Tuesday, November 25, 2008
Dear Ghady (or would you prefer that I call you The Oud King?),
I miss you, too. I thought of you last night when I was making the posters for my election campaign. I imagined what you’d say about the slogans I wrote to convince my friends to choose me. “Rawan’s your rep . . . Choose Rawan now . . .” You didn’t give me your suggestions, Monsieur.☺
I’m really dying to hear you play the oud! It looks like we’re going to have some great summer nights with the sweet songs you’ll be playing us.
Ghady, as for that boy Michael, maybe it’s better for you to totally ignore him. And whenever you feel annoyed by him, practice your oud. This is my “Rawan for your success” advice. You’ll see—this way, you’ll learn a lot of songs fast.☺
Lazy Jad never calls. It’s like he’s forgotten all about me.☺ That saying, ‘Out of sight, out of mind’ really was made for him. Don’t get mad at him. I’ll talk to him today and give him a piece of my mind, then I’ll invite him to have a fruit parfait with honey, cream, and nuts at Uncle Fareed’s.
I wish you could come with us.
Love,
Rawan
Rawan is worn out. She didn’t sleep the night before. She decides to lie down for a bit. That way, maybe her energy will come back, and she can then finish her homework before she calls Jad. As soon as her head hits the pillow, she falls into a deep sleep.
BEHIND THE GYM
ON THE PLAYGROUND, snow has been falling since the night before, and Ghady and his friends are gathering clumps of it, making them into big balls, and hurling them. They laugh. They run. They yelp when they see snowballs heading straight for them. The loudest screams come from Liza, Charlotte, Elián, and Susanna, especially when the snow slides down under their clothes. In the middle of this snow battle, Thomas comes up and takes Ghady aside. Ghady gives him a questioning look, but Thomas offers no explanation until they’ve moved away from the group.
“Come with me. But don’t let Daniel or Matthias or Charlotte or Liza see you.”
“What’s over there?”
“It’s something fun, and you’ll thank me for it. Come on. Hurry up, and don’t ask too many questions.”
Thomas tugs on Ghady’s arm, and Ghady smiles, even though he’s feeling a little nervous.
They go behind the gym, which is the building farthest from the playground and from the eyes of the supervisors. There, they find Michael and his group, smoking.
Ghady turns to Thomas. “Why did you bring me here? You know I don’t smoke.”
“This isn’t a regular cigarette, stupid, it’s a lot better than that. You have to try it.”
As Thomas speaks, Michael stands up and walks over to Ghady. “You seriously don’t know how to relax and enjoy yourself. Just take it. Take the joint and tell me what you think.”
Ghady is surprised by Michael’s tone—he’s talking softly, and his face looks as though he’s about to laugh.
“No thanks. I don’t want it,” Ghady says, in a hurry to get away.
Thomas grabs his coat to stop him from leaving.
“Let go of me, Thomas!”
“Not before you try this. Seriously, you are not going to regret it. You’ll like it so much you’ll ask for more. You’ll see!”
“I told you to let me go,” Ghady shouts, wrenching himself out of Thomas’s grip.
“Jeez, I didn’t mean to make you mad, Ghady. Why can’t you just take things easy?”
Ghady yells as he backs away: “I don’t understand you! First you defend me when he’s bugging me, and now you drag me right to him. What’s your problem?”
“You’re the one making problems!” Thomas answers in a tone sharper than Ghady expected.
Ghady doesn’t answer. Instead, he quickly walks away without waiting for Thomas, who follows him.
Ghady thinks a lot about this encounter, and about everything going on around him. Why did Thomas drag him to those boys? Why him?
He’s been invited to Thomas’s on Friday, and his dad already agreed to it. After all, his dad met Thomas and his mom, who came to pick him up the day he slept over. Should he go?
“If you like spending time with him, why not?” Zeina says, when he goes into her room that night to ask her opinion.
“I don’t want to lose him as a friend,” Ghady says. “But I don’t get what he likes about Michael or why he believes him.”
“You’re smart, you can figure it out. In any case, don’t let Michael wreck your friendship with Thomas.”
