The Tyrant's Daughter

by Carleson, J. C.

  The sound of a man clearing his throat comes out of the loudspeakers, and then a decidedly unpanicked voice announces that the school is being evacuated for the remainder of the day. He says something about alternate locations being set up for use as study halls, and the crowd jeers.

  “This is sick,” I say, but no one hears me. Emmy is laughing along with everyone else. “You people are sick.”

  “Let’s go find Tori and Morgan,” Emmy says, pulling me along with her. “Everyone’s heading to the park now—we should hurry so we can get a good spot on the hill.”

  I’m too disoriented to do anything but follow.

  STORM

  “This is exactly why these things aren’t supposed to happen until spring, people!” Morgan shouts to no one in particular. “I’m freezing!”

  My friends are disappointed with their day at the park. Their bomb has bombed. It’s cold out, and the scrubby grass on the hill where dozens of students have come to gather is damp. Grope Slope, they call this place, and it’s easy to understand why. The dreary conditions have not discouraged the public displays of affection that began to blossom around us, particularly after one entrepreneurial student showed up with a cooler and started to discreetly sell cans of beer. It’s a meaningless tradition, Tori explains. A way to pass the time.

  “This place is kind of like mistletoe,” Morgan tries to clarify. “The kisses don’t really count.”

  “It’s stupid.” Emmy wrinkles her nose as she shifts her weight and the plastic garbage bag we’re using as a picnic blanket crinkles and sticks to her legs. “This whole day sucks.” Her eyes scan constantly, searching for someone who was supposed to be here but isn’t. Her next photo op, waiting to happen.

  Her mood is all peaks and valleys today, and I can’t do a thing to cheer her. My mind is anywhere but here—my thoughts focus on bombs that are not pretend, while hers swirl around a boy who did not come. Today our differences form a perfect storm, and now she heaves deep, theatrical sighs and stabs at the uneaten take-out salad we are supposed to be sharing. She’s waiting for me to notice that she’s mad.

  Emmy, the least angry person I’ve ever met, is angry with me. The only surprise is that it’s taken this long. Finally, I grant her my full attention.

  “What wrong?”

  “Nothing. It’s just … you’ve been kind of flaky lately.” She’s hesitant at first, but then her words come out in a rush. “I know you have stuff going on in your life, but I do too. Not that you seem to care. And what’s going on with Ian, anyway? He told me he’s worried about you, but he won’t say why. And since you’ve barely spoken to me this week, what would I know?” It sounds like she’s been holding this in for days. She probably has. Not that I would have noticed—she’s right about that. The events of the last few days have eclipsed everything else around me—including Emmy. I try to muster something pleasantly distracting to say, but it backfires.

  “You think this is funny?” Emmy’s eyes go wide, her anger now edged with hurt.

  “No, no. I’m sorry. That’s not why I was smiling. I’m just … I don’t know. Stressed out. I was just thinking that flaky is such a strange word to use. In my mind, flaky is a good thing—it’s a perfect pastry.” I’m fumbling. I am flaky.

  “No. Don’t pull that lost-in-translation crap, Laila. A friend is a friend in any language. Just like a jerk is a jerk.” She pushes away from our garbage-bag picnic and weaves her way through the other clusters of students sitting on the hillside.

  I know I should go after her, but I don’t. I can’t. I just don’t have the energy. I care about Emmy, I truly do. But I can’t care as much as she wants right now. Not with everything else going on in my life. I have tunnel vision, and Emmy stands outside the tunnel. She’s better off that way, even if she doesn’t think so.

  Tori and Morgan are silent, which probably means my flakiness has been an earlier topic of conversation. We sit without words until Ian joins us, taking Emmy’s place on our sad plastic picnic blanket.

  He’s tentative as he sits down, mumbling a polite greeting to the group and then turning to me. “You doing okay?” he asks.

  I nod, but I can’t even feign a smile. Emmy’s departure has rattled me, left me anchorless in this place that only days ago had started to seem safe and familiar. “Happy bomb threat day,” I say. I don’t disguise the bitterness in my voice, but Ian puts his arm around me anyway.

