Francesca

        Spanish I my junior year started off with each of us picking a name that we would be called while in class. Denise does not convert to Spanish, so I picked Francesca which the teacher, Mrs. Tavkar, pronounced Francheska. It was lovely.

          While memorizing was my trick for getting good grades, memorizing lists of vocabulary words was not my idea of a good time. Outlines that flow from one point to another – those were much easier to memorize, and they tended to stay in my brain for a long time after the exams. But individual Spanish words? They would quickly fall out of my head, sometimes even before the tests.

          In spite of this, Spanish class was fun. There were different kids in this class, Mary and Marjorie were new to the school that year; there were some students who were sophomores; and there were juniors who I had not known before since most of my other classes were with the same kids I had mingled with since seventh grade. It was fun. Mary and Marjorie were especially a lot of laughs. I remember Marjorie picked Carmen for her name in class – I thought that was really quirky.

          One of the sophomores, a cute guy, picked Francesco for his Spanish name. He seemed oblivious to the fact that there was a Francesca in the class – but of course, I was thinking could this be fate? One night at a high school dance, how and why I was at a high school dance is beyond my recollection, but obviously there was one I went to, certainly not a dressy thing like homecoming or prom, and I remember this happening – there were some people dancing, and I of course was standing off to the side when I saw my classmate Francesco walking by with a couple of his friends. We made eye contact, and I don't know if he recognized me from Spanish class or if he would have done this anyway, but he said, “Hi,” and continued walking off with his friends. There was alcohol on his breath.

          So Francesco faded out of my life, but other things are more permanent – I found this note signed by Marjorie in my yearbook when looking through it this morning:

                 You never taught me how to do verbal problems in math

                 or how to play tennis in gym or my nouns in Spanish – 

                 Denise you are a failure - Margie”71”

          What a hoot!

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