Our status in the regular crowd is parasitical. It feeds off the uncoolness of others. We can only be semipopular as a measure of those who aren’t. So we naturally try to maintain the status quo, support the system that supports ours. Our complicity is self-serving.
2
“GEORGE IS HAVING a big bash at his house this weekend,” Amy tells Liz and me as we walk to our lockers. “And the best part is that his cousin just turned eighteen. You know what that means?”
Everybody’s going to get the chance to lean over a toilet bowl, tongue a stranger, lick Venetian blinds, and give somebody an atomic wedgie.
I pretend to look enthusiastic. There is no way my dad will let me go.
“Sam asked me to go with him,” Liz says excitedly.
“So that’s what you two were whispering about in science,” Amy says. “Are you a couple now?”
“Well he hasn’t officially asked me to be his girlfriend…”
“Is he picking you up or are we going together, like we usually do?”
Liz looks at Amy with a guilty expression on her face. “Um…he’s going to come by and pick me up with his older brother, who drives. I hope you don’t mind…”
“Not a problem,” Amy says in a voice which clearly indicates that it is. She suddenly starts looking for something in her bag and avoids Liz’s gaze.
“Maybe you and Jamie could go together,” Liz suggests.
Amy slowly looks up from her bag at me.
“Do you want to go?”
“Yeah! Sure! It should be loads of fun!” I make sure to exaggerate my enthusiasm. That way, when I cancel at the last minute due to a sudden case of stomach flu—actually, I’ll make it family commitments this time—she won’t be suspicious. So far I’ve managed to keep everybody in the dark about the fact that my dad’s rules make the Jurassic era seem progressive. It’s too embarrassing. I’m a pro at inventing plausible excuses for last-minute cancellations.
“Great! That’s settled, then!” Liz says happily. “I’ve got to go now. I’m meeting Sam.”
Her eyes go misty when she mentions his name and I can practically see the hairs on her arms braid themselves into little love hearts. She dashes off just as Peter and Chris walk up to us, bouncing a basketball between them.
I try to maintain my composure. Peter always makes me nervous. All that popularity and misdirected ego.
“Are you coming to George’s party on Saturday?” Peter asks us. He casts his eyes over my body. From fake-blonde tip to school-shoes toe. He checks me out like a customer at a butcher’s sizing up the quality of a piece of meat.
“Yep,” Amy answers.
“What about you, Jamie?”
“I wouldn’t miss it!” I gush. I have that fake enthusiasm thing going on again.
“Then I’ll definitely be going,” Peter says, leaning close and flashing me a playful smile.
Excuse me? Commercial break. Intermission. Something very strange is happening. Peter is flirting with me. My bra size hasn’t increased over the break. I haven’t had any collagen injections. And as far as I know my family is still in the lower socioeconomic bracket.
I respond with a goofy smile. As you do when the most popular guy in class is blatantly flirting with you.
I try to ignore Amy’s bewildered look and concentrate on being calm.
“My dad’s pissed off at me,” Chris says. “I ran over his fishing rod with my skateboard. He’s threatened to ground me this weekend.”
He says it without a hint of shame or embarrassment. I stare at him openmouthed.
Noticing my expression, Chris grins at me. “Yeah, my dad’s pretty tough.”
I don’t think anybody needs to know that if my dad busted me at a party with boys and alcohol he’d throw me into a tank with a semitranquilized shark and ask me to reflect on my actions.
“Tough!” Peter exclaims good-naturedly. “Man, your dad’s got you in chains. Remember how he busted us drinking at your place? We got it hard! He made us clean out the garage, mow the lawn, and trim the hedges.”
“That’s harsh,” Amy says, demonstrating to me how utterly ignorant she is of the meaning of the word. “So how will you go to the party?”
“Yeah,” Peter adds. “Don’t be a loser. Just come. What are you going to tell everybody? ‘Oh, sorry, guys, I can’t make it because my dad won’t let me’? Man, they’ll roast you alive if you pull that one on them!”
I pretend to find the whole conversation amusing and join in their laughter.
“He’ll get over it,” Chris says, shrugging his shoulders. “And even if he doesn’t, he’s going to the soccer game on Saturday night so he won’t know the difference anyway.”
“Come on, let’s go shoot some hoops,” Peter says. He turns away and then stops and looks back at me. “I’ll see you on the dance floor.” He winks at me and walks away.
“What the…?” Amy says, in a tone that indicates that she is as baffled as I am.
“I wasn’t imagining it, was I?”
“No!”
“Do you think it’s a case of mistaken identity?”
We throw ourselves into a game of speculation. It’s not a low self-esteem thing. I’ve attracted guys before. Blonde hair (I mean bleached), piercing blue eyes (I mean contact lenses). I’ve had my share of wolf whistles. But the fact is, the situation lacks logic. Peter has status. That’s why his dating is strategic. He will either maintain the status quo or upgrade. Tara Hanson, captain of the eleventh grade tennis team, was an upgrade. Legs to her neck, boobs that defy gravity. She’s loud and assertive and makes a point of being noticed. She wore the pants in the relationship, although, based on schoolyard gossip, wearing clothes didn’t really feature all that much in their partnership.
