Spain or Shine (11 page)

“Um, excuse me?” She should have known he would have an ulterior motive for bringing them up to this room. He was cute, but come on. “Listen, I don't know what you had in mind, but—”

His face flushed. “Um. Like this?” He sat gingerly on the edge of the bed.

“Oh,” she croaked, “you meant, do I want to
sit
on the bed?” She had taken his flawless English for granted.

He nodded, his eyes focused on the rug. Elena felt awful. She sat down beside him, which should have been innocent but was now tainted by their earlier misunderstanding. They sat in silence as he ran the toe of his shoe along the ridge of the rug and Elena watched the door to the bathroom praying for Jenna to come back out.

“Is there a view?” she asked suddenly. She was proud of herself for initiating conversation for once. She stood up and walked toward the glass doors that led to the balcony.

“Yes.” He perked up. “There is a nice view from this room.” He pulled open the doors and they walked out onto a semicircular patio. “See, there is the Urumea River. And there is the beach.” He stretched out, leaning over the lip of the stone rail and pointed, and then stepped back to let her look.

“Oh, I see it.” She lit up. “Look, there's a little boat.” She pointed to a white speck bobbing across the horizon.

He leaned in behind her to catch a glimpse of the lonely boat. He radiated a lovely boy smell of faint cologne, soap, and a hint of the ocean. “Do you like boats?”

She thought for a moment and then said, “I guess so. I haven't actually been on many boats.”

“My father has a sailboat. I go sailing sometimes,” he said, as he walked back into the room and she followed.

“Oh my God, you have a boat,” Jenna screeched as she joined them in the room. “That is so cool.”

“Well, I can take you sometime. We can go out next weekend, if you are available.”

Jenna raised an eyebrow and looked at Elena. Elena nodded to show that she was interested.

“Saturday's good. I'm so impressed that you have a boat,” Jenna said, nudging Miguel in the ribs. “Don't you think that's awesome, Elena?”

“Awesome.” Elena nodded. Jenna looked at her for a moment, perhaps willing her to say something more, but Elena's mind went blank.

“Well, it is, what is the word?” He closed his eyes to search the English side of his brain. “Uh, humble? And it is actually my father's.”

Jenna worked out the details with Miguel as Elena stood by quietly. He seemed so nice. Elena reminded herself of what Gwen was always telling her about having too much faith in people right away.

“Elena,” she'd say, “you can't give your heart away so quickly. That's the surest way to get it broken.”

“I should get back downstairs,” Miguel said finally.

“Yeah, we'd hate to get you in trouble,” Elena said.

Miguel shut the patio doors, closed the curtains, and smoothed down the bedspread. On the way out he straightened the magazines on the desk even though no one had touched them. Elena smiled softly. She had almost done the same thing.

Miguel spirited them down the service staircase and then snuck them out of the lobby when he was sure the manager at the front desk was occupied.

Once Elena and Jenna had walked back outside, Jenna looped her arm through Elena's.

“You do like him, don't you?”

“Yeah, why?”

“I just never would have known if you hadn't told me. You barely said a word to him.”

“Jenna, I don't think Miguel even cared that I was there,” Elena said. “I think he made the boating date as a way to spend more time with
you.”

“No way.” Jenna waved off the idea. “Enough boy talk. Let's go do some window-shopping.”

Elena wondered if Jenna had brushed her suggestion off as easily as it seemed. It was hard for her to imagine anyone giving up Miguel so easily, especially someone like Jenna. And she couldn't tell if Jenna really thought Elena had any kind of chance with him. She was pretty sure Jenna was too nice to say, “Yeah you're right. He'd never be interested in you. What was I thinking?” Regardless, she appreciated Jenna's encouragement.

The next day was much like the one that preceded it—sunny but a little cool, with a soft breeze feathering the ocean. Elena had just sat down for the start of her play production class, but she was staring out the window and daydreaming about what it would be like if Miguel were her boyfriend. She imagined their sailing out to sea on his boat at sunset.

“Elena, please see me after class,” Ms. B said in a hushed tone as she passed Elena's desk on her way to the front of the classroom, breaking Elena from her little midday fantasy. Elena's heart thumped inside her chest. She wondered what she could possibly have done to warrant an after-class meeting with the teacher. She nudged Alex in the ribs, causing him to snort and scoot up in his chair.

“Ms. B wants to talk to me after class,” she whispered.

“So?” he grumbled.

“So, that's not good,” she tried her best to talk without moving her lips.

“How do you know it's not good?”

She cut her eyes at him. Was he kidding? Being called to speak with the teacher after class was never good.

“Relax, Elena. Teachers love kids like you.” Alex yawned and squashed his hat down low over his eyes, slumping back down into the crook of his chair.

“Not really,” Elena mumbled. Compared to Jeremy and Gwen, Elena always felt she was a disappointment to most of her teachers.

