The Long Highway Pt. 35B

Hiroko translated

In my dream you saw me with my husband, visited his class I was in. He was having students, including me, form pairs to talk. You and I couldn't.

When we were alone together later you were like a storm that could shake the bed apart.

My husband Mitchell has insecurities. Let me tell you about Friday. Some of them showed then.

We went to a coffee shop. A Japanese guy manned the counter. That always makes Mitchell nervous because he doesn't know the language. The funny thing is that the guy lives here in America and doesn't expect Mitchell to speak anything but English. I guess because Mitchell is with me he feels he has something to prove to anyone from my country, doesn't want to look weak.

The friendly counterman, big for a Japanese, gangly, in his late twenties, friendly like an American, trying to fit in here and succeeding (he's a college student, I think) handed Mitchell our coffees and waited.

"Ah, that's right. We have to pay." Mitchell had forgotten in his nervous talking.

"Mendoukusai," he said, slipping in his first Japanese word. It means "annoying." He was being humorous. Of course he was happy to pay, meant only to cover his embarrassment at forgetting.

Having started in my language, he went on.

"Futari bun," then "ni shoku," he tried. "Portions for two" and "two foods" those mean. Mitchell wasn't sure he had the pronunciation right. He knows some Japanese but only words, can't make sentences. And Japanese is difficult. You can understand the meaning without knowing how to say it.

"Muzukashii," Mitchell said. "Difficult," he acknowledged. He was at this point throwing out anything he knew. More or less making fun of himself. "Kutsujoku," he said finally. It means "humiliation."

At home we listened together to a message on my phone.

"It's for a modeling assignment," Mitchell said. "They want to use you again."

I've had a few before. Group shoots. The focus is the product in the room. A group of us stand around as props, in effect. It's an occasional thing. Dark room like a loft last time. Floor boards painted obsidian like the walls. The floorboards shone, were polished, had white highlights that seemed to bounce around the room, deepened the shadow in which the extras stood, as if in smoke.

"It's for diversity," Mitchell said. "We 'luck out.'" More extra money, he meant by the last phrase. The producer uses me to have an Asian in the image along with other types, Mitchell maintains.

He said they want me to call them back. Mitchell explained the message to me because while I get the gist I might miss some details because it's in English. If I hadn't understood I was expected to phone and instead waited for the producer's call, for example, I might have lost the opportunity.

Mitchell went to teach in the evening. He finds his job at the college hard. He'd arrived early and had to look for parking and then bide his time before the class. By the time he reached the classroom he was stressed.

He said as he was waiting for the class to start he talked to a bright student in the front row. Few others were there yet and Mitchell told the young man what he planned to do with the lesson. The student had asked.

In response, the student said, "We have a test tomorrow. Do you think we should be doing that" (the activity Mitchell had planned) "and not preparing for it?" (the test, he meant)

Mitchell saw his point, even considered changing his plan, which really was off the subject, not pertinent to the test, about which the student was serious, but he also knew, he said, it would look bad to back down so readily.

"What did you do in your country?" Mitchell asked the student, who impressed him as intelligent and therefore self-assured. Talking with a teacher didn't daunt him at all, even though he was so much younger and also physically smaller. Mitchell loomed over the front desk where he sat. The confrontation was like that between Mitchell and the young man at the coffee shop before.

Mitchell guessed his student had been working on a degree at a university before coming to the U.S. and looked forward to a future of achievement. Did he feel envy? Competition?

By his question, Mitchell was trying to change the subject and to get on friendly terms with the young man named Pedro. I've met him and remember. Jet black hair, small but very handsome with penetrating eyes. The blue-black hair and almost silvery clear skin you might associate with South American mountains, the Andes. But the student wasn't responding as Mitchell hoped. He kept a serious focus, wouldn't let him sidestep the question he'd posed about the lesson for that day. He wasn't at the college to make chit-chat (though he can be as friendly as the next person. I've seen that. He smiles with blazingly, irresistibly white teeth). He wanted to know the reasoning behind Mitchell's seemingly irrelevant plan for the class about to begin.

Mitchell came home burdened with the stress, first from his encounter in the coffee shop that showed his weakness in my language, next from the phone call about modeling- he worries the producer might make a play for me; of course I have to go out for drinks with the group after the shoot, be sociable; that's part of the work and improves my chances of getting hired again if something comes up. He also carried stress from the exchange in the classroom with the smart student who's younger than he is and new to this country but seems as competent and as strong as him or even more. Mitchell wanted to deal with his stress, and he had me every way he knows how. When he stepped into the apartment I could see how big he already was. The front of his light brown corduroy pants stood out.