I represent a downgrade. That’s a simple, indisputable fact. So unless Peter’s knocked his head on concrete, it doesn’t make sense.
“So what will you wear?” Amy asks me.
“I’m not sure yet. I’ll have to see what I can put together.”
There’s a moment’s uncomfortable pause. Parties and weekends and what-to-wear conversations are usually Amy and Liz’s domain. At first they would ask me to go out with them but they eventually gave up after one too many “I’ve got something else to do” excuses. I’ve never had the courage to tell them that my dad has a policy about going out at night. It’s called Never. Subtitle: Not in a Trillion Years.
“How about I come over to your place and we can get ready together?” Amy asks.
Her question zooms into my brain. There is no way I can handle Amy visiting. My background oozes out of every corner of the house. From the paintings with inscriptions from the Koran hanging on the walls to the Lebanese satellite channel. I once heard Peter and his gang laughing about “ethnic” homes always having veggie gardens in the backyard, a plastic outdoor table and chairs set on the front porch, and a stripped Ford Falcon sitting on four bricks in the front yard. My face burned with shame that day. My dad grows cucumbers, zucchinis, and tomatoes. Our table setting is plastic-bottle green. And Bilal has two stripped cars sitting in our driveway.
I have to protect myself. My brain hits the panic button and offers me three options:
We’re renovating and most of the electric outlets are out, so we can’t plug in our hair straighteners.
My sister is studying for an exam and goes insane at the slightest bit of noise.
My dad is having visitors over.
I opt for the outlets excuse. I’m in an emergency situation here. Besides, the prospect of not being able to straighten our hair almost makes Amy shudder with fear.
“Come over to my place, then?” Amy asks, giving me an awkward smile.
“OK, cool, that would be nice.”
It’s deceitful. It’s dishonest. It’s two-faced. It’s all those things, yes.
But most of all, it’s about survival.
I practice my speech on the way home in the bus. Deep down, though, I know it’s of no use.
I’m not allowed to go to the movies with my friends at night. I have more chance of waking up a natural blonde than convincing my father to let me go to George’s party.
My mother died of a sudden heart attack when I was nine years old. My father changed instantly. Before my mother’s death, he was fun and carefree. Afterward, he became rigid, overprotective, and paranoid. He worries about what happens and what could happen. He wants to control every variable in my life and it drives me crazy.
Last year he drafted his curfew rules. He made me type them and hang them on the fridge door.
While I’m stuck with these Stone Age rules, my brother, Bilal, is allowed a lot more freedom. We’re only about two years apart but he has a curfew of midnight (which he never obeys). I’m doomed to have the social life of a hibernating bear with the kind of shackles I’m in at the moment.
My dad doesn’t really control my older sister, Shereen. She’s twenty-two. If she’s out late at night he knows she’s not dancing her heels off at a nightclub or flirting with a spunky guy. She’s either writing a manifesto on women’s rights, working out a strategy to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, or attending a Muslim youth function, getting high on spirituality and charity events. It annoys him, but she doesn’t have any curfew restrictions because she’s usually home early anyway.
CHARTER OF CURFEW RIGHTS FOR JAMILAH TOWFEEK
Jamilah is not allowed to go out after dark. She must be home before sunset.
Jamilah may go to the movies with her FEMALE friends sometimes, provided that her brother or sister or family member picks her up from the theater immediately after the movie finishes. No loitering around in the parking lot permitted.
The movie must be in the daytime.
Bilal’s friends do not constitute family members.
Under no circumstances are boys allowed.
Under no circumstances are boys allowed.
There will be NO going out until all homework is finished.
Signatories:
Witness:
I arrive home after school and enter a family war zone. Shereen and my father are arguing in the living room. Bilal is sprawled on the couch reading a car magazine.
“What’s wrong this time?” I ask, throwing my school bag on the floor and slumping down into an armchair. I’m annoyed because I’ll have to wait until my dad is in a good mood before approaching him about the party.
“Your sister is disgracing us again!” my father cries in Arabic. My father always speaks to us in Arabic.
“Since when is sticking up for what you believe in a disgrace?” she cries, hands on her hips, nostrils flaring as she faces my father.
“I’m watching the news and what do I see? My daughter in front of the camera, screaming about race riots and waving her arms around like somebody has plugged an electrical cable into her ear!”
“I’m sticking up for us, Dad! Don’t you get it? Social apathy and the failure to commit to open political discourse threaten the viability of our democracy!” That’s how Shereen talks. As though she’s memorized her class notes. We generally need a dictionary to make sense of her.
I steal a look at Bilal and we roll our eyes. We’ve become accustomed to Shereen and Dad arguing. My dad thinks Shereen is going to end up with a record because she’s constantly organizing protests and sitting on the steps of Parliament House with her hippie friends who don’t understand that not wearing deodorant breaches United Nations conventions.
“The sooner our community and wider society refrains from radicalizing human-rights activism, the sooner the human race will come to terms with its common humanity and free itself of the bonds of muted rage!”
