Love in English

by Maria E. Andreu

  Get ahold of yourself, Ana.

  “Ana, do you have plans on New Year’s?”

  I swallow my tea, even though my throat already feels like it is on fire. Is he . . . asking me out?

  I look at him. Too long, apparently.

  “Sorry, of course, you have a thing. It’s only in a few weeks. I . . . that was dumb . . .”

  “No, no. I was just thinking. No, I don’t think . . . I thought I had a thing but, no.”

  “They’re doing live music here, actually. It’s sort of ##### ##### . . . anyway, if you wanted to check it out.”

  I smile. Yes, this felt like a date. But plans for New Year’s? That is something more, no? You don’t ask just anyone out on a holiday. “Yes. I like that,” I say.

  “Good.” He blows out a breath, almost like he was nervous, and I very nearly grab the sides of his face to kiss him. “Good.” Then he picks up a cookie from the plate and swoops it along the ice cream. “These remind me of the cookies I used to put out for Santa.”

  “You put out cookies?”

  “Sure. Don’t you guys?”

  We don’t. Our tradition feels a lot harder to explain, so I decide to leave out the parts about the three kings and the hay and just tell him the part I think he’ll understand.

  “No. We have dinner on Christmas, open the presents at midnight.”

  “At midnight?” he says.

  “Yes. When the twenty-fourth becomes the twenty-fifth.”

  “So technically the day before Christmas?”

  I scrunch up my eyebrows. I run the conversation over in my head. Maybe I said something wrong. “Christmas. December twenty-fourth,” I say.

  He smiles, cocks his head. “Christmas is on the twenty-fifth.”

  “I mean . . .” What is the word? The twenty-fifth is the official day, sure, but not the day you celebrate. I don’t know how to say all that.

  He apparently has opinions about it too, because he launches into a big explanation. But it’s a whole lot of #### ##### ######## ### ###### #### to me.

  I never even imagined it would be different here. I say, “The twenty-fifth is like . . . the day after the wedding.”

  “Wait, what? You guys have weddings on Christmas?” asks Harrison, confused.

  I shake my head and laugh. That was the wrong example, or maybe I said it wrong. “No,” I say. “The twenty-fourth is everything. Dinner. Presents at midnight. The twenty-fifth is . . . the after.”

  “You mean . . . no running down first thing in the morning for presents that magically appear under the tree?” He looks at me like he might cry.

  “First thing in the morning? Why would anyone get up early on a holiday?” I ask. An honest question. It sounds awful.

  He laughs, explaining how they do it. Apparently his parents make him sleep and then wait until the next day to open presents in some kind of child torture tradition.

  “Wait, but they did that to you when you were little too?” I ask.

  “Of course. Santa comes overnight.”

  I shake my head. Some things in America make sense. Some things are meatballs.

  But some things are still bananas.

  One Little Box Inside Another

  I like Mr. T.’s ideas for field trips, usually. But who thought strapping knives to the bottom of boots in order to screech around a sheet of ice was a good idea? I’d like to find the inventor of this concept and kick them. If only I could get off my butt.

  I hate ice skating.

  Mr. T. knows the manager of an ice rink that is close to the school. He somehow convinced the school to let us use one of the buses. He found us “free ice time” between hockey players and figure skaters. I imagine something like gratitude might be in order, but all I can muster is a simmering frustration.

  Why can’t I stand up?

  It is not always warm back home. But we do not have enough icy surfaces for a thing like this near where I lived. I’ve watched ice skaters on television and, if I’m honest, imagined I might be good at this.

  I am not good at this.

  Neo goes by, scrunched like he’s barreling down a mountain. Except he’s moving a few centimeters, and screeching to a halt, then moving a foot awkwardly to get a little more propulsion. Mr. T. is as wobbly as the rest of us.

  Neo circles back to me. “Need help?” he asks, holding out a hand. He doesn’t appear to be in any position to offer help, but I take his hand. He holds mine firm. I get up on my skates. Slowly.

  “You like this?” I ask once I’m standing up.

  He shrugs. “Better than verb tenses.” He smiles.

