by Sarah Ayoub
She narrows her eyes at him. ‘But legally you’re supposed to charge me the cheaper price because that’s what they’re labelled.’
‘Actually, they’re labelled $55,’ he says. ‘And this pack is the only one that wasn’t in its section. If they were all there, it would have been our fault.’
‘But you should still charge me the lower price. It’s not my fault.’
‘Well, it’s not ours either, and it’s against store policy. It’s also not in line with the Trade Practices Act of 1974 –’
‘Fine,’ she says in a huff. ‘I’ll just pay what I owe, except for the sheets. You can keep those.’
My face burns as I swipe her card and hand it back to her with her goods. ‘Have a nice day,’ I say with a smile she probably wants to rip off my face.
‘Well, that was awkward,’ Shehadie says after she’s gone.
‘Awkward for you?’ I ask incredulously. ‘While you were over there flirting with those girls, I had to put up with her whingeing and racism. She had the hide to talk about “my kind”.’
‘Oooh, your kind?’ he says, making fun of me. ‘Do you need to have a lie-down? Was it too much for you to bear? Lucky I’m here to save you now.’
‘You’re not going to let me live this down, are you?’
‘Probably not,’ he says, laughing. ‘But you might want to learn not to take everything I say seriously. For example, the Trade Practices Act of 1974 is a real federal law, I just have no idea what it means.’
He shrugs and heads over to the front desk, leaving me smiling.
9
I hate it when people find a way inside my head
Before I know it, first term of school is over and it’s the Easter break. My Easter weekend will be filled with church, prayer and a big family feast at my great-aunt’s house on the Saturday, complete with about sixty relatives and friends.
On Saturday morning, my sisters and I boil eggs and paint them for our annual egg fight and breakfast on Easter Sunday.
‘How come Andrew’s not painting with us this year, Sophie?’ Marie asks. She looks so cute with her unkempt hair and paint-smeared face that I want to grab her and cover her with cuddles and kisses.
‘We have a gender imbalance in our household, Marie,’ Angela says. ‘Which basically means that because we’re girls, we have to stay at home and learn the art of home-making.’
‘What do you mean?’ Marie says, looking confused.
‘What Ang is trying to say is that Andrew doesn’t think he has to explain why he doesn’t want to join in with us because he’s a boy,’ I say. ‘Dad says that you shouldn’t ask a man where he’s going, because it’s his right to make his own decisions. We’re the ones that society expects to behave.’
‘Who cares?’ Viola says. ‘It means one less person in the egg fight, so one of us is more likely to win.’
‘True, the silver lining,’ Angela agrees.
Mum comes into the kitchen and surveys our work. ‘Wow, very pretty eggs from my very pretty girls,’ she says. ‘But none from my handsome little man this year?’
‘Nope,’ I say sarcastically. ‘Andrew’s too good for family traditions.’
But then I feel bad, because Mum looks upset. I can tell that she’s thinking about us growing up too fast, and that soon enough we’ll stop doing things together because family activities of any kind will be uncool.
Halfway through the second week of the holidays, Dora turns up at our house unannounced.
‘Hey, girl,’ she says, when I open the door. ‘I desperately need your help with my English essay. You’re the only one who understands what these loser texts are about.’
I frown. ‘Dora, I already explained this assignment to you on the day we got it – three weeks ago! You want to start working on it now? It’s due in five days.’
She shrugs. ‘I can write it in five days, especially with your help.’
I sigh and open the door wider to let her inside. ‘We’ll work in the study room. Mine’s messy because I’m working on my methodology for my detention centre project. I’ve printed out a zillion newspaper articles.’
‘At least you’re making some progress. Gotta do something when all you do is sit at home hanging out with your sisters, right?’
‘One, I actually like hanging out with my sisters,’ I tell her. ‘Most of the time anyway. And two, I’ve been working at Big W a lot these holidays, at least three times a week.’
‘Wow,’ she says, setting her stuff down on the table in our study, ‘I had no idea you were working so much. I thought your dad had a rule.’
