I remember being horribly anxious the day I had to take my college placement test in Spanish—because I was so afraid of making a bad showing and disappointing both Britte and my Spanish teacher Mr. Washburn. I’d had two years of high school Spanish by then, but they were only the equivalent of one semester of Spanish in college. So my goal was to place in Spanish 2. As it turned out, there were so many words I didn’t know on the test that I had to laboriously study the syntax of each sentence in order to figure out what all those unfamiliar words probably meant before I could essay an answer. So I was one of the very last students to leave the auditorium that day. When we received the results, I found to my astonishment that I’d actually placed in Spanish 4—even though, among other things, I didn’t know the subjunctive tense yet. In the end, I was obliged to go to Prof. Murillo, the chairman of the department, to get his permission to take Spanish 3 instead.

One of the exercises we did in that class—after reading a story in Spanish—was to write one of our own in the same style as the author’s. A story in the anthology that I only vaguely remember now was about a privileged—and spoiled—girl named Isabelitica. In very few words, I wrote a sequel about how she gave a stranger—a handsome young man passing beneath her window—an invitation to her birthday party that evening. He was a revolutionary, it turned out, who killed her father during the festivities.

That first semester I studied ferociously, earned a 4-point, and won a Regent’s scholarship. To maintain the scholarship throughout my college career, however, I would eventually have to abandon my intention of minoring in English. Most of the final exams in English involved answering a list of questions in a series of essays—and I was so perfectionistic I couldn’t write fast, especially under pressure.

Meanwhile, I’d settled on Spanish as my major simply because it was the safest choice. Though my dream was to become a singer and I’d done well in art in high school, I didn’t identify as an artist at that point in my life and lacked the confidence to major in either art or music—areas where, in an ideal world, I belonged.

Because I couldn’t join Britte, Kita, and Meryl on their trip to Mexico, I went instead to spend a week with Linda at her grandmother’s in Los Angeles. We went to Disneyland, stayed up till all hours talking, read Darkness at Noon out loud in the evenings, pulled taffy her grandmother made, and visited her boyfriend Bob’s family in Riverside, even though Bob was away. Actually, Linda was in a bit of a dilemma because she didn’t know where she stood with Bob—and confessed to me that she was attracted to his younger brother, as well.

But I was the one to hit it off with John, partly because we both played the guitar—though he was a much better player and wound up teaching me a complicated finger pick—and also, no doubt, because he wasn’t about to step on his older brother’s turf. I wrote:

“That evening we all went to a drive-in movie—Bikini Beach—with his friend Jerry. We folded back the front seat and all lay squished together. When John would rub my arm or take my hand, which he did in a kind of abstracted way, I couldn’t stay focused on the screen.

“When we came back, I wanted to go swimming in the apartment pool. Linda said no—it was against the rules after midnight—but I felt like doing something a little daring, so I asked John if I could borrow one of his T-shirts. The idea seemed to surprise him and please him a little. It was warm, private, beautiful, still. The water made lovely lapping sounds. I felt like a water ballerina—luxuriously happy. John came down to bring me a towel, and later I thought I saw him watching me from the second-floor railing.

“The next morning at breakfast, Mrs. Cliff asked, ‘How’s our little mermaid?’ She pronounced it ‘mirrormaid,’ so I thought she was making a joke about the fact that Linda and I had spent half the morning in the bathroom making ourselves presentable.

“’Which one?’ I asked, before I realized what she was referring to—that she knew about the episode in the pool. I felt a little guilty and embarrassed then, but everybody was nice about it. One of the neighbors had told her he heard something in the pool. A dog had fallen in only a week earlier, so he went to the window expecting to find a struggling puppy and saw me instead. He said I reminded him of a Greek goddess—that he was going to charge out in a draped sheet, but thought better of it, figuring it would scare me to death.

“That morning Tom, another friend of John’s, came over. I liked him right away but figured he’d be Linda’s date. When John told him about the episode in the pool, Tom seemed intrigued, wanting to know what I had worn. John said I was covered adequately. I laughed and asked, ‘How would you know, when most of me was underwater?’ ‘Water magnifies, you know,’ he said, and to Tom, ‘And those T-shirts cling!’

“Later John drove me up into the hills—the site of the first non-sectarian Easter sunrise service in the world, he told me—through hot, rocky desert country that reminded me of lizard hunting with Dad. Linda and Tom followed us on a motorcycle. At one point, John put the canvas top down so we could get a little sun. But who needs sun? I just freckle. I buried my face in his shirt to hide. At first he thought I was just being affectionate, so he put his hand on my neck. But then he asked, ‘Does it really bother you?’ I nodded. ‘OK, boss,’ he said, and put the top back up. ‘OK, boss.’ He said that a couple of times that afternoon—very affectionately, though.

