“How you doin’, honey?”
“Fine, thanks, yourself?”
“Can’t complain, can’t complain.”
I waited.
“Funniest thing, that man.”
“Which one?”
“The one you were lookin’ at.”
“What about him?”
I didn’t mean to sound testy, but it had been a good long while since anyone besides my father had addressed me, and I had lost the little practice I’d gained.
“He’s been monkeyin’ around with that meter for a minute now.”
“How long exactly?”
“Oh, I don’t know—I been sittin’ here since two and it’s four-thirty now and he’s been there the whole time I been here. But I don’t know, maybe he got there sooner—”
“What exactly has he been doing? Can you tell me?”
“Sure, honey.” She took a sip of something that smelled like ginger. “He plays with the meter, same as you saw, walks away for a bit, gets in his car for a bit, plays with the meter for a bit. Over and over and over until you came, and now he’s gone.”
Her complacency irritated me, as did the fear that was starting to climb into my throat. Why was I scared? I wasn’t special. Never had been.
“You’ve seen him before?”
She shook her head no. “You’d recognize him if I did, y’all been living here long enough.”
I wanted nothing more than to be inside, all doors locked, multiple cigarettes inhaled before my father came home.
“Thank you, ma’am.”
“You take care now, baby.”
I could see our front door and was just about to turn onto the stairs when someone bumped into me, hard enough that I fell onto my backpack and the two textbooks I’d been holding went flying into the street. The culprit was slight; I was surprised at her strength. She apologized, picked up my books, repeatedly asked if I was all right.
“You’re going home?”
I nodded.
“Right here?”
I nodded and instantly knew that I’d made a mistake.
“Well, actually—”
“Sorry again.”
She was already approaching the neighbor, who looked at me tranquilly.
“You okay, honey?”
I bolted inside. When I heard my father arrive, I debated with myself for a moment before realizing that if I didn’t speak, I wasn’t going to make it. I walked to meet him and found that I didn’t remember how to start. He cleared his throat.
“Mona’s sitting outside pretty late.”
“Who’s Mona?”
“You know, that neighbor we bought the little fridge from.”
“She’s still there?” I screeched.
“Oh, she was here when you arrived?”
“Why else would I say still?”
All my dread, my hoping that I was crazy, was pummeling him. He looked shocked and then the saddest I’d ever seen him.
“Did I do something wrong,” I heard him say, but I was already in my room, under the covers, waiting for sleep or a polite stranger to silence me, whichever came first.
ON THE SUBJECT OF HOW THE ANSWER WAS WORSE
The meter man was on the morning bus, a couple loitered outside my school for the entirety of first-period chemistry, and I could have sworn the woman who pushed me was standing in the usual mob around the wrap truck; by the time I ran over, she was gone.
Two weeks had passed since the originally planned one-week absence when I finally went to see Ayale. The lot looked neither better nor worse. Ayale seemed haggard, and when I asked after his health, he curtly replied that he wasn’t the only one not sleeping. I was unsure what this meant, but knew I didn’t have much time.
“People are following me and I don’t know why.”
He didn’t hesitate.
“Tell me exactly what happened.”
When I’d finished, he poked his head out of the booth. Seconds later, Fiker shut the door behind himself.
“Tell him,” Ayale ordered as he motioned for Fiker to sit down, so I did.
Fiker took a toothpick out of his pocket and stuck it in his mouth.
“What do you think?” Ayale asked him.
I absently wondered if arguments like the one I’d heard were common occurrences. This idea pleased me.
“You know what I think.”
“I don’t,” I said loudly. No one told me to keep my voice down.
Ayale gave me a long look.
“Come, stand next to me.”
He took my hand the way he had before, except now it felt like homecoming.
“You do know.” He said this gently. “You know everything.”
“Tell me anyway.”
“Some officers on our payroll have been warning us that their bosses are keeping a closer eye on them. My guess is, while it’s harder to trail the others or us, you’re an easy target. They’re just making sure you’re not doing anything illegal, which, of course, you aren’t.”
“And you never were,” Fiker added.
“So … they’re police officers?”
Both men nodded.
“Most likely.”
“Wait, but … how long will they follow me?”
Ayale threw up his hands.
“That’s not for either of us to say. But it’s obvious that our people have to get involved. I’m not going to let you just walk around by yourself, with I don’t know how many cops watching your every move.”
“What happened to not being friends?”
He looked blank before allowing a small smile. It took me a few minutes to register what he’d said.
“How will your people get involved?”
“They’ll have to follow you, too.” He shushed me with a gesture. “It’s the only way to guarantee your safety. We need people we trust to make sure that they don’t do anything crazy. Or, at least, nothing crazier than what they’ve already done.”
