Bloomability Read online

  I asked Guthrie how to say kidnapped in Italian and I went home and made a sign, but Aunt Sandy said, “I think what you’ve written means haircut. You might get people knocking at the door for a haircut.”

  I tried another spelling of what I thought Guthrie had said. Aunt Sandy flipped through my dictionary. “That means turnip. Or blockhead.”

  Guthrie was American. He’d been at the school for two years and knew loads of Italian, but it was Guthrie’s own version of Italian, Uncle Max said. “Guthrie fractures the language sometimes, but nobody seems to mind too much because he does it with such gusto.”

  I was mesmerized by people who could speak Italian. I’d watch little kids strolling along the lake with their parents, jabbering away in Italian. It seemed so clever of them. I knew this was their only language, the one they’d learned from birth, but still it seemed as if it were an incredible talent. When I heard a boy command his dog to sit: Siediti!, and the dog obeyed, I thought, Wow, even the dog knows Italian.

  Me, I stumbled along tossing out the few words I knew: ciao! (which sounded like chow and meant both hello and good-bye), and andiamo! (let’s go). I knew how to start a question, like Dov’è…(Where is…?), but I didn’t know the words that came after, so I’d end up saying things like “Dov’è the bus station?” and people would look at me blankly. And even when I did manage to get out a whole question in Italian, their answers sounded like mumble mumble-ino.

  In school most of us took Italian lessons. Three days a week we studied grammar, and it was painful, painful. I didn’t get it at all. My brain would not accept that the spelling of a word such as red would change, depending on what it was describing. Sometimes red was rossa, sometimes rosso. And the innocent little word a was sometimes una, sometimes uno, sometimes un.

  A red car was una macchina rossa, but a red boat was un battello rosso. Some nouns (like car, una macchina) were feminine; some nouns (like boat, un battello) were masculine. How did you figure out which words were masculine and which were feminine? Why was a car feminine and a boat masculine? Why wasn’t everything neutral? How did those little Italian kids learn all this?

  “Just memorize,” the teacher said. “Memorize.”

  I’d picture a car with lipstick and a boat with a moustache, in order to remember which was feminine and which was masculine.

  Two days a week we had conversation in Italian. We’d memorize dialogues and act them out. If you thought about what you were saying, you’d feel stupid, but if you just concentrated on the sounds and the rhythm, it was better. You didn’t want to think that you were sitting there all morning saying, “I have a red pen and a blue pen. I have two pens. How many pens do you have?” If you thought very hard about what you were really saying you’d feel like a dolt.

  According to my teacher, I had told her I went to bed at seven hundred o’clock, and that I was three hundred and thirty years old. She said I’d just asked my classmate How much does the time cost? and I want six hundred potatoes, no thank you.

  Had my Grandma Fiorelli really spoken this language, and had she really not known any English when she’d come to America, and had it been hard for her to learn English? I wondered about these things from time to time.

  And then I’d wonder about all the foreign students in this American school—all the Japanese and Spanish and French and Norwegian and Indian and Saudi Arabian and Iranian and German and Dutch and Chinese—how could they study whole subjects like history and algebra and science in English, a completely different language from their own?

  When they asked me “How to discover them gym?” or “Do you habit America?” they were making more sense in English than I was in Italian.

  At night when I tried to study my Italian, sometimes I’d get so mad at not being able to remember how to say something that I’d throw my book across my bedroom. Aunt Sandy would hear the thud and tap at my door. “Studying Italian again?” she’d say. She was sympathetic because she’d come home with a botched haircut. She hadn’t been able to explain what she’d wanted.

  I got only one compliment from my Italian teacher, although I didn’t know it was a compliment at the time. She told me I had “an Italian tongue.” It seemed like an insult, but Guthrie said it meant that my pronunciation was good. I wondered if that was because I’d heard my mother say some of these words, if maybe the sound was fixed in my brain.