Bilal and I pretend to stick our fingers down our throats. Shereen darts a menacing look at us and my dad throws his hands in the air in frustration. “When will you abandon all these protests and just settle down and focus on your studies? These protests achieve nothing! Why do you insist on drawing attention to yourself? We live in tense times, Shereen. You already stand out as it is.”
My dad’s referring to the fact that Shereen wears the hijab. Last year she made the decision to ditch her purple dreadlocks for the veil. My dad was overjoyed at the time. He thought that Shereen had finally settled down.
He was wrong.
She bought bags of material and assorted patchwork. She designed a whole variety of different patterns to sew onto her veils. She has one veil with Yin Yang patches sewn all over it. She bought an embroidery kit and sewed the words Make Peace Not War on another veil. Other statements she’s adopted are:
Save the Forests.
More Bikes, Less Cars.
Why are there never enough red jelly beans?
Vote Chocolate into the Senate.
My personal favorite is: Don’t go burning your retina on my account.
Needless to say, Shereen has no intention of settling down. She’s as passionate and active as ever, living to save the world through protests, sit-ins, vigils, and standoffs. I sometimes think she’d have a sit-in to protest against cats being fed generic-brand food instead of Whiskas. It’s no surprise, therefore, that she’s unimpressed with my dad’s desire for her to spend her weekends studying or learning a new recipe.
“I want to make a difference, Dad. And I don’t see how wearing the hij ab should stop me.”
Bilal throws his magazine aside and groans. “Shereen, can’t you just act normal for once? You seriously need to relax. You need a night at Cave. Some R&B, a little soul and funk, a Bacardi Breezer, and you’ll wake up to what life is all about.”
“BILAL!” my dad yells. “I will not have you discussing such things in this house. Alcohol? I thought you had stopped drinking. You know it’s haram, forbidden. And as for you, Shereen, stop speaking to me like I have a degree in English literature from Sydney University! How did I manage to breed such silly children, ya Allah! One thinks she’s going to save the world by protesting about anything and everything, and the other has the intelligence of a squashed falafel. And my Jamilah? All she does is watch this O.P. or O.C. garbage program, or whatever it is called, and dye her hair yellow.”
“Hey, don’t pick on me!” I cry.
Shereen rolls her eyes at us and storms out of the room. My dad sighs and sits down, erupting into an angry monologue.
“A man comes home to his family and expects peace. I’ve been driving my taxi for the past thirteen hours and I come home hoping to spend some quality time with my family. And this is what I get? Ya Allah, give me guidance and patience. Jamilah, make me a cup of coffee, will you, please? Make it strong. My back is sore from sitting all these hours.”
“I don’t know why you don’t give up the taxi, Dad,” I say. “You complain about a stiff back every night but you’re still out there doing long shifts. I wish you’d get an office job.”
“It’s too late for that now, Jamilah,” he says in a weary voice.
When my parents immigrated to Australia in 1974, my father couldn’t find a job, despite having a PhD in agriculture from the University of Beirut. His degree was highly specialized and the only work available would have required him to move us to the country. My parents weren’t too keen on being the only Arabs in a remote country town.
So my dad swallowed his pride and worked in various factories. In fact, he initially worked as a taste tester at a beer factory. That didn’t go down too well with my mother who, as a devout Muslim, never touched a drop of alcohol in her life. But my dad, who was a lax Muslim in those days, thought nothing of stockpiling the fridge with rejected cans left over from his shifts.
I make him a cup of coffee and go to my room. He’s obviously not in the best of moods. In fact, I’d have difficulty convincing him to let me go to the corner store. Tonight isn’t the right time to attempt to work a miracle.
3
YEARS OF HARD work and dedication have enabled me to foster a talent for multitasking. I can pretend to be engrossed in my class work while simultaneously passing notes to Amy or readi
ng a novel I’ve tucked away behind a textbook. Today I’m nurturing my talent further. I’m conducting Internet research in my Social Studies class while chatting to various people in the intermail chatroom. All of a sudden an envelope flashes at the bottom of my computer screen indicating I have a new message in my e-mail in-box.
The e-mail is from
[email protected] I don’t know anybody with that e-mail address.
Amy leans over and looks at my screen.
“Cool e-mail address,” she says.
“I hope it’s not a virus or some weirdo.”
“Open it and see.”
I open it and she moves back and focuses on her screen. She has her own multitasking to attend to.
From:
[email protected] To:
[email protected] I’m in a school somewhere in Sydney at the moment.
I just noticed your e-mail address in the Sydney intermail chat room.
I was compelled to e-mail you. You see an e-mail address like yours and the cosmic forces in the universe push their power into your fingertips and you suddenly find yourself e-mailing a complete stranger.
So what are the Ten Things?
This class is aggravating my didaskaleinophobia (fear of going to school). The one good thing about computers is that you can spend useful hours on Google looking up things that actually matter. Last week I learned that a teacher here who blushes every time a student speaks to her has ephebiphobia. That is a phobia meaning “fear of teenagers.” She’s clearly in the wrong profession.
E-mail me back quick, I’m bored.
My name’s John, by the way.
I’m intrigued. I make sure that Mr. Turner isn’t hovering beside my desk and proceed to e-mail John back.
From:
[email protected]