Love and Other Foreign Words (19 page)

Dinner is nightmarish.

When I return to the table, I find Kate happily gloating by pretending she is no longer angry with me and forgiving me with, “Oh, Josie, that's okay,” when I say, “Kate, I'm sorry I upset you.”

As I slip into my seat, I add, “I'll pay you back for the colored lenses.”

“That's very considerate,” Mother says.

“She doesn't have to,” Kate says. “You don't have to, Josie. Have fun with them. I really just don't want to see them at the wedding.”

“You won't,” I say.

What else can I do but concede?

“Josie, how's everything at Cap lately? You haven't said much about it,” she says.

“It's fine.”

“Now, I know you're taking history and religion. But I can't remember the name of that third class. What is it again?”

“It's a soc class.”

“Which one?”

“Introduction to Sociolinguistics.” I turn to my dad in an effort to ignore the giant crow that is Kate. “My Language Variation Project is coming along. I have forty-one examples of how ‘shut up' is used to express different meanings. I only needed thirty, but its prevalence made it easy to collect more, so now I'm starting to analyze the differences, the intended meanings, the real meanings. Actually, I'm almost done.”

“That does sound interesting. Tell me about that,” Dad says, and for the next few minutes, he and I talk about the evolution of words and how definitions change from group to group and also within distinct groups.

At a natural pause in our conversation, Kate chimes in with, “Stu's in that class too, right?”

“That's right,” I say.

“You know, I don't think I have him or Sophie on my Facebook page. I should add them.”

“Sure. I'll give you their e-mail addresses,” I say, because there's nothing else I can do.

• • •

Later, as we're clearing the dishes, she whispers to me, “Your room, soon as we're done.”

I think we wash the dishes in record time.

• • •

Upstairs, she follows me so closely I'm sure she can feel the heat of anger emanating from my body. She closes the door, and I shove my finger in her face.

“I can't believe how cruel you're being. You never used to be like this.”

“Oh, please,” she says, pushing past my finger and lowering herself onto the edge of my bed. “What were the contacts if not cruel?”

“There's a world of difference between antagonism and cruelty, Kate.”

“So you admit you're being antagonistic?”

“Are you admitting you're being cruel?”

“Josie.” Kate sighs. She softens a little when she says, “I don't want to show this Ethan your letter.”

“Good,” I say, and plant myself in my desk chair, arms tightly folded across my so-called chest. “I'll wait here while you get it.”

“I'm not giving it back.”

“What?”

“Josie, look, I have no idea how else to keep you from saying and doing the things you've said and done lately that are driving me crazy. Geoff said I need a little—”

“What?!”

“—leverage in our current relationship, so that's why I took the letter.”

“I knew he was behind this. You never would have done this on your own.”

“I'll give it back to you at the wedding.”

“Don't take it there.”

“I'll give it back to you in private unless you pull one more stunt like tonight's contacts. Then I will find out from Stu who Ethan is, and I will give him this letter.”

“I'll just tell Stu not to tell you.”

“Then I'll find a different source. I'll call the professor, make up some story. I'll find out, Josie, and you know it.”

“I cannot believe you've become this kind of person. You never used to be like this.”

“Neither did you.”

“I am merely reacting to you. You're the one changing to suit some guy. Some guy who's not even right for you.”

“Geoff and I are getting married, and it's time you accept that,” she says with the edge returning to her voice. “This is my wedding. It's not a game. It's not some party. It's my wedding, and it's important to me and to Geoff, and I want it to be perfect. And I
am
going to marry him, and he
is
going to be part of this family, and we're both sick of all your remarks and stunts that you think are so cute and clever.” I narrow my eyes into my best, angriest stare as Kate continues. “So from now on, at showers, at fittings, when Geoff's over, I want you to be pleasant and supportive and happy. In
every
language you speak. And if you can't be these things, then be quiet, or I make a few phone calls and mail the letter.”

She stands, starts to leave.

At the door, she says, “It's just insurance. That's all. Like I said, you can have it back at the wedding. Understand?”

