III.
MIRRORS
Tori and Morgan exchange glances while I pretend not to notice. They’ve never been alone with me before, and I think I make them nervous.
Barbaric. The word has gone unspoken since the night of the dance, but it is surely contained in those looks. Why else would they be tossing silent secrets back and forth like that?
“Emmy should be here soon. Her mother is driving her back after her dentist appointment.” They know this already, but I say it to reassure them.
We’re sprawled across the sidewalk, painting signs for a school fund-raiser. “No! It’s all one word. Like this.” Tori dips her paintbrush into the blue and splatter-writes in giant capitals: WALKATHON.
Morgan sighs. “Uh-uh. That’s wrong. Look, I’m copying it directly from the announcement.” Her orange letters are tidy and compact: WALK-A-THON.
I avoid the debate and stick to drawing decorative swirls and flourishes on the signs they’ve finished lettering. The concept of asking strangers for money in exchange for walking sounds like an inefficient form of begging, but I know better than to say so.
“Did you guys hear about Asher?” Tori asks. “He’s such a loser.”
Morgan snorts. “I know!” She pitches her voice low and pantomimes scooping something off the ground and waving it in the air. “Oops, look what I dropped. No, really, everyone. Look. Look at what I dropped! Can everyone see? Did you all see it in the back there?”
I smile. Their laughter is infectious, and for once I am in the loop. A boy made a big show of dropping a condom from his wallet as he paid for lunch, and when he picked it up, he put it into his pocket so that part of the foil package was still visible. He swaggered around the cafeteria like this, advertising his virility, though not with the desired effect.
“Maybe he doesn’t know what they’re for,” Tori jokes. She switches to her own version of the cartoony male voice. “Look, it’s a water balloon! Or maybe a finger glove.”
“A very small shopping bag?” Morgan giggles.
“An itty-bitty rain poncho!” Tori shrieks back.
“Yeah, a poncho for his, his—” Morgan is laughing too hard to say it.
“For his little soldier?” I offer.
“His little soldier?” Both girls howl this at the same time. Tori has tears leaking from her eyes, she’s laughing so hard. “Yes, that’s what we call it in my country. One term for it, anyway. Or rooster. Just like here, right?” I’m enjoying this, enjoying being in on the joke.
Morgan is laughing so hard she can’t catch her breath. “Little soldier? Oh my god, Laila. You kill me!”
Tori chokes back her giggling, trying to look serious for a moment. “I think you mean cock, Laila.” She whispers the word and then dissolves back into shrieking laughter.
I’m laughing as hard as they are now, my face stretched from the unfamiliar exercise. “Yes, that’s it—cock. Not rooster. I always get those two words confused.”
A teacher glares as she steps into the grass to walk around our howling group. We’re holding our sides, snorting and crying in hysterics.
“I swear I’m going to pee my pants,” Morgan says as our moment tapers off. We’re all out of breath, and she has the hiccups, which makes us giggle even more. “His little soldier. That’s too perfect.”
We go back to our painting. I finish one poster and I’m reaching for the next when I realize that the mood has shifted again.
“Um, Laila?” Tori is hesitant. “There’s something we’ve been wanting to ask you.…” She looks to Morgan for reinforcement.
“But we totally don’t want to offend you or anything,” Morgan adds.
“No, not at all!” Tori shakes her head so emphatically that hair whips both sides of her face.
My stomach flip-flops. What now? “You can ask me anything you want,” I say.
“It’s just that Emmy thinks it’s rude. That we’ll offend you.”
Both sets of eyes are locked on me. “No, I won’t be offended.” It comes out quieter than I intended, and the girls look skeptical. “What do you want to know?”
There’s one more silent consultation between the two, and then Tori goes first. “We’re just curious about what it’s like there. I mean, the everyday stuff. Like, what did you used to do with your friends? Just …” She trails off. “It just seems so different. Like a different planet, you know?”
I let out a sigh of relief. That’s it? I’m happy to be their living, breathing National Geographic. I sit up and cross my legs. “It is different there. It is a different planet. I feel that way a lot.”
My audience of two waits patiently.
“Okay, then …” I chew on my lip, trying to think of some sort of nugget to give them. “Everyday stuff?”
“Yeah. Like with your friends,” Tori reminds me.
That makes answering harder. “I didn’t have many friends,” I admit. “I mean, I did, but they changed a lot. I didn’t go to school the way I do here. But my mother used to take me with her to parties and lunches. There were always other girls my age wherever we went. The daughters of my parents’ acquaintances.” I’m finding it difficult to translate, not because I don’t know the words but because the social dynamics of my country just don’t have counterparts here. I need to back up, to explain.
“In my country, girls don’t just ‘hang out’ the way you do here. I mean, they can’t go to the same places the boys hang out. They can’t just … roam.” That’s not the word I was looking for, and it draws a tiny frown from Morgan.
“There are a lot of gatherings, I guess you would call them. Not really parties, because there doesn’t need to be an occasion. They’re just a chance for women and girls to get together. To take off our veils and relax, that sort of thing. To listen to music and eat too many sweets.” I try to keep my answer light, but now Tori and Morgan are both frowning.
“So …” Morgan starts out slowly. “You’re not allowed to go out, then? Except to people’s homes? It sounds like house arrest.”
I feel a buzz of frustration. “It’s not that we’re not allowed—” I can’t seem to find the right words. “It’s what we want to do.”
But now that I see these gatherings through Tori and Morgan’s eyes, my old enthusiasm feels counterfeit. Glamorous parties now reveal themselves to have been stifling, claustrophobic affairs. But how to explain the lack of choices—the sheer absence of options—to people who make more decisions before breakfast than I made in a palace-bound month?
“But—” Tori is hesitant. “But you like boys, right?”
