Love, Hate and Other Filters

by Samira Ahmed

  I see a chance to ask Phil the question that’s been gnawing at me for three days. I’ve been holding back, because I know I shouldn’t fish in none-of-my-business waters. Now I cast my line. “Lisa must love this place, though. It pretty much defines outdoorsy.”

  Phil is silent for a moment. “I’ve never brought her here,” he says finally.

  My heart thumps against my rib cage like it has wings. My brain floods with words, but I don’t blurt them out. I hold onto the stillness of this moment, waiting for what he will say next.

  “I’ve never brought anyone here. Except you. You’re the only person I can talk to about this stuff. Tom won’t get me not wanting to play football. You know Tom, right? He’s going to Eastern, too, along with Megan. All of them—Tom, Megan, Lisa—especially Lisa, have this idea that we’ll be together there and after college be back here …” Phil’s voice trails off.

  I shake my head. I do know Tom, but in my mind, he’s pretty much indistinguishable from the rest of Phil’s teammates. “They’re your friends; they’ll get it.”

  “Maybe.” Phil turns his attention away from the clouds and focuses on me. “Remember the other day when we were at the café and you were saying how you wanted to be in New York and were sick of being so different here? I got that.”

  My heart is still beating fast. “You get wanting to go to New York and being the only Muslim girl in school?” I make a joke, but I’m keenly aware that Phil understands me more than anyone else because he’s keeping a secret, too. Maybe more than one.

  Phil laughs and sits up. “Exactly. It’s cool that my whole family stayed in Batavia, but I want to see what else is out there. I want to take some time to explore. On my own. Out in the wild. I’ll carry everything I need to live in my backpack.”

  My talk with Kareem springs to mind. But I don’t see him; I don’t even hear his voice. I see only Phil in front of me. “You want to go to the woods to live deliberately. You want to suck the marrow out of life.”

  He blinks at me. “That sucking marrow part went over my head, but yeah, that’s the gist of it.”

  “I’m quoting Thoreau.”

  “That explains it.” Phil laughs again and fishes out a worn piece of paper from his wallet. “I want to show you something. A couple seasons ago, Coach Roberts had this sports psychologist come and talk to us, and he did this exercise where he told us to write down three goals on a piece of paper and then fold it up and put it away. We weren’t supposed to show it to anyone. Of course we did, anyway. Turned out that we all wrote pretty much the same thing. We wanted to win homecoming or bench-press more weight or set the school rushing record …”

  “Is that what you wrote?”

  He shrugs. “More or less. Because I knew what would happen. But it felt phony. Laughing with all my friends later, I almost felt sort of sick inside, and I’ve never felt that way before around them. You know, fake. So that night at home, I wrote another list and put it in my wallet. It’s been there ever since.” Phil slowly unfolds the piece of paper and hands it to me. “Here …”

  I take the crinkled treasure from his hands and read his chicken-scratch writing.

  1. Hike along the Knife Edge Trail to the top of Mount Katahdin.

  2. Swim in the Pacific Ocean.

  3. Kayak the Colorado River.

  A tiny lump wells in my throat. I’m quiet.

  “It’s stupid, right?”

  I shake my head. Is Phil taking my silence as judgment?

  “Not at all,” I say in a rush. “It’s nice. No. That’s not the right … I mean, it’s—it’s beautiful.” I stumble for words. I can imagine how difficult it must’ve been for him to show me this hallowed piece of paper. “I hope you get to do it all and much more.” I place the paper back in his hand, letting my fingers linger across his palm.

  He smiles. “Number four was ‘teach Maya to swim.’”

  “Liar.” I laugh.

  “Okay, maybe I just added that one. But I’m going to do it.” His eyes meet mine. “You believe me, don’t you?”

  I nod. I don’t trust myself to speak.

  “I like that I can be myself around you.” Phil rolls up a towel and places it on the ground, snug against my thigh. Then he puts the top of his head on my leg, his neck supported by the towel roll. He closes his eyes. “Do you mind?”

