful.”
“In the philosophy department, that’s a seventy-one.”
“You need to strategize your electives,” she said. Hers was introductory psychology, a course that fulfilled its reputation of providing an easy A+.
“Next year,” he said. Each year, a few were admitted to medicine. Some rejected applicants decided that they had other things to do with their lives, and the remaining aspirants continued to fill out application packages and resubmit them. “I’ll be more strategic next year.”
“If you don’t get in, no one deserves to get in. This grade point business is a stupid, arbitrary system,” she said, profoundly believing this as someone who had completely mastered it.
“I’ll be happy when you get in,” he said. “Really, truly. Lots of people say that, but I really will be pleased for you.”
“Thank you,” she said. Ming believed that he would be happy for her, though many would say so and it would be fake. She wanted to tell him about how she tried to save seats for him in the lectures without wanting him to see that she was doing so, about how she liked seeing him ride his bicycle around campus in the snow—pants tucked into his socks—and about how certain things scared her just enough that she couldn’t indulge her present impulse to lean toward him.
Instead, she said, “I’ll jinx myself, talking as if I’ll get in. Don’t say ‘Doctor Ming’ or it’ll end up being a joke.” She looked at her feet and said, as Karl had once told her, “We have to dissect your study techniques.”
The following day, Ming went through Fitzgerald’s December finals and pointed out that he had mostly lost marks through a flagrant disregard for testable trivia. She introduced him to her scheduling system, in which each week was divided into a chart with half-hour time slots.
Monday
7:00: Wake up, wash. 7:30: Breakfast and pre-read a lecture chapter. 8:00: Bus to school. 8:30: Lecture. 9:30: Pre-read next lecture. 10:00: Second lecture. 11:00: Review morning lecture tapes while eating lunch. 12:30: Relax. 13:00: Third lecture.
Ming crossed out each time slot as it was completed.
Fitzgerald’s note taking had previously been limited to what he felt was conceptually relevant, summarized by diagrams. Often, details were not included in the diagrams because they did not seem important to him. A tape recorder and a yellow highlighter were the core of Ming’s system. After each lecture, she listened to her tape of it and ensured that every testable fact mentioned in the lecture was included in her notes. While studying, she highlighted notes as she committed them to memory, until her entire notebook was a glaring neon yellow.
“It’s not that concepts are unimportant,” Ming reassured Fitzgerald, “it’s simply that they’re not essential to scoring top marks.” She had mentioned that her cousin Karl was a surgical resident in Toronto, but did not explain that this was Karl’s study system. Why should she tell Fitzgerald, an “academic friend,” everything?
Each night they spoke on the telephone—always at the end of the evening so that there was no disruption of the sacred studies, nor a time limit. Conversations began with questions about the day’s lectures, but veered off more and more often so that they had to remind each other of their primary obligation to help the other study. They talked about what they would do, see, and allow themselves once they had fulfilled their delayed gratification of becoming doctors. Ming thought of the two of them doing these things together, far away from her family, yet she was careful not to refer to “we” while discussing these fantasies. Although everything was fragile and crucial right now, it would all be perfect once they achieved the state of being medical students. It floated before them like a transcendental and elusive plane of existence. They allowed that it would be a challenging profession, but it felt obvious that once admitted, the difficult thing would be done.
Occasionally, they ate lunch in restaurants that did not have many windows. Ming was careful to place textbooks on the table, so that each other’s presence could be easily explained if she was seen by any of her cousins or family’s friends, who seemed to be everywhere on campus. Dinner or a movie were out of the question. Between classes, they studied in vacant classrooms. Once, while looking for an empty classroom, they both reached for an elevator button at the same time, and after their arms brushed, warm, went silently into the room, sat down, opened their books, and didn’t speak for an hour.
At night, the phone sometimes clicked softly, and then the sound became hollow with a shadow of breathing. When this occurred, Ming stopped talking and waited for the phone to click off. Fitzgerald learned to do the same. If the other line did not click off after several moments, Ming and her father would converse briefly in Cantonese, and then she would say to Fitzgerald in a voice that was halfway between meek library mouse and breathless seducer, “Thank you for helping me with my study problems,” and all three parties would hang up.
Ming was offered four medical school interviews, and Fitzgerald none. She felt that this placed a protective expiry date on their relationship, and wondered whether they might hold hands sometimes—couldn’t this be entirely platonic and also somewhat comforting? More and more, she wanted to grasp his palms, his fingers. She thought of him while studying, which scared her. Fitzgerald posed unusual questions to professors during lectures, which frequently provoked tangential answers. Ming found herself rewinding her tapes to
