by Wendy Mills
“As-salaam alaikum,” she says in Arabic, the universal greeting among Muslims. Her voice is as American as my own.
Peace be upon you.
“Wa alaikum as-salaam,” I answer automatically.
And upon you be peace.
She nods at me in sisterly camaraderie, and I smile, feeling a small glow of warmth and acceptance. I sit back on the hard, plastic seat I was lucky to get this time of the morning as the train rocks back and forth. Pulling my notepad out of my bag, I sketch the girl in broad, quick strokes, capturing her slender face and the delicate edge of her scarf, and write the dialogue bubble above her head:
Lia, I want you to know that the entire world is counting on you. I know you can do it!
I finger my Hand of Fatimah amulet on its thin gold chain around my neck as I consider Lia’s response to her newest fan. I sketch Lia slowly melting into the wall of the subway seat as she pulls on her camouflage burqa. I draw a cloud shape with smaller circles going down to Lia’s head to indicate a thought bubble:
I wish I were as sure as she is that I can win this battle.
The train accelerates as it slides under the river, and I sit with the notepad in my lap, thinking about what I will say to Ayah.
I know he’s worried about me making bad decisions. And really, after what I did, how can I blame him?
My sophomore year, Mike Stanley sat behind me in my Humanities band, and he sailed paper airplanes with messages over my shoulder, saying stuff like: My eyes are crossing. Are your eyes crossing? and I’m pretty sure it’s possible to die of boredom. It was funny, and I thought he was cute with his deep brown eyes and strong dancer’s legs. Pretty soon he started walking with me after class. We talked on the phone, and I told myself we were just friends, that it was okay if we were just friends. Carla thought he was hot and said if I didn’t grab him, she would. And then he asked me if I wanted to go see the new Pearl Harbor movie with him, and somehow I didn’t just say no. Two hours before he was supposed to pick me up I went into the living room and told my parents.
“It’s not a good idea, Lala,” my father said, and at least he sounded sympathetic.
Mama just shook her head and said, “Have you lost your mind, Alia?”
That set me off, and before long Mama and I were trading words so fast it felt like we were in some kind of raging ping-pong game.
“You don’t want me to be happy!” I yelled. “I hate it here, I want to be in LA, and you don’t care! You want me to be miserable!”
“Don’t be so dramatic, Alia,” my mother said. “Of course we want you to be happy. It’s because we want you to be happy that we are asking you to believe that we know what’s best for you.”
“How could you possibly know what will make me happy?”
Eventually my father intervened, telling me gently that faith was a road map to happiness, God willing, not a roadblock to fun, and asked me to go to my room to calm down. I burned with embarrassment when I heard the door buzzer a while later, hating them, hating them, and wondering what they had told Mike when he showed up at our door.
Later that night, I packed a bag and snuck out while my parents were sleeping. It was wrong, it was stupid, but I’d felt so powerless. It felt like if I stayed there even one more night I would wake up as a puppet, dancing to my parents’ commands. Carla’s mom was out of town, so we had two glorious days of freedom, or at least that’s how it seemed at the time.
The second night, Carla threw a party on the roof of her building. She lent me some clothes, and we giggled and laughed as we dragged chairs from her tiny apartment up two flights of stairs to the roof. I was trying not to think about my parents, who had called Carla over and over again. Every time she lied smoothly: “Oh gosh, how terrible, Mr. and Mrs. Susanto, but I haven’t seen her!”
It was the first Saturday in June, and at first it was damp and foggy. The only lights we could see were the twinkling, colored strands of Christmas lights I’d helped Carla put up. A bunch of people were there, chilling and talking, and we watched as the damp fog rolled back and suddenly we could see the lights of the buildings around us, shining like stars on the ground. Carla cranked up the Beastie Boys’ “No Sleep Till Brooklyn,” and we all yelled the refrain at the top of our lungs.
I was standing at the edge of the roof when a paper airplane landed on the wall beside me. I knew who it was, even if I didn’t see him arrive. Without turning around, I opened the note: I missed you last night.
