Love in English

by Maria E. Andreu

  I wrap the ribbon around my hips, the way I just learned how to do, and hang upside down to let the blood rush to my head. Altagracia does the same, facing me. It reminds me of hanging my head upside down from the couch when I was little.

  “So we going to talk about the elephant in the room?” says Altagracia.

  I look around. I know she can’t mean an actual elephant, but . . . ?

  She smiles. Her face is getting red from hanging upside down. Mine must be too. “It means ‘the big thing that’s obvious but we’re trying to pretend isn’t here.’”

  “The elephant in the room,” I repeat. I love these unexpected gifts in English, these delightful little bundles of creativity that sneak up on me when I least expect it. “I like that. So what’s this elephant?”

  “New Year’s. What happened with Harrison? You’re going to have to talk about it at some point.”

  “It was stupid,” I say. “I was a head up my ass.” I try one of the expressions I’ve learned these last months.

  “That’s not quite how that saying goes, but okay. Say more.”

  “It was never a date. I got that wrong. He is with Jessica.”

  Altagracia tips her head to the side. “Is he? I hadn’t heard that was back on.”

  “You knew?”

  “I mean, yeah, but that was like ancient history. Jessica was kind of a dog to him. I’d like to think he’s smarter than that.”

  I close my eyes, picturing the way she leaned toward him, like it was the most natural thing in the world.

  “I didn’t even stay for midnight. I went to Neo. From ESL. We watched a Greek movie.”

  I want to tell her about my head on Neo’s shoulder, the held-breath moment during the dance before my phone dinged and the moment was broken. But I don’t know what it means, let alone how to explain it. I flip back right side up. My head is hot and woozy. I take a deep breath and close my eyes. Little explosions of light behind my eyelids are like a field of stars.

  “That’s interesting,” she says, but doesn’t add more, although she seems like there’s something else on her mind.

  “I feel so stupid,” I say.

  “You are not stupid.” Altagracia flips right-side up too. “You put yourself out there, and that’s great.”

  “I don’t know,” I say.

  “It is,” she says. “Have I told you about when I first got here? This reminds me of that feeling, the feeling I think you’re trying to explain, of how maybe you’re just never going to understand all the ins and outs of these people.”

  I nod. “Like I’m missing things all the time.”

  She moves her head in agreement. “So when I first came here, it was rough for me. I was different, and people don’t always like different. And I knew enough to, like . . . be me. But maybe it wasn’t the whole me, does that make any sense? It was one of the things that made me want to get to know you that first day. There aren’t a lot of us Spanish speakers here. And not that that’s everything. I know our lives are different in a lot of ways. But the way you came here and are trying to make your life here. You just put yourself out there. The whole you.” She looks away, like she’s remembering, or maybe trying not to. “I guess what I’m saying is I’ve always been Gracie here. No one could say my name. So I gave myself a new one. I watched what they cared about, and that’s what I showed about myself. Little by little I built that up. Gracie with the cool house. Gracie with the fine nails. Gracie with all the Instagram followers. The truth is, everyone wants to be friends with Gracie, not me. You could say that when you got here I was in the middle of a thing. Some people had been shitty to me last year, and I’m reevaluating everything. That’s why I’ve sort of pulled back from the social scene at school. Like, I want to see things from a different angle, not just get caught up in this small-town stuff.”

  I shake my head, not fully understanding. “You are the most unique person I know, Altagracia. And you put yourself out there for so many people to see.”

  “Yeah, but it’s not all of me. Even if I am all that.” She laughs, and then looks at me, serious. “Do you know I’ve never even had a girlfriend?”

  “Really?” I ask. We never actually talked about it, but I always assumed Altagracia had lots of girlfriends. “But you’re so . . .”

  “Confident? Outgoing?” Altagracia smiles. “I know it seems that way. But it’s different to be all this”—she motions to her fabulous self—“than to be . . . like . . . actually open. Like, vulnerable.” She laughs, embarrassed. “It’s hard opening yourself up like that. Social media is one thing, that’s just my brand. But you . . . You put your heart out there. I wish I were more like you.”

