“What’s in it?” I ask.
He puffs up a little in that way of his when he’s about to tell me something about his culture, his home. “Meat. Potato. Bread. No, no bread . . . in the . . .” He makes a gesture with his fingers. The little pieces that fall off bread . . . I don’t know the word for that either.
I give him one empanada, which he gobbles up in two bites. We head toward the ESL class.
The boy with the army-short hair—the one who picked on Neo that first month of school—is standing with his back on a locker, facing the door of the ESL classroom. Today he’s in camouflage pants and a different skintight shirt. The muscle in his jaw jumps as he watches us coming down the hall. He leans over to a shorter buddy and says something without taking his eyes off us, gesturing toward us with his chin.
Neo walks in front of me. I can’t tell from the back of him if he’s getting the same feeling I am. I don’t know the right words to warn him.
As we get close to the door, the boy takes one step forward. “Fucking ESL classes now. I guess we didn’t build that wall fast enough,” he says, looking at me dead in the eye.
Neo stops walking.
“It’s okay,” I whisper at his back. “Just go in the class.”
Neo takes a halting step forward, like he’s deciding. The boy gives his plate a nudge, playing at upending it. For a sickening second I think Neo may drop it and hit the guy. The guy’s friends all have eyes on us, like they want to see this play out.
“Move,” I say, in the strongest way I know how. I hope it sounds strong, because my elbows are turning to jelly and my heart is threatening to run away.
“Oh, look, your girlfriend just got here and she already thinks she owns the joint, huh?”
Still Neo doesn’t step forward toward the door.
“They’re stupid,” I say. “Let’s go in.” The boy reaches for the plate again. Neo jerks it away. A few kefthedes slip out the side and tumble to the floor. The friends find this hilarious.
“Oh, you wanna come and take welfare but you don’t want to share?” His friends give another grumbly laugh. He’s doing this for an audience.
My throat is full of something that won’t go down. I hoist my tray of empanadas under my left arm and reach around Neo to open the door. Mr. T. is right inside.
“Come on,” I say urgently. “Just go in.”
Mr. T. looks at my face, then at the boys behind me, already dispersing. “Everything okay?” This pulls Neo into the classroom.
I walk over to the table, which is piled with delicious-looking plates. The table doesn’t match the swirl of ugliness right outside it.
We put our stuff down. I take Neo’s wrist so that he’ll look at me. “You okay? Don’t listen to those jerks.” I don’t know that I’m following my own advice, because I can still feel the hate coming from the hall. How can people think they know anything about us just because we’re in this class?
His face is full of something I can’t read. “I’m okay,” he says. But he puts a hand on his middle . . . in the back and forth, some grease from the bottom of his pan spilled all down the front of his shirt.
Mr. T. pops his head between us, spots the grease. “Oh no! Hey, c’mere, I’ve got a stash of T-shirts. #### ##### ### #### ##.” He takes the first one from the pile, holds it up to Neo. It has a band name on it, with flames looking like they’re about to consume the letters. I’m not sure what it means, but the flames seem to fit the occasion.
Neo goes in the corner and turns his back to the class. He pulls off his shirt in one smooth motion and I’m surprised to see how strong his back looks. It is tanned and freckled from the sun, almost as though he left Greece weeks ago, not months. He pulls on the new shirt, and I dart my eyes away before he sees I’ve been staring.
Mr. T. pops one of Neo’s albóndigas in his mouth. “Mmm, I just love meatballs,” he says.
Meat.
Balls.
Sometimes English does just tell it like it is.
We serve ourselves a plate of everything. Mr. T. walks around and puts a bit of reddish jelly on the turkey. It’s the berry sauce, and it is just as strange as it sounds. But everything else is fantastic—mashed potatoes, corn, plus other tasty dishes from my classmates. The empanadas are a big hit, although I didn’t realize that Adira is a vegetarian, which I feel bad about not having known. I save one for Altagracia. She’s always teasing me about how Dominican empanadas are way better than ours and promising to take me to her favorite Dominican place the next town over.
