Operation Oleander (9780547534213) (2 page)

That means she'll get them. Eventually.

“Well, what do you think?” I hold my breath. I think it's the best photo yet. That we'll take in lots of donations as a result. I want her to be as excited as I am. “See how much better they all look?”

Meriwether doesn't answer right away.

My breath leaks out, like a punctured bike tire.

She bends closer, until her face almost touches the screen.

“Don't you see how much healthier Warda looks, how she's finally smiling?” I ask.

“You think so? She still doesn't have any shoes on.”

“What?” I search the photo. I hadn't noticed Warda's bare feet. I'd just seen her eyes. They drew me like perfect moon shells on the beach.

“But the school and the food. You have to see the goat,” I say.

Meriwether scoots her chair away from the table. “Oh, no, you don't, Jess Westmark. I see what you're trying to do. We agreed to do this for two months. You forced me into it, remember? You said we'd have the rest of the summer to ourselves. For the pool. The beach. First it was a goat. Then school supplies. No more. You promised.” Meriwether folds her arms.

“But, Meriwether, just think . . .”

“No, I mean it. Oceanography camp's in August, and school starts at the end of August. That's
next
month.
We collected enough school supplies for a year. And Sam promised to take us sailing. Maybe with you-know-who. I don't want to be stuck in this hallway till oceanography camp.”

“I know it's boring,” I say. But it's not, really. Not when you have a mission.

“No kidding.” Meriwether sits there all hunched over, frowning, and I'm just feet from her, close enough to touch her arm. It scares me, how we can be so close and so far away from each other at the same time.

Finally, Meriwether grabs my arms and pulls me to my feet. “Okay, Jess, let's just do this. The sooner we set up today, the sooner we're out of here.”

“Okay, okay.” I surrender. But I'm smiling.

Meriwether centers the tablecloth and lines up packages of chips and cookies in decorative baskets we took from her house weeks ago. “Mom won't miss these. Not for another six months,” she said.
Until the end of deployment.
That's what Meriwether didn't say out loud.

There are lots of things we don't say aloud anymore.

I prop up the poster about Operation Oleander and our efforts to support the orphanage in Afghanistan. Updated photos go into the album display.

“You know, your mom took some of these.” I point to some of the pictures in the album.

Meriwether focuses. “She did?” She studies them as if she can figure something out about her mom by looking at the photos she took.

“Good morning, ladies.” Ms. Rivera, our English teacher from eighth grade last year, stands at our table. “Hope your summer reading is going well.”

“Hi,” Meriwether and I say together, and nod.

“How's it coming?” Ms. Rivera points toward our display.

“Okay,” I say. “We're making one more push, you know, this month.” I want to say we'll keep supporting the orphanage into the fall. Next to me, though, Meriwether fidgets with the poster, straightening it.

“Yes. The rest of July,” Meriwether says.
And no longer,
she means.

Ms. Rivera nods at the photo of Warda and Dad and Corporal Scott.

“Jess, you look so much like your dad.”

My smile freezes to my face.
Not really.
We both have gray eyes. But my face is shaped like a heart, and his is large and oval. He freckles and I tan. Meriwether bumps my knee under the table, breaking the winter ice sealing my lips together.

“Cara really looks like him.” She has the same cowlick where her part goes, the same oval face, skin so pale it looks see-through in the sun.

“She must be adorable now,” Ms. Rivera says, and drops five dollars and a packet of watercolor pencils into the donation basket.

“She is.” When she's not being a brat. “Thank you.” I push away what Ms. Rivera said and reach under the table for a box. “Oh, I forgot to put the flowers out. Do you want one? Any contributor gets one.” I pull out the paper oleanders I'd made.

“Sure,” Ms. Rivera says as a couple walks toward the table.

I hand one to her, then arrange the rest in a clear plastic vase. We need another pack of pink and white tissue paper to make more. Just folding the paper makes me feel good. The softness under my fingers. When the tissue flowers open, they seem to bloom in my hands.

