Bold

by Julia Swift

“Tell him where you were.”

  My respect for my dad is not gone. Fear, respect, kind of the same thing. My dad is huge in every way. Tall, round with a Darth Vader voice. When he answers the door, he scares the mailman more than the neighbor’s Great Dane. Not that he’s ever hurt me. It’s that disappointment thing that kills. I know where to find Ricky, but I also know I can’t tell them. They have pictures and he shouldn’t be in jail. He changed his mind, he helped me, that counts for something.

  “I don’t know.”

  The cop hands over Will’s phone and lets us leave, but Will’s Mom won’t allow him talk to me, and when I take one step toward Will, my dad gives me the “don’t you dare” look. And I don’t.

  *

  I decide to tell my dad the truth on the way home, but right before I open my mouth, he opens his.

  “I expect this from your brother, but not from you.”

  “That’s not fair. He’s been trying, he’s been working. You have to give him a break.”

  “You do not tell me what to do after I pick you up in a police station where I have to watch you lie to an officer. I don’t want to know what you were doing with that boy, either boy.”

  *

  We pull into our driveway and I don’t want to walk in the door. I know my mom will be there. She’s always there. She doesn’t work, she doesn’t have many friends. She says my dad is her best friend, but I wouldn’t want a best friend like that. My dad opens the door and my mom hugs me tight until she sees Dad’s face. He’s judging her, saying she doesn’t know how to raise her kids. She lets go. She’s so weak I can’t stand to look at her, so I run into my room. My brother is at work. I wish I could go there. He works as a mechanic for a motorcycle shop. It’s huge. There are hundreds of bikes. If I wasn’t so scared, I could get him to teach me how to ride so I could escape on one.

  Things can’t get worse so if I go to sleep maybe I’ll wake up and something will be better. If not, I’ll sneak out and go watch Scar Boy until Ricky appears. Everyone always says helping others makes your life seem better. Even if he is part of the reason my life sucks right now.

  18

  Will

  Mom is furious. As we get in the car, I wait for her to explode, level me for embarrassing her at the police station. She had to sit through the cops lecturing her about how I could’ve been hurt, killed even. I knew that wasn’t going to happen, but now is not the time to tell my side of the story.

  Except we’re not going home. Mom pulls into the grocery store parking lot. She hasn’t decided on my punishment yet. Lately, she never says what the punishment will be, at least not right away. I’m forced to wait and imagine the worst.

  After 45 minutes of being dragged up and down every aisle, we head to the checkout. A cute clerk calls me over, she’s opening a new line. It’s Carmen, the girl who was dating Jake Jenkins. I heard they broke up. Also heard she was rich. What’s she doing working here? She must see me wondering.

  “I hate this job. My dad worked his way up from nothing, like he insists on telling me every ten minutes, and he’s afraid I’m spoiled. If I want to go to Paris this summer, I have to prove I understand the meaning of money and earn it myself.”

  She offers me gum as I place our groceries on the conveyor belt. Ricotta, mozzarella, tomato paste, ground turkey. I look at my mom.

  “We’re having lasagna?”

  I know taking those pictures of the robbery was the right thing to do, but Mom rewarding me with my favorite meal confuses me.

  “Honey, I forgot an onion. I’ll be right back.”

  Mom hands me her coupon organizer and darts off to the produce section. I shove it into my jacket, convinced Carmen pretends not to notice.

  “Did you do anything fun this weekend?”

  I think about telling her what happened. How I started the day hiking with Sasha, how we rode the train to Pacoima, how I witnessed a breakin and Sasha ended up rescuing some guy she had never met. I shrug my shoulders.

  “I’m having people over tomorrow night, can you come?”

  I see Mom hurrying back, onion in hand.

  “I’ll try.”

  “Did you give her the coupons?”

  Spend time in jail, no one trusts you. Why disappoint?

  “Yes.”

  Even though I didn’t. I move behind the cart as Mom counts her cash, she doesn’t have enough money. Mom scrutinizes the bill.

