Love and Other Foreign Words (10 page)

Studying for finals, writing papers, and state finals for track and baseball keep Stefan and me busy through May. Neither of our teams places, but any team “going to State” is a good distraction from the general lethargy that affects everyone—even teachers—near the end of the school year.

We're all tired by the third week of May, walking with heavy-lidded eyes through slightly quieter halls.

The quiet is nice.

Stefan and I talk on the phone most nights. I've gone to his house a few times for dinner and to play video games, at which I'm horrible, which makes him smile uncontrollably as he trounces me in whatever we're playing. He hasn't been back to my house since prom, just for lack of time. Neither one of us has revisited the topic of potential love since other topics predominate our conversations.

I've run through almost all thirty-seven questions with him I wanted to ask Geoff.

Last one before I ask him his thoughts on the word
teepee
: “You come into possession of a magic potion that will cure all cancer in all people for all time
if
it is ingested by one person you love, but it will claim the life of that one person. Would you give it to someone you love or would you leave it untouched?”

“Cool question,” he says to me at my locker. “I have to think about it.”

He thinks about it overnight and meets me at my locker this morning. Classes at Cap ended two weeks ago, so, being an early riser, I come into the high school in the mornings to help my former Spanish teacher grade papers. Stu just sleeps in.

It's the last Friday of May, last Friday of the year, and the halls are quieter, even grimmer, than normal thanks to a steady rain that lacks the guts to produce thunder or lightning or anything more interesting than rain.

Emmy Newall tromps in, pulling a hundred wet pieces of hair off every part of her face.

“No umbrella?” Stefan asks her.

“Duh,” she says as she passes, which only makes Stefan laugh.

I wrap up my own umbrella and hang it in my locker.

“So, the magic potion that will cure cancer if I ask someone I love to drink it,” Stefan says. Then he smiles at me, more meaningfully—it's in his eyes—than I've ever seen him smile. I think I feel myself turn pink—or warm anyway—but I try to ignore it.

“I just couldn't do that to someone I love,” he says.

“You know what would be even more interesting?” I ask. “What if you gave it to someone you love, but that person doesn't die, because it turns out, you don't really love her?”

“Well, I'm pretty sure how I feel about one person, which is why you'll find no magic potions in your locker today.”

Then we steal a quick kiss before heading off to homeroom, and I wonder what it would feel like if I were sure of my feelings for him. I can't be certain I'd risk the potion on him. And I'd hate to be responsible for not curing cancer when I had the chance.

• • •

Stefan is utterly patient and thoroughly easy with me as I continue pondering my side of our relationship. He comes to my house for dinner this rainy night but first has to view my dad's collection of medical antiques, pronouncing the Civil War–era bullet forceps cool as he repeatedly opens and closes them.

The blue and brown glass bottles with brittle yellow labels catch his attention.
Schaffner's Celebrated Influenza Mixture, Dr. Bicknell's Blood Purifier, Duda's Fig Syrup for the cure of constipation, safe for infants and adults in all cases.

“Quackery,” my father says, smiling maniacally.

“That's a Josie word,” Stefan says.

“Stefan, can you guess what all these medicines had in common?” He shakes his head, and my dad says, “Heroin.”

“No way,” Stefan says, and my dad tells us briefly of the poisonous history of medicine, and afterward Stefan tells me that someday he's going to have a dog named Quackery.

“And a cat named Felonious,” he adds.

Later, when the house is quiet and dimly lit, and Stefan and I are alone in the family room, we kiss some and then some more, which feels soft and good at my lips but strange in my stomach and stranger in my head when I begin to consider the precise sensation in my stomach. It's neither pain nor nausea but some kind of discomfort.

I slide across the sofa finally, joking—a little—that I need some air.

I cite my early morning and long drive as reasons to end the evening and send him home. I took finals early and am leaving tomorrow for a month in Michigan, skipping next week's last four days of school. I really won't miss the chaos that the halls become—full of guys shouting
yes!
and
all right!
to each other, group hugs, and everyone's junk from their lockers spilling onto the floors.

Every summer since before I was born, my parents have rented one of several cottages for five weeks on Lake Michigan in a town called Holland, settled by the Dutch, including the terribly blond forebears of Uncle Ken and Auntie Pat. It was they who introduced my landlocked parents to the place.

