DEFINITIONS
Mother is sitting in the same spot as when I left, but something has changed. Her ever-present teacup has turned into a glass.
I recognize the amber liquid inside. Liquor is technically forbidden in our country, but the law is ignored by people who have enough money. This is the first time I’ve seen Mother drinking since we came here, though, and I wonder if the open bottle I spot on the counter is yet another double-edged gift from Mr. Gansler.
“Where have you been, Laila?” Her tolerance for alcohol is low, and her words sound soft around the edges.
“The library.” I keep my voice neutral and she nods absently. She has greater concerns than my whereabouts.
I go to my room and sink down onto the unmade bed—all three of us struggle to remember that we are now responsible for our own menial tasks, and the apartment is perpetually cluttered.
Bastien is sitting on the floor reading an American comic book. What does he want? After all, he is the best adapted here—in fact, he has the most to lose, whichever direction our fate takes us.
“Bastien, do you miss home?”
He wrinkles his nose at me. “Sure.” His gaze drifts back down to his reading, but he must sense that the disruption isn’t over because he sighs and puts it down.
“But it seems like you’re happy here.”
He shrugs. “Yeah, I guess.” For him there is no discrepancy between his answers. In his six-year-old mind, it’s still possible to be equally happy in two worlds.
I’m envious. And irritated. A wicked part of me, the bullying-older-sister part, wants him to have to choose. “But where would you rather live?”
Finally, he gives this question some thought. “I guess back home.” He grins. “I want to be King.”
“Bastien, you know there’s no such thing there, right? That you’ll never be a king?” I’m brusque, mean. I’m too impatient to let him down kindly. Why should he be indulged when the rest of us are not?
He gnaws on his thumbnail, and at first I think I’ve upset him. But he’s only thinking. “I know,” he says at last. “But I’ll be able to tell people what to do, right? And they’ll have to do it? And we’ll live in the big house again, right? The palace?” He doesn’t wait for me to respond. “That’s close enough to being a king.” He picks up his comic book, and I am dismissed for a second time.
How can I argue with his child’s logic? In his mind, he is a king—he’s been told so his entire life, and the details do seem to support the myth. I start to ask him what this makes me, but I stop myself. It’s better that I answer this question myself.
COMFORTS
It’s after school and we’re in Emmy’s room again. The faces in the pictures—her floor-to-ceiling monument to moments past—are starting to feel familiar. I’m part of the collection now. The photo from the night of the dance stares at me from the lower right corner of the wall. “Laila in Disguise,” it should be captioned.
Emmy has her ear pressed against the door, though that really isn’t necessary. I can hear her parents’ argument perfectly well from the opposite side of the room, where I’m making a show of carefully examining the pictures, pretending not to notice the shouting coming from the kitchen. I think Emmy appreciates this, my little token gift of discretion.
The photos are arranged by theme. Here, near the window, is a section devoted to Outdoor Emmy. I see evidence of a camping trip with friends. Canoeing with one boy, hiking with another. A cluster of girls toasting marshmallows over a fire, everyone looking young and prettily windburned. I recognize a longer-haired Morgan in the background.
The next section is less wholesome and slightly more recent. Emmy is a stranger with too much eyeliner and a bleached streak in her bangs, but she’s still wearing the same huge grin. Boys on skateboards flash hand signals and scowls at the camera, all early-teen angst and swagger. The other girls have rows and rows of earrings, five hoops to an ear, and some have studded lips, eyebrows, tongues. A boy in baggy jeans wears one of the X’s across his face.
“When was this taken?” I ask Emmy, but she holds a finger to her lips. The argument has grown quieter, and she’s struggling to hear.
I move on. Here is Athlete Emmy. This must be last year, because she looks much closer to the way she does now. I didn’t know she played tennis, but there she sits in a team photo, her smile and her skirt matching those of the other girls. The boys in this section wear uniforms: baseball and soccer. In one picture, Emmy and a boy sit poolside, wearing swim goggles and making funny faces at one another.
The section that includes my photo is clearly the most recent. There doesn’t seem to be an obvious theme, though. Not yet. International Emmy, maybe? In addition to my foreign face, this part of the collage also includes several postcards from other countries.
A door slams somewhere in the house, and Emmy throws herself on her bed. “Aaaah!” She screams muffled frustration into her pillow before rolling onto her back. “How embarrassing. I’m so sorry you had to hear that. My parents suck.”
“Are you okay?”
She doesn’t answer, just scrunches up her face, then picks a crumpled shirt off the bed and throws it to the floor. “My room is a disaster. I can’t even stand to be here. Let’s go to your house instead.”
Now I don’t answer.
Emmy sighs and flings her arm across her face, covering her eyes. “They’re separating. My dad’s moving out. You know what they were just fighting about? Which one of them is going to tell me. Like the entire neighborhood doesn’t already know, with their constant yelling. God, I hate them!”
For a long moment I can’t do anything but stand mutely. I flush warm with guilt as I realize that I’ve thought of her as a paper doll of a friend, one-dimensional and picture-frame perfect. That she might also have things to escape never occurred to me.
I step closer to her bed, and when she scoots over to make room for me, I lie down next to her. Side by side on our backs, both of us stare up at the ceiling in silence. “I’m sorry,” I finally say, feeling awkward for not knowing the right way to comfort her. Do we talk about it, or is it better to offer up distractions? Does she want to laugh about it or cry about it? So many subjects never covered by my tutors; I’ve never felt quite so alien as I do right now.
She’s quiet at first, but eventually she turns her head to look at me. “Please don’t tell anybody else.”
“I won’t,” I say. “I’m good at keeping secrets.”
She nods as if she already knows that.
“Which shall it be, chocolate or french fries?” I ask her.
Her smile is watery. Grateful. “Lots of both. Quick.”
We leave the house in search of neutral ground and comfort food.