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NEW IN THE UNITED STATES

Nancy was new in the United States. She came to the US speaking only her native

language. She brought her 8-year-old son with her. He was all she had in the world.

They found an apartment in Alabama. They were there for only two months whena neighbor's dog jumped over the fence. The dog ran toward Nancy's son. Nancy put her

body in between the dog and her son. The dog stopped when it saw Nancy screaming at

it. She was going to punch it in the nose. The dog turned around.

Shaking, Nancy took her son upstairs. They stayed in the apartment all weekend.

Then Nancy found another apartment, close to the school that her son was going to

attend.

She and her son walked everywhere. One day her son started coughing badly. He

had an asthma attack. All the walking was making his asthma worse.

Nancy knew that she had to buy a car. So she called up the Honda dealer. She

talked to a salesman who spoke her language. She told him that she wanted to buy a

new car if he could come over to pick her up. The salesman said he would be there.

A HAIRCUT

It was time for a haircut. Lenny didn't even have to look in the mirror. Even

though he was going bald, he knew that he needed to cut his hair every two weeks.

He had a lot of hair on the top of his head. His hair was short at the top. He still

had plenty of hair on the sides and back. It was what they call "salt and pepper," a

mixture of gray hair and dark brown hair. It was only a few years, he figured, until the

salt and pepper became just salt.

He never let his hair grow for more than two weeks. The longer it got, the worse itlooked, he thought.

He put a newspaper over the bathroom sink so that no hair went down the drain.

He plugged in the clippers and started cutting his hair. He started at the back of his

head, went to the sides, and finished on the top. Every minute or so, he had to clean the

hair out of the blades with an old toothbrush.

Finished, he picked up a hand mirror to check out the back of his head. Everything

looked okay. He carried the newspaper back out to the kitchen and threw the hair into

the trash can.

Then he took a shower.

GRAB THE UMBRELLA

It looked like it was going rain. The sky was gray. It was almost noon, but the sunwas hidden by a gray cloud. It was cool. There were no birds flying anywhere. A couple

of birds sat on the telephone wire. Bob was standing outside talking to Bill. They both

had their hands in their pockets. They knew that it was probably going to rain in a

momment. A sudden breeze blew some leaves off a tree onto the sidewalk.

A young woman wearing a dark blue coat and jeans walked by. She was walking a

small dog. It was white and pretty. It sniffed at a tree trunk. The woman waited

patiently. Finally, the dog lifted its leg.

Bob said that he liked the rain. It was a nice change from the usual hot Los

Angeles weather. And the plants could always use the extra water. Bill said the only

thing he didn't like about the rain was that all the motor oil on the streets would get

washed into the ocean, and so would all the trash.

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"But that never stops the surfers," Bob said. "They don't seem to care what's in the

water, as long as there are waves to surf on."

A GOOD SANDWICH

Mario was hungry. He opened the refrigerator. There must be something in here to

eat, he thought. There wasa single sausage.

He took it out of its package and put a small frying pan on the stove's gas burner.

He turned on the heat. Then he put a little bit of vegetable oil into the pan. He sliced the

susage in half. When the oil was hot, he put the two halves in the pan. About a minute

later, he flipped each half over. After another minute, he took the sausage out of the pan.

Mario put two slices of bread into the toaster. This was tasty and healthy bread.

The first ingredient listed was organic wheat. The first ingredient in ordinary bread is

usually flour.

When the toast popped up, he put mustard, mayonnaise, and ketchup on one slice.

Then he added two slices of onion. On top of the onions, he placed the sausage. On top

of the sausage, he put a couple of slices of apple. Then he added some bits of hot greenchile, and then put the top piece of toast onto the chile bits.

Ahh, what a sandwich, he thought, as he sat down to eat.

THE BREAKUP

Judith told Marco that they shouldn't see each other for a while. Her doctor had

suggested that she should take a short vacation from her job and a long vacation from

Marco.

"What did you tell him about me?" Marco asked.

She told her doctor that she had dreams about Marco leaving her. She sometimes

dreamed that he pushed her out of the calafiain the middle of the Va Rpida. She

would be crying on the side of the road in the middle of the night, cold and scared, as

the lights disappeared."What kind of dream is that?" Marco's voice was loud. "Do you think I would ever

do that to you?" She said that she didn't know.

"You don't know?! Of course I wouldn't do that to you! I love you!"

Judith asked Marco to lower his voice. She no longer believed that he loved her.

One day, feeling low and insecure, she had told Marco that it would be nice to escape

together for the weekend. Perhaps they could go to a the romantic Las Rocas Hotel &

Spa in Rosarito. He told her No,that he was going to play Yu-gi-oh cards that

Saturday. Maybe they could go to Las Rocas in another time. She was wordless.

"I needed you that weekend. Instead, you preferred to play Yu-gi-oh cards. Now

there is a shadow on my heart that nothing can remove," she told him sadly.

A JEALOUS GIRLFRIEND

Miguel and Jessica were having problems, again.

"But you told me it was okay to call Andrea," said Miguel. "I asked you if it was

okay to talk to her, because it was her birthday and I've wished her a happy birthday

every year for the last 10 years."

"But you had already promised me that you would never call her again. You

promised me that. So, you lied to me."

"But I had forgotten that I told you that. You know that I forget things. I'm not

going to argue with you; you have a memory like an elephant. But you've got to believe

me, I completely forgot. And more important, Andrea is just a friend and you are the

most beautiful girl in the classroom""No, she isn't just a friend. She's still in love with you."

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"But I'm not in love with her. She can love me all she wants, but I'm not in love

with her. I never was!"

"Well, you say that. Maybe it's true. Maybe it isn't. But the important thing is that

you never know what the future will bring. You say that nothing will happen between

you and her, but you don't know that for sure, because you don't know the future."

"Yes, you're right. No one knows the future. I could fall in love with her again, andshe and I might run off and get married and have nine or ten kids."

"Again? What do you mean 'again'?"