“So?” She’s looking at me with an arrogant smirk on her face, dangling her legs from the chair. “Or is it private? I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have embarrassed you like this. I guess whether you’re still intact is something you’d want to keep to yourself.”
And then suddenly Simone is standing up, hands on her hips, a wild look in her eyes.
“Why don’t you just shut your face, you stupid ugly bitch!”
The class is divided between those gasping for air from the shock, and those doubled over in laughter. Tia’s face kind of collapses and then twists into a raging fury.
“Oooh! The fat girl finds her voice, does she? Has it been hiding under all your rolls?”
There’s so much hatred in the air it’s almost suffocating. Simone looks like she’s about to jump on Tia and flatten her and Tia is looking back at her with repulsion. Some of the guys are heckling them on, yelling out, “Cat fight! Cat fight!”
And then Josh stands up. “Tia, get a life and shut up,” he calls out.
Some of the class laugh, some of them start gossiping. Tia is sitting down with a mortified, angry pout. Simone is sitting at her desk in a happy trance. Adam looks at me but I don’t meet his eyes, and he looks away. Eileen touches my arm but I shake her off. I don’t want contact. I don’t want anybody. I feel like I’ve eaten something rotten and I want to vomit. I can hear some girls whispering about circumcision and what it is. And I have to hold on to my chair so tightly that my palms feel bruised, just to keep myself from running out.
The next few days nobody mentions the topic again. Whether or not they’re wondering is another thing. Simone and Eileen try to make me laugh but I’m not in the mood for fighting myself. Instead, I give in and enjoy an obscene dose of self-pity, dreaming up comeback lines in my head and being thoroughly miserable and selfish. It’s so bad that I’m horrible enough to forget to thank Simone and Josh.
My parents think I’m under VCE stress from homework and assignments. It’s the most adaptable excuse for any mood during VCE. My mum asks me to wash the dishes and I go all stress symptomatic on her and the next thing I know I’m lying in bed and my dad is bringing in a cup of Milo with skinny milk and asking me if I want Mum to make me low-fat muffins.
Towards the end of the week, after I’ve avoided Adam from sheer humiliation, he walks up to me at lunch time.
“Are you OK?” he asks nervously.
“Course I am.” There’s an awkward silence and I stare at the ground. I’m still feeling so embarrassed I can’t look him in the eye.
“Tia’s just having a go at you because you look different, because you’re religious. I think she’s freaked out about it and in her typical bitchy way sees you as the perfect target. . . It is freaky in a way.”
“What is?”
“You being all religious and holy and stuff.”
“Gee, thanks.”
“Don’t get pissed off, I’m only trying to explain how it is.”
“So if I got pissed every weekend I’d be normal, but because I take about ten minutes out of my day to pray and wear a piece of material on my head, I’m this freak of nature?”
“Well, yeah.” He gives me a goofy grin.
“It’s not funny.”
“Oh come on, you know I’m kidding. I like teasing you. You lose your temper so quickly. I don’t really think you’re a freak.”
“You used to.”
“Yeah, well, that was only for a couple of days. Now I think you’re a smart-arsed big mouth with bloody female mood swings—”
“You’re so unbelievably sexist!”
“Well, it’s true!”
“Give me a break!”
“It’s not my problem if you’re in denial about the facts of life. Girls are schizo.”
“I swear to God, Adam, you give me one more mental chauvinistic comment and I’ll tell everybody you have a crush on Sandra Sully.”
“Hey! That’s low!”
I grin at him and fold my arms over my chest.
“Quit the macho sexist bull crap and I’ll protect your rep.”
“All right, all right. . . Anyway, it’s not a crush. How dramatic can you get? There’s just something about her. . .” He laughs.
“Yeah, well, that does it to a person . . . every time.”
20
I spend the two-week midterm break doing my holiday homework, which is killing me. The only thing getting me through it is the long telephone and MSN chat sessions with Adam. We talk about anything and everything. Like the time we discovered we liked the same movies and that we’re both Law and Order addicts. Or the time we spent hours talking about our favourite music and what annoys us about our families and where we see ourselves after high school. It feels like it can’t get any better.