  I admire his attitude about it. I screech my right skate forward. I used to love roller skating. Why is this not that? I screech my left skate forward. Neo stays next to me, smiling in encouragement.

  “See? You get better,” he lies. I appreciate the attempt.

  I start gliding. Okay, no, gliding is too smooth a word for it. I start moving forward without falling. Neo skates a bit ahead of me. He tries to turn around to do it backward. Oh, no, he’s going down. But he doesn’t, at the last minute. I laugh. He lights up, the ice making his eyes even brighter, it seems.

  Mr. T. takes a massive spill. He was going fast, apparently about to do some kind of jump, and wipes out spectacularly against the side.

  Neo and I make our way to him.

  “Having fun?” He smiles ruefully, rubbing his knee.

  “Are you okay?” I ask.

  He nods slowly, but he looks sad. “You like ice skating?” he asks, looking at me hopefully.

  My heart squeezes a little. It’s weird to think of teachers as humans, as people who care if other people think they’re doing a good job.

  “I don’t.” I smile. My mother would say that the kind thing would be to lie. But I want to cheer him up with the truth.

  He laughs, and Neo does too.

  “You know why I brought you here?” he asks. “My dad was real into hockey when I was a kid. My brothers too. But no matter how much I tried to get the hang of it, I just never did. No sense of balance, I guess. And ##### ######### ##### I try to imagine what it must be like for you guys, learning a new language, #######, moving from a new place . . . just trying to get your balance . . . well, ###### ####### skating, and how I was, y’know, always on my butt. I thought maybe it could be fun, being on our butts together.”

  “I understand,” I say. Mr. T. tries very hard.

  “Me too,” says Neo.

  “Go get off the ice, you two. You look truly miserable out there.” He laughs. “Go get a soda or something,” he says, waving his hand in the direction of the little café at the front of the rink.

  Neo has his skates off so fast I wonder if they were even laced. I take mine off too and find my shoes. We make our way to the café.

  “The year is almost finished, right?” he asks haltingly. “What do you do for . . . during vacation?” He looks red. I wonder if he’s still cold, even though it’s toasty in the café.

  “I don’t know. Christmas with my family.” I keep out the part about my New Year’s plans with Harrison, although I don’t exactly know why. “You?”

  He studies his soda can intently. “Yeah, Christmas. We’re going . . . lots to do.” He smiles.

  But it’s a sad smile, not lighting up his eyes the way his real smiles do. I wonder if he’s thinking of home, about what the first holidays away will be like, like I am.

  “You miss home sometimes?” I ask. I’ve asked him before, but I’ve learned that missing home is a little box you keep unwrapping only to find another one inside. That missing home isn’t an event that ends, but colored glasses you wear always.

  He looks up at me, and I am struck all over again by his blue eyes. They are almost translucent blue, with flecks of gold you’d miss if you didn’t really look. “I want to be . . . happy,” he says.

  It’s not quite an answer, but I think I get what he means by it. “Me too,” I agree.

  I want to be happ
y, too.

  Noche De Paz

  Our tiny living room looks beautiful. Festive. Our tree is a little scraggly, and the decorations all came out of one giant tube from the discount store, but it brightens the cramped corner where we put it. And while there’s not a lot of money for piles of presents, there are enough boxes under the tree to set that little flutter alive in me. When I was little, my father used to have to put a napkin over the clock because I wouldn’t eat waiting for midnight, when we could open the presents.

  My dad has put on Christmas carols. As one of my favorites plays in English, the old way echoes in my head. “Silent night” doesn’t quite mean “Noche de paz.” I wonder why they chose “silence” instead of “peace” for the English version. Is silence peace to some people?

  Because, as someone who has often been silent these last few months, I’ve noticed it can be one of the least peaceful things.

  But tonight? Tonight the quiet is peace.

  The first Christmas with my father in almost four years

  Homemade eggnog and empanadas and presents for a girl

  that existed four years ago,

  the one who still liked monkeys on zippered bags for her pencils.