The next morning, when he meets Thomas on the playground, Ghady smiles, trying to ease the tension that’s come between them. Thomas slings his left arm around Ghady’s shoulder. “You still mad about yesterday?”
Ghady says nothing, and Thomas goes on, whispering: “I want you to be a man, be brave, hang out with the kids who’ve got the power . . . That’s all it is.”
Ghady gives a half-smile, unconvinced. They walk together into the classroom, and the day passes without any problems.
That night, when Ghady reads Rawan’s letter, he’s gripped by a sudden sadness. He writes:
Thursday, November 27, 2008
My friend,
I want so badly to be in your school instead of mine! We could work on your campaign, do our homework together sometimes, and we’d do cool stuff on the weekends with Jad.
I mean, don’t worry too much about me—I like my friends here, and I have fun being with them. But honestly, sometimes I feel like a stranger here. Even Thomas, who’s my good friend this year . . . Well, I’m starting to get suspicious of our friendship. But I’m going to take your advice and put all my anger into the music. And you, Miss—you’ll have to start a new painting just for me. I want to put it up in my room.☺
Best,
Ghady
STRANGE SITUATION
RAWAN WAKES UP to the noise of an intense fight. She opens her eyes and looks around, disoriented. Maybe it’s coming from outside the house. She listens closely and is shocked when she recognizes the voices: her parents.
She can’t believe this is happening. Maybe it’s a nightmare? No, she’s not dreaming. She’s awake in her room, and she knows these voices. This is the first time she’s ever heard her parents exchanging these kinds of words. Thoughts start swirling around in her head, and she remembers how weird they’ve been acting lately. She tries to pinpoint when it started, but she can’t remember. She tries to rewind her memory, day by day, but it’s no use. Maybe it started a long time ago, and she didn’t notice because she was always so caught up in her classes or friends or with the TV or computer.
The voices go quiet, and Rawan comes out of her room to find her father in the living room, sullen, puffing a cigarette in front of the TV. Her mom is sitting in her bedroom, teary-eyed. Kumari stands at the kitchen door, watching from afar, worry written all over her face. Rawan is confused. What should she do? Should she go over to her dad and speak with him, or hug her mom and comfort her? She decides to go back to her room and stay there. She sits at her desk and opens a book, but her gaze remains fixed on one word for a very long time. She doesn’t feel like studying or chatting with Jad, even though it might calm her down. She puts her head, heavy with disturbing thoughts, down on her pillow once more, and she sleeps until the next morning.
Rawan doesn’t know how many days pass like this—they’re all the same. Her dad is at home, and the cigarette never leaves his hand. He barely speaks to her mom, and sometimes he leaves the house and doesn’t come back until very late. Her mother is irritable. She seems sad and preoccupied all at once.
Eating lunch or dinner with the family isn’t fun, like it used to be. There’s no conversation or jokes, just the clinking of spoons, knives, and forks as they scratch against the plates. Sometimes, her mom asks routine questions, such as, “How was your day, Rawan? How was your day, Rani? What’s new at school?” Rani and Rawan always answer these questions with their own stock reply, “Good.” Ra
wan starts to hate coming home. She finds the walls cold, her room boring, and the atmosphere always tense. She no longer finds peace and safety in it. Even Rani the pampered one starts getting his fair share of scolding. Whenever he asks for the money he’s been used to getting at the snap of his fingers, he is peppered with questions from their dad, “What did you do with the money you took yesterday? When will you stop asking? Maybe you should take an interest in your studies instead of going out and spending money on ridiculous things or wasting all your waking hours on the phone.”
Rawan tries to pump Kumari for information about her parents’ fight, and she replies, “Don’t know. Mama always sad. Baba always sad. And me too, sad.”
Rawan stops caring about her progress in school. What’s the point if no one else cares? Whenever she opens her textbooks or notebooks to study, she finds herself mindlessly drawing circles and lines on the corners of the pages, sometimes for hours.