As happy as Simone and Eileen are for me, Eileen’s been sending me regular text messages cautioning me to take things easy if I don’t want Adam to think I’m in the middle of a red-hot crush on him. She knows me well enough to predict my admission to the intensive care unit at the Royal Melbourne Hospital with a diagnosis of EMS (Extreme Mortification Syndrome) if Adam finds out. For somebody who’s not very religious, she sure does act like my personal portable Sheikh. In the space of the holidays alone I’ve received the following messages from her:
Monday: IF U DON’T WANT HIM 2 KNOW, THEN DON’T LET YOUR FEELINGS SHOW.
Tuesday (morning): IF U FLIRT EXPECT 2 GET HURT.
Tuesday (late): ACTUALLY, U CAN FLIRT. JUST DON’T MAKE HIM FEEL LIKE HE’S THE ONLY 1 U FLIRT WITH.
Tuesday (very late): FLIRT WITH EVERY1?? IGNORE ME. UR NOT PARIS HILTON. JUST HAVE YOUR FUN & DO WHAT U FEEL IS RIGHT
Tonight Adam and I are watching some forensic/police/law show while we’re on the phone, making comments throughout the programme, when my mum comes over and gives me a big, sloppy loud kiss on the cheek.
“Ma! I’m on the phone!”
“So I can’t kiss my baby?”
“Jeez, Ma! At least wait until I get off the phone.”
“Don’t be so ungrateful, ya Amal. Say hi to whoever.”
“OK I will.”
“So say it.”
“Hi.”
“Who is it?”
“It’s Adam.”
“Oh . . . well, say hi. Your dad and me are going out to Uncle Joe’s. Want to come?”
“No.”
“I didn’t think so. We won’t be long.”
“Don’t shorten your visit on my account.”
She looks at me knowingly. “How generous of you, Amal.”
She ruffles my hair, I yell at her to leave me alone, and she disappears with my dad.
“I take it that was your mum?” Adam asks.
“Yeah, sorry about that. Talk about having no phone etiquette. She always has parallel conversations with me when I’m on the phone.”
“Is she always so affectionate?”
“No. She hardly kisses me. That was so out of the blue.”
“Amal, you don’t have to lie because you think I might start crying in a corner because my mum’s not here.”
I mumble a sorry and he chuckles. “I think I have accepted the fact that I have a mother who walked out on her son. I can handle the fact there are happy families out there.”
“Sorry . . . anyway, happiness is relative. Some days you’ll have better days with your dad and Charlene, and my family will be in a bad mood, fighting over who left the milk out.”
“Charlene’s pretty neat. She doesn’t pretend to be replacing my mum, which is good. Anyway, we don’t really see each other that often. Like I told you, they’re always working.”
“My parents can work long hours some days too. I mean, their surgeries close at a set time but there’s paperwork and sometimes they fill in for other doctors.”
; “But you guys are always doing stuff together. You’re like the bloody Brady Bunch or something. I mean, you eat dinner together, you shop with your mum, you all go out for dinner or the movies. Didn’t you tell me the other day you sat around and watched DVDs together?”
“Weird, hey?”
“Big time. I couldn’t imagine doing that with Dad and Charlene. We’d have nothing to talk about.”
“Tell me something up front and personal.”
“Huh?”
“You know, deep and meaningful, spin-the-bottle type confession.”
“What do you want? OK, um . . . I feel – you chicks like that word don’t you—”
“I hate it when you say chicks! What is it about the female gender that even vaguely resembles a fur ball that chirps and eats worms?”
“Bad boys bad boys whatcha gonna do? Whatcha gonna do when they come for you? Cool song, hey. Seen the sequel?”
“Original kicked butt. So. . .?”
“OK, sometimes I feel like it could have been Dad that left. Does that satisfy your morbid curiosity?”
“Look, if we’re going to be friends I’m going to have to know more about you than your obsession with sports, and Angelina Jolie.”
