Junior

I remember when Camy came to live with our family for a year. It seemed my mother had been pestering me for months about the idea of hosting an AFS student. Long before she even crossed the Atlantic from Italy on an airplane, Camy entered the daily conversations and thoughts of my mother. To be precise, I believe it was April of my junior year in high school.

"Do we have to talk about this now?" I kept asking, wanting to push the idea into some sort of vacuum that sucked it to the back of my mind.

"You’ll love her," my mom said. "We’ve heard such good things about her from the Mudge family. They hosted her cousin Checo."

"I hate how you always try to make me do things," I said, slightly raising the level of my voice.

"Eric, now you know I’ve never made you do anything you didn’t want to do."

I was ready for her though.

"Oh yeah, what about the horseback riding lessons in first grade that I had to take?" I said, recalling the image of the seven-year-old perched on top of a brown pony with the reigns in hand, as the over-sized riding helmet slid from his forehead down over his eyes. I stopped those lessons as soon as my instructor told me the next step was learning the gallop.

"And what about the swimming lessons with that awful lady who made me put my face in the water and count to ten." This time I saw my instructor, sitting by the edge of the pool, her navy swimsuit fit snugly to her body, spreading out the excess flab of her pale thighs. I remember looking at her the instant before I went under, hoping she would give me a last second reprieve from my face plunging exercise. Instead, all I saw was her wide grin, and all I heard was the lapping of the pool water against its sides.

"Oh Eric," my mom said. "You’re really impossible some times."

"Thanks mom, thanks," I said. And with that, I had managed to put the decision on hold one more time. That is, until my father brought it up at the dinner table a month later.

I’m sure we were having my dad’s legendary spaghetti and sauce the night they picked Camy. I often wonder if my father had truly planned pasta night because he wanted to discuss an Italian girl coming to live with us for a year. Whatever his intentions, there was little discussion to be had.

"So what do you guys think about this foreign exchange student coming to live here," my dad said, addressing my younger sister and me. "I hope you’re as excited as your mother and I are."

"I’ve always wanted an older sister," my sister said, glancing over at me.

"So she comes in late July," my mom said. "I think we should have a welcome party. Eric, would you invite some of your friends?"

"Whoa, wait a minute. What’s going on here?" I said. "This is all news to me."

"Eric, c’mon," my dad snapped. "I thought we were past this. You had this talk with your mother over a month ago."

I was baffled, but for some reason I went along, waiting for the punch line. But it wouldn’t come. As I sat listening to talk about sleeping arrangements, family vacations to New Hampshire and Hawaii, and authentic Italian-cooked meals, my parents actually asked me why I wasn’t more (what was the word they used?) enthusiastic.

Probably out of sheer apathy did I not put up a fight. I decided then that I wasn’t going to let anyone, whether I liked her or not, come into my life and disrupt it. I was a junior. I had a girlfriend. I played football and baseball. I needed to start thinking about colleges. What did I care? But by then it didn’t even matter whether I cared or not. She was coming.

The four of us went to pick her up at the bus station sometime in late July before the start of school.

"What's her name again?" I asked on the car ride over.

"Camilla Ticozzi Valerio," my mom said, rolling her tongue and spitting the syllables as she tried to pronounce her name with a forced Italian accent. "From Milan." I heard my dad start to whistle the theme from the "Godfather."

"Cam," I decided.

Somehow I recognized her when she stepped down from the bus. There must have been 100 kids that got off the bus. Among the continuous flow of students wandering around the dusty, dirt parking lot, peering through crowds of people trying to find their families, I picked her out immediately. When my parents had showed me her file and application two weeks before, I had said I didn’t have time to look at it. I’m sure there was a picture attached to the application, but I had only so much as glanced at the page.

"There she is!" my mom yelled before I had the chance to, waving her hands over her head. "Camilla, over here!"

I saw her mouth open wide as she ran towards us, bags flailing at her sides. I rolled my eyes as she embraced my parents. She immediately defied my Italian stereotype of long, dark hair and brown eyes. Instead her blond hair was cut at her shoulders while her eyes were a light bluish color. The highlight of her tanned face was a nose shaped like a ski jump. Her curved, slender body reminded me of a slinky.

