hassen - to hate

here is part two of my story. i think this part needs a lot of work. suggestions?


The first day I saw Angelina was my first day of our German class. As a trailing spouse who cannot legally work in Germany, I am the one who has time to learn the language. This is the case for most everyone in our class. Women like me had come from all over the world so that their husbands could work in Germany. We learn to speak so that we can maneuver the shopping and general day-to-day activity. The relationship between the sexes here in Europe has not necessarily achieved the level of “equality in the workplace,” but we did have one man in the class. As a former U.S. Army soldier, married to a German woman, this new situation clearly did not make him comfortable, but being in class full of cute young women seemed to make it bearable.

Angelina breezed in about a half-hour late with such confidence that I thought she must be the teacher. Or if not the teacher, then certainly she was an assistant. The other students, who had been in class together for a month or so, all knew her and her interruption didn’t seem to perturb anyone. In fact, class stopped for her. Everyone said hello, and the teacher engaged her in chitchat while I sat wondering whom this person was to have made such an entrance. She introduced herself to me, and I couldn’t understand a word she said. I chalked it up to my minimal German skills.

She was not dressed especially sharply that day, though time would show that this was an exception. She had her hair in a ponytail, wore tight jeans, and a brown suede jacket. She was pretty, in a harried sort of way. This too, would prove to be an exception. She was having an off day, but I didn't know that.

We didn’t speak much that first day. She didn’t speak English, and I didn’t know what she did speak besides German. In fact, after her entrance, there was nothing obviously special about her, except that she was very, very tall. Most people in Germany are much taller than me, but she was like a giant. At home that night I told my husband about the freakishly tall woman in my class. He said, “Maybe she’s a model,” and I thought back on her. “No. I don’t think so,” I said. “She could be, but, nah, I doubt it.”

The next day in class I sat next to a Danish girl. Her perfect skin, clear baby-blue eyes, and messy blond hair captivated me. She was so casual and beautiful – she was everything I had wanted to be, and wasn’t. I thought back on the day I discovered that twinge of self-doubt and was determined not to give in. I was drawn to her, but I would not engage her simply because she was beautiful, nor would I hate her for it. She was extremely nice and spoke perfect English. But as we talked I started to feel lucky that the prettiest girl in the room had chosen to talk to me. I cringed a little at myself.

During a class break the Danish girl and I were talking when Angelina announced something in German. She said something about having a job and bringing something. The entire class, all 14 women and 1 man, gathered around her. She had commanded our attention again.

She brought out of her, I now noticed, Louis Vuitton oversized handbag a large black folder of some kind. A portfolio. “Oh, she’s a photographer,” I thought. But as the oohing and ahhing started I looked a little closer. These were high-fashion photographs, and she hadn’t taken them. She was in them. Shots of Angelina in a sheer white dress blowing around her shiny toned legs, her hair flying behind her heavily made-up face, or in a black rubber tube dress with all but the most important parts cut out while she laid on a leopard skin rug holding perfume, looked up at me as I looked a little more closely at her. And there it was. The kind of beauty man cannot create. She radiated from within. Her perfect smile, her bright giant eyes, her high cheekbones. I couldn’t help it. I hated her instantly.

I couldn’t even look at all the photos, but I couldn’t stop looking at her. Eventually my classmates wandered toward the coffee machine or restroom saying things like “unglaublich!” or “sehr schön!” The pictures were unbelievably beautiful. I didn’t sense any ill feelings toward her from these other students. “Why doesn’t everyone else hate her?” I wondered to myself.

The Danish girl told Angelina that her sister was also a model and that she had had to quit because she got too old. Angelina told her that she was pushing it at 24, and that she had been turned down for many jobs given that she was so old. As the scene played in front of me, my stomach turned. “Must be nice,” I said in bitchy English to the Russian woman on my right. She didn’t understand me.

Just then Angelina got up, smiled and offered me a cup of coffee. The teacher thanked her for bringing in her portfolio as she had asked so that, as an exercise, Angelina could describe her career in German. The others had done their exercises the week before and Angelina was the last to go. As she presented her portfolio in her broken German she described how each photo was taken with a funny, slightly self-depreciating humor that endeared her to me – just a little.

As the weeks and months went by I got to know Angelina. I found out that she and I had gotten married only a few days apart. I to my college sweetheart computer geek, and she to a strapping German business mogul twice her age. She grew up in the Dominican Republic, and identified with both African and Latino cultures. Her father’s side of the family was descended from American slaves. Her maiden name was Smith and everyone in her family talked about sex all the time. She was goofy and funny. She told me, unprompted, that I had beautiful eyes and a nice rear end. She sent me a postcard from her three-week vacation to the Seychelles after I had known her for less than a month, saying, “I hope some day we can meet in the Seychelles.” All of this, while more than a little exotic to me, made her real and approachable. I damned her silently for making me like her.

My final self-doubt driven attempt to hate her came just a few weeks ago. She came to class, late again, and parked just outside the window of the classroom. She unfurled one caramel skinned leg planting her Jimmy Choo’s on the sidewalk and straightened her miniskirt. She adjusted her Dolce and Gabbana sunglasses and slammed the door of her Maserati. “Can’t I please just hate her now?” I sighed to myself. It has got to be okay to hate a model with a Maserati. But I knew that not only would I grow more unattractive to myself and others if I continued with my pettiness, I also knew it just wasn’t possible to hate Angelina.

And so, against all odds, I have reconciled myself to being friends with a freakishly tall, luminous, generous, fun, energetic, rich, smart, and kind-hearted model. Take that, Kelly LeBrock, and stick it in your Pantene bottle. Angelina is beautiful and I can’t hate her, no matter how hard I try.