“So what happened? I want details. Start to finish.”
She laughs and gets up and cuts me another slice of cake. “Stopping with ze questions and eat more cake.”
“You want me to finish off an entire cake?” I say, laughing at her. “Leave it for yourself for tomorrow, Mrs Vaselli.”
She smiles at me. “No worry about finish ze cake, Amal. I tinking I making plenty more cakes and Greek sweets from now. I making for your family. . . And maybe I be making for my family too.”
38
I arrive home from school the next day to find Leila’s parents sitting in the lounge room with my parents. Leila’s mum is a mess. Her eyes are squashed between puffy eyelids and heavy, sagging bags reaching just above her cheekbones; her face is a swollen pulp, as though she’s been crying for days. Her husband is sitting beside her, silent, his head in his hands. My dad is at the dining table holding my mum’s hand.
“What’s wrong?” I cry, throwing my bag on the floor and standing before them. “What’s happened?”
“Amal!” Leila’s mum shouts, pointing her finger accusingly at me. “It’s all your fault! Where’s Leila?!”
“What? I don’t know what you’re talking about!”
“Don’t lie to me!” she shrieks.
“Gulchin, you must be calm,” my mum says, a look of exasperation on her face. “I know it’s hard, but if Amal knows where Leila is she’ll tell us.”
“What’s going on?” I ask, looking desperately from my mum and dad to Leila’s parents.
“Leila’s gone, Amal,” my mum says. “She’s run away.”
“When?”
“This morning. She left a note in her bedroom saying she was leaving home. Has she contacted you?”
I stare back at her dumbfounded.
“Amal?” my dad says. “Has Leila contacted you?”
“Yeah, we spoke last night,” I whisper, feeling a sickening wave of fear take over my body.
“Did she give you any clue that she was going?” my mum asks.
“Nothing. We only spoke for a minute or two. She didn’t mention anything.”
“I thought you good girl, Amal,” Leila’s mum says. “But you lie to me! I say OK for her to go your house but no go out, and you lie! You make my daughter go out at night like bad girl and she reject good man and now she run away.”
I collapse into an armchair and stare in a confused daze at the carpet, not making sense of her words. Leila’s mum glares at me as she wrings her hands.
“What do you mean by she reject good man, Gulchin?” my mum suddenly asks.
Leila’s mum looks up with a tired expression. “I bring good man for engagement to my Leila.”
“When?” my mum asks wearily.
“Saturday. He very good man. He from America. Our families from same village in Turkey. When Leila come home that night he was visit with us. He see her walking in with her brother so late and I disgraced, you know? But he still no reject her.”
“That’s just bull crap!” I say, and she frowns at me but continues to talk.
“Hakan tell us what happen and I so mad! Leila betray me. I go her room and I so upset with her. I tell her I forgiving her if she talk to him, he good man, he interesting to engage her.”
My mouth is gaping open. My mum and dad each let out heavy, frustrated sighs.
“Then Leila suddenly screaming and shouting. No respect! When this good man in our house and hearing her! And after I convince him to live here and no take Leila away to America. And he agreed. After weeks talking with him we convincing him to start his business here. I no wanted to be separate from Leila.” She takes a gulp of breath and her husband clasps her hand tightly.
Rage suddenly hammers through my head. “Why couldn’t you just leave her alone?”
She looks up, startled. “What you meaning?”
“It’s not time for her to marry!”
“I know what best for my daughter!”
“This is your daughter’s life, Gulchin,” my mum interrupts. “There is plenty of time for her to meet somebody and settle down, if she chooses to. She’s still so young and her duty, Gulchin, her Islamic duty, is to gain an education, to seek knowledge. She has never given you any cause to feel disgraced. You should be proud of her.”
She looks at us indignantly. “She marry now, when she this age, better for her.”
“Why?”
“Because she have nice home and he look after her and she be secure. She visiting me and I teaching her nice recipes and she having babies. She girl, she supposed to be doing this, so why she delaying?”
