My eyes narrowed. “He kicked you out for cheering?”
“It was what I cheered. And I guess it was the timing of it. It wasn’t that long after President Obama caught Osama bin Laden.”
I shook my head, not following anymore.
She smiled sadly. “You can’t guess? ‘Allahu akbar.’ ”
“Oh.” I felt myself crumple a little bit. Of course. It would make sense that Principal Philip found that frightening and offensive. But the saying is completely nonthreatening, and not always religious. Sometimes it’s just the equivalent of yelling “Awesome!” If only Philip could attend the World Cup and hear the Arabic broadcasters rooting for Middle Eastern teams. Allahu akbar or just Allah is shouted constantly. He would have entirely missed the context: how over the centuries the language of devotion has woven itself into everyday expressions far removed from the mosque.
Before I could grill Mona more about what happened, Amir came bounding up the stairs.
“Hey!” he said breathlessly, appearing in the living room. He glanced between us, then sat down beside his sister. “Uh-oh. Did I interrupt something?”
Mona winked at me. “She’s your girlfriend. I’m the one who’s interrupting.” With that, she pulled her laptop across her legs, elbowing him in the ribs. “So scrawny. Why don’t you order some Chinese? I’ll be upstairs if you need me, which I’m sure you won’t.”
* * *
—
Several minutes later Amir and I were standing over a collection of DVDs, trying our best to narrow down the options. “How about this?” he asked, holding up Kingdom of Heaven.
“Really? That one?”
“Uh-oh. I thought you’d be psyched.”
I skirted past Amir and headed straight for the shelf, where I plucked out The Italian Job. Then I whirled around with a smile, wriggling my eyebrows.
“Huh? Huh?” I was kidding, sort of. But I was on my parents’ page. I needed a break. Something escapist. Dumb, even. Norton as a greedy one-note villain. Norton-lite. And we could skip the boring parts.
Amir got it, because he smiled back. “Salma, we’ve seen it like a hundred times.” He did a little eyebrow wriggling of his own and held up his DVD. “Besides, this has a better soundtrack. Huh? Huh?”
I laughed. “Point taken. But in yours, you don’t even see your favorite actor’s face.”
Amir couldn’t argue there; Edward Norton played King Baldwin IV, a leper. He wore an expressionless metal mask throughout the entire film. But Amir just nodded. “Exactly right,” he deadpanned. “I’m trying to keep your Edward Norton crush in check.”
I blushed, still laughing as The Italian Job fell to my side. “Okay, how about this? No movie. Instead you practice right here, right now, for me. So you can get ready for your…your…”
“Show?” he finished.
“Thank you. I can’t bring myself to say—”
“Gig?”
“How about performance?”
He laughed. “Deal.”
I flopped down on the couch. His oud bounced on the cushion beside me. Yikes. Without looking first, I’d nearly crushed it under my butt. Amir always kept it in its case…so he must have been practicing when I arrived. It was perfect. There was no way he could turn me down now.
“Epstein’s thing is tomorrow night, right?” I asked.
“Yeah,” he said. He stared at the oud. “But I don’t know if I’m actually going to play. Officially, I’m going to help with the setup. The playing is a big if.”
I frowned. “Is that coming from him or from you?”
He shrugged but didn’t respond. With a sigh, he approached and lifted the instrument, settling into the couch beside me and cradling it in his lap.
“Why the cold feet?” I prodded. “You’ve been practicing, haven’t you?”
Amir tucked his hair back. “Yeah,” he murmured. He placed his left hand over the fretboard, silently forming a chord without plucking or strumming the strings with his right. “I’ve even streamed a few more videos.”
I knew, of course. I subscribed to his YouTube channel under a username he wouldn’t recognize.
When we first started going out, he made me promise that I wouldn’t stalk him online—he wanted to limit my access only to music he felt confident in sharing, not works-in-progress he ran by fellow musicians. I didn’t want to make him self-conscious. But he probably knew or suspected I’d ignored him and stalked him anyway. A smile curled on my lips. Of course he did. The last video he’d posted was a flawless rendition of “No Woman, No Cry,” the Bob Marley song I’d seen in Epstein’s papers. Amir told his subscribers he’d requested the sheet music “because my girlfriend loves this one.”