  But it is also the warm smell of him hugging me,

  his aftershave strong, his chin rough,

  and my mother smiling, her eyes glassy with barely held-in happy tears.

  When Escape is Required, Check the Kitchen

  Altagracia and I pull up to Green Man on New Year’s Eve. She is driving and talking fast, like she’s excited on my behalf. “Okay, so this is a known New Year’s thing to do, which is a good sign. ###### ###### ########. Not that he’s like that,” she says, glancing in my direction nervously. “Also, there’s a certain significance to the night, which means it’s not just a whatever thing, you know? And there’s the obligatory midnight kiss, so it can be all like, ‘Oh, it’s just New Year’s, whatever,’ ######## ####### #### #######. So overall a good choice.”

  When I mentioned that Harrison had asked me out for New Year’s Eve, Altagracia insisted that she do my makeup. She picked out an outfit for me from her closet, a simple black dress that squeezes me in all the right places. She also flat-ironed my hair pin straight, and made my eyes look like twice their normal size. My parents think I’m sleeping over at her house tonight, which, actually, I do intend to do. She and her family will be going to a big party and staying at a hotel tonight, so she gave me the code to her back door. Otherwise I would not have been allowed out past midnight, New Year’s Eve or no.

  “You look like a rock star. Truly. ##### ######## stunning. His pasty ass is going to wonder what on earth he did to get lucky enough for you to go on a date with him.” She beams at me, middle schooler mixed with proud mama. “Now shoo. Out you go. I’ve got to go deal with my father’s extremely boring dentist friends and their hundred-year-old wives. Lucky me.” She complains about her dad sometimes, but she secretly seems to be looking out for him. She could have gone out on New Year’s with anyone from school, but although she pretends to be annoyed to be going to a formal party with her dad, it’s obviously what she chose. She’s funny that way, a soft heart under a hard shell.

  She kisses me on the cheek—a real kiss, not an air kiss. I am grateful we’ve become friends, although I’m not always 100 percent sure why she wanted to. I am nowhere near as cool as she is.

  “Thank you so much,” is all I say.

  I step out. The air has taken an unexpected turn in the last week to the iciest dagger air I’ve ever felt in my life. I’m not dressed for it. The black pantyhose are barely a layer; my jacket is nothing more than a black satin cowl-neck belted thing Altagracia put over the dress for effect at the last minute. The wind whips through me. Don’t die of hypothermia on your way to the door.

  I’m so wrapped up in the cold and the awkwardness of this moment that it takes me a bit to look toward the Green Man entrance. Where will he be? What if he’s not here yet?

  A figure is jumping up and down in the cold, waving her hand like she’s calling in an airplane. Frankie. She and Britt are wearing jeans and puffy jackets. Britt is in a woolen hat threatening to eat her head. Ugh. Again I wore the wrong thing. I feel like I’ve worn a wedding gown for a trip to a coffee shop. But it’s New Year’s. How are they not dressed up for New Year’s?

  “Hey!” she says. “You made it! Happy almost next year! Let’s get inside. It’s cold as balls out here.”

  Balls are cold? “Sure,” I say.

  Frankie opens the door. A wall of sound hits. They’ve cleared all but the bar-height tables, and they’ve set up a tiny makeshift bandstand in the corner. A band is screeching out some very noisy rock-funk-rap mash-up. No one is dancing, because it’s not exactly dancing music.

  Frankie pulls me toward a corner. “Here, let’s put our stuff down.”

  I follow her. “Have you seen Harrison?” I ask over the music.

  “What?” yells Frankie back at me.

  “Harrison!” I yell louder.

  “Oh, he’s over there somewhere.” She waves to the dance floor behind me. I turn to see what she’s looking at.

  Harrison. So handsome in a button-down that’s not tucked into his jeans, hair more combed than usual, color high on his cheeks. He’s holding something that’s shaped like a beer bottle, although this place is dry. His lips look perfect, and he’s cleanly shaven in a way that makes my heart hold still a second.

  Apparently it has the same effect on Jessica, who is standing just an inch in front of him, blond hair tipped back, eyes straight on him. I know that look. That “you’ve got all my attention” tractor-beam look you give a guy when you’re hoping he’ll kiss you.

