I’m Ruthie Collins and I think of myself as more-or-less regular. I go to school, play clarinet in the band, try to be nice, just may not have had that many boyfriends. None, to be specific.

Math’s hardly anybody’s favorite class, but Mr. Rampton wasn’t into pounding formulas into our heads. He told us that algebra was the window to problem solving, and not just problems with x’s and y’s. How the Army Corps of Engineers controls dams, for example, for our Math Club field trip. When the military guards wanted to search our backpacks for bombs, Mr. Rampton thought it ridiculous. Math wasn’t about girls getting their packs rifled; it was about women deciding hydropower. So Mr. Rampton told the boss that he, as a vet, and pursuant to Standing Orders, personally assumed responsibility for us. Afterward, he told us that he’d no idea about Standing Order anything, but knew there were lots.

Maybe I too could run a zillion-kilowatt dam, I decided. Later Mr. Rampton told us that computers do the work, but they’ll always need a person with common sense to know if it’s right. I have common sense, at least.

Mr. Rampton’s appearance -- my height if I scrunched over, hair in need of a barber, usually the same sports coat -- might have explained him being single. Not gay or anything, as we know by how a guy talks to us. Mr. Rampton was actually funny sometimes, but most missed it. He was quiet, for a teacher at least, but then again, some of us were quiet for students.

Part of why we liked Mr. Rampton -- and probably why he wasn’t hitched -- was his penchant for strange things, which to us made him not strange at all. We’d go down the halls humming, “When You’re Strange” by the Doors -- they were this old band -- Mr. Rampton knew the words, too, but he wouldn’t sing in the hall.

Mr. Rampton liked McDonald’s hamburgers, black and white movies and his VW Beetle that actually went put-put. Most teachers were more into barbecues, miniseries and motor homes.

But Mr. Rampton’s greatest strangeness was ukulele jazz. I’d no idea until my folks went to some jazz place where saxophonist Ron somebody announced that his Army buddy was in the audience. “Come on up, Mel. Folks, this dude’s a wizard!”

So, according to my parents, up went my math teacher with this little ukulele to sit in on “How High the Moon.” I never told my friends about it because I wanted a secret for myself.

All I was doing was googling “Jazz” and “Ukulele,” and as I got tons of hits, maybe Mr. Rampton wasn’t that weird after all. One of the links was to a discussion group. “The ukulele is so simple that only our ears make us get better. Four nylon strings contain the principles for the whole jazz genre. What’s new is in the old. Keep listening and strumming, UkeManMel,” so totally Mr. Mel Rampton-sounding.

Maybe I was bored. Maybe it was the challenge of fooling someone. Maybe I just wanted somebody to be in love with. In any case, I invented the username Patty and joined the group.

If my Patty were into jazz uke, she’d need opinions. Google helped me with the merits of LA session man Lyle Ritz. Group member Patty then observed that while Ritz moved the instrument forward, some thought he remained anchored to a mandolin style. Someone came to Ritz’s defense because he played bass guitar for the Beach Boys, another old rock group. I myself saw them at the State Fair, but only maybe one of the band was original.

But because Ritz wasn’t actually my curiosity, Patty, (i.e. me) let slip an allusion to teaching math as her day job. “It just seems to fit with playing a uke,” how it worded it. This wasn’t the type of discussion group where perverts say they’re 21 and 14-year-olds say 18. That’s how it started, UkeManMel e-mailing Patty that he taught math, too.

Before long we were exchanging exasperations regarding the plight of math education, me drawing upon Mr. Rampton’s classroom comments, to fabricate Patty’s thoughts in reasonable agreement. “In my experience, making story problems eco-aware usually so often means we never get to the math.”

I didn’t want to appear too eager, never emailing right away, though I’d hop right on wording my draft. Plus I needed to do my research. Once I had to read way ahead in my book to figure out what he was talking about. This is educational, I told myself.

In some cultures, we tall women are desirable because we’ll bear tall warriors. In my school, though, the hot girls are the cute little cheerleaders who do it with the football team. If I weren’t so gawky, maybe I’d be better at basketball and at least have a shot at a Division II scholarship.

So maybe it’s obvious that I remained a virgin for a pretty long time. It’s supposed to be about ourselves deciding. Plus it’s safer to be one. Plus we’re not supposed to. Some of us might wonder if maybe we’re lesbian, but we’re just waiting. Our experienced girlfriends who are really our friends don’t rub it in like boys taunt their virgin buddies.

So maybe I started to fall in love with Mr. Rampton because I’d decoded that he, too, was due for sex.

As there was only so much I could say about music and teaching without exposing my ignorance, for this to get anywhere -- just pretend, of course, but pretending is more fun if you think of it as real -- I’d need to get more personal.

It was so fun making Patty more than a math teacher and uke strummer. Patty, like me, liked to cycle, as I knew Mr. Rampton biked to school. “The Smithsonian should buy my bug to display under the Wright Brothers’ plane,” I suggested. Patty was Catholic, as I’d see Mr. Rampton at early Mass. Patty didn’t say she was unattached, but she’d never mention anyone else. It’s fun fleshing out a personality.

