Love and Other Foreign Words (15 page)

This Saturday morning, my dad is at the table when I come downstairs and begin my routine. Something is different. And terribly, terribly wrong. The cereal box is on the wrong shelf in the cupboard. The milk is on the wrong side in the refrigerator, and all the cereal bowls are in the dish rack, drying.

I quickly assess. Bowls. All of them. Milk. Cereal. All of them? All of them?

And then I look over at my father. He's sitting at the table, a maniacal grin on his face, watching me, pen in hand, brand-new leather journal with attached silk bookmark open in front of him.

“Very funny, Dad,” I say.

“Don't mind me. Don't mind me. I'm merely observing.”

I dry a bowl and set about my routine, first putting everything back
in its proper place
. Then getting it out again.

About twenty minutes later, I shout to my dad from the downstairs powder room, “Very funny again, Dad!”

He has removed the toilet paper from the holder and placed two rolls of competing brands on the back of the toilet. It takes me a long handful of seconds and a thorough touch-test to decide which roll to use, which I report to him upon my return and add, “Slow at work, is it?”

“Merely taking an interest in my girls,” he says, writing in his journal. “Noting your response to unpredicted changes in your environment.”

“I hate unpredicted changes in my environment. You could have just written that down.”

“Self-reporting is usually inaccurate. And experiments are so much more entertaining.”

“And what experiments do you have planned for Kate?” I ask.

“This wedding is enough of an experiment. If I could have cooked it up in a lab, I would have.”

“If I were conducting the wedding experiment,” I begin, “I would record in your journal that it has changed Kate for the worse, and I would end the experiment for her own good. Call off the wedding before someone gets hurt.”

“I agree Kate's not herself at the moment, but a lot of that is just stress, Josie. She'll be back to her old self after the wedding.”

“I can't agree that it's the wedding, necessarily, that has changed Kate, nor that the change is temporary. I noticed a deterioration of sisterly-ness long before she set the date but
after
she got engaged. Therefore, since Geoff is the only new variable in our relationship
as
sisters, the cause of her decline is Geoffrey Stephen Brill.”

“And how has this deterioration of sisterly-ness presented itself?”

“Broken confidences and direct and indirect criticism of my appearance,” I say, raising three fingers at my father. “We had this great talk yesterday. She was the old Kate, but then, of course, Geoff came into it, and the mere mention of his name drives a wedge between us. She actually got up and left at the sound of his name.” I sigh. “Oh, and she's doing things
he
says just because
he
says to do them.” I'm thinking of the weeks-long silent treatment and later traffic cop gesture. “You know, he could be a master manipulator, plotting to use Kate as his patsy in some future criminal enterprise. You and Mother should be very concerned.”

Dad closes his notebook, puts the pen down.

“What is it you most dislike about Geoff?” he asks.

“I have a list of eighteen things I dislike about him, including the way he pronounces
Ren-wah
. And can't you get him to stop winking at me? It's completely disturbing.”

“What is number one on that list?”

“That he's changed Kate. That he's made her more
his
fiancée than
my
sister. Ross didn't do that to Maggie.”

“Kate is no less your sister just because she's getting married.”

“Yes, she is,” I say, “and apparently I'm the only one who can see this. He is coming between us.”

My dad and I share a long, solemn look. His eyes tell me he takes me seriously. Mine tell him, I hope, that I agonize over this—more than I do over his pronunciation of French names.

“Do you want me to speak to Kate?” he offers.

“I want you to cancel the wedding,” I say. “I'm not kidding.”

“I'm not going to cancel the wedding, but I will employ my skills as . . .” He pauses and puts his hands on his hips. “Super Shrink.”

“How?”

“I will observe without bias as much as I am able,” he says.

“And if I'm right? And you see that Geoff really is coming between Kate and me, what will you do?”

“I think I'll probably talk to Geoff,” he says after some careful thought. “I will talk to him very seriously, Josie. I promise.”

“Good. Because if he's a gentleman,
he
will call off the wedding just to restore harmony to this family, which, by the way, we had before he came along. You have to acknowledge that.”

“I can acknowledge that,” Dad says.

“Thank you,” I say, and kiss his cheek and start to leave.

Before I can head upstairs, though, he takes my hand and directs me back to my chair by pointing.

“I will do my part, Josephine, but I expect you to do yours as well,” he says.

“My part?”

“Yes, which is equal to mine. I expect you to observe Geoff and Kate without bias as much as you are able, which—”

“I'm—”

“Which,” he says a bit louder, “you are capable of doing if you will try.”

“I already know he's wrong for her,” I say.

“Is he?”

“Yes. I'm just waiting for the rest of you to see it.”

“Huh,” he says, his head tipped back a moment before he returns his attention to his journal.

I smell toes as I trudge up the stairs to my room because
huh
never, ever means
huh
. Not in the Dr. Sheridan language. It means so much more, which I am left to contemplate on my own, which is part of the meaning of that word.

• • •

Jen Auerbach regularly answers her phone by predicting what the call is about. With me, she's been right sixty-six percent of the time. She is wrong this afternoon when she says, “It starts at eight.”

