Your Average Girl

Forgot a word in Spanish, while speaking Spanish to me, but remembered it in English. Became weirdly quiet as they seemed to lose their entire sense of identity.

Used a literal translation of a Russian idiomatic expression while speaking English. He actually does this quite regularly, because he somehow genuinely forgets which idioms belong to which language. It usually takes a minute of everyone staring at him in confused silence before he says “….Ah….. that must be a Russian one then….”

Had to count backwards for something. Could not count backwards in English. Counted backwards in French under her breath until she got to the number she needed, and then translated it into English.

Meant to inform her (French) parents that bread in America is baked with a lot of preservatives. Her brain was still halfway in English Mode so she used the word “préservatifes.” Ended up shocking her parents with the knowledge that apparently, bread in America is full of condoms.

Defined a slang term for me……. with another slang term. In the same language. Which I do not speak.

Was talking to both me and his mother in English when his mother had to revert to Russian to ask him a question about a word. He said “I don’t know” and turned to me and asked “Is there an English equivalent for Нумизматический?” and it took him a solid minute to realize there was no way I would be able to answer that. Meanwhile his mom quietly chuckled behind his back.

Said an expression in English but with Spanish grammar, which turned “How stressful!” into “What stressing!”

My best friend’s big brother had just hit one of his dates, at 13. The day he met his soulmate, a boy in the year above him at his new school.

At five, we didn’t use the word “soulmate”. The way Anna explained it to us was instead: “One of them is the day you finish your biggest goal, one of them is when you meet your true love, and one of them is when you’re gonna… die.” That last word was whispered, but we all still heard it and felt how ominous it was.

We compared our dates, because of course we did. Counting on our fingers how far away the dates were. Some of them were close together, some where not. My numbers were special, being all the same day. What a day that would be. But 26 sounded so very far away.

As I grew up, I realized that 26 was not really very old, though. For a while, I felt very put upon. It wasn’t fair that I was going to hit all three milestones within a minute of each other. Not even getting a chance to enjoy my success or my true love before it was time for me to die.

I was there when Anna met her husband to be. We were 19, and she had been talking about nothing else for like a month in advance. But we got lost in conversation, and when he knocked on her shoulder to hand her something she had dropped, she didn’t know what time it was.

But as she turned to face him, I saw the numbers light up on both of their wrists for a moment, and then fade away. And I knew. Of course, I could’ve told by the looks on their faces as well, they were ridiculously and immediately besotted. I don’t know if it’s a self-fulfilling prophecy or not, that priming yourself to meet your soulmate might make you more open to it when it happens, but I’ve seen it happen enough times to know that it’s the real deal either way.

It’s kind of strange, knowing what your life expectancy is like. The people with years ahead of them plan differently than the people who know they’re going to die young. I dated a bit, but never got serious. I’ve seen plenty of people have good relationships with people who are not their soulmates, perhaps even marriage and children, knowing that their soulmates are years away still.

But for me, I never got super into any relationship. I didn’t want to hurt anyone. And kids were never an option for me. Not that I didn’t want them, but leaving them motherless so young seemed cruel.

So I threw myself into my work. For me, my goal was to write a story that had a real impact on someone else’s life. A lot of the people I knew who were destined to die young had goals like mine, wanting to leave some kind of lasting impact on the world.

Researching my story, I made contact with a brilliant surgeon named Kathryn. She lived in another city, but we had a good online relationship. She was funny and smart, and didn’t treat me like I was crazy when I came with her with strange medical hypotheticals to work out for my story.

I put her first in the list of people I wanted to dedicate the book to, and invited her to the big release party, and to my surprise she said yes. I hadn’t told her it was on my date. I hadn’t told anyone about my dates for a long time.

I sat at a little table to sign my book for anyone who wanted it, and my publisher’s daughter came up, clutching the book to her chest and with a look of awe on her face that made me smile to myself.

“Miss Daren? I just wanted to tell you, this book changed how I look at myself, and…”

She kept talking, but I could barely hear her, because I noticed one of my dates had just flashed up and then faded away on my arm. So this is it, I thought to myself, as I smiled at the girl and signed her book when she offered it to me. My life’s goal all out of the way.

I felt a hand on my shoulder, and turned around just to come face to face with the most gorgeous woman I had ever seen. Tall and dark, with her braided hair in an advanced style and wearing an amazing red dress. I recognized her immediately from the photos I’d seen of her online.

“Kathryn?” I sighed, both so happy to finally see her in person and realize that hey, I actually got to know my soulmate, just without knowing that that was who she was, and at the same time so angry at a world that would give me such perfect happiness just to snatch it away. Angry at a world that would make me hurt her like this.

She had seen the numbers flash up on both of our arms and then fade away. She was smiling at me, and I wanted to be happy, but all I could say was “I’m so sorry,” before the stress of the moment, combined with an unknown congenital defect in my heart made the darkness rise up from behind my eyes and claim me.

And then something I never expected happened.

I woke up.