I turned around and Mike was standing there, his hands in his pockets, wearing a tight blue T-shirt. He was so handsome I felt my pulse jump a little. Okay, a lot.
“Here,” he said, and handed me a beer. “What happened last night?” He leaned up on the wall next to me, and I felt his warm closeness against my arm.
“What did my parents say?” I asked in a small voice, feeling so stupid.
“They were real nice, actually—wow, you look just like your mom, did you know that?—but they said there was some kind of misunderstanding, and that you couldn’t go. I was hoping I’d see you here.”
I looked down at the beer, and put it on the wall without drinking any.
“They are the worst,” I said, and my voice was shaking. “They want me to act like some sort of, of nun, or something. It’s like I’m in prison.”
“That sucks,” he said, and put his arm around me, drawing me close. I stiffened, but it felt so good that I leaned into him, smelling his cologne and the stuff he used in his hair. He took a sip of his beer, and we stood like that for a while, as our friends laughed and drank. It was almost the end of the school year, and even though we had finals coming up, it felt like summer was so close.
“Do you want one?” Mike asked as we watched Carla on Harry Mercado’s lap chugging a purplish drink.
“No, I—” But he was already gone, and I immediately felt cold and alone. When he came back, he was holding two cups of the drink and handed one to me.
“Cheers,” he said, tipping it back. I hesitated, and then I did it too. I was expecting it to taste terrible, but it didn’t, just sweet and fruity. My parents didn’t drink—most Muslims don’t—and even though Carla and her crew did, I never had before.
“Watch out, it’ll sneak up on you,” Mike said. We sat on the wall together, and he put his arm around me. I was feeling warm, and somehow disconnected from myself. I found myself taking his hand, felt his strong fingers clasped over mine.
“You know I like you,” he said in a quiet voice. I could smell the sweetness of the drink on his breath as he leaned down toward me, and his lips just grazed mine, soft and gentle.
I was so startled that for a moment I didn’t react. Truthfully, I didn’t want him to stop as waves of sensation slid through me whispering and hot. But then the wrongness of it crashed down on me, and oh no, what was I doing?
“No,” I murmured, and tried to pull back, but he just drew me closer. His hands were slipping under my shirt, and I wasn’t liking it anymore, because I really didn’t know him that well, not really, and how could this be my first kiss, with some guy I barely knew? It wasn’t supposed to be like this, and why won’t he stop?
“No!” I cried, and finally got my hand free from his and pushed against his chest.
He blinked at me, fuzzy and bewildered. “Wha … ?” He was drunker than I had realized, and his expression took a moment to change from confused to angry.
“What the hell?” he said. “You wanted it. Don’t act like you didn’t. Come on, girl—” He tried to pull me back to him, and I struggled away from him.
“Stop it!” I said. “I told you no.” I stood up, breathing hard and almost crying. There was another couple nearby, moaning and kissing, and I saw it was Mary Naradan and some guy from another school who I knew she just met tonight. Was that the kind of girl I was?
“I never pegged you for a tease,” Mike said, his voice hard. “You hang out with Carla and her crew, so I know you can’t be that uptight. So, what? I’m not
good enough?”
“You don’t understand,” I said. “I wasn’t trying to lead you on. I wasn’t.”
I’d been so caught up in the flirtation, I’d never really thought about where it was going. It’s not like I didn’t know what guys want; Carla and Mary and the others were always talking about how far they’d gone with what guy. You really need to get it over with already, Alia. But I didn’t want to just get it over with. I wanted the guy that I was with to be important to me, and for my first kiss, my first whatever, to be special, with a guy who really loved me, and who I would marry.
“I’m Muslim,” I said, though he already knew that. I was really saying it to myself, because, yes, I’m Muslim, but sometimes it was hard to be all the other things I wanted to be too. “This isn’t right. None of it is.” I gestured to the empty cups beside us, at him, at the party where girls and guys were hooking up in dark corners, or out in the open, not caring who saw them. “This isn’t who I want to be,” I said in a low voice.
