by Alex van Tol
“That looks amazing.”
I look up as Erykah, a slim girl with dancing black eyes, lowers herself into the seat across from me. I’ve noticed she’s friendly to everyone. But I don’t want company right now. Or ever.
“I wish I had such a nice lunch,” she continues. She slings her bag onto the table and opens it up, theatrically unpacking everything to show me how lame her lunch is. I watch as she lines up a container of Jell-O, a baggie of whole-wheat crackers and two little wax-wrapped rounds of cheese.
“You have Babybel—what are you talking about? That stuff is awesome,” says Shanna. She sits down beside Erykah and sneaks one of the cheeses. Erykah nods her permission. Shanna unpacks her lunch: a salami sandwich, a mandarin and an apple juice.
I could tell her that salami will give her cancer, but I don’t. “Thanks,” I say to Erykah. “It’s just a chicken gyro.” I knew I should have stuck to eating my lunch by my locker. This is what happens when I decide to eat at the center court like a regular person. I should just get up and walk away. I sit there, weighing the value of staying invisible against the risk of having these two girls see me as totally rude.
I decide to stay but be my most boring self. Maybe they’ll realize I suck and go away.
“Chicken gyro,” Erykah repeats, eyeing my pita. “It looks like it walked right out of the pages of a fancy food magazine.”
Shanna raises her eyebrows. “Since when do you read food magazines?” She punches the little straw through the hole in her juice box. I consider telling her about the study that found lead in juice boxes.
Erykah shrugs. “My mom does. They’re all over the house. She’s always trying some new thing.”
“I don’t get that,” Shanna says. “Cooking is a drag. I have to cook three nights a week, and I hate it every time. I would rather trade with Brendan and do the cleanup instead.”
“Maybe you should try making something other than mac and cheese,” Erykah teases.
Shanna looks offended. “I do! Haven’t you heard of frozen pizza?”
Erykah snorts. “I don’t mind cooking.” She turns to me. “What about you? Do you like it?” Her tone is friendly.
I shrug.
She tries again. “Did you make that?” She points to my Greek salad in its glass container. I like the glass. It’s a little heavy, but glass is so much nicer to eat from than plastic.
And Papa says plastic gives you cancer.
I shake my head at Erykah’s question. It’s a lie, but I don’t want to talk with them. I don’t want to make friends. I want to stay invisible. That way nobody can ever find out about my crazy dad.
“Oh,” Erykah says, looking disappointed. She studies me briefly, then flashes a small smile. It’s not unkind. “Well, it looks yummy too.” But when I don’t say anything else, she turns back to Shanna. “So what did Kennedy say when Mrs. Cristante told her about the new soccer uniforms?”
I breathe a sigh of relief.
Ice Queen 1, Friendly Girl 0.
Tomorrow I’ll go back to eating beside my locker. Awesome.
Thanks a lot, Papa.
In social studies, I get mad at Papa all over again. Mr. Wilson is asking us how the Silk Road contributed to cultural exchange over the hundreds of years it was used. Nobody cares. Nobody is even awake. People are slumped in their desks, eyes glazed. One guy is trying to burn the clock to a crisp with his stare. Carey and Yannick are playing a covert game of Battleship, their grid paper hidden behind a propped-up binder.
How is it possible that nobody else finds this subject fascinating? People from all over India and Persia and China walked and rode camels and lived in caravans so they could trade with each other. We used to talk about these kinds of things at the dinner table. Papa would tell stories about the families who lived through wars and uprisings. We’d talk about the famines and plagues throughout history. Our conversations were huge and awesome.
Until Mamma went into the hospice, and Papa stopped talking about history.
When she died a few weeks later, he stopped talking about anything. For the last year and a half, all the conversation at our dinner table has been handled by public radio.
“Even though we call it the Silk Road,” Mr. Wilson is saying now, “it was actually a number of different trading routes.” He points to the big map that’s projected up on the screen. “Tea from China. Oil and chilies from India. Jade from Tibet. Wool rugs from Iran.” He taps the side of his head. “Think about it, people. How would exchanging these things have helped the traders learn about each other’s cultures?”
