Love in Many Languages

by Jamie Bennett

  “My boyfriend isn’t like that,” Corrie informed me.

  “It’s just something to think about. I wouldn’t want that for you, either.” I put the salad on the counter next to her and went back to the chicken on the stove. She didn’t say anything else about her boyfriend, or how she got that bruise, but she did eat all the vegetables.

  ∞

  I read carefully through the website. It wasn’t exactly what I was looking for, but it was in the right direction.

  “Hi, Ione,” Dov said. He stopped by my desk at reception a few times a day. “I’m going for coffee. Can I get you your tea?”

  “Oh, no thanks.” I was still staring at my screen. “What did you say?”

  “Can I help you with something?”

  I glanced up to find him looking at me eagerly. “Well, I’ve been on the National Institutes of Health website for a while. I’m trying to find research that proves that it’s better to have an open heart.”

  “An open heart?”

  “Like, to communicate freely with people, to talk instead of clamming up, that kind of thing, how it’s so much better for your inner beauty and light. I’m pretty sure that’s a scientific fact. But I’m having trouble finding studies that say that. There must be something, because of course that’s true. If you don’t talk and share and instead you push people away, you’re much more likely to die young. Or at least be very unhappy.” I scrolled. This article was close, but not exactly what I was looking for. I needed proof.

  “I could help you look for an article or a study on my lunch hour,” Dov suggested. “I’m pretty good at that kind of research.”

  “Really?” I smiled at him. “Thank you!”

  “No problem. I’ll get you your tea, too, just in case you may want it later.” He was nodding and smiling at me and by mistake he walked into the glass wall that separated reception from the elevator lobby and gave himself a bloody nose.

  “That’s the third time this has happened,” Reid said a few minutes later. He shook his head at Dov, seated in the makeshift triage I had set up in the employee breakroom.

  I adjusted the bag of frozen vegetables on Dov’s face. Maybe I should have gone into nursing. “It seems like a very dangerous set-up,” I mentioned to Reid. “That’s why I’m thinking you should put some kind of sign there, like for people to be aware that it’s a wall. Or we could wipe our hands all over it so the glass is smeary and not so clear.” Dov was going to have a black eye, I was pretty sure, but I had gotten the blood to stop pouring out of his nose.

  “Or maybe we should put up a sign to remind everyone to stop staring at other employees and stay focused on work,” Reid suggested, looking at Dov very pointedly.

  “What?” I asked.

  Reid was shaking his head. “Dov, you have to give this up.”

  “I know.” Dov shook his head, shifting the peas and carrots over his eye. “It’s like an addiction.”

  “What are you guys talking about?” I asked, looking back and forth.

  “Ione, I’m sure we need you up at reception,” Reid told me. “And Karis was looking for you earlier, something about your size. For your bridesmaid dress.”

  “I don’t know my size.” I looked down at my body. “I don’t look at tags and labels, and I don’t weigh myself. I try not to focus on that, you know? A body is just a vessel.” Dov stared at my vessel until Reid cleared his throat and Dov focused on him.

  As I headed back off to talk to Karis, I heard Reid start to quietly lecture Dov, but it wasn’t his fault that he had walked into the glass wall so many times. He was just extremely clumsy. Birds did it too, all the time.

  And for me, it had actually been a good thing, because Mondays were not my favorites but at least the accident and blood spillage had livened up reception a little. Anything that broke the monotony of the day, I counted as a good thing. Probably Dov didn’t feel that way, however.

  I’d had an interesting weekend with Corrie and Fox. Fox was currently in a snit because of the dinner I had missed with him on Friday night, the fact that I had used a lot of the food he bought to make a meal for Corrie, and the discussion we’d had in which I told him that she was 100% off limits, like not even to look in her direction. After I said that, he had stopped speaking to me, and as of this Monday he hadn’t started back up.

