Rebels by Accident

by Patricia Dunn

  Salam rolls down his window, and the stink makes Deanna and me cough.

  “The window, please,” Sittu says, covering her nose and mouth. “There’s so much corruption they won’t spend the money to take the garbage away.”

  Salam rolls his window halfway up, then yells at the boy in Arabic. I’m assuming he says something like, “Are you crazy? Watch out!” Then Salam rolls the window up the rest of the way.

  The boy just looks away, kicking his ball to another boy, who is wearing dollar-store flip-flops that look like they are at least two sizes too big.

  “These kids have nowhere to play. Maybe if the military gave up some of its country club space… We all know the garbage is always cleaned from there,” Sittu says. Turning to Deanna, she continues, “Shukran. You saved me from a very ugly lump on my forehead.”

  How does Deanna do it? Even half-asleep, she makes all the right moves.

  We’re all quiet for a long while after. From the corner of my eye, I catch Sittu smiling at Deanna. Maybe Sittu’s not mean; maybe she just doesn’t like me.

  chapter

  EIGHT

  We pull up in front of Sittu’s apartment building, and Salam unloads our luggage from the trunk. Sittu and Salam talk in Arabic for a few minutes. They talk like someone has died, but then, anyone speaking Arabic sounds ultraserious to me. He nods at her and offers to take our bags upstairs, but Sittu tells him to get home to his family.

  “Nice meeting you,” Deanna and I say.

  “The pleasure is mine.” Salam puts his hand to his heart the way Ahmed did at the airport.

  I press the elevator button in the lobby.

  “We take the stairs,” Sittu says.

  “Is it broken?” Deanna asks.

  “The landlord charges you more if you want to use the elevator. It’s not a lot of money, but it’s the principle of the thing.”

  “That’s crazy to have to pay to use an elevator,” I say.

  “Not when the rents on these apartments are controlled,” Sittu says. “The rent’s so low the landlord tries to squeeze money out of his tenants in other ways.” Sittu shakes her head. “At least this landlord isn’t stupid. Some build on extra floors without making sure the structure can handle the weight, and entire buildings have collapsed as a result. Too many people have died this way.”

  “Still, you won’t pay the extra money for the elevator?” I ask.

  Sittu gives me the same look Baba gives me when I’ve asked a question he feels he’s already answered.

  “Yalla,” Sittu says.

  “Yalla,” Deanna and I say, and we follow Sittu up five very long flights of stairs.

  Deanna and I are breathing heavily when we get to Sittu’s door. Sittu’s breathing like she just got out of a long, hot bath. There’s nothing old about this woman.

  “America makes you soft!” Sittu slaps both Deanna and me on our butts.

  “Ahlan wa sahlan.” She opens the door, and I’m hit in the face with cold air.

  “It’s cold in here,” Sittu says. “Did I leave the balcony open?” She walks over to the balcony and pulls the doors shut.

  “I never think of Egypt as being cold,” I say.

  “Well, it seems like Americans don’t think about Egypt much, except for pyramids, Nile cruises, and our relations with Israel.”

  I turn my face away from her. I don’t want her to see that her comment hurts my feelings. Yes, I’m American, but she talks as if I’m a know-nothing American.

  “There’s a space heater in your room if you need it at night. As you can see, it can get chilly this time of year, and these buildings are built to keep things cool.”

  “Shukran,” Deanna and I say.

  “You’re welcome,” Sittu says. “Leave your bags here, and we will have the tour.”

  We follow Sittu through her long entranceway and dining room. Photos of me cover the walls. I see a lot of “first” photos: the first time I was on a swing, first day of kindergarten, and every other first day of school until high school, when I told Baba if he didn’t put the camera away, I wasn’t getting out of his car. Posing for my dad like I was a kindergartener, with the entire school population there as witnesses, would have sealed my fate as the freshman freak. That’s when I still had hope that I could reinvent myself. That was before I realized a new school building didn’t mean a new school population. At least now, as a junior, I no longer hold the title of Mayflower High’s Number One Weirdo. Thanks to Deanna moving to town, I’m now weirdo number two, though I’m sure once word gets out that it was my parents who sent us to Cairo for the rest of the semester, I will be back in first place.

