by Jodie Toohey
“There’s my Amicus Lambicus!” I rolled my eyes. My dad hadn’t called me that since I was three years old. He reached his hand toward my head but I ducked away.
“Hi, Dad.”
Nikki stood behind Dad, her hands tucked into a crisp, pale yellow trench coat, even though there were only three clouds in the entire sky.
“You remember Nikki?” my dad said.
How could I forget Nikki? I thought. Her make-up made me think she was confused; like she was expecting to meet a political dignitary or Oscar winner rather than her sugar-daddy’s three kids. Her hair was perfect; each strand carefully arranged to be stylish, but just out of place enough to remind the world she was young and hip. I thought it likely she used more hairspray in one day than my mother used in her entire life. But I guess if what Dad likes are perfectly imperfect-haired trophies, my mom deserved better anyway.
Nikki crouched down like she was summoning a puppy, “Hi Ami! I’m so excited to spend time with you. I thought we could have a spa day, get our hair done, and do our nails. How does that sound?” Her voice was high and mousy.
I thought about informing her I was not five years old, but instead waved my stub-nailed fingers in front of her. “I don’t have any nails to do,” I said, but she didn’t get it.
“Oh, that’s all right; we’ll just stick with the hair then.” She stood back up, tilted her head, and gave me an empty grin. Now I felt even more like a puppy; one who you just realized will take more training than you had thought, but you cannot be angry with it because, after all, it is just a puppy.
My mom hugged Prio, Forti, and then me. She whispered, “Be polite,” in my ear.
Forti and Prio chatted with my dad and Nikki all the way to their new house, which was bigger than our own. Nikki curtseyed and waved us inside.
“Isn’t it adorable?” she said. “We had it professionally decorated.” A white couch faced a gas fireplace and a blue throw blanket was arranged over the arm. Perfectly imperfect. My dad sat on the couch and patted the cushion next to him.
“Where am I sleeping?” I asked.
“I’ll show you in a couple of minutes. Why don’t you come sit down? We can catch up and decide what we want to do this week.”
“I’m really tired. Can I just take a nap?”
Nikki clapped her hands. “Of course you can.” She took my hand and led me up the stairs to a guest room. I shut the door behind me, pretending I didn’t see Nikki standing there. I lay down on top of the covers on the bed, feeling righteous and ashamed. After a few minutes, I heard Prio, Forti, Nikki, and Dad laughing down the stairs. I took my paper and pen from my duffle bag, turned onto my side, and wrote Nada back.
*****
August 16, 1991
Dear Nada,
I hope you are okay. Once in a while they show the fighting on the news and it looks horrible. I have not heard any mention of fighting in Rijeka so I am hopeful you are safe. I cannot imagine living in a country where there is fighting of war. Do you have to stay inside your house all day yet? Have you still been able to ride your bike or see your friends? I hope you are not too bored.
I am supremely bored. I am at my dad’s and nitwit-Nikki’s new house this week. We just got here. My dad and Nikki have promised to go to all of the places and do all of the things he ever casually mentioned we would do when he became a doctor. It is like he just remembered he had kids. Forti and Prio are so happy because Dad and Nikki usually buy them everything they act even remotely interested in. Guilt gifts; that’s what they are. Forti and Prio may be bought, but I am not for sale. Don’t get me wrong; I like gifts as much as anyone else and I’m not going to turn them down, but it doesn’t mean I’m going to suddenly forget everything he has done. Do you know what I mean?
Emily will be gone five months on the 25th. It is getting harder and harder to picture her in my mind. Every time I try to think about what her face looked like, the image is not her, but just a photograph I remember seeing. The only image I can remember which is not a photograph is her little lifeless body in her casket. I can’t wait to go back to school; at least then I will have something else to think about.
I also cannot wait for next Sunday when I can go back home to my own room and my own bed. I am never able to sleep when I’m not at home. I hope Forti and Prio get enough sleep or I won’t be able to stand them. All they will do is whine and complain. It is sometimes hard for me to be a big sister. Is it ever difficult for you to be a big sister?
