Ten Things I Hate About Me (13 page)

AMY ISN’T AT
school today and I text her to see if she’s genuinely sick or has just opted for vegging on the couch in front of the television.

She instantly responds. I’m ok. Are you 3 2night? I was thinking of coming ova.

My dad has invited a group of his friends over tonight. This means that they will set up camp in the living room, playing cards, drinking Arabic coffee and cups of sweetened mint tea. They’ll smoke their water pipes and cigars, tell Arabic jokes, and shake the roof tiles with their roars of laughter.

Shereen has a friend over who is helping her paint banners for an upcoming protest against African poverty. The entire scene is just not the kind of introduction Amy needs to my blissful domestic existence. Yet again I am forced to spin a story and respond to her text message as follows:

Would have loved u 2 but going out 2night with family. Won’t be back until late. Sorry.

Her response?

np

That’s bad. She didn’t even make the effort to write out “no problem,” opting instead for a two-letter abbreviation.

I wonder if Amy’s getting fed up with me. I wonder why she wants to visit me. There are just too many questions and I’ve let things go too far to find out the answers.

Amy is absent from school again. I ask Liz if she’s heard from her but she shakes her head. She’s not interested. The only thing that gets her attention now is Sam.

Peter and Chris are in the hall playing catch with a pencil case. As I approach them on my way to my locker my throat chokes up. Being around Peter always makes me feel like I’ve got a Land Rover stuck in there.

“Hey, Jamie,” Peter says, planting himself in front of me. “What do you think about a stand-up comedy act at the formal? It would be so much better than this dumb band idea they’ve come up with.”

“You can’t dance to stand-up comedy,” I joke.

“We’d make pretty good comedians!” Peter says. “They should have asked us to perform.”

“The phrase
penal colony
sent you and Chris into a fit of hysterics in class the other day.”

“Exactly.” Peter chuckles. “We see the humor in everything.”

Timothy and Lindsay Parker enter the hallway. Peter notices and I can practically see his eyes gleam with excitement.

“Well, look what we have here,” Peter cries. “A Goldfish and a FOB. Hey, Lindsay, did you find Goldfish on your way to Australia in a boat?”

“You’re a comedian,” Lindsay says sarcastically.

“Actually, we were just discussing comedy. Maybe Goldfish could provide us with some fish jokes.”

Timothy shakes his head and looks at Peter with an expression of pity. “Man, it takes originality to be a comedian and the goldfish joke is wearing a little thin. Why don’t you go look up a book on marine life and come back to me with another name. It might actually make you interesting.”

“Ooh, you’re funny,” Peter says.

“Actually, the only joke I can see around here is you.”

Timothy and Lindsay keep on walking and I quickly move on to my locker.

Later in the day Timothy bumps into me.

“Can I ask you something?” he says. “What do you see in him?”

“Who?”

“Peter.”

“Nothing!” I say defensively.

“I don’t know how you can bear to talk to him after what he did to you.”

“Oh, and what am I supposed to do? Ignore him?”

“No. You’re supposed to march up to him and inform him that he is the perfect definition of a complete loser.”

I let out a laugh. “That only happens in the movies.”

“Why do you want him to like you so badly?”

“I don’t! But anyway, there’s nothing wrong with wanting to be liked. You just stick to yourself.”

“I stick to myself because I’m not interested in changing who I am just to fit in.”

“Yeah, but everybody has to do that. Nobody’s their real self. It’s only when you’re at home with your family that your true self comes out.”

“I prefer to be consistent.”

“That’s bull. Everybody puts on an act depending on who they’re with.”

“What are you so afraid of?”

“I’m not afraid,” I say indignantly.

“You sound petrified of something.”

“Well, I’m not. You don’t know the first thing about me.”

“Do you know yourself?” He grins at me, but I’m not impressed.

“Stick to essays on caviar and mollusks, Socrates. I’ll see you around.”

I walk off quickly. I’m not interested in being thrown under the microscope by Timothy yet again. I have a hard enough time looking through the lens myself.

Amy’s mother answers the phone. Her voice is frazzled and she’s in no mood for small talk. She calls Amy to the phone. I hear Amy’s muffled voice in the background. Then an indistinguishable response from Amy’s mother.

I wait.

And I wait.

Amy’s mother finally returns to the phone. “Amy’s asleep,” she informs me. She’s lying. And she knows I’m not a fool. “I’ll get her to call you back.”