Holland is home to Hope College, the terribly blond counterpart to Cap, where last summer I took Intro to Global Politics, and this summer I'm signed up to take Ecology of Our Changing Planet during a four-week session called June Term. It starts Monday, and I'm looking forward to it even though the class sounds dull as rain. I love the consistency of the whole trip—the reliability of it—and that a college course that fulfills a science credit fits seamlessly into our well-ordered lives, even far from home.

“I can't believe you're going to be gone over a month,” Stefan says at our open front door, and I tell him about Stu's eight-week course on an archaeological dig in Crow Canyon, Colorado.

“I'm glad you're not going with him,” Stefan says. “Five weeks away from you is going to be hard enough. I don't know if I could handle eight weeks. I'm really going to miss you.”

“I'm going to miss you too,” I say, and then add this before I fully consider the gravity of it: “I promise I'll think about us when I'm up there and tell you how I feel when I get back.”

“Good,” he says. “I think you already know how I feel.”

“Hmm,” I say through a smile, knowing very well that he will mistranslate it as
yes
when, in Josie, it means
I really do not want to say what I'm thinking just yet
.
I need more time to figure this out
.

• • •

I don't have my temporary driver's license yet. I've just been lazy about getting it when I can walk almost everywhere I need to go or ride with Stu or other friends. Without the distraction of driving, I am left with my own thoughts, which even Dennis DeYoung's perfect voice flowing through my earbuds cannot completely impede. I promised Stefan I'd think about him. On the six-hour ride to Holland, alone in the backseat of the car, I find I can do almost nothing but think of him, yet I come to no conclusions—except that my dad's bald spot is increasing in diameter.

I continue thinking about Stefan and sweet kisses and sick stomachs all the way inside the cottage, where, I'm relieved to say, nothing has changed since last summer. It's a four-bedroom white house with highly polished poplar walls and floors, overstuffed blue-and-white furniture, and a large porch from which thirty-two steps descend to the beach below. I have never been able to navigate them without getting splinters. And flip-flops make me trip.

I contemplate my feelings for Stefan for two days, interrupted only by Ecology of Our Changing Planet, which I drop at the break on the first day. I have to. The professor's upper lip sweats droplets, and he says
buh-cuz
instead of
because
,
and by break, it is the only word I hear, which is soon to drive me insane.

At the registrar's office, I switch to Exercise Physiology, which fulfills a health sciences credit at Cap and which entertains my father when I tell him about it tonight at supper.

“Perhaps you can ask your professor about the dynamics of coordination,” he says. “You could submit yourself as the subject for a class project.”

“I'm not
that
klutzy,” I protest, and fume under a toe-scented cloud two nights later when I miss the last step before the beach and end up sprawled on my stomach in the sand.

“Nicely done, my dear,” Dad says, stepping over me.

“It's my flip-flops' fault.”

Dennis DeYoung would have helped me up. Stefan probably would have too.

• • •

Text from Stefan, 9:45 a.m.

just heard come sail away in the car—thought of U

Text from Stefan, 9:53 a.m.

putting come sail away on my playlist—kinda a long song tho

Text from Stefan, 10:17 a.m.

Miss U—R my texts getting thru up there

I am in Exercise Physiology. It is Wednesday, day three of class. I wait until break to text Stefan back, to explain that professors are no different from high school teachers. Phones must stay off during class.

Tonight I establish a signature nightly closing:

Text to Stefan, 10:32 p.m.

Thinking of you. Good night.

Text from Stefan, 10:33 p.m.

U2 g-nite

Next night:

Text to Stefan, 10:32 p.m.

Thinking of you. Good night.

Text from Stefan, 10:33 p.m.

U2 g-nite

Next night:

Text to Stefan, 10:32 p.m.

Thinking of you. Good night.

Text from Stefan, 10:33 p.m.

U2 g-nite

Next night:

Text to Stefan, 10:32 p.m.

Thinking of you. Good night.

Text from Stu, 10:33 p.m.

U R? Y?

“Oh, geez,” I say, squinting at my phone.

Text to Stu, 10:34 p.m.

I hit the wrong button. Meant 2 send 2 Stefan.

Text from Stu, 10:35 p.m.

Josie & Stefan sittin' in a tree . . .

Text to Stu, 10:36 p.m.

Josie sittin' alone on the beach, trying 2 figure things out.

Text from Stu, 10:36 p.m.