  “Hey, is that you?” Deanna points to a black-and-white photo of a young Sittu smiling at a very handsome man in a suit. The man is smiling back at her like she’s the most beautiful woman in the world.

  “Yes, that was me before the snow settled.” Sittu touches her white hair.

  “Is that your husband? He’s hot,” Deanna says.

  “Deanna!” Calling my grandfather hot—what is she thinking?

  “I didn’t mean any disrespect.”

  “That’s quite all right,” Sittu says, looking at his picture. “He was hot. Very hot.” Sittu kisses her middle and index finger and places them over my grandfather’s face.

  “Mar, is this you with your grandfather?” Deanna looks sideways at me, questioningly.

  Sittu smiles. “That’s Mariam and her giddu.”

  “That ice cream cone is bigger than I am.”

  “Your giddu loved to take you for ice cream. He always bought you three scoops, knowing he’d have to finish it for you.”

  I smile like I remember, but I don’t. Not until this moment do I realize that we don’t have any photos, anywhere, of my grandfather. And the only picture in our apartment of Sittu is of her holding Baba when he was an infant. Now I wonder if it was my grandfather who took that picture.

  Sittu puts her hand on my shoulder. “He loved you very much.”

  It’s nice to hear this. I want to ask her what happened between my dad and his father, why Baba never talks about him. It’s like Baba doesn’t want me to remember my grandfather at all.

  “Come on, let me show you your room.” Sittu drops her hand from my shoulder and walks out of the living room. When we get to the hugest bedroom I’ve ever seen—bigger than my living room and kitchen put together—Sittu says, “This is your room. I hope you don’t mind sharing.”

  “Of course not,” I say. The last thing I want is to be alone in this place.

  “This is great,” Deanna says, bouncing on one of the two twin beds. “You have a beautiful home.”

  “It’s more beautiful now you are both here.”

  “Thank you,” Deanna and I say in unison.

  “You don’t need to thank family,” Sittu says.

  “Was this Baba’s?” I ask, sitting down at a huge wooden desk and touching the surface around the computer. Baba talks about his desk all the time. Every time he sees me doing homework anywhere but at mine, he says, “When I was a child, I did all of my homework at my desk. There was no doing homework at the dining room table. My mother wouldn’t have it any other way.” When he talks like this, I picture him chained to the leg of his desk. I look down. No chains.

  “This was his room.” Sittu picks up a framed photo of a class of children in school uniforms. “This is your baba right here.” She points to a small boy with big ears, sitting in the first row.

  “Can I see?” Deanna looks over my shoulder.

  “That’s him.” I tap the child Sittu just pointed to.

  “He’s so cute,” Deanna says.

  “Yes, but those ears!” Sittu laughs and kisses the photo before putting it back down. I like her laugh.

  “These look like Catholic school uniforms,” Deanna says. />
  “Lycée Français was a Catholic school.”

  “Catholic? Really?” Deanna says.

  “Yes. Muslims often go to Catholic schools here, especially when they are of such quality.” Sittu sounds a lot like Baba. Baba is only a snob when it comes to education. “You’ve had a long journey, so rest a bit, and then we’ll have you both call home.”

  “My mom says I need to buy a cell here because mine won’t work,” Deanna says.

  “Cell?” Sittu asks.

  “Mobile,” I say, which is what Baba calls it.

  “We can get that at the mall.”

  “The mall?! There’s a mall?” I’m more excited than if she’d handed us a box of puppies.

  “We have a few. Rest now. Ahlan. Welcome.” Sittu closes the bedroom door behind her.

  I jingle the knob to see if she’s locked us in, but the door opens and Sittu is standing there.

  “Looking for your suitcase?” she says, walking back into the bedroom, rolling all three of our suitcases behind her.