  “Not at all,” I manage to whisper. I bite my lip. I’m thankful he can’t see my face, that his eyes are closed, because I am flushed. Every muscle in my body seems to be screaming, but I am as still as the woods. I watch the rise and fall of his T-shirt. I breathe evenly to relax, to match it.

  Without a word Phil reaches out, grazes my fingers, and pulls my hand gently toward his chest. I’m not sure how much time passes. No one else exists. Only us. We sit, hands clasped, until it is time to leave.

  She wakes before dawn to say her first prayer.

  She’s always loved the ritual: starting off the day with a devotion to God. Sitting on the prayer rug with her legs curled beneath her, as the thread of dawn appears against the horizon.

  This is the moment when she feels most at peace, before she makes breakfast for her husband, before they drive together to their small grocery store, before the shop fills with the cacophony of women searching for fava beans, cumin, apricots, dried lentils, rose water, pistachios, cardamom, pickled eggplants in vinegar.

  Even after many years in this country, some still try to haggle as if they are in the bazaar back home.

  She pushes the complaints from her mind.

  In a few days, she will be the one preparing the feast. Kamal comes home, and there will be reason to celebrate. He will drive the entire way, seven hours, from Springfield to Dearborn. She worries the drive will be too tiring for him, that he will eat too much fast food on the way and not be hungry for dinner.

  Ma, I am always hungry for your cooking, he assures her.

  More and more he sounds like an American. But at least he knows how to show his mother proper respect.

  Chapter 9

  Friday. The last day of break. My last day with Phil before school starts again on Monday—when we return to the respective corners of our social cliques. Soon enough, these lovely last days of swimming in cool water under a bright blue sky will fade from our memories like a pastel drawing left in the sun.

  But today is perfect.

  Phil runs into the pond ahead of me. I step forward, my usual hesitation giving way to a tiny spark of confidence. I secure my goggles, check the waterproof bandage on my leg, and swim six remarkably even strokes to reach Phil. Swimming. Me. In water. I’m not exactly giving Katie Ledecky a run for her money. Still, I did a thing I was scared to do. But there’s no way I could’ve done it without Phil.

  “You’re swimming. For real.” He’s standing in the water, arms crossed, beaming at me as I come up from the water.

  “It was only a few strokes.”

  “In the next couple hours, you’ll be swimming laps.”

  “Thanks to you.”

  “It’s the only thing I could teach you—you’re better than me at everything else.”

  “You’re forgetting wilderness first aid and avoiding bear attacks …” I almost add and football but decide against it. “Both are way more practical than dissecting literary symbolism.”

  “Probably not in New York City.” Phil turns to swim the length of the pond.

  I follow him in and try to remember to move my arms and legs in harmony with my breath. Slow but steady. I swallow a few mouthfuls of water and lose count of my strokes and mess up my breathing. But I don’t panic. I right myself.

  When I start shivering, I step out of the water, grab my towel, and sit on our beach so I can warm up in the sun. I film Phil as he swims, capturing his grace, how his smooth strokes barely ripple the surface. I need to cinematize this, all of this. I’ll want proof later. I’ll need to know this isn’t all the land of make-believe.

  “So what exactly are you going to do with all
this stuff you’re filming? I’m asking because if you’re putting it on the Internet, I want to make sure the clip goes viral.” Phil joins me on the blanket.

  I grin. “Nothing like that. It’s the documentary of my life, with an audience of one—me. One day when I’m old and gray, my Mac hard drive will be my memory. Along with my dozens of backups.”

  “Worried your computer’s gonna crash?”

  “Afraid I’ll forget how I see the world.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Filming is the way I see things. Really see them. I can capture what is important to me at a particular moment. That way, I keep it forever.”

  “Nothing lasts forever.”

  I shrug. “Movies can remind us of who we are or were, show us what we can be. What would the Lumière brothers think if they could walk into a theater today?”

  “The what brothers?” he asks with a smile.

  “Lumière. These French guys who basically invented movies—they made the camera and showed the first film—a bunch of people exiting a train station …” My voice trails off. He’s staring at me. “What?”

