“You can do it.”
I shook my head and pushed the book away from me. “No I can’t, Nate.
Q-u
makes a
kah
sound, and
e
makes an
ay
sound? I can’t do this. Do you have any idea how long it took me to learn how to sound things out in English? Spanish letters might look the same, but they aren’t the same. I cannot read this.”
Nate got up from the table. “Hold on a second. I have an idea.” He headed into the kitchen and started rummaging around in the cupboards. I sat there in the Larsons’ dining room staring at a page of words written in Spanish and wishing colleges didn’t require things like passing foreign language class.
Nate returned a minute later carrying a large cookie sheet. The sheet was covered in uncooked long-grain brown rice. He set the tray down in front of me. “Should we start with
a?
”
He lifted my hand and dragged my index finger across the rice, drawing a capital
A.
“
A, ah, ah, arroz.
”
Arroz
— Spanish for “rice,” a fitting beginning. Nate let go of my hand. I wiped the tray smooth and drew a second capital
A.
“
A, ah, ah, arroz.
” He nodded, and I wiped the tray clean again. I wrote the letter
a
in the rice while saying its Spanish sound for the next ten minutes.
“You ready to move onto
b?
”
Nate was being really helpful, but I was pissed at myself. Spending ten minutes per letter for the twenty-nine letters in the Spanish alphabet would take 290 minutes. Four hours and fifty minutes. At that rate, I’d be able to say the complete alphabet by bedtime.
Except, I wasn’t ready to move onto
b.
I wasn’t even close. How many hours would I have to write the letter
a
before I knew it made an
ah
sound not an
ay
sound? And was that even true? What about the
ă
sound, like in
apple?
Did it ever appear in Spanish? And if it did, how was it spelled?
I slammed my hand down in frustration. It hit the lip of the cookie sheet, tilting it like a lever and sending hundreds of tiny grains of
arroz
flying across the room.
I laughed hysterically. Seeing the Larsons’ ornate dining room blanketed in rice was suddenly the funniest thing in the world. I laughed until tears began to run down my face. I coughed and gasped for air, and then I realized that I wasn’t laughing anymore. I was sobbing.
Sometime during my hysterics, Mr. Larson got home from work. He said something to Nate. I wasn’t really paying attention. Nate must have left to get a vacuum. The sound of the machine sucking my mess away pulled me back to reality. Mr. Larson touched my elbow before he helped me to my feet and led me into the living room.
Throwing a tantrum in front of Nate was one thing — but his dad…
Oh no.
I focused on my breathing and made myself calm down. I probably should have offered to clean up my mess. I opened my mouth, prepared to apologize before heading back to help Nate.
Mr. Larson cut me off. “What’s bothering you, Samantha?”
He wasn’t mad at all. He sounded like he wanted a real answer, not just an apology.
Is he psychoanalyzing me?
Maybe I needed it. I had just thrown a tantrum in my boyfriend’s dining room.
“I can’t read Spanish,” I said. “Nate’s trying to help me. He’s being really nice about it, but it sucks, ’cause he expects me to figure it out, and I know I never will. I can’t do it.”
“So what?”
“Huh?”
“Why does it matter if you can read Spanish?”
“Because…” I didn’t know why. “Because foreign language is required to get into college, and I don’t want to work at McDonald’s when I grow up.”
“Well, at least you’re honest.” Mr. Larson laughed. “You’ve been hanging out here quite a bit lately, and when you aren’t around, you’re all Nate ever wants to talk about. So I feel like I know you pretty well. And from what I’ve seen of you, I’d be willing to bet you’d make a horrible fast-food employee.”
“Thanks, I guess.” I wiped my nose on the end of my sleeve.
“Samantha, have you ever heard the expression
think outside the box
?”
“Yeah.”
Everyone’s heard that,
I thought.
“Every advancement in human history, every scientific discovery, every artistic masterpiece, every new idea has come from an individual looking at the world in a new way. Thinking outside the box. So tell me, Samantha, why are you trying so hard to put yourself inside the box?”
Why am I trying to put myself inside the box?
“I’m never going to learn how to read Spanish, am I?”
“Why do you want to?”
