The Story of Us: Part VII (aka "Out of Sight, Out of Mind")

We pick up at the beginning of my junior year with a little geography lesson.

Pullman, Washington, is about 315 miles from the house in Lakewood where I grew up. It had cows, wheat and no redeeming qualities whatsoever. (This attitude would come back to bite me in, oh, two years, but that's another story for another post.)

But wait, I spoke too soon. God bless Whitman County, land of farmers, fraternities -- and ex-boyfriends.

Chris was now was a freshman at Washington State University, and more importantly, no longer my boss, my classmate or my problem.

Out of sight, out of mind. Go Cougs.

But when one problem vanishes, another is usually looming, and in this case, it appeared that I really was going to be working under Lady Rah-Rah this year. I could barely stomach the idea of showing up for journalism. All that work -- and all that hiking -- for nothing. I'm sure by now that it is abundantly clear that I, uh, don't handle failure (OK, fine, and not getting my way) well.

I resigned myself to another year of wasting away in Copyeditorville ... and then the bottom dropped out.

On the first day of school, I was standing at my best friend's locker at the beginning of lunch, when I heard someone call my name. I turned to see evil!adviser rushing toward me, full of questions about my summer and my family's trip to Hawaii. She punctuated her enthusiasm with a big hug.

Had hell frozen over? Had she reclaimed the newspaper reins and decided to make peace before embarking upon another year of deadlines and (inevitable) drama?

Of course not. There's a reason why I call her evil!adviser.

I was in the midst of telling her about Maui when an unfamiliar woman dressed far too nicely to teach English at Clover Park High School walked by.

"Hi," she said in an unmistakable Southern drawl.

"Who is that?" I hissed at evil!adviser, noting her placid reply to the stranger.

"Your new adviser," she said simply, with a trace of smugness only detectable to those familiar with her special brand of evil.

My jaw hit the ground. My heart was close behind.

Turns out that SciGuy decided to remain downstairs with the beakers and bunson burners, and this teacher, an AP rockstar and Shakespeare expert who had just been named a member of USA Today's All-Star Teaching Team, took the position at the last minute upon her hire away from a high school in Louisiana.

I vacillated between being impressed with her credentials -- and terrified about what her presence could mean. After all, The Clover Leaves under evil!adviser was hell, but at least the inferno was familiar.

Unfortunately for SheBard, she had been assigned both Beginning and Advanced Journalism, and seemed at a loss for what to do with 25 eager freshmen and sophomores -- and the little staff that could.

The new kids were assigned textbooks that taught them how to write ledes and headlines, and we were relegated to the back room of SheBard's classroom, with a single computer and a phone to call advertisers that we had to share with the English Department faculty. In the universe of newsrooms, this was as far from The Daily Planet as you could get; we were Pluto -- which, may I remind you, has been all but banished from the solar system.

I wasn't thrilled about existing in such close quarters -- there was a far greater chance of Lady Rah-Rah catching me rolling my eyes -- but one benefit of our little exile was the independence it provided. While SheBard was busy with the elements of captions, we were free to slip out and go next door to solicit sympathy from evil!adviser, who "coincidentally" now had fourth period as her conference period.

And, in true form, she had no problem with me and my various friends coming by to complain about how SheBard was running the place like The New York Times. I'm sure it gave her some satisfaction to know that we hated her successor. She plied us with seltzer and candy and gleaned information out of us about the regime under our new dictator, uh, I mean adviser.

It was confusing as hell -- we had little oversight, but when our articles came back, they were bleeding red ink. SheBard hadn't ever explained her philosophies, but had no problem telling us that we were wrong. We had no idea that she was coming from a school where, under her guidance, the yearbook staff won national awards and its staff members treated every layout like it was Pulitzer eligible.

All we knew was that her questions, her complaints and her attitude were totally unwelcome. And making matters worse, she wasn't too thrilled by her senior staff members having other commitments such as swimming and cheerleading.

I focused on my work -- and avoiding dealing with her.

That is, until one day, when I was summoned out of Human Anatomy & Physiology and upstairs, to where SheBard was on the verge sending our newspaper computer to the big scrap pile in the sky. She was trying to print out proofs of the first edition, and nothing.would.work. With the deadline to deliver the paper to the printer in Gig Harbor looming -- and Lady Rah-Rah busy with Advanced Spirit Fingers -- she was panicking. After all, time is money, and a high-school newspaper has little of either.

I don't know if it was the adrenaline that comes with power, or fear of failing the class if the first issue wasn't published, but I lept into action, digging deep for every skill I had ever picked up about computers. Studying the nervous system was an afterthought.

I saved the day -- and SheBard promptly named me co-editor.

I had succeeded. I was going to be editor of The Clover Leaves -- and I had won the job by ethical means. Lois Lane would have been totally disgusted.

I attacked my new role as if I were Perry White -- and it showed.

As a result, SheBard increasingly began coming to me with her questions, comments and irritations. She clearly didn't care about who had been promised what by whom; her main concern was producing a quality newspaper, and my co-editor had started practicing for Senior Skip Day in October.

The staff dynamic was shifting. I was taking greater responsibility -- and the awkward role of telling my friends what to do -- but Lady Rah-Rah wasn't exactly putting up a fight. She was ready to graduate. And I suddenly found myself aligning with SheBard on various issues.

But one thing we couldn't change was the single, crappy computer the entire staff had to share to get the newspaper out. Half the the time, Quark wouldn't even load, and when it did, there was no guarantee of the pages actually saving. Somehow, against all odds, the presses rolled in September ... October ... November ... December.

Even so, something had to give. A whole semester's worth of papers was in front of us.

We needed help, but no one was able -- or willing.

And evil!adviser's classroom was suddenly dark during fourth period.

The day we came back from Christmas break, SheBard told the staff that a former editor would be dropping by to help us with the computer and simplify some of our layout problems. She was thrilled. I was immediately suspicious.

"Which editor?" I asked, saying a silent prayer that it was hot!Jesse from 1997, or even evil!Jeff.

SheBard hadn't caught his name, but he was last year's editor, home from college on winter break for at least another week.

"No," I protested immediately. "He can't come here."

She raised her eyebrows in confusion.

"That's ... he's my ex-boyfriend."

"Oh," she said consideringly, giving me a glimmer of hope that she would bar Chris' entry at the door, "I didn't know that."

I breathed a sigh of relief -- but she wasn't finished.

"Well, he's going to be here in about 15 minutes."

To be continued ...