Make Your Home Among Strangers

by Jennine Capó Crucet

  I imagined his mother holding on to one of those high school boyfriends a little longer than the rest of her college friends.

  —Before she met your dad?

  —No, to my dad. Didn’t happen though. He managed to escape before I came along.

  I didn’t say anything. He started shredding his napkin into strips.

  —I know he lives in Portland now, he said. And, obviously, I know he’s a ginger. Probably. Seeing as I’m the only person in my family who looks like this.

  He flung a napkin shard at me, then pointed to his head. This was not the life I’d constructed for Ethan, and before our conversation got any more serious and confusing for me, I decided to protect us both and rework the truth.

  —God, I feel bad now. I was kidding, I said. I’m kidding!

  I turned the ring on my finger, tugged it off, and put it on my other hand.

  I said, My mom gave me this. For Christmas.

  He let out a burst of a sigh, his cheeks filling and then deflating, then shoved his hands in his hair and pulled it back from his forehead.

  —Wow, OK, he laughed. That was a good one.

  He took a long sip of his beer, then dropped his voice, made it deeper when he said, Sorry to get so personal there. I hope that wasn’t weird. I was ready to be very happy for you. I said congrats, didn’t I?

  Aside from the existence of Omar, Ethan knew nothing about my life back home, and what he thought he knew thanks to Jillian’s mittens was wrong. I pressed my thumbnail into the table’s soft wood and tried to get his impression of who I was closer to accurate.

  —When my mom gave me this, she told me the three stones stood for her, my sister, and my nephew. I’m an aunt, I said. My mom and dad aren’t together either.

  —Oh, he said. Cool – about the aunt thing.

  He set his beer down slowly, exactly on the condensation ring it had already made.

  —A diamond ring for Christmas? he said. You must mean a lot to your mom.

  The mittens—Jillian’s mittens—were still on the table, and I realized I’d made things worse in that respect: now I was a Rawlings girl who wore hundred-dollar mittens ice skating and got diamond rings for Christmas. I didn’t know how I’d fix this, but it wouldn’t happen then. I just said yeah.

  When our sandwiches arrived (they were, in fact, pretty good), Ethan told me about the hall program he moderated called Happy Hours, a standing study group with a simple premise: every hour of work you put in around the aggressively silent book-strewn table equaled one beer you bought yourself later at Carter House. He wanted me to know I’d be welcome to hang out anytime; he’d been waiting around the library to tell me that.

  —I’m legally obligated to say that the school’s endorsement of this program officially ends with the studying, before the tallying up of beers, he said. And while I fully understand you can’t join us for the bar portion, he said as he wiped his mouth, that doesn’t mean you won’t get work done. I mean it when I say we’re aggressively silent.

  He took another long sip of his beer. Plus, you know, it’ll get you out of the library sometimes.

  Thanks to the ring, we didn’t return to the subject of my break. We talked about our schedules, and I eventually went through a play-by-play reenactment of my day in the lab, including what Professor Kaufmann told me about my sterile technique being impressive. We cracked open free peanuts for dessert while I talked about her research, what I’d read online about her work, how she’d determined the effects of plankton on seawater viscosity. He said she sounded killer.

  —It would be weird if I went to her office hours on the first day, right? I said.

  I thought he’d tease me for being a suck-up—I was looking for excuses not to go now that it was almost time—but he said, Absolutely not, you should absolutely go. I said, I don’t know, maybe next week is better, and then he stood up and said, No, now. You’re going now, no excuses. He jumped from the booth, grabbed my coat and held it out for me.

  —And come by Happy Hours, too, he said on the way to the bar’s door. We start next week. Thursday and Sunday nights.

  I tucked my hands into Jillian’s stupid mittens and said, Maybe I will.

