Life, After

by Sarah Darer Littman

  “Hold on, he’s coming,” Amber said.

  I’m going to hang up. I don’t want to talk to him. But I do want to talk to him. I want to ask him how. I want to ask him why. I want to ask him why he didn’t tell me. I want to ask him how he could tell me he missed me when he was already dating this Amber.

  I heard giggling and “Stop it, you’re getting me all wet” and my finger almost pushed the END button but then I heard his voice. “¡Hola!”

  “Roberto…”

  There was silence for a few seconds. Then “Dani…hola…wow, it’s been so long since I’ve heard your voice…¿Cómo estás?”

  “Not very well. Why didn’t you tell me, Beto? Why?”

  “Dani, I’m sorry…it’s just…look, it’s hard for me to talk now. I’ve got your number now and I’ll call you back.”

  “This isn’t my number. I don’t have a cell. I borrowed this phone from a…friend.”

  “Give me your home number then.”

  I tried to imagine talking to Beto on the phone in the kitchen with Papá brooding in the living room, listening to every word.

  “No. Send me an e-mail. But don’t lie to me anymore.”

  “I’ve never lied to you, Dani,” Roberto sighed. “I just maybe haven’t told you the whole truth. I’ll e-mail you, I promise. And I’m sorry, Dani. I really am.”

  “So am I,” I told him, and I hung up the phone.

  I sat there, frozen, staring at the ground, my thumb on the END button, feeling like I wanted the world to end then and there. Feeling like maybe the world had ended. Roberto had been my talisman, my secret weapon against despair. Knowing that he was somewhere in the world thinking of me made everything seem possible. But now…now I had nothing. Nada.

  “Hey, Dani—is everything okay?”

  “Oh. Here’s your phone. Thanks for letting me use it. I…”

  I don’t know what to say because my boyfriend has a girlfriend called Amber.

  Jess took the phone and touched me gently on the shoulder.

  “You look like you just got hit by a bus, Dani. I don’t want to pry or anything, but…I take it things didn’t go so well with Roberto.”

  I laughed bitterly.

  “You could say that. Not so well at all.” I hesitated. Did I want to let this girl, who only days ago was Evil Jess, in on my pain? What made me think could I trust her all of a sudden?

  But her brown eyes seemed filled with genuine concern and I felt so hurt, so destroyed, and so desperately alone, that I told her.

  “You see, his girlfriend, Amber, answered his cell phone. The girlfriend I didn’t know he had. The girlfriend he never told me about. The girlfriend I still thought I was.”

  “Oh, Dani,” Jess said. “You poor thing. That just sucks. I could kill the creep for doing that to you.”

  There was a lump in my throat, but I couldn’t seem to cry. Instead I felt a numbness, a chill, like I was about to start shivering.

  “When I asked him why he didn’t tell me, he said it was difficult for him to talk…probably because she was there. He probably never told her anything about me. It’s like I never existed for him now that he’s ‘Robbie.’ That’s what she’s calls him. Robbie.”

  Jess put her arm around me and gave me a hug. A week before, if you’d told me that I’d be standing outside the art room being hugged by Jessica Nathanson while she consoled me about being dumped by my boyfriend, I’d have questioned your sanity. But there I was in her embrace and it felt far less strange than I’d have imagined.

  “It totally sucks and he’s a complete jerk for not being honest with you. Seriously. I hate guys who are liars.”

  “He said he didn’t lie—he just didn’t tell me the whole truth.”

  “Yeah, yeah. Whatever. Either way he’s a jerk. But the thing is, Dani, it was always going to be hard to keep up a long distance thing, wasn’t it? Like did you ever talk about how you were going to do that?”

  “He said he would always love me. He said in his IM last night that he missed me.”

  “But he could miss you and still have a girlfriend. Like he could miss you and miss Argentina and everything to do with his life there—like with how it was when he was Roberto and all, and he could still love you from a distance, but realize that the likelihood of you guys actually getting to see each other any time soon is pretty minuscule, so he wants someone to hang out with in the meantime because he’s a guy, and he’s in tenth grade, and it’s not like you guys are married or anything.”

