English as a Second Language

by Megan Crane

  “Hey,” I said. “I’m the pasta queen.”

  “You are the drama queen,” Cristina retorted. “Don’t confuse the two.”

  “My mother sent us Nutter Butters,” I told Melanie in an exaggerated whisper. “So at least we have dessert.”

  We had lit all the candles and were having a last supper. In the morning, the ultraefficient Melanie, having handed in her dissertation early two weeks ago, would take off for the big city. There was a flat ready and waiting in London, and she already had a job sorted.

  “You two must visit,” she said, over Cristina’s rather extended rant on the subject of American snack foods.

  “You have to visit us in Casa Fun,” I said. “No shared kitchen, no Fairfax Court . . .”

  “Heaven!” Cristina declared, recovering herself.

  I took a bite of Cristina’s attempt at a paella. It was surprisingly tasty, but of course that didn’t mean that food poisoning wasn’t lurking around ready to strike later. I was cautious.

  “Thank God you’re staying,” Cristina told me. “We will watch the telly and eat like normal human beings all the time.”

  “And I’ve seen so little of the country,” I said. “I need to stay and explore.”

  “And really why not stay?” Melanie mused. “England has its claws in you now. How could you live without all the rain, the cold, the gray? The English countryside’s numerous plagues. Foot-and-mouth, mad cow, and let’s not forget the train derailments and race riots. What’s not to love?”

  “Thanks for that,” Cristina said. “I am now even more excited to chain myself to three more years in this place.” She sighed. “Why do I think I want a doctorate, anyway?”

  “I didn’t realize you did,” I said dryly. “I thought you were staying in the country in a desperate last bid for David the Physicist— Ouch!”

  I rubbed my shin where Cristina’s booted foot had connected. Hard.

  “Now, now,” Melanie said serenely. “None of that please, children. Alex, if you can’t play nicely, someone might have to mention the fact that we know you’ve been sleeping with Toby.”

  I didn’t even try to pretend. Which was a good idea as the bright red flush was betraying me anyway.

  “Huh,” I said. “You know about that? I was meaning to tell you.”

  But first, I thought, I had been hoarding it to myself.

  “We weren’t actually sure,” Cristina said with great satisfaction. “Now we are sure.”

  “Whatever,” I said. I grinned at them. “It’s all very casual.”

  “Cristina,” Melanie said, “isn’t Toby staying on at university to do a doctorate?”

  “I believe he is, Melanie,” Cristina replied. They wore matching smirks.

  Any retort I might have made—and I might not have made any—was cut off by the kitchen door slamming open. George appeared, with a thunderous look across his Richie Cunningham face.

  We stared at him. He stared at us, and then arranged his face into something more stoic. Which was pretty strange to watch, as “stoic” on George required some interpretation.

  The outside door slammed shut, and we all swiveled around to stare out the window. Where, sure enough, the figure of the Vulture strode by. She stopped, wheeled around, and stormed back. Even though I watched her wind up to do it, I still jumped a little bit when she pounded a fist into the window.

  “Damn you, George!” she shouted.

  This was like a tennis match—we all turned back to George.

  “I’ve made my decision,” George said, in ringing tones.

  A look back toward the Vulture showed her face screwed up in what I chose to interpret as despair, though it was mostly just frightening.

  “You’ll regret it! You will regret losing me!” she promised him. And then she turned on her heel and stomped off into the night.

  We looked back to George. His chin was trembling, but his head was held high.

  “I won’t regret it,” he announced. “After all this time, I think the spell is broken. I just can’t trust her. I can’t allow myself to sink into the oblivion of her body—”

  “Okay!” I interrupted before I had to vomit. “And just for the record, it took you long enough to decide that the sinking into oblivion wasn’t the way to go. We share a wall, you know.”

  Cristina thrust the bottle of wine at him, forestalling any response he might have made.

  “Please,” she said. Urgently. “Drink.”

  George let his eyes sweep across the three of us. Our overly full wineglasses and our ashtrays. The pot of Cristina’s paella and our plates filled with bright yellow rice. He glared at me and then at each of the others in turn.

  “My head is finally clear,” he said, with great drama.

