I actually felt cute tonight. Those pants actually felt comfortable, and my thighs were not screaming against the seams as they were when I first wore them. Maybe those spin classes—that I could never finish—were working after all.
“Look at you, girl!” Whitney said, looking me up and down as I stood in the doorway of her Hyde Park house. “You losing weight?”
“You think so?”
“Yes, I can definitely see the diff,” Whitney said.
Well, if Whitney’s critical eye could see the diff, then there must be a diff. My mood soared.
I looked at myself in Whitney’s mirror in her gigantic but spare living room. Yes, I did look a little bit smaller than, than, than, what? Than I’d felt since I don’t know when.
“When you gonna get rid of that perm and go natural?” she asked, pulling at one of my shoulder-length locks.
“Girl, my mother would kill me!”
“You’re a grown woman, Amelia. Besides, isn’t her hair natural now?”
“Yeah, but she said that look wouldn’t work on me because I don’t have fine features like her. You know, I took my daddy’s nose and some of his color….” I was mocking Whitney, but those were Grace Wilson’s words to me, verbatim.
“See, that’s why I’m glad I don’t have a family. I don’t need anybody talking to me like that.”
I shrugged. “Let’s go.”
I played Amel Larrieux in the CD player and Whitney snorted. “Why do you listen to that neo-soul crap? Why don’t you just go all the way and listen to jazz?”
“It’s the same thing; besides, I like to hear people singing.”
“Amelia, it’s not the same thing. And Billie Holiday can sing better than any of those chicks out there today.”
“Thanks, Whitney. If it weren’t for you I’d probably never have known that.”
She rolled her eyes at me as we pulled into the dinky parking lot. The Milky Way was just a neighborhood hangout for the most part, nothing fancy. There was a pool table, billiards, a few other game kiosks off to the side, but on Saturdays those were mostly abandoned for the dance floor. I hadn’t danced in a long time and I was feeling the urge.
Before we had even put away our coats, a tall, green-eyed guy with dark hair approached us. He looked Mediterranean. Well, Whitney did tend to date the rainbow. She gave him her killer smile. Here we go, I thought. If only he knew what he was in for, he’d run in the other direction. Of course, that was my envy talking.
I ordered a Diet Coke from the bartender, who I could have sworn gave me a dirty look. Sheesh. Sorry I won’t be adding to your bottom line tonight, dude! I had gotten through half the tiny plastic cup of watered-down liquid when I felt a tap on my shoulder. He was a bit short—and old. He was also very Latin-looking, which meant that he would probably know what he was doing on the dance floor and I wouldn’t.
Did I want to dance?
Okay. Proceed at your own risk.
The music was fast and it took me a few seconds to get on the beat. But this guy was good. He was leading and quite well at that. I just let go, and it felt so good. The room was getting hotter, but I was having so much fun. We laughed when one song ended and another came on and we didn’t want to stop. About an hour later, Whitney tapped me on the shoulder.
“I’m leaving,” she mouthed over the loud music.
NO! my mind screamed. Don’t leave with this guy. But he was standing there looking at me quite impatiently. He knew he was getting laid tonight and I’m sure he didn’t want to delay the action.
I asked my dance partner to excuse me and I grabbed Whitney’s arm.
“Are you sure?” I yelled into her ears.
“Yeah, chill!” she yelled back. “I think I know him. He’s a doc student at MIT. From Tunisia.”
As if that made everything okay. Oh, Whitney!!!
But all I could do was wave as she walked her crazy self away with her Tunisian, who happened to look like a Greek god. I didn’t much feel like dancing anymore, but my dance partner was waiting for me as soon as I turned my attention back to the dance floor. I just couldn’t. Besides it was almost one A.M. I said good-bye to dancing guy without even asking his name and hightailed it out of there. I just hoped Whitney would be okay.
I tried to be quiet as I entered the house, though I knew that James and Kelly would probably be up. I turned on the computer again. Amid all the fun I’d been having I couldn’t get the picture out of my head, and there it sat on my dresser. I’d left it on a MAC compact as I’d put on my makeup. No doubt he was a good-looking brother. While I’d danced with that nameless guy at Milky Way, I’d thought of some things to say. I remembered one thing that someone had sent me in an e-mail and I searched for it. Yes, it was about algorithms. Okay, that was a start. After four or five tries, I sent him this.
Hi Drew. Greetings from 38 00N and 97 00W, at least the part where the temperature’s only slightly above freezing. It was nice to read your e-mail. I’d love to know more about you—and to tell you more about me. As you may already know, I teach English literature to unwilling students, but I mostly love what I do. I’m terrible at math, but I do know that the word “algorithm” comes from the name of a ninth-century Persian mathematician named Abu Abdullah Muhammad bin Musa al-Khwarizmi. Are you impressed now? Just kidding. Hope to hear from you soon. What made you decide to leave the US and go back home to Dominica? Sounds like you could have stayed if you had wanted to.
I pondered over this for a few moments. Did I sound pretentious? As if I were trying to sound smart? Or did I just sound corny? But this had been the last of four or five tries. This was the thing I hated about trying to make an impression via e-mail. I didn’t want to sound sappy, too interested, eager, or any of those god-awful things. I just wanted to sound like a teacher who was glad to know someone from another part of the world. That’s all. So this should do? I wasn’t too sure but I hit send anyway and bit my nonexistent nails; that was another New Year’s resolution in its embryonic stage.
Chapter 6
I begged off when James and Kelly asked me to go skiing up at Wachusett Mountain. For one thing, I had work to do. For another thing, I didn’t know how to ski and I didn’t want to learn. It was bad enough that I had to endure this cold weather, why would I want to go play in it? Besides, Sunday was my day to mentally prepare for the week ahead. I decided that I’d be kind and not spring a quiz on my ninth graders. Let them have their fun. But they would have to write me a paper on the Joads at some point before their little behinds graduated.
I made coffee and tried to read the Sunday Globe at the kitchen table, but I couldn’t concentrate. I wondered about the e-mail I’d sent to Drew. I’d woken up at four A.M., panicked and convinced that I’d called him Ramses instead of Drew. Luckily, I’d cc’d myself a copy. Now, I wanted to log on to see if he’d answered. But it was only nine-thirty on Sunday. He was probably hungover from the night before. Those Caribbean people liked to party. Or did they? There were a couple of Caribbean teachers at my school and they seemed a bit too serious and uptight, except for one who was just a little too out there. But maybe they all had a wild side. What was wrong with me? Why was I generalizing about a whole group of people just because I was stressed about