“What a load of—”
“Amal,” my dad says sternly.
“– crap!”
“Amal,” my mum hisses but I cross my arms over my chest and glare at the floor.
“You rude girl,” Leila’s mum says.
My mum quickly interrupts again, sensing that I’m about to explode. “What happened this morning?”
“All week she moody. This man coming every night for dinner and she sit like statue, no talk or laugh. I begging her to show him how nice she is and how she funny and I asking her to wear make-up. But no, she come out in her boy track pants and she no wear make-up and she no fixing her scarf nicely. I even telling her to show her fringe a little, you know? Fix it up so he see how beautiful her hair is. Allah, he no worry about your fringe in this time, I tell her. And she go crazy at me when I tell her this!”
I knock my head back against the back of the armchair in frustration and let out an exaggerated “Ooof”.
“Then this morning I knocking on her door and no answer. I go in and she . . . gone. . . We call police and they no help.”
I’ve had enough. “Serves you right!” I suddenly yell, jumping up from my seat. “You don’t deserve her!”
“Amal!” my dad shouts.
Leila’s mum looks at me in shock. “Why you talk like this to me? I older than you! You show manners!”
“You’re just so bloody ignorant!”
“That’s enough, Amal!” my mum shouts, but I’m beyond control and lash out.
“How could you treat her like that when she could be anything she wants to be? How can you think you’re religious? You don’t know the first thing about Islam. You picked on Leila when your son is an idiot!”
Leila’s mum gasps, holding her hand to her throat as though I’ve got her in a headlock. “Oh Allah! This girl crazy!”
“Don’t you dare bring Allah into this!”
She stares back at me, her mouth snapping shut.
“Amal, that is enough.” My dad is towering over me now, his eyes ordering me to shut up.
“We go.” Leila’s mum grabs her husband’s hand. She stands up and storms out of the living room to the front door. As she passes me she pauses, looks at me and shakes her head. “I never knowing you like this, Amal,” she says. “I always thinking you a good girl. You wear hijab, you praying. You telling me I no know religion. Where your religion when you liar and you talking back to your friend mum?”
Her words suck the wind out of me; I feel as though she’s shoved a Hoover down my throat and switched it on maximum power. She yanks her husband’s arm and walks out of the house.
39
What do you do when your best friend disappears? Life doesn’t stop. There’s no intermission when you can lean back in your chair and let the scenes and dialogues you’ve just watched sink in. It feels like an ABC or SBS movie, where there are no ad breaks. Things roll on and you’re expected to keep going. You have no choice but to adjust your screen monitor so that each thought or pain or emotion is on minimizer. So I’m in History and I have to minimize thoughts of where Leila is sleeping while Mr Piper roams the classroom demanding answers to his pop quiz. I’m setting the table for dinner. Don’t click on Is Leila
getting three meals a day? Otherwise I’ll break down.
I keep on going to school, hanging out with everybody, doing all the normal, boring stuff in my day. But I feel like an emotional mess. The debate is in a week. I’m dying to back out but I can’t bring myself to let Adam and Josh down after all our practice. I’m so nervous I’ve been waking up at night. When I’m not having nightmares about Leila being somewhere dangerous I’m having nightmares about me bombing out in the debate. I know there’s no comparison but that’s the way school is. Things just go on and you have to deal with everything on the same level.
I don’t feel real. I feel like a clone who’s pretending to be me while the real me remains curled up in bed thinking about where my best friend is. The evenings are the hardest. I don’t feel like eating. I don’t feel like watching TV or working out or talking celebrity goss with the girls on the telephone. I just come home and go straight to my room. My parents tread carefully around me, giving me my space, being really selective with their words like they’re scared I’ll collapse into a puddle of tears if they say a word which even rhymes with her name.