“
Je comprends,
” I say, and she leaves.

Tuesday, October 14, 8:02 p.m.

I hate Kate.

Tuesday, October 14, 11:17 p.m.

I never thought I'd say that—that I hate one of my sisters. I've never said it to anyone even semi-playfully, the way friends tell Sophie they hate her. “You're so beautiful, I hate you.” I always assumed the second half of this alleged compliment was merely an expression of jealousy, not the actual expression of hatred. But now I wonder if I've gotten the translation wrong. I wonder now if there is some measure of truth in these words.

I

Hate

You

Maybe, deep within their hearts, some girls—friends of Sophie's, for example—are so consumed with jealousy over her beauty that they cannot, at times, contain it, and it spills out as hatred, which they disguise with humor and whitewash with praise.

Or maybe it doesn't spill out. Maybe they say it because they choose to, because if they don't, they will hurt so much that they believe the only way to ease their pain is to cause a little of it in Sophie. But does that give them the right to say it?

I hate this journal.

Wednesday, October 15, 1:42 a.m.

I don't hate Kate. I am angry. I feel trapped by her. I am hurt to discover that my own sister would threaten to humiliate me in this way simply for what she's calling leverage. And I'm completely irked with her for keeping me up this late, sitting here dissecting my feelings in this demanding journal and stewing over the control she has in our relationship now. But, no, I don't hate Kate. Did it feel like hatred when I wrote that? Yes. Initially. Was it? No. Just a strong and temporarily convincing emotion—a burst of anger, masking—I don't know—frustration, sadness, misery. It's easier to hate than to hurt.

I'm relieved I did not say the words to her. I understand now why my parents dissuade us from using that word. I think it would be very difficult to take back.

I think “I love you” would be too.

But Emmy Newall is wrong. Love and hate aren't remotely close in the spectrum of emotions. She's either gotten the meanings wrong—or she's wrong about how she actually feels about Nick.

I put my pen down.

I am done with, i.e., exhausted by, my journal tonight, but I am not done stewing, and stare for some time at the fuzzy, white nothingness of my ceiling, until sometime between 2:15 a.m. and falling asleep, my stewing turns fruitful—even producing a wicked grin that rivals Kate's of late, and I set my alarm for 5:55 a.m.

I stand in the empty, dry shower for ages. Hours. Feels like hours. If necessary, I will miss Sociolinguistics. If necessary, I will stand here all day.

Seconds tick by. Then minutes. Then more. Then . . . I hear the door close.

I think I will pass out from lack of oxygen, but I know if I breathe, I'll laugh, and that will ruin everything, and I refuse to waste this moment. Three more seconds. Two. One, then, slowly I pull the shower curtain back, and
click-flash!

Kate screams.

I run!

In my bedroom, I shut and lock the door and download the photo onto my computer before Kate has a chance to pull up her underwear and flush. And before she can pound on my bedroom door—because neither of us at this point wants to involve Mother or Dad—I open it and proudly show her the photo I have entitled:
Queen Kate on the Throne
.

I click my computer off just as she lunges for it.

“You little monster,” she hisses.

“Give me my letter back, and I'll delete it.”

“Delete it, and I'll give it back.”

“Uh, no,” I say lightly.

She folds her arms tight across her chest.

“So now what?”

“Stalemate,” I say. “Have Geoff define it for you.”

“I know what it means.”

“And you say you're not gifted.”

“Josie,” she snaps through clenched teeth.

“You show one person that letter—one person—and that photo goes viral. It goes on your cocktail napkins at the reception. Coasters. Matchbooks. It goes on postcards.” Four fingers up. “I'll even print posters of it and give them as Christmas presents to Aunt Toot and Mrs. Easterday.”

“Eh,” she practically grunts. “I wasn't—I wasn't really going to show anyone that letter. Unless I had to. I was just keeping it for insurance.”

“Well, consider this your new policy.”

“Josie—erh!” she huffs, and storms out of my room.