“I hope everyone did last night's reading.” Ms. B set down her roll sheet and sorted through several play texts. “Now don't get frustrated if your writing is not up to these standards.” She gave them all a thoughtful, I've-been-there smile. “If you're going to attempt something, no matter what it is, it's worth taking a look at the best in that field.”

At least Elena had done the reading. Maybe she could dazzle Ms. B with her deep insights into the plot and characters, and perhaps whatever crime she had unwittingly committed would be magically erased from her rap sheet.

“Can anyone tell me what some of the themes are in The
Seagull?”
she asked, tapping the front cover of the Chekhov play and settling down on the corner of her desk.

Elena had some ideas, but she hesitated. Before she could get her hand up, Dylan's arm darted into the air.

“Yes, Dylan.”

“The pursuit of a meaningful life and an artist's role in life.” Dylan sat up straight, knowing she'd said the right thing.

“Yes. Excellent,” Ms. B beamed at Dylan.

 

Elena slunk down in her seat. Ms. B certainly wasn't like other teachers. She swore and acted out scenes from the plays they were reading for homework. As long as Elena stayed out of the way and under the radar, most teachers left her alone and gave her decent grades. But Elena had a feeling Ms. B loved kids like Dylan who were cool and sharply opinionated.

Elena wondered what it could be that set Ms. B against her. Maybe it was just that her conflict piece was so generally bad that Ms. B had given up on marking Elena's paper, and now she had to talk to her face-to-face in order to outline every mistake she'd made. She glanced at the clock as the second hand clunked along one centimeter at a time. This was going to be a long class.

 

“Okay, everyone, class is almost over. I can see you guys squirming to get out of here,” Ms. B joked, drawing a round of chuckles from the class. “But I wanted to remind you that I'll be giving you instructions for the final play assignment soon. Next week we're going to be forming groups for that project, so you should start thinking about who you want to work with. If you don't have partners lined up, that's okay. I can match you with someone. But you have the option to work with one or two people you feel comfortable with.”

Elena glanced at Dylan. She was sure Dylan already had some brilliant ideas rattling around in her brain and wondered if she had already paired up with someone for the project. A girl like Dylan would have her choice of partners.

“Remember, I'll be picking the top two plays, which will be staged and performed at the end of the semester. This is a big deal, you guys. Not only will you bask in the glow of staging your art for the public and your classmates, which should be motivation enough,” Ms. B paused dramatically, allowing them to picture the glory of it, “but you will also get a pass on the written final. In other words, an automatic A.”

A round of whoops was loosed in the classroom. Coming from a teacher's mouth, there were few words sweeter than “automatic A.”

Finally, class was over. Elena took her time shuffling papers and placing her books and binder in her backpack as Ms. B handed back the first assignments. It took a while because Ms. B had a comment for each student as he or she collected a graded paper and then passed through the door. The last student collected his paper from Ms. B and then wandered out into the sunshine.

Finally, Ms. B looked up from the one remaining student paper, which Elena assumed was hers.

“Hi, Elena. Please sit.”

Elena drew a chair up to the side of Ms. B's desk and sat down. She couldn't read Ms. B's expression. “I read your conflict dramatization,” Ms. B said.

Elena quickly looked down at her lap.

“Elena, have you taken many writing classes?”

“Just regular classes at school. Is that what you mean?”

“Well, I guess so,” Ms. B leaned back. “I'm just wondering where you learned to write like this.”

What did she mean? How did she write, exactly? Why wasn't Ms. B just getting to the point? Tell me what I did wrong so I can fix it,
Elena screamed inside her head.

“I guess I don't understand,” Elena ventured.

“Elena, this is excellent work,” Ms. B said, leaning forward across her desk and forcing Elena to meet her gaze. “Your abilities exceed most people your age. I was just wondering if you've taken extra classes in this area.”

Elena was stunned silent. She looked at Ms. B and realized why she couldn't place Ms. B's expression earlier. Ms. B wasn't talking to Elena as a teacher; she was talking to her like a mentor.

“Thank you.” Elena managed to force the words out of her mouth. “But I haven't taken any extra classes or anything.”

“Well, you're a natural,” Ms. B shot her a broad grin. “You do write on your own though, don't you?”

“I mess around sometimes, but I've never really finished anything.” Elena felt as if she was confessing a secret. She'd always made up little stories. For a while she kept beginnings of screenplays in a journal, but she was always worried one of her brothers would find it.

“Well, I wanted to let you know you're heading in the right direction,” Ms. B said, slipping back into teacher mode. Although her version of teacher mode was still pretty relaxed and cool. “This doesn't mean I don't think there are areas for improvement, especially if you're interested in winning one of the top spots among the final play assignments. I think you have a good chance, but this year's class is a particularly talented pool of students. You'll do well if you really focus on the comments I made at the end of your paper and work on making those changes.”