UR alone on the beach? It's past 10:30.

Text to Stu, 10:37 p.m.

No, I'm in bed.

Text from Stu, 10:37

Then Y did U say U were on the beach?

Text to Stu, 10:38 p.m.

Well Y did U say I was in a tree????

Text from Stu, 10:38 p.m.

UR the 1 who went up there with Stefan.

Text to Stu, 10:39 p.m.

Good night, Stu.

Text from Stu, 10:39 p.m.

Good night, Josie.

Tree or beach. There must be a way to figure this out.

I went to the beach to love deliberately.

This is only partially true, of course. But according to a high percentage of novels I've read, it appears that falling in love at the beach is both easier and more satisfying than falling in love in a grocery store or mall. So far, I am not finding it to be easy. In fact, each time I think about saying the words
I love you
to Stefan, every feeling in me reacts as if I'm lying. I
want
to say it, but I can't. I just can't.

I watch Ross and Maggie here for a long weekend, quiet and easy in each other's presence. He glances up from a book now and then. She tries not to smile but cannot help herself. I watch my parents walk on the beach, laughing, bumping elbows, tipping their heads now and then toward the sky. I do not have with Stefan what Ross and Maggie or what my parents have with each other—a deep and private connection that is a language all its own. I can speak Stefan, and I like speaking Stefan, but it does not come naturally to me. Any more than Josie does to him. Without that, I don't think I can say I love him.

Kate and Geoff do
not
speak the same language. Not that I can perceive. She and he are here this week, allowing me five whole afternoons and evenings of observation, which I conduct from a distance. He reads endlessly and is forever saying to her things such as, “You might find this interesting,” or “I think you'll like how the author puts this.” Then he reads out loud to her, as if she's five, and if she's lucky, she can help turn the pages.

When she isn't discussing work or wedding plans with him, she's running wildly into the water, shrieking and laughing along the way, more amusing than including Geoff, who accompanies her but does not match her enthusiasm.

Out of the water, they look like two people in a towel-drying contest. Kate wins, and I giggle from the porch when Geoff cringes and contorts his body as Kate applies sunscreen. When it is his turn to apply the stuff to her, he takes his time, by which I mean he takes forever, touches Kate as if she's made of glass, which she nearly is, so that much I understand, and then inspects and pronounces his work well done. And he starts reading to her again while she stares over the water.

“Is it possible,” I ask my dad, who is sitting next to me on the porch, reading yesterday's edition of the
Holland Sentinel,
“that Geoff is like Rasputin and has hypnotized Kate into believing she's in love with him?”

“No,” he says without looking up.

“I'm going to find an explanation for her attraction to him, you know.”

“I expect nothing less.”

• • •

Five weeks pass much too quickly, and soon we are home again in pretty if lake-less Bexley. I am lying this July Fourth afternoon on Stu's bed, staring at the ceiling and seeing nothing but its vast blankness.

“There has to be a better way—or a gentler way—of saying I don't see myself falling in love with you,” I say, and Sophie sighs for about the eighth time. I've lost count.

“You can't say that. Just say, ‘I'm not in love with you.' It's better. Trust me.”

“But that's not what Stefan asked me. He asked if I thought I
could
someday, and I don't think that's going to happen.” I prop myself up on my elbows. “No offense, but I need Stu's advice on this.”

“Mine is better,” Sophie says. “I'm always the dumper. He is often the dumpee.”

“I just want his perspective too.”

“Well,” she says, sitting up and putting her shoes back on, “you can call him—”

“Weak signal.”

“—or text him—”

“He won't get it until tonight.”

“—or wait a month until he's home.”

“I don't have a month. I don't have two hours.”

Sophie turns to me. She's smiling, but it's a little sad. “Just tell Stefan that even though you're not in love with him, you really like him and you still want to be friends.”

“You aren't friends with a single one of your exes.”

“I know,” she laughs. “It never works, but it's a good line.” She stands up. “Josie, just do it, get it over with, and then come over because I'll be here waiting for you.”

She leaves. I flop back down on Stu's bed and pull my phone from my pocket.

Text to Stu, 3:47 p.m.

U R no help to me at all at the moment, and there's a crack in ur ceiling. I'll tell Uncle Ken to get it fixed. Ur welcome.