Amy doesn’t.

When I see her in class the following day it’s all TV gossip and homework debriefing. A dot-to-dot conversation that leaves no imprint on either of our minds.

I PRACTICE PLAYING
the darabuka at home after school. I close my bedroom door, dim the lights, and sit in my desk chair. I start to play, my beats getting stronger and deeper as I picture myself onstage at the formal, my true identity exposed. I imagine Peter, Sam, Chris, and the rest of their crew in the audience, jeering at me. I imagine Ahmed, Danielle, and Paul looking at me with disgust as it dawns on them that I’ve sat idly by and allowed Peter to insult and offend. I imagine the look of disappointment on Amy’s face. And then I switch scenes. I’m walking onto the stage. I’m standing tall and proud. I’m playing with the band and everybody is cheering.

Cheering for Jamilah.

As I play, and the music takes over me, I realize that I can’t deny that I love my Lebanese culture. I love the food. I love the fact that we have such a huge circle of family friends. I love my dad’s stories about growing up in Beirut. I love Lebanese weddings and I love Arabic music, especially dancing to the
latest pop songs. I love the way our friends stuck by us when my mother died.

All the aunts and uncles fussed over us, and in the first days after my mother had gone they made sure we didn’t have a moment to ourselves to sit alone and realize we’d had the hearts and guts wrenched out of our bodies. It was as though her dying was going to send us into starvation mode, because the women brought pots full of food and, in typical Lebanese style, big industrial bags of white rice and lentils and boxes upon boxes of drinks. Our hallway was lined with food and drink supplies from the front door to the kitchen. My dad said that it’s a very old cultural tradition to offer condolences and ensure that the house won’t be burdened with cooking for people who visit to pay their respects.

All I want is to fit in and be accepted as an Aussie. But I don’t know how to do that when I’m juggling my Lebanese and Muslim background at the same time. It’s not like juggling an orange, an apple, and a banana. They’re all fruit and all fruits are pretty much equal, right? But the way I see it, juggling Aussie and Lebanese and Muslim is like juggling a couch, a mailbox, and a tray of muffins. Completely and utterly incongruous. How can I be three identities in one? It doesn’t work. They’re always at war with one another. If I want to go clubbing, the Muslim in me says it’s wrong and the Lebanese in me panics about bumping into somebody who knows somebody who knows my dad. If I want to go to a Lebanese wedding as
the four hundredth guest, the Aussie in me will laugh and wonder why we’re not having civilized cocktails in a function room that seats a maximum of fifty people. If I want to fast during Ramadan, the Aussie in me will think I’m a masochist.

I can’t win.

IT’S THE END OF
April and the autumn weather has transformed our front lawn into a canvas of orange and brown leaves, fallen acorns, and bare trees. I arrive home from school hungry and cold. I walk up our concrete driveway and onto our concrete front porch. On the porch are four green plastic chairs stacked on top of one another. Beside the chairs is an upside-down orange crate that acts as a coffee table. On top of it rests a small steel tray filled with coal, used by my dad when he smokes his water pipe.

When I open the front door my face is immediately flooded with the warmth of a house alive with the spicy smells of a home-cooked feast. I step into the kitchen and find Aunt Sowsan at the counter, rolling pastries and filling them with spinach and cheese. I can smell lamb and potato roasting in the oven and mujadara, brown rice, and lentils cooking on the stove. My stomach starts rumbling and I rush over and hug Aunt Sowsan in excitement.

“Yum! I’m starving,” I exclaim.

“Good, that’s what I want to hear. Now go inside, change, wash up, and come and set the table.”

“Where is everybody?”

“Shereen is at campus but will be home soon. Bilal is at work, and I’ve sent your dad and Amo Ameen to the supermarket to get yogurt and coriander.”

I go to my room and return in five minutes, comfortable in jeans and a sweater.

“Aunt Sowsan,” I say as I’m setting the table, “if you needed to persuade Dad about something and he was being really stubborn and you couldn’t accept no for an answer and you’d run out of plans, what would you do?”

She looks up at me and raises her doughy hands in the air. “Just give me a straight question and I will give you a straight answer, Jamilah.”

“Dad won’t let me go to my tenth-grade formal and it’s the end of my life. What do I do?”

She doesn’t patronize me with a laugh but seems to be deep in thought as she rolls the last of the pastries and starts laying them out on the tray.

