by Wendy Mills
“I’m assuming you’ll be doing about as much studying as we are right now,” Emi says, rolling her eyes, but then she smiles.
“He’s cute, right?” I say.
“Sure,” Teeny says. “Just not your style. Don’t take this the wrong way, but he’s…”
“… more than passingly weird,” Myra says, wrinkling her nose.
Myra is plump and pale, kind and generous, and unswervingly loyal. She takes a lot of things seriously, including global warming, listening to humpback whale songs, and fighting for the ethical treatment of frogs. But let’s face it, she’s not exactly my barometer when it comes to whether or not something or someone is weird.
“Nice.” Teeny surveys me with satisfaction. “She looks nice, doesn’t she?” Teeny turns to Emi and Myra, and they nod dutifully.
“You look hot, girl.” Teeny turns back to me and sees my face. “Why do you find that so hard to believe?”
Emi rolls her eyes, and Myra is back on her phone, probably searching: “What to do when my best friend wants to date a guy who looks like an ax murderer.”
“All we’re saying is that Nick Roberts is a far cry from Jayden Sweeny and Dalton Hodges,” Teeny says. “You know?”
“I wouldn’t date Nick,” Myra says, glancing up from her phone. “He looks like he’s about to rob a bank or something. What about Jerry Horbensky? He’s hot, don’t you think?”
“Seriously?” Teeny says. “Isn’t he the kid who ate his boogers all the way up to middle school?”
“I want a boy all my own, who writes me poetry and holds my hand and gives me flowers every week on the anniversary of our first kiss.” Myra looks around at us defensively. “It could happen.”
“Uh, Myra? I’m pretty sure guys like that don’t exist,” I say. “And if one did, he probably keeps a collection of girls’ underwear under his bed.”
“I wouldn’t care. Nothing would get between me and my Jerry Horbensky,” she says dreamily.
“Anyway, are we going to study at some point?” Emi says, shrugging it all off, the boys, the hormones, all the silly high school stuff that plagues the rest of us. I sometimes think that it’s not fair that it’s Teeny who doesn’t date, because if it were Emi, it wouldn’t bother her at all.
“No, Emi, you can study later,” Teeny says patiently. “We’re discussing Jesse and Nick. Nick and Jesse. Nessie. Isn’t that the nickname for the Loch Ness monster?”
“Nick could be that kind of guy,” I say. “Like Myra said. Not the roses-on-your-first-date kind of guy, but the kind that I can talk to, who will actually listen to me.”
I ignore the look they exchange. I can hope, can’t I?
I don’t want to listen to their concern, or even acknowledge the niggling feeling in my own stomach that is whispering: danger, danger, danger. He’s not safe.
I feel like I’m getting ready to rappel down a big cliff and I haven’t tied a knot at the end of my rope. If I rap right off the end into free fall, I don’t even care.
I’m tired of safe.
By the time we leave though—Teeny is on her way to Bible study, and Emi and Myra to Starbucks—I’m having serious second thoughts. But then I think about Nick’s eyes burning into the me that no one else seems to see, not even my friends.
I slide down the narrow, icy sidewalk of Main Street, ducking the snow sliding off awnings. The shops are all closing, people pulling doors shut on jewelry and antique shops and hurrying toward home in the freezing dusk. The college kids, the ones old enough to drink or resourceful enough to have fake IDs, laugh inside the bright warmth of bars.
In the distance the white cliffs of the Gunks glow pink and yellow in the light of the setting sun, and I take a deep, burning breath of frosty air. Winding through back streets shaded by skeletal ash trees, I head into a more rundown part of town, where people put cars up on blocks and forget them, and the snowmen are slumped and despondent. I stop in front of Nick’s small clapboard house, the blue, peeling paint dull in the waning light.
I’m nervous. Big time. My attraction to Nick is different than what I felt for Dalton or Jayden. I can’t seem to stop thinking about him, like he’s a glittering shard of glass lodged in my brain. It’s strange and unexplainable, and deliciously painful. I shiver and break a small icicle off the railing, holding it in my fingers until it starts to melt.
