Drita, My Homegirl

by Jenny Lombard

  “I made many friends,” I tell her. At last my mother opens her eyes.

  “Oh, my zemra ime, I knew you would. How exciting! Tell me about them,” she says finally.

  “Well,” I tell her, trying to keep the lying from my voice, “there is Evaliz. She has pretty eyes and interesting clothes like a rock star. And Kayla, who is small and very pretty. And then there is my favorite. Her name is Brandee. She is the best of all the girls. She is just like Fitore.”

  “Oh, Fitore,” my mother says. “I remember her. She was so popular. Did she answer your letter?”

  “Not yet, but Baba says mail from Australia takes a long time,” I say, hoping I am right and that my friend Fitore has not forgotten me.

  My mother lies back on the couch and soon she is sleeping again. I hear my grandmother’s voice.

  “Drita, come help me with dinner. We will let your mother rest,” she says. Her voice has the same cheerful sound as always, but her eyes look troubled.

  What is wrong with Nënë? Should we get a doctor? Why does she lie in bed all day? These are the questions that are in my head all the time now, but they would be wrong to speak about. I do not wish to disobey my family by being too guximtare—too bold. Instead, my grandmother hands me the potato peeler. Tonight she is making special Albanian food to celebrate the good thing that is happening for my family—tomorrow my father will talk to an American company about a new engineering job.

  “Drita, the potatoes are waiting for you!” my grandmother says when I come into the kitchen. Inside the big pot are the yellow potatoes I must peel and chop. Gjyshe is making her wonderful byrek me mish.

  While I peel, my grandmother sprinkles the old wooden table with flour, brushing the white powder on the top. With one hand she grabs two handfuls of flour while the other hand cracks an egg into the center. Soon she is rolling the dough between her old fingers, rubbing and stretching it against the wood.

  While she makes the crust, I watch and try to remember. Someday I will make byrek me mish and I will want to know my grandmother’s secrets.

  Gjyshe cuts the piece of soft dough and places it in the bottom of the dish. Now it is time for the potatoes and the green onions. My grandmother puts the dish in the oven.

  Soon the whole house is full of the sweet smell of byrek me mish baking.

  “Deleiciji!” my father says, sniffing the air, when he walks in.

  “Drita,” Gjyshe says. “Get the tray ready for your mother.”

  My grandmother has set four places at the table—for my father, my brother, herself and me—because lately my mother eats her dinner on the sofa, where she stays most of the time now. Many nights she eats very little—just one or two bites. I don’t know how my mother can live eating so little, but my grandmother says not to worry. She says Mother eats when she is hungry, sometimes late at night after we go to sleep. But I don’t know if I believe her.

  “Never mind about that,” says a voice. We look up and there is my mother standing in the doorway. She is holding her old robe around her neck and her brown hair is wild, but her face is smiling.

  “Byrek me mish,” she says. “I remember that smell from my childhood.”

  “Dashi!” my father says, jumping up. “We thought you were resting.”

  “I have been resting all day. Now it is time to wake up,” says Nënë.

  “I helped Gjyshe with the byrek me mish!” I tell her.

  “Wonderful!” says my mother.

  Hashim is so excited, he is running in circles around her feet.

  “My little bear,” Nënë says, picking him up. The look on my brother’s face is surprised when she holds him. Nënë does not hold him so much now, I think.

  My father pulls a chair out for her. Soon we are all eating together. The byrek me mish my grandmother made is so good that even my mother seems happy, laughing and giggling like her old self.

  “To my new job in America!” my father says, and we all raise our cups, even little Hashim.

  I am so happy, I cannot stop smiling. Inside I know it is finally happening. The good life my family will have in America is finally beginning.

  10

  Maxie

  HERE ARE SOME OF THE THINGS I find out about Kosovo from the book the principal gave me. It’s a city that was once part of a country called Yugoslavia. For a long time, the boss of Yugoslavia was a guy named Tito. Tito wasn’t a good guy, but he kind of kept things together. But when Tito died, the Serbians were the people who got to be in charge of Kosovo. The problem was, not everyone thought it was their city. The Albanians had been there a long time and they thought it was theirs too.