  The Dreams of Domenica Santolina Doone

  I got a sackful of letters from my parents and from Stella and Crick. The letters were in Italian and I couldn’t read them. I showed the letters to everyone, but no one else could read them either. “It’s not real Italian,” they said. There were pictures in with some of the letters, but I couldn’t see them. They were very, very black. “They must be in Italian,” I thought.

  9

  Toes and Teeth

  I got two more postcards from Aunt Grace and Aunt Tillie.

  Dear Dinnie,

  Thanks for your card. I never got a stamp from Switzerland before! I don’t understand why you have to speak Italian, you’re not in Italy. I hope you go fishing soon.

  Lonnie’s toe operation didn’t turn out so good, but he went to a specialist so they don’t have to amputate, which is a great relief to him, I can assure you.

  I’m on my way to Tillie’s. I’m taking her some pot roast because she don’t know how to make it right.

  Here come a gazillion hugs—

  Love, love, love,

  Your Aunt Grace

  And Tillie’s card said:

  Dear Dinnie,

  Your daddy will get over it, don’t you worry. It is just hard to raise a child and see them fly the coop but it’s a good thing.

  I had a picture of Stella’s baby, it’s real cute.

  Maybe you should just go fishing by yourself.

  I’m getting my teeth fixed and I’m gonna look just like Marilyn Monroe!

  Gotta go make some jello. Grace is coming over, bringing some of that awful pot roast with her. Don’t tell her I told you that.

  Multiply these two kisses times a billion and that’s how many I send you: xx

  Love from your Aunt Tillie, Champion

  Cheesecake Jello Maker

  10

  Complaints

  Lila no longer thought that everything was “amazing” and “incredible.” Now it was all “horrid.” Sometimes I wondered if she was purposely trying to make people dislike her. She’d begun on the second day of school, when she had demanded a change in roommates. Lila had been assigned a room with Belen, a returning student.

  “I can’t understand a word she says,” Lila complained.

  “You will, soon enough,” the dorm resident said.

  Lila phoned her parents in Saudi to complain. She pounded on Uncle Max’s office door. “My parents aren’t paying all this money for me to be in a room with someone who doesn’t even speak English!” she said. “If I’d known I’d have to actually live with a Spanish foreigner, I wouldn’t have come here, that’s for sure. I want an American roommate.”

  I heard about most of this at home. Uncle Max had told me that I’d probably hear things that I’d have to keep confidential. I’d have to act as if I didn’t know anything I’d heard at home. “There are things,” Uncle Max had said, “that I’ll probably need to unload to Sandy, and you may hear them. If it bothers you, let me know.”

  When I overheard about Lila and her roommate, I said, “Why can’t she have an American roommate?”

  Uncle Max said that the whole purpose of the school was to mix the students. “Lila will end up learning some Spanish, and learning some things about Belen. And Belen will learn some English and some things about Lila. Lila will settle down. You’ll see.”

  But Lila didn’t settle down. For a week, she appeared at Uncle Max’s office each day, demanding a room change.

  “Where do you get all that patience?” Aunt Sandy asked him. “Honestly, I could never do what you do. I’d be leaping up and down and telli
ng those kids to quit moaning. I’d be fired in one day if I had your job.”

  At the end of the week, I asked Uncle Max again, “Why don’t you just change her room?”

  “Belen’s a nice girl. She and Lila will end up best friends. You’ll see.”

  The following Monday, Lila stormed out of Uncle Max’s office and skipped the rest of her classes. She phoned her parents, she phoned Uncle Max at home that night, she threw Belen’s clothes on the floor, and she hounded her dorm resident.

  Now Belen was mad, and she, too, demanded a room change. And then suddenly, after three more days of storming and fuming, Lila switched gears. She’d found other things to worry about. The food, according to Lila, was “disgusting.” She passed around a petition, which few people signed, demanding “real American hamburger and real American cereal.” In the dining hall, she’d say to the kitchen staff, “How can you serve this slop?” To other students, she’d say, “How can you eat this slop?”

