by Beth Fred
I rolled my eyes. “Because the bombing destroyed everything.”
“What about all the women on the news who said Hussein’s sons raped them?” Caleb asked.
“What about the woman who said the same about your President Clinton?” I asked.
“You can’t tell me it was safe there. People were starving. Everyone turned against that man,” he said.
“He wasn’t popular, but we didn’t really turn against him, either. He was better than the bombings, and a lot of things you call ‘maltreatment’ we call culture.”
“So you liked needing a male escort to walk outside?”
“I had to have a male escort, because my father insisted. Women didn’t need male escorts. Even here, my brother usually goes with me when I’m out.” It keeps strangers from calling me beautiful.
“This is a good debate,” Mrs. Culpepper said.
But All-American Boy shook his head. “We saved you people.”
That was too much. “Saved us from what?” My pitch and volume both went up. Instantly, I regretted it, but it was too late. “We didn’t need saving, until you came with guns.”
“My dad died helping you people, so I don’t appreciate that,” he snapped.
“Let’s calm down—” Mrs. Culpepper started.
“Appreciate it or not, it’s the truth. My dad was gunned down for trying to save a man. Who exactly did that save?”
I never talked about that. If I didn’t say it out loud, maybe I wouldn’t think about it. If I didn’t think about it, maybe, for one second, I could forget about it. And then maybe, I could forget how much I hated the world.
But I would never forget it. Yet at the same time, I couldn’t really remember it. I knew that it had happened like I knew my name or that the earth was round. But the details, they’d disappeared.
A terse silence filled the room. Caleb looked at me—looked into me—with deep brown eyes, and I wondered why. Was he trying to come up with his next insult? Did he feel guilty for the things he’d said?
“I didn’t mean for the conversation to get so lively,” Mrs. Culpepper said.
When Caleb finally spoke, his voice had gone soft, almost sympathetic. “We’re there to keep terrorists from doing things like that.”
A single tear rolled down my cheek, scorching my face. In spite of this, I let out a laugh. “Except, he was shot by an American soldier.”
Caleb’s mouth gaped. He rocked back in his chair and didn’t say anything else.
No one spoke to me the rest of the day, but eyes followed me wherever I went.
After school, I waited close to the building. It was safer to stay near teachers. Although, half the teachers in this building would let the students lynch me. Ommy’s car pulled up, and as I walked toward it, the crowd moved to either side.
They cleared a path for me. I was untouchable.
I opened the passenger door and slid in.
Watching the grassed knolls and sidewalks in front of the building where the kids stood, Abrahem didn’t miss how everyone stared at us. “Already?” he asked.
I nodded.
“What did you do?”
“I think I may have gone off on a football player. But most of it is because I said life wasn’t that bad in Iraq before they showed up.”
Abrahem laughed. “It wasn’t that bad, but you can’t remember much. Why would you say that? You know it’s a military town.”
I shrugged. “I have to take government. The teacher said that the U.S. went to war to protect innocent Iraqi civilians. That’s not what happened. They don’t protect us. They kill.”
He gripped the wheel until his knuckles turned white. “They do, but you can’t go around saying that. Mirriam, you especially can’t say that here. You’ll get yourself killed.”
“It’s true.”
“I know.” He did know, but he wasn’t there. He didn't have to watch it.
Chapter 3
Caleb
Why would an American soldier shoot a man for helping someone? It didn’t make sense. I couldn’t get what she’d said out of my head through any of my afternoon classes or the drive home. But I couldn’t find logic in it, either. I came up with two possible scenarios: A terrorist wearing a soldier’s uniform killed her dad and she hated the world for it, or she lied.
I didn’t want to take a liar to prom, and it was either take Mirriam to prom or lose a chunk of my savings and drive around with a pink flower sticking up in my Jeep. Her conviction seemed real, and why would she lie about that?
A terrorist could have killed a soldier, stolen his uniform, and shot up someplace, but I hadn’t heard about it. We usually heard stories like that around here, whether they made the news or not.
I knew guys like my dad and my friends were risking their lives in Iraq every day for people like Mirriam. There was no way they’d gun someone down for no reason. They were too worried about staying alive, and to hear Mirriam scoff at what they were doing the way she did...
I’d lost my dad there. He’d died for a reason. He was protecting us. He was protecting her even if she was too stupid to know it. The worst part was she didn’t seem like a stupid girl.
I took my dad’s uniform out of my closet and hung it on the door. I sat on my bed, staring at his medals. Desperately, I wanted to know what happened that day. We never got the whole story. The version repeated by anyone in a uniform, no matter when I asked, was, “He was killed by enemy fire.” Enemy fire. Whatever that meant. He was the only one in his company who didn’t make it home, and he was a non-commissioned officer.
From the day the soldier saluted me at the door two years ago, something struck me about the story. There was something they didn’t want us to know. For two years, I’d tried not to think about it, but with all the talk about Iraq today, I couldn’t get it out of my head. My dad was dead and somewhere there was a missing piece to the story, his story.