  “Ugh, not you guys too,” Morgan groans. “I can’t take any more Grope Slope today. I’m outta here.”

  Tori jumps up with her. “See you guys later,” she says, winking suggestively at us before she leaves.

  Everything about today makes me queasy and miserable. I’m trying to appreciate Ian’s kindness. I’m glad that he’s forgiven my behavior in the car, but when he leans over and nuzzles the underside of my jaw, I feel no less queasy or miserable than before, and I’m relieved when he stops.

  “This is pretty lame,” Ian echoes Morgan. “Do you want to go get some coffee or something? You look cold.”

  I start to say yes automatically, but then I stop myself. I don’t want coffee. I don’t want to sit here in celebration of someone claiming to have planted a bomb in a school, either. I’m half shivering, half burning up, and I’m half outraged and half numb. I’m half Here. I’m half There. I’m a girl divided, which is to say that I’m no one at all.

  “No.” I shake my head. I’m going to say more, but the words don’t come. All I can think about is Amir, and what must have gone through his head when he heard about a bomb in his school—what panicked memories must have spilled from his heart.

  Ian pulls away from me, and the muscles in his jaw bunch up. “Laila, I can’t figure you out. One day you’re all over me, and the next it’s like you can’t even stand me.”

  “I’m sorry,” I say to the patch of weeds growing at my feet.

  He softens. “It’s okay. I know there’s all sorts of shit going on back home for you right now.”

  “No, Ian. I’m sorry for more than just today. I’m sorry because … because I can’t. Any of this. You. Here.” I’m babbling as I push to my feet. My words are unplanned and surprise me as much as they surprise him. “I just don’t work here. There’s something wrong with me here.”

  He reaches for my hand. “Laila, let me do something. Let me help you.”

  But I shake my head again and pull my hand back. “There’s nothing you can do, Ian.” I kiss his cheek once, quickly, and then I race away.

  I need to find Amir.

  THRESHOLD

  I don’t know where to start.

  He’s not at school, of course. The evacuation orders were real, even if the bomb was not. I think about finding a phone to call his home, but I’m stopped by tumbling, troubling images of people packed into Amir’s apartment watching the news, waiting for news. In my mind, his sister sits too close to the television, afraid to glance away in case a crowd scene contains someone she knows. I imagine her crying as she watches. Others in the room cry too, either because they fear the worst or because they already know the worst. My eyes burn at the thought—I can’t call there.

  Work. With no school today, maybe Amir went to work? I can hardly walk fast enough—I practically run the blocks between the park and the restaurant where he washes dishes and takes out garbage. I’ve never been inside, but I’ve walked past it a hundred times.

  “Here for a late lunch?” A bulldog-faced man in a stained apron greets me from behind the counter.

  “No. I’m looking for Amir. Is he working right now?”

  The man scowls. “Yeah. He’s working.” His emphasis is meant to deter me.

  “Please. It will be just for a moment.” My princess voice is rusty, but it works.

  The scowling man relents. “Amir!”

  No response. He grumbles before turning on his heel to check the back room. When he returns, he busies himself wiping the counter with a filthy rag, making me wait for his answer. “He’ll be out
in a minute. For a minute,” he says finally. I nod and wait by the door.

  I want to know that he’s okay. That the bomb threat didn’t take him back to his past, reviving memories better left buried. As far as I know, Amir doesn’t have any American friends—no one like Emmy to explain the joke. He has no context for a celebrated threat.

  But I also have another reason. A selfish one.

  I want to see his face when I pay back the money. I want to watch him as I hand over the envelope, to see if he understands whatever it is that has changed any better than I do. So much will depend on his reaction.

  So far, this is what I believe: My mother does hate my uncle. But she also has a plan. A goal. And her desire to achieve it outweighs her hatred. My mother will deal with the devil, it seems, to get what she wants. But I’m still hoping a tiny, foolish hope that Amir will somehow be able to interpret things differently. That he can find goodness where I see only betrayal.