The only person I get a time-out on life with is Yasmeen. Neither of us has heard from Leila. Leila’s mum calls my mum every day to find out if we’ve had any contact. Her brother calls my mobile telephone, accusing me of knowing where she is and hiding it from him.
I ring all the shelters but nobody will answer my questions. Who’s there is strictly confidential and I suppose they have a point, but it makes me furious anyway. Yasmeen, Simone, Eileen and I patrol the streets, shops, even libraries Leila used to go to, with the false hope we’ll bump into her.
It hurts at night, when I’m lying in bed listening to the leaves on the trees rattle in the wind. I stare at the ceiling wondering how easy it is to take freedom and open-minded parents for granted. I wonder if she’s better off away from her family. I wonder if she’s safe and protected and able to be all she wants to be without loneliness or fear.
Time without Leila makes me feel like I used to on primary school camps. You’d say bye to your parents and then your guts would start to churn and twist and you’d feel so lost and teary that you’d do anything just to see their faces. I feel homesick for her. I miss her face and her smile and the way she makes us laugh and the way she can memorize television commercials and the annoying way she eats an apple and corrects us when we get our grammar wrong and how strong and real and gutsy she is.
On Sunday afternoon Mum takes me to a shopping mall. We split after a while. She wants to spend time looking at patterns in Lincraft, which is as excruciating as counting how many times the letter a is used in a newspaper. So I go to the food court to get a drink and as I’m walking I see a takeaway shop advertising for casuals.
I had a casual job last year, working in Hungry Jack’s on the weekend. I was pretty cool having the extra pocket money and we used to muck around a lot on our shifts. Mum and Dad made me quit because of VCE. I gave them ulcers about taking away my “economic independence”. Thinking about the stacks of homework the teachers keep dishing out, I guess it probably makes sense. But when I see the advertisement, I have an urge to apply. If I could get just one shift a week, on the weekend, I think I could still manage to study and have a life. So I go to the toilets and fix my hijab and put some gloss on. Then I hover at the counter, waiting for the customers to be served. The shop sells fish and chips.
When the last customer has left, the girl at the front turns to me and asks me what I’d like.
“I’m here about the job . . . how do I apply?”
“Have you got any experience?”
“Yeah, I used to work at Hungry Jack’s.”
“Cool!” She smiles at me and tells me to hang on a second so that she can call the owner who’s out back.
“Hey George! Someone here about the job!”
“Gimme a minute!” he yells back.
“How old are ya?”
“Sixteen.”
“Sweet!” She grabs a stash of napkins and starts folding them with plastic forks. “He hasn’t had much response to the advertisement, ya know? And he needs someone pronto ’cause the other girl quit and it’s bloody impossible just the two of us. The ad’s been up there for ages now and we’ve only got four people come up and ask. Two of them were guys and that was a definite no-no!”
“Why?”
“Ah, ’cause he wants girls at the counter. Thinks it looks better, ya know, being served by a girl.”
“Oh.”
“And the other two girls were too old. Like in their twenties and he wants teenagers ’cause they don’t cost as much. Here he is now.”
George is a short, fifty-something-year-old man with a perfectly trimmed moustache and beautiful grey eyes. He walks up to the counter, notices me and immediately looks constipated.
“Hi!” I say as cheerfully as possible. “I’m here about the job. I’m sixteen. I’ve worked at Hungry Jack’s so I’ve got loads of experience.” I thought I’d get it all out in one hit.
OK, now there are some people who are tactful. They see somebody they don’t like and they bluff their way through the encounter and go full throttle with the avoidance strategies. In a situation like this, there are plenty of exits available to George. “The position has been filled”, “We’re looking for somebody older”, “We don’t like people who’ve worked in the mass consumer fast food industry”. But George decides to go straight for the “say what’s on your mind” route.
“Sorry, love, we can’t accept people like you.”
“What do you mean?”