"Welcome to our family," my mom said. "Let me introduce you to your brother, Eric."

There were no hugs or traditional European style kisses on both cheeks. I didn't even extend my hand. Instead, I only gave her an acknowledgement with the nod of my head.

Once we were back in the car, my parents asked Camilla if she had a nickname she liked to be called.

"Camy," she said.

For the first time, I looked towards her and her eyes met mine.

"What about Cam?" I asked, finally speaking to her.

She simply shook her head, too scared to let the word "no" escape from her mouth.

At that moment, I was in control.

* * *

A few nights after Camy had arrived my family decided to bring in pizza for dinner. Again, it had to be part of my father’s plan to convince Camy that there was genuine Italian food in America, even in the form of the local house of pizza. When my father started placing the order for pizza and breadsticks, I had to smile as I heard Camy ask him if the restaurant had ham and cheese sandwiches. My father stuttered midway through the order, twirled his black curly hair, and then tacked on at the end, "Oh yeah, and one small ham and cheese sub."

"So Camy," my dad said after we had started to eat, "Don’t you even want to try a piece?"

I surveyed the table, weighing Camy’s options. There were the three large pizzas my dad had ordered, not to mention the double order of breadsticks, one set smothered with melted cheese. The three open boxes took up so much of the space on the table that Camy had her plate in her lap and was forced to eat her sub while hunched over.

"It’s the same," she said, using a phrase that I soon realized to mean, "I’m fine." "I don’t really like American pizza," she added, raising her eyebrows as she ventured a look in my dad’s direction.

"Bill, if she wants some, she’ll have some," my mom said in mid-bite of her caramelized onions and sausage pizza.

"Sandy, I’m not forcing her to do anything. Please don’t put words in my mouth."

"Can I be excused?" my sister asked, already taking her plate from the table.

I could see Camy out of the corner of my eye starting to shift in her chair. She was looking down at the plate in her lap. Either she was all too familiar with trivial parent arguments or she was experiencing the early stages of a typical one in my house. I cleared one of the pizza boxes off the table and she brought her plate up from her lap. She must have taken three bites from around the edges of her sub.

"Try the breadsticks if you’re still hungry," I said as I reached for three myself, trying to focus on my parents. "You’ll like them."

"Ok," she said. I thought I could feel her gaze shift from her lap and rest on my shoulders. Her mere presence was distracting me from getting my say in the disagreement. I wanted to tell my parents that no one cared, that we were a family, that the least we could do was show Camy that this wasn’t a typical family dinner. Or was it?

Too late. I had missed my chance.

"So, anyone want more pizza?" my mom asked as she ripped the top off one empty box and piled the left-over pizza slices on top of each other in another. My dad stacked the plates and banged the crumbs off the place-mates, sending bits of cheese and crust flying towards the perimeter of the circular table.

"No thanks," I said, shaking my head.

"It’s the same," Camy added, following me into the family room.

Later that night, after my parents had gone to bed, I was in the family room watching the Red Sox. There were only a few weeks until school started again and I had been taking in as much TV as possible. Within five minutes, Mo Vaughn had sent one over the green monster at Fenway. I jumped off the couch and started clapping, circling around the glass coffee table in the room as if it was the basepath. As I rounded third and headed back towards my spot on the couch at home plate, I pumped my fists in the air. I stopped right before I plopped back down on the cushions. There was Camy.

Our guestroom was at the other end of the house, but it was also on the first floor. I cursed myself for not striking out. She sat down on the edge of the couch opposite me. I quickly sensed that she had no understanding of baseball because she kept glancing back and forth between the framed family pictures in the room. I felt her eyes upon me again, so I tried to focus on the game. Damn the umpire for not ejecting me for arguing balls and strikes. Finally, the lone sound of the sports announcer’s play-by-play became unbearable.

"So you don’t like our pizza?" was the first thing that came to my mind.

"Not really — I mean, it’s ok," she said. "But in Italy, we don’t have so much cheese."

I laughed as I thought about the number of times my girlfriend had dabbed her slices of pizza with a paper towel, always trying to soak up the pool of grease that settled on top from the cheese.

"Do Americans really eat so much?" she asked.