“What’s the objection?”

“It’s coed.”

“Oh, pretty much case closed.”

“Yeah, that’s the problem,” I say, rolling my eyes. “I bet you if Mom was here things would be different. She would have talked him into it.”

Aunt Sowsan laughs. “Is that what you think? Your mother,
Allahyirhamha”—
God rest her soul—“was the loveliest, kindest woman I’ve ever known. She snuggled her way into my heart. She was also one of the toughest, strictest mothers. Shereen and Bilal went through what you’re going through but it was your mother who was head of discipline in the house—not your father.”

“What?”

“That’s right. Your father was the easy one.”

“
Easy?
If the reproductive cycle of tigers is being shown on the Discovery Channel, he changes the channel because he thinks it’s not nice for me to watch!”

She bursts out laughing.

I lean across the kitchen bench and pick a cucumber out of the salad. “Are you telling me that Mom,
Allahyirhamha,
was stricter than Dad? My dad? Your brother? Did you somehow fail to notice the charter of curfew rights stuck on the fridge?”

“I did notice it, yes.” She gives me a cheeky smile. “Very nicely typed.”

“You’re doing the sibling loyalty thing on me!” I say with a pout.

“Do you want to know about your mother or not?”

I reach out for another piece of cucumber, crunch down into it, and nod.

“OK, well I remember when Shereen turned fifteen and her best friend, Hala, was having her birthday party on a cruise boat around the harbor. It was your mother who said no
because she’d heard that Hala’s uncles and aunts would be drinking and she refused to have Shereen in any environment where there was alcohol.”

“What did Dad say?”

“He thought it was OK because it was the adults who were drinking and they’d be supervising. Your mother insisted that Shereen could not go.”

I don’t say anything and keep munching on the cucumber.

“When Shereen was your age she wanted a second earring. Your father gave her permission but your mother said that she was too young. If your mother was home, Bilal and Shereen knew that they couldn’t watch certain TV shows. If Shereen brought home any magazines, like
Seventeen
or
Cosmopolitan,
they went straight into the garbage. Your mother insisted that Bilal help with the chores. There was none of this ‘he’s a boy’ business with her. If Shereen or Bilal wanted anything, they’d run to your dad first because he was the softie.”

My mouth is wide open and I take a seat on the kitchen stool to stop myself from doing a horizontal on the floor.

“You might want to swallow the cucumber before you look at me in shock,” Aunt Sowsan says with a chuckle.

I shut my mouth but it takes me a few seconds to swallow the cucumber, which has to bypass a huge lump of confusion lodged in my throat. I finally summon the sense to put some words together and say: “So then why…I mean, how come…I mean, with me…”

I still don’t seem to be able to construct a sentence and Aunt Sowsan gives me a gentle smile. “People change, Jamilah. When your mother passed away, your father’s role suddenly changed. When your mother was alive your father’s primary job was to drive the taxi and support the family. He worked long shifts—longer than he does now. The house was your mother’s domain. She cooked, she cleaned, she ironed, she washed, she made sure you all did your homework, she went to parent-teacher conferences, she checked report cards, she threw all her energy and purpose into raising you. Your father threw all his energy and purpose into supporting you. With your mother’s death, the roles merged. Don’t you think he was scared?”

“
Scared?
Of what?”

“Of failing, Jamilah. Of being a single parent. Of how people would judge him. He has had to raise three children. Don’t you think he worries about the fact that you don’t have a mother to be there for you through your teenage years? Or that Shereen is a young lady now and will perhaps soon fall in love but not know who to talk to or ask for guidance? Or that with your father’s hours behind the taxi wheel he hasn’t had the chance to stay on Bilal’s back and keep him motivated and focused enough to finish school?”

“Yeah, but why am I being punished for his fears? How does Dad being so strict with me make it any easier for me at school? With my friends?”

“You’ve had to grow up faster than others, Jamilah. That’s what death does to a person. It rips away the innocence and
naiveté and throws you out to the world. Most people have the luxury of never having to try to understand their parents until they’re grown up—sometimes it takes
being
a parent to understand your own parents. But when one half of your life is suddenly torn away from you, you owe it to the other half to speed up that process. To try and understand what your father is going through. That’s part of the healing death forces upon people.” She takes a deep sigh and looks up above. “May Allah protect us from any further tragedy and rest your mother’s soul.
Amen.”