by Alia Yunis
Have you ever thought about how many great-grandparents I have? Eight. And you and Mr. Abdullah are the only ones still alive. That must make you feel pretty good. On the other hand, I’m sorry to hear about your divorce. I doubt yours was as easy as Brenda’s and Tyrone’s because they didn’t have anything to divide except me. And Tyrone let her keep his half of me. As far as divorced teenage dads go, I was pretty lucky. Tyrone eventually bought that gas station where he worked, and he sends me money every month. And I go to see him every now and then, and he calls me once a week so we can talk about my college plans. He’d be pissed off big time if I didn’t go to med school. Tyrone says that although he knows Dr. Wang hates him, he cared about education more than anything and that’s why he respects him. Brenda says if it weren’t for me, she probably would have become a nuclear physicist because that’s the least Dr. Wang would have expected. She says she wouldn’t have minded because she liked science a lot. Brenda also says Dr. Wang doesn’t like me because I’m half black. But the truth is he blames me for Brenda not having the time to become a nuclear physicist. Brenda makes it a racial thing and stuff so I don’t take it personally. Tyrone says that Dr. Wang might not be a racist but he’s an ass. Dr. Wang and Gran got separated over me 17 years ago. But Brenda and Gran say not to think of it that way. That would be like you, Mrs. Abdullah, not forgiving yourself for Gran and Dr. Wang getting separated the first time, on account of all of the nagging of you and Mr. Abdullah and Dr. Wang’s parents, and all the ensuing fighting between Gran and Dr. Wang.
Despite her bad role models, I think Brenda would really like to get married. I mean why else would she be dating so many policyholders? It’s not just for sex. Everyone on TV with all their kissy faces and stuff make you think there’s nothing better. But I think it’s like a drug—a happy feeling that lasts a really short time and then you have to pay for it for the rest of your life. But don’t worry, I’m a good girl—I don’t do drugs. Even if I wasn’t a good girl, I’m sure I’d never do drugs because I’d be allergic to them. Still Gran always gives me a gift certificate to Marshall Field’s every Christmas just for not doing drugs.
I tell Brenda that it’s not like second chances never work. Tyrone’s been married to the same woman since I was two, so that’s a pretty long time. She’s fat and always lecturing everyone on what they’re doing wrong so I call her the Holy Roly Mother. She doesn’t like me, and neither do their three kids. Sometimes I try and talk all hip-hop and stuff around them so they’ll like me, but I don’t do it very well. They don’t even bother to laugh at me. But Gran insists I stay in touch with them. She says they’re the closest people I have to siblings and you never know when I might need them for an organ donation or something. She’s a doctor, so she thinks about these things.
Gran says that you were very proud of her becoming a doctor but didn’t like Dr. Wang because he wasn’t from your village. I have to say that I don’t agree. There are a whole heck of a lot things I don’t like about Dr. Wang that have nothing to do with him not being from your village. Like how he abandoned his favorite daughter and how he doesn’t like Tyrone. Dr. Wang’s parents were FOBs like you but from China, which really isn’t that different from your village in Lebanon, if you think about the rice in your families. Both Dr. Wang and Gran told Brenda that a meal almost always had to have rice because that’s how they grew up. So they had more in common with each other than regular Americans, who wouldn’t have needed rice at every meal, maybe would have even preferred potatoes. And you know what? I prefer rice to potatoes.
We studied Lebanon in school a little. Hopefully, all the bad stuff is exaggerated, in the way that people think everyone in the Midwest is fat and likes to go bowling. Still, I guess it’s good you left all that trouble. And if you hadn’t come here, Gran would have never met Dr. Wang, and Brenda wouldn’t have ever been born and met Tyrone, and then I wouldn’t have ever been born. So thanks for coming to America.
Do you ever wonder what the world would be like without all the people that you helped somehow bring into it? From what Gran says it sure seems like a lot of people.
“I’m freezing,” Brenda announced as she returned. She opened her compact to wipe away some ketchup. Then she offered it to Decimal, as she always did.