This time I couldn’t help but laugh aloud.

"Well if you go by my family," I said, "you’ll always get the wrong impression. Plus I’m sure my parents are trying to impress you. It’ll settle down. You’ll see."

Whether or not I eased any of Camy’s fears that night, I was able to watch the rest of the game without wondering what she wanted from me. I think at one point I even tried to explain the basic rules of the game to her.

"He pitches, he swings and runs, and they try to throw him out," I said, one moment looking at her, then the next at the game.

"Out?" she asked.

"Maybe it’s easier if you just watch," I laughed. "God, I can’t imagine living anywhere without baseball."

And so she watched. For the remaining two weeks, we spent the late nights watching TV. Sometimes I switched over to sitcoms or talk shows, but I was reluctant whenever the Sox were playing. Occasionally, we talked too. She told me about cooking homemade pasta, owning three houses in Italy, crying on the bus ride from New York to Boston, and talking to her parents once since she’d arrived.

The softness of her voice mixed with the harsh tone of the sports announcer gave me just what I needed to relax. Did I cut her off with a story about my girlfriend and I? Maybe I was compelled to tell her I was going to make All Tri-Valley this football season. Perhaps there were other times when I just listened. I’m sure it was a combination of all three.

I used to make Camy sit in the back seat of my car when we drove to school in the morning. First let me clarify — it’s not as bad as it sounds. It wasn’t like she was sitting back there by herself and I was acting as her chauffeur — although maybe now I wish that was how it had been. Instead, it was worse.

Each morning I picked my girlfriend Brianne up at her house on the way to school. Before leaving my house, Camy and I would walk to my eggplant colored Ford, and she would get in the front passenger seat. We would then drive one mile down the road to my girlfriend’s house in silence, where as soon as I beeped the horn, Camy moved from the passenger seat into the back. It was a daily routine. As soon as Brianne got in the car, she apologized for taking so long.

"No problem," I’d say. "I didn’t even notice."

There were a few times when Brianne either didn’t hear the horn or was talking with her parents. On those occasions, I actually had to go inside the house. Her parents would say hello, try to start conversation about football or baseball, and Brianne would finally tell them we had to get to school.

"Did you leave your car running?" Mr. Boyd asked me once.

"Yeah, well Camy’s waiting in the car," I said, thinking about how I couldn’t be late for

homeroom again.

Mrs. Boyd, walking to the bay window that overlooked their driveway, looked out and said, "Eric, she’s sitting in the back seat."

"I know," I said casually. "What’s wrong with that? Bri, c’mon, let’s go."

Sometimes, I agreed to give Brianne’s brother a ride as well. On those days, Camy at least had some company.

I often think about the first time that Camy switched from the front to the back of the car. I wonder how it happened, why the issue ever even came up. I see the car pulling into Brianne’s driveway as it climbed the steep hill. At the top, I must have put the car in park. And what next? A long pause? Then I imagine we must have had some conversation. But who spoke first? Did she say, "Do you want me to sit in the back seat?" I like to think she did. I would have then answered, "Oh you don’t have to." "For me, it’s the same," she would have said. But more likely, I was the one to ask: "Do you mind sitting in the back?" I cringe every time I think about the possibility that I asked her. I want to erase it completely from my memory. But it remains there. Either way, it happened; and she moved.

Camy and I were in Mr. Potts’s film class together during the first half of my junior year. Technically, Camy was part of the senior class because she was a year older, but she was allowed to choose her own schedule. I remember the day she got her schedule and found out we were in that class together.

"Yes!" she squealed, grabbing my arm. "We have period six the same." I looked down to where her hand still gripped my forearm.

Later that afternoon, once Camy had told my mother that we were in the same film class, I knew I should’ve expected some kind of comment from my mother, but I didn’t realize it would involve us sitting down at the kitchen table together.

"I want you to be real supportive of Camy at school," my mom said. "Especially when you’re in the same class as her."

"Mom, I know," I said, resting my elbow on the table and pressing the palm of my hand to my forehead.

"She’s a little nervous about how she’ll do academically."

"Well I would be too," I said. "What, she talked to you about this?"

"She’s also told me that she doesn’t feel like you’re excited she’s here."