“What?” he asked.
“Nothing,” I said. “It’s just…it’s not the same: playing live and recording yourself. You have nothing to be afraid of, Amir.”
His smile faded. “I don’t?” He adjusted his posture and shifted in the cushions to face me, his eyes on the instrument.
After a moment he plucked a measure of the song he’d composed for Yasmin, at a much slower tempo than he’d recorded for her project. I opened my mouth to argue. No words came. He was right. His talent spoke for itself—as it spoke to Mr. Epstein, and me, and the people he was “in touch with overseas” (His friends, Detective Tim; do you have any friends, here or abroad?)—but beyond that I couldn’t bullshit or soothe him about what people might think or do. There was plenty to fear. With my lips still parted, I leaned forward and kissed him on the cheek.
His face flushed. “What was that for?” he asked, still playing.
“For writing that song for my sister. For everything else.”
“How about something for you?” Without pausing, he tapped out a different tempo on the body of the oud—tap, tap, tap, tap—and began strumming loudly. In a heartbeat I recognized that unmistakable syncopated reggae feel. “No Woman, No Cry.” I had to laugh.
“What?”
“I understand your girlfriend loves this song,” I explained.
He laughed, too, not missing a beat. “Oh yeah?” His eyes flicked up to mine. “Where’d you hear that? I told you that if you cyberstalked me you’d end up getting jealous of all my other Bob Marley–loving girlfriends.”
I smirked but didn’t say anything more. I wanted to hear him play. He did more than that; to my astonishment, he started to sing. He looked at me again, eyebrows arched, message clear: Sing with me. You owe me. So I joined. Of note: I, Salma Bakkioui, have a horrible voice. Not just pitchy—putrid. Proverbial nails-on-a-chalkboard awful.
Amir’s smile widened. Using his picking hand, he made the universal Cut sign with a slash across his throat, and—a true testament to his musicianship—still didn’t fumble or interrupt the song. I grinned back and raised my hands in surrender; it was all him.
When he finally opened up his throat, unshackled by my sour off-key contribution, I saw it. Pure joy. He closed his eyes, blissed out—wailing like Marley himself, but adding his own Middle Eastern touch: a couple of “aiwas” and a “ya salaam.”
Sheikh Epstein would be ecstatic.
So would everyone else, if they had any sense.
* * *
—
Later, I told Amir to stop at the mouth of the Mason Terrace cul-de-sac instead of giving me the usual door-to-door service. He slowed to a crawl.
“Why? Isn’t your house on lockdown mode?”
“Only at night,” I said. Which was true. It was six forty-five. The sun was still out, a hazy orange ball skirting the tree line. Yasmin and Hala were in plain sight, huddled together and giggling on the front steps. If Mom and Dad and Titi were comfortable enough to let them hang around outside after what had happened—alone and unchaperoned—then Amir had to feel comfortable enough to let me walk the short distance to them
from his car. He parked the car curbside and unlocked the doors. I hugged him tight and climbed out.
He rolled down the window. “Sure you can make it all the way?”
I laughed. “Yes, Amir. Oh, that reminds me, you better be sure to film tomorrow night. Mom still refuses to let me go. Or to ever change my curfew.” A thought occurred to me. “But hey, now that you’re wise to my little cyberstalking secret, you can just get someone to stream it live. Okay?”
He nodded.
“Promise?”
“I promise,” he said. “Cross my heart and hope to die.”
“No dying, please. But I guess I should tell you to break a leg…?”
“Oh, yeah! Then I could finally get to meet the famous Mrs. DLP.” He winked. “Who, by the way, takes up way more of your time than Sheikh Epstein takes up of mine—not that I’m jealous or anything.” He blew me a kiss, pulling away slowly and leaving me there laughing like an idiot.
