English as a Second Language

by Megan Crane

  “This is rubbish!” Fiona cried, thumping the window with the palm of her hand. I lit a fresh cigarette and eyed her through the smoke. Melanie was smiling encouragingly. “George and I need to talk,” Fiona informed us. “It’s crucially important!”

  “We’ll let him know,” I said gently. “Should he turn up.”

  Fiona dismissed us with a sneer and turned her back, hands on her hips as she considered her next move. Melanie and I looked at each other and fought back the laughter. Which was when George, hearing the silence, decided to emerge from the broom closet.

  “Thank you,” he said, too loudly.

  “George!” Melanie hissed, waving her hands in an effort to make him go back inside the closet. “No!”

  But it was too late. Fiona reattached herself to the window. Melanie and I were forced to listen to a graphic description of her feelings, most of which involved the Vulture Libido and a revolting series of images. We stared at each other and somehow kept from screaming—with laughter or with pain, and it was a fine line.

  “I could never trust you again,” George finally told Fiona, in ringing tones. “You destroyed what we had.”

  He swept from the kitchen, head held high. Fiona stayed at the window for another moment before her face crumpled and she raced away into the darkness.

  Melanie and I sat there for a beat of silence.

  “Well, bless,” she said softly, topping up our glasses. “That was better than Coronation Street.”

  A few days later I set out for the library, deciding I might as well enjoy the summer, such as it was. While not what I’d call hot, it was warm and often sunny. Downright pleasant, after nearly a year of rain. I set out along the fields and the footpath and thought about the year. I felt as if I were some kind of spineless creature oozing along the path to adulthood, constantly stopping to vent my incredible jealousy of all the creatures I saw around me, passing me with their effortless and unearned vertebrae and their ability to see the horizon way up ahead of us.

  “Brennan.”

  Toby stood before me on the footpath. Speaking of spineless creatures.

  “Toby,” I said warily, in a kind of greeting. We hadn’t seen each other in a long time. It was all temper and tantrums and too much left unsaid.

  “Are we speaking?” he asked. “Or are you still having issues.” Emphasis on the last word to proclaim the silly American-ness of the term. I narrowed my eyes.

  “I wasn’t the one having issues,” I told him. “You might recall that you were the one talking about World War Two and then suddenly having a totally different conver-sation about God knows what. Not to mention that whole drama in my house in the wee hours of the night.”

  Toby’s lips twitched. “I don’t know what you’re talking about. You’ve been creeping around and hiding in your room. Like a four-year-old.”

  “I was concentrating on my work,” I said loftily. “I realize the master’s dissertation might be of no consequence to you, but I’m actually interested in doing well.”

  “You might have been working,” Toby conceded, though his dark eyes were watchful. “But I knocked on your door loads of times. And I could hear you on the other side. You were looking out the spy hole.”

  “You’re imagining things,” I said. “And what are you even talking about? You were at your parents’ house.”

  “Only for a week,” he said.

  We looked at each other for a long moment. Something was easier between us. Something had changed, or at least shifted.

  “Where are you going?” he asked lightly.

  “The library,” I said. “Probably. First I was going to the department to check my mailbox.”

  “Don’t bother,” he said, with a grin. “There’s nothing in it. Come on.” He nodded his head back the way I’d come. Toward the village. “We’ll get some lunch. I’ll relate all the gossip about what’s been happening in my life since your troubling transformation into an academic. It can be your shout, since you claim to bear no ill will.”

  “You know what, Toby?” I said, grinning at him. “I think I might have actually missed you.”

  “I know,” he said with a sigh. “It’s my curse.”

  I finally made it to the library later that week, having been sucked into pints and pubs and the usual silliness. I stalked around the stacks with the immediate bad mood that seemed to accompany every trip I made to the place. I busied myself with a few half-assed searches for relevant articles, but couldn’t work up any of the necessary enthusiasm research required. The obsessive concentration had waned. The few articles the library actually possessed failed to keep my interest for more than a few moments. I found myself staring out the window instead, and it wasn’t as if the vista across the concrete university was anything to get lost in. I was fighting a losing battle. This was always the way. I’d discovered that I had to budget enough library time to spend up to a week wasting time before suddenly having a burst of inspiration and industry. Today was clearly one of those filler days.