“I'd better run. Looks like you have some more potential donors.” Ms. Rivera winks and hurries away.

As the couple approaches, I can see the man's dressed in tan-brown fatigues. The woman wears a sundress, and she rests her hand over her belly, protecting it.

She reminds me of when Mom was pregnant with Cara over three years ago. How the fear crawled under my skin and I didn't want to look at her. The baby would be part of a circle I couldn't ever enter. Mom and Dad hadn't stopped loving me when Cara was born, but things sneak up on you like speeding cars and train wrecks. Worry creeps in like trumpet vine.

“Hello,” the woman says.

“Would you like to help?” I start into my memorized speech. “We're supporting the girls' orphanage in Kabul. Since January we've sponsored a milk goat and sent school supplies. We've had concrete results.”
Concrete results
—that's what adults call success.

The man shifts on his heels, but the woman edges closer. She's drawn to the photos, I can tell.

“Look, honey. See this girl?” the woman says.

“Yes,” I say. I start to tell her the story about Warda, but the man is frowning.

“We'd better hurry,” he says.

His arm brushes the poster as he touches his wife's shoulder and steers her away. The poster slides off the tripod and floats toward the floor. The man doesn't notice. He's only looking at his wife. He acts like something can go wrong with her baby just by her looking at photos of orphans.

Meriwether reaches for the poster, but she misses. For a second I am falling with it, but Meriwether reaches down and retrieves it from the floor.

“He didn't want to be here,” she says under her breath to me, and straightens the poster back on its stand.

“No,” I say, breathing again. But it was more than that. He didn't want
us
to be here.

I rearrange the paper oleanders, positioning them as if they're real flowers going into fresh water. Then I place the vase next to the poster so people can't miss the oleanders.

So they can't dismiss our mission.

O
THER PEOPLE
begin to arrive. Mothers walk by with toddlers in tow. Kids with money in their pockets park their bikes and dash inside to spend it. Meriwether and I smile at everyone. Some people pause long enough to check out the photos at our table. A few coming out of the PX drop pads of paper or colored pencils into the basket.

Every time a donation lands on the table, I smile like the Salvation Army bell ringers at Christmas. Even when someone looks at the photos and walks away without donating, I make myself say, “Thank you for coming by.” My cheeks hurt from smiling. Not everyone can give. Not everyone wants to give.

When people just walk away, though, it bothers me. Still, no one acts like the man who knocked over the poster.

Meriwether reaches into a box under the table and refills empty spots in the baskets. “If Sam doesn't come . . .”

“He said he was coming.” I believe him. Really. To him, “duty, honor, country” aren't just three words. At least, if it doesn't mean contradicting his dad.

“But he's not here.”

I shrug. “Call him.”

“I'll wait.” Meriwether sighs and sits at the table with her chin in her hands. She fluffs the packages of chips. “Maybe Caden will come by.”

A couple of army officers walk up.

“Good morning, ladies. I'll take a soda. Here, keep the change,” one of them says, handing me a five-dollar bill. That means another box of pencils and then some. Maybe we'll have enough to send a large tin of colored pencils. Not just the eight-pack of basic colors but the set of ninety-eight, with names like sepia and scarlet tanager.

“Thanks,” Meriwether says, and reaches into the cooler for a can.

“I'll take some chips, too,” he says.

“Nice breakfast,” his companion says.

The first man shrugs. “I had cold pizza yesterday. It's been one of those weeks.”

“We'd better get going.” The other man's voice is tight and narrow, as if he doesn't trust himself to say much. He sounds like he's already in the office checking computers and orders and maps of the war, or whatever he does there. But he fishes for change anyway and drops some coins into our basket. “Thanks, ladies. Keep up the good work.”

“We will,” Meriwether says, sitting straight and tall in her chair. As if our mission had been her idea.

I tease her after they leave. “We?”

Meriwether ignores me and tosses her hair. She grins. “Okay, I know. But I'm helping. More than Sam.”

