Spanish Lessons (Study Abroad Book 1)

by Jessica Peterson

  “What?” I look up from my phone.

  “The guy you said was at the bar last night. Was he cute?”

  “Oh,” I say, swallowing. I don’t know why, but I really don’t feel like talking to Maddie about Rafa. I guess I was right; what we had was a one night (make-out) stand. Why tell her about a guy that obviously doesn’t want to see me again? I gotta move on, or I risk getting hurt again, the way Keith hurt me.

  “Oh, yeah, um. It was nothing. He was nothing, I mean. Just some random dude who was there, Al Montoya’s cousin or something.” I toss my phone across the bed. “So, tell me about the rest of your summer. I know your internship was kinda boring—how did the review go?”

  Chapter 6

  Wednesday

  First Day of Classes

  I don’t think I’ve been this nervous going to school since I started kindergarten. I hardly sleep, and when I wake up I can’t eat the cereal Stella left for us on the kitchen counter.

  I would, however, kill for a cup of coffee. Taking your coffee to go is considered a sacrilege in this country; here, everyone drinks these tiny cups of weapons-grade espresso. It seems there is not a single place that sells American style brewed coffee in all the land.

  Needless to say, I’ve had a wicked headache for days now.

  While class itself terrifies me, the Meryton in Madrid program is pretty sweet. The director, Elena, is a thirty-something Madrileña who is the kind of beautiful I want to be when I grow up. We met her during orientation on Monday. She talks in lovely, lisping Spanish, and emphasized again and again the importance of experience. One of our required classes is actually an “experience” class, where the program takes all fifty of us around Spain—Barcelona, Seville, Toledo, and Granada are on the schedule—to show us some of the oldest and most beautiful architecture, historical sites, and art museums in the world.

  I mean, how ridiculously cool is that?

  On my way to class, I run into Al. My stomach does a backflip. I wonder if he knows about Rafa and me.

  Al kisses me on both cheeks.

  I shoot him a look. “Really? Not a week in Madrid and already you’re using the double kiss?”

  “I’ve been here since the beginning of August, thank you very much,” he says. “And yes, I happen to think the double kiss is a much better alternative to the awkward hello hug.”

  “Very true.” I adjust my bag on my shoulder.

  “So how’d it go with Rafa? He’s been working all week, so I haven’t had a chance to talk to him. But you two pulled quite the Houdini on us at Ático on Saturday,” Al says, wiggling his bushy eyebrows.

  Heat rushes to my face.

  “Rafa’s a nice guy,” I offer. “It was nice of him to show us around.”

  One of Al’s bushy eyebrows pauses mid-wiggle. “Nice? That doesn’t sound promising.”

  “No,” I say, pushing through the crowd that clogs the hallway. “I mean it. After Ático, we just went to grab some churros. Then we went home. End of story.”

  Al holds up his hands. “I didn’t mean to pry, V. I’m just having a little fun with you. My cousin is a nice guy.” He shrugs. “It would be cool to see two of my favorite people hit it off, that’s all.”

  It would be so, so cool. But we’re both getting our hopes up for nothing. I haven’t heard a word from Rafa in the four days since we kissed in the street. I’m not an idiot; I know what that means. This is not, as Maddie would say, my first rodeo.

  “Come on, Al,” I say. “A guy like Rafa probably has his pick of the ridiculously hot Madrileñas who inhabit this city. I bet they throw themselves at him.”

  “I’m not telling you that girls aren’t into Rafa. But he isn’t like that, V. He’s not into that scene. I mean it when I say he’s a nice guy.”

  I scoff. “Nice guys don’t look like that.”

  “You’d be surprised.” He meets my eyes. “Things are much different here than they are back at Meryton. Try to keep an open mind.”

  Of course my very first class on my very first day at San Pedro is in a huge lecture hall. A hundred or more students fill the auditorium-like space. I sit in a far corner with a handful of other Meryton in Madrid kids, so anxious I can practically chew on my stomach.

  Then the professor comes in, a young-ish looking guy in a tweed blazer and tailored pants, and after several attempts finally quiets the class. He introduces himself, and dives right into complex economic theory—in Spanish.