“Okay, so Thanksgiving. Unfortunately a lot of what you’re going to learn about Thanksgiving in history is going to be bullshit. Don’t tell them I said that, sorry,” Mr. T. says to the intercom, like it’s listening. “But ##### ## #### we can also make things our own. So, a day to be together with people ######## #### think about why we’re grateful . . . that’s not so bad. So I’ll start.”
We all wait, the sound of forks scraping paper plates dying down.
“I . . . look, I’m going to be honest. I wasn’t sure why they assigned me this class. I barely speak one language, let alone all the ones that you guys speak. #### ### ####. ### #### ##. But you guys . . .” He trails off, looks at the board for a second. “The courage you guys have. How hard you try. It’s inspiring. I’m grateful for that. And I hope I’m worthy of being your teacher.”
I feel like maybe we should clap? But no one says anything, or moves to do it, so I just look at him like everyone else.
“Okay, anyway,” says Mr. T., shaking the moment away. “When I was growing up, my parents ### ##### ## ### making us each say a thing we’re grateful for. I just gave you mine. Now you guys.”
One by one the class shares what they are thankful for: Adira says her family, even her little sister, who gets on her nerves sometimes. Wati says his new friend. Soo says her new roller skates. Bhagatveer makes everyone laugh when he earnestly thanks his new Xbox.
“Neo?” prompts Mr. T.
“I am grateful for . . . American movies,” he says. He looks at me briefly, then at the floor and away. His mood seems to have brightened since the ugliness in the hall.
“Oh, good! I love that. Ana?”
I have been searching my brain for an answer since he started going around the room. Some of the other answers resonate for me too. I am grateful that in this world of swirling forces, at least my immediate family is together. I am glad that everyone I love is safe, even if some of them are far away. I feel strong and, most days, up to the challenge before me. But I want to reach inside and find something more to say.
And then I have it.
“I am grateful for every new word.” I smile.
The bell rings, and Mr. T. appears at my desk. “Ana, I’ve been meaning to talk to you,” he says. “This literary magazine I subscribe to . . . They’re doing a poetry contest. For high school students. And I think you should enter.”
My eyes widen. “Me?” I look behind Mr. T. and see Neo watching us.
“Yes! You’re very talented, Ana. The world should get to read your poetry.” Mr. T. smiles. “Just think about it. Okay?”
I nod. It’s hard to imagine. Me? With my brand-new English poems? But I don’t want to disappoint Mr. T.
“I will think about it,” I say.
A voice does not equal the courage to use it
Words do not equal something to say
Añoro can mix with a dream for the future
A dance of what’s lost and what’s yet to be found
In the forest of words I search for the answers
In the river of silence I search for the sound
On the cliff I look out on all that surrounds me
For the whispers I’ve hidden and my voice yet unbound.
The Girl With All the Words
I am sitting in the library for a free period when Neo strolls in. He is not usually here during this time, not that I’ve ever seen before. He seems surprised to see me too.
He
walks bouncily, like he just won something, so it surprises me when he sits across from me and says, “I forgot my gym clothes.”
“This is . . . good?”
“Gym is boring here.”
“But won’t you get in trouble?” I ask.
He shakes his head. “Sanders,” he says. It’s one word that explains everything. Even I know that if you have Sanders for gym, you can do whatever you want.
“So why did you come to the library?” I ask.
He reaches in his backpack and pulls out a notebook. I’ve seen this notebook on his desk before. It’s spiral-bound and has a beige cover with a line drawing of a building at an angle on it.
“What’s that?” I ask.
He flips it open to the first page. “How you say? Building? Beautiful building.” I look down at the open page. It’s a meticulous drawing of a building that looks familiar a little, skinny on the corner, almost like a slice of cake.
“That’s beautiful. You did that?”