  And that’s as far as I get when my dad says, “Honey, I’d appreciate it if you’d put that book down. We’re trying to have a conversation here.”

  Even though his voice is as sweet as sugar, something tells me he’s not playing. I put the book down, but I’m not real happy about it because now instead of reading about something interesting, I’m sitting at the Lobster Pound Restaurant with my dad, his annoying girlfriend Miss Thing Lisa and her annoying son Darrell.

  “Vroom vroom,” goes Darrell. He’s got all these Transformer toys spread out all over the tablecloth. With his little buzz haircut and his Yankees shirt, everyone probably thinks he’s as cute as cute can be, but to me he’s just a pain.

  Miss Thing clears her throat. “So, Maxine…are you working on a report for school?” she says in that squeaky voice of hers.

  Her hair is done up in a wave, and she’s wearing gold earrings that have a script “L” in them for “Lisa.” Her whole look is trashy in my opinion. Even worse, her hand is resting on my daddy’s arm like she owns him or something.

  “Yes,” I say about as flat as I can manage.

  “Is it interesting?” she says.

  “Not really,” I lie.

  “Knock, knock,” goes Darrell.

  “Who’s there?” my daddy says.

  “Thumping,” he says, already starting to crack himself up.

  “Thumping who?” Miss Thing answers. I guess my daddy forgot to tell them how much I hate knock, knock jokes.

  “Thumping green and slimy is crawling up your neck!” he says.

  “Daddy,” I say when they stop laughing. “I got to be home by nine so I can watch my show.”

  “Maxie, we just got here,” he says with a smile still on his face.

  “But I really, really want to see my show. Daddy, you know how much I love it,” I remind him.

  “We’ll see,” he says, and now his smile looks kind of annoyed.

  “But…” I say.

  “I said we’ll see!” he goes, gritting his teeth together. If he’s not careful, he’s gonna get one of his bad headaches.

  “So, Gerald. What’s happening with the promotion?” Miss Thing asks, changing the subject to the fancy new job my dad is going to get at his bank. And then off they go, talking on and on about my daddy’s job like I’m not even there.

  Darrell looks at me and smiles, but that only puts me in a worse mood.

  Stupid kid, I think to myself. But here comes the waitress with some food before I die from boredom.

  “Mmmm, shrimp cocktail!” I take two big pink shrimps even though my daddy only ordered one appetizer to share with the whole table. Now there’s four left. Miss Thing and Daddy each take one and so does Darrell.

  “Yum!” he says, stuffing his face. There’s one shrimp left.

  Did you ever get a feeling that something bad’s going to happen, only you don’t know what it is? Well, I get that feeling all the time. Like, for instance, the day I broke my toe. I knew something bad was going to happen and bingo—a plaque of the Ten Commandments fell off my grandmother’s wall and landed on my foot, just like that.

  Sitting there, looking at those wooden lobster traps and plastic lobsters they got all over the walls there, I get my feeling that some real bad disaster is about to happen.

  That’s right when Darrell grabs the last shrimp.r />
  “Hey!” I say. “That was mine!”

  “But you already had two!” He pouts.

  “Chump,” I say in my meanest way.

  “Huh?” says Darrell.

  “Maxie!” says my daddy.

  “You a chump!”

  “Mommy, what’s a chump?” whines Darrell. Now that really cracks me up.

  “Ha, ha! You such a chump you don’t even know what a chump is!” And I’m laughing so hard, I almost fall off my chair.

  “Waaaaaa!” cries Darrell.

  “Maxie!” says my daddy so loud that people two tables away turn around to look at us.

  Then the waitress comes with the rest of our food.

  “Yum, lobster!” I say. But my daddy only stands up. He puts on his coat.

  “That’s all right,” he says to the waitress. “We’ll take ours to go.”

  11

  DRITA

  “DRITA, TAKE THE FOUL SHOT!” says Kayla, smiling at me.

