Grapes Upside Down

11. Bread Dough

~Madisen~

Clara methodically removes the doughy interior of her pan marraqueta, placing it on the edge of her plate just as Graciela has done.

"¿Qué estás haciendo?" I ask, more aggressively than intended. When I was a child, I used to rip out the middle part of several slices of French bread and knead them together into one giant dough ball for contented consumption. I've been watching Graciela discard half of her bread for the past week in silent bewilderment, but when Clara does it I'm unable to hold my tongue.

Her eyes dart up, alarmed.

"Tu pan," I clarify, gesturing to the fluffy lump abandoned on her plate.

She shrugs, muttering that her host mom says the middle part is the most fattening.

"That's the best part!" Noah and I blurt out in unison—him in Spanish, me in English. We blink at each other in mild surprise, then turn back to Clara, who merely furrows her eyebrows over our outburst.

"Claro, la miga engorda." Graciela confirms that bread dough is fattening, and I learn a new word—miga.

This makes no sense. Everyone here eats multiple pieces of bread at breakfast, lunch and supper, not to mention the enormous, multi-course meals—soup, entree and dessert. Yet, bread dough is the issue?

Besides, Clara is petite and slender. An unwarranted, hot wave of supreme annoyance floods me from head to toe.

"Pero es delicioso," I reply, popping a large chunk into my mouth like a petulant child. Noah reaches for the bread basket and retrieves a whole new piece. Clara shoots me an inquisitive look, a silent question transmitted though narrowed eyes: Why are you being weird?

Suddenly, there is a lump in my throat preventing the greedy bite of bread dough from passing through. Living in a foreign country, the most random moments trigger intense, inexplicable emotions.

I'm not upset over wasted bread; my subconscious is fretting about Clara, because in the couple years I have known her, she sometimes displays odd eating habits.

Graciela, unaware of the emotional breakdown taking place silently in my esophagus, changes the subject by inquiring about our class schedule for the day. Her tone is bright, and I'm relieved that I haven't managed to offend her or cause a scene in the middle of lunch.

"From here, I have physics in Valpo. Madisen, you don't have anything until our orientation with Helena this afternoon, right?" Noah has already memorized my schedule better than I have.

"Correct. And this morning we all had our first History of Valparaíso class," I tell Graciela. This is a required course for all exchange students, for which Clara, Noah and I managed to snag a spot together in the same section.

From there, Graciela reviews our schedule for the entire week. I'm not sure if she is trying to learn it in order to plan meal times around our classes, or whether she is simply making conversation. We had this same dialogue at breakfast, as well as yesterday. I snicker to myself, recalling Clara's exasperation over her host mother's repetitive line of questioning.

"Clarita, ¿deseas más helado?" Graciela offers more ice cream in her nurturing manner after we have polished off dessert.

"No, muchas gracias. Estoy llena."

"¡Estoy satisfecha!" Noah and I correct at the same time, the animation in our voices ringing out in an unexpected chorus. We again turn to each other, this time breaking into a quiet chuckle.

"What just happened?" Clara asks with a dry tone in English.

"No se dice, 'Estoy llena,'" I inform her, passing along the lesson Noah and I received our first night here during lonche.