‘Mum managed to convince him to let me work extra. Which you’d know if you ever called me for anything other than help with your school work.’
She looks guilty and I let her, because I hate feeling used and it’s getting ridiculously obvious that I’m not important in her life right now.
‘Sorry, Soph,’ she says after a moment. ‘I didn’t mean to neglect you. I was actually going to ask you if you wanted to go shopping for cruise outfits on Saturday?’
‘Can’t,’ I say. ‘Working.’
I’ve come to love being away from my niche in Bankstown while I’m at work. Most of the locals in Miranda are Anglos or third-generation wogs, so it’s a chance to experience a world away from home, even if it’s just another Sydney suburb.
‘Oh.’ Dora looks deflated. ‘What if we go Sunday then? Just here at Bankstown?’
I shrug. ‘Sure. But let’s get cracking on this assignment. Mum and I have a girls night with the aunties and cousins tonight and I have loads to do before we go.’
Leila’s right about my job: it feels great to push myself outside of my comfort zone. I even start to feel more confident about my style thanks to the new shirt I bought from Cue with my first pay. By my second month at work, I’ve mastered the registers, am able to help customers without stopping what I’m doing, and make sure I always get my half-hour lunch break no matter how busy we are. I’ve also started to make a few friends, people in their late teens and early twenties who are working to save some money before they start uni.
I’m stacking the stationery shelves with Casey Bennett, one of the prettiest girls I’ve ever seen, when she invites me to her eighteenth.
‘I’m sorry, Case,’ I say. ‘But I’m afraid I can’t come.’
‘Aww, Soph, I’m gutted!’ she says. ‘How come you never come out anywhere with us?’
‘It’s too embarrassing to be seen with someone who’s such a grub,’ I laugh, wiping the dust from the back of her pants when she stands up to stretch. ‘You look like a hobo, Case.’
She knows I’m joking. Casey has dark hair against super pale skin, and her face is a stunning mix of amazing green eyes, high cheekbones and a really cute button nose peppered with freckles. But most of all, she’s slim with long legs and little curves in all the right places.
She pokes her tongue out at me as she grabs another stack of notepads to pile on the shelf. ‘My birthday’s in two months. I’m giving you plenty of notice, so there’s no reason why you can’t make it.’
‘Case, need I remind you again how many relatives I have and the number of parties and dinners that translates to?’ I say. ‘Sometimes I have more weddings in a season than some people have in their entire lives.’
‘Hence the two months’ notice,’ she says.
I exhale, caught between new friendship and old rules.
‘Seriously, come on,’ she says. ‘Last week, Jordan told me that you turned down coffee with the Sunday School Crew three times in a row. They startin’ to think you hatin’ on them, girl,’ she says, gangsta style.
The Sunday School Crew are a bunch of high school kids who’re always rostered on Sundays because the uni students are too hungover. I only work some Sundays, but I still feel like part of the group. I’d always assumed they weren’t bothered by me turning down invitations, but clearly that isn’t true.
‘It’s because she secretly hates me,�
�� a voice says behind us. We turn around to see Shehadie. ‘She has to deal with me every single day at school, and then on weekends I get to be her boss.’
Casey laughs. ‘Ah yes, the Lebanese school in Bankstown,’ she says. ‘I didn’t know you went there, Soph.’
‘Anyway, girls, as your supervisor I feel I need to point out that you’re doing it all wrong. You’re supposed to do it like this.’
He grabs a stack of notebooks from Casey’s hands and dumps the whole lot on top of us, laughing like a thirteen-year-old. His smile is infectious and shows a set of perfect white teeth.
Casey glances at her watch. ‘Well, she’s gonna hate you even more now, Goldsmith, because I’m only rostered on till four, which means she has to restock these shelves by herself.’
And with a dramatic curtsy, she’s out of there, leaving Shehadie and me to deal with a messy pile of notebooks and two full boxes of stationery.
‘So, you wanna thank me for saving you or what?’ he says.
‘You have to be the most arrogant, presumptuous and self-centred person I’ve ever met,’ I say, straightening a pile of exercise books before slotting them into place on the shelf.