Nothing about this plan made me feel better. I didn’t see how a ragtag team of amateur Ethiopian spies was going to outwit and—if it came down to it—overpower trained police officers. I didn’t want more shadow people. And what if my father inquired into the sudden influx of random bystanders on our block?
“It’ll mean that you’ll have to stop coming here.” He noticed my expression. “For a little while. Just long enough to throw them off the scent.”
I still didn’t say anything, and my silence clearly started to bother Ayale, who looked skittish for the first time since I’d known him.
“It’s not perfect, but it’s the only way, at least for now. You won’t even know they’re there.”
The rising impatience in his voice gave me pause. I had missed him, there was no denying it, but distance had made me realize, more ferociously than before, that while Ayale was a great many things, a good man was not one of them.
Both of his hands were on my shoulders now, pressing down, allowing no movement.
“There’s no other way to protect you. Or your father.”
I finally nodded, and only then did he let me go. I made as if to leave.
“Where are you going? Don’t you have homework?”
“But I thought you said…”
“You’re already here, aren’t you? You haven’t gotten lazy on me, have you?”
What could I do? I treasured being on the same side as him. I laughed when he laughed, and already I felt lighter, less trapped than minutes before.
“Never.”
“Then get to it! I have to go make sure total mayhem hasn’t taken over.”
It was as I scanned the booth for a corner into which I could cram my backpack that I saw the postcard. Someone had drawn a beach on it, with a woman close to the shore. It brought to mind my mother’s word “loneless,” meaning without a home and alone, and how it was only in middle school that I had learned, to my shame, that it wasn’t a real word. It brought to mind something else as well, but before I could pin it down, Fiker
had already swung forward, yanked the postcard from where it had been stuck, and stuffed it into one of his pockets.
“Let me see it.”
If he was surprised by my tone, he didn’t show it.
“It’s rude to snoop.”
“I wasn’t snooping.”
“Would you like to discuss it with him?”
Fiker laughed when I turned, thinking Ayale was there. I improvised.
“I have the same postcard.”
He smirked.
“Oh really? So you and Ayale have the same friends? What a coincidence!”
I was reduced to pleading.
“Just let me see it. Please.”
I could tell, from the extreme wrinkle of his brow and the absurdly acute tilt of his head that his serious thought was only pretense. He shook his head in defeat.
“I can’t find it.”
“Fiker! It’s in your pocket!”
Ayale appeared in the doorway.
“What’s going on?”
Fiker carefully stuck his toothpick behind his ear.
“She had a question, I think. For you.”
Ayale looked at me.
“What?”
“Nothing,” I whispered.
Fiker yawned.
“I’d better get going.” He looked toward me. “Welcome back, by the way.”
ON THE SUBJECT OF NEW YEAR PRESENTS
When the phone rang next, it was already September again. My father and I were celebrating the Ethiopian New Year by drinking coffee in separate rooms. It had been so long since I’d last seen our phone act like the instrument it was bought to be that it took four calls for me to finally remember that I had a part to play as well.
“Hello?”
“I need you to come to the lot tomorrow morning at seven.”
Per his instructions, I’d barely seen Ayale since the beginning of the summer. Everything had felt charged since the postcard; circumstances had taken on edges that threatened to maim. I still felt his presence, in the men I saw skulking around the neighborhood, studiously avoiding my gaze, my supposed Secret Service. Hearing his voice made me miss him all over again.
“I have to go to school—”
“Before school.”
“My father will ask questions.”
“Make something up.”
I’d almost forgotten that his requests were our commands. I started to miss him just a little bit less.
“Like—tutoring?”
“For example.”
“Okay.”
“You will be here?”
“I’ll figure something out.”
“That doesn’t answer my question.”
“I’ll be there.”
He’d already hung up.
Later, while eating pasta with mushroom sauce, I told my father that I had to take an earlier bus to school the next day. Ever since my uneasy reconciliation with Ayale, I’d allowed conversation to flourish in our apartment, although guilt at my father’s relief and eagerness to take up where we had left off prevented me from feeling any kind of joy. I think I was glad, though.
“First of all, thank you for setting the table.”
Our last year of living in the basement was marked by a distinct increase in courtesy, as if to stave off even the slightest chance of conflict.
“You’re welcome.”
“Second of all, I could drive you.”
“I don’t want to make you wake up that early.”
“I don’t mind.”
“That’s very nice of you. Thank you.”
“You’re welcome.”
“But, you know, I get sick when I read in cars, and I need to review my notes for the session.”
“Who’s tutoring you?”
“My teacher.”
“That’s nice of her.”
“She’s a nice lady.”
“She sounds like it.”
“She is.”
It was decided, both that I would go by myself and that this teacher was of upstanding moral stock.
I saw him hesitate before he timidly asked, “Is everything all right?”