  “Excuse me, where’s the discount for the pasta? And the shampoo and the diet soda?”

  This time it’s Carmen’s turn to shrug her shoulders. Mom glares at me as only moms can.

  “You said you gave her the coupons.”

  For a second, I consider running.

  “Give me the organizer.”

  I don’t move. As Mom takes the envelope from me, it breaks open, sending coupons everywhere. Not in a clump, that’s too easy. They flutter to the ground. A woman holding a cocker spaniel enters the store and the machine above the door designed to keep the bugs out by blasting air kicks in, scattering the coupons even more.

  “Will, give me a hand.”

  I won’t. There’s no way. She can’t make me. Especially not in front of Carmen. It’s not my fault we’re here. I never wanted to go to a new school. I wanted to stay where I had friends, where I grew up. Why does she even have to use coupons, they’re not for us, they’re for poor people. We’re not poor. I always had the best “What I Did over Christmas Vacation” stories. We don’t use food stamps. There’s always food in the fridge. I have a computer, a nice one…

  Mom manages to get most of the coupons. She sorts through them, unable to find any discounts for food she bought.

  “This isn’t right, I spent over 70 dollars. I had coupons.”

  We’re holding up the line. I can’t take it any longer. I finally show Mom the coupons she gave me separate from the rest, the ones for the food she bought today. She looks at me in a way I haven’t seen in a long time. There’s real emotion, not just the monotone voice I hear when she’s telling me to pick up my clothes. She doesn’t wait until we get home, she hates parents who are afraid to discipline their kids in public. She digs right into me.

  “How could you do this? Something so stupid, so selfish so... I don’t even know what. Will, don’t you know that’s a lot of money, we have to be careful now.”

  Mom doesn’t care that people are watching, but I do and the only thing I can think of that would shut her up comes flying out of my mouth.

  “At least Dad would’ve wanted to see my pictures.”

  Twice in one day. I feel horrible. Mom shuts down. She hands cash to Carmen and pushes the cart through the doors, into the parking lot. When I try to apologize, I can’t. It doesn’t come.

  All the way home in the car, we don’t talk. I wish I had walked. I unload the groceries. She disappears into the living room. There’s that annoying television theme show music again. Bad guys getting caught. I wonder if she connects the police stations on T.V. with the fact that I made her enter one in real life tonight. I look at the backdoor, I can make an easy escape. Or I can duck into my bedroom, slam the door, not come out until morning. It’s not really on me to do the slamming. I stand in the kitchen, defiant. There’s only so much television she can watch without diet soda. She doesn’t come. At least not immediately. Maybe I hear her crying. I feel way awful now. I made Mom cry.

  For some unknown reason, I decide to make lasagna. I grab the noodles, the sauce, the spices that I’m pretty sure go into nature’s perfect food, even though I’ve never actually made it. Her recipe folder is a mess. I notice a recipe for lasagna on the box of noodles. I boil water. And then at some point, I’m not exactly sure when, I notice her standing next to me. She doesn’t say anything for a while, starts adding ingredients.

  “Your dad was arrested once. In Sri Lanka.”

  “What for?”

  “He was at a local contact’s house for dinner. He had been invited to talk to a friend of a friend, who
supported the opposition party. While your dad was there, the cops raided the place. He wasn’t doing anything wrong, but they found his notebook. He couldn’t say it wasn’t his, the notes were in English so it obviously belonged to him. The cops recognized enough words, the names of the opposition leaders, to convince them your dad was a spy. They kept him in jail for 213 days.”

  “Why don’t I remember?”

  “You were only two, maybe three years old. You had no idea that much time had passed. You were lucky. He was lucky. Every time we received news from Amnesty or the embassy, I thought he might be coming home and I’d make his favorite meal so that it’d be ready when he got here. I must’ve made two dozen lasagnas.”

  “And that’s how it became my favorite.”

  “Something in me just clicked when I found out you were being held at the police station. I went on autopilot.”