The front door slams open, and a bunch of guys, big and bulky in coats and hats emblazoned with Greek letters, come crashing out of the house, most carrying beers.
“Why, hello there,” one of them says to me, doing the up-and-down thing with his eyes. I wish I could paint a tunnel in the air behind me and step through it.
“I’m, uh, here to see Nick,” I stammer, unnerved by his smile, which reminds me of rusty nails, dirty needles, and wingless flies.
“Baby brother’s upstairs,” he says, jerking his head toward the front door.
I escape into the house, feeling shaky.
Inside, I take off my coat, but I don’t know where to put it, so I fold it over my arm. The sounds of rowdy, pumped-up guys die away, and the house is silent. The stairs are right inside the front door, and I make my way up them, already feeling sweaty in the too-hot house.
I hear loud music coming from behind the door closest to me, and I knock on it.
“Come in,” Nick yells from inside.
He’s lying on top of his unmade bed, staring at the ceiling. One arm is stretched behind his head, his clunky black boots crossed at the ankles.
He picks his phone up off his chest and hits a button. The music suddenly stops, though the silence roars, like the air particles are still bombarding off one another.
“You came,” he says, and for some reason I think of a little kid saying, I didn’t think you’d come to my birthday party.
I try to smile, but my mouth does a weird twisty thing, so I gaze around instead. His room is a mess, but the walls and ceiling are covered with an elaborate, shadowy mural, full of people and blood and a horse with wings.
“Wow,” I say. “Did you do this?”
“Yeah,” he says. A scruffy-looking dog lies beside him, watching me.
“That’s the sick dog?” It’s totally inane, and I wouldn’t blame him if he said, “No, it’s a porcupine dressed up like a mangy mutt who looks like he fought with a pair of garden shears and lost.”
“My brother likes to get her drunk and watch her fall down the stairs,” he says and yawns.
“Oh.” Because what else is there to say?
He swings his legs over the side of the bed and stands in one smooth movement. He walks to me and I watch the rise and fall of his chest until I finally find the courage to look up into his eyes.
“I’m glad you came,” he says in a quiet voice, and something trills inside me like a happy songbird. We stand so close that for a long, searing moment I think he’s going to kiss me.
Then he steps back.
“Come on, we’re late,” he says. He drops a gentle pat on the dog’s head, and then grabs a black jacket and a bulging backpack off the floor.
“Late? Where are we going?” I follow him to the door.
“Bombing,” he says, throwing me a grin over his shoulder.
Bombing?
Like that explains freaking anything, but I’m all in, and I have a pretty good idea he knows it.
Chapter Seven
Alia
My hijab flutters uneasily around my head as I rush out through our building’s mosaic-tiled lobby. I’m fleeing my mother and all her words that make me feel small and unsure. Her doubt makes me wonder if I have changed as much as I think I have. But how will I know unless she lets me try?
“Damn, girl,” Ridwan says when he sees me. He’s lounging on the steps by the front door in his trifecta of plaid boxers, blue gym shorts, and a larger pair of orange baggy shorts, topped with an oversized Dodgers jersey. “I was laying bets with myself if you were going to make it out alive.”
“She is such a
pain,” I say. “Why doesn’t she go after you? You’re the one who got drunk last summer, and you’re always coming home late.”
“Unh-unh, we’re not hating on Ridwan. This is all about you, little sister. You’re the one who got caught smoking pot yesterday—”
“I was not—”
“And ran away for like two weeks last year—”
“Two days—”
“I’m just saying you give her a lot to worry about.” Ridwan stares at me seriously. My brother takes after my father, slim and handsome in an unassuming aw-shucks-you-think-I’m-cute? kind of way, and laid-back to the point that I think I could set his shoes on fire and his only reaction would be a mild “Damn, girl.” He prefers to slide under the radar, which is why he goes by Ricky at school, and a lot of people think he’s Hispanic. I know he’s got a new girlfriend, a pretty Filipino girl with long black hair and a swaying walk who my parents do not know about.
