Safiah's Smile (7 page)

And then high school came along,
and they became freshman. Swarms of sixteen and seventeen year-old
giants hovered over their bony five-foot tall frames. Teachers
reprimanded them for the most insignificant of discretions –
marching through the halls without passes, disposing of their
spoiled peanut butter and jelly sandwich and other allergenic
products in the wastebaskets, or failing to place their paper
products in the recycle bins. Everything just seemed more
complicated. But for months they had anticipated the next four
years. Danny’s older brother would constantly boast of the marvels
of high school. And now they were finally here. Living it
themselves.

At least until Mr. Hoffman assigned
their first history report.

“Mr. Hoffman, I swear, my computer
broke down yesterday. I lost everything.” Malia’s voice trembled.
Her cheeks were red. Mr. Hoffman stood firmly, his arms strapped
across his chest in an iron grasp. “It’s all gone. Did you want me
to rewrite the entire thing at midnight?” She looked up into her
ninth grade world history teacher’s eyes, searching for a shred of
sympathy. But he had no pity for Malia and her excuses.

“Ms. Sanders, you are in high
school now. You have to take responsibility for your assignments.”
He spoke in a slow, condescending tone. “Your computer malfunction
is irrelevant. I have no choice but to give you a zero.”

Zero. The one word she had always
dreaded. It shot a sharp sting of chills up her spine.

“Now is that really fair, Mr.
Hoffman?” Danny tried to negotiate. “I mean, it wasn’t really her
fault. In fact, you can probably blame my Dad.” Malia looked at Mr.
Hoffman. His lips were pursed, his eyebrows raised. “He was the one
using it when it....”

“That’s enough, Mr. Sanders,” Mr.
Hoffman scolded, his cheeks red with fury. “My mocha cappuccino to
settle his nerves.

“Thanks for trying, Sam. That’s
what counts,” she smiled.

Sam looked disappointed.

He was always trying to save her.
How was she supposed to save him if she was thousands of miles
away?

Ever since Safiah returned Sam’s
letter, Malia had kept it strapped tightly in her pocket. Every now
and then, she would check to ensure it was still there. She
depended on it desperately. That one slip of paper convinced her
that everything would be alright.

Sitting meekly on the wooden park
bench, as the sunlight nearly turned to dust, she slowly unfolded
the letter. Her fingers quivered as she squinted to read the curly
handwriting. Her fingers, wet with her tears, painted small water
spots on the thin sheet. She swiftly dried the smudges with the
edge of her sleeve and searched for some hint, some clue to her
brother’s whereabouts.

She found none.

“I was born to do this,” she
whispered, slowly enunciating each syllable with skepticism.
“Couldn’t he find something else to do with his life?” she shouted
to no one. “He loved basketball. Why couldn’t he pursue
basketball?”

The air replied with a frosty
whirl of wind that flew the letter from her grasp. It lay flimsily
by a monstrous tree. Rain droplets fluttered from its branches and
prickled her arms as she stooped to retrieve it. Her hand brushed
lightly against its trunk, causing tiny wood pieces to splinter her
palm.

“I’m doing this for me,” she
continued to read. “Well what about us, Sam? What about your
friends and family?” she once again questioned to no one in the
vacant campus garden. “Did you even think about us?” She sunk her
body to the ground, leaning heavily against the tree. Grass stains
intermingled with blotches of mud dirtied her pants and the trim of
her blouse, but she didn’t mind. Her mind was too obsessed with
anger. Her raging fury with her brother. Selfish. Irresponsible.
Naive.

Brave. Determined. A fighter.

The anger passed, and the sun rose
once again. Despite the deaths of soldiers and the tears of widowed
wives, the sun would always rise. And life would continue. A life,
and the lives of so many, that Sam was trying to protect.

She heard voices, laughter. Crowds
of people were scurrying to their classes, bags strapped to their
backs and piles of weighty books tucked under their arms.

“Malia?” A hand was extended
towards her.