My school starts in a little more than one week. I really want to get a boyfriend this year. I have been developing a plan of action if I find a boy I become interested in. I am going to do something different by playing it cool and pretending I just want to be friends. So step one is to casually smile and say, “Hi,” to him. I am still working on steps two, three, four, etc.
I hope everything is well with you. Write me back when you can.
Your friend,
Ami
CHAPTER ELEVEN
I hadn’t realized how much I’d actually looked forward to going to my dad’s until it was over and I became more depressed. The Thursday before school started, I was finally able to get out for a walk and be by myself. Even though I had been surrounded by people almost constantly over the past of couple of weeks, I still felt alone. I thought about Nada and her Mate. I tried to imagine what it would feel like to know, even if I couldn’t be with someone in person, they were somewhere out there caring about me and loving me. I needed a boyfriend. I rushed home to write down the rest of my plan to get one. First, I would look for someone I thought I wanted to be my boyfriend; then, when I’d decided, I would smile and say hello three times before I spoke to him. I would be subtle but persistent; there enough so he’d notice but not so much he would think I was stalking him. Then at the right time, I would offer to help him with his school work (or pretend I needed help with mine) and hopefully the rest would flow naturally.
Monday, August 26, 1991, was the first day of tenth grade. I was not the same person I was the last time I was in school; everything was different. I didn’t have many first days of school left at that building. Next year, I would be a junior, then a senior, and then I would be in college. After that, I would never really be home again. Many times, I didn’t feel like I was actually home then; I felt more like a transient, just passing through on my way to where I was really going. But where was I really going? I started with homeroom. I greeted all of the same faces that had been in my classes the past ten years.
“Ami.” Krissa waved from a table in the back of the room. She tapped the top of the white plastic in the space next to her. “Sit here.”
The metal chair scraped against the linoleum floor and I sat. The top of the table was marred with black; I tried to sweep the marks away with my hand but they were branded into the plastic, showing the use of the last three years since the school district decided to phase out lone-standing desks and fade in more flexible plastic garage-sale tables.
“How was your summer?” Krissa was cheerful, apparently not remembering the hell I went through toward the end of the school year. She had called me twice but I didn’t want to talk, so I didn’t answer and I didn’t call her back. It hadn’t seemed fair she could be living out her life happy and carefree while I was being forced to attempt to live life without Emily. It felt like that a little as I listened to Krissa talk about her summer; the vacation she went on with her family to Lake Tahoe and the afternoons she spent lounging at the city swimming pool. I felt somewhat betrayed by her oblivion to the fact I spent those same afternoons home alone trying to hold on to my sanity, but I had made an important decision about my life. So to honor the promise I made to myself, I smiled, listened, and nodded occasionally to present the impression I was interested.
“My mom said I can have a few friends over on Saturday night for a back-to-school get together; do you want to come?”
“Sure.” My new plan for life seemed to be working. The last spot on our s
ix-foot table was still empty when the tardy bell rang. I began to push the empty chair away to make more elbow room for Krissa when I looked up to see an unfamiliar face approaching. It was tan with brown eyes and short, straight brown hair which stood out from the disgusting short on top, long and curly in the back mullets that seemed to be the fad among the other boys at school. I frantically tried to remember the boyfriend-getting plan I had devised over the weekend and whispered, “Hi,” as the boy sat down next to me. He smiled as he pulled his chair in closer to the table. I noticed he looked somewhat uncomfortable scrunched up against the table legs; then I looked over at Krissa and realized why. I scooted my chair back to the middle of the table. I said, “Sorry,” to the grey specks in the plastic and didn’t turn my head for the rest of homeroom to see if the new boy noticed my hands shaking as I tried to write notes about this year’s rules and procedures.
CHAPTER TWELVE
A little over a week later, I received a letter from Nada dated the exact day school started.
