Gandhi's Guide to Getting By

chapter four

I nod. "How did you meet Paul?" I point to her when I ask my question.

"Comment?"

"You..." I point to her. "Meet..." My right hand shakes my left hand. "Paul."

"Me et Paul?" she says.

"Oui," I say, "I mean yes." I don't speak a lot of French, but there's a rule that we can only speak English with our students. It was in the contract I signed once I was hired.

"Sex," she says. "Nous avons beaucoup de sex."

Peter's head shoots up. "Do you have any friends who are looking for sex partners?" He speaks slowly when he says this, and loudly, as if saying the words louder will make them easier for Nathalie to understand.

"Comment?" Nathalie looks at him, the lines on her forehead suddenly pronounced.

"Amis," Peter says, "Who... How do you say want in French?" He directs this last question to me.

"Uhmm, I'm pretty sure we're here to learn English, not French."

Peter reaches for his i-phone and types something in. Nathalie looks at me and gives me a smile. "I learn English," she says, "Assez to talk with to personnes."

"Désirer," Peter says, putting his i-phone down again. "Avez-vous amis who désirer sex?"

Nathalie looks at Peter, her blue eyes narrowed. She gets up and moves her chair further away from Peter. "We ignore personne de grande corpulence et de petit cerveau," she says, her focus on me. "Just toi and moi in room."

"What did she say?" Peter says.

"She said you're very nice," I lie because the last thing I need right now is for war to errupt.

"Non, non, non," Nathalie says. She's got her own i-phone in her hand right now, her slender finger typng furiously onto the keyboard. "I say you big man with small brain," she says, reading whatever is written on her screen.

I'm thinking how whoever is in charge of contracts should add, no cell phones in the classroom. I glance over at Peter who's actually smiling. "You are hot!" he says.

Already I can feel a migraine coming on. One thing to be stuck with a lousy job, quite another to find myself fired from a lousy job. If things keep going this badly, science departments everywhere are going to turn me into their poster child. I've already designed the poster in my head - Do You Want Your Child To Turn Out Like This? (this being a picture of me holding up an "unemployed" sign) SCIENCE - The Only Option For A Bright Future.

Nathalie doesn't have to look up the word "hot". She points to me, then to herself. Without a moment's hesitation, Peter points to her. "No offense," he says to me.

I tell him none taken other than me thinking is it's a good thing I don't believe in guns or I'd have shot him dead by now.

"Merci," the hot one amongst us says, her right hand automatically fixing whatever imaginary loose strands of blonde hair need fixing. "Thank you. You nice homme."

"I thought maybe today we'd practice ordering in a restaurant," I say. I am trying not too sound annoyed with Peter's clear preference for Nathalie. Not that I want Peter thinking me hot, but didn't our founding fathers include you-don't-make-the-other-girl-feel-like-the-OTHER-girl in the Bill of Rights?

Peter and Nathalie don't appear to have heard. Peter has written out the sentence, You are really really hot, on a piece of paper. He slides the paper over to Nathalie. Nathalie is typing away on her i-phone keyboard. I don't think I've ever seen anyone single finger type so fast.