Caroline was a French foreign-exchange student at our high school I met in French class, because when the teacher asked her to read, she read our curriculum the way I read "Moby Dick": flawlessly, like a native. Everyone in class turned around to look at her in astonishment, until the teacher finally admitted she was French-born like herself. Oh.
I immediately asked her afterward why she was taking it, because a lot of the students were worried that she would throw off the curve for the entire class, and we were fourth-year language, Regency-diploma students with advanced college credits (Amy and Michael Wechsler, I'm thinking of you two, specifically). I didn't want to see her attacked by the other students for the rest of the year, and with a last name like "Doucette", the only other French name in our senior class, I felt honor-bound to become her friend. It was the right thing to do.
She was a really nice person to talk to, actually. Besides, she explained to me that she was taking senior-level classes at a high school that was foreign to her, given entirely in English. She had a grade-point average to protect, too. After all, European colleges were a lot more particular about grades than our more well-rounded studies that included athleticism and the arts. They wanted certain numbers as cut-off points for certain levels, and that was that. Taking French would guarantee her an easy "A" she really needed, because she had to take Chemistry as her science requirement in English, and she was completely struggling with it, as you could imagine.
Her fluency as an excellent student at home in the south of France found her using a tutor after school just to get through the lesson plans, which was embarrassing enough for her. There was still the social stigma of her year in New York to be addressed. She lived with her affluent grandparents in an exclusive neighborhood of expensive architect-designed houses, each one a unique statement about the intrinsic wealth of New Yorkers. Her grandfather was a tenured History professor in the city, and her grandmother an eccentric Japanese calligrapher with a private studio equipped with Shoji screens and custom sliding doors, wandering around the house with an affected air of white privilege as she toured the grounds in her cheomsang.
They were, in short, insufferable, and Caroline had been sent abroad because of a sexual scandal in her hometown after she'd fallen in love with an Arab boy. Her parents "je ne sais quoi" about providing her with birth control pills as a 16 year old minor ended when confronted with his gang affiliation and darker skin. She told me he was part of a moped gang that did violent "drive-bys" for their initiation. As his girl, she rode on the back of his bike during their fights with rival gangs. They would hold razor blades between their fingers to swipe at each others faces, making long-lasting scars that they wore with pride.
"Like thees", she showed me as if holding a blade sharp-side down between her index and middle finger, "pht pht!", imitating a slashing sound. They'd go for cuts across the cheeks that would be permanent reminders of their epic Euro battles made from small scooters imported from Italy. After a couple of run-ins with the cops, her parents freaked out and she was shipped here, to New York City and its environs, which I found questionable as a choice. She immediately took up with a few Asian martial arts guys at school, as her latest ethnic fetish. But, it did the trick of unsticking the dangerous Arab boy from her, which was the whole point. By the end of the year, I spoke French like "une naturelle", acing my college-level language classes. Merci, Caroline. Pour toi.