  I heard the sense in what Jess was saying, but part of me hated her for saying it. It was as if she could read my mind.

  “Sorry, Dani, I’m sure this is the last thing you want to hear right now. I’ll shut up. Just know that if you want to talk or if you need to use my phone to call him to shout at him and tell him that he’s a complete asshole or anything like that, I’m here for you, okay?”

  She sounded so kind, so sincere, that the lump in my throat finally moved upward and I felt the hot prickle of tears.

  “Th-thanks, Jess. For everything.”

  “Oh, Dani…wait…here, I’ve got tissues in my bag.”

  She rummaged around and handed me a travel pack of tissues. I took one.

  “Take the whole pack, just in case. Listen, I have to get out front because Mom’s probably waiting for me. Do you need a ride home or anything? I’m sure my mom would love to meet the girl who defended Jon.”

  I’d missed the bus and Papá would be mad I wasn’t home for Sarita, but did I want Jess to see the modest building where we lived? Yet despite all her past meanness about the lunch vouchers and clothes, she was going out of her way to be kind.

  “If…if it’s not too much trouble, I would love a ride home. Thank you.”

  When I met Mrs. Nathanson, I could see where Jess got her good looks.

  “I’m so pleased to meet you, Daniela,” she said, as I slid into the backseat. “Thank you so much for sticking up for Jon. It was very brave of you and I know it meant a great deal to him—and to us.”

  “It wasn’t so brave really. It was just wrong what Trevor and his friends were doing. That notebook is really important to Jon.”

  Jess and her mom laughed.

  “Don’t we know it!” Mrs. Nathanson said. “We’re not allowed to touch it or go near it. What is in that notebook is a constant mystery to everyone in our family. The only people who know are Jon and his therapist.”

  “And Dad,” Jon said.

  For some reason I couldn’t understand, that caused a complete change of atmosphere in the car. In the rearview mirror, I saw the smile wiped off Mrs. Nathanson’s face, and when I looked at Jess her face was closed, masklike.

  “Well, Daniela, where do you live?” Mrs. Nathanson asked, her voice falsely bright.

  I gave her my address.

  “So, what’s the Winter Wonderland Dance like?” I asked, trying to do my part to ease the tension. “Have you been to it before?”

  “I…didn’t make it last year,” Jess said. “But I heard it was fun.”

  “Well, I was just wondering because…well, because someone asked me to go.”

  “Seriously? Come on, spill! Who?!”

  “Do you know Brian Harrison? He’s in my history class.”

  “Brian Harrison…tall, brown hair and eyes?”

  “Yes, that’s him.”

  “He’s kind of cute. So are you going?”

  “Well, not exactly. I didn’t exactly say no to him—although I think he thinks I did. But I didn’t say yes, either, because I was so busy worrying about talking to Roberto and…to be honest…I was shocked that he’d asked me. It’s just now…well, now I’m wondering, why not? Why shouldn’t I go with him? Maybe it would be fun.”

  “You should totally go!” Jess said. “It’s just what the doctor ordered!”

  Jon laughed in the front seat. “That’s another expression for you, Dani. Just what the doctor ordered.”

  I laughed, too, imagining a
doctor handing me a prescription with a picture of Brian Harrison and the Winter Wonderland Dance poster. But then a worrying thought hit me.

  “So what do people wear to these dances? Is it very fancy?”

  “Don’t worry about that,” Mrs. Nathanson said. “I’m sure Jess could lend you something. You two are the same size. It’s the least we could do after you stuck up for Jon.”

  I glanced over at Jess, remembering the scene on the first day at school, and worried that she’d be angry at her mother for volunteering the loan of her clothing. But she didn’t look at all upset.

  “Why don’t you come and sleep over?” she said. “We can find you something to wear and maybe watch a movie or something?”