  * * *

  The walk uphill toward campus went much slower, but I made it to Professor Kaufmann’s office, which was neat and organized but sparse—like wherever she really worked was somewhere else. When I knocked on her already-open door, she said my name and declared me her very first visitor of the new year. Just as I’d planned, I told her I’d grown up near the ocean and that I’d read about her research on her Web site. She said, Oh, super! and launched into a description of some mutant microscopic organism off the coast of some island I probably should’ve heard of. I was able to follow along at first, and every time I contributed something to the conversation, she said, Yeah, super! (Super would prove to be her very favorite adjective; she’d write Super! across the top of all but the first of my lab write-ups, and I heard her voice each time I read it—not the Miami soup-er I’d always known, but her version of it—her zoo-pah!) But within a few minutes of that first visit, I was looking around the room for family photos—for anything personal—to turn the conversation back toward something I could handle. There was nothing to latch on to except her enthusiasm, but that, along with Ethan’s encouragement to visit her office that afternoon in the first place, turned out to be enough.

  26

  THE FIRST WINTER OF THE new millennium would be the coldest to settle over the Rawlings campus in sixty years, and the first few feet of snow that would harden into the icy bedrock encasing us through April fell pretty much continuously over the weekend between the first and second week of classes. So you can understand why I was confused when Jillian came home Saturday night flecked in snow, and as she peeled off her layers, asked, Liz, what are you doing this summer?

  —This summer? It’s negative a million degrees outside. Must you torture me?

  She separated her fleece from its waterproof layer and spread each over the backs of our chairs. I watched her from my bed, where I lay on my stomach.

  —Seriously, she said, what are you thinking of doing this summer?

  —I don’t know. Go to the beach? Hang out with Omar?

  —No, I mean for work, for, you know, experience.

  —Why are you asking about this right now? Where’ve you been?

  She went back to our door and retrieved her boots, placed them inside. She pulled off her hat and finger-combed her hair to bring it back to life.

  —Because what you do the summer between your freshman and sophomore years pretty much goes on to determine your entire career.

  —That can’t be true, I said, but I wondered: Is that true?

  —I was at an arch sing, she said. And yes it’s true. And I saw that guy there.

  —What guy? What’s an arch sing?

  —That guy, Ian, she said. Hold on a second, you don’t know what an arch sing is? They only happen pretty much every Saturday somewhere on campus.

  —Oh wait, I said.

  There’d been a few times when I’d walked around and/or through groups of men singing in a semicircle while people stood around and watched. I always looked for a hat full of change or something being passed around, but never saw one: for some reason, these people were doing this for free, possibly even for fun. Jillian told me yes, these were the aforementioned arch sings. The group for which she’d just risked hypothermia was one called the All-Nighters.

  —In this weather? I said. People stood outside for singing? Did anyone get frostbite? Wait, before, did you mean Ethan?

  —People huddle together, Liz. Life does go on when it drops below fifty degrees. And yeah, sorry, Ethan. You should go to one sometime, it’s kind of a thing here.

  —Ethan was there? I said, almost adding, That is so lame before remembering she’d gone to watch, too. What does an arch sing have to do with a summer job? I said.

  —I was talking with Tracy about it on the w
alk back here. She lined up an internship over winter break and now I’m freaking out that I waited too long.

  —For real? We’re supposed to figure that out now?

  —I started looking over break, but haven’t nailed anything down yet.

  —Oh, I said, trying not to freak out along with her. I haven’t started, if that makes you feel better.

  —It doesn’t. But seriously, you better start looking. Seniors and juniors usually start looking in the spring, and they’ve been in school longer and have more connections and stuff. We’re at a disadvantage as rising sophomores, so we’re supposed to start early.

  —So then how do you even get internships? What are you doing?

  —I just went to work with my dad a couple of days and met the other partners there. Anything you find is going to be unpaid. It’s more about asking people, asking to just be around and get some experience.