  Not just any Spanish. Spanish Spanish. It’s completely different from the slow, measured Spanish of our classes back at Meryton. This is no-holds-barred, wow-I-am-so-lost, what-the-hell-did-he-just-say Spanish. The kind of academic Spanish used to explain Keynesian economics in the context of prewar Europe.

  Oh. God.

  I record the lecture on my phone, even though I don’t think I’ll ever understand it. I scribble half-baked notes in a notebook while my mounting frustration collects in a lump at the back of my throat. This is not what I signed up for. I am never going to pass this class. I am not ready for this. Why did they let me come to Madrid if they knew I would sink like a stone?

  And what the fuck does “renacimiento” mean?

  By the end of the lecture, I am exhausted and overwhelmed. A pack of TAs, arms laden with our graded take-home exams, troll the aisles as they call out names. I hear Vee-Vee-An Bingley from across the room. Heart thumping, I gather my things and head that way.

  I see the big, fat C- scrawled in red pen across the top of my exam before the TA even hands it to me. I suddenly can’t breathe around the lump in my throat. I need to find a bathroom, stat, before I embarrass myself. I’ve already made out in public; I’m not about to cry in public, too.

  I’m upset mostly because of the awful grade. This is supposed to be the semester I improved my GPA, not tanked it.

  But I’m also upset because I know I could have worked harder. Don’t get me wrong, it took me days to complete the exam. Answering the questions would have been difficult enough in English; having to translate the answers into Spanish was nothing short of a Herculean task. But I didn’t give it one hundred percent; I struggled to truly engage with the material. Econ can be so…boring, I guess. I start to glaze over halfway through my assignments, which never happened before I started studying Econ.

  I have to get my shit together. My internship prospects, my future—it’s all on the line.

  I stuff the exam into my bag. Keeping my head down, I slip out of the hall and make for the only bathroom I know about in this freaking hamster maze of a building. I hit the stairs and head toward the cluster of classrooms and offices designated for Meryton in Madrid. My vision is blurry with tears; my head is pounding. I wish Maddie and I had similar schedules so she could come give me a hug. (She’s an architecture major, so we’re rarely in the same class.)

  I’m moving so fast I don’t see Elena, the program director, until I almost walk right into her at the bottom of the stairs.

  “Ah! Vee-vee-an!” She takes my hand in hers and gives it a quick shake. “It is lovely to see you again.”

  I blink back my tears, hoping she can’t see them. Elena was beautiful from afar. Up close, she’s unbelievably adorable, her fashionable lob—a long bob—tucked behind her ears, her pencil skirt and collared shirt Madrileña chic.

  “Nice to see you too—”

  “Elena. You all must call me Elena. Do you have a moment? I would like to speak with you about the tutor you requested.”

  “Sure,” I say. My voice is embarrassingly thin. I clear my throat. “Sure, Elena, no problem. My next class isn’t until two, so I have plenty of time.”

  “Vale,” she says, waving me to follow her. Her heels sound an authoritative beat against the linoleum floor as we walk. “So what do you think of Madrid so far?”

  “It’s good. Beautiful. Though I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t a bit…overwhelmed.”

  She smiles warmly. “This is very normal, Vivian. Madrid is a big city, and very diff
erent from what you are used to. It is all part of the experience. Give yourself some time, and I think you will someday love it. What about your señora? Is Stella treating you well?”

  Wow, Elena really knows her stuff. I guess it’s her job to know who and where we are as director of our program, but still, it’s nice to know someone’s looking out for me.

  “Yes, very well so far,” I say. “The apartment is beautiful, and Maddie and I love the location.”

  “The Salamanca neighborhood is very nice. And you are across the street from Retiro, no? It is my favorite park in all of Madrid.”

  I follow Elena into a little square of offices. Here the floor is carpeted, and her steps are muted. “We haven’t been able to explore Retiro yet. But that’s on our to-do list this weekend.”

  “Excellent. It is a good place to do all things. When I was a student like you, I would find a quiet place there and study.”

