BRITTE

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.