Love and Other Foreign Words (12 page)

This is one of those moments when my loud, racing thoughts temporarily turn my ears deaf, and I miss the next few things Ethan—or Dr. Glaser or Professor Glaser or what do I call the guy?!—says, but suddenly I see the class arranging desks in a circle, so I robotically copy.

When I tune back in, I hear him say, “. . . a few minutes just to introduce ourselves. I'll start.” Most of my professors at Cap do this, especially when, like Sociolinguistics, the classes are small, and there will be loads of discussion in the course.

“As I said, my name's Ethan Glaser, and you can call me Ethan. I'm an instructor, not a professor, and”—he smiles some—“I don't think I'm all that much older than some of you, so Ethan's fine. Or Mr. Glaser. Whatever makes you comfortable. I'm twenty-six. I have a master's in sociology from the University of Chicago, where I've been doing educational research for a couple of years, but decided I'd leave the lab and teach, so here I am.

“I'm new to this area, been here about three weeks, and so far I like it.” He looks at me—AT ME—and he smiles when he says, “The people are really nice.

“Let's see,” he continues. “I run. Need to find some local 5Ks. I like playing hockey and soccer. I play guitar, write a little music, and—what else? Oh.” He laughs. “I like lots of different kinds of music, but mostly I am a closet Styx fan.”

Stu nudges me with his elbow, nudges what I'm sure was an absurd smile off my face, and almost nudges me right off my seat. I pretend to search for something in my backpack so that I don't look as if I suffer from some strange seizure disorder that sporadically sends me toppling out of my chair.

When it is my turn to introduce myself, I say, “Hi, I'm Josie Sheridan. I'm a sophomore here, but also a senior at Bexley High School, where I'm on the volleyball team and the track team. I run 5Ks, so”—I look at Ethan—“I can give you a list. There are lots of them throughout the year.”

He nods and—
ah
—smiles again.

I say something about my major, which I can barely remember at the moment, and then, “And I'm a huge Styx fan too. But only the Dennis DeYoung years. And I'm not closeted about it. I'll tell anyone.”

“She will,” Stu confirms.

“High school?” Ethan asks, surprised.

He's new. I forgot. And out of the whole Look How Much We Have in Common List, the wrong thing catches his attention.

“She and Stu are our resident geniuses,” a guy I know from last semester—a football player—says. “They're both like twelve.”

“Yeah,” I say dryly. “We're tall for our ages.”

This gets a chuckle from much of the class, including Ethan, who then asks the single most embarrassing question in the world:

Exactly how many butt zits do you have at this moment?

But it comes out:

“How old are you, if you don't mind my asking?”

“I'll be sixteen in October,” I say, pretending I had just said
I'm practically thirty with my own home, office, and ex-husband.

“Fifteen? And a sophomore here?” he asks. “Huh.”

“Spooky, aren't they?” Mr. Football teases.

“So they're the ones who are going to set the curve?” Ethan asks as some in the class playfully groan their yeses, which amuses Stu, but I feel heat—and heat means pink—rising in my cheeks. It actually does not abate but worsens when Mr. Football adds, “But they're pretty cool, so it's okay.”

We are?

It is?

And what version of
cool
is this? And what language—Ohmig*d, Ohmig*d 2.0? Football? Stefan? No, not Stefan. Or is it? I can't think.

“Well, in the spirit of full disclosure,” Ethan says, “I was the same way in my classes. I graduated high school at sixteen, so”—he looks at Stu and me—“I know where you guys are coming from.”

“So what you're telling us,” Mr. Football continues, “is that you were the class brain.”

“Yeah,” Ethan says. “But.” He holds up a cautionary finger. “I never carried a briefcase.”

“Cool,” Mr. Football says.

Then Ethan nods at Stu to begin his bio, and after his, the next until we're done, and I hear none of it. I am too busy quietly contemplating everything I have just learned about Ethan and chiefly my initial reaction to him. And how I could say to him, already, what I could never say to Stefan, which is that, yes, I think I could fall in love with you one day, in the future, quite possibly. Not impossibly at all.

• • •

I want to linger after class, talk some more with Ethan, maybe time my exit from the room with his, but that is not to be today. Samantha has rushed him in order to finish her conversation about Chicago, so Stu and I gather our things and walk to Fair Grounds.

On the way I text Kate.

Text to Kate, 9:54 a.m.