  “Your face lights up when you talk about the movies.”

  He’s right about that—literally—because I sense the blushing coming on, of course. I avoid his gaze, looking down at the camera at my side. “Movies are the only real magic that I can make,” I say.

  He catches my eye. He opens his mouth to say something, then pauses. Clears his throat. “So I guess you will be telling your folks about NYU.”

  I chuckle miserably. “This weekend. As long as I don’t lose my nerve. I asked my aunt to come and be moral support or rescue me in case my parents try to ship me to India and marry me off to a distant cousin.”

  “Why are they so against you going away for school, anyway?”

  “I guess they’re nervous to send me away because they can’t keep an eye on me. In India, plenty of women live at home until they get married, but things are changing there, too. But my parents are frozen in the past, in the India of their youth.”

  He nods. “My parents are frozen in the past, too, in a way. Batavia’s past.”

  I get it. Batavia is so small. I wonder if we will ever be alone like this again. Phil and I have known each other since we were five years old, but I’ve never truly known him beyond the obvious, beyond what the world knows. That he plays football, dates Lisa, and works for his dad at the station. And that he’s good-looking. Really good-looking. Perhaps beyond this pond we’ll go back to the way we were, unknowable to each other. We can only exist together here in our little mise-en-scène at the end of the path—the setting of our own documentary short.

  Phil interrupts my thoughts. “I know what you should call it.”

  “Call what?” I ask.

  “The movie that you’re going to make about your swimming lessons—Hidden Beach,” he says, but I wrinkle my nose. “No? How about … Stolen Beach … Stolen Water … no, wait … Stolen Spring? Stolen Spring. Get it?”

  I shrug and give Phil a little grin, waiting for him to explain.

  “Well, it’s spring right now, and we’ve, like, stolen this place for ourselves.” Phil is on a roll. “I can imagine the trailer now.” He tries the cadence of a movie voice-over: “It’s senior year. She’s a beautiful budding filmmaker. He can swim and fix cars. They don’t know where the path beyond the stone cottage will lead.”

  I blink. “You think … I … I’m …” My voice is a whisper. I can’t say the word. I’m afraid to.

  “What?”

  “Uh … Nothing. Your trailer sounds like it could be a horror movie or maybe … you’re not going to get all sparkly in the sunlight and confess to being a vampire, are you?” There’s a hint of teasing in my voice.

  Phil smirks. “We don’t know how it’s going to end yet, do we?”

  He stares into my eyes as my chest rises and falls. He leans toward me. My heartbeat echoes through the trees. His face inches closer. I will our lips to meet. I want to wrap my arms around him and press my mouth to his, but my body hesitates.

  Phil plucks a little leaf from my wet hair and shows it to me. “It was stuck,” he says. His arms slacken. He rises awkwardly and reaches for his T-shirt. The spell is broken. “I gotta get going. If I’m late for work, my brother will kick my ass.”

  Suddenly there’s a dark storm inside me. I snatch my things. I’m not sure what happened right now. It felt … natural, like the moment in a movie when the guy and girl who’ve been kept apart finally kiss, under the moonlight or in an airport, or on a crowded street—or by a secret pond. Maybe I imagined it all because the difference is the guy and the girl in that Hollywood movie have fate on their side. In the bleak indie movies, they don’t get the happy ending; they get a tragedy. They get Romeo and Juliet.

  And the Muslim? The Indian? That girl, she doesn’t even get the dream of the football captain. She gets a lifetime of being stopped by the FAA for random bag searches every time she flies. She gets the nice boy, the sensible boy, the one her parents approve of and who she will grow to love over years and children and necessity.

  We walk down the path to the car. I glance back to steal a final look at our little beach and the pond and then hurry through the trees and beyond the cottage. I don’t say a word. Leaves and twigs crunch underfoot. I wish I were home already or at the bookstore rearranging the shelves, anywhere but here, next to Phil and this painful reminder of everything that I can’t have.

  When we pass the Japanese garden, Phil finally speaks. “Sorry we had to pack up early today. I promised—”

  “No problem.” My voice is clipped. I walk faster, moving past Phil, to try and save myself from the humiliation that builds with each second we’re together.