  When Lila found out that she, like all the rest of us, had to do four hours of community service each week—chores like waiting tables, moving books, tutoring, or visiting a hospital, she refused. To the teacher in charge of community service, Lila said, “This is slave labor. My parents aren’t paying all this money for me to work for you.”

  When she received a detention for skipping her community service, she skipped the detention and phoned her parents, who, in turn, phoned Uncle Max. He explained the school’s philosophy behind helping in the community and assigned Lila two more detentions.

  It was the same with Lila and the sports requirement. She had signed up for tennis, but was assigned swimming because tennis was full. “Get another tennis coach,” she told the sports director. “My parents aren’t paying all this money for me to take a sport I don’t like.”

  “You’ll just love swimming,” the sports director said.

  Other students called her a spoiled brat behind her back, and they stayed clear of her. When her name was mentioned at our house, Uncle Max rubbed his forehead, and Aunt Sandy would say, “What’s that girl up to now?”

  Sometimes I made excuses for Lila. I listened to her complaints. She didn’t seem at all bothered that she was insulting my uncle when she insulted the school. She’d say, “Honestly, they don’t know what they’re doing,” and “They don’t care about anything,” and “They won’t listen to me.” They sometimes referred to all the teachers, but it always included my uncle, the headmaster. Often she’d say, “Why doesn’t he do something about that?”

  People asked me how I could stand her and why I was her friend. I didn’t know the answers to those questions. Part of me was still holding on to that first image I’d had of Lila—of the laughing, friendly girl. And now, when I was with her, I felt as if that was where I was supposed to be. It never occurred to me to walk away from her or tell her to shut up. Being with Lila was like watching a movie. You couldn’t believe she was actually doing and saying some of these things, but you stuck around to see what would happen next.

  At home sometimes I felt as if I were two people. When Uncle Max described Lila’s behavior, I was embarrassed for Lila and sorry for Uncle Max’s headaches over her. But when I listened to Lila, I’d find myself nodding along with her, feeling the unfairness of it all.

  Once when I tried to give Uncle Max’s side of things, Lila said, “Honestly, Dinnie, I don’t know why you defend him. Honestly, sometimes I think you don’t like me at all!”

  Like her? I hadn’t really thought about whether I liked her or not. She was just Lila.

  “You’re so lucky,” she said.

  “Lucky? Me?”

  “You’ve got your family,” she said, and she burst into tears.

  I couldn’t explain that my real family was thousands of miles away on a hilltop in New Mexico—or were they? Had they moved on by now? Would they tell me when they moved?

  I couldn’t tell her that my real family had shipped me off like a spare parcel, and as far as I knew, they hardly realized I was gone. I couldn’t tell her that I thought about them day and night, night and day, and that I felt as if I was drifting, floating, lost in the air. And I couldn’t understand why Lila had spent the past month attacking Uncle Max and now was telling me I was lucky to have him.

  “You don’t have to be alone,” she sobbed.

  “Oh,” I said. “You feel like you’re alone?”

  She hit me. “Isn’t that what I just said?”

  “Not exactly—”

  “I don’t believe it! Now you’re going to argue with me? Now? When I’m feeling so terrible and alone—”

  I invited her to dinner. Maybe she just missed being in a home. It would be nice for her, and I was glad I’d thought of such a good idea.

  It was not a good idea. When I told Aunt Sandy that I’d invited Lila for dinner that same evening, Aunt Sandy said, “But Dinnie—I’ve got essays to grade and reports to do—and Max has so much work. And I was just going to throw something together—”

  “Lila won’t mind,” I said.

  “Are you kidding?” Aunt Sandy said. “This is the girl who got a petition up against the school’s slop!”

  11

  It’s So Rude

  When Uncle Max straggled home at six o’clock, he had five minutes’ warning about Lila coming to dinner. On hearing the news, he winced, glanced at his briefcase, and said, “Guess I’d better go wash up then.”

  Lila chattered from the minute she stepped through the door. I thought this was a good sign, that she was making an effort to be friendly. Even Uncle Max and Aunt Sandy seemed relieved that she wasn’t complaining.