*****
26 August 1991
Dear Ami,
Tata has been in Italy for a month. He finally came home to visit for the weekend last Friday. Maja and I rode our bikes all morning. Though the air was cloudy, we were filled with sunshine at thought of our family being together again. We struggled to propel our bicycles up steep hill toward our house. Our legs strained to rotate pedals. It was time for lunch and I was hungry. My stomach growled loudly and I giggled. I concentrated on pushing the pedals, my head down. When Maja stopped giggling with me and didn’t ask what was so funny, I looked up thinking maybe she fell behind or raced ahead. But she was right there only a few feet in front of me, standing still and silent. I followed her eyes up the hill where a group of girls gathered in street. Some of them I recognized as my friends from school. I jumped off my bicycle and walked it up the hill to get a closer look. Maja followed. When I got closer, I saw Milana, a girl from my block who was a Serb like me. She was crying as girls surrounding her taunted her. They called her a dirty Serb and told her to go back to where she belongs. They said to go back to Serbia. Milana tried to tell them she’d never been to Serbia and her parents had never been to Serbia but they said they didn’t care. They told her all Serbs need to go back to Serbia.
A pressure built in my chest. I didn’t know what to do. I wanted to tell them to stop it, but I was afraid if I did, they would do the same thing to me even though some of them are my friends. It is complicated. They know I am a Serb but for some reason they are still my friends. They told me I don’t act like a Serb. But how does a Serb act? I knew nothing other than pure luck of why Milana attracted ridicule for being Serb while my sister and I did not.
Milana’s eyes met mine a moment before I turned and hurried with my bike to my house. As I worked with Maja to clean the house this afternoon, I noticed the clouds more than I had earlier in the day. It was not fair that Milana would be taunted and I would not. But it also was not fair that I was Serb and they were not. It was not fair we had to live alone while Tata worked in Italy.
The excitement bubbling in me at the thought of seeing Tata again, melted away. Mama came home and quickly changed clothes. She placed ingredients for our Gulas: beef, salt, pepper, paprika, bay leaf, and potatoes for boiling and serving under the Gulas onto counters. She flipped through the mail waiting in a stack on the kitchen table. Maja and I chatted with her about what time Tata would be home and how we would spend his weekend visit. She loosened the envelopes’ flaps, examined contents, and then filed the bills and threw the advertisements in trash. Luckily there were no threat letters today.
We cooked supper as we waited for Tata. The clock did not seem to move. When the cuckoo announced seven o’clock and Tata was still not there, we worried. What if something happened to him? What if he crashed? My stomach was in knots and I feared I would be sick. But Mama, Maja, and I didn’t mention it. We just continued to chat aimlessly about nothing in particular. Supper was ready. We kept the burners low and covered pans with lids to keep food warm. Finally, at seven twenty-three, the door flew open and Tata entered. Maja and I looked at each other. We whispered in unison, “He’s home.” We ran to him but he held out his hands to block our hugs.
“Hold it. Hold it,” he said. “I couldn’t wait to get home so I didn’t shower. I just jumped in the car and started driving.” Our homecoming celebration would have to wait. Mama followed Tata into bathroom. Maja and I sat back down at kitchen table to wait. A few minutes later, Tata emerged from bathroom with a cloud of steam closely behind.
“All right; where are those hugs?” We rushed to Tata. Maja hugged one side and I hugged other. At least for now we knew our world would be safe and happy.
The next morning, while Tata and Mama discussed house, bills, and mail, Maja and I went outside to play. We saw a group of our friends huddled in front of Milana’s house and went to see what was happening. They told us Milana and her family had left. The family was there night before, but in morning, they were gone. I wondered if Milana’s family had received same letters we had.