  “You can do it!” says Brandee.

  “Sink the ball and you will have all the friends,” says the other girl, Shonte.

  I am at my school, PS 18, and I am playing basketball. But what is strange to me is the size of the gym. It is like a gigantic canyon with the basketball hoop at one end of it.

  “I have not played since I was in Kosova!” I tell them.

  Now I am surprised to see Fitore there.

  “Fitore? What are you doing here?” I ask her.

  “Don’t you remember, Drita? I go to this school too!” she says. “Take your shot!”

  I aim at the hoop and throw the ball. I am so surprised to see that it lands in the hoop.

  “Yeah, Drita!” the girls shout. “You are a championship player!”

  And that is when I wake up from my nice dream.

  On the side of the bed where my gjyshe was sleeping, the covers are thrown back and the bed is empty.

  “Gjyshe?” I say in the dark. “Where are you?” But my grandmother doesn’t answer.

  In Prishtina, I had my own room full of toys and posters of American singers, but in America I have to share a bed with my grandmother. At first, this was something for me to complain about, but the truth is, I like it. Because now when I wake up in the middle of the night, it’s not so lonely.

  “Gjyshe?” I say again, but no one answers.

  Then I hear something and sit up straight in bed. Someone screaming. Loud.

  “Gjyshe? Nënë? What is happening?” I say.

  “Yaaaaaa!” goes the screaming again. This time I recognize the voice.

  I jump out of my bed and run to my mother’s room.

  “Nënë! Nënë! What’s wrong?” I say.

  When I open the door, the lights are on and my father is standing by the window. My grandmother is sitting on the bed, patting my mother’s head. My mother’s eyes are closed, but she is crying so much.

  “What’s wrong with her?” I ask. “Is she sick?”

  “Sshh, Drita, she is still sleeping,” my father says.

  Sleeping? How can she be sleeping? With all that noise?

  “It’s a nightmare. She dreams about Cousin Zana,” my grandmother says.

  “You don’t know that,” says Baba.

  “Yes, I do, she told me,” Gjyshe replies.

  “Go back to bed, Drita,” my father says. “Grandmother will stay here with Nënë tonight. I have to work in a few hours anyway.”

  It all seems very strange to me to be woken up from my nice dream by my mother’s nightmare, but I am too sleepy to ask more questions.

  When I go back inside my room, Hashim is standing in his crib, looking at me with big eyes. I think he is scared too.

  “Sshh, baby, don’t be frightened,” I tell him. “It was just a bad dream that Nënë had.”

  My brother reaches his arms toward me. There is still sleep in his face and tears also.

  “Poor baby, do you want to sleep with me?” I say, picking him up. It feels good to have a little warm person in the bed with me, not so lonely.

  Soon, Hashim is sleeping peacefully, his fingers in my hair.

  “Gjumë të embël, baby,” I whisper in his ears. In Albanian that means “sweet sleep.”

  I close my eyes, and I try to find my own nice dream again. Too bad for me, it is gone.

  12

  Maxie

  “I HAVE NEVER BEEN SO EMBARRASSED IN ALL MY LIFE!” my father says as soon as we get back in the car.

  Now I know my bad feeling was right; something bad did happen at dinner. The only problem is—it wasn’t just an accident. The bad thing was me—my attitude.

  “I’m sorry, Daddy,” I say, and I am. But my daddy is too mad to listen.

  “Just answer me one thing,” he says finally. “Why’d you have to make that child cry?”

  “He took the last shrimp!” I say.

  “You called him a chump!” he says. As if I don’t remember.

  “Well, he shouldn’t have done that!”

  “He’s four years old, Maxie. You’re ten.”

  “So?” I say. “So what! He was being rude!”

  “No, he was being a little kid. You’re supposed to be the mature one, but you acted just the same as he did. Worse! Maxie, when are you going to grow up?” he says.

  “Don’t yell at me, Daddy!” I say because his voice is filling up the whole car.

  “I’ll yell at you if I want to yell at you!” he yells.