“I can’t look at myself today,” Decimal said. “And you’re freezing because that’s what happens when you walk around a hospital without a coat. Eat a breath mint. That will calm you down.”
Brenda smirked before she opened her purse so that Decimal could see that she hadn’t lifted any breath mints. But now there were two Beanie Babies in one bag.
“They have a psychology department on the second floor,” Decimal said, and went back to writing.
I look at myself in the mirror a lot. I guess most teens do. But today …
“Decimal, what time is it?” Decimal looked up to find Brenda jiggling her leg and shaking her watch as if she could make it work that way. Decimal grabbed the watch from Brenda.
“It just needs a new battery,” Decimal explained. “I’ll get one after school tomorrow.”
“Tomorrow, honey?” said Brenda. “I don’t think—”
“Do you like Mrs. Abdullah?” Decimal interrupted.
“Right, your letter,” Brenda said after a final shake of her watch. “We were here in Minneapolis, and she was all the way over in Detroit. Like Dr. Wang would say, when you have so little vacation time, do you really want to spend it in Detroit?”
“Did she knit you sweaters and bake cookies and stuff?” Decimal said, thinking of all the things Gran didn’t do.
“She didn’t have time for that,” Brenda said. “Shit, she was a raising a boy and a girl that weren’t much older than me. I would have just died if I had more kids. Do you believe I have an aunt that’s only like six years older than me? I got cousins older than my aunt.”
“That’s far out,” Decimal said, trying to sound amazed.
“That aunt, Lena. She lives in NYC, New York,” Brenda raved. “She must be almost forty by now, totally single and free and stuff and I bet gets weekly massages and pedicures—how glamorous is that, you know?”
“Well, maybe we could go visit her one day,” Decimal suggested.
“That life’s not for people who screwed up,” Brenda said.
“Gee, thanks, Mom.”
“I screwed it up in the best possible way, honey.” Brenda smiled. She kissed the top of Decimal’s head. “As long as you don’t do the same.”
Brenda’s cell phone rang again. Decimal sneezed and handed her another pen.
“This is a big one, Decimal, a company policy,” Brenda practically bubbled when she looked at the incoming number. She handed her phone to Decimal. “Make it sound good.”
“Brenda Wang’s office,” Decimal said very efficiently, deepening her voice a third of an octave and holding her leg down to stop it from jiggling. “Just one moment, please.”
“What in the world would I do without you?” Brenda whispered. “Hello, hello,” she said to the phone, walking away.
Like I was saying, I look at myself in the mirror a lot. I see sickly and pimply, but I don’t see Arab, or Chinese, or Black. I do see someone who could definitely pass for Latino but not a hot one like Shakira or Jennifer Lopez. The good thing about not looking Black, Chinese, or Arab is that I’ve never been a victim of a hate crime, at least not for what I really am. Once a couple of black kids called me a wetback and a white kid called me a Spic. But since I’m not Latino, I didn’t get offended. I bet I could have marked Latino on all those college applications. It would require three less pen checks than marking Asian, Caucasian, African-American, and Other on college applications—or on Match.com, if I end up trying that out in my lifetime, although Brenda says it’s totally not worth it. But marking Latino would be a lie. Then again I love tacos, but I don’t know how to eat with chopsticks, don’t get turned on by Barry White, and I’m allergic to something in falafel. I used to think I would look w
eird ice fishing, but once someone thought I was Eskimo, so I guess I could go ice fishing one day if Brenda would ever want to do anything fun. But she says we spend too much time freezing in medical plazas, so there’s no need to go freeze our asses off on the lake and stuff.
“Aren’t you Dr. Abdullah’s granddaughter?” a nurse asked Decimal.
“Is she in today?” Decimal said.
“Isn’t she always?” said the nurse. “You have a super day now.”
Decimal held an insincere smile until the nurse was gone. Then she went to the attending desk nurse. “How much longer is it going to be?” she inquired.
“Just a few minutes, hon,” the nurse answered. That meant at least another fifty-five minutes. Decimal grabbed some extra Kleenex and went to the pervert. “If my sister comes back up, tell her I went downstairs to see our mom for a minute.”