What would you say if I told you I just had an extraordinary experience with a guy I just met, don't know what it is, think it's serious, but that—

“What are you writing? A novel?” Stu asks. I ignore him and keep typing.

Text to Kate, continued, 9:55 a.m.

—there are some immediate obstacles?

Text from Kate, 9:56 a.m.

Josie! what happened?!?!

Text to Kate, 9:56 a.m.

I have no idea, but I think it was profound.

Text from Kate, 9:57 a.m.

want to hear everything!!!!

Text to Kate, 9:58 a.m.

Tell me honestly. Do you believe in love at first sight? Or at least its potential to become love?

Text from Kate, 9:59 a.m.

Josie!! I do, I do, I do, I do! Can't wait to talk! XOXO

I click off my phone and grin my way to Fair Grounds, thinking Kate may be right. This may be my best year yet.

There's just one problem. I don't believe in love at first sight. But maybe I am wrong.

Text to Mother from Bexley High School, 12:57 p.m.

Got Mrs. Beckwith for AP French. She is an idiot.

Text from Mother, 12:58 p.m.

Cope

• • •

This year, I am back at the high school for only two late afternoon classes. AP French and Government and Econ.

I spend all of sixth period French ignoring Mrs. Beckwith, intensely involved in this one thought: There must be a way to figure this out,
this
being whatever happened to me this morning at Cap. With Ethan.

I am distracted from my contemplation in Government and Econ because Cassie Ryerson, in the seat ahead of me, smells like pancakes, a smell akin to pickles insofar as both are food. And unless the food is in your possession or you are in a kitchen, you should not smell of it. Brush, floss, gargle, air out. Food smells belong in food spaces, not classrooms. And anyway, who smells of pancakes at two in the afternoon? Pancakes are breakfast food.

So this is why I cannot concentrate on my feelings for Ethan until I am at my locker at the three o'clock bell. But my contemplation is interrupted there too, when I am assailed by the shrieks of Jen, an unusually cheery Emmy, and the enthusiasm of four other friends from the volleyball team who are, we are told annually by our coach, each other's BFFs.

They have been waiting all day, all summer, all of high school to celebrate senior year. And I celebrate with them, in their language, copying their customs, which, at the moment, are hugs and huge smiles and breathless excitement. I don't shriek, though. There are certain foreign words and phrases I just can't reproduce, and shrieking is one of them.
Woo-hooing
is another. These things have never and will never sound authentic coming out of my mouth, so I don't even attempt them.

“Can you believe it? We're seniors. How cool is that?” Jen says, hugging me for the second time, and I tell her, “I know. This is going to be our best year yet.”

“Okay, wait,” Jen says, pulling her new camera from her backpack, saying, “I love this camera. I just got it. Wait. Here.” She grabs the arm of the nearest person. “Take our picture, will you,” she says, and I smile up at the photographer but can't manage to produce that greeting I've rehearsed. Just a weak, “Hi, Stefan.”

He takes the picture, nods at me, and walks away, leaving Jen and the other girls saying such things as “Aw, Josie,” and “Oh, it'll be okay, Josie.” Emmy leans in close to gloat, “See? Love and hate, practically the same thing.”

• • •

Tonight, I set the table for five, which means Geoff is coming. He arrives a few minutes after Kate, who arrives talking to him on her phone. Minutes later, he slips through a crack in the door, slides up to her, attempts to suck her blood, but there are witnesses, so he merely gives her a quick kiss hello.

He has taken to kissing my mother's cheek and sporadically makes overtures to do the same to me, but these overtures end each time in awkward hesitation. So usually he pecks a hello at me. Occasionally he winks.

“Geoff,” I say in response, emphasis on the
eh
of his name.

Just before dinner is served, Kate squeezes my arm and whispers, “Tonight. After Geoff leaves. I want to hear everything.”

And I beam my approval of the plan at her, but the beam, the approval, and the plan disintegrate at the dinner table with Geoff's first remark in that pause right after grace.

“So, Josie,” he says. “Kate tells me you've had quite the day. Love at first sight, I believe she said. You know, there is some science behind that.”

Kate bumps her elbow against Geoff's and frowns ever so slightly but not subtly enough to go unnoticed.

“What?” he whispers.

My parents seamlessly continue dining, waiting for further information.

“It's true,” I say. “I've fallen.”

“Whom for?” my mother asks.

“The Cap football team,” I say. “I saw them practicing, and that was it.”

“Planning an active social life this year, are you, Josie?” my father asks. “Excellent. Of course, we'll have to meet them first.”