  I climb into the passenger seat and slam the door. I sit with my arms crossed over my chest, my lips a tight line. This moment is so cruel. For a second I forget myself. All I want is to be the normal girl, with parents who let her date and a house that smells of seasonally appropriate candles and not fried onions. I slink back in the car seat. I know I can wish for life to be different. I can click my heels and hope I’m somewhere else. But in the end, I’m here. I’m me.

  We’re still a couple blocks from my house when Phil pulls the car over. He turns off the ignition. On any other day, my hands would get clammy, and my heart would pound. Right now I just feel sick.

  “Do you want me to get out here?” I ask, a raw edge in my voice.

  “Tell me what’s wrong.”

  “Nothing.” I stare out the windshield.

  “You’re not a very good liar.”

  “I’m better than you know.”

  “Why won’t you talk to me?”

  I sigh. Loudly. “Phil, please take me home.” My eyes burn. I blink rapidly. I’m on the verge of tears. I need to get out of his car.

  “Maya?” Phil whispers my name and takes my limp left hand in his. It might as well be a phantom limb. I’m a shadow. “I’m sorry.”

  I turn away. I have to; otherwise, I will burst into ugly sobs. I bite the inside of my cheek. “You don’t have to apologize. Please. I want to go home.” A few tears roll down my face. I brush them away with the back of my free hand. My shoulders droop. The air in the car is too heavy to breathe.

  “I’m sorry. Please don’t cry.”

  I try to clear away the lump in my throat, to compose myself. “No worries. You’re going to be late for work if you don’t get going.”

  “It’s only … the timing of all this … I shouldn’t have.”

  He clenches the steering wheel; his veins pop up against his skin. He opens his mouth as if he wants to form words but has forgotten how. I want to put him out of his misery, so I touch his forearm, barely graze it, and steady my voice. “It’s okay. I understand.” I open the door. “Look, I’m going to walk the two blocks home.”

  He takes my forearm and draws me back. “You don’t understand.”

  “Trust me, I do. I know who I am
and I know who you are. Thanks for the swimming lessons. We’re even. See you Monday.”

  Phil won’t let go. “Look. I want you to know that I meant what I said back at the pond. You are … I think …” He can’t say it. He can’t bring himself to say anything, really.

  So why am I still here? I pull my arm away and slam the car door. I hurry down the block while my held-back torrent of tears splashes down my face. I’m glad Phil can’t see me. I race home, hoping no one notices the bawling brown girl with a tangled mess of wet hair. I rush inside and run to my room. Thankfully, I’m alone.

  I throw myself onto the bed and cry into my pillow. Huge, heaving sobs.

  The camera in my brain lets me run all the scenes of my life in slow motion. I freeze-frame every time Phil touched me. The perfect afternoon when he held my hand. The impossible instant when his face hovered inches above mine. He could have kissed me, but didn’t. He couldn’t even bring himself to say any words, express a single emotion.

  And there’s Lisa.

  How I envy her. I’m angry with Lisa even though none of this is her fault. She’s out of town with her family, blissfully unaware of all the time Phil and I have spent together. Completely ignorant to the split second when time froze, when I was sure we were going to kiss. I try to squeeze Lisa’s face out of my mind, but it’s impossible. On Monday, Lisa and Phil will be holding hands, walking down senior hall, the inevitable king and queen of prom. And I’ll be spending prom night watching old movies with my aunt. I’m an idiot for believing my fantasy could be real. I should know better; I’m a documentarian. It’s not a John Hughes movie. It’s my so-called life.

  Officer Evans drives his squad car up Sixth Street and takes a left turn on Adams.

  His partner called in sick, so he’s out solo today. His patrol started at 5 a.m. The morning was quiet. He got an early lunch, stayed a bit longer than usual at the counter of Kelly’s Diner. A cheeseburger, medium well with the works, a side of fries, and a cup of black coffee. Same thing every time.

  It was a ritual (one of the few) he was going to miss in retirement.