I slip into the living room to retrieve my dog, pausing to give Janie the tightest squeeze.
“You’re going home, Auntie?”
“Yep,” I say, my vision swimming. I hate this: fighting with my mom, fighting with Audrey, worrying that my time with Janie is going to be dramatically reduced. Because I can’t stop seeing Mati—I just can’t, no matter what Mom takes away, no matter what Aud threatens.
He’s a star, throwing light and warmth into my life, and I won’t give him up.
Not until I have to.
I kiss Janie’s soft hair. “I love you, girlie.”
“See you soon, Auntie!”
My eyes spill a waterfall of tears as Bambi and I walk out the door.
MATI
Baba’s coughing wakes me.
His hacking is nothing new.
It is as if he has swallowed metal: iron, nickel, tin, steel.
A bucketful of nuts and bolts, rattling behind his ribs.
I should check on him, but I am in no mood to face Mama.
She has been chilly since I came home from the park yesterday.
Her disappointment is explicit, though I am not sure I care.
The coughing continues.
I hear movement in the kitchen.
A slamming cupboard door,
rushing water, hurried footsteps.
Mama calls my name,
her voice tattered with worry.
“Go to the market,” she says.
“Buy honey. And peppermint.
We need to calm his cough.”
I push my feet into shoes, donning yesterday’s jeans and a rumpled shirt, and do as she asks.
In Cypress Beach,
early mornings are still and peaceful.
I breeze through the market, where I choose local honey, thick and amber in its jar, and a generous sprig of peppermint.
They are nature’s cure
for the grating-grinding-retching that lives in Baba’s chest.
I pay, hurriedly.
Clutching my bag,
I return to the sidewalk.
I have only just passed the bakery, and the sun is only just beginning to rise, when I am cuffed from behind, a wallop that pitches me forward, tangling my feet and my wits.
My bag plummets to the ground and, while everything else is abruptly jumbled, muddled, blurred, so clearly, I hear the honey jar shatter on impact.
My hands break my fall, saving my face from striking the sidewalk.
My sluggish brain registers: my palms, scraping coarse pavement, male voices, slicing the quiet morning, and ire, dense as fog.
I struggle to right myself, disoriented but determined to confront my attackers, to fight back.
A blow finds my middle, robbing me of breath, creating a sharp spasm of pain in my chest.
I curl in on myself,
and try to make sense of my assailants.
A foot,
in a work boot,
attached to leg,
attached to a man.
An American man.
A citizen of Cypress Beach.
Bronzed hair and freckled skin, he is familiar;
he mocked Mama and me weeks ago, as we walked through town.
He stands with a friend: a blonder, squatter man, who boasts wicked eyes and a smarmy snarl.
He glares down at me,
then kicks at the sticky, broken glass and crushed peppermint that litter the sidewalk.
Their derisiveness sends a chill down my spine.
My stomach sours as the men, stout and steadfast, work to move me.
Off the sidewalk.
Into an alley.
Where there will be no interruptions.
Where there will be no witnesses.
My lucidity fades
like tendrils of smoke
in a turbulent sky.
elise
My mom comes into my room bright and early, dropping a flyer on the pillow next to my head. Groggy, I squint up at her. She’s frowning at my blackened walls and the mural of stars I’ve splashed across the ceiling. Sensing that she has no plan to leave until I engage, I tunnel out from beneath my quilt and pick up the flyer. Cypress Valley High New Student Orientation! printed in bold letters.
I’d forgotten; it’s today.
“No way,” I say.
“You can’t sulk in your room forever.”
“I’m not sulking—I’m sleeping.”
“I’ve never known you to be such a sullen teenager,” she grumbles. “This is that boy’s influence, isn’t it?”
Here we go … “Mati’s? No, not at all. In fact, he’d probably encourage me to go to orientation—you know, if he could get in touch with me.”
“You’re wasting your summer, Elise. When will you see reason? You have no future with him.”
I pull my quilt up to cover my face. Muffled, I say, “You don’t know that.”
She yanks the blanket away, eyes flashing. “It’s not as if you can marry him!”
I sit up so I can face her head-on, rather than supine. “I’m seventeen, Mom. I’m hardly planning a wedding. But for the record, I could marry him. It’s not unheard of for a Muslim man to marry a non-Muslim woman; it’s not even against the rules. Afghanistan’s current president is married to a freaking Catholic. Bet you didn’t know that, for all your knowledge of Islam.”
She gives me a long, hard look, then says, “You’re going to orientation. You need to get to know the campus. You need to get a sense of what classes are offered. And for God’s sake, you need to meet new people.”
“No I don’t. I have Ryan. I have Mati.”
“Ryan is going back to Texas in a few weeks.” She makes no more mention of Mati, like avoiding his name is as good as erasing him from existence. “I’ve already contacted your principal to let her know you’ll be there. She’s looking forward to meeting you. Two o’clock this afternoon,” she says, pointing at the flyer before turning and walking out of my room.
I hem and haw all morning. Orientation is the very last thing I feel like doing, mostly because I don’t want my mom to have her way. And anyway, I’d rather meet up with Mati, especially considering I haven’t talked to him since my phone was swiped. Our time together is dwindling and even though it’s barely been twenty-four hours, I miss him.
But, as much as I hate to admit it, my mom is right: I do need to put some effort into making new friends. Thanks to Mati and Ryan, I know now that I want people in my life, even if my brother can’t be.
God. It’s settled—I’m going to orientation.
I leave the house in Mom’s BMW, dressed in tattered cutoffs and my trusty Advise, Support, Stabilize sweatshirt; it’s like a security blanket, like having a piece of Nick with me as I brave the awfulness of a new school. When I pull into the parking lot, it occurs to me that I’m likely the only attendee old enough to drive, and I’m met with the stares of dozens of confused underclassmen as I park Mom’s car.
In the gym, bright-eyed freshmen (who’ve presumably traveled through the Cypress Valley school system together since they were kindergartners) sit in gaggles on the bleachers, prattling and laughing, effectively ignoring me. When I look at their carefree faces and glowing smiles and tidy clothes, I feel far removed.
I’m starting to wonder if I should have stayed home after all when the lights flash off and then flicker back on, quieting the crowd and officially beginning orientation.
Cypress Valley High’s principal, a surprisingly young, smartly dressed blonde who introduces herself as Mrs. Cruz, speaks from a podium in the center of the polished floor. Her voice echoes through the steamy gym as she welcomes us, promising an “illuminating and formative” educational experience.
Wonderful.
She drones on, covering hallway expectations and cafeteria procedures and the progress reports that’ll be emailed to our parents periodically throughout the year. She’s introducing a couple of assistant principals, who appear apathetic at best, when her attention is pulled to the doors on the far side of the gym. I follow her gaze, peering across the sea of heads that occupy the bleachers. There’s some sort of scuffle taking place behind one of the closed doors, in the dim hallway barely visible through the small, rectangular window. Mrs. Cruz glances questioningly at her fellow administrators, who shrug in unison.
All’s quiet now, so she resumes her speech, filling a whole thirty seconds with rambling before the door flies open, slamming against the gym’s cinder block wall, drawing the attention of every single person in the vast room.