  “Thank you—” I say.

  “—so much,” Deanna finishes.

  “Rest now.” Sittu closes the door again. I don’t trust that she’s really gone until I hear her walk away.

  “Dibs on this one.” Deanna lifts her suitcases onto the bed near the portable closet.

  “Deanna, there’s no lock on this door,” I say, staring at the knob.

  “So what?”

  “My father told me when he was a kid, his mother would lock him in his room until dinner.”

  “Yeah, and my mother walked ten miles to school,” Deanna says. “Once, she even told me she had to walk through a blizzard. Blizzard! She grew up in Southern California. All parents make up stuff about their childhood so we can see how lucky we have it compared to them. It’s their way of shutting us up.” Deanna pulls me away from the door. “Your grandmother is really cool, so stop worrying so much. Give her a chance.”

  “Okay,” I say, but I’m not fully convinced.

  “Hey, you think I could check email?” Deanna taps Sittu’s keyboard.

  “Don’t touch her computer.”

  “Hey, Sittu has a Facebook page!”

  “You’re kidding me,” I say, peering over Deanna’s shoulder. “Even my grandmother has a Facebook page.”

  “Your parents said you could have one when you turn sixteen, and that’s only a few days away.”

  I almost forgot about my birthday.

  “Too bad her page is in Arabic.” Deanna goes back to her suitcase.

  “You’re going to unpack already?”

  “Wrinkles, baby. Wrinkles. If you don’t want to iron clothes all the time, you should unpack too.” Deanna opens her suitcase. Her clothes have been folded to perfection. She pulls out a light green T-shirt and turns to the portable closet. “This armoire is outrageous.” Deanna pulls on the glass handle.

  “Armoire. Is that French for closet?”

  “I guess. Yuck, it smells like your closet at home.”

  “Mothballs,” I say.

  “There’re only a few hangers,” Deanna says, grabbing one and slipping it through her green tee, which she hangs toward the far right of closet. “Hey, look at what’s back here.”

  “Towels?” I say, eyeing the five or so on the one shelf.

  “No, this. Isn’t it beautiful?” Deanna pulls a bright blue dress from the far end of the rod. She takes it off its hanger. “Look at the gold trim on the neckline and the hem. Feel the material.”

  I touch the sleeve. “It’s soft.”

  “It’s silk. I have to try it on.” Deanna pulls off her shirt.

  “We should ask Sittu first.”

  “If she didn’t mean for us to try it on, why would she leave it hanging here?” Deanna slides off her jeans. “Help me get this over my head.”

  I help her put the dress on. Deanna looks at herself in the full-length mirror inside the closet door. “Too bad, the sleeves are too short. It’s way too tight around the chest too.” Deanna slowly pulls the dress up over her head and tosses it at me. “You try it on.”

  “No, thanks.” I let it fall to the floor.

  “I know it’ll look hot on you.”

  “I’m just not so into that look.”

  “What look?”

  “Forget it. I need to unpack. You’re right about wrinkles, and there’s probably no iron.” I roll my suitcase to my bed and lift it up. I feel Deanna staring at me as she puts her clothes back on, but maybe this one time, just this one time, she’ll let it go.

  “So that’s it,” she says, walking over to me until she’s right up in my face. She’s not going to let it go.

  “What are you talking about?” I try to open my suitcase, but Deanna pushes me to the side and sits on it.

  “What are you doing?”

  “What’s wrong with you? This dress is beautiful.”

  I stare at her like that’s going to make her move. No way do I want to talk about this with her. It’s the same reason I hated the way she did my makeup for the party. I don’t want to look like I’m Egyptian. I don’t want to walk like one or talk like one or be one. I just want to be what I am: American. Of course, I can’t tell her this. Not Miss Cleopatra Wannabe.

  “Deanna, get off of my suitcase, please.”

  “Not until you talk to me.”

  “Get off.” I try to push her this time, but she’s holding on tight. She won’t budge.

  “I will get off as soon as you talk to me,” she says.

