Page 11 of Private Tutoring
Tucking hair behind her ear, she leaned forward. Her lips moved around the words in silence. She took a breath, looked up to catch me watching her, and blushed.
“What does it say?” I tapped the phrase again.
Clearing her throat, she looked over my shoulder. “‘My heart has ceased to beat without you to keep it company.’”
“Good. And this?” I hid my surprise by dropping my head in search of a more difficult passage.
She read the lines written in Italian and repeated them to me in English.
“Okay. Now say, ‘Long have I dreamed of meeting the half of my heart that has been lost to me.’ In Italian.” I sat back, giving us both room to breathe.
She wore some kind of perfume. Subtle but sweet. Understated. Like her.
Her blush returned, this time in full force when she met my eyes. Without blinking, she spoke the phrase in perfect Italian.
I laced my hands together over my stomach and rocked in the comfortable chair I’d dragged in from my office. “I’m not sure I understand what’s happening in class. You obviously understand the language, in both directions.”
Silence hung thick in the air. The only other time I’d heard it this silent was when I walked out at the end of each day.
“I don’t understand the point of the class. Maybe I’m thinking about that without realizing it. I just want to work on my art, perfect my craft.” The first sense of animation came over her face, and it filled with passion. “I enjoy singing and performing. That’s what I’m good at. My career is the most important thing to me, so I’ll do what I have to.”
She must have run out of breath, because she stopped suddenly.
The oddly endearing blush I’d seen several times over the last hour faded, and I tacked on a few new adjectives to describe Harmony. Smart and ambitious. Determined. If she showed that kind of passion on the stage, I understood Matthew wanting to ensure she stayed in college.
“You’re better at this than your grades suggest. I’m curious why that is.”
A light shrug lifted her shoulders. “I don’t know. Panic maybe? I’ve never been good at tests.”
I needed to take a closer look at her grades. I had other students who needed accommodations due to mental health needs and diagnoses. Harmony’s shyness might be complicating things during testing. I offered a combination of verbal and written tests that usually gave me a good idea of where my students struggled.
The large lecture hall meant that when I made them answer verbally, they were forced to speak up. I’d done what I could to make the beige-walled classroom welcoming. Book quotes and movie billboards covered sections of the walls. I wrote everything down for them and even told them what I planned to put on the tests. I threw a couple curveballs their way to test their literacy, but nothing too complex.
I stood and ran my fingers through my curls. The lights in the hallway clicked off, leaving us illuminated in the brilliance from the LED bulbs in my room.
Harmony glanced at the hallway.
“That’s enough for today.” I could tell her I planned on taking another look at her grades, but I didn’t want to make her more self-conscious.
The grade book lay on my desk, the green cover unobtrusive. I had an online system we were all require to use, but I preferredto have paper records as well after a student attempted to hack the system a few years ago. He’d almost gotten away with it, and all the professors had stopped relying solely on digital files.
“You speak Italian beautifully.” The genuine compliment came easily. “You mentioned why it was needed in your profession. Think about it like actors. They often have to change their accents, or drop them completely, to take on different roles. Someone from the Deep South can’t play a British character unless they perfect the accent and pronunciation. Most plays are in Old English. Learning to manipulate words and sounds in another language gives you an advantage.”
She stood there, her head tipped to the side as she considered my words, long enough for discomfort to crawl over my skin.
Had I said something wrong? I couldn’t remember the last time anyone had made me question myself.
“Good point.” She reached down to pick up the brown satchel and brought it over her head, settling the weight of it at her hip. “Thank you for the lesson. I’ll be sure to tell Professor Bellington that I’m working on bringing my grades up.”
“He’ll appreciate the effort.”
“If only effort translated to better grades.” The laugh that left her lips twisted her expression. “I can’t lose my scholarship.”
“You won’t.” Of course, I couldn’t promise that, but I did anyway. If she put forth the effort, she would succeed. “You’re too tenacious to fail.”
“I’ve been called a lot of things. Tenacious isn’t one.” She pulled her hair from beneath the strap and twisted it into a ponytail.
I gripped the edge of the desk, my nails biting into the wood as a flash of heat pummeled my entire body. “Trust me, there are a lot of things I’d call you.” I grinned and winked.
