Pray for the Girl

by Joseph Souza

  “So you gonna show up tomorrow and show me what you got?” he says.

  “Of course I’m going to show up. I never back down from a challenge.”

  Yanni turns to Dalton. “She thinks she’s gonna come here and teach an old dog how to cook.”

  “She’s going to be cooking here tomorrow?” Dalton says.

  “She thinks she can do better than me. So I give her a chance to prove herself.”

  “Big spender, this guy. Forty bucks is all I get for groceries,” I say to Dalton.

  “Take it or leave it. Forty bucks is plenty if you want to cook with me.”

  “With you? I was under the impression that I’d be working by myself.”

  “Are you crazy? Think I’m going to leave you here alone to screw up my diner?” he says, pinching my cheek in a condescending manner. It’s all I can do not to pop this old bastard in the nose. “You may be beautiful, doll, but we’ll see if you can really cook.”

  “I’m beautiful and a great cook.” I jump off the stool and head for the door. I need to get out of this dump before I say or do something I might regret.

  “And be here on time. Doors open at four.”

  “Don’t worry, big guy, I’ll be here before you.”

  * * *

  I return to the house but can’t sleep. Big Russ is parked in his usual spot, watching a Ken Burns documentary about the Civil War. He lifts one eyebrow as I pass, but I don’t stop to chat with him. I drag myself upstairs. My bedroom, as usual, has been cleaned to within an inch of its life. The sterile scent of cleaning agents makes it at times feel more like a hospital room than a bedroom—and I know all too well that pungent hospital room smell. The bed is made up like one of those beds you might see at the Ritz Carlton—everything perfectly tucked with hospital corners. My clothes are neatly pressed and folded on the bureau. I suppose I should be happy that all my needs are being met, but for some strange reason the lack of privacy makes me feel vulnerable. Of course I’ll never complain. I don’t want to appear ungrateful to my sister and her family. If only it were like a hotel room and I could hang a card on the knob, informing everyone to stay the hell out.

  I don’t want to sleep. Nor do I want to stay in this room for any length of time, pondering my confused existence.

  I go into the sitting room, located across the hall. It’s sunnier and cheerier than my bedroom, with an oversized window looking down upon the leafy street. I sit in the floral armchair and kick my feet up on the matching footrest, looking around the room for something that might lift my spirits.

  Sitting on the bookshelf are the photo albums that my mother collected during our years growing up. I grab a thick binder off the shelf and begin to flip through it. The first picture I see is of Jaxon when he was a little boy, dressed in a Cub Scout uniform, his long hair pouring out of his cap. There’s a big smile on his face. The image is so striking that I slam the book shut and melt into a puddle of tears. Poor Jaxon. How I miss that kid.

  * * *

  There’s a knock at my bedroom door. I shoot up in panic and look around in the pitch darkness. For a brief second, I’m convinced I’m back in Afghanistan, waiting for the call to head out to the battlefield and tend to the wounded. My left foot is itching like crazy, and when I reach down to scratch it, I remember it’s not there. This is a frequent occurrence of mine, and of amputees in general. I sit up and realize that I’m in my old room, in the house that was passed down to Wendy. Was I dreaming?

  Another gentle knock and I ask who it is. Brynn answers, and I tell her to come in. She sits down on the bed as I shake the sleep goblins out of my head. It’s a good thing she can’t see that I’ve been crying. I’ll need to put on my makeup and cover up the blemishes once she leaves. It’s a face that needs plenty of TLC and love before it can face the world.

  “I’m sorry if I woke you,” she says.

  “It’s okay. I was just lying here.”

  “Would you like me to turn the lights on?”

  “ No.”

  “How can you sleep during the day in total darkness? I’d be, like, totally freaking out.”

  “The light hurts my eyes.”

  “You said you wanted to meet Nasreen.”

  “Yes. Would you give me a few minutes to pull myself together?” I lift myself into a sitting position.

  Brynn doesn’t move from the bed. “Is it hard taking those things off and on each time?”

  “I’ve gotten pretty good at it.”

  “So how did it happen?”

  “Do you really want to know?”

  She nods her head.

  “I was driving home one day when this truck went through a red light.” Short and sweet lie.

  “Did it hurt?”

  “Not at first. I went into shock. When I woke up I was in the hospital.”

  “I get squeamish at the sight of a paper cut.”

  “Trust me, you wouldn’t have felt it.” I nudge her with my knee so that she gets off the mattress. “Our bodies possess a remarkable ability to protect us from pain.”

  “I can’t stand the sight of blood. It makes me sick.”

  “Would you mind?”

  “You want me to leave?”

  “I need to get ready. Give me just a few minutes.”

  “Can I watch you put them on?”

  “You just said that you’re squeamish. Are you sure you can handle it?”

  There’s a few seconds of silence before she answers. “No, I’m not sure I can, but I still want to watch.”

  “Turn the lamp on, then. Your mother’s Tiffany on the nightstand.”