  “Get off!” This time I push her so hard that she not only gets off the suitcase, but falls onto the floor and bangs her head against the leg of Baba’s desk.

  “Oh my God.” I drop to her side. “Are you okay? That had to hurt. Deanna?” Her eyes are closed. “Deanna?” I nudge her shoulder. She’s not moving. “Oh. Oh my God. Sittu!” I scream.

  Deanna sits up and covers my mouth. “Shut up,” she says. She waits, looking toward the door. “Thank God Sittu didn’t hear you. What’s the matter with you?” She pushes me away and stands up, heading back to her side of the room.

  “What’s the matter with me?” I ask. “You scared me half to death.”

  “Well, you deserved it.” She rubs the side of her head.

  “I’m so sorry. Do you want me to get you some ice?”

  “It’ll be fine. It sounded worse than it is. Hard head.” She knocks on her forehead. She takes out a pair of jeans and hangs them on a hanger. She then hangs a T-shirt, another pair of jeans, and her denim skirt.

  “You’re not going to say anything about this?”

  “It’s obvious you don’t want to talk about it.”

  I sit on the bed next to her suitcase. “I just don’t think you’ll understand.”

  She puts another shirt on a hanger. “No, of course I don’t understand what it’s like to hate who you are.”

  I don’t know what to say to her, so I wait for her to say something else, to say something to make it all okay again, like she always does. But not this time. She turns toward the closet. I know this time it’s up to me to make it right, but I don’t know how.

  When Deanna looks at me again, I can see she’s working hard not to cry. And still, I don’t say anything. Deanna shakes her head at me the same way Sittu does and walks out.

  I sit there, wanting so much to go home, but at the same time not wanting to go home. I don’t want to be around my parents who hide from everything, even my grandfather.

  Deanna is my best friend—my only friend—and I couldn’t even manage to tell her how I feel. Why am I so lame? I shove my suitcase off the bed and drop facedown onto the pillow, then bounce right up again. I can’t. I can’t cry anymore. I get up and pick up the blue dress from the floor. I take off my T-shirt and jeans, and look in the mirror. Compared to De
anna, I’m like a walking ironing board. I pull the dress over my head. It slips right on. There’s nothing to get in the way. It feels like it actually fits though.

  I check the mirror, and for the first time in my life, my nose looks good. Just right. Can a dress actually make your nose look smaller?

  I walk to the door. I hope Deanna was right about Sittu wanting us to wear this dress.

  chapter

  NINE

  “Deanna?” I call out. “Sittu?”

  They’re not in the living room or the dining room. They wouldn’t have left the apartment without me, would they? I push open the kitchen door, but it stops with a thud. “Oh my God—Deanna?! Sittu? Are you okay?”

  “My head is pretty hard,” a very deep voice says with a British accent. “But you hit me in the backside.”

  The kitchen door opens all the way.

  I look up into the darkest, greenest eyes I’ve ever seen. Eyes even greener than my mother’s.

  “I’m so sorry about the door.”

  “It’s an occupational hazard.”

  Who is this guy in Sittu’s kitchen? Her cook?

  “What are you doing here?”

  “I come to the assistance of beautiful women,” he says. From him, this cheesy line sounds like poetry. It’s probably the accent. Baba wasn’t talking to me very much before I left, but he did make sure to warn me about guys who would try to sweet-talk Deanna and me just because we’re American.

  When I just stand there, looking suspicious, he says, “I help your grandmother with errands. I was just putting away some fruit.”

  I peek around his tall, muscular body. The kitchen counter really is covered with fruit. “Mangos? Are those mangos?”

  “They don’t have mangos in America?”

  “My father won’t buy them at home. He says the mango is the only thing America doesn’t do as well as Egypt.”

  “I’m sure there are a few other things we do better here too.” He pulls a knife from a drawer like he’s been in this kitchen before and cuts right into the center of the plumpest mango on the counter. “But our mangos are pretty good.” He hands me a slice.