Decimal walked across the street to the Boynton Student Health Center, where Hala counseled university girls on birth control and safe sex and did pregnancy and Pap smears for them. A grateful patient had given Hala flowers, and so Decimal’s arrival was announced with an allergic sneeze. Hala, the white of the coat highlighting the white in hair that she hadn’t had a chance to cover in months, hugged Decimal tightly, as if she hadn’t just seen her at breakfast.
“Hi, sweetie.” Hala smiled. “What are you doing here?”
“We had an appointment over at Fairview. I thought I’d come up and say hi.” Decimal shrugged. “I don’t need money or anything.”
She sneezed again, and Hala moved the flowers.
“How is your new hay fever prescription working out?” Hala asked.
“I printed out my scholarship applications for Arizona State and Stanford,” Decimal said by way of answer. “I’m still counting on a school giving me a 50 percent scholarship.”
“That’s great, sweetie,” Hala said. “But if it doesn’t happen, look what I was reading in the Minnesota Daily.”
Hala showed Decimal an article she had clipped from the university’s newspaper. “See, 73.8 percent of the new freshmen this year were from the top 20 percent of their class,” Hala read. “I know you have your heart set on seeing the world, but there are summer internships you could do that would take you to other places.”
Hala wanted her to go to the university and keep living with her and Brenda. She also wanted Decimal to go to an Ivy League school to make up for Brenda. Decimal didn’t want to set Hala’s expectations up for either option, although the percentage of schools that would accept her was very high.
“I guess we’ll see who ends up giving me the best scholarship,” Decimal said.
“So smart.” Hala beamed.
“Could I get Mrs. Abdullah’s address from you?” Decimal asked.
“Whose address?”
“Your mother’s.”
“Why in the world would you want her address?”
Decimal explained her school project. “After our teacher grades it, I really do want to send it to her,” Decimal said. “That’d be cool.”
“But she doesn’t know about—” Hala stopped herself. “Well, she’s quite old.”
“That’s why I’m writing to her.”
“Well …”
“Well what, Gran?”
Hala looked at her file cabinet, where a black-and-white photo of Fatima in her wedding dress rested.
“She sure was pretty,” Decimal said.
“I’ve never heard anyone say that about her before,” Hala remarked. “I have her address at home. I’ll give it to you tonight.”
“You better put it on your list,” Decimal recommended, and Hala pulled out a notebook and wrote “mom’s address.”
“I got to get going before they call my name and I’m not there,” Decimal said, for once sweating in her wool.
Back on the second floor, the pervert told Decimal that her sister had come back up and then gone downstairs. Decimal was sure she had gone to see Dr. Wang. She sat back down and saw another Beanie Baby on the chair. After today, Decimal decided, she’d make stopping the shoplifting her top priority. She jiggled her leg for a few seconds and began writing again.
I just saw your photo in Gran’s office. I love your wedding dress. Did you look different before and after you were married? When I look in the mirror sometimes, I wonder what I would look like if I were married. Did you know that Brenda is setting up Gran on a date with a lawyer who took the PPO 250 plan? That’s a very low deductible, which is often a sign of wealth and good self-preservation. But I don’t think Gran will go for it. She has never actually divorced Dr. Wang. But Brenda thinks Gran should get married again. I do too, but married back to Dr. Wang, even though he doesn’t like me. And even though Dr. Wang doesn’t like me, I’d like to know more about China. And I’d like to know a little more about being Arab or Lebanese or Muslim and stuff. Maybe if I did, I would understand why people could be so angry that they would hijack planes and kill all those people. I mean I get to feeling pretty bad about my life, waiting in doctors’ offices for most of it, but I’d be much more likely to kill myself—but only myself.
Brenda came back and handed Decimal a Toblerone and its receipt.
“Dr. Gupta said I shouldn’t eat chocolate, and the Beanie Babies are lame,” Decimal said. “You don’t even like cute things.”
She stuck the Toblerone in Brenda’s purse. Then she pulled it back out.