“Well, this is the year I get to date college boys. You and mom said.”

“Should we meet them as a team or individually?” my father asks my mother.

“I suppose that depends on how Josie decides to date them,” she says.

“Date them as a group,” Kate says a little nervously.

“No, I've decided to date one a week for the next—what?—ninety weeks. That's Round One. For Round Two, I'll just date the guys I like. Again, one a week. And I'll just keep narrowing it down over the next several years until I'm down to a handful.”

“Dating play-offs. An excellent plan,” my father says. “Of course, you realize that you and most of them will graduate before you've chosen your final winner. It's unlikely you'll all be living in Ohio then.”

“So I'll have to commute on some dates. Or they will.”

And as my dad dissects this plan even further, Geoff catches my eye and mouths the word
sorry
to me and adds a little bit of a chagrinned look, which catches me by surprise, but I manage a little absolving nod in his direction. Curiously, I am not angry with him but Kate. But he still should have thought before he spoke. Of course, I don't always, but—whatever—I return to listening to Dad.

• • •

Later, Mother and I find ourselves alone in the kitchen, washing the dinner dishes. Geoff and my dad are in his study talking about antiques, and I don't care where Kate is.

“Thank you,” Mother says when I take a glass baking dish from her dripping hands and begin to dry it. And the quick look she gives me—the smallest hint of a grin and eyebrows raised expectantly—persuades me to say, “Yes, I met someone today at Cap that I think I like. I think I could like him very much. Eventually.”

“I figured you would eventually.”

“Yes. Eventually,” I say quietly, ignoring a twinge of sadness at such a remote word. Eventually. Really, really eventually. I clear my throat, clear away the blight on such a lovely experience. “He does seem perfect. Nice, smart. He even likes Styx.”

“But he's older.”

“He's older,” I say, and
eventually
I will be too.

How can I like and dread one word so much?

“Well,” Mother says, “we did say when you're sixteen, you may date college boys, but the rule—”

“I know the rule. You have to meet them first. I think that rule only exists so that Dad will have new people to show his antiques to.”

“That's exactly why we created it, yes.”

“Maybe that's why he likes Geoff so much. He's still relatively new and hasn't heard all Dad's stories about blood-lettings and cures for female hysteria, which, by the way, I think Kate has.”

“Your father and I like Geoff for a number of reasons, not least among them that he makes Kate, who is not a hysteric, happy.”

“Well, he makes me unhappy, so what about that?”

“You're not marrying him.”

“Since he's marrying into this family, the family should have a vote.”

“Well, then my vote cancels your vote, my dear,” she says before heading out of the kitchen.

“I'm not done campaigning,” I call to her.

“I'm sure you're not,” she says, leaving me in the kitchen sensing the faint whiff of toes.

• • •

Long after the dishes are done, after I hear Geoff's car pull out of the driveway, Kate knocks on my bedroom door and enters as she asks, “Josie, can I come in?” Inside, she finds me sitting in my desk chair, facing the door, arms and legs crossed in preparation to rebuff her.

“Josie, let me explain,” she says, hurrying in, sitting on the bed corner closest to me. “Okay, yes, I told Geoff about your texts, and I probably shouldn't have. Okay, no, I shouldn't have. Not without your permission, but, Josie, I'm just—I was so excited when I got your messages, and I wanted to share this really happy news with Geoff, who's also really excited for you. This is a huge thing. We're happy. That's all, and we want to know everything and share the excitement with you. And—that's—I'm sorry I told him without asking you first if I could. Please don't be mad at me.”

“Okay,” I say.

“No. You're mad.”

“I don't know that I'm mad. I only know I'm stunned that you would do that. I swear you've lost your mind since you got engaged to him. It's as if you've become less of a sister since you met him.”

“Don't blame Geoff for this.”

“I'm not blaming him. I'm blaming you. Are we to have no more confidences between sisters now?”

“Josie. I'm sorry. I don't know what more I can say than I'm sorry. Really,” she says, reaching out to place her hand on my knee and giving a little squeeze. I promptly swivel toward my desk as I say, “I know. I've got work to do.”

“What are you doing?”

“Mathematically determining the exact length of eventually.”

“What? Is that how long it's going to take for you to forgive me?”

“Yes. And it's a complicated formula, so please close the door on your way out.”

When I hear the door latch, I refresh my computer screen and continue with my search terms: + science + “love at first sight.”