I shrugged. “It’s hard. I just wish I was like everyone else. I can speak Spanish pretty well now, better than most of the kids in my class. Better than Nate, even. But the letters all make different sounds than in English. I can’t read it.” I hesitated. “And I’m afraid if I force myself to learn the sounds all the Spanish letters make, I’ll forget the English sounds.”
“Studying foreign language is a good thing. And I expect your ability to speak Spanish will be a very useful skill in your future. The world is rapidly shrinking, and by the time you’re my age, you will likely be conversing with people from different countries who speak different languages on a regular basis. But I doubt your failure to learn how to read any of these other languages will hurt you too much. There will always be people like Nate, who can look at a page of letters and absorb their meaning like a sponge. Not everyone needs to be a linguist. The future needs mathematicians, scientists, and engineers too.”
“But if I can’t get into college, I can’t become any of those things.”
“Samantha, have you ever looked at your transcript? Two years from now, the country’s major research universities are all going to be fighting over you. And like you said before, you can speak Spanish better than most of the kids in your class.” He handed me a box of Kleenex. I was definitely being psychoanalyzed. “If your inability to read it hurts your grades too much, maybe you can
talk
Señor Gonzales into giving you some extra credit.”
I noticed Nate standing in the doorway to the dining room. I wondered how long he’d been listening to my conversation with his dad. “Do you really think I can do it? Have a new thought that changes the way people see the world?”
“You’re having new thoughts every minute of every day. I don’t know if any of them will make it into tomorrow’s history books, but I do know that having you inside my home has already changed the way I see the world. I’m sure your mind will touch and inspire many other people in the future, even if you can’t read in Spanish.”
“Thanks.”
“You’re welcome, Samantha.” Mr. Larson glanced over his shoulder. With a nod toward his son, he headed to the kitchen to start making dinner. Hopefully, we wouldn’t be eating rice.
Nate came in and sat next to me. “You okay?”
“Yeah, sorry you had to clean up my mess.”
“It’s okay. Sometimes when I get frustrated about stuff, I throw things too.”
I rested my head on Nate’s shoulder. “I know you want me to learn how to do things for myself, but we’re fighting a losing battle. Can you just read my homework to me? You don’t have to tell me the answers — only how to spell them — so it won’t really be cheating.”
Nate nodded. “I owe you that much.”
“Owe me? What are you talking about?”
“College isn’t your real motivator, is it? I can read in five languages, and I keep half expecting you to have some kind of eureka moment and figure everything out. I push you too hard. Your outbreak today wasn’t because you were frustrated with your Spanish homework. You were frustrated with your stupid boyfriend.”
“It’s not just you. It’s everything.”
“But my dad’s right, you know. The things you think about while you’re busy not reading in Spanish, they’re amazing. And I know if you were just like everyone else, I wouldn’t care about you half as much as I do.”
I nodded. “So you’re going to read me my Spanish homework now?”
“I’ll go get your book.”
Eli slid into the seat next to me during English on Friday. “I owe you so big. I got an eighty-six.”
“Nice work. I knew you could do it.”
“You’re coming to the game, right?”
“I don’t know.”
“Come on, Sam. You have to come. You cheering for me is the only reason I passed this test. And you hollering in the stands is fully required for us to beat Franklin tonight.”
Eli was so different than Nate, it was like they were two entirely different species. Sometimes, Eli was a lot easier to be around — even if we were only friends. “Okay, I’ll check my schedule.”
C
onvincing Nate to go with me to Eli’s game was easier than I’d thought it would be. “You really want to go?”
“I know you need to make friends other than me, and I’m really trying to not be jealous about the obvious connection you have with Eli. I should try harder to make other friends too. If you want to go, we’ll go.”
When we climbed up the wooden bleachers, Kaitlyn waved us over. “Hey, girlfriend,” Kaitlyn cooed as Nate and I sat down on the bleachers directly behind her and two other heavily made-up blonds. “This is Jessica, and that’s Sophie.”
“Hi.”
Jessica looked at me the same way Graham had the first time I approached his lunch table. She studied my straight brown hair, my new jeans and T-shirt, the lack of makeup on my face, the nerdy senior on my arm. I didn’t know if I met her standards for friendship or not. I didn’t even know if I cared.
