Hearts Unbroken

by Cynthia Leitich Smith

  Illustrating my point, the guy in the turkey costume jogged by, playfully chased by a guy in a Pilgrim costume wielding a plastic butcher knife, who, in turn, was playfully chased by a guy in a Hollywood Indian costume wielding a plastic tomahawk.

  All around us, people — families, kids — were laughing and taking photos of them, photos with them.

  “Yeah, Joey, I know what Arab Americans go through isn’t the exact same thing.”

  At that moment, he clearly realized that what I had to say was personal.

  Joey lowered the camera, closing the distance between us. “What are you doing?”

  “I’m apologizing,” I said. “Joey, I’m sorry. I’m sorry that I hurt you. I’m sorry that I pissed you off.

  “What I was trying to tell you that day is that I’m Native, so having to constantly deal with other’s people’s ignorant bullshit is something we have in common.”

  I gestured at the millennials jogging by with their shih tzu decked out in a fringed costume, complete with little snap-on feather headdress. “For example!”

  With a scowl, Joey took a moment to pack his camera. Runners still streaming around us, he said, “You knew there would be people here today in feathers and face paint?”

  There were more approaching in the crowd. “Yeah.”

  “You moved here late last December.” He sounded puzzled. “You weren’t at the Turkey Trot last year.”

  “Yeah,” I replied again. “But there’s one just like it — only bigger — in Austin.”

  Was that thunder in the distance?

  The sky had turned thick and yellow.

  “You know, your brother’s not the only one with a theatrical streak.” Joey put one arm around me and held the other out to signal stop to the approaching trotters, so we could exit to the sidelines. “Everything was fine,” he insisted. “That day, raking leaves with the puppies, we were fine. Solid. Happy. Until you started talking about . . .”

  He accepted a three-ounce paper cup from a volunteer and handed it to me. “Why on earth did you want to say all that? What the hell’s going on?”

  “Well, basically” — I downed the water in one gulp —“I didn’t want to have sex with you and find out the next day that you’re prejudiced against Native people.”

  He clenched his hair with both hands. “We’re having sex now?”

  “Don’t get ahead of yourself,” I scolded.

  “Me?” he exclaimed. “I’m getting ahead of myself?”

  That’s when the tornado sirens went ballistic.

  Hotvle rakko — I could see it! Overhead, a charcoal-gray funnel menaced from the west.

  Not a magical, musical, carousel-like portal but a raging wind monster.

  I wasn’t the only one who’d spotted it. The orderly flow of Turkey Trotters broke into chaos. “Emily!” I called. “Rebecca!” No use. They’d never hear me.

  The closest place to take shelter would be within the outdoor mall. But most of the shops didn’t open until ten a.m., assuming they’d open at all on Thanksgiving. The two breakfast restaurants were dicey strategic choices, heavy on glass windows and glass walls.

  Joey and I reached for each other’s hands. The early shows at the dine-in movie theater had already begun. I could sense the flock calculating, choosing it for shelter.

  A pebble struck my shoulder, another the top of my head.

  Not pebbles. “Hail!”

  Joey asked, “Do you trust me?”

  I did. His fingers threading mine, we sprinted as fast as we could, deeper into storm, past the yogurt shop and the bouncy-ball pit. Toward the twister.

  A sudden downpour of rain slicked the gold-brick walkways.

  The hail grew from pebble-size to dime size.

  Picking up the pace, I wished I’d never let Emily and Rebecca out of my sight.

  Had the tornado touched down in old town? Was my family safe? Shelby?

  What about my house? Oh, hell, the Headbirds weren’t supposed to move out of their trailer until the following week.

  I yelled, “Where’re we going?”

  “My Jeep!” Joey shouted.

  I knew damn well not to take refuge in any vehicle. But Joey hadn’t left it out in the open. He’d scored a spot inside the concrete parking garage. Once beneath its cover, we escaped the ferocious wind, the rain and pelting ice.

  But that wasn’t good enough. I sprinted after him to the Jeep and climbed inside. Then Joey drove us to the underground level and parked again.