I called Gade. He was the youngest guy in my dad’s company, only a few years older than me. We’d been friends since his family moved in down the street, when I was ten years old. Dad had helped him enlist. Gade had gotten into some trouble when he was in high school, so he shouldn’t have been able to get in. My dad had talked to the recruiter and said he’d be willing to keep Gade out of trouble. They army erased his past, and he was always thankful to my dad.
He picked up on the first ring. “Hey, Miller. What’s going on?”
“Can you tell me about the day my dad died? The whole story?”
Gade sighed. We’d had this conversation a dozen times two years ago when I couldn’t get anyone else to tell me what happened.
Exasperation filled his voice. I knew he thought the last time we had this conversation was the real last time. “Caleb, when someone dies, the grief doesn’t go away. It becomes easier to live with. You have to quit obsessing over this. If I could remember everything, and I can’t, it’s not like it would bring him back.”
“I know, but can you just try to remember, please? I need to know what happened. I think when I know what happened, I’ll be able to get past it.” “You can’t get over violently losing a parent, and there isn’t much I can tell you. They were shooting at us. We were shooting at them, and somehow Michael got shot.”
Same story as last time, but I knew he remembered more than he let on.
“I want beer.” It was like an unspoken agreement. I knew he was lying to me, but didn’t call him on it so he bought me beer.
“My fridge is full of it, but, Miller, drinking yourself into a stupor won’t help.”
I headed out to the jeep to hit Gade’s fridge before my mom got home. A U-Haul truck was parked across the street. A big Middle Eastern guy about my age came out of the house. Wow, this town is being overtaken by Arabs. Then a shorter girl with tight black curls followed him out. Mirriam. In snug jeans that clung to her body, she looked different now.
God, it’s bad enough I volunteered to be her partner, and have to take her to prom. I can�
��t believe I have to live across the street from her, too.
As I opened my car door, Mirriam followed the guy into the truck. Before I could get out of the driveway, they came out of the truck, each lifting one end of an entertainment center. The guy had his end lifted in the air, and he was walking backwards. She struggled to keep her end off the ground.
I rolled my eyes and sighed. American hating Arabic chick or not, I couldn’t let a girl carry furniture bigger than her. I jumped out of my jeep and ran across the street.
“Need help?”
The big Arabic guy smiled and sat his end down. Mirriam took the chance to sit her end down as well. “Thanks. That would be great.”
“I can do it,” Mirriam said.
“It didn’t look like it,” I said.
She glared at me.
“Mirriam, our neighbor offered to help. Let him.”
Her eyes shot daggers at the big guy. “Zmal, Abrahem. Way to ruin my life.” She ran for the house.
Chapter 4
Mirriam
I got lectured for the way I’d treated Caleb when he appeared in my front yard. I didn’t tell Abrahem that Caleb was a flag thumper and the jerk that randomly hit on me. For some reason, I didn’t want my big brother to know that was Caleb, even though it would have ended the lecture.
Part of me thought I was probably being too hard on the guy, but most of me knew I would’ve let our awkward first encounter go, if I hadn’t seen his true colors in Government class. Still, I was torn. His father had died, too; he probably felt a need to justify all of the killing. But I didn’t like that he could hate a place he’d never seen. That he could know what was going on halfway around the globe without ever having stepped foot there. It was the same mentality that allowed people to drop out of planes with guns at your doorstep.
I dreamed about my dad that night. The most tolerant man I had ever known. He’d treated wounded American soldiers more than once, and he’d always said he’d never regret it. He’d died at the hand of an American soldier, but somewhere inside of me, I knew I was angrier about it than he would’ve been.
So when I got to Government the next day, I waited for Caleb to approach our table. When he arrived, I was standing behind my seat with my arms folded across my chest. I knew what I had to do, but it didn’t mean I had to like it.
He looked at me for a second like he was about to say something, but I jumped in before he could. “I’m sorry for my outburst yesterday.”
His eyes connected with mine for a moment, and I could tell I’d caught him off guard. “It’s cool.”
“If you want another partner, I won’t be offended. I’m still opinionated.”
“We’re cool.” His voice was so hard, I didn’t think he meant it. An awkward silence passed before Caleb said, “Actually I thought we could be friends.”
Friends. That sounded nice. I hadn’t had a friend since I moved to the U.S. But I knew Caleb and I were not the kind of combination that could hang together on a Friday night and have everything go well. I couldn’t tell him that, though.
“Sure, friends,” I said, “but it’s still probably a good idea to do something that doesn’t require us to talk much.”
“Why would you say that?”
“Caleb, I call what the U.S. did to us ‘invasion’. You call it ‘aid’, and I don’t think either one of us are changing our minds any time soon.”
He nodded, both defiant and sympathetic in a single motion.
Something about the understanding in his eyes made me tingle in a way I didn’t want Caleb Miller to make me tingle. We didn’t have much time to work on our project today, so that was all the talking we did in class.
I spent the remainder of the hour stealing glances at Caleb, wishing I had something to say. I never had anything to say, and that was probably for the best. Something told me if I tried to talk to Caleb Miller, I would regret it later.
I walked home, because Abrahem got a job yesterday, and I didn’t drive. I was tempted to demand he teach me how, but something told me Ommy would never go for it, and three of us sharing one car would probably get complicated. Besides, school wasn’t that far from my house.