  Corrie and I had done some art together and after I had found my wallet, we had gone grocery shopping so I could tempt her into eating. She was way, way too thin. We also took a car over to a house off Seven Mile Road on Saturday where she said her stuff was. She messed around at the front door, then kind of slunk around to the back, where I could hear the sounds of big dogs barking. I had waited in the car with the driver who was very unhappy to hang out there, even after I promised that she would be fast. Suddenly, Corrie had come running out the front door with a big bundle of clothes and shoes, dropping things as she went. She didn’t say a word about it except “Go!” to the driver, who was very happy to do that.

  On Sunday, we also bought a bunch of beauty products to tempt her into bathing, and I had shown her the way around the washer and dryer, because those were some other issues I had noticed. She was funny—sarcastic and rude but also funny, which came out more and more the longer we were together. Corrie and I were having so much fun together, in fact, that it felt just like before my old roommates moved out and there were people I liked to hang out with.

  We went to a movie solely for the air conditioning and it was a little boring, mostly about some kind of blood that turned people into zombies, so I let my mind drift. When I did, I had a wonderful idea: I would plan a vacation, the first one I would take by myself, without my grandma.

  After the movie was finally over, I talked about it to Corrie, to see if she wanted to come. I thought we could go up north to a cottage on the beach and swim in one of the lakes, get some sun, maybe get her away from the boyfriend she was still talking about. She told me that she just needed a few nights apart from him, because even though she really loved him, they did have a few “issues.” Unconsciously, she covered the bruise on her face while she said that, so if there was any doubt in my mind about where that had come from, it was now gone. Anyway, she said it would be fun to go away, since she had never really left the Detroit area before. We talked about the vacation and a lot of other things, and I liked her a lot. She seemed to feel the same way about me.

  After I left bloody Dov with Reid lecturing him in the triage/lunchroom, Karis took my measurements about 15 different ways so that she could accurately calculate my size for my bridesmaid dress, and then I sat at my reception desk and answered the phones, signed for things, greeted people, and provided them with unusual juice mixes from our refrigerator. My main interest that day was still scouring various databases for health studies about the value of talking and sharing, because there had to be something. Cooper had made a remark to me about how we had different ideas of science, and I wanted to show him. I could be scientific and fact-based, when I wanted to be, and I was right about this.

  I had Japanese class that night and I wasn’t giving up yet.

  Chapter 5

  I sat with my new notebook open, the one I had gotten when Corrie and I went shopping. I had forgotten a pen but fortunately the guy next to me had several and told me I could keep them, but I selected a blue one and gave the rest back. I had told everyone who tried to sit that the chair on my other side was taken, because that was always Cooper’s chair.

  But he wasn’t there yet. He had been early to every other class, but tonight, either he was late or he wasn’t coming. Gin started the lesson on going to restaurants but until he called on me, I wasn’t really paying attention.

  “Ocha, onegai shimasu,” I answered his question. Green tea, please.

  “Yoku dekimashita, Ione! Good job.” He called on someone else.

  I slid around the folder I also had in front of me. Inside was the article I had printed, with various sections highlighted and notes by me in
the margins. “Meta-Analysis of Cardiovascular Outcomes after Stress Reduction Interventions” was its title, and it had taken me about half an hour just to get through that and make sure I understood it thoroughly.

  The door opened and Cooper came in. “Summer sun,” he said to our teacher. “Excuse me, sorry.”

  “Sumimasen,” Gin corrected, then sighed.

  Cooper spotted the chair next to me and slid into it. He was flushed, like he had hurried, and frowning, like he was upset about his tardiness. God, he was so damn attractive. I tore out a page from my new notebook.

  Why were you late?

  I slid it over to him. First he looked at it, then he turned it upside down, shook his head slightly, and flipped it back over. Comprehension lit up his face. He wrote for a while and then slid it back.

  Are you really passing notes in class like in 5th grade? I had a call for work and it ran long. Did I say “excuse me” wrong when I came in?

  I wrote back, forming my letters very carefully so he could read them.