“You could have fooled me,” he said, and walked away without looking back.
Later that night, I was curled up on Carla’s couch bed when I heard her come in. She was talking to someone, and she didn’t see me when she opened the door. I watched as she reached up and kissed Mike, long and slow, pressing her body against his.
“Forget her,” she said, slurring her words, and somehow I knew she was talking about me. “She’s just a stupid girl who doesn’t know what to do with a guy like you.”
I sat up. “Stupid girl? I’m not the one stumbling drunk, Carla!”
I felt so hurt, so betrayed by both of them. In my mind, I jumped out of bed and took a swinging kick at the two of them, driving them apart. The girl wasn’t me, but a stronger, better version of me, who always knew the right thing to say and do. I imagined her blocked in a panel, eyes narrowed as she said, “The best path is not always the easiest,” which was something Ayah was always saying. My fingers itched to draw this superhero-me, who would never be sitting here silent, not knowing what to do.
For a moment Carla’s eyes looked sorry, but Mike just stared at me, like I was nothing to him.
Without speaking, Carla pulled Mike into her mom’s room, while I shook with anger and humiliation.
I went home to my parents, and they grounded me for the summer, and forbade me from seeing Carla. I didn’t even care, because I didn’t want to see her, or Mike, or any of them, ever again anyway.
I wasn’t like that. I didn’t know exactly what I was, but it wasn’t that. That’s what I thought about all summer, as I inked Lia, my new Muslim superhero, in panel after panel of frenzied world-saving activity. I went to camp and met the cool confidence that was Tanjia, and I began to see what I could be, if I tried.
I’m still trying to formulate the perfect words that will make Ayah listen, to make him understand, as I change at Chambers Street for the local #1/9 and get out one stop later at the Cortlandt Street station. I climb the narrow brick staircase and enter the light modern hall above. People are hurrying in all directions, and I sidestep a woman carrying a green-and-white Krispy Kreme Doughnuts box, and go through glass doors past a sign reading 1 World Trade Center.
The lobby is white marble, soaring windows, glass and metal. I stop next to a potted plant, feeling small all of a sudden as people hurry past me, their voices crisscrossing across the echoing space. I scratch my head, because my hijab is itchy. A guy in a suit standing on the balcony ringing the second floor points at me, and for a minute I think it’s because of my scarf, but then he starts smiling and waving and a woman behind me calls, “I’ll be right there.”
Feeling silly, I bypass the line of employees swiping their ID cards at the turnstiles, and hurry over to the security line. The line moves in fits and starts, but thankfully, there aren’t a whole lot of visitors this time of morning. When it’s my turn, I give the guy in a blue blazer my school ID and best smile, and with some sweet-talking, he hands over a visitor pass card.
Then I go to stand with a crowd of people waiting for an express elevator to take me up to my father’s offices, high up in the north tower.
Chapter Twelve
Jesse
The Monday after I climb with Adam, I head toward my locker, thinking about a plane flying toward the Twin Towers one ordinary morning. It makes me feel precarious, as if anything could happen at any time. Which tower was Travis in? The first tower hit, or the second? I’ve been thinking about him a lot since I found the photo album, and wondering why no one seems to know—or wants to talk about—what my brother was doing there.
I literally bowl into Adam as I turn a corner by my locker. He is talking to one of the basketball guys, and I see his eyes widen, but it’s too late and I crash into him. I feel the soft musky wool of his sweater on my cheek as he catches me by the elbows.
“Sorry!” I say, my cheeks flaring a three-alarm fire. He smiles, the dimple flashing in his cheek as I step back from him hurriedly.
“I thought … I thought you were in college. I’ve never seen you in school,” I say.
“No, I just moved to town. My parents moved here last summer, and at first I wanted to finish at my old school so I stayed behind. But then it got boring being the hot, popular valedictorian”—he yawns dramatically—“so I figured, why not see how the other half lives?” He leans his arm up against the wall, and I try to ignore the shivers that race down my arms.
“Really?” I say. “Can you be any more conceited?”