Sauntering down our street, I realized it was the quietest neighborhood I’d seen in a long time. Houses with neatly manicured fenced yards lined the road. Some driveways hosted parked cars and others were empty, as it was not five yet. It wasn’t home, but I felt almost safe here. Almost.
Then a thunderous bang shot through the air. I knew that sound, had heard it before. A scream escaped my throat. Stupid, Mirriam! So stupid! If you hadn’t been noticed yet, they definitely heard you. The last words my father ever said to me rang through my head. “Play dead, Mirriam.”
I threw myself to the ground. Concrete and asphalt slapped me in the face. I was out in the open here—vulnerable. It was a residential neighborhood. There really was nowhere to hide. I hadn’t even surveyed the area to see where the shot came from. I lay on the ground, trying to breathe slowly so no one would see my chest move or hear my breath.
Only seconds passed before I heard, “Mirriam? Mirriam, are you okay?” The twang in his voice told me it wasn’t Abrahem, and as far as I knew, there was only one other guy on this street who knew my name.
I opened my eyes and looked up to see Caleb standing over me. The tip of his snakeskin cowboy boot inches from my eyes.
I gasped as I adjusted myself to my surroundings. It’s a quiet street lined with little houses, neatly manicured with fence yards, I reminded myself. Still, I couldn’t shake the shot. I knew what I’d heard. Yet nothing had been disturbed.
“What happened?” I asked trying to figure out why no one had come outside, why Caleb wasn’t disheveled.
“I—I don’t know,” he said. “Can I help you up?”
I placed my hands to the sides of my chest, pushed myself up, and sprang to my feet. Caleb ran a hand across my face. My breath hitched and stilled. He dropped his hand and stepped back from me. “You—you scraped your face.”
From the burning in my cheek, I knew he was right. I’d scraped my face on the concrete, but when his fingertips traced the spot on my cheek, it wasn’t pain I felt. It was more, and I knew he felt it, too.
That didn’t matter, though. It couldn’t. All that mattered at the moment was the bang that fired through the air. I was about to ask again what happened when Caleb asked, “How did you end up face down on the curb?”
“I heard the shot and played dead.”
“Shot?” There was something incredulous in his voice. His lips turned up at the corners like he wanted to laugh at me. “What shot?”
“You didn’t hear it?”
He shook his head.
“There was no ripping bang?”
“I’m sorry. I was working on my jeep. I dropped the hood, and it made one hell of a noise. I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to scare you.”
My back arched, and my shoulders went up. “I wasn’t scared. I don’t even do scared.”
“Right. That’s how you ended up face down on the curb.”
For a brief second, I had been terrified, and we both knew it. “I should go.” My feet didn’t move, because there was something I had to ask him. It was the kind of thing that would throw everything off balance. That’s what favors do. He would do it, and then I would owe him.
“Caleb, you won’t tell anyone about this, right?”
His eyes sunk down, and his mouth dropped. “Of course, I won’t.”
“Thank you.” I walked past him, looking down the whole time.
He followed behind me on his way to his own house. “Mirriam?”
“Yes.” I still didn’t look at him.
“I’m sorry.”
Now, I was confused. “For what?”
“That you lived through what you did.”
Pity. It was the worst. “I had marble floors and two maids. Don’t worry about what I lived through.”
Chapter 5
Caleb
> Mirriam ate at my self-esteem the way no girl ever had. It didn’t make sense. Every time I thought I was getting somewhere with her, she shut me down. I didn’t even know why I cared. Yes, I do. I have one thousand reasons to care, and no way in hell am I driving around with some stupid pink flower. At this point, I had five weeks and one day to get her to go out with me.
More than that, the way she got so snide so fast drove me crazy. It was a parallel insanity. More than once, I had thought about kissing her, which I didn’t understand. I would never kiss an Arabic chick. She made me sick. I broke up with Kailee because she was always trying to scam or manipulate somebody, close friends included. Especially her closest friends. Mirriam wasn’t a scammer, but a scammer might be better than her outright bitterness.
Either way, I would have some time to work on wooing her to be my prom date. Because I discovered that I blew a piston. Or my jeep did. As long as we’re walking in the same direction from the same place, I could convince her we should do it together. I didn’t really want to spend more time with her than I had to, but I wasn’t willing to give Josh my savings either. Mirriam wasn’t really the way she wanted people to think she was. The fragile girl I found in the curb was proof of that.
The next day, I was three paces behind Mirriam as she tried to leave the school grounds. I staggered here and there to talk to people. I took a step to one side and then the other. It wasn’t like I was right behind her. Once we were off campus, there was less of a way to disguise that I was following her. But the point was kind of to talk to her. Before I could say anything at all, she whirled around on one heel and said, “Caleb, are you following me?”
“Uh, we live on the same street. I’m just walking home.”
Her chocolate eyes burned through me. “Where’s your car?”
“It’s a truck. And I blew a piston.”
“It’s an SUV and whatever that is.”
“It’s a Jeep.”
“Stay on your own side of the road.”
“Because you’re the queen of the world?”
“Isn’t your blonde girl going to get mad about you following me around all the time?”