  It was a little wrong. You’re kind of saying “summer sun.” Try not to think of English words when you speak Japanese and it will be easier.

  He wrote another line in his precise script.

  That’s a good tip. I need to ask you a favor. Can we talk after class? Maybe go get something to eat?

  I looked over and nodded, and even though I tried, I couldn’t help but smile at how serious he looked. Then he smiled back.

  “Ione?”

  Gin was calling on me again. “Gochisousama deshita,” I said absently.

  “Correct. That’s how you compliment the food at the end of a meal,” he announced. But I was looking at the clock, counting up the minutes until class was over.

  Gin called on me again as class ended and I went up to the front of the room. “Ione, I’ve noticed that you seem to really have an affinity for Japanese,” he told me. “I wanted to recommend that you take my regular Japanese class, learning more than just conversation. As I said, it’s during the day and a regular course here at the college, not part of the adult education classes. I think you would really benefit from it.”

  “Well, first, thank you.” It felt nice to hear from a teacher that I was good at something for school, because those words hadn’t crossed many lips before. “I do have a job, though, so I’m not going to be able to take classes during the day.”

  “I think I also mentioned that I would be happy to tutor you.” He looked into my eyes. “Over dinner? Drinks?”

  “Ione, ready?” Cooper put his hand on my shoulder. “Let’s go.”

  “Oyasuminasai, Gin. Good night,” I said, and Cooper and I walked out together.

  “Was he asking you out?”

  “Oh, yes. I guess so. He keeps saying it’s to teach me Japanese, though.” Cooper was frowning at me. “Where do you want to go?” I asked.

  “No car yet for you, right?” he asked. “I’ll drive you home but I have to stop and eat somewhere, if you don’t mind. I’m starving.”

  We walked out to the car with me reminding him of the vocabulary of the restaurant. “You can try it when we go in for you to eat!” I said.

  “You don’t think they would find it odd for me to speak Japanese to them?”

  I slid into Cooper’s sensible car. “You could say it to me, then.”

  “Does that guy ask you out a lot? You said that he ‘keeps saying’ it’s for class.”

  “Gin? Maybe he’s asked me a few times.” A few hundred. “He doesn’t mean anything by it.”

  “It doesn’t bother you?”

  “Well, I know he’s not really interested in me, right? He’s just focused on the external. If Gin actually liked me, I mean my light inside, he would want to talk to me and get to know me better. Instead, he just wants sex, and that’s ok.” I glanced over, and Cooper looked a little disturbed. “Not that I mean I would go have sex with him, I just mean that it’s a normal human response to want to, so I understand it.”

  “You and I think very, very differently.”

  “Do we? You don’t want to have sex, then?” I started laughing at the face he made. “I’m not propositioning you, Cooper! I just meant in general.” I waited for his response, wondering.

  “Speaking of asking people out,” he said instead, “my brother said he gave you a ride home the other night.”

  “He did, and it was pretty fun. Do you ever ride that motorcycle?”

  “Never. It was his thing to do with my dad.” He looked over at me as we pulled up to a light. “The thing is, now Tanner wants me to give him your number.”

  “Oh. Well, no, I wish you wouldn’t. I wouldn’t want him…no. He’s too young.” And, I liked Tanner’s brother.

  “That was what I told him, but it didn’t go over very well.” He sighed.

  “I’m sorry to be a point of contention between you. I wouldn’t have gotten the ride with him that night, except I don’t like to take the bus so late.”

  “I thought you were getting a car. I would have driven you.”

  I shrugged. “If you want, you can give him my number, and I can explain why it won’t work between the two of us. It would probably be better coming from me.”

  “Probably not. But thank you.” He paused. “He also told me that you said that I don’t like you.”

  “I meant that we’re study partners. He was thinking something more.” I paused also, to wait for Cooper’s response.

  “Here we are. Is this place ok with you?” Cooper asked me. I nodded, and we pulled into a restaurant parking lot.

  “So?” I prodded him after we got a table.