  She leads me to an office all the way at the back of the square. Through the open door I can see a desk covered with neat stacks of paper and a laptop. Elena motions for me to sit in a chair in front of the desk as she walks briskly to her own seat opposite.

  Only when I step into the office do I see there are two chairs in front of the desk. One of the chairs—the one to the right—is already occupied by a guy.

  My gaze falls on that guy’s broad shoulders. There’s something familiar about the sloping muscles of those shoulders, the way they fill out a light pink button-down shirt.

  I spot a frayed bracelet tied around the well-tanned wrist that rests on the arm of his chair.

  A pulse of heat ricochets inside my ribcage, moving up my spine to settle at the base of my skull.

  Oh.

  My.

  God.

  I inhale, sharply, the woodsy scent of his aftershave filling my head. He smells delicious.

  He glances over his shoulder, revealing a chiseled jaw, half a handsome face. We meet eyes. His are startlingly, terrifyingly blue.

  Just as gorgeous as I remember them. More so, if that’s even possible.

  “Vivian,” Elena says, “I’d like to introduce you to Rafael Montoya. He’s a graduate student here at San Pedro, and one of the student liaisons for Meryton in Madrid. Some of these liaisons, they organize parties, they do trips, they show our students around the city. Others provide tutoring services, which is what Rafa will do for you, per your request. He will tutor you in whatever you need help with for the remainder of the semester.”

  Chapter 7

  This can’t be happening. This is a dream.

  Scratch that. This is a nightmare. Just with a really cute guy in it.

  Out of the thousands of students at San Pedro available to tutor gringos like me, surely Elena didn’t pick the one guy I happened to have kissed, embarrassingly, in the middle of the street at six in the morning?

  The one guy who, after that kiss, said he’d call but never did?

  I couldn’t be more shocked if Justin Timberlake, in all his N’SYNC, curly-haired glory, was sitting in that chair instead of Rafa Montoya.

  I’m hot and cold all at once. My face burns, even as my blood prickles with cold.

  “Hello, Vivian,” Rafa says, his words curling with the sexiest, chocolatey-est accent. “It is nice to see you again.”

  I forgot how sexy his accent his.

  I can’t breathe.

  I am going to faint.

  I wave instead. (God, why do I always have to wave?)

  “Hey, Rafa,” I say, managing a smile. “Great to see you, too.”

  Elena’s face lights up. “You know each other, then? That is lovely! See, Vivian, you have friends in Madrid already. This makes my job much easier—no awkward introductions.”

  If sweet, chic Elena only knew.

  “Yes,” Rafa says. “My cousin, Alberto, introduced us this weekend.”

  “How wonderful. Please,” she says, looking at me and motioning to the chair, “sit.”

  I sit on the edge of the chair, gathering my bag in my lap. I wrap my arms around it, the way the stewardesses tell you to wrap your arms around your bottom seat cushion—a cushion that conveniently doubles as a flotation device—if you happen to survive a violent plane crash in the middle of the ocean. It’s pointless, I know, but I cling to it for dear life anyway.

  I am acutely aware of Rafa’s presence beside me. Which makes me acutely aware of my every movement, every breath, every trickle of perspiration. Have I always breathed so loudly? And am I ever not going to be a hot sweaty mess? I swear, I haven’t stopped sweating since I arrived in Madrid.

  “I have spoken with Dr. Rubio, your Economics professor,” Elena says, shuffling papers around in an open manila folder on her desk. “He told me you had some difficulty on the take-home exam. Was there any portion, in particular, you had trouble with? The Spanish, maybe, or the material itself?”

  My mouth opens, but no words come out. If my face was burning before, it’s positively en fuego now. I’m probably three shades redder than a tomato. It’s embarrassing enough to have to face Rafa; but to have my shitty grades and academic ineptitude paraded in front of him is so mortifying I feel sick.

  “Um.” I roll my lips between my teeth. My mouth smarts with the salty tang of sweat. “Judging by the awful grade, I’d say I had trouble with a little bit of everything.”