  “What am I doing?” He reached for the door handle. “I should be out there, filming —”

  I grabbed his chin, turned his face toward mine. “If you get out of this car, so help me, Joseph A. Kairouz, I will never forgive you. Never.”

  It was vexing how amused he looked when confronted by the full force of my ferocity.

  “Sorry,” he replied. “I didn’t mean to freak you out.”

  While he pouted about being stuck inside alive, I checked my phone.

  Mama had sent a family selfie (dogs and all) from my cousins’ basement, begging to know where I was, if I was okay. I texted one word in reply: Safe.

  Another ping! Another photo. The Headbird family was with them; Dmitri and Marie were making funny faces in the upturned flashlight beam.

  Ping! Shelby was at home with her dad, playing poker by candlelight.

  Apparently, both old town and East Hannesburg had lost electricity.

  My thumbs flying, I texted Emily.

  Ping! She and Rebecca were holed up in the ladies’ room at Eggcellent Morning Café.

  Brightening, Joey reached to cradle my hands. “This is better.”

  “Are we better?” I angled my lips toward his. “Are you still —?”

  His kiss answered my question. His tongue erased lingering doubts.

  I slid my hands up the back of his T-shirt, broke contact long enough to slip it over his wet hair. Then he returned the favor.

  His mouth was grazing my shoulder when I unbuttoned the top of his waistband.

  So perfect, so passionate, except . . . have you ever tried to get busy in bucket seats or wiggle out of wet jeans in a Jeep?

  It takes concentration and once the denim is past your booty, you have to shove it down your thighs. Honestly, it would be easier to get the hell out of the car, only that busts the whole über-romantic life-or-death scenario.

  And then your boyfriend says, “I don’t have a condom.” But he slips two fingers into the front of your panties. “Do you?”

  It was oh so hard to concentrate with him doing that. “No, but do you want to . . . ?”

  We ended up in the back seat, where Joey did something that made concentrating impossible.

  Impossible. I briefly stuttered on trust, battled embarrassment, wondered if his forearms would cramp in that position and thanked heaven that I’d showered with lilac body wash.

  “You should text your mom,” I choked out. “Let her know where you are.”

  He stopped what he was doing to smile up at me. “Now?”

  Valid point. “Never mind. Network’s probably overloaded.”

  “Wait,” Joey said. “Was that a ‘No, don’t do that anymore’ or an ‘I’m not sure’?”

  “Not a no.” I bent one arm behind the back of my head to cushion it. The damn shoulder belt kept catching on my hair. “More like an attack of over-responsibility.”

  One more wrong word, and I’d kill the mood entirely.

  “How about a ‘Yes, please, Joey?’ ” I added. “How’s that?”

  “Works for me.” He dropped a kiss on my hip bone. “Don’t you just love tornadoes?”

  I’m still not sure what he got out of it. But I had no doubt that Joey had forgiven me, no doubt that he’d accepted all of who I am. And together, we weathered the storm.

  We talked. We listened. In stops and starts, then as steady as the pouring rain.

  He talked more than I did because I’d already had so much of my say.


  “It’s like you were so busy trying to patch things up that you never stopped to really think through how what you said had affected me,” my boyfriend explained.

  He was right. I admitted that, let it sink in deep and kept listening.

  Still in the back seat, Joey added, “On the porch, I was shocked. You caught me completely off guard.”

  He brushed aside a strand of my hair. “Lou, I know you. I’ve met your family and your friends. I’ve been in your house. I’ve seen your mother’s ginormous nonfiction collection. I’d already figured out that you’re . . . Muscogee? Or, uh, Native at least.”

  He’d been paying attention, echoing the words I’d used to define myself.

  “I’d obviously fallen for you,” Joey said. “Being Native is a big part of who you are. So why would you think I’d have a problem with that?”

  I liked hearing that he’d fallen for me. Shifting my head on his bare shoulder, I agreed with Joey that, yes, we had been fine. Better than fine. But not everyone thought the way he did. I’d needed reassurance, especially after having dated Cam.