  I trudged back downstairs and deposited my interlibrary loan requests in the appropriate box. Earlier in the year I’d been outraged at how little the university library had in the way of recent scholarship. The Eighteenth Century, Renaissance, and Medieval students had resources coming out of their ears, whereas we Modern School schlumps had to order our research from elsewhere. Earlier in the year I’d had an entire tantrum on the subject, much to Cristina’s amusement. Today I just tossed in my requests with a minor roll of the eyes. I’d given up on the tantrums. What was the point? Possibly this meant I was beaten. I didn’t care about that either.

  What I found I did care about, however, was the look of absolute hatred that I got from Suzanne as I opened my mouth to say hello when I saw her approaching the library. I blinked.

  “What was that?” I asked, shocked.

  “You know what,” she snapped at me. “You know exactly what.”

  She treated me to another green-tinted death glare, and then pushed her way through the doors. I stood there like an idiot for a moment, and then lit my cigarette. Thoughtfully.

  Toby hadn’t mentioned Suzanne at all, which I’d assumed was because even he knew better than to raise that subject in my presence. Repression in the interest of peace between us was the name of the game. The list of things we didn’t talk about grew longer all the time. Suzanne. Sex. Definitely sex. I got angry even thinking about how I wasn’t thinking about it.

  I adjusted my bag on my shoulder and prepared to set off for home and discuss the whole thing with Cristina. I had only taken a few steps, however, when I heard my name—snapped out with a whole lot of venom. I swiveled back around.

  “Yes, Suzanne?” I asked warily.

  “I was just going to let it go,” she said. Across the distance and to the avid interest of the other smokers. “But you know what? I can’t let you get away with the things you do to the people you pretend to befriend.” She squared her shoulders and tossed her head, sticking out her chin. Gearing up for battle, in other words.

  I made no effort whatsoever to contain my expression. Which, if it was as closely tied to my thoughts as I suspected, should have been a particularly obnoxious blend of annoyance and irritation.

  Suzanne drifted a few steps closer.

  “I can finally see who you are,” she told me. “And you know what?” Her face twisted. “You’re nothing. You’re small and mean and disgusting.”

  Okay. I’m not too proud to admit that hurt.

  “Thank you,” I managed to say. “I really appreciate that.”

  Suzanne was even closer now. “I’m just getting started,” she snapped.

  I had the sinking sensation that she really wasn’t kidding.

  “I thought we were friends,” she told me. “I thought you cared about me. I never thought that you would turn out to be as manipulative and devious as you are. You could have just told me, Alex. I asked you a thousand times. But it was obviously more important for you to pl
ay your little games.”

  “I think I’m getting the main idea,” I said. “If you have a problem with Toby, why don’t you take it up with him? Why drag me into it?”

  “Drag you into it?” She laughed wildly. “When weren’t you in it?”

  “This has never had anything to do with me!” I exclaimed. “If anyone put me in it, it was you!”

  “You’re pathetic,” she told me. “I should have known it was all an act! You just inflict your insecurities on anyone stupid enough to let you near. Well, you don’t fool me anymore.”

  I blinked. For once in my life, I had nothing to say.

  Suzanne rocked back on her heels and regarded me with her eyes glittering and her mouth twisted into a smirk.

  “What?” she taunted. “No snide comeback?”

  That was her mistake.

  “Is this what you do, Suzanne?” I asked quietly. I flicked my cigarette to the ground and watched it bounce in my peripheral vision. Sadly, not onto Suzanne’s flammable shoes. “Sidle in next to people just so you can tear them down?”

  “I know what friendship is, Alex,” she began.