Mr. Wilson looks around the room. His eyes settle on me, probably because I’m the only person paying attention. I look away, but it’s too late.
“Daniela?” he asks. “Any ideas?”
I open my mouth. Then I close it again.
A hot blush creeps up my face as people turn in my direction. At my old school, I would have had my hand up, ready to answer. I would have been full of ideas and questions. But that was the old me. The new me is low-key. Incognito.
And that’s how it has to stay.
I shake my head. “No,” I say.
“You sure? You looked like the wheels were turning.”
I shake again, keeping my eyes on the floor.
Mr. Wilson turns to the class again. “Come on, eighth grade. Think! I’m a trader from India.” He hikes across the room to dramatize his point. “I travel for a few days on this trading route, and when I get to the end of my section, a few guys from Pakistan are waiting there to buy my stuff. Let’s say it’s sandalwood, bound for Spain.” He mimes handing over a package and then pocketing some money. “After that, the Pakistani traders will hop in their boats and cross the Arabian Sea, and they’ll sell my stuff to the people from Iran. How does that lead to—”
“Aren’t India and Pakistan enemies though?” Samir interrupts.
I take a breath, then give a little half nod. It’s true they fight. But they didn’t always.
The guy next to me catches me nodding. His name is Gregor. He’s another friendly person. He has tried to get me to talk. He’s wearing skinny jeans, Converse shoes and glasses with black frames. He dresses like a hipster, but I think he’s actually a nerd. I’ve seen him reading a model-train catalog. How many eighth-grade guys do that for kicks?
When our eyes meet, he raises one eyebrow.
I look away.
Delighted that someone in his class is actually alive, Mr. Wilson turns in Samir’s direction. “More recently, yes, they have been at war,” he says. “But during the peak years of trade along the Silk Road, that area was mostly peaceful. Both countries were simply India back then.”
I want to add that the British split India apart in the late 1940s during Partition. More of Papa’s stories shimmer to the surface of my mind. I would love to take part in this discussion.
But it’s because of him that I can’t.
Chapter Five
My eyes feel like someone blew a fistful of sand into them. Last night I woke up seventy thousand times because of the windstorm. It felt like a giant pair of hands was trying to tear the house apart. Everything was creaking and groaning and shaking. The shaking was the scariest. When the sky started getting light just after six, I gave up on trying to sleep and got up.
The wind blew another dozen shingles off the house in the night. They were scattered all across the lawn and driveway this morning. Our house is slowly falling apart.
“Papa,” I say at breakfast, “the roof needs fixing.”
He pours cream into his coffee and stirs. Viva Italia! proclaims the handle of the spoon he’s using. “It can’t be fixed,” he booms. Even when he’s only a few feet away, Papa sounds commanding and stern. La voce di Dio, Mamma used to tease. The voice of God.
“Why not?” I ask.
He takes a sip of his coffee, then stirs in a bit more cream. “There are already two roofs. One on top of the other.” He gestures toward the ceiling. “The whole thing has
to be replaced.”
“Can you phone someone and have it replaced?” I know it’s not a question of money. When Mamma was sick, he spent money on every possible thing that might make her better. After the chemo and the radiation, they tried reiki. Acupuncture. Naturopathic medicine. Garlic, fish oil and ginseng tea by the tubful. Traditional Chinese medicine. Ayurvedic medicine.
Mamma went along with all of it until it became too much. When the doctors finally suggested taking out pretty much everything inside and “washing her out” with chemicals, she told Papa she was done.
She lived three weeks after that.
These days the only thing Papa spends money on is paint for his signs.
“I will phone the roofers,” Papa says as he drifts down the hall toward his room.
But he won’t. He always tells me he’ll take care of things, and then he never does. It’s gotten to the point where I do everything, because I know he won’t get around to it. Last spring I climbed up on the roof and cleaned out the gutters when waterfalls sprouted from our eaves one day during a heavy rain. I collected enough leaves that day to fill four orange garbage bags.