"Oh Jesus, come on. Do we really have to go through this?" I said, twirling my hair with my other hand.

"All I’m saying is you could act more like a brother to her rather than her superior," my mom said, not taking her eyes off me.

"What?" I snapped, challenging her remark. But I quickly backed off. "Fine, Mom, fine. I will."

Mr. Potts made us watch the films and take notes without looking away from the screen. As I was scribbling line after line of downward sloping words across my page, I wondered how Camy was faring. I mean, I had never really seen her write English before so I was hesitant that she could write quickly, let alone without looking. I made the ill-fated move of turning my head to the left, looking across the room towards her. I couldn’t let her see that I was watching. Sure enough, I saw her eyes fixed on the screen, pen busily scrawling. I did a quick 360 of the room. Thirty faces, eyes wide open, staring straight ahead. Before turning back to the screen, I looked one more time at Camy. This time she caught me, met my eyes, and flashed a half-smile, her white teeth glistening against her tanned skin for a brief moment. Without even thinking, I gave her one back.

* * *

I think it was sometime before Christmas that I found out that Camy loved candy. But not just candy, red licorice in particular. My sister had convinced me to take her and Camy to the mall to do their Christmas shopping. It just so happened that we used the entrance to the mall where the Sweet Factory was the first store we passed. I’ve always been a sucker for Good and Plenty -- the purple and white colored licorice candy that looks like aspirin. I was about to announce that we were making a stop at the candy store, but Camy beat me to it.

"Oh, can we please get some candy?" she asked, curling her bottom lip up, giving me the same puppy-dog expression that Brianne had made me all too familiar with. Camy had on her blue-jean overalls, and I remember thinking that all she needed to do was put her hair in two blond pig-tails and she could’ve been straight out of a children’s clothing catalog.

"Oh sure, I guess," I said, feigning any kind of candy interest whatsoever.

I let my sister and Camy go inside while I waited for them, pretending to head over towards the display windows of Structure, the latest in the line of men’s trendy clothing.

"Becky, get me a box of Good and Plenty while you’re in there," I said at the last minute.

I never knew so many different kinds of red licorice existed until I saw the bag Camy came out with. Buttons, twists, bites, strings, berries -- you name it -- they were all there. The bag could’ve been half filled with red. As we started to make our way to Filene’s, I noticed an extra bounce in Camy’s walk as she twirled a licorice string around her finger.

"How can you eat that shit?" I said as I inserted a Good and Plenty into each side of my mouth, preparing to suck off the sugar coating before chewing the black licorice.

"It’s good. You don’t like?" she asked, holding out a long piece of a string.

"No, are you kidding me? Good and Plenty is where it’s at." I offered her two of mine.

She looked skeptical and gave me a slight smile, as if she thought I was trying to trick her.

"What?" I said. "They’re good."

Now I’ll be the first to admit that black licorice is an acquired taste, but when Camy bit into those two little pill-sized candies, I was surprised to see the ease with which they went down. She might have even said they were good. Surprising, considering the typical "that’s disgusting" reaction I usually get when offering someone black licorice.

Later that night, I decided it would only be fair to let my dad know I had a box of Good and Plenty. Seated at the kitchen table, I started shaking the box, letting the candies rattle and bang against its sides. Sure enough, like a dog coming to get his biscuit, my grinning father walked down the hallway in his black sweat pants. He held out his hand for the box, gave it a shake, and took a handful, quickly closing his fist around them.

Why don’t you offer Camy some?" he said, kicking the back of my thigh. She was sitting next to me working on some homework.

But before I got the chance to tell him I already had, I heard my mother from the kitchen.

"Camy only likes red licorice," she said.

"What," I said, ready to dispute as I turned towards her.

It’s the same," she said, giving me a second’s glance before returning to her studying.