“I'm not coming,” I say.

She's having the whole volleyball team over to her house tonight for her annual team party. I nodded off at it last year and woke up when the girls were making a tinfoil hat for me. I let them finish. We made hats for everyone then and posed for ridiculous photos. And we hugged and laughed and shouted over loud music and ate cold pizza. It was exhausting.

Emmy passed out that night from all the shots she drank and found herself wrapped like an aluminum mummy when she finally came to. I guess she freaked out and started screaming and refused to speak to Jen for about a week. I was gone by then. Went home about ten thirty. Sober and with my hat.

“Josie, aww,” Jen says. “Why not?”

I tell her only that we're having another Family Dinner, and she asks questions about Kate's wedding, which I answer succinctly.

Then she asks, “Is Stu going to be there tonight?”

“No. Why?”

“Curious.”

“No, it's just a family and temporary fiancé thing tonight.”

“Oh. Cool. Okay. Call me later.”

“Okay. Have fun tonight.”

Why would she ask if Stu is going to be there? I know she still likes him. Now I wonder if she knows he likes her too.

• • •

Tonight, when I enter the kitchen, Geoff is already here. Maggie and Ross too. Geoff is standing next to Kate, smoothing his hand over her back as she carries on about the greatness of this photographer they've hired and his incredible eye for angles. And Geoff does it again. He winks at me.

I turn my back so he won't see my irritated squint, turning seamlessly into an eyeball-roll. It was gorgeous, I'm sure. My parents should have gotten it on film.

“His photos are works of art,” Geoff says to my parents. “If you have any aesthetic sensibilities, you immediately appreciate his work. If you're not going to have an artist take your wedding photos, I have to be honest”—he puffs out a laugh—“I actually don't even see the point in having any. People should just save themselves the expense and have an aunt or grandmother take the things.”

“Excellent,” my father says. “Excellent. I'll call Aunt Toot this minute and tell her to be sure to bring her Polaroid.”

“Dad,” Kate giggles.

“Have you ever seen Aunt Toot with a camera? She's a genius. No one can ever guess what the actual subject is. Now that's art,” Dad says.

“I guess it's all a matter of how you define it,” Geoff says, and then fakes a sniff.

Aunt Toot is Dad's seventy-eight-year-old sister—Uncle Vic's wife—who refuses to wear her glasses in public because she thinks they make her look dowdy. The woman has never taken a perfectly centered photo in her life.

“Oh, I've brought a little something for us to try tonight,” Geoff says, pulling a bottle of wine out of a bag and showing it, cradled in his hands, first to my father, then to Ross.

Apparently, the womenfolk don't rank in this exchange.

“Hmm,” my father says in a perfectly noncommittal tone as he looks at the bottle.

Ross does the same.

Hmm
—like
huh
—is one of those fabulous responses that means so many things, and if Geoff spoke Sheridan, he'd know that, tonight, my father means
I am onto you
.

“This wine,” Geoff says as he begins pouring, “comes from the Marlborough region in New Zealand.” I start to wash lettuce for tonight's salad as everyone else waits for Geoff to distribute the glasses. “Sniff it first,” he says, demonstrating the rare and difficult talent of sniffing.

He leaves the bottle on the counter next to me, so I lean over and sniff as if I'm inhaling my last breath.

“Smells like wine,” I say, and am ignored except by Mother and The Look.

“Now, a sip,” Geoff says. “Do you taste honeydew and peach?”

They nod. I tear lettuce as if it is the very essence of Geoffrey Stephen Brill's lecture.

“Now another sip, and pay attention to the finish this time,” he says.

“Lemon?” Kate guesses, and Geoff smiles as he shakes his head.

“No,” he says. “Grapefruit. This is a very straightforward and approachable wine. And I particularly like the lingering citrus finish.”

“‘Enjoy the straightforward and approachable style of this sauvignon blanc with flavors of honeydew melon and peach and a light but lingering grapefruit finish,'” I say to silence and stares. “It's on the bottle.”

“Hmm,” Geoff says as he turns away from me. “Well. Then I was right.”

“Remarkably. Astoundingly and, dare I add, accurately,” I say with mock enthusiasm as Mother quietly scolds, “Josephine.”

“I'm something of a wine connoisseur,” Geoff explains, squinting at the bottle as if seeing it for the first time. “I don't really bother with these labels.” And he adds a proud
huh
as he pretends to read. Then he returns the bottle to the counter and leans in close to kill me, except there are witnesses, so he'll have to whisper, instead.

“You know, Josie,” he says through a crooked smile, “you catch more flies with honey than you do with vinegar.”

“What makes you think I
want
to catch flies?”

And then—he has this coming—I wink.

• • •

He's quiet then at dinner. Mostly quiet. It's spaghetti, so he's keeping an eye on me. And during one of those organic lulls in the conversation, I scare the daylights out of everybody by—
SLAM
!—slapping my palm flat on the table.

“Sorry,” I say a second before Mother says, “Josephine, explain.”

I smile some at Geoff when I say, “I thought it was a fly.”

