by Robin King
“Are you okay?” he asked, frowning a little.
“I’m a little tired, but my knee feels great and I’m ready for a fast run.” I was enthusiastic to be out that morning. Not just for the run, but because I always felt that way around my new running partner and tutor.
“Are you sure? It’s just . . . I mean . . . your eyes are all puffy and red. Did something happen? If you’re worried about the upcoming Spanish test, you have nothing to worry about. You’re surpassing all the other students in the class.”
“I feel just fine,” I said truthfully as we headed to the street. “I don’t remember crying, but maybe I was dreaming something sad. It’s weird. I don’t remember.”
“Lots of people don’t remember their dreams. I rarely remember what I dream about, and most of the time when I do it’s just in bits and pieces.”
William started at a good pace and I kept next to him, though for every stride he took, I took about one and a half. Our speed remained moderate enough for us to continue to speak to one another.
“But I’ve always remembered my dreams,” I said. “Even when I was a kid I knew what I had dreamed about. My dreams have always showed perfectly things that happened during the day or the distant past. It took me until I was four to understand that reality was different from my dreams. That’s when I realized everything is too clear in my dreams. My sight is sharper, and sounds are louder, and tastes and smells are stronger. My emotions are way more intense. Even the memories and scenes that play in my head all day long aren’t quite as overpowering.”
I stopped talking. We were still running, but William had his head turned slightly in my direction. I had almost forgotten anyone was there. It was like I was thinking to myself like I did on most runs, except I did it out loud this time. This was the second time in the last week that I had slipped up.
“Scenes in your head?”
“Tell no one.” My mom’s voice echoed in my head.
“Um, yeah, you know. Just when you try to picture something and you can just see it in your head.” Nice recovery, Alex. “But enough about me. Are your roommates still driving you insane?” William had moved with two graduate students into a newly renovated Victorian house on the edge of campus. One was in his last year in the Alpert Medical School program at Brown.
“No, they’re great,” William said. “I’m almost glad they have no social life because that means I don’t have to worry about parties at one in the morning or that kind of thing. I do wish they’d help out more around the house, but I guess you can’t expect much from a couple of guys.”
I remembered having to pick up my brother’s soaking-wet towel off the bathroom floor almost every morning. At least most of his mess was contained in his bedroom. “Yeah, my brother, Tanner, wasn’t very tidy either. But every once in a while he baked a mean batch of brownies that made up for me picking up after him.” I quickened my pace a little to stay in line with William.
William chuckled. “I wish that were the case with my roommates. I seem to be the only one with any cooking skills. Which reminds me . . . how would you like to taste some authentic Argentinean empanadas?”
My breath caught in my throat. Did he just ask me out?
“I’m making them tonight for my roommate, Devin,” William continued. “He went on a study abroad to Argentina and doesn’t think I can make them as good as the ones he had there. Dr. Red will be there too.” William often called his medical-school roommate by this name, although I knew his real name was Aaron.
“Oh. Sure,” I said. “I do need to branch out with my eating— these days I mostly have bagels and burgers. Now that I’m an amateur Spanish-speaker, I probably should learn the cuisine of Spanish-speaking countries.” I was trying to convince myself that there was an educational reason for going to William’s house. But friends hang out, right? And his roommates would be there too.
“Alex, you really shouldn’t call yourself amateur. You may have been an inexperienced Spanish-speaker a month ago, but anyone who has been listening to our conversation this morning would beg to differ.”
Suddenly I realized we had been speaking in Spanish all morning. “I . . . I hadn’t even noticed.”
“And that’s how you know you’ve begun to master a language, when you don’t realize you’re speaking it.” William leaped over a few cracks in the sidewalk. “I was going to wait until next week, but I think you’re ready now. How’d you like to move from your current Spanish class to my 400-level one? I know that’s making a big jump, but I think I could convince the dean to give you the credit for the classes with just a few tests. Then you would be with other students with the same proficiency.”