Once she's gone, I bring the photo back up on my computer and lose all my breath laughing into the pillow I have pressed against my face so that I don't wake my parents. I had not noticed it at first, but Kate—God bless you, Kate—is not only on the toilet, but she is picking her nose. One small part of me actually hopes she gives my letter to Ethan. It would be such a shame not to share this photo with the world.

Oh, geez. If it's possible to pull muscles from laughing, I may need a neck brace.

• • •

By breakfast, fatigue sets in. I am too tired to care that the cereal box is on the counter instead of in the cupboard, where it belongs. I just grab it and dump a pile in a bowl, which causes my mother to ask, “Are you feeling all right?”

“Just tired,” I say. “I didn't sleep well. Lots of things on my mind.”

“Anything you want to talk about?”

“Dad's already making me write about it.”

“Is it helping?”

“It's hard,” I admit.

“Ah,” Mother says as she cleans up the crumbs I've made. “Then it's helping.”

• • •

It doesn't feel like it's helping. Earlier—a couple times, anyway—it felt good, relieving, to write, almost as if the mere act of putting pen to paper legitimized me. Now, for the same reasons, it feels as if the problem worsens or becomes harder or more unbearably burdensome than I imagined. And aside from the letter, I haven't written a thing about Ethan. Because it will be worse or harder or more unbearably burdensome if I do.

I drop myself into the backseat of Stu's car and grumble good morning.

“Late night?” Stu asks.

“Didn't sleep well,” I say.

“It shows, even through your glasses,” Sophie says.

“Sophie,” Stu says with quiet caution.

“What? It does,” she says, and then produces, from her backpack, a tube of under-eye concealer and gives me explicit instructions on how to apply the stuff.

After she exits the car, I squish a bit of the sticky stuff between two fingers, shudder some at its thick gooeyness and determine to go to bed early for the rest of my life if this is the only way to conceal dark circles.

I dread walking into class this morning. I don't even want to see Ethan and merely glance politely in his direction when I do. I feel that somehow he knows about my journal page. He can tell by looking at me that it's out, that I have feelings for him, and that, by writing that letter, which is now in Kate's custody, I've somehow stripped myself of the protection of secrecy.

He knows.

Everybody knows.

“Are you all right today, Josie?” he asks as I take my seat in class.

“Just tired,” I say, and make myself busy with books and folders and pens, and that is the last time I even look at him this morning.

• • •

After class, I practically run out of the room, leaving Stu, for the first time ever, hurrying to catch up with me about a block from Fair Grounds, where he grabs my elbow to slow us down and says, “Okay. What's wrong?”

“I had a fight with Kate last night. I've got a lot on my mind.”

“That's it?”

“It was a big fight.”

“The wedding?”

“A bunch of stuff.”

“You want to talk about it?”

“Talking about it only makes it worse,” I nearly snap. Then I sigh. “Sorry.”

“Josie, what's going on?” he asks, putting his hand on my arm and worriedly searching my eyes with his.

We are stopped outside of Fair Grounds. I look around nervously.

“I'm tired of this place. Can we go to Juliana's?” I name a less popular coffee shop, across the street and east by a block.

“Sure. On the condition that you yell at me every time I ask if you're okay.”

“I'm sorry,” I say, half smiling, and we start walking. “I really didn't sleep well last night. Almost not at all.”

“Why?”

“Kate and I got in a huge fight. Huge, and she's just— I don't understand her anymore.”

“Why do you say that?”

“I'll tell you exactly why. Because Geoffrey Stephen Brill is changing her. She does whatever he says. I can't stand it. The stop sign.” I mime it. “Spaghetti. Insurance policies, and Kate goes along with all of it.”

“In the words of more than one songwriter, Josie, ‘Love changes everything.'”

“That's your explanation?”

“I don't really know what we're talking about.”

“Kate.”

“Not Geoff and insurance?”

“Kate.”

“Well, what do stop signs and spaghetti have to do with her?”

“What do song lyrics have to do with any of it?”

“Josie,” Stu says, holding his shoulders in a huge shrug. “I need subtitles here. Or footnotes.”