So I am still here in “war torn Yugoslavia” as they say on television. There is no fighting in Rijeka. We go on with our everyday lives like everything is normal. Except Tata is in Italy most of the time and more and more Serbs here leave in the middle of the night. I do not sleep much at night because I am afraid someone will come into kill us. I wonder why we stay but I guess we have nowhere else to go. We cannot go to my grandparents’ house. They live by a tiny village called Kostajnica in Bosnia. A few weeks ago there was fighting in a village on River Una called Kozibrod as well as in Struga and Kuljani which are close to my grandparents’ village. My grandparents are safe because they live on a farm away from the villages, but I hope they stay safe and the fighting does not get out into country. There has been a lot of fighting by Knin, in Banija, in eastern Slavonia by Osijek and Vukovar, and in Pakrac in western Slavonia. I do not know if you have a map of Yugoslavia so I will try to explain it to you. Knin is way down the coast of Croatia far away from my house and my grandparents’ house. Kostajnica is close to my grandparents’ house near the part of Croatia that bends. Slavonia is an area of Croatia which is inland between Bosnia to south, Hungary in the north, and Slovenia to west. It seems there has been fighting all over Croatia but not here yet. Mama is still working. Maja and I ride bikes all day. On television, they just show Serbs killing Croats but we hear people talking about Croats killing Serbs also.
Are you glad to be back home from your father’s house? How is school? Our school will start back up in middle of September so I have a few weeks left. I am not anxious to go back to school. There is too much homework and studying.
Please write me back when you can.
Your friend,
Nada
*****
September 4, 1991
Dear Nada,
Thank you for your letter. I’m sorry the war is still going in your country, but I am glad the fighting is staying away from your town. I decided to try an experiment. I am going to concentrate on leaving my past behind and just having fun. The only time I will be serious is with my schoolwork because I need good grades to get into college and really on with my life. You are the only one I can share this revelation with because you are the only one who knows I’ve been somewhere else.
I am grateful my hell is only in my head and I have the ability to control and change it. You have no control over your hell and are at the mercy of what other people and your parents decide to do. Or not to do.
YES, there is a new cute boy in school and I’ve put my plan into action. His name is Andersen Simpson. He is from the state of California. I met him the first day of school when he walked into my homeroom class and sat down next to me. I liked him right away but was so nervous I couldn’t even look at him that day. But, over the next few days, I gave myself pep talks and managed to smile at him and say, “Hello,” to him whenever I saw him. And guess what? It worked! He smile
d back at me more than he smiles at the guy-a-week girls who tried to flirt with him – or at least I think so (unless it is just my imagination). Last Saturday, I went to a party at my friend Krissa’s house. Andy was there and he came over right away to talk to me. Unfortunately, I didn’t get much of what he said because I was so distracted looking into his milk chocolate eyes and I was embarrassed for him to find out I wasn’t listening so I didn’t ask any questions. I did learn his parents went on a peacekeeping mission to Central America so he is living with his aunt and uncle until he goes back to California in December so he can finish tenth grade on time, can be a junior next fall, and graduate the year after next with his friends. He is very nice but seems so serious. He is not like the other boys in my class. He seems older somehow. And I could stare into his brown eyes forever. I wonder if this is love at first sight. Did you love Mate at first sight?
I almost didn’t go to Krissa’s party; I dreaded trying to talk to everyone and felt like just crawling into bed for the night. I didn’t know Krissa invited Andy (that’s what people are calling him). I bribed myself by telling myself if I was there an hour and not having any fun, I would come home. But then I got there, started talking to Andy, and actually enjoyed myself. I confessed to Krissa I think I like Andy so she said she will ask her parents if her boyfriend Craig, Andy, and I can come over next weekend to watch movies. I hope her parents agree. Since my birthday is on Tuesday, I will think of it like my birthday present.
Nada, do you wear makeup? I have never worn makeup before but I am thinking of asking my mom if I can start. If Krissa’s parents let us come over next weekend, it will be like my first sort of date and I want to look pretty. I really want to get Andy to like me. He seems so nice. I never asked you: how did you and Mate come to be boyfriend and girlfriend?