  Knowing I’m like Dad in a way I don’t want to be is punishment enough. But somehow I don’t think it’s the only punishment that’s coming.

  19

  Sasha

  I wake up in the middle of the night screaming. I had another trapped dream. You’d think I’d have nightmares about not being able to breathe, but lately all I dream about is being stuck in a hospital bed, in pain, not able to move, not able to tell anyone how much it hurts. I touch my arms and legs in an attempt to force myself to wake up and to believe I’m free. Before I can return to normal, my mom is holding me, brushing my hair back like I’m five and it feels really good. I hate that when I’m scared no one can make me feel normal again like my mom. She is not the normal I want to be, but there is something about being hidden in her arms. Safe.

  “I think you should go to that trauma support group.”

  Okay, feeling over, get her out of my room.

  20

  Will

  I can’t remember if Mom likes her coffee black or with cream. I check the refrigerator, there’s no milk so I guess that’s my answer. She’s going to be shocked I made her breakfast. It’s not her birthday or Mother’s Day. Well, it is only scrambled eggs and toast. She will probably assume I’m doing this to get onto her good side, the reality is last night I couldn’t sleep. If I wasn’t thinking about Dad in a cell for 213 days, I was obsessing about Sasha, checking my e-mail and texts every five minutes, wondering why she hadn’t responded to any of my messages. When the garbage men collected the trash this morning, I finally gave up, showered and got dressed for school.

  It’s exactly 7:01 a.m. Sasha has to be awake by now. I could talk to her before homeroom, but what if her parents don’t let her out of the house today? What if they send her to military school and I never see her again? I have to talk to her now. It can’t wait, I have to find out if she’s okay. I dial her number.

  “Hello?”

  It’s not her. It’s a guy.

  “Hi, uh, is Sasha there?”

  “Hold on.”

  Not sure who that was. Could’ve been her brother, he didn’t sound old. I wait forever, doesn’t she know we’re going to be late for school? Feels like when I made overseas calls to my dad. First I’d mangle the local language, praying someone spoke English. Then once they understood what I wanted, they had to go look for him. He freelanced mostly, so not everyone in the office where he was working that month knew who he was; sometimes it took a few minutes to find him.

  That’s what happened the last time I ever talked to him. I couldn’t reach him at the hotel in Kabul, but I finally caught up with him in the bureau office. The operator found him for me. I can’t remember our last conversation. I think I hear his words, but it’s really me imagining him. Remembering how I made sure he knew I won our Super Bowl bet and he owed me ten bucks. Remembering how it was snowing in Philly and I wanted to know if a snowstorm is like a sand storm. That was it. Our connection lasted only a couple of minutes and then the call was dropped. Tracking him down took longer than the actual conversation. I wish I had called back, but I figured I would talk to him when he got home.

  Now I know I was lucky to hear his voice. People send fake e-mails, forge handwriting, Photoshop pictures. But they can’t fake voices. In a way, the people who had family in the Trade Towers, the ones who got calls before their loved ones died, they are lucky. They knew to listen to every word, remember what was said, save that message forever. I wish I had recorded that last conversation, or at least kept one of his voicemail messages. I don’t want to forget what he sounded like.

  I can hear someone picking up the phone.

  “Will, I can’t talk right now.”

  “Are you okay?”

  “I said I can’t talk right now.”

  “I saw Carmen at the grocery store last night. She’s having people over tonight. Wanna go?”

  Click. Did she just hang up on me? Was the connection lost? No one has ever intentionally hung up on me. I want to throw something, break something, hurt someone. I hit re-dial. Voicemail. What is she doing? From the kitchen, I hear my mom knocking on the door to my bedroom.

  “Are you done in the shower?“

  I grab my backpack and run out the front door. No way Sasha lives closer to school than me, so I start walking away from it. I’m still so angry it takes me a minute to remember I don’t know where Sasha lives. I think for a minute. She came from Rayburn when we were going for the hike. Great, she probably lives in the other direction. I look her family up with the Internet on my phone. There are lots of Russian sounding names like hers, but only one near where the accident happened. They live on 12th Street. I don’t think that’s far.