“I don’t mean to,” I say. “I’m just trying to …” I don’t even know how to finish the sentence. Survive? It’s like someone put me down in a jungle with nothing but the clothes on my back. That’s how I feel most days.
“You’ll get through it,” he says. “Just, maybe, chill out every once in a while, okay?” Ridwan grins, a quick flash of white teeth, and punches my arm.
“Ow!”
“You’re such a girl,” he says. “Since you’ve gone all native, do you want me to take you to school, or are you good?”
He’s supposed to ride the subway with me to my school, even though we pass the stop for his school on the way and he has to leave early to go with me. He’s only a year older, but my parents have always acted like he’s my BIG brother, with capital letters. They expect him to protect me, like someone is going to throw me down on the subway and Ridwan is going to fight for my honor. We both get a big laugh out of that.
“I’m fine,” I say.
“Suit yourself,” he says. “Let me know if anyone gives you a hard time. I’ll take ’em out for you.”
“Thanks, Ridwan,” I say.
He saunters off while I try to fix my scarf. After a minute of struggling, I screech and throw the pin on the pavement and stomp on it.
“Alia?” a voice says behind me, and someone giggles.
“What?” I snap, and snatch the pin off the ground. It’s bent and useless, and of course I didn’t think to bring another one.
I turn to find two girls standing behind me. Tanjia, with her pretty green eyes, neat hijab, and stylish clothes, and Kaitlin, in an adorable sundress with big yellow flowers that matches her mop of curly blond hair.
“Problems?” Tanjia laughs again, but not in a mean way. Her dad is from Trinidad, and her mother is American, and she always knows exactly what she is doing and where she is going. She’s one of the hijabi girls I met at camp, and we’ve become pretty good friends.
“What does it look like?” I retort, and then smile sheepishly.
“Hey, Alia, did you have a fight with a scarf and lose?” Kaitlin grins. She is one of Tanjia’s best friends, which is how I met her.
“Here, let me.” Tanjia pulls a pin out of her purse. She puts it in her teeth and pulls the scarf tight around my face over the green headband I’m wearing to keep the silky fabric from slipping too much.
“Say ‘ohhhh,’” she commands, her voice muffled by the pin.
I open my mouth in an O, feeling like an idiot, and she wraps the long end around my chin and over my head and pins the scarf by my ear.
“There,” she says. “I tried not to do it too tight, ’cause you don’t want a hijab headache your first day.”
“Thanks, Tanjia,” I say.
“So today’s the day?” Kaitlin says, eyeing me and nodding approvingly. “Accessories are rocking, girl.”
“Today’s the day, and I think I picked the worst day ever to wear it. Ayah was so upset about what happened yesterday he barely noticed, and my mother thought I was wearing it for the sole purpose of pissing her off. And no one even mentioned going shopping!” I wail and they both laugh.
“I want to commemorate the moment,” Kaitlin says, pulling a camera out of her bag. “The day of the scarf. Smile!”
“I don’t want to smile,” I say, and then Tanjia tickles me and I start laughing and Kaitlin snaps the picture.
“You’ll burn it if it sucks, right?” I say.
“Okay, diva. But, yes, I cross my heart to burn it if it sucks.” Kaitlin mouths no I won’t to Tanjia.
“Come on, you’re late,” Tanjia says.
We link arms and head off down the sidewalk toward the Borough Hall station, the early September sun pouring down on our heads. None of us go to the same school, but we’ve been walking together to the subway every morning since classes began.
“What did they decide?” Tanjia cuts to the chase. We had a marathon phone session last night, me curled up with the cordless in my bedroom, long after I was supposed to be asleep, dissecting the argument with my parents about Carla and the joint, and talking about whether I really had the guts to start wearing the hijab.
“At least they’re not using the whole joint thing as an excuse to make me switch schools, but they’ve nixed the NYU program,” I say gloomily.
“Oh, girl, I’m so sorry.” Tanjia squeezes my arm in sympathy.
“So, Alia, when are we going to see the next installment of Lia? I’m jonesing for my favorite Muslim American superhero,” Kaitlin says, trying to cheer me up.
“Just because you don’t get to go to the NYU program doesn’t mean you have to give up on Lia,” Tanjia says.