Patty was interested in knowing more about him. What did he do for fun? Did he like to go places? What was his family like? Did he play Scrabble? (I figured so from his use of words like “adage.”) Patty loved to play if you didn’t use a timer

He enjoyed doing things outdoors, music (not just ukuleles) and going to flea markets with $10 that had to cover lunch, too.

“I was in the Army,” he told her. “Waste of time. Fortunately, my unit didn’t have guns because we’d have maybe loaded them backward.” For sure this was my Mr. Rampton, as I’d heard the exact same in class.

Mel would always close with something innocuous, “I so much enjoy your notes. Thanks. Your friend, Mel,”

As he of course wanted him to know a little more about me than simply that I taught math and strummed the Uke -- same as him, I made Patty a tall person.

Patty, being straightforward -- unlike the Patty author -- asked if there was anyone who might be uncomfortable with our correspondence.

No, he answered, there wasn’t. “There was a girl named Linda, though, but nothing came of it. C’est la guerre, if you speak French.”

Had they had sex, I didn’t ask, but was sure they had. Linda would have been cute and tiny, had her own apartment.

If I joined the Army, I’d have a non-stop sex life. One female to seven males, a boyfriend for each day. Monday. the regular way. Tuesday, he’d have me tie him up. You get the idea.

Mr. Rampton wasn’t somebody who’d never made out, even, Who’s never even been felt up except by a boy behind her on the bus who did it on another boy’s dare, knowing she’d be too wimpy to tell. I’d giggled and even raised my elbow while he did it, but sat up front from then on.

Anonymity is just so powerful.

“Mel, you deserve a hug of admiration for giving exams without multiple-choice questions,” Patty told him, his name making it more personal.

Patty told Mel she was 24, 5-foot 6, four less than the real me. Patty was for “expressing affection,” but admitted she’d not yet done so.

He seemed oblivious to crossed boundaries.

Patty had finally gotten her apartment fixed up the way she liked it. Did he like natural wood? She enjoyed dressing up for work, but weekends she was freer except for Mass.

Maybe he thought that “love, Patty” is always how females sign off.

Wendy met this chat-room guy who promised to make her come three times, once with his finger, then with his tongue and then with his cock. Liar. The asshole was Cum4Ever!

After logging off, I’d reach down, my thighs swinging together and apart, my finger circling and afterward, I’d say. “Oh, Mel, you were wonderful!”

In class, I’d squeeze my legs together, just not the rest.

But I couldn’t leave it as that. To my admission that “not having a partner, I maybe sometimes touch myself,” he said, “It’s just how we’re made.”

He’d never have admitted anything to a girl in his fourth-period algebra.

But Mel never suggested meeting in person. Ms. Perfect Patty. Uke player. Math teacher. Catholic. Looking for a relationship. Of course he should want to meet this Patty.

If they did get together -- in my mind, anyway -- they’d be lovers, Wedding with acres of flowers. A dozen bridesmaids. Three babies.

I daydreamed in algebra class of Mr. Rampton unhooking my bra while I did the quadratic equation, his hand on my thigh as I substituted x’s for y’s. As penalty for losing a square root sign, he’d get me naked on his desk.

But I needed to be realistic. There’s no way I was a mathematician, but checking my answers raised my grade a half-point. Reviewing chapters, probably another half. I was almost doing A work, most of the time, anyway.

But it would take more than calculations.

When Mr. Rampton came down my row to monitor exam progress, he couldn’t glance at my work without seeing that my blouse was not all the way buttoned. But then again, he probably saw down all of our blouses and tall girls don’t have particularly big breasts. After he’d move on, I’d re-button.

When I brushed him in the doorway, maybe he didn’t even notice, so many of us pushing by.

I basically held my breath the first time I went to his desk after class. Not that my nipples stood out much, but they were sometimes visible when I’d wear the bra my mother didn’t know about. At Mr. Rampton’s desk, I was more apparent than I’d probably ever been in public.

But for whatever reason, Mr. Rampton never seemed to identify Ruthie in fourth period for what a male might want to do with a willing female.

Not that I had somewhere to move on to, but I guess it was time to move on.

Patty needed a week to get up the courage, but that she did.

“Mel, you’re a good person, but I’m not. Some of the things I wrote aren’t true. I’m not as old as you think. I don’t teach math and can’t play the ukulele, so I’m not very much like you at all. Please keep playing your ukulele. If you ever give a concert, I’ll buy a ticket. You should find a friend who’s more your age. Your friend, not Patty. P.S. I will never tell anyone about anything.”

Mel wrote back that same evening.

“Patty (as that’s the name I’ve come to like), it’s very nice knowing that somebody out there is honest. Lots of what we said was maybe just fantasy because we were just typing to ourselves.

. “Maybe I’ll be a little bit nicer to others because somebody somewhere is you. Do be careful, though, because there are predators. Why be someone you’re not? Good luck in your future, wherever it might take you. Still your friend, Mel”