  The houses on 12th are pretty small, they look like starter homes, except they’re not. I see old people picking up their newspapers or climbing into their cars and going to work. I arrive at Sasha’s address. It’s one of those pre-fab houses, in fact all the buildings look like the ones next to it. The developers didn’t even attempt to make them look different. There’s a dented truck parked in her driveway. Next to it I see oil stains. Hopefully that means one of her parents already left for work, that’ll increase my chances of talking to her. I walk up to the door, a wind chime makes jingly noises. I bet Sasha begged her mom to hang it. There’s no doorbell, maybe I’ll catch her by the window.

  I walk around the side of the house. I can see orange juice and empty bowls on the kitchen table, but no one’s there. I head around back. I spot what looks like Sasha brushing her teeth in the bathroom. I’m about to tap on the glass.

  “You better have a good reason for being here.”

  I freeze, pray it’s not her dad. I turn, it’s her brother. I recognize his voice from the phone. He looks like he could beat the crap out of me, but he sounds younger. Still like a threat, but the best possible threat you could get while standing outside the window of a girl you like.

  “I’m looking for Sasha.”

  Better to say less than more.

  The brother disappears inside the house. I wonder if he’s going to grab a weapon. Probably not, hopefully not. I wait a couple of minutes, look at my watch. I’m officially late for homeroom. Sasha calls me over to the side of the house.

  “What are you doing here? I’m already grounded, do you want to make it worse?”

  I can’t believe she’s not even saying hello, asking if I’m okay, telling me she’s sorry she left with some other guy.

  “You’re lucky my brother found you and not my dad.”

  “How come you hung up on me?”

  “I told you I couldn’t talk.”

  “You couldn’t read your e-mail or texts, either? I’ve been up all night wondering what happened to you.”

  “I’m fine.”

  “Thanks for letting me know.”

  Sasha glares at me.

  “Is there some reason you came all the way over here?”

  There is, but it’s funny, now that I’m here, I don’t really feel like blurting it out. I can’t blurt it out. All I can think about is her belly button peeking out of her pajama bottoms.


  “I’m going inside before my mom finds out you’re here and has a coronary.”

  “Did you know they handcuffed me and put me in the back of the car?”

  I can tell by the way she’s looking at me, she didn’t.

  “They thought I robbed the store.”

  “I never told you to go in there in the first place.”

  “So now it’s my fault?”

  She’s looking at me like in a way, it is.

  “I better get inside.”

  “Why did you have to leave with him?”

  She stops, turns. She knows that’s what I really wanted to know.

  “He needed my help.”

  “You didn’t even know him. He could’ve really –”

  “Yes, I know what could’ve happened, believe me my parents have not stopped reminding me of that.”

  “The cops thought I took the money.”

  “You’re the idiot who went in the store.”

  “I wasn’t gonna let them see me.”

  “So why did you go in?”

  “I wanted to get a story.”

  “Because you didn’t give a crap about the guys.“

  “They were doing something wrong. They were breaking the law.”

  “They are kids, they aren’t that much older than us. They must have done it for a reason. Ever think about what being arrested would mean for the rest of their lives? You could’ve just scared them out of there and everything would’ve been fine.”

  “You tried and everything wasn’t fine. One guy got hurt and you could’ve been really hurt.”

  “But it might have worked.”

  She cares about people just like my dad did. Now I get it, respect it, respect her.

  I lean over and kiss her. My way of apologizing. Is it working? Yes. She kisses back, and it’s a different kind of kiss than I’ve ever had before and I’ve kissed a lot of girls.

  It’s late, I’m definitely missing first period. But I can probably make it to second if I leave now. I’m pretty sure we made it through our first fight as a couple. If we are a couple. Are we? I have about 30 seconds to find out and hoof it to school.