Love and Other Foreign Words by Erin McCahan Page B

through the rest of them, I find this one from Stefan sent just after he got home last night from dropping me off:
    gnite Josie. I had a really great time. Thx
    I smile as I continue scrolling.
    Text from Stu, 7:03 a.m.
    Sarah broke up with me last night.
    Text to Stu, 7:13 a.m.
    Stefan told me he thinks he could fall in love with me.
    Text from Stu, 7:14 a.m.
    What did U say?
    Text to Stu, 7:14 a.m.
    I need time to consider this.
    Text from Stu, 7:15 a.m.
    Sarah cried.
    Text to Stu, 7:15 a.m.
    Stefan didn’t.
    Text from Stu, 7:16 a.m.
    Neither did I.
    Text to Stu, 7:16 a.m.
    I need to hear this story. Tell Auntie Pat I’m coming over for breakfast and meet me in your kitchen in 15 min.
    I’m sitting at the granite-topped breakfast bar in the Wagemakers’ kitchen, nibbling on buttered toast, when Moses the cat jumps up on the stool next to me—Stu’s stool if he were down here. Stu’s a pseudo morning person—awake and cogent early but not ready to move for hours, if he has the choice. I dip the tip of my finger in a bit of unmelted butter and allow Moses to lick it off before Auntie Pat notices.
    When I hear Stu thudding down the back stairs, I quickly scratch Moses’ head and pick him up with the intention of safely depositing him on the floor. But he squirms, and I slide. He jumps. I topple right off the stool and end up as Swiss Army Josie on the floor—legs and arms folded at all sorts of odd angles at Stu’s feet.
    â€œGood morning,” I manage, looking up and untwisting myself.
    â€œImpressive,” he says, taking his seat. “Even for you.”
    â€œStu—Josie,” Auntie Pat says, hurrying to help me up.
    â€œThat cat is never going to come near me again,” I say, straightening my ponytail once I’m vertical.
    â€œ
I
barely want to,” Stu says, exaggerating a look of wild-eyed bewilderment.
    Within a couple of minutes, we are settled again at the breakfast bar. Stu’s eating cereal out of a mixing bowl and answering me between and during bites, which doesn’t really bother me. I speak Stu Chewing.
    â€œSo dinner was boring,” I say, recapping his story so far. “Prom was okay. What happened at after-prom?”
    â€œShe gah ma a mih,” he says.
    She got mad at me.
    â€œWhy?”
    He swallows that mouthful, and I put my hand on his wrist to prevent another bite. I speak Stu Chewing, but I want to hear this loud and clear.
    He pushes the bowl aside and looks directly at me to say, “She told me she loves me.”
    â€œAnd you didn’t say it back!” I nearly shout, happily and quickly, before he can finish the story.
    â€œYeah. Okay. I didn’t.”
    â€œI knew it,” I say under my breath.
    â€œSo she goes running out of the place, and I follow her, and we can’t get back in once we leave, so I drive her home, which gives her the opportunity to vent her vitriol against me about eleven inches from my ear, listing, among my other faults, that I don’t listen, don’t care about her feelings, don’t love her—ignoring me every time I told her how much I
like
her”—he sighs—“and ruined what was supposed to be the best night of her life.”
    â€œAnd you said?”
    He raises his shoulders high as he grudgingly admits, “I told her I was sorry and hoped senior prom would be better for her.”
    â€œOh, geez.”
    â€œYeah, she wasn’t happy with that response either. She started crying.”
    Stu hates it when girls cry. He says no guy knows how to react to that, and he’s always afraid, in that moment, he’s going to offer her his car or one of his kidneys just to make her stop, and calls that a verbal contract he wouldn’t want to keep.
    So I ask him about cars and kidneys, and he says, “My name remains on the titles to all three.”
    â€œAll
three
?” I ask as he slides his bowl closer.