When Mamma was sick, I did everything because Papa was busy researching a cure. And now that she’s gone, I still do everything.
I clear the table and scrape the remaining oatmeal into a bowl. I’ll make spice muffins with it later. Never waste a thing, Mamma said. There is always something lovely you can make from even the littlest leftovers.
Her face smiles at me as I rinse the dishes and put them into the dishwasher.
“Why did you have to leave?” I hiss. “He’s useless without you. Now I have to look after him.” Sudden tears sting my eyes. “But nobody’s looking after me.” My voice cracks on the last words.
Every day, I do as Mamma asked me. I try to care for Papa as well as I can. I try to forgive him and remember that he loves me even if he is too sad to show it. I try to remember that he is grieving.
But I’m grieving too.
I watch him shuffle into the front hallway and pick up his briefcase, getting ready to teach. And then after class he’ll go find someplace to stand with his signs. Hours and hours of warning people away from the poison he is convinced killed his wife.
What would life be like if he spent that time fixing the house?
What if he spent it with me?
By the time afternoon classes start, I am ready to lie right down on the floor and take a nap. But I don’t. Instead, I put my head down on my desk and close my eyes to rest for a second.
A thump below me jerks me awake.
I blink as the classroom takes shape around me again. Math. I lift my head and wipe my mouth in a single movement. One can never be too careful about the drool factor.
The fluorescent lights are too bright against the blue carpet. Ms. Kapoor is making her way along the rows, checking people’s work.
Behind me, that Gregor guy smiles. “You were sleeping,” he whispers. He must have kicked my desk to wake me up.
“Thanks,” I say, making a face to show him how embarrassing it is to fall asleep in class.
He laughs quietly. He has nice blue eyes. Today he’s wearing a gray slouchy knit cap and red glasses. His T-shirt says Never trust an atom. They make up everything.
I am tempted to smile back. Instead, I turn around. No making friends with the natives.
I have time to scratch out three more answers on my page before Ms. Kapoor makes it to my spot.
When Gregor thumps my desk again, I ignore it. I’m feeling grumpy now. It’s partly because I’m always grumpy when I wake up and partly because I just remembered I have to clean up those stupid shingles when I get home. And call the roofers.
I glance at the clock. Papa is probably in his Volvo now, driving to his afternoon preach-a-thon. Or maybe he’s walking. He often does if he’s preaching in the neighborhood. I wonder where he’ll be today. Will he be informing the nice people that FROZEN PIZZA = DEATH BY SODIUM, FAT AND CHEMICALS, or will he simply be pointing out that BACON KILLS? I guess he could do both. He’s got a few signs to work with.
At least he gave up trying to hand out flyers. People just scurried in the opposite direction when they saw him coming.
I try to think about something that makes me happy.
Cooking always does the trick. Maybe tonight can be peanut-chicken skewers with a Thai noodle salad. Except I won’t put any sugar into the dressing this time—Papa was able to taste it last time. I think it’ll still work okay without sugar. A little extra ginger maybe. Or honey. Yes, honey. From what I’ve read, it’s got lots of healthy qualities, even though it has some natural sugars in it.
White sugar has been banned from our kitchen. Brown sugar was quick to follow. And forget the sugar replacements. All chemicals, Papa stormed. And anyway, you know how sugar is produced?
White death, he calls it.
So no sugar.
But as far as I know, he hasn’t vetoed bee barf.
Chapter Six
Mrs. Wong pulls into her driveway as I’m picking up the last of the shingles. After I got out onto the lawn I discovered a hundred more little bits of asphalt. The shingles are so old that they’re coming off in pieces.
I don’t expect Mrs. Wong to say anything to me. They’ve always been friendly neighbors. They used to come to our gigantic Labor Day barbecue every summer, but things have cooled in recent months. It’s not just the Wongs. A lot of people who used to come by while Mamma was sick stopped soon after she died. Not because they didn’t care about me and Papa. But they got tired of hearing Papa talk endlessly about bad food. It’s hard to stop him once he gets going.