  “You can see clearly now the rain is gone?” I offered, trying to be helpful. Well, not really. Melanie and Cristina gave me a quelling glare in tandem, and I lit a cigarette and tried to look quietly attentive.

  “I don’t know what I’ve been trying to do,” George said.

  “Oh God,” I said under my breath. “Here comes the philosophy.” Okay, maybe not as much under my breath as over it.

  “But,” George said, glaring at me again, “it’s obvious that a clear head leads nowhere good.” He offered a slight smile. It made his urchin-meets-cowboy outfit almost cute. “I’ll get a glass.”

  We sat around the table in the pub and stared at one another.

  “I can’t believe Melanie is gone,” Cristina said mournfully. “The year is ended truly now.”

  “And oh what a year it’s been,” I said ruefully.

  “It’s been a perfectly good year,” Toby said. He was in his usual position in the corner, with his head propped up against the wall. But his legs touched mine beneath the table.

  “Agreed,” said Jason. “And what is a year save an arbitrary collection of moments?”

  “There were moments indeed,” Cristina said.

  She reached over and poked George in the stomach. Then again, hard. He propped open an eye and regarded her blearily through the effects of ten pints.

  “What?” he asked.

  “What was your best moment all year?” Cristina demanded.

  “Ugh,” I said. “I actually heard some of his best moments in the making, Cristina. I’m not sure anyone needs a replay. My poor ears have hardly had the chance to recover as it is.”

  “My best moment was the moment I laid eyes upon my Fiona,” George announced, unsurprisingly, and returned to his unconscious state.

  “It was not my best moment,” Cristina said, “but a memorable moment was when this one”—she nodded at George’s slumped form—“made that ridiculous statement in the kitchen. You know the one, Alex.”

  “Oh yeah,” I said, laughing. “‘I only go out drinking when I want to pick up women.’” I gazed over at George. “How the mighty babe magnets have fallen.”

  “That was the first time Melanie, Alex, and I had a meeting of the minds,” Cristina said. “Wasn’t it?”

  “It was,” I agreed.

  We all raised our glasses and toasted Melanie and her departure. We’d helped her pack up her car and had waved her off. Cristina and I hadn’t known what to do when she’d gone. We’d stood there in the car park for far too long afterward, until the rain picked up and we’d had to run indoors.

  “What about you?” I asked Toby.

  “The year’s not over yet,” he said with a lazy grin. “I’d hate to be premature.”

  “Alex would also hate it,” Cristina said under her breath and snorted into her pint. Toby didn’t hear her, as he was too busy channeling the music from the jukebox. I glared at Cristina.

  “Hey,” I said, “isn’t that the Physicist over there?”

  “Very funny,” Cristina said. But she looked. Then she smiled at me. “I couldn’t resist.”

  “You can’t let those science types confuse you with their hypothesis this and theory that,” Jason advised. “He’s not wort
hy of you.”

  “Hang on,” Toby said. “Cristina, is that dodgy bloke with the dark hair still following you around? You need to sort him right out.”

  Cristina beamed. “I love you both,” she told them. She looked at me. “Did you hear that? Is David following me?” She sighed happily. “This is now my favorite moment of the year.”

  Later, we were staggering back across the fields, Toby trying to keep George vertical. Jason had abandoned the cause and staggered off to locate a taxi.

  “I’m tempted to leave him at the side of the road,” Toby bit out, puffing with the effort and the laughter. He leered at me. “You could lend us a hand, Brennan, if you’re not too busy doing fuck-all.”

  I stuck my tongue out at him and tilted my head back to look at the stars.

  “Hello!” Cristina shouted at the night sky. She had had too many tequila shots and was doing a little performance art along the fields. “Hello, England! We have survived a year here!”

  I shoved my hands into my pockets and watched them—the fools and the drunks that God was supposed to watch over with special interest, the ones I knew so well in so many surprising ways.

  I was one of them, I thought, and grinned.

  About the Author

  www.bohmphoto.com

  MEGAN CRANE spent the last five years at university in England, working on her master’s and PhD in literature. She has since followed the sun to California and now lives in Los Angeles. You can find out more about her at www.megancrane.com.