checkmeout

    The assignment was to write a narrative based on personal experience that showed a person's past and present attitudes towards a person of a different nationality, sex, or age. (Don't kill me, L.A. dwellers, note the "based" bit-- if only my Columbia experience were this pleasant [granted, a lot of it was, just not my housing situation].) I changed some of the names because I'm paranoid like that. (And I can see why it would seem like I only ever write for English- this is most certainly not the case, I do it out of my own accord as well, simply not as often as I'd like to.)

Lemonade

            My first act upon entering the common room was to seamlessly connect my foot with the edge of the coffee table and stumble delicately over it. I would not call it a good first impression, but considering I was the only one in the room, it wasn’t particularly any kind of impression at all. I counted seven girls as my suitemates filed into the room, which was painted a dismal shade of blue most closely befitting a doctor’s office, and not a living space. Everyone was hesitant to choose a seat lest they be attached to their neighbor for the rest of the four-week program. I sat next to the Hindu girl whose name I could not pronounce and a girl that introduced herself as Kim.

            “Welcome to the Columbia University summer program!” Our resident assistant, Annie, beamed, “I’ve been living here for two weeks getting prepared for today, it’s exciting to finally see all of your faces! Let’s start off by introducing ourselves. Why don’t you go first?” She pointed to an Indian girl, “Just tell us your name, where you’re from, and things that you like.”

            “I’m Nikita, I’m from Singapore, and I’d like to dissect a corpse one day.” The room fell quiet, “But I love happy things, too! Like hardcore rock music, skulls, and, um, boys.” The air quickly softened when everyone was convinced that Nikita was not a psycho who was going to slit their throats them in their sleep, and a fog of giggling covered the room. The circle of introductions went clockwise, and I learned that Rose, who was from New York State, loved Bob Dylan; Elcin, the Turk, was having problems with her boyfriend; Zahra, who was Pakistani, had an aunt in the city with whom she’d be staying on weekends; Paankhuri the Hindu Texan wanted to be a doctor or professor; Kim, the devout Catholic, loved God; and Samantha, the Bel Air native with a lisp to rival any stereotypical gay man’s, could not survive without Sex and the City.

            “I go to Harvard West-Lake,” she grinned, “It’s like the best school in Los Angeles.”

            “Woah, do you know anyone famous?” Zahra stared at Samantha, wide-eyed.

            “Honey,” she laughed, “like you wouldn’t even believe.”

            I did not like people from Los Angeles, especially those like Samantha, who had a bottle of Fiji water nailed into each palm and a Mercedes glued to their ass. I knew that if there were going to be any conflicts in the suite, they would originate with her. We went off to our rooms to finish unpacking, and Samantha immediately pulled out her huge iPod speakers and began blasting the Spice Girls. Nikita, who had the room next to mine, poked her head out into the hallway and knocked on my door.

            “Charline?”

            I walked over to the door and stuck my head out as well, “Yes, Nikita?”

            “I wanna, I wanna, I wanna really really really wanna zig-a-zig ahhhhhh!!” Samantha howled in a tone that could be generously described as tone deaf.

            “What the hell is that?”

            I looked over across the common room and turned back to Nikita, “That would be Bel Air.”

            “Oh, shit,” grumbled Nikita as she slumped onto her bed and shut the door with her foot. Samantha soon came waddling into my room, wearing a watermelon colored sweatband and a large Bryn Mawr t-shirt.

            “Hey,” she said, “Just wanted to introduce myself!” I tried my best to put on a sincere smile, but feared that I would fail miserably, so I kept my head buried in my suitcase.

            “Hey! Sorry, I’m just having trouble getting this zippered-”

            “Oh, do you need some help? Let me get that,” she came over and used her large figure to keep the suitcase closed as she zippered it shut. “There you go,” she gave me a thumbs up, “Elcin and I are making plans for dinner, do you want to come?”

            “Sure,” I said, still slightly perplexed from her sudden burst of character, “Where are you guys thinking of going?”

            “There’s a little place down the street called Pechuchu’s or something. It was in my Zagat guide,” she pronounced the restaurant guide’s name as ‘Zah-gahhhht’ and grinned at her display of New York City know-how. “We have reservations for seven thirty; I’ll let you know when it’s time to get ready!” I waved feebly as she walked out of the room, figuring she was just trying to establish good relations for her own benefit.

It was six forty five by the time everyone finished unpacking and began primping for the night ahead. Samantha, predictably, had a suitcase overflowing with Marc Jacobs flats and Michael Kors heels, Fiji water bottles, and every electronic gadget that Apple had made in the past three years. I was surprised to discover, upon walking further into her room, that her bookshelf was overflowing with classic novels and biographies of John F. Kennedy.

She saw me admiring one of the biographies and leaned over my shoulder, “I love him… everything about his life fascinates me.”

“Yeah? I’d figured you’d be more into Jackie O.”

“Hmm?”

“Nothing, nothing.” I pulled out a Jack Kerouac from her shelf, “You like beat literature?”

“Of course! Who doesn’t?”

“Norman Podhoretz,” I smiled, and we both laughed.

“Do we go to Pertutti or not?” Elcin yelled from the hallway.

“Yeah,” chimed in Rose and the rest of the girls, “We should get going.” Samantha and I put the books back on the shelf and left the room, closing the door behind us.

Dinner was horrible.

“What you have drink?” Elcin made an attempt at imitating the waiter once we had left the restaurant. The impression came out quite accurately considering neither Elcin nor the waiter spoke English very well.

“Lemonade, please,” Samantha reenacted herself.

“What?” Elcin made an attempt to be as serious as she could as the rest of us giggled and snickered all down Broadway.

“Lemonade.”

“Lemo- what? What this lemon drink you speak of?”

“Coke,” Samantha finally spat, pretending to be exasperated.

“Okay, one icing tea coming up!” I buried my head in my hands and all of us snorted with laughter until we were outside of Columbia’s gates.

“It was a great way to start off the month, I think!” Paankhuri smirked and patted Samantha’s back.

Samantha smiled, “I would drink to that, if I had my lemonade!”

Instead of going straight up to our rooms we decided to head to Low Library and sit on top of one of the walls that tower over either side of “the steps.” All eight of us sat in a circle next to the huge copper lamp and discussed our lives at home and how excited we were to get to class the next morning. Samantha and I split off into a separate sphere of conversation, covering every part of literature and popular culture that we could manage before we had to return to our dormitory in order to meet our eleven o’clock curfew.

Nikita and I sat on my bed, taking advantage of the good wireless Internet connection that my room received.

“That was nice,” I said, “I’m glad that we all got to know each other.”

“Yeah,” she paused for a second, swinging her feet, “I heard you two talking, you know! I guess Bel Air has a heart down there somewhere, after all.”

“Yeah,” I laughed, letting my mind wander, “I guess she does.”