• • •

There was a parade this morning. I skipped it. Mother, Dad, and I returned home two days ago, too tired and with too much settling in to attend downtown's fireworks yesterday or Bexley's tonight. This is the excuse I initially use when Stefan invites me to both, but since I know I cannot delay a necessary conversation, I walk to his house after my brief and fruitless consultation with Sophie.

After an awkward hug hello—I am so glad his little sister was in the room—we sit on the steps of his front porch, and he teases me some about having no tan. I lecture him about skin cancer, and I describe and mime my twice-daily application of broad-spectrum sunscreen.

“I really missed you,” he says. “Did you think of me and what we talked about?” he asks.

“Day and night,” I said.

“And?” he asks, coming close for a real kiss, which I thwart by leaning back and placing my hand against his chest, a move that needs no translation in any language.

“I like you a lot, Stefan.”

“Like?” he asks. “Not love.”

“No,” I admit, and follow that with a long, sad sigh. “I'm sorry. I don't think what I feel for you is love or will ever turn into it. But that doesn't change how much I like you. It doesn't diminish that.”

“It's not the same.”

“It
is
the same,” I say. “I don't like you any less. I'm not saying I don't want to be with you.”

“I don't really see how I can keep being with you. And before you explain how I can,” he says, flashing me a quick, sad grin, “let me ask you. Would you want to be with someone who just told you they could never love you?”

“But that's not
all
I'm saying. I'm saying I like you. A lot.” And as the expression on Stefan's face turns from sadness to pain, I launch right into a list of all his wonderful qualities in a slightly more directed version of the Homecoming File Dump.

“. . . and the stuff you write on Facebook is really fun and funny, and you've got this great smile that I wish I were seeing right now and hate that I'm the cause of its sudden disappearance, and—” The list continues and contains dancing, kindness, and athletic ability. “—and you're a good friend. A really good friend. And to me, closer than a friend. And I think that's valuable, and I don't want to lose that. I don't want to lose someone closer than a friend. I don't want to lose you.”

“But I think,” he says, tearing up a little, and I do the same, “you already did.” He clears his throat. Stands. “I gotta go.”

He walks in his house and shuts the door behind him. And I walk home in hot, humid misery, sniffling over the phone to Sophie on the way. She pulls me into her arms at the back door, and I sob on her shoulder. By the time I step back, she is crying too, and before I can ask why, she says, “I just hurt that you hurt so much.”

• • •

I sit in one of the chaises on our patio, holding my legs folded up against my chest, my head on my knees. Only the lamps from the family room cast any kind of light onto me. In a few minutes, over the tops of trees to the southeast, I should be able to see some of Bexley's fireworks and hear the muffled thuds of the loudest mortars.

Kate slides the door open, steps outside, and sits on the end of my chaise.

“You okay?”

“I'm fine,” I say, wiping my eyes with the back of one hand. “I'm sad but fine.”

“I'm sorry you're sad.”

She waits for the details, which are not long in coming.

“And he deleted me from Facebook,” I say at the end of my rendition, dropping my face into the crook of my arm for a big sob.

“Josie,” Kate says, squeezing my knee gently. “It'll be okay.”

“I know,” I say into my arm. “Everything just hurts at the moment.”

“What hurts worst?” Kate asks.

“I don't know.”

“I do,” Geoff says, startling me into looking up and discovering his silent materialization next to Kate. And it's his hand on my knee, not hers! Slowly, I slide back in the chaise.

“It's hard to lose a friend,” he says, and—
erm
—I have to concede, which I do with a nod. “Especially when you don't have that many.”

“Excuse me?” I nearly shout.

“Geoff,” Kate laughs nervously.

“No, I just meant—”

“I have friends,” I say, wiping my face with both hands.

“No, I know. I just meant—”

“Nice,” I say as I stand. “Really nice.”

On my way to my room, I broadcast Geoff's remark via text, and my phone chirps in supportive response almost immediately. Then I post it on Facebook and find, in the morning, that over three-fourths of my class, teammates, church, Cap associations, and distant relatives who comprise my Friends List think he is an idiot. My page has become a Love List with hearts,
X
's and
O
's, and reassurances that Geoff is, once again, wrong.

“See? I have friends,” I say to my photo of Dennis DeYoung.

But even in my quiet triumph, there at my desk, my heart aches and my stomach sinks over the one response I wish were here—the one from Stefan, who I still like as much as I ever did, even if I can't say I love him.