that we can both make more quote mugs.
I think about Alice’s face even when I don’t see Zeke, when I find Stephie crying in the bathroom Sunday morning, whispering to a faraway friend on the phone. Something about a guy putting the kibosh . . .
I read more French, decode more foreign words, play with them in my head as I take a long walk around the lake on Sunday. Alone.
And try not to think about Zeke. Zeke, who hasn’t called to set up a French session.
Sentir. Mentir. Stephie crying in the bathroom. Zeke is my French partner, that’s all.
No need to be disappointed when he texts Sunday afternoon to say that he can’t meet Sunday night to study.
No need to be excited when he calls an hour later asking if I would practice for our vocabulary test over the phone with him as he drives back from Boston, his voice tired and craggy. No need to feel anything at all when I fall asleep Sunday night, papers strewn around me on the bed, his voice quietly conjugating verbs in my ear.
EIGHT
WHEN ZEKE SHOWS UP IN a Red Sox T-shirt the next morning, I give him the evil eye. There was something unbearably nice last night about talking to Zeke without having to see his endless supply of baseball tees. I could almost forget the distance between who he is and who I am.
“Is something wrong with your eye?” Zeke frowns, and I can’t tell whether it’s a joke or not. I mean, I know I’m no expert at the evil eye, but he should be able to tell that I’m angry, at least.
I try squinting harder, but it only makes his eyes widen. “Abby?”
“Your shirt,” I finally say.
He looks down as though he couldn’t remember what he’d put on this morning.
“You have a problem with the Red Sox too? I mean, yes, they did used to be cursed but they’ve moved past it, unlike the Cubs.”
I don’t care about baseball, I remind myself, as my insides turn to molten fire at the mention of the curse. I shouldn’t care if he says mean things about the Cubs. I think mean things about the Cubs all the time. Daily, in fact. Even more than daily.
And this ongoing monologue of seething rage and reminding myself how much I don’t care causes me to miss Marianne’s entrance into the classroom.
“Mesdames et Messieurs, bienvenue. Alors, on va commencer.” And class starts with a bang as we plow through our vocabulary test. And while I don’t remember how I know to spell the words I need to spell, apparently I learned by osmosis because when we send our papers up to the front, I’m quite sure I aced the test. But there’s no time to high-five myself because Marianne is handing out copies of this morning’s La Presse Internationale and suddenly we’re in the midst of a debate about school funding and subsidies (subventions). And despite the fact that none of us, with the possible exception of Zeke, is fluent, the discussion moves faster than I can keep up with, and I spend most of the first hour of class hastily scribbling down words I don’t understand.
But what’s more surprising than the fact that I love this back and forth without fully understanding it, and that I’m able to even interject every so often, is that Zeke, with his left hand, is writing down translations of almost all the French words I’m listing. All while making comments that are mostly on point.
Mostly. Because he also directs us into a whole discussion about school uniforms and skirt lengths.
“So explain to me your problem with my shirt? En français, bien sûr,” Zeke asks as we settle ourselves on a stone bench under a canopy of trees. I’ve already explained, in halting French, how I don’t enjoy sitting in the sun, how I burn like a tomato, and how when I get dehydrated, I tend to talk too much. Which prompted a forced march by Zeke to the nearest water fountain to fill up our water bottles because it’s hot as hell outside and apparently I’ve been talking nonstop for the past ten minutes. Including a tirade about how much I despise disposable water bottles.
But I hate that he’s brought us back to his T-shirt, especially as we’re supposed to be working together to mount an argument defending our fictional political party’s position on an ideal vision for public education. I think about asking why he was