Love in English

by Maria E. Andreu

  “Wait, did you write this?” he asks. I look to see what Harrison is asking about. The back cover of my ESL notebook is filled with my scribbles, ideas, notes, shards of poems, stickers, a few drawings.

  His finger is pointing to one of the poems. It says:

  Look my way and I am charmed

  Hurt my heart and I am armed

  Leave and nothing’s left to do

  Look your way and ache for you.

  Horror swells in my throat . . . it’s about him.

  “No. I mean . . . yes. It’s just . . . nothing. For homework . . .” I realize that’s a stupid lie before I finish it. Who writes their homework on the back cover of their notebook? “Sometimes it helps me practice to try to write in English.”

  “This is a song?”

  “Just a poem.”

  “That you read somewhere?”

  I shake my head.

  He reads it to himself and taps on the table with his thumbs. “It sounds like a song.”

  I shake my head again. This is so embarrassing.

  He sits up, turns the notebook over like he knows I’m embarrassed he saw it.

  “So . . . I have an idea. I’ve told you I’m in a band, right? Could you maybe, like, write something for us? Please. We’re never going to get far doing nineties ####### #######. There’s not enough ###### #### ###### ## lack of lyric-writing capacity. We need you. I need you.”

  I need you. The words tingle through me like a magic spell.

  My cheeks burn. I know he doesn’t mean it that way, but still. I shake my head again.

  “I’ll pay you back when we get our record deal.”

  I laugh. “You would have to, if I wrote the lyrics.”

  “So is that a yes?” He smiles.

  Finally I nod. I don’t know what I’m getting myself into. But I like sitting here talking about math with him. I want to talk about more with him. “Yes.”

  He leans over and puts his arm around me. For months, every moment has been like the first day of school, going to the board to do the math problem when the teacher was just asking if I had the textbook. I am always worried I’m reading situations wrong. I don’t know all the words.

  But right now:

  I am a battalion of the most delicate cranes, wings wide, flying high into the sky.

  I bloom in your song

  I fly through your wind

  I crane hasta el cielo

  When you look at me

  That way.

  In Pink, but Not So Pretty

  For our movie today, Neo has brought little square bits of pastry that look like they have skinny little strings on top and which are jaw-achingly sweet. Baklava. We sit in the library media room and I wonder how I’m going to get all this stickiness off my fingers.

  We’re watching Pretty in Pink. It’s about a poor girl who likes a rich boy. She lives near some train tracks. It seems to me that she and her father aren’t all that poor—she’s got her own car and a job, so how poor can they be? But she is an outsider in a school full of much richer kids, so I kind of relate to her in that sense.

  Also the boy she winds up with, the rich boy, reminds me of Harrison in some ways, the fresh-faced sweetness, the way his hair always seems like it needs to be cut. Except Harrison is not as clueless as the boy in the movie.

  I lick the baklava off my fingers and Neo turns on the lights.

  “What you say?” he asks.

  “Well, I did not like her prom dress,” I tell him.

  “I also did not. You like the end?”

  I twist my mouth to one side. I want to say more than I know how to say. “I like when love wins in the end.”

  He looks at me steadily. “I also like this.”

  I smile, glad to understand each other.

  I change the subject. “The other boy, the boy who bothers her . . . Duckie? I think today maybe would get reported, with the way he follows her around.”

  Neo laughs. “I think he wants to be good friend to her.”

  “It’s possible,” I tell him and smile.

  “Ana?” Neo says my name like a question. His face is full of questions, actually, his eyes open and earnest and filled with a lot more than thoughts about the girl in the pink dress and the two boys who want to be with her. I look up at him. It’s not like New Year’s, but the look is intense in other ways. It makes me nervous about what he might say.

  We never talked about the New Year’s almost-kiss (if that’s what it was), but I have thought a lot about it. Neo is as familiar as anything in this new world. When I’m with Neo, there is no deafening buzz, no confusion over every word. That means something.