* * *

That year’s May prom, two months before Camy left for Italy, was the first time I consciously thought of her as my sister. The prom hype had started in April. The whole prom date search at my high school is the same year after year. Unless you have a girlfriend, in which case it’s assumed you’re going together, the anticipation hangs in the air. The lunch table conversations go something like this: "Hey, has anyone heard if Sean’s asked Susie to the prom yet?" "No, but of course he’s going to." Then someone else says, "Let’s not talk about this anymore, it’s making me sad." Then there’s always the best looking girl in school, who goes around saying, "No one is going to ask me," and you just want to tell her to shut up because you know you would ask her in a flash if you ever thought she’d give you the time of day. By around the beginning of April, the first girl gets asked to the prom. Then it’s as if hunting season has been officially declared open. Girl after girl gets asked, and in a school of only 400 kids, date gossip travels fast, and pretty soon, everyone knows who everyone else is going with, and before you know it, girls are making plans for that weekend to go shopping for dresses.

According to most of the guys in the senior class, Camy was the girl to go with. So it really didn’t surprise me when she came home to tell us that Ben Urmstrom, the senior soccer goalie, had asked her to the prom.

"Oh Camy, I’m so excited," my mom said, hugging Camy before pulling out the Yellow Pages. "We’ll have to get a list of the dress stores in Boston."

"You’re so lucky, Camy," my sister said. "He’s so hot."

I think Camy enjoyed being the envy of the school over the next few weeks. I’m not sure why anyone wouldn’t like it. It seemed that whenever the bell rang to go to my next class, I was always walking into a group of girls in the hallway, with Camy in the middle, telling them about the way Ben blushed when he asked her, or how she was going to do her hair, or the yellow convertible they were taking to the prom.

I remember the afternoon before we went to the prom because of the way Camy looked. We were waiting for Camy to come out of her room so my mother could take pictures before I left to meet the limo at Brianne’s house. I was leaning against the elbow of our couch, careful not to let any of Maddy’s white dog hairs stick to the back of my tuxedo. Brianne had insisted that I wear tails. I agreed as long as she let me wear a gold vest.

"You look like a penguin," my sister said, looking down at the shiny, plastic shoes and coat that came to the backs of my knees.

"Becky, he does not," my mom said. "He looks very handsome."

My dad whistled.

"Where is she? I’m already late," I said, starting to pace as I patted my hair.

"Jeez Eric," my dad said, "If you stand up any straighter, they’re going to think you’re going to a funeral."

Before I could respond, I was distracted by the sound of a door handle turning from the other end of the hallway. I whipped around and saw Camy flowing towards us. I could hear the soft swishing of her dress as the silky material rubbed against each leg when she walked. The dress fit close down to her ankles and had a slit running up one of the sides. She carried a small black purse over her shoulder that matched the dress, and the cubed diamond that hung from her silver necklace reflected against the white walls of the hallway. Her hair was in a bun, except for a few loose wispy strands, exposing her bare neck and the triangle of small, brown moles on the top of her back. As she walked passed me, the air smelled like vanilla. In a sentence, she was golden.

"Wow, Camy," my mom said. "Let’s take some pictures."

My dad and I looked at each other as my mom snapped shot after shot, vertical and horizontal. Half of a roll later and just as I thought my dad was going to grab the camera from her, my mom announced it was time to take some of the prom king and queen.

"Mom, you have to go as a couple to be king and queen," my sister said, shaking her head.

"Well then, we’ll take some of our king and queen," she said as she began to position Camy and me by the window.

I can’t remember all the different pictures and poses my mother put me through over the next 15 minutes. Instead I just remember how I wanted nothing more than to leave the house. Looking back at the roll and a half of pre-prom pictures my mom took from that afternoon, there are few where I’m smiling. There are pictures of me with my arm around Camy, pictures with her head resting on my shoulder, and pictures of us standing side by side. The few photos where you can actually see my teeth must have been the ones where my mom said, "Oh c’mon Eric, smile. Look happy."

"Alright, we done yet?" I said, picking up my corsage and heading for the front door.

Camy followed me outside to wait for Ben to pick her up. She sat down on the front step, sliding her hands under her so she didn’t get dirt on the back of her dress.

"Hey, have fun tonight," I said over my shoulder.

"Thank you," she said. "But I will see you there, yes?"

"Oh yeah, of course," I said, careful not to catch my coattail in the car door. The truth is it had never even crossed my mind. "I was just saying."

Slamming the door shut, I started the car and sped off, Camy in my rear view mirror.