“Samantha’s new here. We’re in Donavan’s English class together. She mainly hangs out with Eli in class, but I’m trying to convince her that I’m friend-worthy too.”
Sophie’s eyes widened. “You’re friends with Eli? I can never think straight around him. He’s so cute.”
“Sophie’s a bit obsessed.” Jessica smirked.
“Well, Sophie, you know you have Sam here to thank for Eli’s drool-worthy bod out on the floor tonight. You guys heard about how Eli’s math teacher almost didn’t let him play, right? Fortunately, Sam came to the rescue just in time.”
“What did you do, let him cheat off you or something?” Jessica tried not to look impressed.
“No, I tutored him after school.”
“OMG, I wish I was smarter so I could tutor cute jocks after school. How do you even get a gig like that?” Sophie looked even more jealous than Nate.
“Forget about the tutoring thing. You should just talk to him. Seriously, he’s one of the coolest people I’ve met since moving here. He isn’t going to bite your head off or anything.”
“If you and Eli are supposedly best friends, why are you here with him?” Jessica glared at Nate.
I rested my hand on Nate’s thigh. “Because Nate is my boyfriend, and Eli is my guy friend. There is a difference.”
Sophie seemed to notice Nate for the first time. “Wait, I know you. Aren’t you a senior?”
“Yep.”
“Wow, you just moved here and you’re already tutoring Eli
and
dating a senior? Are you blessed or what?”
Nate and I both laughed as he put his arm around me. “I’ve been here for a month and a half. I’m not that new.”
The game started, and we all turned our attention toward the court. I’d never really followed basketball. The only rule I knew was that you get two points every time the ball goes in the basket. But at halftime, the score was forty-three to thirty-eight. I was glad we were winning, but I didn’t know exactly how our score ended in a three.
“The ditzy girls like you,” Nate whispered in my ear.
“I know. It totally blows my mind.”
“You’re drop-dead gorgeous, super smart, and nice to everyone. What’s not to like?”
“Um, aren’t the popular kids supposed to be plastic looking, dumb as sticks, and mean to everyone?”
Nate’s shoulders shook with laughter. “Shh, don’t let them hear. They might remember you’re supposed to be a loser.”
Kaitlyn, Jessica, and Sophie were all way too focused on the game to hear. When the game ended, Sophie turned back to me and Nate. “So you guys are coming to Brice’s party right?”
“Um, I don’t know who Brice is.”
“He’s the crazy tall guy that just mopped the floor with Franklin,” Kaitlyn said. “Number seventeen.”
“Oh, he was good.”
“Yeah, and his parents are out of town this weekend, so everyone who’s anyone is going to a party at his house tonight right after the game. Which is right now. So you’re coming, right?”
I looked at Nate. Convincing him to go to a basketball game was one thing. But an unsupervised party? “He lives off Patton, right?” Nate asked.
“Yeah, the big white house on the corner.” Jessica nodded.
Nate squeezed my hand. I squeezed back. “Yeah,” he said, “we’ll probably drop by.”
“Cool, we’ll see you there.” Sophie smiled at us before following Kaitlyn and Jessica down the bleachers.
All the parties Gabby, Arden, and I used to attend involved silly birthday hats and doting parents stationed in the next room. Brice was a jock I’d never even met, and his parents were out of town. I knew those types of parties existed — I just never thought anyone would invite me to one. I was excited about the prospect of doing something
normal.
“So how do you know this Brice character?” I asked Nate after we got into his car.
“He lives a half a mile away from me. And he’s a senior. We were friends in, like, second grade, back when parents dictate who your friends are.” Nate’s words came out clipped, giving me the sense Nate and Brice had been far less than friends for several years.
“We don’t have to go to the party if you don’t want to.”
“As much as it baffles my mind, I’m trying to come to grips with the idea that I not only have a girlfriend, but that she’s also popular.”
“I’m pretty sure Sophie just wants me to play wing-girl for her with Eli at the party tonight.”
“I know, and that’s why we’re going. If Eli starts dating Sophie, I’ll be way less neurotic about you continuing to tutor him.”