“Are you serious?” I stopped running.
Willliam paused beside me. “Of course you’d probably have to study harder and maybe work with me a little more.” He smiled. Why did he have to smile? “But I’m sure by the end of the year you will sound like a native Spanish-speaker. You might even want to consider adding Spanish to your area of study and graduating with a double major.”
My legs were no longer moving, but my mind began to race at the possibility William had suggested. I bent over to stretch my hamstrings. I had been so busy with my operative training and other classes that I hadn’t noticed how easily Spanish was coming to me.
I straightened and faced him. “Tell you what, if you can beat me back, I will seriously consider it. I’ll even give you a head start!”
William turned and started sprinting. I knew it was about two miles back so I started slowly, gradually gaining on him. Blackstone Park was only a quarter mile away when we were neck and neck. I knew I could overtake him, but I didn’t. I stayed with him until the very end when he sprinted out ahead, crossing the “finish line” first at our meeting place and doing Toyota jumps at his triumph. His enthusiasm over the win made my day.
15
TheSpanishinquisition
I waited at a small dining-room table, shifting uncomfortably in my seat. As William’s roommates grilled me, I played with one of the wooden hoop earrings Casey had given me to wear. Where are you from? Did it rain all the time? What are you studying? What do you do in your free time? Do you play any sports? How did you and William meet? How many kids do you want?
I answered all of their questions politely, except for the last one, thankfully, because William finally entered the room. He was a little overdressed in his dark brown slacks and bright blue dress shirt, compared to his roommates. Devin wore sweats, and Dr. Red was in sea-green scrubs. William’s normally unruly, longish hair had been trimmed since I had seen him earlier that morning, though a few molasses-colored natural curls remained. I liked how the curls fell across his forehead, giving him a boyish charm. My blond and completely straight hair was the exact opposite, but Casey had forced me to wear a vintage red dress she had recently purchased and said was perfect for another “non-date.” I cringed as her teasing played through my mind.
“That took a little longer than I thought it would.” William placed a large, handmade clay plate in front of us, piled high with his homemade empanadas that looked like glorified pizza pockets. The aroma of sweet onion and tender meat made my stomach growl. My day had been so busy that I hadn’t eaten since breakfast, so I was famished. We each grabbed a few of William’s creations and I promptly took a bite.
“Wow! I thought you were exaggerating, but you really can cook. Mmm,” I said. I continued to eat carefully, resisting the urge to just shove an entire empanada into my mouth. His roommates had yet to come up for a breath. William and I smiled at each other while we ate.
“Are you really thinking about going for a double major?” he asked me. “I already talked to the department head, and he said you can test out of several classes. Even though I did beat you on that run” —William smiled— “I don’t want to pressure you into something you don’t want to do.”
“No, it’s a great idea. I definitely want to continue learning Spanish.” I had loved the past mo
nth of studying but wouldn’t let myself wonder which inspired me more—the language or my tutor.
“I’m even heading up a two-month study abroad during the summer session next year if you’re interested. It starts in June, and we’ll be living in Guadalajara, Mexico, studying culture and language.”
“I, um . . . I’ll have to think about it.” I wasn’t sure if I could do a study abroad while working for The Company. I had no idea how much of my life could remain normal. With all my training and schoolwork, this dinner with William and his roommates was the first time I had been out socially for over a month. I barely had time to hang out with Casey anymore.
Devin finally joined the conversation after downing his fifth empanada. “Seriously, Will, these babies are amazing. We should have you cook for us more often.”
Glad to have the subject changed, I piped in, “Dr. Red . . . Aaron . . . what should I call you?” His face suddenly matched the fresh red salsa in the bowl on the table, making me realize it wasn’t just his bright red hair that gave him his name.
He cleared his throat and wiped his face with a floral fabric napkin and placed it back in his lap. “Dr. Red is fine.”