One night, before she gives in to sleep, she opens her email to find Ghady’s latest message. She reads it, but without her usual grin. Ghady’s emails make her happy, but this time her fierce concern for her parents weighs her down to the point where she can’t smile anymore.
Thursday, December 1, 2008
Dear Ghady,
I also wish that you could be in my school. I have a lot of friends at school, but, at a time like this, I only want to talk to you. I need to share what’s going on in my head with someone who understands me and can make me feel better.☺
I’m trying to focus on drawing these days, because it relaxes me, like music does for you. I’ll have to think about what to draw for you.
How are things at school? Do you still feel like you stick out? I won’t take up any more of your time because I’m tired today.
Love,
Rawan
MADNESS
WHEN GHADY GOES OVER to Thomas’s, things are normal at first: they talk, they play, they eat, they watch TV . . . But then Thomas’s mom leaves to have dinner with her friend. Ghady didn’t expect that. The boys are alone in the apartment.
When Ghady is immersed in a war game on the Playstation, he catches a strange smell drifting in from the balcony off Thomas’s room. He lifts his eyes to see Thomas gesturing for him to come over.
Ghady steps out onto the balcony. “What are you doing, crazy? Is this the same thing Michael was smoking at school?”
“Ha! Yeah. I bought some joints from him. Want to try it?”
“N . . . No.”
“Why? Just one time’s not going to hurt you.”
“You’re crazy. What if you get addicted?”
“Don’t be ridiculous. One joint is not going to affect you. Take it. Try it. You’re not even going to feel anything.”
Ghady hesitates. He feels sure this is a mistake. He remembers something about drugs his mom told him last year—about her friend Mariam’s son. He died while doing drugs. Back then, she told him and Zeina: “Poor Mariam. Her son was eighteen, and she just couldn’t help him shake his addiction. Some jerks in the neighborhood got him into drugs, and he died of an overdose one night, when he was over at a friend’s.” This story left a mark on Ghady, especially because he knew his mom’s friend. She used to visit them a lot during their summers in Lebanon.
He isn’t about to tell Thomas this story, since Thomas would make fun of him, and he doesn’t want to be called a coward again. How can he prove to Thomas that he’s brave and daring and not some perfect angel?
Why not try it? Just once.
Slowly and hesitantly, Ghady takes the joint from Thomas’s hand. He takes a drag, but then he doesn’t know how to get the smoke out of his lungs, so he ends up having a coughing fit. Thomas laughs. Ghady laughs.
“What was that?” Ghady says hoarsely. “Seriously, how do you do that so the smoke doesn’t suffocate you?”
“Wait. Like this.” Thomas slows down his movements so Ghady can follow. “Come on,” Thomas says. “Try it again.”
Ghady tries it. Once. Twice. Three times. Now, he doesn’t cough as he exhales. When he finishes the joint, his head is spinning. He goes back into the room and sits in Thomas’s desk chair.
“My mom will be here soon,” Ghady says. He tries to stand, but his body is too heavy. “I’m going to go wash my face, and I’m never doing that again. You’re crazy.”
In the car, Ghady gives short answers to all his mom’s questions.
“Did you have fun?”
“Yeah.”
“What did you do?”
“Played.”
“What did you eat?”
“Pizza.”
When they get home, Ghady goes straight to his room and shuts the door. He looks into the mirror and sees two reddish eyes, puffy with exhaustion . . . He feels guilty and nervous. Is he just drowsy, or is there something else? He feels scared, too. Is this how addicts get started? They have a first experience, then a second, then a third? He whispers to himself: “Nah. I just did it out of curiosity and that’s it. It’s not going to happen again. I won’t do it after today.”
Ghady turns on his computer, hoping to find a message from Rawan. Two words from her would make him feel so much better.
He reads, then answers.
Friday December 5, 2008
Rawan,
I guess things aren’t going so well—your letter was so much shorter and more serious than normal. What’s up? I don’t think it was short just because you were tired, like you said. Seriously, what is going on? What’s bothering you? Is it someone at school?
I’m upset, too, and I was hoping a letter from you would change my mood, but now I’m worried about you. Don’t forget that we’re friends, Rawan, and that we can share everything with each other.
