“It’s happening now. We have to think about it.”
We sat on the swings in the park, holding hands until the streetlights came on and the crickets started chirping. We didn’t talk for a really long time, neither of us wanting to spoil the moment and neither of us really wanting to break up.
“It shouldn’t make sense,” Owen said finally. “But it does and it sucks.”
I walked my swing up close to his and kissed him. Instead of saying good-bye, we went to his house and watched a superhero movie we’d already seen. Owen put his arm around me the way he always did and I shifted against his shoulder the way I always did. We kissed again when we said good night on his front porch, until my lips were chapped and my dad texted to remind me that my curfew was closing in.
“I don’t think I can handle staying in touch with you,” was the last thing Owen said to me. “No texts. No phone calls. No e-mails. It has to be a clean break.”
But as I walked home, I wasn’t sure such a thing really existed. Not after a lifetime of being friends and three years of dating. Feelings are knots; they have to be untangled.
Hannah’s e-mail swirls up a pang of homesickness. For her. For Owen. For everything. But before the prickling behind my eyes can turn into actual tears, a heavy knock falls on the front door and the echo travels through the apartment to my room. The furniture has arrived.
? ? ?
We are knee-deep in cardboard, and the delivery men are emptying the last of the truck into the living room when a dark-haired guy somewhere around my age knocks on the open door frame. He scans the mess, probably wondering what he’s gotten himself into, as Dad navigates the maze of boxes to greet him. “Are you here to help?”
The guy gives an almost imperceptible nod, his voice low and his mouth set in a serious line as he says, “Yes.”
“Great. Come on in,” Dad says. “What’s your name, kid?”
“Adam Elhadad.”
Even though his pronunciation carries an accent, his name is the same as two guys I know back home and it throws me. I guess I expected something more unusual than Adam. More Egyptian? More Arabic? Either way, Adam Elhadad stands a couple inches taller than Dad with tousled black curls and eyes a shade of light brown I’ve never seen before. “Beautiful” seems like the wrong word but it’s the only word that fits, and as soon as the thought enters my head, guilt washes through me because P.S. Owen is miserable.
“I’m Casey Kelly.” Dad shakes Adam’s hand, then gestures toward Mom and me. “My wife, Rebecca, and our daughter, Caroline.”
Adam nods and cracks the barest hint of a smile as he says hello to my mother, but when he turns toward me, his gaze drops and he mumbles a hello to the floor, making me wonder if I have food stuck in my teeth or have broken some unknown Egyptian rule of etiquette.
“The beds are most important.” Dad leads him away, into the master bedroom. “If we get those assembled tonight, we’ll call it a win.”
Adam Elhadad is no one to me, but I can’t help feeling slighted. I mean, not staring is an improvement over the men at the airport, but it seems like there should be some sort of middle ground. Maybe looking at me as if I exist.
“Don’t take it personally,” Mom says, reading my mind. “He was lowering his gaze out of respect for you.”
“Looking at you wasn’t disrespectful?”
She laughs a little. “I’m an old lady to him, Caroline, someone’s mother. Hardly a temptation.”
My face flames at the suggestion that a guy like Adam could be tempted by a girl like me, but I roll my eyes. Mothers are genetically programmed to think their daughters are the most beautiful creatures on earth. “I’m going to go build something.”
The little man on the IKEA assembly instructions is confusing me when Adam enters my room and tears into the box containing the pieces of my bed. He doesn’t acknowledge my presence, doesn’t speak to me as he works, and the silence in the room grows so thick that I open the balcony doors to let some of it out. Cueing up a playlist of my favorite songs, I try to ignore him, but Adam has a way of tucking this one stray curl behind his ear that makes it virtually impossible. In my superlimited time in Egypt, I’ve noticed that the most popular hairstyle among guys my age seems to be buzzed short on the sides and longer on top, sometimes slicked with gel, but Adam’s curls spring out from his head in every direction and I am half tempted to offer him an elastic band to hold them back.
He glances up just then, catching me watching him. Heat rushes to my cheeks as I look away, turning my attention back to the directions, forcing myself to figure them out. The bookcase is small enough to double as a nightstand, so it doesn’t take long before I’ve finished.
Adam is attaching the footboard of the bed to one of the side supports as I slide the assembled bookcase against the wall.
“Do you, um—do you need some help?” I ask the back of his head.
“No, thank you.” He doesn’t look up and his tone is neither hostile nor cold. It’s just . . . neutral.
“Okay. Whatever.” Leaving the music to play (and not caring if he doesn’t like it), I go out into the living room to help Mom attach the legs to the couch.
“With me at the clinic every day, you’re going to be on your own a lot this summer,” she says. “The school will have some events where you can meet other American kids, but I was also thinking maybe you could explore the bazaars and shops to find things that will make this place feel less like an IKEA showroom. Make it a challenge. Get to know the city, learn to haggle, and pick up a little bit of the language along the way.”
I don’t want to admit that I’m afraid to venture out into this loud, crazy city alone. Or that hanging out with Mr. Elhadad is not exactly my idea of a good time, but I nod anyway. “Sure.”
By the time the evening call to prayer begins, the couch is finished, along with both beds, the dining room table, and three of the four dining chairs. Even though he’s not very talkative, Adam Elhadad is very good with his hands. In a building furniture kind of way, I mean.
“Join us for dinner?” Dad asks Adam, who politely declines as Dad digs his wallet out of his back pocket. He thumbs through the bills and hands over several. “Thank you for your help.”
“I can come again tomorrow in the evening, if you need me.”
“That would be appreciated.”
Mom thanks Adam in Arabic and he offers her a fleeting smile as he responds in kind. “Afwan.”
“You know what would be great right now?” Dad says after Adam has gone. “Pizza. It’s about a five-minute walk to the Pizza Hut.”
“Casey, you gave that boy too much money,” Mom says.
He shrugs. “I gave him next to nothing.”