“The thing on your head, love, that’s what I mean. It’s not hygienic and it just don’t look good up at the front of the shop. Sorry, love. Try somewhere else.”
I cough, dig my toes into my shoes and try to come up for air. “What if I wore a beanie? It’d keep all the hair out of the food. That’s hygienic.”
“No good, love. We sell food with an image at the front. I got girls at the front, see? For a reason. Now I’m busy. Thanks for your time but it’s impossible.” He turns on his heels and goes out to the back room. I’m completely taken aback and stand there, not knowing how to walk away without looking like a rejected loser.
“Sorry about that, hey?” The girl at the counter shrugs her shoulders. “I thought he’d ignore your head thing ’cause of your experience. Don’t take it personal, though. If you had a turban he’d freak too. And he made me get rid of my eyebrow earring. I drew the line at my tongue ring. No way I’m giving that one up.”
“Yeah . . . sure . . . thanks.”
I tell my mum what happened and she wants to make a complaint to centre management. But I’m not interested.
“What’s the point?”
“At least they’ll be aware, ya Amal. We have to raise awareness that these things happen!”
“Mum, I don’t want to, OK? It’s not worth it.”
“What do you mean, it’s not worth it?! Of course it is! Then the next time some girl tries to find a job they’ll know this kind of discrimination is unacceptable!”
“No! I’m not going to make a big deal about it, OK? I just want to go home.”
“Ya Amal, you have to stick up for yourself. You can’t cave in like this.”
“Who’s caving, Mum? I’m just . . . look I just want to go home. I JUST WANT TO GO HOME!”
“Why are you yelling? Don’t yell at me like that, Amal!”
I look at her and burst into tears. We’re in the middle of the shopping centre and people are staring at us. A veiled mum and her daughter bawling in the shops. There are times you just need to disappear. It has to happen, your body tells you, or you will become hysterical and combust. I run through the crowd and out of the centre, to where our car is parked. My mum runs after me, calling out my name, but I ignore her. I get to our car and lean against it sobbing so badly that
my head feels drenched with the sweat of it. My mum rushes up to me and engulfs me in a massive hug. “Oh how silly you are my darling Amal,” she says. She squashes my face against her chest and I blubber and fumble my thoughts against her jumper.
“Mum, maybe I shouldn’t have worn it. . . Maybe I was stupid. . . Where am I going to go now? It’s just going to hold me back. . . The debate’s this week and I’m so scared. People are going to laugh, I know it.”
She cups my chin in her hand and looks into my eyes. “You’re so silly, ya Amal. You can do anything you want, don’t you know that? You’re going to make us proud up there. It will only be a problem if you make it one.”
“Mum?”
“Yes?”
“I miss Leila. . . I could do this if she was in the audience cheering me on. She had all the guts and spunk and she ends up running away. I want things back to normal with her safe next to us. Nothing makes sense.”
She doesn’t say anything, just hugs me tightly and gently helps me into the car.
40
I’ve got that sweaty-palm thing happening. The plait under my hijab feels itchy against my skin and I feel I’d rather be hole-punched in the forehead than go through with the debate.
We arrive at Chelsea Grammar School by school bus at six thirty on Thursday evening. The entire trip consists of Mr Pearse giving us you-can-do-anything-if-you-put-your-mind-to-it pep talks, and Tia scanning me over as I practise my cards on Eileen and Simone. Adam is sitting with Josh and they’re both going through their cards. Adam looks my way and winks at me. I flash him a smile and give him the thumbs-up sign.
Things between Adam and me aren’t like they used to be. I don’t suppose I should expect them to be. The late-night telephone calls and long chat sessions on MSN are gone. We still hang out as a group some lunch times but I can tell that the spark between us isn’t there any more. The other day we were all studying in the library. I asked him whether he’d spoken to his mum recently and if things had changed at all. He shook his head and immediately changed the subject. I’m pretty certain that he won’t be opening up to me about his mum or anything truly personal any more.