  But then there is Harrison. Harrison, the very sight of whom makes me take flight. Harrison, who Frankie said likes me likes me. Can I want to kiss Neo when Harrison makes me feel the way he does? I am so confused.

  “I should go,” I tell him, standing up. I don’t know what he is going to say, but I know I don’t have the right words to answer, no matter what it is, no matter what the language. “See you tomorrow, Neo.”

  He nods slowly. “See you tomorrow, Ana.”

  Añoro

  I am in the car, on the way to Harrison’s house. Harrison’s house.

  We were supposed to meet for tutoring, but in math, he said, “Hey, how about we skip the math and go to my house to work on a song? My guitar is there.”

  I watch him while he drives. His hand on the steering wheel is distracting, just sort of casual and confident, like he was born to have his own car. He plugs in his phone and the car fills with music. It’s the band I was listening to that one time. I hope it’s not a coincidence. I hope he remembered and put the song on because of it.

  He parks in front of his house, which is a mirror image of Altagracia’s, and lets us in through a side door. He gets me a glass of orange juice and takes me to a room on the first floor. Both his parents are still at work, a discovery that makes my heart leap. He takes his guitar out from behind the couch and begins playing me a song.

  He is playing me a song.

  The song is beautiful, actually—simple, and a little bit sad, with a chorus with fancy finger work that sounds a little like the Spanish guitar my father used to like to listen to on Sundays at home, just guitar, no vocals. He plays perched on the armrest of the couch, one leg up holding the dark-brown, shiny guitar, the other stretched out to the floor, a tiny hole in the seam of his T-shirt at the shoulder.

  When he finishes, he looks up. “It’s kind of a bummer? I was listening to a lot of acoustic and there was like . . . soul . . . I was trying to get to, but . . .”

  “It’s beautiful,” I say. “What is it about?”

  “What does it sound like it’s about?” He narrows his eyes a little, trying to read me.

  “I heard . . . what’s that thing when someone leaves?”

  “Sadness?” he asks.

  “No, when they’re far and you want them to be close.”

  “Longing. Yearning,” he says.

  I think of the Spanish word for it, a word that, to me, seems to capture the feeling so much better than anything: añoro. And another: anhelo. But I don’t tell him that.

  I nod. “Yes, that’s what I hear in that song.” I look it up on my phone to be sure I fully understand the meaning. Too many times I think I know the word but there’s something more to it. Yearning. I love it instantly, as close as it is to yarn, that tangled-up feeling of wanting someone or something to be near you, to be yours, and the more you try to escape the thoughts, the more they come. I am a whole ball of yearning, for home, for words. I understand this word. In some ways, I am this word.

  He nods. He looks serious now. He slides down from the armrest and puts the guitar gently behind him.

  He says, “I don’t know if that’s the right word. I don’t always know the right words. Kind of like with math . . . it takes me a while to know how to say what I want to say.” He is holding my gaze steady. “Ana, all this time that I’ve been
asking you to help me with math, I guess what I’ve really wanted to say is . . .” He stops, looks hesitant.

  “What?”

  “What I’ve wanted to say is I like you.”

  The skin of my neck blooms. I dig my thumbnail into the tip of my index finger to remember I am flesh, not just a galloping heart that’s flown up to the rafters of this huge room.

  “I like you too, Harrison.”

  “Why haven’t you said anything? And why were you so weird after New Year’s?” he asks.

  “I didn’t know . . .” I trail off. I didn’t know what? I didn’t know if he felt the same way? I didn’t know if I misunderstood? I didn’t know the rules? I think about Neo, about New Year’s. I didn’t know what that meant? I didn’t know how I felt about it? “I . . . didn’t have the words.”

  He leans toward me. I can feel the warmth of him. He’s still looking straight in my eyes. “Is it okay if I kiss you?” he asks.