“Next we went boating on a lake, and when we got back we played guitars and sang songs like “Johnny Be Good” and danced rock and roll. At one point Linda whispered to me, ‘Looks like you two are getting pretty cozy.'”

“That evening, before we headed for ‘home,’ Tom kissed Mrs. Cliff good-bye, and John made some comment about kissing that I didn’t quite hear. That’s when I got uneasy. I didn’t want to neck with him—I knew I’d probably like it, but I was still nervous. When the boys stopped to buy soft drinks on the way, Linda and I had a whispered discussion in the car. She: ‘Should we a little?’ Me: ‘No,’ with distress. ‘Well, it’s not like I want to get involved…but are you sure you don’t want to?’ ‘Yes!’ ‘Hmmm…I don’t know what to do. I do like Tom…’ ‘I wish you wouldn’t—don’t you see? John’s going to expect the same thing. If you do and I don’t…’ ‘They’re coming!’ ‘Oh great!’ And we continued towards home.

“For the next five minutes, Linda and Tom were laughing and thrashing around in the back, then suddenly it got quiet. The next thing I heard was the sound of short kisses. Well, what a mess I was in, I thought. I was nervous all the way home. We got temporarily lost. Then, in front of Linda’s grandma’s house, Linda said quickly, ‘Well, let’s get out.’ She was trying to rescue me, I realized. I collected my purse and sweater hurriedly.”

Though I didn’t write about it, the next weekend the four of us went on another double date to Knott’s Berry Farm. In the parking lot afterwards, John tried to kiss me, but I turned my cheek, afraid I’d bungle it so badly, he’d realize I’d never been kissed before. What he did then, as we talked, was draw me very slowly towards him. When he was close enough, he gently began to kiss my neck. I felt a little thrill of pleasure—and I remember feeling embarrassed because my body jerked suddenly in response, my back arching reflexively. Still, I never let him kiss me on the mouth.

My senior year in Spanish class we had a student teacher I’ll call Britte. She was pretty, tall, blond, and big-boned—Juno-esque. She took an interest in me and my friend Meryl as the best students in the class and invited us to a charreada a, Mexican rodeo. I developed a crush on her and thought from early on that if I could befriend her, it would change my life—though given how tongue-tied with shyness I was, that was a long shot.

As a thank-you I made her and her roommate Kita (a nickname) a batch of cookies that I put in a coffee can I covered with patterned paper and some drawings I’d done—and left at their door.

I remember the first time Britte invited me over to her apartment on the northside of campus for lunch, she served me half of a head of iceberg lettuce with Thousand Island dressing, which I ate as much of as I could get down, not wanting to seem ungrateful.

On another occasion she had me over to dinner, making a delicious chicken dish that I later found out involved only a splash of wine and a can of mushroom soup.

Then one evening Britte gave me a Gin Tonic, despite the fact that I was underage, that finally loosened the knot in my tongue. I was talkative, comical, I think—I even sang. Later, she would tell me that she thought alcohol brought out your true personality.

She and Kita had grown up in an affluent neighborhood in Oakland and had met in high school. Britte had had the kind childhood I could only dream of—the picture-perfect family in the big house with the white picket fence, a protective older brother, and parents who were still so in love that they often held hands. Britte, herself, was a warm, earth mother, seemingly mature beyond her years.

That year, both Britte and Kita took me under their wing. When Britte found out I loved to sing she began teaching me songs in Spanish like “Las Posadas,” a Mexican Christmas carol that has one of the most beautiful melodies I’ve ever heard and “Guantanamera.” A rough translation of the latter: 

I’m an honest man

From where the palm tree grows

And before I die

I want to pour out the poetry in my soul

 

My verses are a clear green

And a burning carmine

My verse is a wounded deer

Seeking shelter on the mountain.

 I remember making Kita a wind chime out of pipettes and cover slips from my high school chemistry class—a completely impractical artistic endeavor because the first blast of wind would have shattered it. For Britte I made gin bottle cover depicting “Ye Olde Liquor Shoppe” out of colored construction paper—with a door and windows that opened onto tiny ink drawings of times we’d spent together, similar to an advent calendar.

Following our graduation, Meryl—who also came from an affluent family—joined them on a trip to Mexico. I couldn’t afford to go with them, but Britte brought me back a beautiful guitar, the most wonderful gift I’ve ever been given. In the meantime, however, she’d become infatuated with a dashing latino—an ex-priest named Salvador de la Mora—which left me worrying that she would go back to Mexico and marry him.