“Angelina . . . ahh . . . don’t make me drool.”
“So why do you feel that way about your dad?”
“Hmm, let’s see . . . because we’re on parallel train tracks all the time. Occasionally we’ll cross. Like when he’s rushing out to work and I’m getting ready for school. Or when he goes all guilt-trip on me and gives me a pep talk when I’m studying.”
“Are you angry with him?”
“Most days.”
“Are you angry with her . . . your mum?”
“Every day.”
“Why were you singing Bad Boys?”
“Because it’s on at eight thirty tonight.”
“Want to watch it together over the phone and analyse Will Smith’s ears and acting ability?”
“Now that’s a conversation I can enjoy getting into.”
21
We’re invited to Uncle Joe’s house for dinner tonight. It’s Aunt Mandy’s birthday. She’s turning “forty-three”, although I’ve worked out the maths and she’s dreaming if she thinks she had Samantha when she was twenty. When I point this out to my parents in the car on our way they tell me to stop being disrespectful, but I catch them glancing at each other, stifling laughs.
When we arrive Samantha opens the front door and kisses us hello.
“Full-on religious look now, hey?” she says playfully, looking me up and down. It’s the first time I’ve come to their house wearing hijab as a “full-timer”.
“Yeah, because a jean jacket and cargos are really Koranic injunctions.” She punches me playfully on the shoulder and laughs.
George approaches me and scowls. “Your face looks fatter in a scarf.”
“Shut up, you dork.” Samantha aims a kick at him. He sticks his tongue out at us and runs out before we can attack him. Aunt Mandy walks down the staircase in stilettos and tight Capri pants, her peroxide hair reflecting the spotlights in the ceiling. Uncle Joe follows, his gold chains hanging down his shirt, tufts of black curly hair finding their way through the gaps between his shirt buttons. He’s wearing flip-flops and jeans. He’s fifty years old and uses more New Wave Gel than the guys at school.
“Happy birthday,” I say as Aunt Mandy comes over and kisses me hello.
“Thanks, darling,” she says. “You look so . . . different wearing that thing, Amal. A lot older. . .”
I fight back the temptation to remind her that she was born a brunette and her ankles are too thick for stilettos.
“Don’t sound so disappointed in her, Mandy,” my mum says, coming to my rescue. I want to give her a massive hug. “And I think Amal looks lovely.”
Aunt Mandy gives my mum a fake smile. “Oh, of course she does,” she coos. “Would you like to take if off now, Amal, sweetie?”
“Nah, I can’t be bothered. My hair’s a mess. Bad hair day. I’ll just leave it on.”
“Hmm, OK, it’s up to you.”
Samantha grabs my arm and pulls me towards the stairs. But Aunt Mandy insists we join them in the lounge room for a drink before dinner is served. “You’re young ladies now. You should join the adults.”
Samantha makes a retching sound and we reluctantly shuffle behind our parents.
The lounge room is decorated with little stuffed toys, koalas and kangaroos wearing T-shirts in the colours of the Australian flag. There’s a holder on the coffee table that’s filled with toothpicks with miniature flags stuck to their ends. The coasters are green and gold with the words Sydney 2000 written on them. I’ve never dared to ask where the Crocodile Dundee beanbag came from. I have a sneaking suspicion it’s handmade. I don’t think any free market would have the nerve to sell something so lame. The hands-down most hideous item in the room is the large oval mirror on top of the artificial fireplace with the metal frame. Every last inch of it is filled with magnets with messages such as, I’m a too right Aussie sheila or Strewth, let’s have a shrimp on the barbie. The room is like a holy shrine for those craving fairdinkumness and identity salvation.
After a short time of small talk, the doorbell rings. Uncle Joe answers it and ushers in a man who scans the room flashing us an enormous and sincere smile.
“This is Alan,” Uncle Joe says pompously. “He’s head of the department.”
“Just call me Joe’s boss,” Alan jokes good-naturedly. Uncle Joe roars with laughter, and Alan looks at him with a tinge of amusement, obviously aware that his joke was lame and that Uncle Joe is kissing butt big time.
