Repeat After Me by Rachel Dewoskin Page A

the
t
.
    “Yes,” I said, “seltzer.” I pushed the
t
out, tongue to the roof of my mouth.
    “Seltzer,” she said again, this time with the
t
, but an
r
instead of an
l
in the middle, and an
l
instead of an
r
at the end.
    “Good.” I called Da Ge and Russ up to the front. They were supposed to be in a library.
    “Hi, Da Ge,” said Russ.
    “Hi, Russ.”
    “What are you doing at the library today?”
    “Just hanging out.”
    “Really? I am here to check out books.”
    “What books?”
    “English books,” said Russ.
    “I am here to check out girls,” said Da Ge. Chase and Russ and I laughed, but Xiao Wang scrunched her eyebrows. Ingyum looked up from her notes. I felt the room lift with Da Ge’s unusually good mood, felt a surge of something for him, affection maybe, or desire. When he looked at me again, I thought I saw that we had agreed to be in love. I smiled back this time.
    “Do you have homework to do at the library?” Chase asked Da Ge.
    “Fuck homework,” said Da Ge, “let’s go to the bar and have some beer.” I waited to see how Russ would respond to this “real life” situation.
    “That sounds good,” said Russ. “I prefer beer to book.”
    I applauded enthusiastically, keeping Da Ge in my line of sight. He was wearing a cream sweater, jeans, and work boots, and looked somehow more American than he had before. Eager to talk to him, I dismissed everyone and stood in the doorway waiting. As soon as he approached, my pulse sped.
    “Hi, Aysha,” he said. There was something calm but suggestive about his voice, my name he’d never said before, how close he was standing to me.
    We walked outside together. His skin was flushed across the cheekbones and bluish under his eyes. He lit a cigarette with one hand cupped over the flame. He was wearing a jade ring.
    “Did something happen?” I asked.
    He looked confused.
    “You haven’t been to class in two weeks.”
    “I’m sorry for that,” he said. “Sometimes I am not—how do you say—feeling so good to come to class.”
    “Have you been sick?”
    He looked side to side, as if trapped and searching for an escape. I did not want him to leave. He dropped the cigarette and crushed it with his right boot heel.
    “Your essay was terrific,” I said quickly, “the one about your mother.”
    “My writing English is better, right?”
    The combination of this response and my having said the word “mother” made me feel callous. “I hope it’s not, you know, none of my business,” I corrected, “but I wanted to say I’m sorry about your mother. I was surprised when I read your—”
    “Well,” he said. “I’m—how do you always say—use to it.”
    “Right.”
    We stood awkwardly, and my vision panned out. I saw us there in the slush over fall leaves, Da Ge motherless andme fatherless, and I thought again that I could love him. I felt myself spin a bit, brought my eyes back to his, stayed put looking at him.
    “What about your father?” I asked. Maybe he found this odd. He squinted, lit another cigarette. I felt relief that we had at least enough time left for him to smoke it. I wanted to slow time down when he was around. This, I now know, is a kind of love.
    Da Ge said, “My father work for Ha Ha bottle water. He is fat cat.”
    I laughed, in spite of my feeling that he might not like it. Two teachers, Emmanuel Stern and Ben Rosenbaum, walked by, and I took a small step back away from Da Ge, cleared my throat.
    “Hi Aysha,” Ben called.
    “Hi,” I said. Ben’s eyes were on me, and I looked off into the distance, watched two squirrels chasing each other up a tree as if they were a fascinating documentary. Da Ge grinned as if he had seen something, knew me. He lit a third cigarette off the one he was still smoking.
    “My English teacher in China teach me how to say that, ‘fat cat.’ It’s funny to say that?”
    “You used it very well,” I said. “Was your teacher American?”
    “No, he’s Chinese guy. But he