“Well, Spanish was the first language I heard at home.” She shrugs one shoulder. “Mama thinks it’s a travesty for Hispanic people not to speak it. I grew up bilingual and realized I had a knack for picking up languages pretty easily.”
“You seem to have quite a few ‘knacks.’ Is there anything you don’t do well?”
A wry smile tips her mouth. “Jokes.”
“Jokes?”
“Yeah, I’m really bad at them.”
“Convince me,” I say, using Professor Albright’s signature phrase.
“What?” Eyes wide, she finally looks up from her doodling.
“Tell me one of these bad jokes.”
“Oh, gosh.” Faint color washes under her skin. “Okay.”
She traps her bottom lip and closes one eye, concentrating before clearing her expression and looking back to me and speaking.
“Knock, knock.”
“Seriously?”
“Knock,” she says firmly. “Knock.”
I sigh and bite into a smile.
“Who’s there?”
“Europe.”
“Uh . . . Europe who?”
“No, I’m not.”
I stare at her blankly in the waiting silence following her “joke.”
“Are you done?” I ask incredulously. “That was it?”