Not many people come by our house anymore.
Mrs. Wong’s car door closes. She sees me looking and gives a little wave as she goes inside the house. I wave back, holding my bucket of busted asphalt under one arm. I notice then that a bunch of shingles have blown onto their lawn too. I start picking them up.
By the time I’ve finished dumping the broken shingles into our garbage bin, the crows are doing their twilight flyover. They do it every day, flocking by the hundreds over our neighborhood on their way to the protected bay at the north end of the city. I watch the black stream in the sky, wishing that my life could be like theirs—simple, straightforward, driven only by the search for food. No grief. No embarrassment. No need to hide.
One final crow straggles way behind the others. I decide it’s a girl. Her wings beat steadily, but the distance between her and the rest of the flock doesn’t get any smaller. She does not call out. She does not pump harder. She simply keeps going, not looking around, not looking down. I wonder what her story is. Does she not want to be with the rest of the mob? Is there something she’s avoiding? Something she is dreading?
Or maybe that’s not it at all.
Maybe she just doesn’t know if she belongs anymore.
Chapter Seven
I am thinking about the crows when I board the bus after school the next afternoon. There’s a real bite to the November air. The rains will be settling in soon. Suits me. Rain means it’s time for soups and stews. Tonight is potato–leek chowder with smoked salmon, cream and parmesan. The salmon substitutes nicely for bacon. Papa doesn’t fuss much about salmon. He will rant about mercury in tuna, but I suspect he likes salmon too much to find fault with it.
I take a seat and unwind my scarf from around my neck. I’m just opening my book when I feel someone else sit down beside me. I move over without looking up.
“Wow, what’s that about?” asks a familiar voice.
I look up. My tummy does a little flip. Uh-oh.
Gregor is staring down at the book in my lap. Intercourses, the cover says. Behind the title is a picture of a nearly naked woman sitting in a pile of luscious red strawberries.
I blush. “It’s a cookbook.” Quickly I open it up. I hope he doesn’t make any wisecracks about the title.
“Wow. What kind of cooking?” he asks, staring down at the page
s.
Oh cripes. Of all the pages it could have opened to, it had to be the one with the half-naked guy smeared all over with chocolate sauce.
“Uh,” I say, “all kinds. Food mostly.”
I wish I could drop through the floor. This is so awkward. I don’t want him to be sitting next to me. Well, I do, but I don’t.
I pretend to read. When I turn the page—being careful to skip over the picture of the woman in the asparagus skirt—he speaks again.
“What do you like to cook?” he asks.
I ignore him. No friends. No complications.
Still, ignoring him feels awful. It’s so rude to ignore people. I imagine what Mamma would say. She would not approve of me treating anyone this way.
Gregor doesn’t give up easily. Either he’s really nice, or he’s really persistent, or he’s really dumb. Whatever he is, he says, “I bet you like to make cupcakes.”
I lift my head and glare at him. “Are you saying I’m fat?”
His eyes widen. “No,” he says, shaking his head. “I—no. No, not at all.” He blinks, clearly flustered. I can tell he wasn’t saying that.
I turn back to my cookbook. I’m not offended. I do have a big bum, but it doesn’t bother me. Actually, I kind of like it. The only person who has ever teased me about it was a scarecrow-skinny girl at Spruce Cliff, and I’d rather have curves than spikes, thanks.
But it was a good opportunity to shut him down. Maybe now he won’t bug me. I flip the page huffily for good measure.
“I just thought that girls like cupcakes,” he says. “I see now that it was an ill-conceived generalization.”
He talks nerdy. It’s sort of cute. But that doesn’t matter, because I’m not going to let him in.
“I’m not most girls,” I sniff.
“You certainly are not.”
I look at him through narrowed eyes.
He lifts his hands in surrender. “I mean that in a good way,” he says. “You’re not the same as other girls. You’re different.”