  Joey said he honestly hadn’t thought much about Indigenous people, but he had zero problem with us and was open to learning more and, by the way, he could happily live the rest of his life without ever hearing Cam Ryan’s name again.

  We found our way back to laughter, then desire, then, finally, to peace.

  Our jeans hadn’t had time to dry, and, in the tight space, they were a bitch to yank back on. “Want to invite your mom to my cousins’ house for dinner?” I asked.

  “You sure?” Joey replied. “Your family wouldn’t mind?”

  I sucked in my belly to zip. “Uh, really, no. Everybody’s welcome. Shelby will be there with her dad. And the Headbird family, too.”

  Joey managed to pull himself together enough to text his mom and three-point turn the car around. We hadn’t parked in a space per se — they’d all been full. Instead, he’d taken the opening in front of an exit door, leading to the stairs.

  The radio station was playing “Jingle Bell Rock.”

  “I was just thinking.” Joey steered his Jeep up the incline. “Last Christmas, I stayed at my dad’s crash pad in Kansas City and we did presents in the morning. Then he dropped me off at our old house in Overland Park and I went through the motions all over again with Mom.”

  The next song up was “O Tannenbaum.” I thought of the blessed relief I’d felt earlier when I’d confirmed that my family was still safe and whole.

  A different kind of storm had changed Joey’s life forever. Having faith in the two of us was probably hard for him, too, for his own reasons. It was important for me to remember that.

  He added, “My sister had ditched all of us to go skiing with a bunch of her college friends in Winter Park, Colorado.” We rounded a concrete pillar. “It wasn’t the worst day of my life, but it didn’t feel like . . .”

  “A holiday?” I’d sort of assumed his parents were an interfaith couple, his mom Christian and his dad Muslim. Somewhere along the way, I’d picked up that unmarried Muslims probably weren’t supposed to do what we’d just done in the back seat, but it’s not like unmarried Christians were supposed to, either. Or, on second thought, I’d never heard a peep in church on that specific subject, so maybe it was open to interpretation.

  I dearly hoped it was open to interpretation.

  As the Jeep exited the garage, I risked the question. “Do both of your parents believe in, uh, Christmas?”

  “For sure,” Joey said. “Personally, I’m more of a spiritual guy than a religious guy, but me and Santa are tight. Why?”

  Turkey Trotters had begun to cautiously emerge from their shelters, their eyes to the clearing sky. The rain and hail had stopped. The sun was peeking out from behind the clouds. But the run was obviously cancelled.

  “No reason,” I replied, using my phone to quickly and covertly do a search for Lebanese Christians, which, apparently, there are plenty of. In fact, most Arab Americans are Christians.

  I had no desire to fumble another conversation, so I left it at that.

  It struck me, not for the first time, how much I didn’t know that I didn’t know.

  Ping! Emily had sent me a smiley face and a turkey emoji.

  I responded with a thumbs-up emoji, L+J, and a red heart emoji.

  A moment later, she sent a close-up selfie of herself and Rebecca, cheek to cheek, with beaming smiles and a red heart emoji of their own.

  From the looks of things, the storm had grown worse before subsiding. Plummeting hail had dented vehicles, cracked and broken windshields. It littered the parking lot. The race banners, water dispensers, little paper cups, and reception tent were strewn all over the place.

  As for the outdoor mall, the landscaping had taken a hit. But aside from a few broken windows, the buildings were intact, the walls standing, the roofs where roofs belonged.

  Ping! Joey’s mom texted that she’d love to come to dinner. I grabbed his phone, sent my cousins’ street address, and said we’d meet her there after checking on my house.

  Then, using my own phone, I texted my cousin Rain, telling her to expect more company.

  Ping! Ping! Karishma texted Joey and me both, asking if we were safe and if we’d cover the storm for the Hive. Our answer of course was yes.

  “I can salvage footage from the Trot,” Joey said. “I also shot the pre-race crowd before I saw you. We can use it to open our story on the tornado.”