  Brynn reaches over and pulls the metal string, and the lamp fills the room with a soft light. I squint until my eyes adjust to it. Swiveling on the bed until my legs dangle over the edge, I instruct her to pass me a prosthetic. Brynn picks it up off the floor and hands it to me. Her face is aglow, highlighting her almond-shaped eyes, which radiate with a youthful naturalness that’s breathtaking to behold. What is it with Fawn Grove and these ravishing beauties? There’s a particular look over her face when she sees the proliferation of deep red scars zigzagging over my knees and thighs.

  “Your legs are all messed up.”

  “These scars are a constant reminder; always look before you plow through an intersection.”

  “Do they hurt?”

  “Not anywhere near what they used to. The doctors gave me skin grafts.”

  “What’s a skin graft?”

  “It’s where they take healthy skin from one part of your body and transplant it over the injured areas.”

  “Oh.” Her eyes dart nervously in their sockets. “Can I ask you something else, Lucy?”

  “As long as you swear to God not to tell anybody about this.”

  “I swear.”

  “To God.”

  “Okay, I swear to God.”

  “Ask away then.”

  “I know I asked you this before, but why are you so interested in Sulafi’s death?”

  I hate lying, but do it frequently, owing to the strange circumstances of my life’s trajectory. It makes things easier that way. “I saw someone die while I was recovering in the hospital. Then I come back to Fawn Grove and see it happen all over again. No person should have to suffer like that.”

  “I know, right? It’s terrible what her own people did to her.”

  “You sound convinced that one of the immigrants did it.”

  “Oh, I’m almost certain they did,” is all she says. “I have so many questions to ask you, Lucy. I don’t even know where to begin.”

  “Why don’t you wait for me downstairs while I get dressed?”

  “Then you’ll tell me what my mother was like when she was young and not confined to a wheelchair?”

  “You don’t remember her when you were little?”

  “Not as much as I’d like. She started coming down with MS symptoms when I was in first grade.”

  “That’s too bad because your mother was a beautiful woma
n with lots of energy.”

  “That’s what I heard.”

  * * *

  “You look beautiful,” Brynn says to me as I steer the pickup away from her house. She’d just arrived home from school and was still carrying her book bag. “I wish I could be like you and escape from here and then go live in an exciting place like New York City.”

  I turn and stare at this young girl. I don’t know what to make of Brynn, having just met her recently for the first time. Is she putting me on? Living in New York City all those years has made me cynical and jaded of most people’s attention. I’m certainly not a role model or someone to look up to. Kind words filter through my brain as something foreign and entirely unwelcome. Hardly anyone spoke kindly of me when I grew up here. If they did, it meant they wanted something. So what does Brynn want from me?

  In the hot kitchens I slaved in, no one ever had a kind word to say to a fellow coworker. You called them a douchebag or fuckup and it was praise of the highest order. I learned not to trust anyone who was nice to me unless I got to know them better. And there’s no better way to know someone than by working side by side with them during an insane dinner service, the kitchen a steaming cauldron of anxiety and hostility. I’ve always believed that a person’s true character comes out in a busy kitchen and that it leads to either lifelong friendships or becoming bitter enemies. Stress brings out people’s true nature and reveals them for who they really are. This is not to equate kitchen work with war, but it’s not the worst analogy either, having lived through both hells.

  “The sunglasses make you look mysterious.”

  “Thanks, I guess. But I told you they’re for light sensitivity.”

  “I hope I’ll grow up one day and be as glamorous and pretty as you.”

  “Be careful what you wish for,” I say, laughing. “Besides, you strike me as a girl who knows her strengths.”

  “I’m not sure I understand.”

  I smile at her. “You will someday.”

  “Whatever.”

  “I can drop you off back home once we’re done talking to her.”

  “I thought we could hang out for a while. Unless you have something more important you need to do.”

  “Now that you mention it, I need to go to the market afterward and pick up some groceries. I’m going to cook at The Galaxy tomorrow morning.”

  “For real?” Her voice breaks as she says the last syllable.

  “Yup. I’m hoping to teach Stefania’s grandfather a few new tricks in the kitchen.”

  “Good luck with that. Stef says he’s a kind of a dick.”

  “Brynn!”

  “This will work out perfectly, because Nasreen works at an Afghani market. You can shop there for all your stuff. It’s in the same building where the old Value Mart used to be.”

  I turn and smile at her. This is exactly what I want to hear.

  “You know that they found the girl’s body along the river,” I say.

  “What happened to her?”

  “You don’t know?”

  “I’ve heard things.” She shakes her head. “Like that someone beat her pretty badly. I heard something about an honor killing, whatever that is. There’s all these rumors floating around school, but no one ever said exactly how she died.”

  “Do you know what an honor killing is?”

  She seems to think it over before nodding.

  “The rumor is that she was buried up to her chest.”

  “But she could still breathe, right?”

  “She suffered . . . significant trauma to the head.”

  “What kind of trauma?”

  “She was stoned.”

  “I don’t think Sulafi did drugs. It was against her religion or something.”

  “Stoned, as in someone threw rocks at her.”

  “Ewww! Who would do something like that?”

  “In some Muslim cultures, a woman can be sentenced to death by stoning for certain crimes.”

  “I wish you hadn’t told me that.”

  “I thought you should know.”

  “Sulafi was only a kid. She didn’t deserve to die like that.” Brynn looks visibly shaken.