  Amir comes out of the kitchen, and we both ignore the bulldog man as we step outside to talk. He gestures to a flimsy table, and we sit down across from one another.

  “Are you okay?” I ask him without any greeting. “I mean, the thing at school …?”

  He grunts dismissively. “People here can be so stupid. It’s like a game to them.”

  For the first time all week, I smile. Finally, someone sees the events of the day the same way I do.

  But Amir isn’t smiling. “You’ve seen the news? From home?”

  He’s worried. Just like I am. He’s jumpy, and his eyes are bloodshot and sunken as if he hasn’t slept in days. We’re two people with the same worries, a sorry fact that for a moment makes me want to embrace him. But then I remember that our worries are not entirely the same. Same facts, very different context.

  “Yes. We’ve been watching—it’s awful. How is your family? The ones back home, I mean. Are they okay?”

  He lets out a long puff of air. He holds his breath when he’s nervous, just like I do. “I don’t know. We haven’t heard of any strikes in our area, but we can’t be sure. The news is slow to catch up, and the phones aren’t working. I went home to check in after the school was evacuated, but I couldn’t stand waiting around anymore, so I came here.”

  I reach over and place my hand on his, then immediately feel self-conscious. But he doesn’t even seem to notice, so I leave my hand there. It’s an American gesture, this casual touch across genders, but it feels natural to reach out to him right now. There’s no tension, no power play. Just a much-needed connection.

  “The capital was hit pretty hard. Do you … do you have anyone there still? Is your family safe?” He words his questions carefully so we aren’t forced to admit out loud that we have family on opposite sides of the fighting.

  I shake my head. “There’s no one left there.” We reach an unspoken agreement that my tie to the General will not be recognized. “What about your father? Do you have any news about him?”

  “I can’t believe I haven’t told you already.” A grin spreads across his face. “He’s out! He’s out of prison. We got enough money to the right people, the stars aligned, and he’s home. With my mother. Just in time, it seems. I don’t even want to think what would have happened if we’d waited any longer, now that the fighting has started.”

  “I’m so happy for you, Amir. I really am. I’m glad everything worked out.”

  His smile falters. “Well, he’s missing half his fingernails and a third of his body weight, but he’ll heal. Eventually.”

  An awkward silence wedges itself between us. I’d read about the prisons. About how many people went in and how few came out. It was one of the articles that sparked my decision to stay out of libraries.

  The lack of words, my inability to say anything remotely appropriate, is almost physically painful. Finally, I remember the money. I pull the envelope from my backpack, grateful for any sort of diversion. “I have money for you. To pay back your family. I hope that loaning it to us didn’t keep you from getting your father home sooner.”

  Amir doesn’t move as he stares at my hand. He has turned to stone.

  Finally, slowly, one corner of his mouth turns up in a grim not-smile, and he reaches to take the money. “That was quick,” he says in a flat voice. He glances at the bills. “We haven’t heard from your mother for a while. I guess this explains why.”

  I know I’m supposed to act like I understand what’s going on, that I shouldn’t admit my ignorance to Amir, but I don’t even know why that is. Mother was the one who first threw me together with him, a boy I never would have crossed paths with back home. Someone who would have been invisible to me, and if not invisible, then forbidden. Back home my family was Us and everyone else was Them. But the lines have all blurred, and here, Amir is one of Us. At least, he was. Briefly, we were on the same team, even if I never knew which game we were playing. How am I supposed to keep up with the changes when I don’t understand the rules?

  “What does it explain, Amir?” My voice cracks, and suddenly I’m crying, though not from sadness. This time it’s because I’m just so … tired. I have an overwhelming impulse to crawl under the table and lie in fetal position, to sleep like that, lulled by the sounds of normal lives all around me. “I know the money comes from Mr. Gansler, and I know who he is. What he is. But what does it mean?”

  He gives me that poor stupid girl look again, and I let him. I take it because it’s true. I am a poor stupid girl right now, a realization that makes me cry harder.