‘Thank you,’ he says, grinning.
‘Casey was just bagging me out for not going anywhere with the team,’ I admit, trying not to meet his gaze.
‘Uh-huh. And?’
‘And it’s not like I don’t want to, but things are a bit complicated right now. It’s difficult.’
‘Parents giving you a hard time?’
‘Do you read minds or something?’ I ask, looking at him curiously.
‘Oh, that’s only half the extent of my power,’ he replies, smirking.
I sigh.
‘Want to talk about it?’ he asks, serious now.
‘Not really,’ I say. ‘You wouldn’t understand anyway.’
‘Fair enough. But you’d be surprised. It must be something similar to what Mum went through when she wanted to marry my dad. Dad says it was a big taboo. I may not know much about Lebanese culture, but it seems there are loads of rules and regulations, which I’m slowly figuring out thanks to moving in with my grandparents.’
‘So this is all new for you?’ I ask.
‘Yeah, definitely. Like I had no idea that you make certain sweets at Easter time, and a particular meal for Saint Joseph’s feast day, and all this other stuff. My mum didn’t keep that up … or any traditions really.’
I nod. ‘I wonder if she missed it. I think I would. I find lots of things annoying, but I love all that stuff.’ I shrug. ‘All the cultural traditions. I think they’re beautiful.’
‘It’s so different being with my grandparents,’ he admits. ‘Tayta and Pop wake up, they have their Lebanese coffee with the lady next door, then Tayta spends half the day preparing some meal that takes lots of effort, making little balls for soups – dumplings and pastries and stuff. Either my mum was lazy, or she didn’t learn all that stuff before she married my dad. She couldn’t learn it after, because she didn’t talk to my grandparents for a long time.’
‘What about church?’ I ask. ‘Did she go to a Maronite church? Have Lebanese friends?’
‘We never went to church as a family unless there was a wedding or something,’ he explains. ‘She went to the Roman Catholic church near our house sometimes; there was no Lebanese – sorry, Maronite – church near us. It wasn’t really part of our lives like it is to some of you guys at school. I guess it’s a bit cultural as well – like, your festivities and things tie into the religion.’
‘I’ve never thought of it that way, but it makes sense. So is it a real pain being at CSC?’
‘It’s a massive adjustment, that’s for sure,’ he says, looking down. I can tell he feels gutted that no one has given him a chance. ‘But at least I get to come back here for work every weekend. It means I see less of my friends though. But even if my mum hadn’t died …’ He pauses. ‘Well, it’s been hard moving from Cronulla, where I surfed with my mates every morning, to a place where I’m an outsider.’
He gets up and holds out his hand to pull me up, but I get up on my own instead. For some reason, I’m thinking about what Zayden would say if he saw me take Shehadie’s hand.
I follow him out of the stationery aisle towards the storeroom, thinking about how relaxed he is. If I’d gone through half the stuff he’s been through, I don’t know how I would’ve reacted.
‘You know what? You can still be an outsider even when you’re a hundred per cent Lebanese,’ I say. ‘Just by thinking differently, or wanting to live a little differently, break with some of the social norms. There are things my parents believe that I’ll never understand, but I still have to follow them because everyone in our community thinks the same way. If I didn’t, people would gossip and I’d bring shame on me and my sisters.’
‘I guess my mum was lucky she never had sisters,’ he says. ‘Eloping with an Aussie bloke just brought shame on her and her parents.’
‘You’re being sarcastic,’ I say.
‘Ah, yeah. But attitudes like that get to me, you know. I guess it was a different time back then, and a lot of other things had happened to her family too.’
I nod, not sure what to say.
‘You know, you should try to change things with your family while you can,’ he says after a moment. ‘If they’re too strict, you should talk to them. If you think something’s bull, you have a right to express it. Otherwise it’ll eat away at you and you’ll end up like my poor mum, who didn’t speak to her parents until I was born. They just couldn’t hack that she’d moved away from them, their culture, everything that they wanted her to love.’
