Elaine, Reggie, Hanh, and Janet arrive, and I distribute the poems among them. Five minutes before the bell, I send Hanh off with “When You See Water” to AP Spanish, Jamie’s first-period class. She returns just as the bell rings, and gives me a thumbs-up across the classroom. I’m pretty much useless for the entire period. The hands on the clock cannot move fast enough, and my body and brain feel like those wind-up teeth that chatter and clatter all over the table. I’m dying to talk to Hanh and find out what Jamie’s reaction was, and whether it seemed like she’d read the first poem that I left on her locker door.
Finally, the bell rings. I rush over to Hanh. “Well? Did she say anything? What was she like?”
Hanh shrugs. “She looked surprised, I guess.”
“Good surprised or bad surprised?”
“I dunno. Neutral? I mean, she didn’t smile or anything. But she didn’t look mad, either.”
“Did she read it?”
“Sorry. I didn’t stick around to see. I had to get back here, remember?”
Elaine has already rushed off to Jamie’s physics class with “Poem,” and my Spanish class is basically a repeat experience of trig: Elaine scoots in just before the bell rings and gives me a thumbs-up; I tap my feet and pencil for eighty minutes; I give her the third degree at the end of the period. Elaine’s answers are as unsatisfactory as Hanh’s.
Reggie takes “Elliptical” over to Jamie during lunch. “Christina wanted to know what the heck was going on,” she reports.
“Did Jamie say anything? Did she read it? What did she look like?”
“What—do you think I’m going to just hang around and watch? Like that wouldn’t be totally obnoxious?”
Janet leaves early from lunch to deliver “Scientists Find Universe Awash in Tiny Diamonds” to Jamie’s next class, but Janet’s not in my English class, so I don’t even get a thumbs-up. Anguish. Finally, the bell rings and English is over. Time for the last poem. The one I’m going to give to her in person, while I look her in the eye and say, “I’m sorry, Jamie. I screwed up. Please, can we talk?”
I’m about to head out the door to deliver “I Ask the Impossible” when Ms. Owen stops me. She wants to talk to me about my poetry journal. She loved my reaction to Adrienne Rich’s “Cartographies of Silence.” What a fabulous choice! What inspired me to choose it? She wants to thank me for my honesty, she can see why I would be drawn to the poem, it’s one of her favorites, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.
Any other day, I’d be stoked about a teacher taking this much interest in my opinions and my life. But Jamie has trig with the legendary Mrs. Byrd, the meanest, bitchiest, most old-school schoolmarm ever to set foot on a high school campus. I have to give this poem to Jamie before the bell rings, or she’ll never get it. With a minute to go, I extricate myself from my conversation with Ms. Owen. I tear down the breezeway, turn left, then right, then cut diagonally across the quad toward the math building. I still have to pass the science labs and go around another corner when the bell rings. Please, please, please let Mrs. Byrd be late. Please let her be sick and have a sub. Please let her be talking to another teacher. Please— I turn the corner. It’s too late. There’s no one outside the classroom and the door is closed. Damn.
I could turn around. Jamie’s already got five poems. That’s plenty.
But the whole point of this plan was for me to face her and hand her the last poem myself and break the silence between us. The whole day has been leading up to this very moment—well, the very moment that was supposed to happen two minutes ago. I can’t back out now.
I’m going in.
I knock on the door and open it. Mrs. Byrd is already at the whiteboard going over a homework problem. The whole class turns around to stare at me as she stops mid-sentence, peers over her glasses, clearly annoyed at the interruption, and says icily, “May I help you?”
Her gaze is pure, unadulterated evil. Every cell of my body is screaming at me to mumble an apology and run away. Instead, I croak, “Yes, um, I have something for Jamie Ramirez.” I hold up the envelope and start toward Jamie’s desk—which is, as luck would have it, at the opposite end of the room. She starts getting out of her seat to meet me halfway.
“Jamie, sit down.”
Jamie sits.
Mrs. Byrd turns to address me.
“Is it a message from the office?”
“No.”
“Is it a medical emergency?”
“No.”
“Is it a family emergency?”
“No.”
“Then it can wait until after school.”
“Oh. Um, I’d rather just give it to her now, if that’s okay.”
“No, it is not okay. You just interrupted my class to give your friend a personal message. If it’s important to deliver it this minute, you can read it to her from where you are.”
“It’s kind of private.”
“Then you have a decision to make. Deliver the message out loud right now, or wait until after school.” I stare at her. “Well? You’re wasting valuable class time.” Wasting time? Who’s the one making a big production out of this? No wonder everyone hates her.
Jamie is watching me intently. She’s not shaking her head. She’s not smiling. Nothing about her body language is telling me it’s okay to wait until after school. She’s waiting for me to step up and read the poem. I look back at Mrs. Byrd, who is frowning at me with her arms folded, actually tapping her foot. Waiting for me to back down and leave. All around us, I can see the class’s gaze shifting from Jamie, to me, to Mrs. Byrd: Who’s going to crack?
It’s the thought that counts, isn’t it? Jamie knows I was here, she knows I tried. She knows I have a poem for her. She has to know, after all the other poems, how I feel. She knows how uncomfortable I am with public displays of affection, how hard it is for me to reveal personal stuff to anyone (forget about Mrs. Byrd’s entire trig class).
Then I think about silence, and truth, and knowing—how Mom says that Japanese people don’t need to say a lot of words to know things that are true and deep, like feelings. And yet how the truth about my feelings for Jamie lies in the words I hold in my hand.
I think about gaman, how Yūko-san, Dad, and Mom all had to do it. Gaman isn’t just about enduring hardship in silence—and it’s not about backing down. It’s about stepping up and choosing which hardship you endure. And enduring it with grace because of something important, like honor, or family. Or someone important. Like Jamie.
“Make up your mind, please. Read or leave,” says Mrs. Byrd.
My mind is made up. With trembling hands, I open the envelope, and with trembling fingers I unfold the paper inside. I take a deep breath, and with a trembling voice, I begin.
“‘I Ask the Impossible,’ by Ana Castillo.”
It’s kind of a bold poem, because the impossible thing the speaker asks is to be loved forever, no matter what. No matter how isolated, no matter how tired, or bored, or old anyone gets, she asks to be loved with tenderness, without judgment. And at the end, she basically says, “because I love you no matter what.”