“Yes. I like boys.” Exasperation leaks into my voice.
“So how do you meet them? How does anyone meet guys if you’re stuck indoors with just the other girls all the time?” Tori is so earnest, so puzzled by my answers, that I can’t take offense.
“It happens eventually.” I smile at her. “Maybe not as soon as here. Here, I think that boys are a part of every group, every conversation, even when there are none to be seen. It happens differently there, but it happens.”
Morgan nods. “Yeah, that’s true about everything here involving boys. Look at us—no guys in sight, but we’re still sitting here talking about stupid Asher’s stupid little soldier.”
We all laugh at that, but Tori has another question. “What age do people start doing it, then? Sex, I mean.”
“She just said not as soon as here. Not as soon as some people here, anyway.” Morgan lowers her voice to a stage whisper and leans toward me. “Tori’s already done the deed, did you know that?”
“Morgan!” Tori flushes scarlet. “Why do you have to be such a bitch?”
Morgan makes a face at her and goes back to painting.
Tori sits silently for a minute, chewing her nails. “I think it sounds nice. To have time to just be with your friends without guys always interfering. I mean, it seems like it would take some of the pressure off, right?”
I half shrug, half nod. It seems I can only convey a world to them that sounds either much worse or much better than mine actually is. Was.
“Hey, you guys are almost done!” Emmy’s arrival slices through the pensive mood that has settled over us. She slings her backpack onto the grass and edges her way into our circle. “The signs look great! How many more do you think we need to do? Four?… Five?” Her chatter bars any further questions, and I think we’re all relieved.
I go back to my swirls and flourishes, and Tori and Morgan go back to their lettering. I don’t know that they understand my world any better than they did before our conversation, but somehow I feel as if I understand theirs a little better.
“Are you doing okay, Laila?” Emmy whispers as she sinks down next to me with a blank piece of poster board. “Sorry it took so long for me to get back; I know they can be a bit much sometimes.”
I smile at her and nod. I am okay. Talking about my world, seeing its distorted, fun-house-mirror reflection in the eyes of these American acquaintances, is okay. Their perspective is not mine, and my reality is not theirs. But somewhere between our differences is a shared space where we are friends.
VOICES
School has become a peaceful place for me. Here, today, I owe nothing but a paper on Animal Farm. I’d like to think I have particularly keen insight into the political maneuverings of the animals in the book—I’m certain to get a good grade.
There are small tragedies and minor dramas all around me as I walk through the halls, but they don’t touch me. Emmy has tried to explain the nuances of high school social dynamics, but her lessons don’t sink in. She’s given up on that and on teaching me to appreciate American football. In both cases I see nothing but large numbers of bulky strangers hurrying this way and that. I can’t seem to focus on the game the way everyone else does; I’m content to sit quietly on the sidelines and watch the blur of people move by me.
I like my locker. It’s a small space of my own—the only one I have.
I like my classes, with their lessons so different from those at home. World history is reinvented here—the same stories retold upside down. English class, where contractions are allowed and books are not banned, is a pleasure. I even like PE—boys and girls mixed together, their bare legs so casually mingling.
I like my friends. I’m learning to trust them. I told Emmy about last weekend’s kiss, and she squealed her approval. “Eeeeek!” Eek indeed, I agreed. It felt good to reveal a secret freely.
I like Ian, too. He walks me home again.
“So, that guy who was waiting for you the other day. Amir, right? Is he your …?” He waits for me to fill in the blank.
“Hmmm. Be careful, Ian. You almost sound jealous.” Our conversations are two parts banter, one part substance. “I told you, he’s just a family friend.”
“From back home?” His fingers dance against mine, fleeting teases of contact.
“No. Well, yes. That’s where he’s from. But I didn’t know him there.” I want to change the subject.
“You don’t talk about home much,” Ian says.
I shrug, American-style. Back home the arms are more involved. Palms turned skyward, elbows bent up and away from the body. Here, the gesture is more contained, all shoulders and eyebrows.
“Would you, though? Would you be comfortable talking about it, I mean? I’d love to interview you for the school paper. You have an amazing story.”
I pull away from him. I don’t want to talk about the paper. “No. I’d rather not. I mean, I don’t want to be in the paper. I’m sorry.” Just the thought of it makes my heart race. Why is it so hard to keep my two lives separate lately?
Ian stops walking. He’s hesitating, shaping his words carefully. “Look, I’ve read up on your family. It’s messy. I get it. But what if we just talk about your transition here? You know, a firsthand account of someone new to this country, that kind of thing. We can keep it light if you want. Besides, you’re going to want to start talking about it eventually. You might as well take advantage of your situation.”
“What do you mean?”
We start walking again. “College applications, for one thing. You’re smart. You could get a full ride just about anywhere with your story and your grades. It’s not that far off, you know.”
Not that far off? Years are lifetimes in my world. I hadn’t even thought about college since we moved here. Not once. Dare I? Ian glances over at me, waiting for an answer.
“Or if you’d rather start slowly, then maybe you can just talk to me about it. Off the record.” He takes my hand for real this time, fingers through fingers. Substance.
We’re at my door, a convenient excuse not to answer. “Just think about it, Laila.” Ian lightly frees a section of my hair that had tucked itself under the strap of my backpack.
I give him a quick and impulsive kiss on the cheek and then dash into the apartment. “See you tomorrow!” I call out as I shut the door.
I’m leaning against the door wondering if he’s still standing on the other side when I hear the voices.
One voice belongs to my mother; it’s coming from her bedroom. She’s practically yelling, the way she always does on speakerphone. Bastien and I have tried convincing her she doesn’t need to shout, but she does it anyway.
The other voice is a man’s—it’s muffled and staticky and familiar. Even through the long distance, the bad connection, and the passage of time, I recognize it instantly.
My uncle.