  I smile and grab her hand.

  “There must be someone you like,” I say.

  She makes a face. An “I’ve got a secret” face.

  “There is!” I squeaky-voice.

  “It’s . . . I mean, who knows.”

  “Who?”

  She takes in a deep breath. “You know Leticia? From art?”

  I go through my memory banks. I do know her. She’s tall, with perfect posture, has a bunch of cartilage piercings and a laugh that comes straight from her belly. No matter what the assignment is, she always gives her piece great graphic-art flare. “Yeah,” I say.

  “Well, we were working on a project in my government class, and she’s so smart and fearless. Like really up on politics in a way that’s almost intimidating. Plus she’s got this long, graceful neck.”

  I laugh. “Neck?”

  “Don’t judge. We’ve all got our things.”

  “You should totally go for it. Ask her out,” I say.

  She puffs out her cheeks, lets out the air. “We’ll see.”

  “She’d be lucky to have you in her life.”

  She blushes. “You’re something else, you know that?”

  I smile at her. “You have a beautiful heart, Altagracia.”

  She cocks her head to one side, then waves her hand, like pushing away a fly, a thing you want to go away. “Anyway, back to you. What I’m trying to say is: It’s Harrison’s loss. You deserve someone who’s crazy about you.”

  “Crazy . . . ?”

  “Really into you!” She smiles. “Crazy in love. Like Beyoncé.”

  “It is always like Beyoncé, is it not?” I say.

  She looks at me gravely. “It is.”

  We both laugh.

  ESL Class, Medium Rare

  My heart does a little dance when I walk into ESL class and the desks are all jumbled up. Something new! I always like Mr. T.’s creative classes best.

  “You’re here!” he says. He is in a tuxedo T-shirt and an actual red bow tie. “Come on, come on, let’s get started.” We all crowd in for him to explain. He’s set up a series of “regular” situations we may face out in the world. A few have props. The doctor’s office, for example, has a stethoscope and a white lab coat. The mechanic’s garage has a big cutout of a car. There’s an airport check-in counter (just a podium with a hand-drawn TSA seal) and a big foam board with a well-drawn set of bookshelves on it, with a sign that says Librarian in front of it. And two desks are put together, draped in a red checkered tablecloth with a plate in front of each seat. A restaurant.

  He explains. We’ll each draw a partner and a station from two jars he’s holding. For about ten minutes, we’ll do our best to carry on a conversation that would be likely to happen in each of these places. We can make up whatever it is. There are words written on index cards at each station. In ten minutes, we’ll pick new partners and new stations.

  I’m partnered with Soo. I do my best to explain my imaginary aches while she fidgets in her white lab coat. When I tell her my belly hurts and she cocks her head quizzically and points to my head as if asking a question, I burst out laughing, and she does too.

  When the timer rings, Soo leans over to me conspiratorially and says, “Belly is ugly word in English. Like noise that comes out when swallow air with food.”

>   I laugh out loud. “Yes,” I say.

  My last partner of the period is Neo. We sit at the “restaurant table.” Mr. T. has been playing waiter to each duo who had a turn at this station.

  There are actual menus on top of the plates. I don’t understand all of it. One of the items is “pork belly.” I laugh to myself, wanting to show Soo when the bell rings.

  “And what can I get you started with?” asks Mr. T. with a white napkin draped over his bent forearm. The instructions say to pick an appetizer first.

  Neo begins, “Started with . . . Mr. T., is cheese really blue? Is spelled wrong.”

  Mr. T. smiles. “Bleu cheese. It’s got some indeterminate color banded in there, but, no, it is not all blue. Like a whitish creamy color mostly.”

  Neo nods. “Good then. Bleu cheese tater tots.”

  “I like the sliders.” The description makes them sound like miniature hamburgers, although I’m not sure why they slide, but they sound delicious.