“Your fans are not patient. You left us hanging with Lia’s mom stuck in the Arctic ice and Lia trying to decide whether she was going to rescue her or save the world from the Evil Mad Doctor,” Kaitlin says encouragingly.
“She’s still deciding,” I say, thinking of the crumpled-up pieces of paper covered with sketches piled in my trash can.
“At least you wore the scarf today,” Tanjia says. “That counts for something.”
“I think you guys are brave. I’d be scared what people would say,” Kaitlin says. “I get worried sometimes when I wear a new pair of shoes.”
“Listening to what ignorant people say is like listening to a dog fart,” Tanjia says. “You ignore it and hope it’ll go away.”
“Sure, for you,” Kaitlin says. “But it’s like people see a woman in a scarf and think she’s all repressed or something, and believe me, I’ve known you both long enough to know that it’s not the case.” She laughs. “So, so not the case.”
“I think she’s calling us opinionated loudmouths,” Tanjia says to me.
“That’s what I heard,” I agree. I spot a street vendor. “Caffeine! I’ve got to have caffeine.”
I buy a coffee, waiting impatiently as the man slowly puts my five in his money belt and fumbles for change. The New York Times is lying on the counter, and I glance at the lead story about the mayoral race, and then skim the story about school dress codes, highlighted with a picture of a schoolgirl sporting a bare stomach.
How would you like it if I went to school like that, Mama?
All of a sudden, it hits me what day it is.
“Oh no.” I clutch my change and steaming cup of coffee as I turn back to Tanjia and Kaitlin. “I have gym today. I totally forgot. And I have no clothes.”
Some girls hate gym, but I love running and I’m pretty coordinated, so I didn’t want to skip it, and I didn’t want to get into trouble either for not dressing out.
“Maybe you can call your mom from school and have her bring your gym clothes during her lunch break,” Kaitlin says.
“Sure, okay, not going to happen.” I pull away from them. “I’m going to go back and get my stuff.”
Tanjia frowns. “You’ll be late.” She is always on time, wherever she goes, and she doesn’t get why I’m always five minutes late to everything in my life.
“Not if I hurry,” I say. “I can’t afford to get
in trouble today, not with the whole joint thing hanging over my head.”
We say our good-byes, and Tanjia calls, “Good luck!” as I head back down the wide sidewalk toward my building.
Chapter Eight
Jesse
Nick and I walk in silence to his car, snow crunching under our feet, and I’m wishing I had the nerve to grab his hand, wanting to feel his warm fingers on my cold ones.
Nick nods at an old beater, and I get in, hugging my arms to me in the icy interior.
“Your brother’s dead, huh?” he says after he pulls out onto the road.
People ask about Travis sometimes, usually around 9/11 when the yearly article about him in the local paper comes out, but it’s always with a note of awe, as if somehow having a brother who died on 9/11 makes me special.
I think about my mother and the wax-covered birthday cake, and shiver.
“Yes, he’s dead,” I answer.
“I wish mine was,” he says, and I look at him in surprise, because this is not the way these conversations usually go, but he doesn’t say anything else.
A few minutes later, Nick pulls the car off the road under some trees, and we walk toward the baseball fields. Two figures step out of the darkness.
“What’s up, brother?” a guy says, coming up to Nick and giving him a fist bump.
“Dave, Jesse. Jesse, Dave,” Nick introduces us briefly, the cold vapor of his breath fogging the space between us.
Dave is shorter than me, muscular and scrappy like a wrestler. He looks familiar, and as he turns to flick out a cigarette, I see in the dim light that he’s wearing an oversized camouflage coat, the name “Tucker” sewed onto the front of it.
Tucker. Craig Tucker. Three or four years ago Craig Tucker came home from Afghanistan with only one leg. I remember now that Dave’s his brother. He and I share something then, a brother who makes us memorable for all the wrong reasons.
We nod at each other without speaking.
“You know Hailey?” I realize with a small shock that the other shadowy person is Hailey Brinson. Hook-Up-Hailey, who reportedly has a thing for Nick.