I’ll start with me. Okay, I did something stupid tonight. At Thomas’s, I agreed to smoke a joint. I’m such a moron! Don’t worry, it’s the first and last time. I hope you don’t hate me because of it.
Your friend who’s stupid sometimes,
Ghady
THE PHONE CALL
A FEW DAYS before the election for class representative, Rawan is sitting idly in class. She looks out the window. She stares at the heavy raindrops that splatter against the window pane, then stream down in rivulets, each a small waterfall. She doesn’t take in a word of what her teacher is saying. She can’t stop thinking about what’s happening at home.
Her English teacher asks her to read aloud from the homework assignment that’s due. Rawan doesn’t respond. She keeps staring at the water streaming down the window pane. Her teacher calls out to her in a louder voice, which causes Rawan to start, as if she’s waking up from a dream. The teacher repeats her instructions, more forcefully this time. Rawan opens her notebook, squints at the white lines, then says softly, “I didn’t do it.” The teacher is taken aback by her admission. She noticed Rawan has been falling behind the past few days and not completing assignments. “I want to talk to you at break please,” she says.
After hearing what her teacher has to say, Rawan leaves to meet her friends by the gym, in the corner of the canopied schoolyard. This is where they get together when it rains.
“What happened?” Maya asks. “What did she say to you?”
“Nothing. She asked me why I hadn’t done my homework, and I told her I was sick.”
“And were you really sick?” Noor asks.
Rawan answers, not making eye contact with her friends, “Kind of. I mean, I was really tired.”
A heavy sadness fills Rawan’s eyes, and her friends notice. Soon enough, the sadness morphs into small, embarrassed, hot tears rolling down her cheeks. She tries to stop them but can’t. Karen puts a hand on Rawan’s shoulder and asks, concerned, “Are you okay? What’s wrong?”
At this, Rawan starts sobbing—she can no longer hold back the storm inside. Her friends crowd around her, asking what’s happening and why she’s been someone else lately. They urge her to tell them, reassuring her that her secret will go no further than thei
r circle. Rawan finally agrees and tells them about the change in her parents’ behavior, and about the stressful environment at home that’s tying her stomach up in knots. She’s afraid that their fighting means they are going to separate. Noor comes up to Rawan and laughs. “Is that all? If they’re always fighting and can’t see eye to eye, then it’s so much better if they get a divorce. My parents are divorced and look at me, am I complaining? I have the best of both worlds. My mom is in Lebanon and my dad is in Dubai. Mom spoils me and does whatever I ask, and Dad does the same when I visit him over there. They buy me anything and everything I want from the most expensive designers. Each wants me to love them more than the other, which means that I’m the one who comes out the winner.”
“But I don’t want them to get divorced. I want them to stay together, so that I can love them together!” Rawan shouts.
“Maybe it’s just something really small, and you’re making yourself sick with worry by blowing it up. Ask your mom, and she’ll tell you what’s going on. Instead of guessing and being scared, attack the problem head-on. Tell your parents how you feel. It’s your right to know. You’re not a kid anymore.”
Raed adds, “If you share how you’re feeling, maybe they’ll be more conscious of how they’re acting. So you’ll actually be helping them out. My mom always says that families underestimate what kids can do, age is just a number.”
Maya scoffs. “And when exactly does your mom tell you this? When she’s asking you to cut grape leaves or pluck olives?” Maya’s quip lightens Rawan’s mood, and she bursts out in giggles at the sight of Raed chasing Maya to exact revenge for her snarky comment.
When Rawan gets home, she comes to a decision. What’s been bothering her for the past few days will come to an end, and she’ll no longer have to carry this burden—but she has to get Rani’s two cents first. It’s better to hear what he thinks, even though she’s pretty sure that he’s clueless about what’s been going on. He’s either out, or he’s working on his computer in his room, or else he’s on the phone. Maybe the only thing he’s picked up on is that his father no longer gives him money as easily as he used to.
Ghady & Rawan Page 5