I expel a breath I didn't know I was holding and I ask, “Signal flags?”

“That might help. I need the one that says ‘Get me out of this conversation with Josie. Send big men with large hats.'”

“Large hats?”

“I think that would be a cool message to send with flags.”

“So back to Kate.”

“And clarity,” he says as we start walking.

“I don't know what to do about her,” I say. “About Geoff. About the wedding. About anything—except, apparently, these enormous blue circles I have under my eyes today.”

“You can hardly notice them.”

“You did.”

“Yeah, actually they're huge,” he says, smiling some and shooting me a quick sideways glance. He bumps my elbow with his. “You just look a little tired today, Josie. Not bad. Maybe sleep some this afternoon. Things will probably be clearer then. For all of us.”

“Thanks,” I say, and we walk the rest of the way to Juliana's in silence.

Along the way, too tired to talk, I consider Sophie's many love affairs and their inevitable tragic outcomes. I consider Stu's many love affairs and their inevitable fizzling out. I consider Ross and Maggie's perfect harmony. I consider my dad with his arms wrapped around my mother's waist in the kitchen. I consider Ethan standing in front of the class, expertly teaching. And I consider Kate and Geoff cooking spaghetti, and before long I consider the very meaning of the word
love,
which suddenly feels massive, unwieldy, intimidating.

I wish I had my journal with me—that rotten, demanding, affirming, awful journal. I'd write:
Kate changes everything
. No, I mean love.
Love changes everything
. Geez, that was Freudian. I'm glad I didn't write that down.

• • •

Later, I fall asleep last period in my government class for a second or two, waking when my head bobs forward. Lots of people fall asleep in my government class, some shamelessly, with their heads resting on their folded arms on top of their desks. Old Mr. Bloom appears not to care, appears to struggle against his own somnolence, exacerbated, no doubt, by his monotone voice explaining the relationship between land, labor, and capital for the four thousandth time.

“What is with you today?” Emmy practically snaps at me at my locker. And because I am too tired to translate both her words and her tone, I respond in irritation.

“I'm tired. Aren't I allowed to be?”

“All right. Sorry.”

We don't speak on the way to the locker room.

Volleyball practice does not revive me, but further wears me out. I get hit twice in the face—not bad—by balls I just plain miss. At the end of practice, Jen bounces up to me and laces her fingers through mine.

“So I've been thinking about something you said,” she says, smiling her big round smile at me.

“About what?”

“About Stu.”

“What about Stu?”

“You know,” she says, “if I like him or not.”

“Uh-huh,” I say.

“And what would you say if I said I do?”

“Uh . . . I don't know.”

“Josie, come on. I thought you'd be happy.”

“Oh, yeah. Sure. Jen, I'm so tired.”

“I know. You really look it.” She squeezes my hands before saying, “Okay, so don't say anything to him, but find out if he likes me, okay? I mean, since he's your cousin and all, I thought you could ask him so that it doesn't seem like I like him.”

“Sure.”

“You're so fabulous, I love you,” she says, and hugs me, and I really do not have any energy left for anything else today.

• • •

Stu drives me home, and I say nothing on the way other than an apology for my continued fatigue. I collapse on top of my bed and sleep until almost six o'clock, waking with slightly puffy eyes and a faint imprint of my watch on my left cheek.

A quick splash of cold water and a readjustment of my ponytail does little to improve my appearance, but at least the circles are gone, and I feel better than I have all day, so I give no thought to puffiness or sleep scars as I walk downstairs or as I open the front door when someone rings the bell.

And as if by magic—black magic—I promptly turn into a statue the moment I see him, standing at my front door, smiling at me, holding, of all things, a purse. My purse. I think he says something.

I.

Cannot.

Move.

I don't know how long I've been standing here, frozen. Long enough for Kate to enter the foyer and ask, “Josie, who's at the door? Josie?”

She squints a little at me—irked, but what's new—before she opens the door more fully, and he introduces himself to her.

“Hi, I'm Ethan Glaser,” he says. “I'm Josie's sociology instructor at Cap.”