Make Your Home Among Strangers (36 page)

The three hours of that week's lab class felt like a goodbye. I stacked each petri dish as if it were the last time I'd be allowed to handle those delicate circles of glass. I swished saline solution for longer than was needed, looked at the agar coating the bottom of plates as if its nutrients were intended for me and were about to be withheld. When a question popped into my head, I kept my hand down and didn't even bother to write it in my notebook.

I watched Professor Kaufmann for clues all class but saw nothing, though she'd already proven herself good at masking frustration with kindness. You could drop an entire tray of beakers, and she would smile and in a too-high voice say,
That's OK!
I sometimes thought I was the only one in the class who saw through her, could tell how very upset she was at all that shattered glass on the floor: I knew it from the way she'd say
Hmmm
as she accosted the student culprit with a broom and stood over them, pointing out a missed shard here, a tiny speck there. She'd wait until they put the broom away before noticing another piece, then instruct them to go back to the closet and bring the broom again.

I approached her lab bench once everyone had left. She was scribbling something on some graph paper, and I glanced at what she wrote once I was closer. Whatever it was, it was in German—probably not a good sign—and it was underneath a series of equations that meant nothing to me and which were in no way related to our class.

—Liz! she said. Oh, super! Come here, please!

She stood and let me have her seat. I sat there for a good minute, watched her keep working as if she hadn't just asked me to sit down. Her pen dug into the paper and I wondered if she had two brains—wondered if there were a way I could split my own mind like that, be in one place but let my mind hang out wherever it wanted.

She slapped the pen down on her notebook, and without even apologizing for the awkward three or so minutes we'd been right next to each other but not speaking, she said, Thank you for staying after class. I see you're eager to know what this is about.

—Yes, I said. I tried to keep my back straight; I found trying to maintain good posture more painful than just slouching. Even seated on her high stool, I was still looking up at her. I said, Is everything okay?

—Yes, of course. Thank you for asking.

I figured then that I should stop talking lest I incriminate myself, but she smiled at me and nodded as if I'd kept speaking, as if I was saying something at that very moment.

—Yes, so, she said. You are enjoying the lab so far?

—I love it, I blurted out. It's my favorite class this semester.

—Super! she said. That's super.

She nodded some more. After a few additional seconds of painful silence and sustained eye contact she asked, Are you interested in becoming a research scientist?

I thought I wanted to be a doctor, but that didn't seem like the right answer.

—Yes, I said. I am.

—Good, super. Because there is something you should do then, a program.

She slipped a hand beneath her pad of graph paper and slid out a glossy folder. I closed my eyes, not wanting to look at it: here it was, the remedial program for students needing extra help, forced in front of me like that list of campus resources I'd printed out last semester as my only hope. The folder was white with a crimson stripe down the front of it, a gold logo embossed at its center.

—This is connected to my research group. It's a summer position at our field laboratory off the coast of Santa Barbara, in California. You would be perfect for it.

—A summer position? Like an internship?

—Yes, yes. You are perfect for it. I would like you to apply. I will nominate you.

She said this louder, as if the problem were not that I didn't believe her, but that I couldn't hear her.

—But it's your lab, you run it?

—Weeeeell, she said. She laughed in a sweet way. I do run it, yes, she said. So perhaps let's say you have a very strong chance of getting it since I'm nominating you and I also choose the students. You
do
have to apply, technically, but there is always a Rawlings student. Each year I bring the strongest freshman from among the various lab sections.

—Oh, I said.

I couldn't believe she meant me, that I'd been doing that well. My write-ups were getting good scores, but they were twice as long as anyone else's for all the missteps and questions they contained. I put my hand on the folder and pulled it toward me by the corner. I said, So is this for like minority students or something?

—No, it's for my lab in California, she said. I'm sorry if I'm not being clear. Your work in class is fantastic. I think you will be great. You should do it!

She put her hand at the top of the folder and pushed it all the way to me. She then clasped her hands together, dropped them into her lap, and said, Please open it!

I jumped at her voice, then did as she said. In the center prongs were creamy-feeling pages that explained the lab, the experience I would get, the projects I'd contribute to, and near the end, a page explaining the scholarship money for housing and the travel subsidies and something called a stipend. I figured out quickly, thanks to the numbers being stacked on top of each other like in my Rawlings bill, that a stipend meant I'd get paid to be there. I wanted to grab the folder and run to the dorm, show it to Jillian and ask if it was real. The experience alone was worth it: I would've gone for free—no, I would've taken out another loan to go all the way to California and work in a real lab, a for-real lab run by Professor Kaufmann. I was taking out bigger loans for less interesting experiences. I flipped back to the pages describing the projects, recognizing in some of them the language from Professor Kaufmann's faculty Web page. She'd singled me out to be part of her research, part of her network. I turned past those pages before looking too eager and embarrassing myself.

Tucked inside the folder's back pocket was the application. It asked for a short essay about why I was interested in the program and how I came to find out about it (though small, the program was open to applicants all over the country). It asked for a list of past research experiences and other extracurricular activities (freshmen were allowed to list activities from their senior year of high school, which made me feel much better) and a short explanation about how each extracurricular had
furthered or enhanced my interest in research.
It asked for a reference letter and the contact information for your reference—Professor Kaufmann had already signed this form and written, on a Post-it note pressed to the top right corner,
Lizet: Don't worry about this page.
It asked for a copy of a graded lab write-up. It asked for a transcript, for my grades.