As soon as Alan takes a seat, Aunt Mandy’s doting begins.
“Would you like a drink before dinner?” she asks.
“Yeah, mate, want a VB?” Uncle Joe interrupts in a let’s-try-an-ocker-accent. “You’ll probably cark it if you don’t get the grog in soon, hey mate?” He roars with laughter, slapping his hand on his knee. Samantha and I lock eyes and try not to gag.
“Oh, of course,” Aunt Mandy gushes. “I’ll get you a beer, Alan.”
“No thanks. Have you got any soda water?”
Uncle Joe and Aunt Mandy look puzzled. Samantha lets out a titter and slams her hand over her mouth.
There’s nothing weird about the fact that Alan’s sitting with us at a family get-together when none of us have ever met him. It’s part of the whole Joe and Mandy campaign to show off how Aussie they are.
Once it was their neighbour, Tim, a forty-five-year-old bachelor who had nothing to contribute to the conversation apart from endlessly blowing his nose because of the chilli in the food. The next time it was Uncle Joe’s work colleague, Matthew, who spent the night talking CD-roms and Java scripts with my dad and uncle. Another time it was Aunt Mandy’s gym buddy, Penny, who sat at the table counting calories and looking ill when my dad started carving the fat off the lamb roast.
The first few times, we just assumed Uncle Joe was being friendly, you know, introducing us to his friends and acquaintances. It all started to make sense when, during one dinner, he started raving about how “broad-minded” his family is for socializing with people “outside the Arabic community”.
Every time after that, it would be the same.
“We live in Australia,” he’d say. “So we should assimilate and act like Australians. How can we be accepted and fit in if we’re still thinking about Palestine and talking Arabic? Multiculturalism is a joke. We need to mix more. Make friends outside our own community. Look at my family. We’re not stuck in Palestinian or Egyptian or Turkish ghettos. We’re part of the wider community. Our friends, our colleagues, they’re all average Australians, not wogs.”
Matthew, Penny, Tim or whichever Anglo Uncle Joe delegated to grace our company with their superior
presence would nod politely.
Samantha and I usually roll our eyes at each other and ignore everybody. As for my parents? Well, with fifty-two years of Aussieness between them, they generally don’t swallow Uncle Joe’s performances and would be more likely to belly dance in Bourke Street mall in pink tutus then seek approval as Australians.
Tonight’s no exception. As we take our seats at the dining table, Aunt Mandy and my mum bring out the dishes. My mum’s shooting looks at me to come and help but I pretend I don’t notice and continue gossiping with Samantha.
When it comes to cooking, Aunt Mandy’s a star. Tonight she’s cooked makloba, a spicy rice dish with pieces of marinated lamb and fried cauliflower and eggplant. The spicy smells mingle with the scent of hot baked pastries of minced chicken and garlic. Next to the makloba is a huge plate of sliced potatoes and chicken breast swimming in bubbling hot cream, garnished with tarragon leaves and fried pine nuts. Beside that is a pyramid of tomatoes and zucchinis stuffed with rice cooked in tomato paste and minced meat. The food’s piping hot and the aromas tease our noses and stomachs until Aunt Mandy brings out the garden salad and insists that we dig in.
It’s going smoothly. My dad, Uncle Joe and Alan are talking football. Probably the one thing that my dad and uncle have in common. Aunt Mandy’s talking recipes with my mum, and Samantha and I are trying to decide whether Hugh Grant is cute or quirky.
But then, halfway through dinner, as I’m beginning to hope that we’ll get through the meal without being tortured with lectures about citizenship, Alan takes a bite of makloba and I want to run for cover.
“I love Middle Eastern food,” he says, smiling at us. “It’s so delicious, I could live on it! This meal is superb, Mandy, thanks very much.”
“Thank you!” Aunt Mandy says, beaming.
Alan takes another bite, unaware of the silence that has overcome his host.
Does My Head Look Big in This? Page 13