Since Ayale’s call, I kept forgetting to breathe, which meant that every so often, I’d find myself gasping for air. Even if my father wasn’t my first choice for advice, he’d have to do.
“In general, do you go with what you feel now or what you’ve felt before?”
He thought about this.
“Between instinct and history, I guess I’d go with history.”
“But is that the right thing to do?”
He smiled.
“I guess that depends.”
“On what?”
“On how badly or how well you think I’ve turned out.”
It was my turn to hesitate.
“Well—”
He started clearing the plates.
“I’d rather you didn’t say, if you don’t mind. Thank you.”
* * *
When I arrived at the lot the next morning, I had brushed my teeth twice, changed my outfit so many times that I didn’t actually remember what I was wearing, and stolen a pack from my father.
“I hope I’m not too late.”
Ayale looked at me as if I were a cockroach.
“It’s six forty-five.”
“Right.”
He handed me four gift-wrapped packages, each tied with curly red ribbon and displaying a New Year’s card, the same picture of happy children with yellow flowers that has always been used, no matter how many more adorable children and yellow flowers are created.
“You need to take these to the addresses that I’ve written, here in the corner, and you need to do it by noon.”
I nodded vigorously to show him with what energetic zeal I was comprehending, though I recognized none of the streets.
“How’s all this going, by the way?”
“How’s all what going?”
He checked his watch, which I noticed was silver and beautifully filigreed. It was the first time I’d seen him wear anything at the lot that hinted at money.
“The package system for relatives, is it going well?”
His bewilderment confirmed what I’d only guessed.
“I haven’t delivered anything for a while, so I thought maybe you didn’t have as much coming through anymore.”
“Can we talk about this later? You’ll be late for school, and some of this is time-sensitive.”
He consulted his watch again.
“You told me at the diner.”
Understanding dawned on his face.
“Yes. Yes. Of course. I must need a vacation.” He shook his head, as if in wonder at his own stupidity. “I wanted you to focus on your college applications, so I just had the others drop them off. They weren’t as efficient as you, but they were cheaper!”
I couldn’t stop staring at his mobile features, marveling at his effortless cheer, shrinking away from the performance. He tapped me on the cheek.
“What’s wrong?”
“You’re lying.”
He looked surprised, and his accurate aping of the emotion both intrigued and repelled me.
“How am I lying?”
“What you’re saying doesn’t make any sense; the attendants could have done the deliveries this whole time. Why pay me? And if it was true about the people in Ethiopia, the relatives who send gifts or whatever, how could you have forgotten? And we’ve never talked about my applications!”
He looked amused.
“It slipped my mind—that happens when you get older. And of course I’ve been thinking about your college plans. I care about you.”
My hands were starting to shake, so I carefully placed the boxes on the pavement.
“What’s in them?”
“Presents from relatives,” he promptly replied.
“Tell me the truth.”
“I am telling you the truth.”
“No, you’re not.”
He sighed.
“If t
hat’s what you think, that’s what you think. Will you deliver these or not?”
“Tell me what’s in them.”
“I’ve already told you.”
He began gathering up the boxes. I grabbed one from him and clutched it to my chest.
“Fine, then just tell me this: will I get hurt if I deliver them?”
“Who gets hurt for giving presents to people?”
“Why didn’t you ask an attendant? Am I more expendable?”
He whistled. “Fiker told me that you seemed spooked, but I didn’t believe him until now.”
I persisted. “No one’s been killed for a while now.”
“Don’t tell me that upsets you?”
“Why me? Why now?”
“I’m starting to get angry. We’ve already gone over this.”
“Whose side are you on?”
He looked at me. After weeks of being examined from afar by strangers too discreet to do so beyond predetermined intervals, it felt breathtaking to be truly seen by someone, even if the person in question was too terrifying for me to be able to look back. I aimed my gaze at his right ear.
“I’m leaving soon,” he said, as if this explained it all.
“What?”
“I’ll be gone in a year. Maybe two.”
“Why?”
He thought about this.
“I’ve been here for over thirty years. Most people I know have become citizens, have kids; they’ve settled into a routine, decided they’re American. I wondered if I should do the same, but then I realized: it’s all a game. The first round is making it over here; the second is getting papers, then learning English, then a job, then lasting long enough to save money, then getting credit cards, falling into debt, over and over again. And after all that, what do you get? Maybe a passport. You work so hard, you pay taxes, you laugh at their famine jokes, you support their foreign policies, you turn your back on your own people, to be like them, and your reward is, you get to pretend that you’re just like them, even though none of them would blink if you were cut down in the street.” He indicated the lot with his hands. “Do you realize that I’m supposed to see all of this as a favor? That I’m supposed to be ashamed of the little extra I make on the side, even though without it, none of us would survive?”
The Parking Lot Attendant Page 12