He shrugs, as if to push away the compliment. “Not so good. Only copy.”
I ask if I can look at it and he pushes it in my direction. The detail is incredible. He’s penciled in every window, every shadow beneath the ledges, even a sprig of a plant growing in a crevice in the facade on the first floor. He gets up, goes to a nearby stack, comes back with a book. Understanding Architecture.
“Free periods, I come to library, I copy buildings. One day I make my own buildings.”
I remember now. He told me way back at the start of school. He wants to be an architect.
I make a page-flipping motion at the edge of the notebook. “Okay if I look?” I ask.
He looks at me nervously, but after a long beat, he nods. I flip the pages. A cathedral, Notre Dame, I think, in intricate detail. An old stone church. A modern skyscraper I don’t recognize. A bridge that looks like it’s made of a thousand strings. Too many beautiful things to count.
“You have talent,” I say.
The book falls to the last page. On there it says, The Glossary of Happiness. There’s a list of random words.
“What’s this?” I ask.
He looks horrified, and holds his hand out for the book.
“Mr. T. gave me an article. You remember?”
I think back. I do remember. I meant to ask him.
“That’s right. What was it about?”
“It is about, how you say . . . professors? Collecting words that only mean something in one language. Like in Finland they have a word, sisu. In English it would be like ‘sticking to it,’ but there’s no real English word for this, or Greek, either. Or in German, there is a word, Heimat, which means where you feel you belong. The article . . . it stayed with me. What a beautiful thing to collect words, no? It made me think about how we all feel the same things, all over the world. So I started a notebook. Maybe I want to collect words too.”
I smile. “What a great idea,” I say.
He blushes. “Anyway . . . You. You are the one with talent. Mr. T. always talking about your poems. You sent yours to the competition already?”
Now it’s my turn to feel uncomfortable. I shake my head. “No. Not yet.”
“You are like . . . the girl with all the words. You learn English so fast. You should send in your poem. You do it?”
I nod. I could do it. Maybe I should do it.
“Good,” he says, looking satisfied. Then he opens his notebook to a fresh page and begins to sketch. “Good,” he says one more time, and I smile at my own notebook.
Good.
Neo’s Glossary of Happiness
koselig: Norwegian, intimacy, warmth
cozy: ávεtoç
amata: Italian, loved
joy: Xapá
moxie: courage
sonrisa: sunrise?
esperanza: hope
on the bright side: ☺
An Afternoon Like Fire Chai
I imagined that Christmas would be a big deal in the US, from all the American movies I saw back home, but I wasn’t prepared for just how everywhere it would be. The day after Thanksgiving, a fire truck ripped through town at low speed with sirens blaring. I ran to my window to figure out what was going on, and, instead of an emergency, I saw Santa Claus on top, throwing candy at little kids squealing on the sidewalk. That set the tone. By the time we got back to school on Monday, Christmas had assaulted every surface of the school.
Of course we did Christmas back home, but nothing like this. My parents always used to grumble that when they were little, Christmas was barely a thing at all, and they got their presents on el día de los Reyes. That’s the sixth of January, the day on which, tradition says, the three kings brought baby Jesus their gifts of frankincense, myrrh, and gold. That had changed by the time I was little. We all got together on the twenty-fourth and, at midnight, would open some gifts after we were stuffed full of empanadas and asado.
But here it’s like a decoration store threw up all over everything. A few kids have wrapped their lockers in red-and-green candy-cane wrapping paper. There is a tree by the office. There are other decorations I haven’t seen before from other celebrations that also happen in December. But the true king seems to be Santa Claus, adorning classroom doors and a rollaway mural outside the gym. And it’s not just in the school, either. On my way to school that Monday, I saw the garbage truck guys hanging giant stars from every light post. On the walk home that night, after a movie with Neo, every star was lit up, as if they were showing me the way home.
It’s contagious, all this showy desire to celebrate.