  “Someone must have believed she deserved it.”

  “But Sulafi was a nice kid who kept mostly to herself. She barely talked to anyone in class because she was so shy.”

  “Did you ever talk to her?”

  “Sure, a few times. We worked together on a group project once. She seemed nice enough.”

  I turn and see tears streaming down Brynn’s face. With my hands on the wheel, there’s no way to comfort her. I’m not very good at these sort of things, and in particular dealing with other people’s emotions. I turn off Main Street and see the old brick building that once housed the Value Mart. It was at one time the premiere supermarket in Fawn Grove, and our family used to shop there all the time. Two women dressed in full burqas walk toward the entrance, their eyes peering out behind thin slits of fabric.

  Brynn is still teary when I park in the lot. I turn to her, wondering what I should do to console her. I’d seen so many cooks suffer nervous breakdowns in my presence that it became second nature to ignore such behavior. But there was never any sympathy in my kitchen. I kicked them off the line until they got their shit together. Deal with it or get out of the way was my manner of handling the situation. Kitchen work was too stressful for crybabies, and I had no patience for those who couldn’t handle the fast pace or close attention to detail. It was the same in the army. As a combat medic working long hours dealing with death and trauma, those who didn’t pull their weight were quickly dispatched.

  I badly want to comfort Brynn and reassure her, but I don’t know how. And reassure her of what? Instead, I sit quietly until she’s calm. I suppose I could put a hand on her shoulder and say a kind word, but all that feels insincere to me, sitting in this parking lot with a niece I barely know, waiting impatiently to speak to the dead girl’s cousin.

  She wipes her eyes and tells me she’s all right. We get out of the truck and walk inside, and I’m immediately transported to culinary nirvana. The bright colors and exotic smells enthrall me. Back in New York, I’d often spend my rare days off visiting foreign markets in the five boroughs: Italian, Ethiopian, Somali, Iraqi, Kosher, to name just a few.

  A man in the back shouts something in his native tongue. The rows of bubbled flatbreads look inviting and smell of pepper and cracked wheat. I gaze around happily. Although we’re the only nonforeigners in here, no one pays us any attention. I gaze lovingly upon the fresh produce: bright purple eggplants, fulsome green zucchinis, ruby radishes, tomatoes, and peppers the color of the sun. The smell of freshly ground spices excites me the most. I pick up a bag of za’atar, which is an aromatic mixture of green herbs and spices. Grape leaves beckon as do bowls of freshly made hummus and baba ghanoush. There’s Kebab Halali, ground lamb, bulgur, and Mahshi. Bottles of Afghani olive oil. And the coveted and hard to find red tahini.

  Brynn sees the girl stocking shelves with apricot paste and begins to walk over to her. The girl is of medium height and weight, unremarkable in appearance, and wearing a bright blue hijab that drapes around her cheeks. She appears startled to see us. She whispers something to Brynn before scampering toward the back of the store.

  “What did she say?” I ask.

  “She can’t talk to us right now. She’s on break in a few minutes, and she’ll take our bags out to the parking lot when we’re done shopping.”

  “Is it me or did she seem afraid to be seen with you?”

  Brynn shrugs.

  I grab a cart and walk around, fascinated with all the fresh ingredients available to me. The forty dollars will be gone in no time, despite the fact that everything seems like a bargain. Once I have everything I need, I head to the cash register, where a portly old man with a thick mustache greets us with a toothless smile. Before I can grab the plastic bags from him, Nasreen snatches them out of his hand and leads us toward the door. When we reach th
e truck, I pull the latch down and lower the tailgate. The girl sets the bags down on the cold, ribbed bed. Then she slams the tailgate shut, pulls out a cigarette, and lights it.

  “I’ve only got a few minutes, so you better hurry,” she says in accented English. She’s serious and tough, and I find myself liking this girl.

  “I’m trying to figure out who killed Sulafi,” I say.

  “Why? You’re not police.”

  “Let’s just say I’m interested in your cousin’s murder.”

  She shrugs and takes a drag on her cigarette. “You should probably forget about it. It’s too messed up.”

  “Are you going to let them get away with killing her?”

  “It’s a terrible crime, I know, but the girls in my culture know the rules we must live by.”

  “So what rule did she break?”

  Nasreen blows out a ring of smoke and stares at me as if I’m crazy. “I kept warning her, but she didn’t listen to me. She wasn’t like everyone in school thought she was.”

  “What was she like?”

  “She was very beautiful and wanted to be a model or famous singer. With her hair down, she looked like one of those Kardashian girls on TV. Boys looked at her in ways that are very bad where I come from. In my culture, a girl is not supposed to step out of line.”

  “What was she doing that was so bad?”

  “She wanted to be like American people. I told her she was crazy and that she should be more like Muslim girls, but she didn’t listen. I think she was seeing someone too.”

  “A boy?”

  “Yeah, a boy from town.” She takes a puff on her cigarette and looks over my shoulder. “She was on her computer all the time, talking to this boy. She watched American TV shows and had big dreams of becoming famous. She would sing songs in her room and dance in a way that made her brother and parents very upset.”