  I thought of the lab, of how I’d gone in every day that week despite the weather to work through the pre-lab exercises and to practice my sterile technique. I’d already begun growing the cultures we’d need for Monday’s work, had made a few extra as backups. Professor Kaufmann came in while I was working one night after dinner, and since I was the only person around, she showed me the part of the stockroom reserved for upperclassman researchers, walking me through her inventory check and letting me tag along as she looked in on some tests of her own in a nearby lab.

  —Is there stuff for people who want to maybe do science research? I asked Jillian. Maybe a summer job here on campus where I can keep working in a lab?

  —I don’t know, probably.

  —How do I find out?

  —You just ask people who know. You talk to people in your network.

  She sat down and began pulling off her socks.

  —My network, I said. My network is you, I’m asking you.

  —Like for me, she said, a sock dangling from her hand, what I really want is this internship in entertainment law in the city that might happen through a friend of my mom’s.

  So there was my summer: an internship babysitting Ariel Hernandez, or, if that didn’t work out, one ironing slogans onto T-shirts. Fuck, I thought, if this is how things worked, I was done before I’d even started and there was no hope of doing anything in a lab that summer. Jillian draped her socks over the heater.

  —Probably I’ll just get a job down in Miami, I told her.

  —That makes sense, she said. She brought her boots over to the heater, tucked them underneath it to dry out. Can I ask you something? she said.

  She came over and tapped my right hand.

  —So this can’t be an engagement ring, because that would be crazy, but you did have this on your left hand when you got back.

  —Why would it be crazy? I said. My mom was seventeen when she got married.

  —Your mom’s your mom. You’re here, you’re you, it’s nineteen-ninety – no, two thousand. It would be crazy.

  —Cubans are different, I said, regretting it instantly. I mean, not all Cubans, but it wouldn’t be that weird, is what I’m saying.

  —My point is, since the day you got lunch with that guy, it’s been on this hand.

  She tapped the ring the way Ethan had, said, So what does that mean?

  —Jillian, please. One, I have a boyfriend. And two, Ethan – he’s really not for me.

  —Do you only date Hispanic guys? No offense, I’m just wondering.

  —No, I – for now, yeah, I guess. But that’s not what I mean.

  —It’s not a big deal if you only like Hispanic guys. I prefer Italian guys.

  —Why are we talking about this? Do you want me to tell Ethan you’re interested?

  —He’s really tall, she said. I think he’s cute.

  —I don’t, I said. He’s too tall, too skinny.

  —He’s not that skinny. Though he did look like he was freezing tonight.

  I don’t know why, but I said it again: So you want me to hook you guys up?

  —No, she said. He’s a senior. What’s the point? Besides, I met someone cool at the arch sing. He’s actually in the All-Nighters.

  I really did believe what I’d said about not feeling Ethan was for me—the skin on his throat, which I’d watched as he swallowed his beer, looked to me like the raw skin of a dead chicken, and feeling bad about that association was not the same as not having it in the first place—but as Jillian described this new guy she’d flirted with, all I felt was relief that she wasn’t talking about Ethan anymore.

  * * *

  By Thursday of the second week of classes, I had enough homework to justify going to Ethan’s Happy Hours without it seeming weird of me; I didn’t want him thinking I was going just to hang out with him. Though maybe I was: I’d missed his joking around, and since he didn’t know my new work schedule, I hadn’t seen him even once at the library. That night, after checking on my specimens in the lab and wishing them good night the way Professor Kaufmann had to her own cell cultures, I went to Donald Hall. I got as far as the ground floor’s glass-walled study lounge before spotting the back of Ethan’s head. He was all alone in the big room, sitting at a huge conference table—a modern version of the one from my hearing.

  —Is this not happening? I said.

  He jolted at my voice and I laughed, but he didn’t. He looked at his watch.

  —Great. I was hoping you wouldn’t come tonight.

  I stopped just outside the room, remembering Thanksgiving and Leidy’s What the fuck are you doing here, her inflection revealing something the way his just had.

  —Nice to see you too, I said.

