Light Years by Tammar Stein

the crowds) and then to the library, or my favorite garden if the weather was nice, to read my assignments and do my homework. Reading took me a lot longer than it did most students, and I never went anywhere without my Hebrew/English dictionary. Payton and I usually met for dinner at seven, unless she had other plans.
    A part of me had truly believed that all my friends were in Israel, and that nothing here could ever compare. I didn’t talk much with the other students in my class—I would hurry by them as they mingled and flirted after class. I had nothing to say, nothing to share. We didn’t have anything in common.
    Three of my classes were lecture-style, so students weren’t expected to raise a hand and participate. In my astronomy lectures, all I had to do was sit back and listen. But two of my classes were smaller and I really had to focus, to follow the discussionsand think on my feet so I could say what I wanted to say. It was frustrating at first. I knew what I wanted to say, I knew how to say it in Hebrew, but I had to rethink the whole thought in English. It always came out wrong, either childish or incorrect, and I hated it.
    I would practice with Payton, explaining to her what I had tried to say in class, and she helped me figure out how I should have said it. I was still surprised to see Payton and me become friends. Sometimes I’d catch sight of her walking and she didn’t seem real, her perky nose and flowery sundresses belonging to another world. Then she’d see me and wave broadly, calling me over. I didn’t come prepared for friendship.
    “There’s this guy you have to meet.”
    We had found a small table in the back of the cafeteria and were both toying with the remnants of Italian Night.
    “Oh no,” I said. “Do
not
try to fix me up with anyone.” The very thought made my stomach turn.
    “I didn’t mean it that way,” she said. I rolled my eyes. “Really! I think this guy even has a girlfriend.”
    “Oh, that’s much better. What is that word—
polygamist
? Is that it?”
    “I think that only counts if he’s married to more than one person, not dating more than one, but that’s beside the point. Will you listen?”
    My gaze had drifted away.
    “This guy, Chris, was in the Marine Corps. And I was telling him about you and how you were in the Israeli army andhe wants to meet you.” She smiled sweetly. “He’s really nice. Besides, you need to get out more, meet some people. All you do is study all day.”
    I opened my mouth to defend myself, to tell her I was perfectly happy with the way things were. I came here to study, not “meet new people.” But before I could say anything, she waved to someone behind me. I turned to look.
    He had a crew cut and what I’d come to recognize as a football player’s neck—as wide as it was long. He looked like a bodybuilder. I edged away.
    “Chris,” Payton said. “You found us. Grab a chair.”
    Chris, all two hundred and twenty pounds of him, obeyed her like a lamb.
    “Chris, this is my roommate, Maya.”
    He sized me up and seemed slightly surprised by what he saw.
    “Nice to meet you,” he said in an unexpectedly high voice.
    “Hi,” I said. We shook hands. It was awkward.
    I thought that Payton would leave us, inventing some meeting she had to rush to, but I underestimated her. She stayed with us, helping the conversation along when it faltered, charging ahead by herself when neither Chris nor I could think of a single thing to say. He seemed too embarrassed to ask me much of anything, and I was infected by his shyness and couldn’t think of anything I might want to know about him.
    By the end, though, Payton was victorious. She got him to tell us about enlisting in the marines, about his girlfriend and his folks, who lived in Blacksburg, Virginia.
    “The marines are paying for this,” he said. “They might even pay for law school.”
    “I wish my army would pay for this,” I said. “They barely paid enough to buy