  Sleep over? At her house? Like I used to do with Gaby? Things were getting more and more strange. It was as if my hitting Trevor and getting dumped by Roberto had transformed the girl from Evil Jess to Fairy Godmother Jess. Or maybe it had transformed me from The Poor Freaky Girl from South America Who Wears Cast-off Clothes to an actual person. A person with feelings.

  “Well, I don’t know if Brian will still want to go with me. He might have already asked someone else. And I’ll have to check with my parents if it’s okay. I haven’t had any sleepovers since we moved here. But if they say yes, then I’d love to.”

  At least I think I would.

  That night I went to the library and joined a site called Friendster.com that Jess told me about. It was something called a “social networking” site where people put up profiles with their favorite music and films and pictures of themselves and their friends. I felt like a snoop or a jealous girlfriend…make that ex-girlfriend…but I decided to search to see if Roberto had a profile there. There was nothing under Roberto Saban but then I searched under Robbie Saban and there he was…the boyfriend formerly known as Roberto. There he was, complete with pictures of himself surrounded by other tanned kids on a beach. In several pictures he had his arm around a blond, curvy girl in a bikini, who I could only assume was Amber. I wasn’t sure why I wanted to torture myself, but I looked at the pictures for an hour while I was supposed to be doing homework. I stared at Amber on my computer screen, trying to figure out what she had that I didn’t. What made her so special in Roberto’s…sorry, Robbie’s…eyes that he’d forgotten about me, about the hours we spent together in the park under the ombú tree, about the dreams we had of traveling the world together.

  Sixty minutes of staring revealed nothing other than that 1) she was extremely pretty and 2) she was in Miami when 3) I was not. With a sigh, I logged out of Friendster and turned to my homework. After trying to figure out love, even geometry seemed easy.

  Mamá wanted to talk to Mrs. Nathanson, but after she’d had a conversation with her, she said that I could sleep over at Jess’s house on Saturday night, a prospect that had me both nervous and excited. But so did something else, something I had to tackle first.

  When I got to history class, Brian smiled at me, but without his usual open warmth. There was something uncomfortable between us; I could tell that I’d hurt him.

  “Is your offer still open?” I asked him. “About the dance?”

  He looked surprised but said, “Uh…sure. I haven’t found any other girls in need of a cultural education since yesterday afternoon.”

  I took a deep breath and, feeling my cheeks starting to flush, I said, “Well, I’d be honored to have you attend to my cultural education needs—if you are still willing, that is.”

  This time, the smile went all the way to his eyes.

  “Awesome! That’s great. I’ll make sure you have a good time…and learn a lot about the cultural expressions of the American teenager while you’re at it, of course.”

  “Of course.”

  Class started, so we couldn’t discuss it any more, but Brian kept glancing over at me and smiling. After the hurt of yesterday, after feeling so rejected by Beto, it made me glad that we were going to the dance together.

  As he walked me to my next class, Brian asked, “So what made you change your mind? You know, about going to the dance with me.”

  “Um…let’s just say that I was letting the past hold me back from taking advantage of all the new experiences that America has to offer, and…well, I’ve come to the realization that it was a mistake. A big mistake.”

  Brian looked at me intently, and then said softly, “If it was a guy holding you back, he was an idiot to let you go…in my humble American opinion.”

  I blushed and found something very important to stare at on my shoe. But his words made me feel warm inside.

  I felt his hand on my arm. “I’ll see you tomorrow, okay? And I’m really glad you’re going to the dance with me.”

  Finally getting the courage to look him in the eye, I said, “Me, too.”

  The next day I was telling Rosalia all about it after ESL. She was going to the dance with her boyfriend, Ricardo, which made me feel better because at least I’d have a friend there.

  “Oooh, he’s muy guapo, that Brian Harrison! What are you going to wear?”

  “Well, you know that girl, Jessica Nathanson?”

  “You mean ‘Evil Jess’?”

  “Yeah, well, it turns out she’s Not So Evil Jess now. Ever since I stuck up for her brother against that majadero, Trevor, she’s been really nice to me. And believe it or not, she invited me to go sleep over at her house on Saturday and she’s going to lend me one of her dresses to wear to the dance.”