“I’m doing some research into the medical field for a . . . an assignment, but I haven’t really been able see any actual doctors at work,” I explained. “Do you think I could pick your brain sometime?”
Dr. Red smiled. “I can do better than that. My dad’s on the board at Rhode Island Hospital, where I’ve been doing a neurology rotation. I’m sure he would let you shadow one of the doctors. Students do it all the time when they’re trying to decide on a specialty.”
“Really? That’d be great!” Daly had recently mentioned that I should visit the local hospital, and he’d been looking into getting me permission to observe a doctor.
While everyone cleared the table, Dr. Red and I decided where and when to meet at the hospital. William’s roommates insisted on doing the dishes, almost too willingly, pushing us out of the kitchen so he could give me a tour of the house.
“They built this in the late 1800s,” William told me as we entered the small living room adjacent to the kitchen. “It used to be a carriage house for one of the larger houses across the street. Most of the original interior was gutted in the 1960s, but some things, like this, are original.” He pointed to the carved wooden fireplace inlaid with red brick. Dishes clanged and laugher erupted in the next room. “Why don’t I show you the upstairs?”
William led the way up a narrow oak staircase that creaked despite the renovations. A short hallway with a low ceiling held three doors. The first led to a small bathroom featuring an ivory claw-foot tub. William introduced the first bedroom as Dr. Red’s, and I glanced through the doorway. We continued to the end of the hall, but before William announced the last room, I knew at once it was his. His bed was made with precision, making me wonder if his father had been in the military. The patchwork quilt atop the bed revealed a softer, homespun side to William that contrasted with his tucked-in shirts and newly pressed pants. As we entered the room, his mom, dad, and brother smiled at me through photos hung on the walls, the family resemblance obvious in the blue eyes and curly dark hair. Two old bookcases overflowed with books, mostly novels, though there were a few shelves devoted to Spanish textbooks and dictionaries.
“I didn’t realize you were such a reader.” I ran my fingers across the spines of a few of the books on the top shelf. Phantom of the Opera. The Scarlet Pimpernel. The Great Gatsby. Gone with the Wind. I was impressed to find so many classics, especially of the romance variety. I couldn’t help the grin that spread across my face.
William sighed. “I know, I know. I’m a hopeless romantic. My mom started reading me Pride and Prejudice when I was five.”
“Really?”
“Shakespeare came when I was eight. There was really no hope for me after that. Why do you think I like musicals so much? Most of them are just love stories written in song.” William cleared his throat and smiled.
I moved a few feet to stand near the only window in the bedroom. Apparently, William had chosen the smallest of the house’s rooms for the view. The gabled window opened to a starry sky, entrapping my gaze for a few moments before I realized he had moved right next to me.
I peeked at him and found him wearing that same sappy smile from the first day I bumped into him. It reminded me of one of the classics on his shelf, and I quoted from memory without thinking. “He smiled understandingly—much more than understandingly. It was one of those rare smiles with a quality of eternal reassurance in it, that you may come across four or five times in life. It faced— or seemed to face—the whole external world for an instant, and then concentrated on you with an irresistible prejudice in your favor. It understood you just as far as you wanted to be understood, believed in you as you would like to believe in yourself.”
“F. Scott Fitzgerald,” William spoke in almost a whisper. We were standing so close to one another that I could see jade flecks in his blue eyes. My body tingled.
“William,” I tried to speak, but it barely came out. “This isn’t . . . I can’t . . . We can’t . . .” My voice trailed off as his finger came to my lips, hushing my awkward rantings.
“Shh.” He traced my lips with his finger and brushed my hair on one side behind my ear, letting his fingers comb out my long strands. “Shh.”
I knew if I faced him any longer, I would succumb to my feelings and they would all burst at once. I tried to tell my body to turn away, but it wouldn’t move. My brain kept repeating what I had told myself a million times, that we were just friends.