  She puts her hand on his shoulder. It’s casual, but it’s not.

  She’s smiling at him and I know that smile, because it is the smile I give Harrison too.

  Britt leans over to Frankie. “If I didn’t know better, I’d say that’s not over.”

  I run that statement through a thousand calculations a minute. Is she talking about . . . I follow where she’s looking. Yes, she’s definitely looking at Harrison and Jessica. Not over . . . like they used to go out? Do go out? I stare at them stupidly. Every moment I’ve ever caught her looking at us flashes through my mind in a sickening trailer. The sharp stares in math class while Harrison and I talked. Her icy reception of me at the lunch table. Of course. How have I missed it until this moment? “They used to go out?” I ask. I try to keep my tone casual, to not look too pathetic, but I’m not sure I succeed.

  Frankie’s shoulders fall. “Oh my God, did you not know?” She tugs at my elbow gently as she puts her stuff down on a tall chair, puffy jacket, bag. She’s in a cute crop top with a baby–New Year cartoon figure on it.

  Britt adds, “They were totally high-school-married. And then . . . Jess was stupid. She started dating this college guy. Harrison was a mess for a long time.”

  “It’s nice to see they can be friends now,” Frankie says pointedly, giving Britt a look. I turn around to glance at them again. Jessica’s lips are curled into a heart. She does not seem like a friend.

  She pushes onto the tiptoes of her high-tops. The lean in is slow, so slow. My throat tightens. The music fades back, it all turns hazy as my stomach gives a lurch. Her lips land on his. He stands there. I can’t tell if he’s shocked or happy or if he was the one to ask her to kiss him. She gets off her tippy toes and runs her thumb gently over his lips.

  I want to throw up. I have been so wrong. So stupidly, densely, completely wrong.

  My throat grows a hedgehog on the inside and it travels down, spiny side out, all the way down to my stomach, then the pit of my gut. I. Am. So. Stupid. SO stupid. I replay every conversation I’ve ever had with him, every time I thought he was flirting but clearly wasn’t, every time I mooned over his eyelashes like an idiot. The stupidity is screaming in my ears. Or maybe he was flirting and he’s just one of those guys.

  I need to get out of
here.

  I need to get out. I want out now.

  I turn to Frankie and Britt. Frankie is studying my face. Britt is talking to a waitress who is asking for our order and taking Britt’s credit card.

  “Hey, that was . . . ,” Frankie begins. I put my hand to my ear in an “I can’t hear you” gesture.

  “I need to go to the bathroom,” I lie. I don’t have to, but I can’t keep a calm face for much longer. I want to cry, or scream, or anything besides stand here with this seething hurt and frustration and huge sense of “I am an idiot.” Somehow it feels like a concentrated version of how I walk around every day: missing cues, missing words, confused. Or maybe that’s how dating is here. I don’t even know. All I know is that I thought this boy liked me. But I was wrong.

  “I’ll come with you,” says Frankie. But Britt leans in to ask her what she wants to order. The waitress looks impatient, like the order is taking too long. Frankie gets distracted.

  “It’s okay,” I say, pulling away before she can follow.

  I push into the crowd and head to where the bathrooms must be, near the back. But how am I going to get out through there?

  It hits me: the kitchen. I once saw a video by a guy who used to be a spy, about how to survive in any situation. He said that when something bad happens in a restaurant, an explosion, or a terrorist attack, the mistake most people make is that they assume that the way they came in is the only way to get out. But it isn’t. The best way to get out is the kitchen. This isn’t a terrorist attack, but it feels a little like an explosion in my chest.

  The kitchen.

  I push in through the double doors. Instantly I’m in an entirely different world. Where outside it’s all dark-gray walls and dark everything, here it is crisp white tile and bright lights. There’s a guy at a grill, and another by a giant, rumbling machine.

  The men in the kitchen are speaking Spanish. “Ayúdeme a llegar a la calle, por favor!” I say to him. “Tengo que irme.” I have to go. This softens him.