When I was a senior in college, I went to Venezuela to student teach, then taught six weeks of high school Spanish, then studied abroad for two months in the summer. I needed fifteen credits to graduate with a double major in Elementary Education and Spanish with a minor in secondary education. I was thrilled when a fellow alumna from my high school called me and asked me to room with her on the study-abroad trip.
What she didn’t tell me was that her boyfriend was also coming on the trip. As it turned out, she spent a lot of time with him and his host family, leaving me alone with our host family on the outskirts of town.
We were in Burgos, with classes about twenty minutes from our hosts’ apartment. I had to pass the huge cathedral on the way home and often stopped in to reflect on my tough gig in Spain. I was too old for most of the girls, on their way to being juniors. I wasn’t cool enough to hang with the older students who drank and smoked in cafes with the professors. I couldn’t have gone anyway. I was too busy doing homework for my five classes. I later found out most everyone was taking three classes.
Then Linda and her boyfriend had a fight, and suddenly she wanted to do to la discoteca with me for a night of dancing. I loved to dance back then (still do). We dressed up and went there for a night of drinks and dancing. Since this was decades before uber and there were no taxis at 2:00 a.m., or if there were, we couldn’t afford one, we walked the several blocks home.
Linda was drunk and hanging on my arm. We were almost to the iron gate to the apartment building when a car of guys pulled up alongside us. At least one of them had been at the nightclub with us.
Full disclaimer. At this point in my life, I had been sexually assaulted twice, once at a dorm party with the punch spiked with Everclear and once by my Spanish professor in his office. The term didn’t exist yet, but I knew a bad vibe when I felt one.
We kept walking. Linda laughed and continued to hang on my arm. The guys had their windows down, and they were urging Linda to get in the car with them. We were so close to the iron gate. I got my keys out of my purse, ready to unlock it.
Then it happened. One guy got out of the car and came up to us. He grabbed Linda by the arm and pulled her toward the car. My NO, YOU DID NOT JUST DO THAT anger was out in full force. I went after the guy and dug all of my fingernails into his forearm, the one holding onto Linda.
He let go. I pulled Linda over to the gate and got the key in the lock. I had my arm through hers. She was all limp and goofy like a dumb drunk. The guy stood there, yelling about the marks I’d left on him. The guys in the car were laughing.
Okay, maybe they were just having innocent fun. But in my mind, one girl and six guys at 2:00 a.m. might have skewed to the ugly side.
I pulled Linda through the gate and slammed it shut behind us. The guys in the car told the guy on the sidewalk to get in, and they were gone.
At school Monday morning, word had spread. Everyone called me Las Uñas all day. Linda and her boyfriend made up. I was alone again for the rest of the trip.
The program was over a few weeks later. We flew home, saw the headlines that Elvis had died, and I graduated college the next day.
FIRST DATE, WORST DATE EVER! 