“That wouldn't be hard.” I move the baskets so they're straight, with their corners touching. Orderly, like the army. The way Dad would arrange things.

Meriwether grabs my arm. “There he is.”

Only Meriwether could conjure up a boy just by wishing him there. She sits in her chair acting like she doesn't see him.

“What's he doing?” she asks.

“What do you think he's doing? This is the way to the PX.”

I wave at Caden, trying to get his attention.

Meriwether yanks on the hem of my shorts. “What are you doing?”

“Trying to get him to come over.”

“Don't do that!” Meriwether tugs on my shorts until I sit down, hard, in the folding chair.

Caden walks by, not looking our way.

“Meriwether, you're never going to talk to him if—”

Outside, a car screeches to a halt. I cringe as the sound echoes through the long hallway. The sliding glass doors part, and a figure runs through.

It's Meriwether's dad.

Meriwether drops the iPod on the table. “He didn't bring the frappés.”

Mr. Scott dashes toward our table. I stand up, but that's all I can do. Everything around us seems more intense. The chill in the hall. The glare from outside as the sliding doors open to admit shoppers. When Mr. Scott reaches us, he looks lost. For a second the wide, startled expression in his eyes reminds me of Warda.

“Dad?” Meriwether asks.

“Come on. We've got to go home.”

Meriwether doesn't move. She sits there as if caught in an undertow and unable to swim to shore.

“What's wrong?” I ask.

“A bombing,” he says. “I heard on the radio. Back in the office. Meriwether, come on. We need to get home now. See what the networks are saying.”

“I can't. I just got here to help Jess.” Meriwether folds her arms.

“Bombing? Where?” I ask.

“Kabul,” Mr. Scott says as if I'm an idiot. That of course a bombing occurred there. As if a bomb could have exploded anywhere else. “Come on, Meriwether.”

Last month a market in Kabul was bombed. The television talked about women and children dying. That's probably what's happened this time—another market attack.

“Go.” I nudge Meriwether out of her chair. “Just go. I'll put this stuff away.”

“Are you sure?”

“Yes, it's okay.”

“You should go home too, Jess. We can drop you,” Mr. Scott says. My street comes before theirs in the housing area. But he's already backing toward the door, even as he looks to me to answer.

“That's okay. I'll follow you.” I can't leave things where they are. Dad always says, “Duty first.”

Straighten up.

Stay calm.

Keep order.

Put everything away.

Mr. Scott nods and speeds toward the exit.

Meriwether mumbles under her breath, and I hear her say Caden's name. But she sprints after her dad.

Seconds later, the car squeals away.

Mothers with their children are pushing full grocery carts from the PX. They look sideways at me as they rumble like tanks toward the parking lot. With their eyes they ask if there's anything they should worry about.

Don't panic.
I make myself slow down. Pick up the storage boxes one at a time. At least, I do while they're looking, because I don't want to upset them. Because that's what military families do: they stay calm, even in an emergency. Dad would say that, too.

As soon as they exit, though, I stuff bags of chips and snacks into boxes. I don't care if they're mixed up.

A bomb.

Maybe Mr. Scott heard it all wrong.

“Jess!”

Sam's marching toward me. Even when he doesn't run, his walk covers a lot of ground. I have to jog to keep up with him on a regular day.

Today he walks even faster. But he, too, projects calm and order, even though tension pulses just under his skin. I can tell by the way he holds his arms at his sides. Like a soldier.

“Now you show up.” I slam the rest of the snacks into boxes.

“Don't be mad. I was going to come earlier. Honest. But something's happened.” Sam's face is damp from sweat, from the heat.

“I don't want to hear it.”

He touches my arm. “Come on. It's important.”

I snatch it away and step back from the table.

“There's been a bombing,” he says. “The TV says Fort Spencer troops are involved. Mom drove me here so I could tell you.”

The cool air makes my chest ache. Mr. Scott didn't say anything about Fort Spencer troops.

I wait for him to continue. Through the glass doors behind him, Sam's mother must be sitting in her air-conditioned car.