  “It just means we’ve come full circle, Laila.” His voice is dry. Emotionless. “We’re back to where we started. Your family is on the top, and mine is on the bottom.”

  Darren Gansler’s voice echoes through my thoughts. I’m always on whichever side is winning. And my mother’s comment to him, just this morning: You control the money, so you control the outcome, Darren.

  And I know that Amir is correct. That Mother has clawed her way back to the top, turning against Amir’s family—and everyone and everything they represent—in the process.

  “It’s not right,” I whisper.

  “No, it’s not.” And this time, it’s his hand squeezing mine. Amir shoves the envelope into his pocket as he stands up. He nods once, slowly, almost a bow, and then walks back into the restaurant without me.

  FOCUS

  I feel different when I wake the next day. Inside out. Raw.

  I rise from bed and fumble through my morning routine. We have a routine now. How did I not notice this before? Mother heats the water. I set out the spoons. Bastien’s job is less defined, but he is reliably watchful. More so than most boys his age, I think.

  “Can I turn on cartoons?” He doesn’t usually ask permission. Mother starts to shake her head but then glances over at me. I shrug in response.

  We were up late watching the news again. Coverage of the fighting, already skimpy, had become nonexistent by the time we went to bed. The chance of an update is small, so Mother sighs her consent at Bastien and the room fills with the sounds of superheroes.

  We eat breakfast without speaking, our lives guiltily unchanged by the war back home.

  I still feel different when I get to school. No one else seems to, though. “Laila, look at these pictures!” Emmy seems to have forgotten about our falling-out the day before; she joins me at my locker and hands me her phone so I can scroll through the digital photos someone sent her.

  Who had a camera? I didn’t notice anyone taking pictures in the park.

  “You look beautiful.” Emmy beams when I say this.

  The photos are remarkable for their fiction. They tell a story of an entirely different day than the one I experienced.

  “This one’s my favorite.” She scrolls to the last one. In it the sun appears to shine—the product of either a clever camera or a very brief break in the clouds, since I remember no bright moments like the one here. Emmy looks like pure joy in the image—her face, tilted back and laughing, shows no trace of disappointment or ang
er. Tori and Morgan are aware that a photo is being taken—they’re making funny kissy faces at the camera. They’re a photogenic team, vamping, giggling, and radiating an energy that spreads everywhere in the picture except to me. I am a faded blur, alone in the center of these happy, beautiful girls. My eyes are downcast, and my expression dour.

  “You look so mysterious. Laila, our International Woman of Mystery!” As always, Emmy finds something kind to say. But behind her words I sense a new reserve—perhaps our argument hasn’t been forgotten, after all. “The bell’s about to ring—see you later.” That she rushes off without concrete plans for lunch proves to me that all is not as it once was with Emmy.

  “Bye,” I say to her back.

  I run my fingers along the wall as I walk to class, tracing a path. Holding on.

  TRIGGER

  It’s dissection day in biology. Fetal pigs. Mr. Farleigh barks instructions over the jittery giggles in the room. “Three students to a pig, everyone. Do you hear me? Team up and have one person from each group grab your tools.” Scalpels are strewn across a table at the front of the room. Forceps. Probes. A tray holds one spread-eagled specimen, already dissected. “This is what you will end up with if you follow my instructions.” He’s shouting now, his words nearly drowned out by the noise of twenty-four students vying for lab partners. I remain still. I’m the odd man out—silent number twenty-five.

  Bacon jokes fly around the classroom, as do the predictable snorts and squeals. Besides me, only the actual pigs are quiet—they’re pale and shriveled and peaceful.

  Mr. Farleigh continues to yell over the noise, drill-sergeant droll. “Every year the district gets at least one complaint about this lab. If you are so inclined, listen carefully before you go running to Mommy and Daddy. I don’t care if you’re vegetarian. Or vegan. Or fruitarian—that’s a real thing, I’m told. The school board has determined that this lab is a nonnegotiable requirement, no matter what crazy fad diet you may be following. You will complete this assignment, or you will fail this class.”