Chapter Two

 

I’m beginning to realize now that taking the Asian Civilizations class was a pretty bad idea. For one, it only seemed to talk about a few, select Asian cultures, none of them touching on my ethnicity.

Like most people in New York City, I’m a blend of a few different races. My mother is half-Filipino, half-Spanish; my father was half-Brazilian, half-American. They were both immigrants; my mother moved here to work as a nurse and my father came from the city of Salvador to work here in a food-processing factory. Money was tight but we were happy and didn’t think things were going to get worse. But they did. That’s why I obsess with school—good education is going to be my only winning lottery ticket.

“Gummy worms?” Seth asked, handing me a small bag of candy.

“No, thanks,” I murmured, trying to stretch my eyes to keep them open. “This documentary is killing me. I’ve never seen anything this boring.”

“It gets worse and worse each time she shows a documentary in class,” Seth agreed, sliding down more comfortably in his seat. “But hey, isn’t that what this whole class has been like? A documentary since day one.”

We both looked around the vast, dim lecture room and I swear, most people’s eyes were closed. Who wouldn’t be nodding off when you’re running a two-hour documentary on language origins?

“I don’t understand why she also has to keep this room at a freezing temperature and turn all the lights off,” I grumbled, eyeing Nancy Han, the small professor who sat in a chair below by the podium, watching the documentary with a rapt expression on her face. “I swear, there are about ten pairs of lovebirds in the back row making out since we started with the origin of Punjabi.”

Seth laughed in very low voice, patting my arm. “We can always move to the back, Ali.”

I elbowed his rib unforgivingly. “Shut up, Seth. You should’ve sneaked your girlfriend in when class started.”

He stretched his legs and crossed his arms behind his head. “Ah, but she would’ve gone crazy in the first five minutes of the documentary. If it bothers someone as academically inclined as you are, the more it would a girl with an IQ of sixty.”

I glanced at him. “I didn’t know your girlfriend isn’t very bright.”

He rolled his eyes. “Yeah, right. You call all the girls I date intellectually challenged every chance you get.”

I shrugged. “And apparently, it still hasn’t influenced your standards.”

“Who knows,” he answered mysteriously before cupping a hand over his mouth to muffle his yawn. And yes, yawning is contagious because I immediately yawned after he did. My lids started drooping downwards again, heavy as if they were made with lead. The narrator’s voice droned on and the chilly air in the room made me shiver.

“You cold?” Seth asked.

“I’m fine,” I said, shaking my head. I finally dumped the pen and paper I had been holding and wrapped my arms around me, slinking down lower on my seat to warm my back.

He shrugged out of his white, jersey jacket which he’d put on over his stained shirt and draped it over my shoulders.

I opened my mouth to protest but it felt so warm and soft against me that I couldn’t’ bring myself to argue.

“Thanks,” I mumbled shyly, avoiding his eyes.

“You’re welcome. Just sit back and relax. This doc will be over before we know it.”

Oh boy, was he right.

When I opened my eyes, it was very bright. I squinted against the clinical bright light and tilted my head forward heavily. And the moment I did that, I found myself staring into Dr. Han’s sharp, slanted eyes.

Uh-oh.

I swallowed hard and moved my head around. The lecture room was now well-lit and empty except for me, Dr. Han, her assistant, Wilson, and Seth who was still peacefully asleep on his chair beside me.

I nudged him with my leg but he didn’t budge. Dr. Han’s brow raised so I nudged Seth harder.

“Seth, wake up,” I hissed at him, flashing Dr. Han an apologetic smile. The woman remained frowning.

Finally, I pinched Seth’s thigh through his jeans and he yelped, straightening up so suddenly, finally clearly awake.

“Wha—“ His words stopped immediately the moment he found Dr. Han glaring at him.

“So, you two are finally awake,” she said in her high-pitched voice, finally breaking her icy silence in the last five minutes or so. “It’s already ten minutes after the class finished but you wouldn’t really notice that if you’ve been sleeping all this time.”

“We haven’t been sleeping the whole time, I promise,” I started yapping on, too nervous and embarrassed about this infraction. “We… we… ”

“We apologize, Dr. Han,” Seth supplied smoothly, nodding to the professor. “We tried to pay attention but I will admit that that was a very long documentary and with no class interaction at all, it is, without question, going to tempt anybody into sleep.”

“Interest is a choice, Mr. Wallace,” the professor replied curtly. “If you’re interested in what you have to learn, your mind stays alert. If you weren’t interested in what I had to present to you today, why did you even bother coming to class?”

Seth opened his mouth again to answer but I kicked his foot. Dr. Han turned to me with a disapproving look on her face. “And you, Miss Benning. You’re usually pretty well-behaved. It may be the new generation but I don’t tolerate sleeping in class. I find it much disrespectful, especially when other people are paying for your time to be in school.”