I woke up in a hospital room full of beeping machines and strange smells, and there was Kathryn in a chair next to my bed, still in that red dress and looking simply amazing, although kind of tired.

“How?” I managed to ask. “I was supposed to–”

“I know,” she whispered, taking my hand in hers and squeezing it gently. “Technically, you did. Luckily for both of us, I am very good at my job.”

“I never realized that it was even possible.”

“It’s rare, but it happens. Us surgeons are a stubborn bunch, and if we have to wrench you out of the hands of Death himself, then we will.”

I turned my arm over and looked at my wrist. A new number. Almost 80 years in the future. I took Kathryn’s hand, turned it over. Saw her one remaining number.

“We’re going to die together,” I said, disbelievingly.

“Only when we’re really old,” she replied.

And after a few moments, we both started laughing. And we laughed until we cried, and then laughed some more.

I can’t believe I get to grow old with her. I can’t believe I’m so lucky.

- Sacheen Littlefeather in Reel Injun (2009), dir. Neil Diamond.

Marlon Brando was the Don in The Godfather, and in 1973, he was nominated for and won an Academy Award for it. However, he was also a huge Natives rights activist, and boycotted the ceremony because he felt that Hollywood’s depictions of Native Americans in the media led to the Wounded Knee Incident (which I was always taught as “the second massacre at Wounded Knee” but apparently that’s not the real name). He sent Sacheen Littlefeather, an Apache Native rights activist, in his stead. Wikipedia’s article on her explains the rest:

Brando had written a 15-page speech for Littlefeather to give at the ceremony, but when the producer met her backstage he threatened to physically remove her or have her arrested if she spoke on stage for more than 60 seconds.[5] Her on-stage comments were therefore improvised. She then went backstage and read the entire speech to the press. In his autobiography My Word is My Bond, Roger Moore (who presented the award) claims he took the Oscar home with him and kept it in his possession until it was collected by an armed guard sent by the Academy.

So my trainer’s bf cheated on her. She broke up with him. He’s holding her stuff hostage until she agrees to talk with him. Which she refuses.

She trains; for free mind you; three college linebackers, a college wrestler, two martial artists, a body builder, and… wait for it…. a Navy seal. We’re gonna go get her shit for her.

Arrival:

So the super friends all jumped into one of the linebacker’s explorer and headed over to dude’s house. Ok the squad: you all know me, but the other martial artist is a little wirey hapkido guy, the linebackers are all giants (an estimated combined weight of I’d say 750-800lbs), the wrestler looks like an escaped gorilla, then the navy seal looks like your average guy but something about him is unsettling. Really unsettling. Unfortunately, the body builder had to work. Anyway, we send the Hapkido guy and the wrestler to the door first and dude answers, screams at them, and then slams the door in their face. Then the giant linebackers head over and they ring the door bell again. Lo and behold, he was much more polite, but still denied access. Finally, me and the seal join the fray. I casually make my way towards the front of the group, but the seal decides to CLIMB THE BANISTER. We all just turned and started at him completely shocked when dude answers the door. He looks at this weird mismatched group of relatively threatening individuals and one guy perched on his banister like batman. He was like “FINE. Go take what you’re looking for.”

Retrieval:

So we’re all walking through the house gathering what we think are her things and putting them into two boxes. Mind you. We are completely guessing. We didn’t even tell her we were coming, therefore we had no list of items.The only one really being productive was Hapkido, who was legitimately looking for stuff. The linebackers were just randomly picking up furniture, turning it over, and putting it back down. Just showing off how strong they were. In case the numbers game wasn’t enough, I guess they were letting him know they could break him if they wanted to. The seal was just shadowing dude in his own house. Walking behind him, not saying much, just being creepy. Then there’s me. Who was causing general mischief…. He said to take what I was looking for, that’s what I was looking for. Ahaha and the wrestler made a fricken sandwich. Because “you guys look like you have it under control, and I’m a sucker for egg salad.” We were in and out in 15 minutes.

Delivery:

So the autobots rolled out and headed towards homegirl’s spot. She was conveniently outside when we rolled up. We got out and she was like, how do you all even know each other. The truth is, we don’t. She sent us all an email once and didn’t blind copy us all. She vented to all of us about dude holding onto her stuff and we started emailing and that was that. We told her that we went to see her ex. “OMG what did you say to him?” Nothing. We’re not messenger boys. We’re delivery boys. And we gave her her boxes of stuff. She went through the first box and said that was most of her stuff. Then she got to my box and asked “Wtf is all that shit.” So I explained that I took all the batteries out of his remote controls, his deodorant, the light bulb out of his master closet, every pair of dress socks that I could find, the laces out of his running shoes, and all the toilet paper in the house. The guys just looked at me and kind of nodded like they were impressed. She then unexpectedly started CRYING and thanked us. So you have this group of meat heads all standing awkwardly with this weeping trainer. It was quiet for a second when the seal was like “So…. chipoltle?” And we all got burrito bowls.