I teased him about his English but the truth is I adored his accent. I found his little mix-ups charming, and couldn't resist a man who said, Turn down your window, Jaime fell feet over hair for some girl, your mom made turnpikes (turnips) for dinner, and will you fix me a pair of toast?
He laughed with me, worked on pronunciation, carried his dictionary and used new words, and attacked language with the same enthusiasm and curiosity he gave all other challenges of living in a new country. In no time, he stopped tasting the fruit in the grocery aisle, started matching his clothes, accepted traffic rules, and grew his hair long, same as the American guys in the early seventies.
The tables turned when his parents decided to come visit. I bought a dictionary and crammed day and night, hoping to improve my Spanish enough to say something more to them than I love you and the dozen or so cuss words I had mastered. My accent was horrendous but he didn't laugh. Verb conjugation frustrated me. Too many words sounded alike. I couldn't tell where one word ended and another began when I heard others speak, and I thought it was ridiculous that nouns had genders.
Overwhelmed, I finally focused on a short list of the most important words and phrases. I practiced for days on 'pleased to meet you' and what I thought I might need most if left alone with them: are you hungry, I am tired, the bathroom is over there.
I prepared on the plane as we flew to meet them in Washington, building confidence when he didn't laugh at me the way I had him, and went over everything one last time at the airport while we waited for their plane to arrive. "You'll do fine," he promised.
Fifteen minutes after their plane was due to arrive, he left me sitting at the gate to go investigate the delay. I relaxed, silently rehearsing my lines one last time while I watched a group of passengers exit the next gate down. When the crowd had scattered in the corridor, I recognized the lone couple standing to the side holding hands and looking forgotten, as the people I had seen in pictures and kept in mind while I practiced my Spanish. He was nowhere in sight. I kept an eye on the couple and scrolled through my mental list, hoping something would seem appropriate. Pleased to meet you felt right, so I walked toward them with a smile and those words on the tip of my tongue.
His father recognized me and pointed me out to his mother. She smiled. I rushed forward and hugged them both.
"I like long hair," I said, in Spanish, because at that moment, pleased to meet you and I like long hair sounded the same to me. They smiled and nodded.
He came running back, hair brushing his shoulders, and rattled off long streams of Spanish, none of which I understood. His father was laughing too hard to hear him. He thought my mistake was an intentional warning.
The parents stayed for three months, in which time his father did not go for a haircut. Several months after returning home, he sent me a picture of himself with even longer hair.
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