  The question freezes me. Only yesterday I was thinking of Neo and if I wanted to kiss him. And now, I am looking at Harrison, and I know I want to kiss him. Instead of words, I use my lips. His lips are soft, and wonderful, but he doesn’t move them. I get self-conscious. Am I supposed to do something more? I kiss him again. He kisses too, then pulls away.

  “That was nice. I’m so happy you came over,” he says.

  I smile. It was nice. My heart is pounding. I take a breath to bring myself out of the moment.

  “Hey, you want more juice?” he asks.

  It takes me a beat to see how he’s gone from this air-bending moment to casual, all at warp speed. But it’s nice that he wants to get me juice. “Okay,” I say.

  He comes back with a full glass.

  Then he reaches in his pocket and hands me a crane. “To keep your other one company. You still have it?”

  I do, but I’ve never told him. After that one time he saw it, I’ve kept it out of sight. “I do.”

  This one is yellow. It’s made precisely, like practice is really making perfect.

  “I like that you still have it. Now, when I make them, I think of you.”

  He takes a breath, like he’s gearing up for something.

  Finally, he says, “You know . . . my sister’s wedding is this weekend. All these months of making cranes. I’ll finally be able to show them off.”

  “That’s great,” I say.

  He fidgets, shifts his weight. “I know it’s last-minute, but I was wondering if . . . I was thinking maybe . . .”

  I turn to look at him. He is red around the ears, on his neck.

  “What?”

  “I don’t know. If you wanted to go?”

  “Go?”

  He fidgets again. “To my sister’s wedding? Being as how you’ve been in on this crane thing from the start.”

  “Yes.” I smile, remembering my first day of school, noticing Harrison. I could have never imagined I would be here now.

  Life is strange and beautiful.

  Ojos Que No Ven, Corazón Que No Siente

  Tonight at dinner I have to look like I’m here though my mind is still floating above the treetops. But my father is looking at me, his eyes narrowed. I know he can very nearly smell if a boy has been near me.

  “How is school?” he asks.

  Safe ground.

  “Good. I got a ninety-seven on my last math test.”

  “Why not a hundred?” he asks.

  I hate this question. “Pa, it’s still an A.”

  “And the girl? The dentist’s girl?”

  Even though Altagracia has many things that might have been a problem back home—the shaved hair, the makeup—here he approves of her because she speaks Spanish and her dad is a doctor of sorts.

  “She’s good. I’m spending the day at her house tomorrow.”

  He nods his approval. And then he adds, “No boys, right? You’re staying focused?”

  My father used to play the guitar back home. He used to be soft, and laugh, and trust. He used to sit en el patio and drink wine mixed with soda water with his brothers and cousins and the neighbors and tell stories that let me know that his teenage years were not exactly innocent. We prowl around each other now, holding up masks that get heavier every day. I don’t want to lie to him, but in a way, he is lying to me, too.

  “No,” I tell him. “No boys.”

  Back home I never lied.

  But everyone is different here.

  THE WAY OF LIES

  I tell a little white lie

  That makes me feel splashed with mud

  I pull the wool over my parents’ eyes

  And I’m itchy on the inside

  I am smoke and mirrors

  Afraid of the shards

  I have stretched the truth

  And I am a rubber band about to snap.

  My First American Wedding

  It is the day of the wedding. For once a dress is the right choice. Mine is cream, with the tiniest pink flowers. Altagracia offered her substantial closet, and I picked this simple A-line dress. And I liked her drying my hair and making some curls at the ends.

  When I am ready, she spins me around to take in her work. “Divine,” she says.

  “I couldn’t have gotten ready without you,” I tell her.

  She laughs. “You could have. Anyway, off you go. I’ve got to work on me now. I’m picking up Leticia so we can go to Green Man,” she says.

  I give her a hug. “What! How have you not told me?”

  She waves her hand. “Eh, we’ll see. I don’t know what it is yet, so we’ll talk about it later.”