  Even though he’s right, I really hate getting yelled at. It makes me say the meanest thing I can think of back to him.

  “You don’t want her to come back,” I say.

  “Come back?” my daddy asks. For a second he’s so surprised, he almost swerves the car.

  “Come back? Maxie? What do you mean by that?”

  “Mama. If she came back, you wouldn’t even want her to. You’d just want what’ s-her-name as your girlfriend. ’Cause she’s young and pretty.”

  “Is that what you really think?”

  “Yes…no…I don’t…not really,” I say.

  “Maxie.” Now Daddy’s voice is gentle, not mad. “I think about your mother every day. I pray for her up in heaven. I’d give everything to have her back, even for one day. But that’s never going to happen. Never.”

  I put my head against the window. It feels nice and cold, like a cool hand against my face. It feels like her hand.

  “Honey…” my daddy says and I know he’s trying to get me to see things his way. “Your mother is gone. Do you understand that?”

  “Yes, I understand that but…” I say.

  “But what, Maxie?” he asks.

  There’s a sound in his voice like pain when he says it, and I can’t even look at him because I know how much he loved her too. I know I shouldn’t say it because it’s a bad and jealous thought, but I’m in a bad and jealous mood.

  “How come Darrell gets to have his mother and I don’t?”

  My father sighs real heavy. For a second I think he’s gonna cry too, but he don’t.

  “I wish I could answer that question,” is all he says.

  13

  DRITA

  IN THE LUNCHROOM, I stand by the garbage cans and I watch them. The American girls: Evaliz, Brandee and Kayla. Of course, today I notice Brandee the most because of the way she wears her hair, like a crown on her head. It was right what I tell my mother. Brandee is like Fitore: ka shoge shumë—very popular. If I can make her my friend too, then all the other girls will like me.

  Then I see the empty seat next to her. I rush over.

  I make the words as carefully as I can. “Hello, Brandee!” I say, and put my bag down.

  “Hello, Brandee!” I say again in a louder voice. At first she does not answer because she is talking to her friend, but then she looks at me. In her mouth she has a straw and some of her red juice has spilled on her chin.

  I open my lunch box. Inside is the byrek me mish wrapped in foil. I take it out.

  “Brandee, will you
chare wif me?” I say in my best English.

  All the girls stop and look at what I have put on the table.

  Now all the talking stops.

  Brandee takes her finger and she points it at the byrek me mish that I try to give her. On the end of each fingernail, she has a pink flower painted, just like a girl in Young Miss magazine. But the look on Brandee’s face is not friendly at all.

  Brandee picks up the byrek me mish in her hand and squeezes it. The good potato filling comes out all over the table. Now she takes a handful and throws it backward over her head.

  Splat! A big piece of byrek me mish lands on one boy’s jacket. The boys turn around at once.

  The boy in the coat is yelling. In his hand, he is holding something. Brandee and the other bad girls are under the table when he throws it.

  Something wet goes into my hair.

  “Yak!” Brandee screams.

  “Gros!” Evaliz says.

  “Hahahaha!” they all shout.

  How stupid of me to bring my Albanian food into an American school. How stupid of me to think that these girls would ever like me. No one does, and no one ever will.

  But I don’t cry. I just get up from the table and go to clean myself off. I think some of those boys got in trouble, but I don’t even care. All day my hair smells bad.

  I am so glad when the day is over and I see my father waiting for me in front of school. Until my grandmother learns more about the buses, my father has decided he should be the one to meet me after school.

  “Good afternoon, Drita,” Baba says in English. “How was school?”

  “Çka,” I answer him. In our language that means “so-so.” I don’t feel so much like speaking American today. Across the backseat, his good brown jacket is crumpled in a ball. I remember about the intervistë he has today.

  “Baba, what has happened with the new job?” I ask him.

  My father does not look at me, just shrugs his shoulders. Now I know today was not a good day for him either and he did not get the job.

  For one second I feel like I am going to cry, but then my father turns up the radio. I can hear the voice of the American gazetar talking about our country.