  “Ego…ego no menus…” He stopped.

  “Eigo no menyu ga arimasu ka?” I asked, and Cooper slowly repeated the words. “Yes, I do have a menu in English!” I told him, and handed him mine. “That was a lot better the second time. You sounded just like Gin.”

  “Not really.” He shook his head, rueful. “Have you always been good at languages?”

  I laughed. “Me? No! I’ve always been terrible at school.” But then I thought about it. “I guess I did pick up Spanish pretty well, when I went to class. I didn’t go so much. I skipped a lot and then my grandma got sick. But I did graduate.” That reminded me. “Here.” I slid the article across the table to him.

  “‘Meta-Analysis…’” Cooper read, then skimmed the first part, the little summary. “Why did you give this to me?”

  “It’s about stress reduction and how it’s good for your heart,” I explained. “Here.” I reached over and flipped to a section that I had highlighted. “See? ‘Communication as a Stress-Reduction Technique?’”

  “I see.” He read it, his eyes moving quickly back and forth.

  “Remember how you thought that you and I have different ideas of science?” I tapped the article with my finger. “Facts. It’s proof that it’s a good idea to talk to me.”

  Cooper laughed, a deep, throaty chuckle that was probably one of the nicest sounds I’d ever heard. I’d never heard him laugh before. It made me laugh, too.

  “What do you want me to talk to you about?” he asked. “I guess I have to, since it’s science.”

  “Well, you could tell me what the favor is that you were sneaking notes about during class,” I suggested. “What can I do for you?”

  He got all serious-looking again and ran his hand over his hair. “The reason I was late, the call I was on tonight was with the Japanese company that may purchase from me. Their reps will be in Detroit tomorrow to look at our facility and products.”

  “Wow, that sounds very promising!”

  “Maybe. I want to take them out to dinner afterwards.” He did the hair thing again. “I’m very happy to show them around the factory, explain the superior engineering of our robots, talk about the business and how our customer service will surpass everyone else’s. It’s the dinner that I need the favor for. I’m not very good at social things like that. I’m worse than I am at foreign language acquisition, if
you can believe it. I want them to enjoy themselves and not feel like I’m still pitching our product to them.” He kind of grimaced. “I’ve also been told that I glower. I don’t want to make them uncomfortable, either.”

  “How can I help you?” I asked.

  Cooper looked up at me. “Could you come? Just to the dinner. You don’t have any trouble talking to people. I thought it might be a good icebreaker…” He trailed off. “You know, never mind. That’s silly.”

  “No, I see what you’re getting at. It would make it more of a social occasion if I came in a girlfriend-like role. I just mean, it wouldn’t seem like a totally business dinner. Where do you want to take them?”

  He mentioned the name of a very, very nice place in Detroit, one that I had heard about from Augusta, Karis’ maid of honor and best friend. “Oh, they’ll like that. It’s supposed to be really good.”

  “That’s what I read in the reviews and somehow I got a reservation. At least we would get a nice dinner out of it, even if they don’t decide to order the equipment from me.”

  “I think they will,” I assured him. “They’ll meet you and be very impressed. They’ll like the restaurant, and we’ll convince them that Detroit robots are the best robots.”

  Cooper smiled again. “Maybe I should do bumper stickers.”

  “It’s not a bad idea.” I started drawing on the paper placemat, a funny little robot waving its arm and saying exactly that. I kept drawing as I talked. “I’ll go with you for sure. It’s good to have an ally. I’ll be your ally.”

  “I appreciate that.” He was just looking at me steadily. “I appreciate that very much. And if you need an ally, I could be that for you, too.”

  “Thank you. Oh, here comes the waitress. Do you remember what to say?”

  “Hamburger, one guy’s math.”

  “Hamburger, onegai shimasu. Exactly.” He was close enough.

  “Did you have dinner?” he asked me, and I thought about it.

  “No, and that’s why I’m so hungry. Can you pass that menu back? Arigato gozaimasu.”