Reverb (Story of CI #2)

by Rachel Moschell

  The pain’s gone, he’d said. And the fever. Rostam just grew, right in front of our eyes, because his genetic disease just went away.

  Rostam, Mirza, and Alejo all began talking all at once in Farsi, ignoring Farid telling them to please shut up, chortling in laughter like little boys on the beach who’d just discovered a trove of treasure.

  Rostam grinned at Mirza and grabbed a hold of his friend’s shoulders. “You’re back,” he yelled, and Mirza shook Rostam’s shoulders in return. “We’re back, Rostam!”

  Alejo sank to squatting on the floor, watching, and he couldn’t stop grinning.

  Kingdom of darkness, you’d better start running.

  48

  Burgers and Love

  IF ONLY SHE HAD MORE TIME FOR REFLECTION between flipping burgers, Neelam would have made fun of the fact that she was here in Los Angeles, working at what many overseas saw as the icon of the American dream: McDonalds. She was here in the United States of America, having escaped the famed Evin prison, standing listlessly in front of a greasy, sizzling grill, wishing she could cry.

  Her McDonalds uniform consisted of a black and purple striped polo, tucked into black slacks in a most unflattering fashion. In the six months since Neelam had arrived in Los Angeles, her dyed violet hair had been growing out due to neglect, and her locks now splayed down her back in a functional dark brown and purple ponytail.

  She had later found out that Petra herself had actually been in Evin, but then escaped, along with Paulo who had managed to smuggle the video of Sami’s death to the West. Neelam heard that Petra and Paulo had testified before a Human Rights Commission about what they had seen, providing the concrete proof humanitarians and foreign governments needed to put on the pressure. Four weeks after Petra left Iran, Mirza, Neelam, and the remaining members of Ashavan were released and vomited from Iran into the sprawling metropolis of Los Angeles.

  Neelam’s refugee resettlement organization had landed her this job at McDonalds, where she worked in anonymity from 8 to 4 five days a week. The fact that she simply blended in was perfectly find with her. Jalan of Ashavan, her old buddy from Esfahan, was also working here at the same McDonalds, somehow making rent on the efficiency apartment he shared with Ardalan. Why Ardalan had been pumped full of drugs in Evin and Jalan left alone no one could tell. But the mind of the once talented Ashavan drum player was now nearly destroyed. He spent the day either in the apartment singing or wandering the sizzling sidewalks of LA. Jalan took care of him after arriving home from McDonalds.

  As for Neelam and Mirza, they took care of each other, as always. Neelam’s brother had found a job at a used CD shop, and in two months saved up enough to hawk a beat-up blue scooter off a coworker. At exactly 4:05, Neelam knew that scooter would be revving its small motor right outside the curb of her work place. She and Mirza would make the fifteen minute ride to their seedy apartment in silence, then spend the evening quietly reading or watching TV. If it was a bad night, Mirza would drift off into the bedroom to cry for a while, face up on the bed. Before, Neelam’s brother had been the steely strong one who never cried, never since their parents’ death. Now she would often see him with silent tears slipping down his cheeks, fists clenched at his side.

  Neelam was the one, now, who couldn’t seem to let out the tears. This whole place, Los Angeles, was at the same time a momentous culture shock and frighteningly familiar. There hadn’t been much time for figuring anything out. There was life as Moneta Z, then Evin, then the surreal plane ride out of Iran, then McDonalds and Mirza weeping at night. The two of them had tried riding the scooter over to one of the local Iranian churches on Sundays, but had quickly found the welcome mat removed upon their arrival.

  The overwhelming hiss of grease quivering on the grill took over Neelam’s senses as she turned the meat patties without thinking, gaze fixed aimlessly on the grimy wall. And then, from the other side of a silver freezer case behind her, she could make out the voices of two of the odious American boys who usually worked Neelam’s shift. Bennet and Weaver, she recalled, then immediately grimaced, wishing she hadn’t bothered to remember their names. Annoying and empty headed, the both of them.

  “Yeah, well, you just think she’s hot,” one of the two was teasing the other. Bennet, or Weaver—Neelam preferred to think of the two weasily blonds’ name as interchangeable—snorted and continued.

  “Well, you know what Chad told me.” Chad, the daytime manager, who wore a yellow smiley face earring in one ear and had the complexion of pepperoni pizza. “That girl used to be some kind of rock star, over in one of those third-world countries. I think it was Thailand. Don’t you think that’s totally hot?”

  “I think Chad is just full of crap,” Weaver answered. “I know for a fact that chick is some kind of religious freak. Her and that other Arabic guy, Jalan. They were so religious and stuff that they both got thrown in prison and came here on asylum. That’s what I heard.”

  Neelam gasped and clenched her jaw as she heard the two slackers come around from the tall freezer and pause, surely watching the object of their conversation standing coolly in front of the grill flipping burgers. At the moment, clad in the stained McDonalds uniform and inhaling grease, Neelam Samadi didn’t feel like either a famous rock star or a religious freak who went to prison for what she believed. She felt like a young woman who was ready for her shift to be over so she could go to her apartment, put on plaid pajamas, and watch reruns until midnight. And, possibly, cry into her pillow until all the bitterness and fear had leaked into the bed, never to be seen again.

  “Awkward,” Bennet or Weaver muttered from behind her, and the two snuck off to the back of the kitchen, giggling under their breath.

  Neelam gladly handed the worn spatula to a Hispanic girl who came to inform her Chad wanted her to work the counter. She sniffed and brushed a wild lock of hair out of her eyes, then stalked out to the cash register.

  No one was waiting in line. The entire yellow and red themed restaurant was basically empty, except for a few stray customers sipping coffee or snarfing fries at three in the afternoon. Good. Right now, Neelam really didn’t feel like speaking with anyone. No one had better come up and order a super sized Big Mac combo for an afternoon snack, at least for another five minutes.