  I nod. “Well, I’m happy for you.” And I am. If anyone deserves to be happy, it’s Altagracia.

  Harrison is adorable in a suit, his tie slightly askew. I straighten it for him. The sculpture garden where his sister’s wedding and reception are being held is lit up by candles in more lanterns than I’ve ever seen in my life, all different styles—modern and rococo, colored glass and clear. Overhead, round-bulb string lights provide a canopy, high up, giving everything a warm glow. From the string lights, more paper cranes than I would have imagined possible for any one person to make . . . if I hadn’t been watching him make them all year. They’re a beautiful, papery reminder that love comes in many languages and shapes, and that small things can add up to a garden full of beautiful. It’s a smallish wedding, by our standards, anyway, maybe about sixty or seventy people. Guests mill about around a few rows of white foldable chairs lined up in front of a gazebo hung with flowers.

  “Here, come on, let me introduce you to everyone,” says Harrison. “I’ll take you behind the scenes.” I nod. The ceremony is about to start, and I’m a little nervous, but I guess I’ve learned enough English to get by. And it’s a crowd of people from everywhere—at least half the guests must be from the groom’s side—so I am not the only one for whom English is a second language.

  He walks us behind a tall stone gate and up a path to a glass-enclosed room. Inside, his sister is easy to spot, not because she’s the only one in white—actually, her dress is a simple knee-length sheath that hardly looks different from a guest’s. No, the way you know she’s the bride is because she looks happier than anyone I’ve ever seen.

  “Molly, this is Ana,” says Harrison. She looks like him, but with a heart-shaped face and a wider smile. Her hair is up in a simple twist. Up close she looks even happier than she did from far away.

  “Congratulations,” I say.

  She gives me a hug. “It’s so nice to meet you,” she says. “Thank you for coming.” She turns to Harrison. “Have you seen Tak? You should meet Tak,” she says to me.

  “Stop trying to play hostess and relax. I’ll introduce her to your wonderful husband.”

  She gleams. “Not yet. Which reminds me. You should go sit. We saved seats for you in the first row. You know how Mom gets. ######### ######### ##### ########.”

  He hugs her. “Don’t worry. You look amazing. You’re not going to run away, are you?”

/>   She laughs and swats him.

  We go sit. Harrison’s hand is warm in mine. This is my first wedding in the United States, and I realize it looks both nothing and everything like I might have imagined. It’s quirky, it’s unique, a mix of cultures and languages. On the other side, I can hear the groom’s family speaking in Japanese. The vocalist is singing a song in a language I can’t make out. And, yet, the joy in the air is something you can feel, beyond words, bigger than any one language can contain. Harrison’s mom and dad, who have made their way to our row, give a quick wave. I wave back. They look so happy too.

  For some strange reason, although it doesn’t look like the wedding in Sixteen Candles at all, the scene from that movie comes up in my mind. I remember sitting in the library with Neo, the way he noticed the same things I noticed, even before we talked about it. I wonder what he would say if he were here.

  The ceremony begins. Tak looks nervous, and happy too, in a slim-cut blue suit that’s a shade darker than those of his groomsmen. The bridesmaids are all in hues of cream, but in all different dresses. I’ve never seen that either, and I like it. The officiant is a tall, regal woman in a plain black dress. Nothing marks her as a clergyperson, and I wonder if she is.

  They get to the vows. Molly is turned half away from us, since we’re sitting on her side, but I can hear her voice clearly.

  “Takumi, my love, this day is finally here. ######## ######### #####.” Soft laughter from the crowd. “Because you always know how to cut to the heart of things. You always know how to speak the truth. I love the way you can always make me breathe when I’m talking too fast, when I’m nervous. I love the way you can always get across the busiest street. ########### ########## ########. Takumi, I am so proud to become your wife, because you make me a better me. Because I trust you. Because you help me trust me.”