  “Really?” I watched her as I cut her off. “Because let me tell you what it isn’t. It isn’t dropping your most intimate secrets all over people you hardly know, and then deciding they have an obligation to you because you chose to bare your soul. Without ever being asked. Anything you don’t like about your situation, you brought upon yourself.”

  “You’re a piece of work, Alex,” Suzanne scoffed. She shook her head, and then her eyes turned mean. “You’re toxic.”

  The irony of being called toxic by the human equivalent of Chernobyl was not lost on me. I almost laughed.

  “I hope that means that you’ll finally stay the hell away from me?”

  “Oh, very nice,” she said. “Very mature.”

  “What did you think I would say to this, Suzanne?” I asked, incredulous. “Did you think I would beg for your forgiveness, or your friendship? You know what?” I met her glare with one of my own. I was on a roll. “I think the only reason you even wanted Toby was because you thought he wanted me. You’d be something along the lines of a single white female if you weren’t so bad at it.”

  Suzanne smirked. “You wouldn’t be so smug if you knew what our relationship really—”

  “Don’t be even more of an idiot,” I interrupted, very coldly. “Of course I know. Did you really think he wouldn’t tell me?” I almost smiled when her expression changed. I adjusted my bag on my shoulder. “I’m not going to stand here and trade insults with you, Suzanne,” I said. “Certainly not about Toby. Who is actually my friend, and who doesn’t sneak around having sex with me on the sly because he’s too embarrassed to admit it in public.”

  A direct hit. She stiffened, and an ugly flush washed down her neck. But she didn’t crumble. “Oh, really?” she sneered, with ten times the usual venom. “Because I got the impression that’s exactly what he did to you.”

  Sucker-punched.

  But I rolled with it. I didn’t even blink.

  I would assess the damage later. I would analyze the fact that my stomach had fallen six feet and the fact that Toby had actually told Suzanne about what happened between us. That treacherous little shit. But first:

  “Um, no,” I drawled, as if amused. “It wasn’t Toby who wanted to keep it private.” I turned on my heel and began walking away. Just casually enough to indicate a complete lack of emotional response, if anyone was looking for one.

  “You think you’ve won, don’t you?” Suzanne said to my back, bitterly. I turned back to look at her.

  “This isn’t a competition, Suzanne, no matter how much you want it to be.”

  “I hate you,” she hissed.

  “Good,” I said quietly. “I think that’s the only honest thing you’ve ever said to me.”

  “In front of the library!” Cristina said with disgust. And not for the first time.

  “In front of the library,” I confirmed. Also not for the first time.

  “That girl,” Cristina said darkly. “She is like a kind of virus. She must be stopped.”

  “Who cares?” I asked. “Suzanne is unlikely to be dropping by anymore. All things considered, I couldn’t be happier.”

  Cristina only rolled her eyes and stared out the bus window. We were going into the city again, to escape the claustrophobic atmosphere on campus. Cristina wanted to sit and have a coffee. I just wanted to be somewhere other than campus.

  The bus let us out inside the city walls, and we walked up the street until we reached Cristina’s favorite café. In celebration of summer, there were tables set out on the sidewalk. We took one toward the back so we could keep our eyes peeled and our backs to the wall.

  “So,” Cristina said, when we each had coffee in front of us and a new cigarette in hand. “We are not doing very well, are we? As far as the heart goes.”

  “I thought you were,” I said. “After your night with David the Physicist.”

  Cristina made a wry face. “Nights with David the Physicist are upsetting,” she said. “And unconnected.” She sighed, took a drag, exhaled. “There is talking, about a thousand things. Laughter. Even some kissing. And then nothing. Nothing inspires him, if you see what I mean.”

  “I’m not sure I do.”

  She shrugged. “Nothing impacts him, I don’t think. His head, maybe his heart, these things are involved in the moment. I believe they are. But then the moment is over and he never thinks of it again. Or chooses not to care.”