William’s fingers let go of my hair and moved to rest on my back just above my waist. If I didn’t do something soon, it was going to be too late. I willed myself to turn back to the window, begging my feet to move away. As I finally turned, his hand brushed mine, and it took all I had within me not to take hold. A slow breath escaped his lips.
We stood facing out toward the night again, our hands so close that a sheet of paper couldn’t have come between us. Electricity filled me from the inside out, the room growing warmer as our heartbeats danced in rhythm. I needed to leave. I knew if I looked at him one more time, I would kiss him. I wanted to kiss him.
As if providence was in my favor, I heard footsteps coming up the stairs, giving me enough strength to inch away from the window.
“Hey, you guys. Who’s ready for some dessert? Devin and I just got out the ice cream and Will’s dulce de leche,” Dr. Red said from the doorway of William’s bedroom.
“Yum! Ice cream is my favorite dessert,” I said a little too excitedly, turning my attention to Dr. Red.
“Why do you think he chose it?” he replied.
My face turned the color of his hair. I headed for the door, peeking behind me to see William pull himself from the window on the opposite side of his bedroom and follow me out the door.
The dulce de leche William made was a thick, caramel-like sauce that he said was almost a staple while he lived in Argentina. We drowned our vanilla ice cream in it, giving all of us a sugar high so intense that by the time I left we thought Devin's knock knock jokes were funny and Dr. Red's imitation of a blow fish was mind-blowing.
16
Much Ado about Nothing
I drove myself to Rhode Island Hospital on Saturday to shadow a surgeon, Dr. Sally Andrews. Dr. Red’s dad had also pulled some strings and gotten permission for me to watch a few surgeries from the observation deck. It was the closest I had ever been to a real surgery.
The first half of the morning I joined a group of medical students who followed Dr. Andrews on her morning rounds. She was a short, petite women with dark hair pulled back in a bun and too much eye makeup, like she was trying to look younger than someone obviously in her fifties.
I felt out of place with the students and stayed at the back of the group, hoping not to get noticed or asked a question. I wore a pair of Dr. Red’s scrubs and a lab coat to blend in with the crowd, alth
ough I assumed Dr. Andrews knew I wasn’t one of her students. My studying in Daly’s office helped with my medical terminology and understanding, but I worried about being caught off guard with something I hadn’t read about, or being asked to do a simple procedure I’d only watched in a video.
The first patient lay in a hospital bed recovering from an appendectomy the previous day. His surgeon had gone out of town, so Dr. Andrews was checking on the patient. The surgery had been performed laparoscopically, leaving no need for stitches or staples, so there wasn’t much to look at.
Dr. Andrews had the medical students evaluate the next patient in the intensive care recovery room while he was still unconscious. “‘Patient number 245 is a fifty-nine-year-old male who suffered from memory loss but was not diagnosed until a seizure occurred.’” Dr. Andrews looked up from the patient’s chart. “Mr. Johnson, can you tell us how our patient might have been diagnosed?” With white gauze wrapped around the patient’s head, it was clear he had recently undergone surgery. I guessed it was some kind of brain tumor or head trauma, since it had been associated with memory loss and a seizure.
One of the medical students answered, “I would have done an MRI.”
“Correct, Mr. Johnson.” Dr. Andrews said. “Now, I want everyone to look at the MRI from before the surgery.” We all looked at the light box on the wall while she put up a brain scan. A white ring larger than a golf ball filled the left side of the brain.
“This glioblastoma multiforme was removed in part last night. Can anyone tell me what a glioblastoma is?”
A female student raised her hand tentatively.
“Yes, Ms. Fry?”
“It’s a brain tumor.” The girl’s nervous voice cracked.
Dr. Andrews rolled her eyes. “Yes, obviously it is a brain tumor. Can anyone else tell me more about this specific type of brain tumor?” She waited. “Come on, people. You’ve all studied this before.” There were fourteen blank stares around the room. I knew I shouldn’t speak, but Dr. Andrews looked like she was about to burst, and I really didn’t want her to lose it.