  Joey and I drove to my subdivision. On the way, he pulled over to the side of the road and, without a word, we traded places. He lowered the passenger-side window and turned on his camera. I took the wheel.

  Moving on, he shot fallen tree trunks and hefty branches, some partly blocking the street. Water pooled in low-lying areas. A doghouse had been blown to pieces.

  Joey kept bitching about the equipment he didn’t have with him. I could tell he was still quietly kicking himself for not filming the twister itself. That he longed to stop along the way, take his time, but I had to hurry. I needed to report in to my family.

  So far, it could’ve been worse. The residential damage seemed more on par with a severe thunderstorm. But twisters are capricious. They’ll level a home and spare the one next door.

  Beyond the Emerald Hills entrance, the sugar maples along the avenue had taken a beating. A play structure had careened to one side. The New Homes for Sale signs were missing.

  I swerved to avoid a portable grill in an intersection.

  On my cul-de-sac, we spotted two brown terriers from down the street, gingerly making their way out from under another neighbor’s deck, and returned them to their relieved owners.

  Moving on, at the house across from mine, the bubbler fountain had toppled, cracked.

  I could already hear chain saws — just in time for firewood season.

  I’d briefly forgotten about the paint on my garage door until Joey pulled into my driveway. The plastic sheet Daddy had hung over it had blown into our front lawn.

  “There is no place like home.”

  Go back to where you came from.

  “Is there something you want to tell me?” Joey asked, eyes wide.

  “Walk and talk.” Getting out of the Jeep, I launched into a recap, leaving Daniel, Peter, and the failed arson attempt out of it. “You can check out Alexis’s article and my editorial in Tuesday’s special issue of the Hive.” We circled the property, surveying for damage.

  “The one time I skip reading my own school newspaper.” He glanced down at me. “I mean, our school newspaper.”

  “Ours,” I agreed. “At first, the families decided as a group to keep quiet about what was going on.” A curved, thick branch teetered on the corner of my garage roof.

  “Are you mad that I didn’t say anything before?” I asked, storing the newly folded plastic sheet beneath a chair on the porch. “You know, since we were covering the story for the Hive?”

  Joey dropped a reassuring kiss on the top of my he
ad. “I’m mad at whoever went after Hughie and his friends like that. I wish you’d felt like you could’ve come to me.”

  I wanted to say it was all behind us now. I did have hope that Daniel’s conversation with Pastor Ney would make a difference, but . . . “People like that, they’re not going anywhere.”

  Joey squared his broad shoulders. “Neither are we.”

  I texted Mama reassuring photos. Our new home was safe, secure, down to the very last hobbit hole, though the tiny ceramic turkeys had been lost to the wind.

  Joey and I followed the rainbow to my cousins’ yard, transformed for the festivities — picnic tables, heat lamps, bulb lights strung from tree to tree. Mason jars of sunflowers.

  Half the neighborhood was already there. Everyone with their own story to share, I was sure, though power had been restored and old town had been spared the brunt of the storm.

  The gravel driveway was full. A half dozen cars and trucks crowded the side yard.

  Joey left the Jeep parked all the way down the dead-end street.

  As we approached, I spotted Dmitri and Marie carrying out platters of food, Hughie tossing horseshoes with Shelby. The puppies frolicked in the grass with Rain’s black Lab.

  Mama and Daddy waved like they hadn’t seen me in years. I waved back.

  I love who I am. I love my family, my friends, my Native Nation. I love Kansas. And chances are pretty kick-ass that I love Joey, too.

  Pu fvckvkes. We are happy.

  My arm circled his waist. His arm circled my shoulders. He asked, “Do Native people believe in Thanksgiving?”

  I kissed him. “We believe in gratitude.”

  As a Kansas teen, I displayed a collection of Oz holiday ornaments in a row on top of my robin’s-egg-blue dresser in my bedroom. I loved how much Dorothy loved her home, and to this day, I still think flying monkeys are the stuff of nightmares.