  And just then, a guy who had been hunched over a table close to the front rose and strolled over to the counter, arms folded in front of his thin chest, eyes roaming over the menu above Neelam’s head.

  Great! He waits just until I come out? That guy was already here, but he couldn’t decide until Rita went to the back?

  Neelam rubbed her sore eyes, then braced her hands on the plastic counter, ready to ring up the order. The skinny guy lowered his eyes from the menu and they locked with Neelam’s, green and merry like a cat’s. Her world swam in front of her and she gasped audibly, then dug her nails into the counter for support.

  Andrew!

  It had been years since she had seen him. Two, maybe three. But it had to be him! That half-crooked smile, the pale hands stuffed into the pockets of a black hoodie. And she would recognize those eyes anywhere. She had only seen the eyes of one man in the world besides her brother from so close to her, the moment before Andrew had kissed her outside the apartment in Prague.

  “Andrew?” she managed, and felt herself shrinking into the floor. “What are you doing here?”

  The tentative grin wavered, but Andrew didn’t pull his gaze away from her eyes. “I came to find you, Neelam,” he said, and Neelam felt her knees buckle.

  It was Andrew! He was actually here, in the US, and had tracked her down to the dingy McDonalds where she worked. Where she now stood with two-colored hair in her work uniform, spit out of Evin Prison after living through her worst nightmares.

  “Wh-what?” Neelam knew she needed to compose herself, and quick. Anymore of this and she would break into tears right here at the McDonalds counter. She was the one who had told Andrew that a relationship between the two of them was never going
to work; the boy had been totally fixated on the idea that she was famous while his band was nothing. He didn’t deserve her. Neelam had cut off contact, and now she wasn’t going to lose it in front of him, just because he happened to be in L.A. for some reason and was stopping by to see her. Or Mirza.

  She sucked in an imperceptible breath through her nostrils and hoped her voice didn’t sound as shaky as it felt. “Are you here on a tour?”

  Andrew blinked and he stepped closer to the counter. Neelam noticed he was carrying a worn army duffel bag, which he now lowered to the floor by his feet. He searched her eyes, then swallowed hard. “There’s no more band, Neelam. I mean, not for me. In Austria, you told me ‘Yeah, so I’m a rock star. Get over it!’ Well I did, Neelam. I was afraid I didn’t deserve you, and I still don’t. But I realized I can’t live without at least trying. I came here just for you.”

  “Well now you’ve seen me. You can go back to the band.” Neelam felt a shock in her heart at the words, wondering why she had spit them out so calmly. Andrew cocked his head to one side and that crooked smile split his face.

  “You don’t understand. I can’t go back. Henri, my guitar who you might recall, is sitting in some Egyptian’s pawn shop in downtown Prague. I hawked it and my lovely VW to get here to find you. You have to at least let me talk with you. Neelam, I love you.”

  Neelam couldn’t breathe, and she fiercely fought back the hot sting of tears that attacked the backs of her eyes. Andrew had sold Henri to come here? His car? For her, Neelam Samadi. She burst into tears and leaned over the cash register towards Andrew, absolutely miserable.

  “But you heard what happened in prison?” she stuttered.

  “I read the news, Neelam. I read every single story. I’m so sorry, and I love you so much. Please, you can’t send me away without at least talking with me. After work!”

  Neelam felt herself blubbering all over the slick register keys. “You should just go back home. I’m not the girl you want. Look at me, for heaven’s sake!”

  Andrew was looking at her, with something akin to desperation finally taking over the merry gleam in his green eyes. “Neelam, I want you, ok. No one but you. Please, you can’t send me away. I only had enough for a one way ticket, and I don’t know a single person in this whole city except you.”

  “Well, you can’t sleep on our couch. That’s where Mirza sleeps. We’re not exactly living in luxury over here in the land of plenty.”

  “For heaven’s sake!” Andrew hissed and leaned in closer to her, tears in his own eyes now. “I don’t care! Give me your bathtub.”

  Neelam hiccupped again and wiped a stray tear from her cheek, heart beginning to sing again for the first time since she had left prison. “Even if I give you permission to sleep in my bathtub, there’s the problem of my brother. He’ll be here anytime to pick me up on his motorcycle, and then you’ll have to explain everything to him.”

  Somehow, though totally enthralled with Andrew in front of her, Neelam sensed the other employees gawking around the corner at her from the kitchen. She grinned into Andrew’s eyes, then hopped on the counter and swung her legs over to the other side, lowered herself in front of Andrew.

  “Neelam, I don’t care,” Andrew was saying. “I’m willing to even face your brother and his scary right hook. I’ll talk to him. I’ll beg him.”

  Neelam fell into his arms and wrapped herself against Andrew’s thin chest, feeling her tears wet his sweatshirt and thinking that it was probably now the only one he owned. Because he had traveled halfway around the world and sold everything to find her, Neelam.

  “You don’t even have a job,” she sniffed. “My brother is so not going to let you sleep in our bathtub.” Neelam looked up and saw Andrew’s jaw drop, but she grinned at him and then leaned against his chest. “If he wants to hurt you, he’s going to have to go through me first. Thank you, Andrew.” She whispered the last words, then scrubbed more tears from her eyes so she could see out the front McDonald’s door. The door that led to the curb where, very soon, her kid brother Mirza would roar up on his blue scooter and find a surprise guest who had come to speak about his sister Neelam and love.

  THE END

  Rachel lives in Cochabamba, Bolivia, and loves it…except when she really wants Indian food or to shop at Target. Find out more at her Facebook page or Amazon author page.

  rachelmoschell@hotmail.com