  “And that’s okay!” Elena says brightly. “Taking university-level classes in a different language is very challenging. It is the beginning of the semester, so you have plenty of time to learn and improve your language skills. We like to have our students start tutoring early, so they get as much out of the experience as possible. Rafa is the best of the best; he’s been tutoring our students for years now, with great results. I have no doubt he will help you ace all your classes this semester.”

  I nod my head. “Okay. Okay, yeah, that sounds great. Thank you.”

  That lump in my throat has swelled to moon-size proportions. My underarms are sticky with sweat. I just want to get the hell out of here so I can lick my wounds in private. Holding it in is making my whole body ring with misery.

  Elena curls her hair behind her ear. “I think it is best to start with several tutoring sessions a week, depending on the schedule. I looked at yours, Vivian, and I noticed you are perhaps taking a fifth class?”

  “Yes,” I say. “Art history. I was thinking of dropping it anyway, and with this awful start in my econ class, I think it’s probably best just to stick to four—”

  “No.”

  Elena and I both look up at Rafa’s single-word sentence, delivered with such firmness and finality I forget, for a second, the embarrassment raging through me.

  “You said you were interested in art,” he says, meeting my eyes over the slope of his shoulder. I can’t decide if I like him in the pink or the white shirt better. He looks devastatingly handsome in the pink. “If you are interested in it, you should study it while you are here. I know the professora who teaches that class, and she is very good. You will regret it, yes?, if you only take economics in Madrid. That, you can study anywhere. But Goya—Sorolla—those guys you can only study here.”

  Sorolla. Rafa said he’d take me to the Sorolla Museum. Is that why he’s bringing him up again? Or does he not remember?

  “That is true,” Elena says. “It is an amazing class, and Rafa is right, the woman who teaches it is very well known. If you have the time in your schedule, I recommend you take it, especially if your passion is art. But if your passion is economics, then perhaps not?”

  Despite what my major says, economics is definitely not my passion. Far from it. I want to take the art class, I do, but I’m worried I’ll fall behind all the other econ majors vying for those I-banking spots if I drop an econ class to do it. I can always just visit the big art museums on my own, read some books on Picasso in my spare time…

  Ugh. I’m so confused. Which only upsets me more.

  “Let me think about it,” I manage.

&n
bsp; Rafa’s looking at me again. The heat of his gaze seems to peel back layers of clothes and skin, exposing all the things I’m feeling. His eyes are soft—with sympathy, maybe; with understanding. The kindness I see there makes me want to burst into tears.

  I slide further onto the edge of the chair.

  “Very good,” Elena replies. “The drop period doesn’t end until the middle of September, so you have plenty of time. In the meantime, I want you and Rafa to meet at least twice a week. After mid-term examinations, we will reevaluate your needs, Vivian, and go from there. Is that good?”

  I nod. I know I need to head this off, I know I need a different tutor, someone less…ridiculously hot. I should ask for these things. But I worry if I try to talk I’ll only end up crying.

  “Okay for me,” Rafa says. “Thank you, Elena.”

  Elena offers us a smile, the skin around her eyes crinkling with pleasure. “Buena suerte, chicos.” Good luck, guys. “Let me know how it goes.”

  Swallowing, I croak my goodbyes and leap out of my chair like it’s on fire. I make a beeline for the exit: out of the office, down the hall, down two flights of stairs. If there’s one thing I’ve noticed, it’s that Spaniards take their time; they don’t rush around like idiots the way we do in America. San Pedro students are no exception. I get a few bald stares as I dart in and out of the crowd that clogs the stairwell.

  I push through the front doors and stumble out onto the wide concrete courtyard. It’s crowded with knots of kids chatting, smoking, leaning over open textbooks for some last-minute cramming. I’m jealous of these people going about their normal mornings in their normal country of residence. I don’t know if I’ve ever felt more lost, or alone.

  With shaking hands I dig my sunglasses out of my bag and shove them onto my face.

  And then I finally let myself cry. I can’t stop sweating; and now I wonder if I’m ever going to stop crying, or if this semester is just going to be one huge sobfest.

  My throat swells and my eyes burn and there’s no doubt in my mind I’m making an ugly cry face. What.a.day. And it’s not even eleven o’clock yet.