  I slumped back in my seat. “He cares,” I said. “I mean, I’ve seen him. When he looks at you, it’s like no one else exists.”

  “And when he looks away,” Cristina said quietly, “it is as if I don’t exist.” She toyed with her cigarette. “I don’t think he means to be cruel. I think he might think he is being kind instead.” She smiled. “After all, he cannot control what I feel. What the things he does make me feel. Or the things he does not do.”

  “I greatly dislike him,” I said.

  “I wish I did.” Cristina sighed. “But what would be the point? He is like a storm. You don’t like or dislike something of nature, you just try to survive it and hope for the best. Right?”

  “I don’t think he’s a force of nature,” I countered. “I think he’s just a coward. There’s no way he likes anyone more than he likes you.”

  “Maybe not,” Cristina agreed. “But that doesn’t mean that everything automatically leads to a happy ending. I don’t think there will be any happy ending with David the Physicist, Alex. I think there will maybe be one or two other nights I will have to survive, and then he will disappear because he’s a coward or because he just will, and I will cry some more and smoke some more and never know why.” She shrugged. “But there are worse things.”

  “Like what?” I stared at her. “Dental surgery?” She laughed.

  We relaxed in the sun, and in the heady feeling that we’d escaped campus and all the intricate complexities of the graduate community. Strangers sat at the tables around us, strangers passed by on the street, and we were two anonymous girls sitting at a coffee house. I felt the tension easing away from me.

  “I don’t know why,” I told Cristina. “But I’m actually relieved that I had that showdown with Suzanne. I feel like it’s been coming since last fall.”

  “Yes, but I wish you could have torn her into little pieces,” Cristina grumbled. “She is the one with problems. You were much nicer to her than I would have been.”

  “It’s not like I was really very nice,” I said. “In fact, I probably wasn’t ever very nice to her.”

  “She is a maniac,” Cristina said flatly. “Not reporting her to the health services is being nice, as far as I’m concerned.” She glared at me. “Don’t start thinking that anything she said was true. It wasn’t.”

  “Maybe it was,” I said. “Maybe I was playing games. I never wanted her and Toby to get together, you know. She was right about that. It
bothered me.”

  “Because Toby is your friend and this girl is insane!” Cristina said. She smiled. “As the most obvious reason, anyway.”

  I sighed. “Please don’t start.”

  “I just think that you are going to have to deal with Toby sooner or later,” she said, with a meaningful look. “I think you know it too.”

  “All right?” Toby called through the window.

  I turned from the stove and wandered over to him, stating the incredibly obvious through the window opening: “I’m cooking dinner.”

  “Anything edible?”

  “Ha-ha.” I considered him for a minute.

  “What?”

  “Nothing.” I shook a cigarette out of my pack and lit it. My spaghetti could boil untended. It was unlikely to be anything but disappointing anyway, given the miserable set of ingredients I’d compiled.

  “Fancy a pint later?” Toby was watching me closely, with that strange look in his eyes again. The one I couldn’t read.

  “Maybe,” I hedged. “I want to finish this incredibly boring article, though. I might just fall asleep.”

  “I’m not sure I can allow that sort of studiousness,” he said mildly, smiling. “It contrasts unfavorably with my own laziness.”

  I blew out a stream of smoke and leaned my hip against the windowsill. “I had some words with Suzanne,” I said, with no inflection. Toby searched my face and then his own expression closed up.

  “Did you? About what?”

  “The basic theme was my evil,” I said. “She recently concluded that I’m the root of all that hurts her. As well as being immature, conniving, and so on.” I smiled slightly. “You wouldn’t know what spurred that on, would you?”

  “No,” Toby retorted. He scowled. “Did she say I did?”

  “She said a lot of things, Toby,” I murmured. “Are you and she still—”

  “No,” he said, kind of fiercely. “That was never really a constant thing anyway. A shag here and there. Nothing particularly intense.”

  “But I’m betting she didn’t share that view of it,” I said dryly.