As his Jetta roared off into the evening, my sisters giggled again. I groaned and turned toward them, quickening my pace.
It turned out they weren’t giggling at me. They weren’t even looking at me. They were preoccupied with…Whoa. Were they watching something? Yes. They were. On a phone.
“Mom let you use her iPhone?” I asked, baffled. Maybe she didn’t want to be distracted.
Neither sister even bothered to look up. I cleared my throat. I positioned myself so that my long evening shadow fell right across Yasmin.
“It’s not Mom’s,” she said after a minute.
“Then whose is it? What’s going on?”
“It was his,” said Hala. She waved her hand, distracted, toward the street. I put up a hand to shield my eyes from the glare of the setting sun, turning around. Mason Terrace was deserted…no, not quite. Kyle was watering Mariam’s (his) shrubs. Had he been there the whole time? I hadn’t noticed. I dropped my hand and faced my sisters again.
“It’s Kyle’s?” I asked.
“Mm-hmm,” said Yasmin. “He gave it to us.”
“Wait…what?” I asked.
“Kyle gave us the phone,” Hala said, sounding exasperated.
I stared at them. “Kyle gave you that phone,” I repeated, just to be sure.
Hala looked up, annoyed. “Yeah, so?”
“To borrow? Did he want to show you something? It doesn’t make sense—”
“He gave it to us,” Hala groaned. “Like, forever gave it. We came out here, and he just walked over, okay?” Her eyes went back to the screen. “It has YouTube.”
“Does Mom know?” I asked. They must have misunderstood Kyle’s intention. Or maybe I did. Maybe I just needed to find out exactly what Kyle’s intention was. If he “forever gave” an iPhone to two little girls he barely knew, it was more than generous. It was creepy.
Instead of answering my question, my sisters exchanged a sneer, clearly disgusted with my disapproval. So Mom didn’t know. I doubted if Dad or Titi knew, either. I leaned forward and grabbed the phone, prompting an outraged gasp from the two of them.
Yasmin lunged at me in a desperate attempt to snatch it back. I was too quick for her.
“Go inside,” I snapped. “Or I’m telling Mom that you stole another pair of my headphones.”
“I—I…,” she stammered.
“And you,” I said, pointing at Hala. “I know about those candies you stash under your bed.”
Her jaw dropped. “Worst. Sister. Ever.” She stood.
Yasmin shot up next to her, matching her ridiculous indignant scowl.
They stomped inside and slammed the door behind them.
Too bad they had no clue that I was probably more upset than they were. Not that they’d care.
I whirled and marched across the street. Kyle was turning the spigot to shut off the hose. With his hoodie sleeves rolled up, I caught a glimpse of another tattoo—under his left bicep and close to his elbow. I couldn’t tell what it was. Maybe mountain peaks or a crown that looked like it had barbed wire or thorns in it. I guess I’d been right about “the family that tattoos together”…more weirdness. Was that even a thing? I’d have to look it up.
I shifted my glare back up to his face.
“Hey, Salma,” he said cautiously. “Everything okay?”
He calls me by my first name to my face and my last name behind my back. Isn’t that weird?
“Did you give this to my sisters?” I shoved the iPhone toward him.
He nodded vigorously. “Yeah. Is that all right? You sound pissed—”
“I’m not pissed,” I lied. I tried to keep my voice calm. I tried to remind myself of the fact that this was the kid who’d saved me from an ass-kicking, for which I still hadn’t thanked him. “I just want to know why you’d give two little girls an iPhone out of the blue.”
“It was a p-p-present,” he stammered. He dropped the hose. “I thought they’d like it. And I thought it could…I don’t know, be useful. You know, in case they ever go missing again.”
“They won’t.”
“Okay, okay.” Kyle flashed an anxious smile. I wondered when he’d last seen a dentist. I wondered if he was on medication. Or if he was so fidgety because he had zero social skills. Because he’d been homeschooled…or if it was the other way around: he’d been homeschooled because he had zero social skills. Astaghfirullah, I sounded like such a bitch. “But, Salma, please keep it anyway,” he added. “My dad gets phones dirt cheap. I’m more of a Samsung guy. I wiped it clean, reset the personal data, removed the GPS—”
“No,” I interrupted gently. I stepped forward, arm outstretched. I wanted to remain as kind and neighborly as I possibly could. “We’re touched. Really. But it’s too much. Please take it back.”