  —No, I mean, this started ten minutes ago. I don’t think anyone’s coming.

  I took off my coat and hauled my books from my bag to the table. I slapped down bio, slapped down Spanish. Don’t worry, I said, I brought enough work.

  —I wasn’t trying – I didn’t know it would be just us, he said.

  —So this is like the Terror Squad of study groups? His face looked as if I’d hit the pause button on his brain, so I added, Terror Squad’s just two guys, two rappers.

  He nodded vigorously. Oh, right on. Like how the Silver Jews aren’t actually Jewish.

  I didn’t know them or their music, but I played it off and said, They’re not?

  —Maybe one of the guys is Jewish.

  He grabbed his pen and scrawled something on the back of his hand, digging deep into his skin, which flared up red around the marks. He said, Facts to look up later, and he clicked his pen shut, showing me his hand. It read, Silver Jews = Jews?

  —We’re learning already! I said.

  —I invited other people, he said. His back curled over the table as he bent across it to stare at me on its opposite side. He said, During study week last term there were fifteen of us. Really.

  I tried to sound skeptical with my Sure, but I believed him—felt a little left out, actually, at having not been invited back then, after ice skating, like I’d failed some test that day. I thought of Jillian’s mittens, the way he’d skated away after seeing them.

  —No really, he said. Maybe since we’re only two weeks into the spring …

  He tapped his pen against his book so fast I almost asked him if he was a drummer.

  —Stop freaking out, I said. Maybe everyone decided you’re a shitty study partner.

  —Ouch, he said. And for that?

  In comic slow motion, he turned his face to his book, kept his eyes trapped to it. I thought he’d been kidding about the aggressive silence he’d described at Carter House, but he didn’t speak at all over the next half hour, not even once—not when I said his name, or when I asked him what language his book was in (he told me later: Japanese), not when I said, If your balls itch right now, stay quiet. (He covered his mouth at that but didn’t make a sound.) Thirty minutes later, I’d only read half a page, distracted by the effort of thinking up ways to make him crack. Then his watched beeped, and he clapped his book shut and yelled, Coffee break, befo
re leaving the lounge.

  He came back with two cups of the worst coffee I’d ever tasted. When I took mine from him, he said, Who’s a shitty study partner now?

  He took a thick gulp. I held the mug he’d given me—chipped and clearly swiped from the dining hall—in my hands, blew over the coffee’s surface to cool it down.

  —So listen, he said. I know we joke around a lot, and that’s great – like actually great, not sarcastic great – but I want to say outright that I really wasn’t trying to get you here alone when I invited you.

  —What? I said. I didn’t think that. Should I have been thinking that?

  I gripped the mug like it was keeping me from running away. I sipped some coffee, winced at the bitterness.

  —I wouldn’t do anything that creepy, and I just want that clear between us. I don’t want you to have the wrong idea about me.

  My fingertips and palms started to burn where they met the mug. Dark oil swirled over the surface of the coffee.

  —No offense, I said, but this coffee is bad.

  He sat back down and blew air from his mouth, the sound like a wave crashing.

  —The thing is, he said, I can’t afford good coffee with four years of loans sitting on my neck, so since starting here I’ve trained myself to ingest this garbage. I buy whatever’s cheapest, I’m talking the brands they use at gas stations, then I just brew the shit out of it.

  I fought the urge to ask him how exactly brewing the shit out of something could be an antidote to anything. I sipped a little more, burning my top lip and barely getting a second taste, and he smacked his lap with his hands and said, So yeah, sorry you’re a victim of what might be my ultimate Rawlings sacrifice.

  —I wasn’t – it’s fine, I said. I took a good swig to prove it, like drinking dirt. I said, It’s not much worse than Cuban coffee.

  I made myself swallow more, knowing what this was a chance to do—not just study, but to let him know I was more like him than I’d accidentally made him think, that we were both making sacrifices, even if my mom didn’t see that in me. I forgave my fingers and put my mug down.