* * *

I always thought the image that I would carry with me after Camy left would be of her waving to us through the window as the bus full of AFS students kicked up dirt from the same parking lot and left for Logan airport in late July. That was the day my family said goodbye to Camy. Instead, the sharpest memory I have of Camy’s time in the United States came the night before she even boarded that bus — the night I said goodbye.

I had fallen asleep on the couch that night watching TV, still wearing the top half of my baseball uniform from the game I had played earlier. It was a typical muggy summer night, the kind when my dad opened all the windows and the peeping sounds of crickets filled the house. I normally slept through such nights, only to be woken by my mother at five in the morning, either covering me with a sheet or sending me upstairs to my bed.

But something woke me in the middle of the night. Maybe it was the sound of the back door closing, the suffocating heat, or the mosquito that had slipped through the small slit in one of the screens. Whatever it was, I got up to turn off the replay of the Sox game, when I noticed a figure behind me through the glare of the TV screen. I turned around and walked to the screen door that led to our backyard.

As I squinted through the mesh, I saw Camy sitting cross-legged in the middle of the lawn, looking towards the sky. She looked so tiny compared to the empty grassy yard around her, surrounded by the dark shadows of its hovering trees.

I can’t remember if I had the urge to slide open the screen door and sit down beside her in the grass. I like to picture her turning her head as she hears the rollers glide over the door’s track, waiting for me to join her. But I know that’s not how it happened. I felt intrusion, not inclusion. I watched her from the inside of the screen door for only a few minutes, before my eyes started to close while I was standing. I dimmed the kitchen light, and trudged upstairs, opting for sleep while Camy remained awake.

* * *

The trip to Italy was what did it for me. Arriving in Milan nearly a year after Camy had left my family, I was surrounded by people speaking a language I couldn't understand. As I stood in the middle of the terminal, holding suitcases in each hand, I could feel the air rushing and gusting around me. A businessman in blue pinstripes slid past me as he hurried to make his flight. A young girl swung her handbag from side to side, smashing it into my legs as she walked by with her mother. I turned to my dad for help. No luck — he was busy organizing the passports and traveler’s checks in his carry-on. I tried my mom. She was flipping through her Italy guide, no doubt trying to translate airport signs and read more about Camy’s country. Even my sister, peering in each store we passed while walking the terminal, offered no refuge.

I thought about what I would say if someone spoke to me, perhaps asking me for the time in thickly accented, rapid Italian. How would I respond? How could I tell him the only Italian I spoke was Parmesan and Mussolini? I felt a tingle in my chest that quickly rose to my shoulders, and I shuddered thinking of my vulnerability.

But then Camy was there, waiting for us, peering in from the other side of the sliding doors. As we hurried to greet her, I barely noticed as I momentarily shed the foreignness from my body.

She was the same. I could tell from the yellow, spaghetti-strap tank top she wore that exposed the same patch of moles on the back of her neck. I felt them graze across my forearm as we hugged. The faint smell of vanilla danced around my nose.

The first night at her family’s townhouse, Camy came into my room as I was getting ready for bed. I was staying in one of the five guestrooms in the house.

"Do you have everything you need?" she said, sitting on the edge of the bed.

"Oh yeah, I’m all set," I said, unaware of the lie.

"Ok, then I will see you in the morning." She started to head for the door. Did I want to reach out after her, to stop her from leaving again?

"Camy," I said, not even knowing what it was I wanted from her.

She turned towards me, and like so many times before, her eyes met mine. And through her eyes, I brought back the memories that I had buried beneath a year without her: pizza dinners, Red Sox games, school car rides, red licorice, prom pictures, summer nights. But I couldn’t say another word. The images just kept orbiting around the thoughts that remained anchored in my mind. I needed her to understand. Or at least, pretend to understand. Somehow, she found the words that I was unable to.

"It’s the same," she said, giving me a forced half-smile, then closing the door behind her.

And then, suddenly, a week’s visit didn’t make sense. Seven days with Camy in Italy somehow didn’t seem fair.

I got into bed, resting on my back, pulling the covers up to my nose. Then, as I looked up at the white plaster ceiling, a thought emerged from the memories. Maybe that was just it. Maybe it was all too fair.