My father's aspect—inky blue eyes fixed emphatically upon me as he holds himself perfectly still for far longer than comfort and propriety dictate—says
That's enough out of you tonight, my dear
.

In the kitchen in the midst of after-dinner conversation and clatter, my dad sternly whispers, “Forcing a subject to respond the way you want him to only confirms your bias, my dear. And it makes your results worthless.”

“Sorry,” I whisper back, and realize it's my turn to be quiet, especially when my dad adds a solemn “Huh” in conclusion.

7.
Stu Wagemaker

Written in Jen's perfect script.

We crane our necks or lean in close around her and Emmy as they compare their lists.
Top Ten Seniors I Wouldn't Mind Hooking Up With
. Today is Friday, September twenty-sixth. We have a match in thirty-five minutes, but, clearly, first things first.

At the moment, our coach is in the locker room with the JV team lecturing them after some pointless drama that happened yesterday, and reminding them, as she does every year with both teams, that your teammates are your BFFs.

I don't understand why membership on a sports team should confer instant Best Friend status to all other players irrespective of compatibilities. But since it is a tenet of this subculture to which I belong and to which I generally like belonging, I acquiesce.

They like to hug on this team—those weird X Marks the Spot Hugs: pull sleeves down over hands, tilt head, and cross arms behind friend's neck in an X, pointing up. It's almost like beginning a cheer with someone's head between your pompoms. I had to learn it last year when I made varsity and discovered that every girl did it.

Again, it's a cultural thing, like bowing in Japan, I suppose. So I practiced at home and now have the reputation for giving the best hugs on the team. Girls actually say, “I need a Josie hug,” so I oblige my thirteen “BFFs” and a couple of JV girls too. No one knows how unnatural I find it—as unnatural as I will find bowing, should I ever go to Japan, which I don't foresee, but if I go, I will certainly practice before the trip, and my new Japanese friends will say, “I need a Josie bow,” but in Japanese.

And I will feel, after my trip, the way I often feel after volleyball practice: It's a relief to be home, no offense to my teammates or to the entire country of Japan. But after a time, it's hard living in a foreign place.

So we continue craning our necks and leaning in close until Jen and Emmy have finished comparing their lists. They have eight names in common, if not in identical order, but both have Josh Brandstetter at number one, which makes Emmy say through a huge smile, “That's so ironic.”

“Also a coincidence,” I say, and she pretends to slap my leg, but she also shoots me a bitch smile—the one with little, slitty eyes—so I know she didn't appreciate the correction and is shamming the playfulness.

In all fairness, these lists aren't To Do Lists. Jen and Emmy are not in the running for Class Slut, a title currently held by Cassie Ryerson, who smells unnaturally of pancakes, but I don't think that has anything to do with her morality.

I'm just a little surprised by how cavalier Jen and Emmy are about hooking up. It's not a list I would ever agree to make—no matter which culture I'm immersed in at the moment. And I can't tell if I'm happy for Stu that he's on Jen's list or offended that he's all the way down at seven.

Now I'm not entirely sure Jen is right for him at all, and I'm even less sure by the time the game, which we win, ends. I plant myself next to her on the gym floor for a few final minutes of stretching.

“Let me ask you something,” I say.

“Sure.”

“Why is Stu on your list?”

“Don't you think he got completely hot over the summer?”

“I guess,” I say, thinking quickly about Stu, how he looks now compared to how he looked in May. I noticed changes but hadn't judged them hot. I hadn't perceived them as anything other than natural physical changes teenage guys experience.
Hmm,
I say to myself before turning my attention back to Jen.

“Well,” she says, drawing out the word. “I don't know about his beard, though. I mean, it's kind of cool that he grew one, but I don't know about kissing a guy with a beard.”

“Yeah,” I say. “Let me ask you something. What exactly does the list mean?”

“It means what it means. If something happened between us, I wouldn't mind.”

“See, I still don't understand that.”

“Josie, I love you, you're so funny.”

“I'm serious. I don't know if it means you like those particular guys or not. As more than some one-time, casual thing. I need to know if it's strictly about hooking up, or do you want a real relationship with them?”

“Why? Did Stu say something about me?” she asks, and an open-mouth smile starts to grow.

“No. I'm just curious,” I say as I stand.

Jen stands too.

“Come on, Josie.”

“No. He's never said anything. I'm just asking about your list. He is one of my best friends, you know.”

“After us,” Jen practically sings and promptly embraces me in an X Marks the Spot hug.

“You do remember that I told you that he's the love-'em-and-leave-'em type, right?” I ask.

“That's only because he hasn't met the right person yet. Or not met but, you know, gone out with.” She grabs my hands. “Ohmig-d, Josie, what if
I
am the right person for Stu? What if
I
am the one who turns him into a completely committed guy? 'Cause you know what they say. When the right one comes along.”

“When the right one comes along, what?”

“When the right one comes along, no one else matters.”

She talks all the way into the locker room, and I want to interrupt but can't find just the right moment to ask,
But aren't they all the wrong one until you find the one you marry?

And even then how do you know?