Love and Other Foreign Words by Erin McCahan Read Free Book Online Page A

near the high school and walk.
    â€œBut she’ll come to her senses soon and call it off,” I add. “Also, I’m not exactly sure what he looks like, but I’m pretty sure he’s not gorgeous.”
    â€œYou don’t know what he looks like?”
    â€œWell, I can’t trust my memory of him at the moment. I remember his words, and I really disliked every single one of them, so now when I try to remember him, I’m remembering that I don’t like him, and that’s corrupting my mental image of him. So I need to try to remember him separate from my feelings, which is no easy task.”
    â€œSo he could be an okay-looking guy?”
    â€œNo. I just have to remember the degree of his hideousness distinct from his degree of boringness.”
    â€œLet me know when you do.”
    â€œAnd he did this,” I say, making air quotes. “In reference to me.”
    Stu smiles some.
    â€œAnd he snapped his fingers at me too,” I say. “Then he disparaged IQ testing right before he asked me what mine is. He was completely rude.”
    â€œNot necessarily,” Stu says. We are nearing the corner of Drexel and Main just opposite the campus, which also marks the beginning of Bexley’s little downtown of boutiques, cool restaurants, coffee shops, and condos. “Given your dad’s work and you, I can see how the topic would come up.”
    â€œKate brought it up.”
    â€œShe’s proud of you.”
    We stop at the corner to wait for the light.
    â€œNo, she brought it up in reference to Geoff, who then referred to himself as an intellectual.”
    â€œWell,” Stu says, raising his shoulders and stretching his mouth to the sides in a kind of hesitant smile, as he does when deciding whether or not to speak his mind.
    â€œSay it,” I demand.
    â€œYeah, I think if you are one, you don’t have to announce it. As for IQ, I don’t know. I appreciate the research, but—” He shrugs again. “I know people like this Geoff guy who don’t.”
    Stu’s IQ is one hundred fifty-one—eleven points above genius on some scales. Mine is three points higher than his. Now, I mean these as statements of fact, not bragging, because we came this way with these IQs, this blond hair—mine’s a little darker than Stu’s—these eyes, these fingers, this height, these flat chests, and so on. We had nothing to do with it.
    I like to think of human beings as coming from a divine vending machine, like the ones in hotel game rooms and old gas stations where you press a letter and a number and watch your item drop to the bottom.
    B-3 you get Sigmund Freud.
    D-12 is Beyoncé.
    C-7 is me.
    A-8 you get Twix.
    Stu and I part ways in the center of campus. He heads off for a history class. I head off to algebra. I’ll see him again later this morning for a lit class called Modern Drama. Then we’ll walk to Fair Grounds, our favorite coffee shop a couple blocks east of campus, for what I consider lunch and what Stu considers a brief reprieve from starvation. He eats like a furnace and never gains weight. Actually, I think he’s growing. Lately I’ve noticed his shoulders are just a little higher than mine.
    â€¢Â â€¢Â â€¢
    We split every day between the two schools—mornings at Cap, afternoons back at Bexley High. Showing my high school ID at the door feels a little like going through customs at an airport. Every school day is like this, consisting of two different cultures, requiring two languages different from my own mother tongue.
    The language of high school could be called Ohmig*d since just about everyone says it a hundred times a day. But I can’t say it, even as a name, because I think it’s so unfair to G-d. It’s not like He’s sitting around Heaven spitting out ohmijosie every time He loses his keys or His computer crashes.
    It’s only in Ohmig*d where
shut