I shake my head. ‘If I had the opportunity to run, Shehadie, I would. You can trust me on that. It’s not like anyone would notice if I disappeared anyway.’
I mutter the last part under my breath, but he must have heard because he says, ‘You’re not as smart as I think you are, then. Having parents who love and care for you is a great thing and you don’t even know it. You just need to work out how to manage their love and over-protectiveness to live the life you want.’
‘Don’t presume to know anything about my life,’ I scoff, turning away.
He grabs my arm and pulls me to face him. ‘I’m serious, Soph. I see you in class, and it’s obvious what you’re thinking, what you’re about. You’re blessed in a way that you don’t understand. If you really hate all this over-dramatised race and assimilation bullshit in the media, you’re in a perfect position to do something about it. You’re young, smart, and you obviously have enough passion to make people listen. You’re more open-minded than most of the people in that school. And I know you write well because you always get complimented on that in class. Your ideas are usually good …’
I open my mouth to say something, but he continues: ‘… and I suspect that you already know all this, because underneath your anger I see little bursts of social awareness that, sadly, most people our age seem to lack.’
My face is burning, but still he goes on.
‘You have the best of two worlds – Lebanese and Australian. You speak two languages and balance two lifestyles. Maybe you can use that richness to show both communities that it’s possible to be at ease with one another?’
I pick up a stack of boxes and blow my fringe out of my face. ‘You’re lucky you belong in this bright and sunny Shire world that greets you every morning when you go for a surf. Because despite the fact that I live in two worlds, I don’t belong in either. I’m too liberal for my Lebanese community and too ethnic for the Aussies. And if no one takes any notice of me now in either world, they sure as hell aren’t going to give a shit if I start championing ideas about how we can coexist in harmony.’
And before he can say anything else, I turn my back on him and walk away.
10
I hate being the one who always misses out
On the first week back after the Easter holidays, our school holds its annual fundraising ha
rbour cruise. The senior classes – Years Ten, Eleven and Twelve – get to organise it, and we invite the same grades from a few surrounding Catholic schools. The nuns think the weeks leading up to the cruise are an opportunity for us to spend our time baking cakes, selling chocolates and holding car-wash days ‘in commemoration of Christ’s suffering’, but most of us are just excited about the dance itself and the chance to meet new people to pash and/or go out with.
I decide to put my cynical, anti-social self aside and get a little enthusiastic about the cruise. I plan to join a bunch of girls to get ready at Rita’s house, not because I really want to, but because Dora is going and I’m doing everything I can to hold on to the last vestiges of our friendship.
Dad gives me $150 towards a new outfit, then makes a point of telling me how peaceful things can be between us. I want to tell him that I know he’s only letting me go because it’s an official school function and teachers will be there, but I don’t want to start another argument that will only end with me staying at home and stuffing vine leaves with my mother.
Dad drops me off at Rita’s house on Friday night. ‘Long time since you come here, ay, baba?’ he says, leaning against the steering wheel to peer up at the Malkouns’ large white-brick home.
‘Yeah, it’s been a while,’ I say quietly. ‘But, you know, I’ve been busy with work and school and stuff.’
I doubt he buys the excuse, but he leans over and kisses my forehead.
‘Have fun tonight and be safe on that boat,’ he warns, wagging his finger at me. ‘No mischief. That boat is carrying my most precious cargo.’
I laugh and he smiles. ‘Thanks, Dad. The cruise finishes at twelve, so by the time the Lebanese people learn how to get off the boat in a coordinated fashion, I should be home around one.’
I walk into Rita’s giant house and greet her mother like a good Lebanese daughter, then follow the girlish squeals and loud hip-hop music to Rita’s room. Inside, clothes, shoes and school backpacks are strewn everywhere, and clutch purses are laid out on a chaise longue by the window. Three girls are crowded around Rita’s dressing table mirror, while Rita and Dora are huddled at the mirrored door of her built-in closet, carefully applying lip gloss. Dora looks up as I walk in, and then all the squealing focuses on me.