–
Chapter 6
–

“Safiah? What are you doing here?”
she questioned. Suddenly, Malia realized she wasn’t lying on her
springy mattress. Kate Lockman, her roommate, wasn’t tugging on her
covers gently, reminding her that classes began in twenty minutes.
And the shouts of fellow freshmen in the halls weren’t echoing
through the thin, brittle walls of her dorm room.

“
Why are you sitting beneath
a tree, Malia?” Safiah looked worried. A shadow crossed her face.
“You weren’t sitting here all night, were you?” She sounded
skeptical.
Why is she so
worried?
Malia thought.

And then she remembered.

She couldn’t tell her. She
wouldn’t.

She couldn’t cry in front of
Safiah. Safiah had already endured so much. Her anxieties would
seem trivial.

“I like nature. Especially trees,”
Malia asserted. “In fact, for one of my classes, I’m doing a report
on trees... uh... maple trees, specifically.” She hoped Safiah
wasn’t an earnest tree lover.

Safiah eyed the note lying in
Malia’s fingers. Sam’s letter, she recognized. It was smudged with
stains that resembled tears. Holes were beginning to form in those
spots. The water was too much for the brittle paper to handle and
it was shredding. Malia gathered the torn pieces and placed them in
her pocket.

“What’s happened, Malia?” she
whispered.

A golden headscarf, Malia admired.
A light blue dress. Such beautiful colors, she marveled. Safiah
always wore the most stunning of colors.

“Malia, why aren’t you speaking?”
Safiah’s eyes were not simply bright with worry. They were gleaming
with fear. “Something has happened, hasn’t it? It’s your brother.”
She waited for a reply. None came. “Malia, you can tell me what
happened. I can help.”

The morning bells chimed,
signaling the start of classes. It was ten in the morning. Safiah
did not flinch a muscle. A boy on a mountain bike, a backpack
strapped across one arm, zoomed past them. A cluster of giggling
girls strolled by, their hair tied back sophisticatedly, a black
leather handbag harnessed to each of their shoulders. A middle-aged
man jogged briskly with his dog through the park while whistling
classic John Lennon tunes.

“They don’t know where he is. He’s
gone, Safiah,” she looked at her friend. Friend, she thought. In
spite of everything, somehow she had managed to make a friend.

Safiah exhaled heavily and
contemplated. After several moments of silence, she spoke. “Malia,
that doesn’t mean he’s not coming back.”

“Doesn’t it, though?”

Safiah looked to the sky. At the
swirls of white and blue. “When I was a little girl, I got lost in
the corn fields. Every afternoon, it was my obligation to harvest
the vegetables. And I got lost within acres and acres of starch.
For hours I tried desperately to find my way back. And eventually,
I did.” But she looked uncertain. “And maybe... maybe you’re
brother will....”

“No.” Malia lifted herself from
the ground, swiping her backside. She looked at her hands. They
were soiled with gunk and green smears. “No. This is not like that
at all. I have no way of knowing whether he’s alive or...
or....”

“You can’t think like that. It
will destroy you. Your brother would not want you to think like
that,” Safiah stood now, as well, her dress stained with grass. But
she didn’t mind.

“You know, I supported him. I told
him that if this was what he really wanted, that he should go for
it.” Malia was no longer speaking to Safiah. She spoke to the
trees, to the shrubs, to the clouds, but not to Safiah. “I am to
blame, in a way.”

“
No, Malia, that is absurd.
You are
not
at fault here.” Safiah tried to reason with her. Almost
uselessly.

“But what about Danny? He promised
me... he swore. That he’d protect him.” She no longer fretted over
allowing Safiah to see her tears. Her vulnerability. Her weakness.
“How could he let this happen? How could he do this to me?” It was
almost as if Safiah wasn’t even there.

Her light blue gown was
camouflaged. Blurred with the light blue tint of the sky.

“Malia!” she shouted. Her voice
was no longer a thin needle. It was a fierce storm.

“What?” Malia turned to face
Safiah. Her eyes were wide with desperation. She instantly
regretted shouting at Safiah. Her helpless friend. Her life such a
tragedy. Not too different from her own.

“Let me help you,” Safiah offered.
Malia froze.