Despite being proud of my B-minuses because I understood what lived behind them, I was fully aware they were not great grades by Rawlings standards. Professor Kaufmann had no idea that my GPA was below a 3.0. My work in her class—I was sure of this because it was my goal—reflected the grades I wanted, not the ones my past mistakes had shaped: put a line through it and keep going. I pulled out the checklist of the application's required parts from the folder. My hands shuddered as I held it, so I let it drop to the bench, only pointed, for a second, at the line that said
Official Transcript
.

—I think my grades –

I felt something sharp rise in my throat. I wanted so badly not to confess this to her, to preserve her idea of me being fantastic in lab. I swallowed, but it didn't go away.

—You get that from the registrar. Official only means it is sealed in an envelope.

—It's not that.

I pointed to the line again, then put my hands in my lap. I breathed in through my nose, willing my voice to come out at its natural pitch. Then I said something I'd never said before.

—My grades are not very good.

She blinked, the half smile never leaving her face.

—Oh, I'm sure they are more than fine.

The same phrase from her e-mail, the one that had made me worry. Her English was always perfect, but as I searched for reasons why she wouldn't understand me, for why she was making me admit my incompetence again, I let language be one of them. I closed the folder but left it where it was on the bench.

She asked, What's your GPA?

So I told her.

—Oh, she said. Then her smile came back, her spine straightened. But what is it in your
science and math
courses?

I could almost hear her rationale floating from her brain to mine: she'd defaulted to Occam's razor—all other things being equal, go with the simplest solution—so of course the problem was some wayward grade in an English or history course.
Those pesky humanities! That must be it!
Many a fantastic biologist had been foiled by a required literature course.

—The same, I said. It's the same.

She blew air from the side of her mouth. It billowed through her bangs.

—Well that doesn't make any sense, she said. Your grades should be higher.

I winced. They should, I said.

She turned to her pad, scribbled something down. When I sat up straighter to see it, it read
3.5 min a must?
She kept the pen in her hand and, as if it were a problem thrown to the class that she'd already solved but wanted us to puzzle out, asked, So why are they that low?

My hands sat curled in my lap. I thought of blaming Ariel Hernandez. I knew I could formulate a version of things where it really
was
his fault, and using him would make the grades seem more like a triumph than a mediocre showing. If other people could use him, why couldn't I? And maybe it was true: maybe I knew he was on his way over, could feel or hear, because of the salt water in my blood, his mother making plans from across the Florida Straits. The daughter of the president of Thailand was a student at Rawlings—surely she had big things on her mind, and surely those things got in her way of studying for an exam, and surely she got a pass here and there for it. For the past six weeks, I'd worked hard at being
less
Cuban, at trying to pass as anything
but
Cuban. I'd refused to be an ambassador, but to get this internship, maybe an ambassador was what I needed to be: I needed to play it up to explain away the grades. I could say I was the daughter of someone important and legitimately connected to the whole affair—a judge, a congressman. I could even play along with my mom, claim Caridaylis as a sister. I had to try; Jillian had just landed her dream summer in entertainment law through her mom's friend. It was my turn to hustle.

—There were some things. Going on back at home, I said.

She didn't budge, just sat there staring at me, holding her pen.

—There's this boy, I said.

I couldn't face her as I lied. I focused on the thumbnails I'd obliterated with my teeth, a habit I shared with Leidy and one I couldn't control, as it happened while I read and studied: I was in no way conscious of it. I'd drawn blood from the right thumb the day before, and that had stopped me—the sudden taste of iron.

I closed my eyes. I shook my head no—let her think what she wanted to think, but I couldn't say it. I couldn't pin the bad grades on Ariel any more than I could explain to her why I didn't think of them as bad grades.

—Oh, it's OK! she said, too loudly. You know, things happen, with boys.

I wiped my eyes with the heel of my hand before raising my face. She looked around the room, searching for an escape.

—But you must not be together anymore, correct?

She nodded, leaned forward as if to make me nod, too.

—This semester? she said. Because you're better now. Your work. No distractions, no boyfriend, so now everything's better.

I must've looked as stunned as I felt, because she said, Oh, I didn't mean – don't worry! There are more fish in the sea! Perhaps you don't even need a fish!

I laughed, not knowing what else to do, and she watched me laugh and joined in a second later, one moment past natural. I raised my shoulders, then let them fall.

—So you have no reason to say no, she said.

—But my grades –

—It's fine, she said. She crossed out the note she'd written. Just remain focused this semester. You're doing super so far. Everything will be better. There is no boy?

—There's no boy, I assured her.

She took the folder from the bench, held it out to me. I took it from her slowly to hide the true electric thrill running down my arms and legs at what her handing it to me really meant. I said thank you. I told her I'd let her know soon, after I talked with my parents, but that I couldn't imagine anything I'd want to do more.

Returning to my dorm room that afternoon—the folder in my bag, slapping against my back with every step—I whispered my half of a theoretical conversation into the evening air, the mist of my breath taking the place of any answers. I couldn't really afford a flight down for spring break, or maybe for Easter, to talk to my parents in person about the internship offer, but I also couldn't imagine asking over the phone: the phone would make it harder to explain that they could trust this kind of program, that it wasn't a scam or a trap or a disguise for a prostitution ring. This sort of mistrust, which had come up with my financial aid, only got worse with every document I'd signed and mailed back. They'd drawn the line at my social security card: my dad forbade me from mailing a copy of it and instead made me call to see if I could just bring one to the registrar's office during orientation (the registrar said that would be too late, and so I managed to get copies sent through a high school guidance counselor). But at least my parents had been in the same physical space when I'd had to argue for something—I didn't have to make all my points twice, because we all still lived in the same house. I shoved my ungloved hands deeper into my pockets and kept moving, wiggling my fingers to keep them warm.