Altagracia seems to have made a decision that her outfit and makeup will be a different holiday theme each day. Today she’s in what seems to be a nod to an elf costume, with tight brown corduroy pants, booties with flaps turned down, and all her hair piled on the top of her head and a little elf-hat hairpin in front of it. Her makeup is subtle, to let the outfit do the talking. I wonder how early she gets up every day to coordinate all this “fabulosity,” as she would say.
She’s giving me a rundown of her day. “So I got a great little sample bag from this indie organic makeup company—amazing, right?—and so I’m doing a sponsored post. ### ## #######. And . . .”
From the corner of my eye I see Harrison is sprinting, all legs and arms, in my direction. For a second I wonder if he’s going to tackle someone behind me, so I turn around. But, no, he’s aiming straight at me. He’s . . .
He’s hugging me. I freeze, same as if a flock of singing birds had just decided to circle me, animated-movie style. It feels that special, that unlikely.
“You’re a genius! I’m actually going to show this test to my parents. This is awesome.”
He shoves a crinkled paper in my face. I pull back a little to focus on the page. “Eighty-seven!” I smile.
“Solid B-plus territory. Which is, like, a serious improvement.” It’s now that he notices Altagracia. “Oh, hey, Gracie. Sorry, were you guys in the middle of something? I was just so excited.”
She waves an elegant burgundy-tipped hand at him. “Not at all, nerd-ball. I’ve got a video to shoot. I’ll send you a link to a rough cut later, Ana,” she says, flinging her bag over her shoulder.
“Okay, cool,” I say.
I look back at Harrison as Altagracia walks away. He wears happy very well. That is a new expression I have learned. To wear an emotion like it is clothes. I love it.
“What are you doing right now?” he asks.
“I’m . . . just getting my stuff to go home.”
“You like coffee?”
“Not so much.”
“#####?”
“I like tea,” I offer.
“Okay, tea, great. Let me hydrate you in thanks for how much you’ve helped me.”
“Accepted,” I say. I am proud to be able to use a word that Altagracia just taught me the other day.
“Awesome, come on. Green Man?”
“Sure.” I say sure like, whatever. But I feel like ohmygod.
He studies the menu, although I imagine he’s seen it probably hundreds of times. Even I can remember the highlights.
“What are you having?” he asks finally.
The menu has things with wild names, like CocoaDemon and Archangel, different globs of ice cream with exotic sauces and creams.
“I’ll have the fire chai. How about you?”
“I may need to up my game. I was going to have a vanilla latte. Want to share an Opprobrium?”
It’s one of the ice cream mixes. I don’t even look at the menu for which types. I just nod. He signals to the waitress and she takes our order.
The fire chai is fiery. It starts like regular tea, but then begins to burn on my tongue and on the inside of my cheeks, going finally to my lips. Harrison watches me drink it. “What’s it like?” he asks. I want to lean my lips to his and give him a taste, but, gah, no. Of course not that. So I hand him the cup. He keeps his eyes steady on mine as he takes a sip.
He hands it back. “That is hot! So is the ########## true? You eat a lot of spice?”
I laugh. “We actually don’t cook with a lot of spice at all. But fire chai . . . I wanted to know.”
He’s still keeping eye contact in a way he doesn’t while we’re studying. “So . . . was it what you’d hoped it would be?”
It seems to be a question about something other than tea. The heat from the chair is making my neck hot. Or maybe he is. I’m not sure how to answer, so I look at the table and say, “Yes.”
Then out of the corner of my eye I catch some kids from school walking past. Harrison sees them too and waves.
The Opprobrium arrives. Two spoons, enough mint chocolate chip ice cream for a whole band, striped Hershey’s kisses on top. I take a spoonful. For some reason I am transported to Lady and the Tramp, the scene where they’re sharing a bowl of spaghetti. I want to eat without spoons until we both get to the bottom and . . .
Love in English Page 9