  “You guys are naturals,” says Mr. T., pretending to write it all down. “I’ll be right back with those appetizers.”

  There are no appetizers, of course. He just goes over to help the other groups. But Neo is fully in character, so he keeps studying the menu. He also looks over the words we need to work into the conversation: Can I get a refill? One index card has a list to choose from: rare, medium, well.

  “What are you having for dinner?” he asks me, a twinkle lighting up his face.

  “I think steak,” I say. I am already learning that my family and I like steak more than most people here, it seems. A dinner without steak was often thought to be a lesser meal, back home. But here a lot of people eat just vegetables.

  “I like fish,” Neo says. I’m not sure I recognize all the words in the fish section.

  He begins to pretend to eat something. “Would you like some bread?” he offers.

  Mr. T. comes over with our invisible appetizers. “Your tater tots and your sliders,” he says.

  Neo pantomimes picking up the plate and dumping them all in his mouth at once. He thrusts the imaginary platter at Mr. T. “Can I get a refill?” he asks.

  Mr. T. laughs out loud. “FYI, that’s usually for drinks, but well played, sir. A man after my own heart. And what can I get you for your main course?”

  Neo is in full swing, with a goofy, playful air I never see in him. “Sir, what fish you recommend?”

  “Well, the halibut is very fresh and prepared beautifully today,” Mr. T. says, puffing up like a proud papa at how game Neo is.

  “I take that. My girlfriend likes steak,” he says. His eyes sparkle.

  Girlfriend hangs in the air. I know he means girl and friend, but even so, the phrase sends a little shiver through me.

  Mr. T. turns to me, “How would you like that cooked?”

  “Medium is not too burned?” I ask.

  He nods.

  “Okay, medium.”

  Mr. T. pretends to write it all down and walks away.

  “If this was a real restaurant, we would do . . . I don’t know the English word. In Spanish it’s sobremesa.”

  “What’s that?” he asks.

  “It means . . . well, the exact definition is like ‘over table.’ I haven’t found a word in English for it. It means the time you spend after a meal, just talking, with the hours passing by and you don’t even notice them. It’s the best part of the dinner.”

  “Sobremesa,” he says. “I like that.” His Spanish pronunciation is surprisingly good. Neo smiles at me. “I think I would like American restaurant,” he says.

  What does he mean, I wonder. That he’s never been to one here? I’ve only been because of Altagracia, and once at Green Man with Harrison, although that’s more of a café. I imagine for a second going on a date with Neo. It’s not hard to picture, actually. It would be comfortable, like all those hours spent laughing and puzzling over movies.

  His face says more, but if he’s thinking other things, he doesn’t say them. When our meal is over, he pretends to grab the check. He pulls back my chair for me and I give him a little hug in thanks.

  “That was fun,” he says with a smile. “We do it again sometime.”

  I smile back. “I would like that.”

  Not on the Same Page

  I forgot my lunch today. I briefly toy with the idea of just skipping lunch altogether, but my stomach is rumbling.

  I walk into the cafeteria and get on the line. I’m keeping my gaze down, trained on the sandwiches, when I feel a tap on my shoulder.

  I look back. “Frankie,” I say.

  “I was beginning to worry that aliens had ######## you.”

  I miss part of that, and I just shake my head no.

  “Why don’t you sit with us at lunch anymore?”

  I haven’t sat with Harrison, Britt, Frankie, and Jess since the debacle at New Year’s. Because I’ve been bringing lunch from home, it’s been easy to just avoid them. Harrison said something after the first day, but now he is just awkward around me, not saying anything at all.

  But how do I explain all that? A creeping heat prickles my neck, my ears. The words are swimming out of reach all of a sudden.

  She pulls up next to me. “What happened on New Year’s?”

  “I had to go,” I say, finally finding something to say.

  “It was Harrison and Jess, wasn’t it?”

  The line has moved in front of the sandwiches. I grab a foil-wrapped one.