“You know what,” Decimal continued. “I’m going to return this and the Beanie Babies myself.”
“What are you going to tell them?” Brenda wondered. “You forgot to pay for them?”
“Why don’t you go tell them that?”
“I went over to immunology and showed Dr. Wang your SAT scores,” Brenda answered as she took the chocolate back. “My baby, my National Merit scholar, can just name any college she wants. You know what he said? ‘Well, at least the girl is going to college.’ Screw him.”
“I’m surprised you’ve waited this long to throw my scores in his face,” Decimal said.
“Oh, I’ve shown him before. I just wanted to show him again,” Brenda boasted. “They’re having a charity bazaar downstairs to raise money for the bloodmobiles. They got some cute pot holders.”
“You don’t even cook.”
“But I know people who do. Maybe I could buy Gran something,” Brenda said. “I’ll be back in five minutes.”
“You’re going to miss the appointment,” Decimal said, worried.
“I have never missed any of our appointments,” Brenda reminded her.
“Don’t forget your policy folder,” Decimal said, holding it up for Brenda. “You never know who you might meet looking for insurance in a place like this.”
Brenda sashayed back for the folder. “You’re so right. What in the world would I do without you?”
Brenda had come and gone so many times in the last seventy-four minutes that even the pissed-off pervert had lost interest in watching her jiggle her leg as she waited for the elevator. Decimal rolled up the collar on her sweater and picked up her pen.
Did I tell you that I got a boyfriend? Imagine someone actually liking me. We were both working at the drive thru at Mc-Donald’s in Dinkytown because our teachers told us that it looked good on a college application to have tried making money. Paolo can’t eat anything with peanut oil, just like me, so I started bringing him lunch and then he’d bring me lunch and then sometimes we’d play Xbox together or go look at the animal dioramas at the Bell Museum and we fool around a little but only with each other. We hold hands and talk and stuff, too. Paolo is from Brazil. He came here with his mother like ten years ago. She’s an associate professor of psychology and stuff. Get this, his grandparents went to Brazil from Syria, which is right next to Lebanon. You know how Hala says that you wanted her to marry an Arab? Well, if I were to marry Paolo, that would be coming full circle for you because I’d be marrying an Arab. But I probably won’t marry Paolo, for many reasons. One of the important reasons is tha
t I don’t want to be hit. Paolo has never hit me, but the reason his mother left his father in Brazil was because he used to hit her and Paolo and give them black eyes and everything, even though he was a professor and stuff just like her. He’d say he was sorry, too, but then he’d do it again. Anyway, boys who grow up around a man like that often become abusers themselves. That’s in all the magazines in all the doctor offices. You know physical abuse is not thoroughly covered in insurance policies, which is a shame Brenda says considering how much abuse is around.
Another thing is I don’t think Paolo and I are in love. I’ve taken love quizzes in Cosmo, Self, and Glamour at several doctors’ offices, but none came out definite. I think you have to have a comparison point. I’ll probably only know if I loved Paolo when I get another boyfriend and can match up their good and bad qualities and see who comes out on top. I don’t know what married looks like, but I don’t think Paolo and I look married. He’s way too handsome to be married to someone like me. He’s handsome like if his mom were a supermodel and married a supermodel, not like those supermodels that have kids with old rock stars. And it’s not like we’re really inseparable, which Brenda says married people are supposed to be. But I’m very grateful to Paolo for liking me.
“Decimal, exactly what are you doing down here?” Hala stood over Decimal minus her white coat. Two nurses waved at her as they passed by.
“Stuff,” said Decimal. “Right now, I’m writing to your mother.”
“Is Brenda in with the doctor already?” Hala demanded to know.
“No, she went to help with the blood drive,” Decimal said. She wished she had a college acceptance letter or another scholarship application to distract her grandmother.
The elevator dinged open, and there was the distraction. Brenda exited the elevator escorted by Bob, a university security guard who had known Brenda and Decimal for years.
Bob looked at Hala and then at Brenda. “I thought you didn’t want me to let your mom know you were in the building,” he said. “And then you take me right to her.”