  “Wow. That’s a change from her giving you a hard time every time you wore her castoffs.”

  “I know. I’m not sure what to make of it. Like part of me is expecting her to start being mean again any minute. But she can be really kind when she wants to be.”

  “Well, that girl has been through some tough stuff, you know.”

  “No, I don’t know. Like what?”

  “You didn’t know? Ay, her father…her father was killed…He was working in the Twin Towers, you know, on 9/11.”

  “¡D-os mío! Seriously?…Oh no…”

  I thought of the news reports I watched all the way in Buenos Aires, over and over on the television screen, of the smoke billowing out of the first tower, of the plane hitting the second tower with a fiery smash and then more smoke until they both collapsed, one after the other, pancaking into a cloud of dust, taking so many innocent lives with them. And to think that somewhere, in that huge pillar of dust, was Jess and Jon’s father. Oh my G-d.

  I remembered how devastated I felt when Tía Sara was killed, how sudden it was: One day she was alive and looking forward to the birth of her baby and then she went to work and she was gone. How must it have felt to lose your father like that?

  And then I thought about the car the day before, how everything changed when Jon said that his father knew what was in his notebook. How suddenly Jess’s face was a stony mask, and Mrs. Nathanson’s face lost all animation. Now it all made sense. I knew Jon had Asperger’s but did that mean he didn’t realize his father was gone? Surely he must.

  “Yeah, it was pretty bad when it all happened. They both missed a lot of school right after 9/11. And then when they came back, it was kinda sick. Like some kids who weren’t even their friends were trying to be all buddy-buddy because they were like, Hey, I’m friends with someone whose dad died on 9/11 kind of thing.”

  “I know. The same thing happened to me when my tía Sara died in the AMIA bombing. It made me mad.”

  “There was one other kid in town who lost a parent on 9/11, over at one of the elementary schools. Still, we were better off than some other towns in New York, or in Connecticut and New Jersey, where they had more commuters. My aunt works in Greenwich, you know, in Connecticut, and she says it felt like nonstop funerals for a few months. They lost a lot of people. Like parents at practically every school in town.”

  “I can’t believe this. I can’t believe I didn’t know.”

  “How would you? You weren’t here then. And I get the impression Jess doesn’t like to tal
k about it. And Jon…well, he doesn’t really talk about much to anyone. Except to you. I’ve seen that boy talk more to you in however many months you’ve been here than in the two years I knew him before you came.”

  “I don’t know. I think we just understand each other because we’re both tipos raros; me, because I’m from somewhere else and him, because he’s so different.”

  “Well, whatever it is, you got him talking all right. And now you’re going to sleep over at their house? I hear it’s some place. Una casa grande.”

  Hearing that made me nervous, as if I wasn’t nervous enough at the thought of spending an entire night with Jessica Nathanson.

  “Make sure you take notes so you can tell me all about it on Monday,” Rosalia said. “I want to hear everything.”

  Chapter Fifteen

  JESS AND MRS. NATHANSON picked me up on Saturdayafternoon. When the buzzer rang from downstairs, I grabbed my bag to run down so they wouldn’t have to come up and see our tiny apartment, but to my horror and embarrassment, Mamá insisted that they come to the door to meet her and Papá. Perfecto. I’d just about convinced Jessica that I wasn’t a freak and then she’d meet my family and be convinced I was one again. Plus, she’d see that we live in an apartment the size of a postage stamp and that would be the end of this strange new friendliness she was showing me.

  “It’s such a pleasure to meet you,” Mrs. Nathanson said, shaking Papá’s hand. “Daniela is a wonderful girl.”

  Papá didn’t look so convinced, but fortunately, he’d shaved and combed his hair so he looked semipresentable.

  “We’re very happy to meet you,” Mamá told Mrs. Nathanson. “Thank you for having Daniela to your house. She’s been lonely since we moved here from Argentina.”

  Gracias, Mamá. Thank you for making me sound like a complete LOSER with no friends in front of Jess and Mrs. Nathanson. Now can you please STOP TALKING!