  But it all fell apart at the dinner table.

  “The Japanese drive me crazy,” Lila said, swooping up every single Japanese student in one lump and dumping them on the table.

  “All of them?” Aunt Sandy asked.

  “All of them,” Lila insisted. “They never look at you. It’s so rude.”

  “But in their country,” Aunt Sandy said, “maybe it’s rude to—”

  “They’re not in their country, are they?” Lila said. “I mean if they don’t want to look at people while they’re in their own country, well, who’s to stop them? But they’re here. They’re with Americans.”

  “More potatoes?” I asked.

  “I can’t tell any of them apart,” Lila said.

  At first I thought she meant the potatoes, but the look on Uncle Max’s face made it clear that she was still talking about the Japanese.

  “They probably have the same trouble with the Americans,” Uncle Max said.

  “I don’t see how,” Lila said. “We all look different.”

  Aunt Sandy asked what language Lila was studying. You could choose another language, in addition to the required Italian, if you wanted.

  “That Italian stuff I have to take,” Lila said, “and Spanish, but I’m changing at semester. I hate Spanish. I used to like it, but now that I’m around all these Spanish kids, I hate it. Do you know what they do? They talk in Spanish all the time. It’s so rude.”

  The Italians, she said, “dress too flashy. It’s like they’re trying to show us how much money they have. And they’re so loud. It’s so rude.”

  The Germans were too pushy and apparently too smart. “Do you know what they do in my history class?” Lila said. “They answer everything. They don’t give anyone a chance to think. It’s so rude.”

  On and on she went, trashing the Swedes, the French, the Iranians. She managed to cover most of the nationalities in the school. At last, Uncle Max said, “Well, at least there are the Americans. I suppose you’re glad there are Americans here, too?”

  Lila chewed for a moment. “I don’t mean to be critical, what with you being the headmaster and all, but I thought this was an American school—”

  “It is,” Uncle Max said.

  “No, it isn’t. It’s full of people who aren’t American.”

  “The majority are American,” Uncle Max said. “Th
e school is American in courses, in philosophy, in—”

  “Whatever,” Lila said. “Besides, the Americans who are here aren’t really American.”

  “Aren’t really American?” Aunt Sandy said. I could tell that Aunt Sandy was annoyed. She looked as if she were holding herself in her chair in order to keep from leaping over the table and strangling Lila.

  In my mind, I had already tied Lila’s scarf around her mouth in order to silence her.

  “Aren’t really American?” Aunt Sandy repeated.

  “No,” Lila instructed. “Most of them haven’t even lived in the States for years and years. Most of them have lived all over the world. Hardly any of them care if a person is American or not.”

  “You think people should care that you’re American, is that it?” Uncle Max asked. “They should notice—?”

  “Yes,” Lila said. “Yes, they should. Because if this is an American school, then the Americans should be, well, you know—” She stared down at her plate. “Everybody just shouldn’t be so rude, especially not to Americans.”

  I’d been waiting for a chance to jump into the conversation, and finally I leaped in with, “Lila probably feels like a stranger here. It’s awful to feel like the stranger.”

  I turned to Lila, expecting her to toss me a smile of gratitude, or a look of grateful astonishment at the depth of my understanding and sympathy. She didn’t smile. Instead she said, icily, “I do not feel like a stranger, Dinnie! That’s completely ridiculous.”

  In my mind, I dumped the potatoes in her lap.

  I walked her back to her dorm. At the door, she said, “Do you think your aunt and uncle liked me?”

  “Sure,” I lied. “Sure they did.”

  12

  Nomads and Cuckoos

  The Dreams of Domenica Santolina Doone

  I was in my bubble and it was getting bigger and bigger, stretching from all the stuff that was coming in the pores. Italian words were floating around inside the bubble, bumping into Japanese words and Spanish words. The bubble wall was getting thinner and thinner. I was afraid it would pop, but it didn’t. I woke up.