That’s what
Danny said
, she thought.
When everything was falling apart. He said he would
help me.
She pictured his Red Sox baseball
cap.
Now when everything’s
falling apart all over again, where is he?
The one he never went anywhere without. Similar to him and her
brother. Always together.
What
would Danny do now that Sam was gone? How would he go on without
him?

“You already have.” She looked at
Safiah. Her eyes sparkled with pain. Safiah’s heart was probably
still healing, Malia thought. If it could even become whole ever
again.

Safiah furrowed her brows. “How
so?” Her mouth twisted in confusion.

“With everything you’ve dealt
with, you still seem so strong.” Malia’s face dropped. “I just wish
I could be like that.” Not for me, but for him. Wherever he is.

“You can. You just have to have
faith,” Safiah encouraged. She could get through to Malia, she kept
telling herself. She just had to keep trying. No matter how
stubborn she may seem.

“I just don’t understand why
people have to destroy. And kill. And destroy some more.” Malia
brushed the hair from her eyes in frustration. “I just can’t wrap
my head around it.”

“Neither can I. But you have to
believe,” Safiah urged. “You said you supported your brother
enrolling in the army. Why is that?” she inquired.

“
Because...” Malia
thought.
Why did she support
him? Because it was important to him?
No.
Basketball was important to him, also. And getting the world record
for the most hot dogs eaten in a twenty-four hour time span. But it
didn’t mean that she was contacting all the basketball scouts in
the Midwestern area to inspect her brother’s athletic skills. And
she certainly wasn’t offering to assist Sam in grilling three
hundred hot dogs overnight in their backyard. Although he tried to
persuade her. Multiple times.

“
Because I knew that it was
right. What he was doing. It was a good thing.” Was
a good thing
.
Was it still a good thing
now?
she pondered.

“Exactly,” Safiah agreed,
smiling.

For something
admirable. For his country
,
Danny had said.

Danny. Where was he now? Would he
be coming home? Or would she lose everyone closest to her? He had
saved her from Joey Gandalini – the seventh grade bully, from Corey
Simon – the grand football star, and most of all, from herself.

“I guess the only thing left to do
is pray,” Malia finally declared. “And have hope.” The pangs of
disbelief and denial dissolved. And she surrendered.

Together they dashed to class,
enduring the remainder of the day with the knowledge that with
time, the war would end. The world would heal, and inevitably, so
would they.

While striding to the
freshman dormitories, Malia noticed turquoise advertisements pasted
on every empty space on the bulletin boards posted throughout the
university. “Freshman party! Come meet your new classmates,” Malia
read eagerly.
This is exactly
what I need,
Malia thought. The prospect of
chatting with strangers – carefree college students unaware of her
qualms – whetted her excitement and she relished in the joys of
college life.

She raced to dial Safiah’s number.
Reaching in her mesh bag to retrieve her silver flip phone, she
realized she had never asked for Safiah’s phone number.

“It’ll be fun. Our first college
party. Plus, you’re the only person I’ve spoken to at this school!”
Malia laughed. “So you have to come with me.” Malia was smiling.
Safiah was shocked at this sudden change of character and hurriedly
agreed. Malia stood in the hall on the velvet navy blue carpeting
on the third floor of the freshman dormitory.

“Don’t laugh, but I’ve never been
to a party before,” Safiah smiled.

Malia sported a short black dress
with sequins and a necklace with multi-colored crystal beads. The
heels of her satin black pumps pounded against the cement of the
stone path leading to Grover Hall. An innocent grin sketched on her
face, Safiah lifted the thick cotton of her navy dress in her
fingers to prevent it from drifting to the wet floor after several
hours of afternoon showers.

Malia recalled the countless high
school parties she attended most weekends at James Madison High
School. Mostly due to peer pressure rather than her own enthusiasm
for underage drinking and rock music.

“
Malia, I don’t think it’s
such a good idea for you to be going to these parties,” her brother
declared. She was already dressed in a brown blouse, denim skirt
and cowboy boots. She was a sophomore, and Mandy Johnson was
hosting a western-themed party at her suburb mansion that Friday
night.
Whose idea
was
that?
she thought.