The comment hit me like hot water on the face and I grew warm in embarrassment.

“I don’t think that was a fair comment, Dr. Han,” Seth said in a low, edgy tone I’ve barely heard from him before. “Learning is a two-way process. The student must open his mind but the teacher has to know how to put that information in.”

“I’ve taught for ten years, Mr. Wallace,” Dr. Han countered, her china doll face, darkening with anger. “Nobody’s ever complained about how I teach.”

“Maybe you never asked,” he replied, shrugging and I turned to him in horror. Oh my God, does he have a clue what he’s destroying here?

“Alright, that’s it!” the professor spewed violently, flailing her arm towards the door. “Out you two and don’t ever come back. You can expect your marks to reflect your repulsive behavior.”

“No, Dr. Han, please,” I suddenly found my voice and begged, imagining in horror my future going down the drain. “We’ll make up for it, Seth and I. Please, it was simply just human error on our part. It doesn’t mean we haven’t learned anything in your class.”

I nervously glanced at Seth to see if he would protest. He can fail this class and not worry about consequences—he’s got nothing to lose.

But he quietly nodded, waiting for the professor to speak.

She looked at us carefully for a long time, as if assessing our sincerity. Then she glanced at the skinny, nerdy-looking Wilson, her teaching assistant, who nodded in some sort of unspoken agreement.

“Alright, I’ll give you another chance,” the professor spoke up, straightening. “I’m usually not so lenient but since this is a first offense, I’ll let you make up for it.”

I sighed in relief until I saw her pick up a thick brown folder from the several ones that Wilson was cradling close to his chest.

She set it down on my desk and I glanced down at the label on it: Popular Indian Folklore.

“I want you both to report on it—create an extensive presentation that will consume two hours and nothing less,” she instructed in an almost haughty tone. “Let’s see how you can make a two-hour presentation interesting enough to keep everybody awake.”

I swallowed hard and glanced at Seth. He didn’t seem at all worried by the enormity of the professor’s expectation.

“Present it Friday next week but I need you to show me the outline of contents by Monday,” she added before turning to go. Wilson followed behind her like an obedient dog. “You can now both leave.”

We mumbled our thank-yous before rushing out of the room.

The moment we were out, I started sprinting.

“Ali, wait!”

“Leave me alone, Seth!” I snapped at him, marching forward without care at the people who were glancing my way.

He easily caught up with me, grabbing me by the elbow. “But we’ve got to talk about the presentation.”

I tried pulling my arm free in anger but his grip was tight. “I’ll do the presentation myself. You don’t need to inconvenience yourself with it. I’ll give you your script by the end of the week. And you’re hurting me.”

He blinked and loosened his hold without completely letting go. His thumb rubbed my elbow as he gently pulled me to the side of the hallway. “What do you mean you’ll give me a script? We’re both working on this—it’s both our problem to deal with.”

I rolled my eyes. “A problem that would’ve never happened if you didn’t make me fall asleep.”

His eyes widened. “Make you fall asleep? How did I make you fall asleep? That documentary needed no help from me at all.”

“You know what I mean!” I argued, not caring if I sounded like an unreasonable child. “If you didn’t charm Alicia into swapping seats with you and sit next to me, if you didn’t lend me your jacket that made me feel warm and nice, I wouldn’t have fallen asleep!”

“So it’s my fault that I kept you company and made you feel warm and nice,” he countered, exasperated. “I never knew it was such a crime.”

“It is if you know that I take school very, very seriously,” I answered, determined to win the argument.

He put a hand his hip and looked heavenward with a sigh. “You take it way too seriously, it’s becoming disturbing.”

“Seth!”

He closed in on me, now an amused smile hovering on his lips, and I stepped back and felt the wall behind me.

“Why don’t you just say it the way they do on those funny statement shirts—I didn’t say it was your fault. I said I was going to blame you,” he said, tapping my nose like a child. “It’s okay, you know? I’ll let you blame me.”

He was too close for comfort but I ignored the heavy weight that settled in my tummy. I narrowed my eyes at him and poked a finger at his chest. “You bring me nothing but trouble and constant annoyance. When this project is done, I want you to stay away from me. Understood?”

He caught my hand and didn’t let it go even as I tried to tug it free. “Not really. And I’m not the one making your life hard. It’s you. So your request is unacceptable, sorry.”

“You will be the death of me,” I hissed furiously, before pulling my hand free successfully and marching off and into the crowd coming out of a lecture hall.

“Ali! Ali, wait!” I heard him call me but I just drew my lips into a tight line and never looked back.