“For real?”
I nodded. “Yes. Thank you.”
All at once, something shifted. It was almost as if his face had gone from plum to prune in the bright sun—he looked suddenly overripe, his features hard and shriveled.
“Fine,” he spat. He took the phone and pocketed it. “This is what I get for trying to be a Good Samaritan.” He sounded as if he were talking more to himself than me. Before I could reply, he hurried inside, slamming the door behind him.
I winced at the sharp crack.
Nice. Another door, slammed in my face. Two in under a minute. What a way to kick off the weekend. I was spreading animus like wildfire. Hala and Yasmin had a right to be upset, though. I would be, too, in their shoes. Maybe Kyle did as well? Had I acted like a self-righteous jerk? No. It was weird. He should have asked my parents’ permission first. That’s what I would have done if I wanted to give him a device worth hundreds of dollars. I glanced at my watch. Six fifty-five. Mom and Dad would be leaving in five minutes. For a second I hesitated on the street, debating if I should tell them about all this—then decided it was best to let it go. They were anxious enough. Why add to their stress? Plus, honestly, I didn’t want to give my sisters an excuse to hate me even more than they did right now. I wasn’t sure if I could handle a third door slammed in my face tonight.
I was still standing on the street alone when Mom and Dad emerged in their evening finery. They waved at me, blissfully unaware. I waved back.
They climbed into the family minivan and sped off without a word.
* * *
—
Over the next few hours, I indulged Yasmin and Hala to the point that they had to forgive me. I plied them with pizza for dinner, followed by Salma’s salon time. I actually let them touch my curls. They brushed and braided, pulled and tugged. It was torture, but by the end of the night I was no longer “the world’s worst sister” but the “world’s best.” Even Titi joined the fun, giving us all traditional Amazigh face tattoos with leftover Halloween face paint.
Even better, Mom and Dad came home glowing. “Chérie, who knew you could
be so funny?” Dad kept saying to Mom. He giggled the way Hala and Yasmin had on the stoop, lost in some memory.
Best of all, Dad slipped me two twenty-dollar bills for my babysitting services, and Mom saw, and she didn’t protest.
I took this to mean that Mom was feeling a little better about the world and that maybe chez Bakkioui won’t be on such intense lockdown mode. I took it to mean that next weekend maybe I could have a normal night out—all mine, all Amir’s. Maybe I could actually be home by, dare I say, eleven? I glanced at Mom, eager to make a deal, then realized that it was better to wait.
I would make sure she was well rested and finished with the annoying paper she had to write and the hundred papers she had to grade, and then I would ask.
AT ELEVEN-THIRTY, WITH everyone in the Bakkioui household sound asleep, I found myself still wide awake. A second wind. EDS tends to do that, to make me tired or wired at equally annoying times. In my basement cave, I binged on Law & Order: Special Victims Unit. I was just starting another episode when I heard the telltale sound of the Turners’ truck pulling up. The engine stopped; doors closed quietly.
Seconds later I heard a massive thud out front—massive enough to feel: a subtle split-second quake.
I sat upright and blinked, then paused the screen.
The night was silent except for our dehumidifier. I set aside my laptop and went to the window to stand on my tiptoes. (A hassle even without EDS.) Across the street, Kyle Jr. and Mr. Turner were struggling to unload a massive burlap sack from the back of the truck. I could see them wincing, glistening with sweat in the dim streetlights. No lights were on inside their house, or out. I caught a glimpse of Mrs. Turner at the garage door, her finger poised above the manual opener—
Thud.
It was the same sound; Kyle and his father had dropped the sack on the driveway, right next to a silhouette I’d missed in the shadows—an identical sack.
No True Believers Page 14