He nods. “Yes. Yes, I can.”
I swallow, because it would be so much easier if he didn’t go to my school. Immediately, I think of Nick, and turn toward my locker, brushing against Adam by accident.
He steps back to give me room to work on my combination.
But even as I’m trying to ignore the tug of attraction between us, I wish I could ask Teeny about him. She would know all his vitals, like why he really changed schools so close to the end of his senior year; but there’s a coolness between Teeny and me lately, a thin film of ice on our friendship which neither of us has been able to break. And it’s not just Teeny. None of my friends are talking to me much, and I can’t really blame them because I’ve been avoiding them too, mainly because I know if I tell them what’s going on with Nick and all the tagging they’ll tell me to stop.
“You’re a pretty decent climber,” Adam says. “Not on par with the awesomeness that are my own climbing skills, but close.”
“I’m guessing when you were a kid you thought you were going to grow up to be Superman.” I know I need to cut this, whatever it is, short because Nick will be here any minute.
“Naw. Spidey all the way. Have you seen that boy climb?”
“You’re nuts.”
“But I’ve managed to make you smile. Why don’t you smile more?”
“Do I look like I’m smiling?”
“I see a sparkle, a twinkle of a smile, longing to escape.”
My mouth twitches. “You need glasses.”
“Smiling is good for the soul. Laughter is even better. Volcanoes feel so much better when they let it all out.”
“Do I look like a volcano?” I ask, trying not to laugh.
“Yes, you do,” he says, and I can’t tell whether he’s joking or not.
I glance over my shoulder. Where is Nick? He’s usually here by now.
Adam looks at me curiously, picking up on my unease. “I … uh … I was thinking about going back out next weekend, if the cold snap holds. Do you, maybe, want to go?” His words stutter, which is such at odds with the confidence he usually wears like a bright neon sign that I glance up at him.
My gaze is trapped by the endless blue of his eyes, and I feel sparks like fireflies fluttering through my veins.
This is not good, I’m thinking, but I can’t seem to look away. Neither, evidently, can he. We stand like that for a moment, until he finally backs up a step, his cheeks turning red.
“I can’t.” I stare down at the lock, whic
h will not cooperate. I’ve already gone past my first number twice.
“Okay, then,” he says finally. “I’ll see you around.”
“Okay, sure,” I say, keeping my eyes on the lock.
He stands for a moment and then without a word, he turns and walks away.
“Who was that?” Nick comes up and snakes an arm around me.
“No one,” I say.
That night I sneak past my parents’ bedroom, stopping for a moment as I hear the reassuring rumble of my father’s snores, the slight murmuring of my mother. She hums when she sleeps, and sometimes it sounds like a lullaby. I wonder what baby she is singing to in her sleep. Travis, the dead child? Hank, the one who ran away? Or me, the one who is still right here?
I slip out of the apartment and down the interior stairs into the shop below, winding my way through the display cases and racks of coats and boots. The bells attached to the door jingle softly as I lock the door behind me.
Nick, on the steps outside the shop, stands when he sees me. Without speaking, he pulls me in for a kiss. I relax against him, feeling my heartbeat slow as he rubs my back and drops gentle kisses on my jaw and neck. It’s best when it’s just him and me, like when we lie curled together on his couch and he talks in a soft voice about the graffiti business he wants to start, about his mother who left after getting hit one too many times, the fight he had with his brother that broke his collarbone. I talk too, about my parents and Travis, and the anger that seems to build and build inside me.
“It’s just us tonight,” he murmurs into my hair. My pulse skips, because it’ll be more dangerous with just the two of us. Nick grabs his pack, and I follow him down the icy sidewalk. It’s late, and the traffic on Main Street is light, the hiss of tires slow and sleepy in the wet spring snow.
Nick stops in front of Lila Danver’s cheese shop, and I say, “Nick? Here?” because this is the first time we’ve ever done anything fronting Main Street. Even though there isn’t a lot of traffic this time of night, there’s still some. He starts unpacking his bag without answering.