  “I have to . . .” I don’t know what I have to do. I walk up to the cashier and pay her in quarters. I had to scrape the bottom of my schoolbag for enough for lunch. Now Frankie is watching me and I don’t know if this could get any more humiliating.

  Then I head to the door. She follows. She blocks my path, but gently.

  “Hey, talk to me for a second. Okay? We don’t have to stay here. I’ll go somewhere else with you.”

  Is she going to follow me out of the cafeteria? I start walking to see if I got all that right. Yep, she’s following me. I walk to the rotunda outside the library. We take a seat and she looks at me seriously.

  “The way you left on New Year’s, and you not sitting with us anymore, was that because of Harrison and Jess?” she presses again.

  I should probably just pretend, be light, be all whatever about it. But her eyes do look concerned. “I didn’t know.”

  “They’re not together, you know. They were, yes, but she cheated with this boy ####### ######## ########### mock trial competition. Anyway it’s been over for a while. They stayed friends. Except when he started liking you . . . well, I think she just got jealous. But nothing happened that night.”

  “I saw them kiss.”

  “Look, Jessica was being a flirty drunk. She downed like ####### ### ##### # before we even got there. But he wasn’t into it. Harrison was looking for you everywhere. He was really bummed you weren’t there.”

  “Okay,” I say, feeling more confused than ever. So Jessica and Harrison are not together? But they were. But Frankie just said Harrison likes me? And Jessica was jealous?

  “He likes you, Ana. Likes you, likes you,” she explains, almost reading my mind. “He does. Have you not noticed him ###### ######## since we got back to school? You ######### ##### New Year’s and he has no idea why.”

  New Year’s. It all swirls together, the disappointment at realizing it wasn’t the kind of date I wanted it to be, of being so overdressed. Always, everywhere, the feeling of not knowing the right words, of not fully understanding what is going on, a thrumming buzz that drowns so much out.

  “They were . . .”

  “I know how it must have looked to you. Honestly, but Harrison told Jess he wasn’t ###### ###### as soon as you left. Seriously, Ana—he likes you. Just . . . think about it. I don’t mean to get in the middle of it, but it was a misunderstanding. Really.”

  “I will think about it,” I tell Frankie. It was nice of her to tell me all of this, but I feel more confused than ever.


  To Muddy the Waters

  I am not on the same page

  And I got my wires crossed

  And I got ahold of the wrong end of the stick

  And I can’t make heads or tails of so many things here.

  A country with so many phrases for misunderstanding

  Even “understand” hides itself. Under. Stand. Does knowing something mean you have to stand under it until it falls on you? And why is yesterday’s understanding “understood”?

  Taking Flight

  It’s math next, so I shouldn’t be surprised when I find myself walking next to Harrison in the hallway. Our arms graze as we pass and a shiver runs through me. I should say something to him. It wasn’t fair how I just stopped talking to him.

  “Hey,” I say.

  He looks at me, startled. Then his eyes light up. “Hey.”

  “How is math going?” I ask him. He peers into my face as if trying to figure out why I’m talking to him. I guess I’d be doing the same if I were him. I could have explained, I could have asked what was going on. I can’t even blame it on English. It was the internationally nonsensical language of boy that did me in this time.

  “Not so good since my tutor gave up on me,” he says. His tone is sad, his eyes squinted a little as if trying to see into the future to know how I’ll respond to that. It sinks me and buoys me at the same time.

  “No,” I say. “Your tutor didn’t give up on you.”

  “Seems that way,” he says.

  “I’m sorry. I just . . .” But no. It’s too much. “I was confused,” I say. “After class, we study?” I offer. I have a free today and I know he does too.

  “Seriously?” he asks, his eyebrows arched, hopeful.

  “Seriously,” I tell him.

  After class the room empties out and no one else comes in. We work on the problem set. The period goes by quickly. Too quickly. There are only a few minutes left, and I have one more formula to teach him, but this one I don’t know by heart. I need the textbook. I reach in to get it, but it is scrunched in my bag, which really is too small for all the stuff I have to carry around here. I pull out my ESL notebook to make room.