The Spanish Tutor

The Spanish TutorA College Girl's Guide to International DatingKate Amigo To my husband and lifelong Spanish tutor, Bryan. Qué suerte la nuestra de habernos encontrado y haber vivido esta historia en la vida real. May the adventures never end. Por siempre y para siempre. Te quiero. Contents Title PageDedication1 MIERDA2 FLECHAZOS3 PRIMERA LECCIÓN4 LOS DEBERES5 AY DIOS MÍO6 ¡FIREBALL!7 ME PARECE PERFECTO8 PALACIO SHERBURNE9 ¿EN SERIO?10 LA NUEVA KAT11 LA NOVIA12 TE QUIERO13 VERANO IS COMING14 ROCK EL BOTE15 NOS VEMOS16 BIENVENIDA17 CALA LLOMBARDS18 VIDAS PASADAS19 UN GRANDE AMERICANO20 FUGITIVOS21 PROBLEMAS EN EL PARAÍSO22 CON TE PARTIRÒAcknowledgementAbout The Author 1 MIERDAScratch, scratch, scratch went the lead of my pencil as I scribbled my way down the beat-up notebook page. I was spewing off a litany of Spanish nouns and verbs, none of which sounded particularly intelligent. I glanced up from my paper as I pondered over a conjugation, catching eyes with my Spanish 202 professor, Agustín. He was a seventy-something man from Madrid with a penchant for impeccable grammar and tequila in his coffee, equal parts terrifying and intriguing. His eyes pierced me in a way that said, you will NEVER learn this language. NUNCA. Ten minutes prior, he had berated me in front of the whole class in yet another dreaded group discussion. The question was: if you could have dinner with any notable figure, dead or alive, who would you choose?My answer came easy. My “notable figure” had been and always would be Bradley Cooper. Alas, I knew the name of an American actor would not be a sufficient response to the tyrant’s deceivingly innocent question. How could I sell Bradley Cooper beyond the fact that he was ridiculously sexy and spoke French fluently?Oh, là là. Agustín posed the question and began to circle his trembling students, reminiscent of a hawk circling its prey. We were only a class of fifteen, making it virtually impossible to hide.Please, please, please, not me first. Por favor, no. I’m begging you. I silently pleaded with the Universe while simultaneously planning my response.Who would I choose? That's the conditional tense, right?Or is it the subjunctive?What even is the subjunctive?Is he going to spite me for picking the devastatingly handsome Bradley Cooper? Who am I kidding—he already hates me.“Tyler.”Oh, thank God.Agustín positioned himself square in front of his first victim. Tyler was a confident Spanish learner with the kind of near-native accent that we Spanish 202 students both hated and coveted. He was constantly picked first by Agustín, thanks to his flawless, exemplary responses. On the one hand, it took the pressure off the rest of us to answer first, but on the other hand, it set an impossible precedent.Cabrón.“Pues…hay muchas personas famosas que admiro…” Tyler began with the aggravating poise of someone who had just studied for six months in Mexico City. In reality, he hadn’t gone anywhere except maybe La Casita Mexican restaurant on Division Street. Still nervously planning my Bradley Cooper response, I tuned him out for a bit. I didn’t need that kind of pressure. My eyes moved across the blank walls, taking in the generic nature of the brutally bland college classroom. I missed the bright conjugation charts and llama posters that adorned the walls of my old high school classrooms. College Spanish felt much more cut-throat and high stakes, like being in some kind of Language Hunger Games. If that were the case, I would be from one of the lowest districts. The district where the villagers pronounced quesadilla like “kay-sah-dill-uh.” “Por eso, yo elegiría a Francisco Goya.”That little shit. He did not. Tyler not only provided yet another grammatically unblemished response, but the person he chose to have dinner with was, low and behold, one of the most famous Spanish artists of the 18th and early 19th centuries. Francisco Goya. Not that I knew that at the time. I had to Google it. In my hometown, Goya was Sazón and canned black beans, and that’s about it. Something we could pick up at our local Bent and Dent supermarket. We wouldn’t know “art” if it smacked us in the face with a paintbrush. Fuck you, Tyler.My eyes immediately went to Agustín to see his reaction. And oh my God. The dude was…smiling! Agustín, a chronically dissatisfied senior citizen with a perpetual expression of distaste, had lifted the corners of his mouth and was SMILING at Tyler. “Muy bien hecho, Tyler. Goya era una persona muy interesante.” Barf. Of course, he loved it. I suppressed my desire to indulge in a massive eye roll. A solid decision as Agustín would have placed my head on a guillotine if he caught any wind of disrespect toward his almighty authority. My pulse began to accelerate as I realized I remained a potential victim in the torturous group discussion roulette. I watched Agustín’s little feet start to shuffle closer to my table. Shit. All I got is Bradley Cooper. Yes, from the intellectually riveting film, The Hangover. Maybe you’ve seen it? My mind raced through alternative answers. I knew Penélope Cruz. Vicky Cristina Barcelona, anyone? Enrique Iglesias? I can be your hero, baby?“Kat.” Kill me now. I looked up from my desk and offered a faulty smile that failed to reach my eyes. He could smell my fear.Shifting forward in my chair, I rested my hands on the table and expelled a long, preparatory exhale. I then proceeded to explain in choppy, warbled Spanish why, out of all the fascinating people in this world, both living and deceased, I would choose Bradley Cooper as my dinner date. At some point in my ramblings, I even added, quite unnecessarily, that we would likely go to a sushi place for our meal because I once read in Cosmopolitan that sushi was his favorite food. Even though my cheeks were turning a bright shade of red and Agustín’s expression remained impassive, I was kind of killing it in the grammar department. The verbs practically conjugated themselves, tumbling out of my mouth like a