Rebels by Accident (2 page)

When the phone wakes me up, I don't run to answer it like I usually do. I know Deanna won't call this morning. She's crazy, but she's not that crazy.

I pee and wash my hands and face. As I look down at the mascara and other gunk left on the towel, I'm reminded of how much trouble I'm in. I walk down the hallway to the kitchen like I'm going to the dentist to get my teeth drilled—without anesthesia.

“Morning, Baba.” I watch him take his coffee from the freezer.

He doesn't answer, but he never does before he's had his morning coffee. And it can't be just any coffee. It has to be this special Arab coffee that he drives an hour and a half to Brooklyn to buy.

“Mariam, my coffeepot—have you seen it?” Baba asks, like he does every morning.

“In the cabinet over the sink,” I say, like I always do. Instead of feeling annoyed, today I'm grateful for our routine.

“Mariam, it's not here.” Baba's pulling out the old coffeepots, none of which he'll use, because, as he's said more times than I can count, the Turkish copper coffeepot makes the best coffee he's had since he left Cairo. But Mom won't let Baba throw away the old ones, just like she won't let me throw away the baby shoes in my closet. She says she's going to give them to charity. But unless a shoeless kid with a caffeine addiction shows up at the door, my closet and the kitchen cabinet will remain stuffed with things none of us can use.

“Did you check the dishwasher?” I ask.

“The dishwasher?! Who put it in the dishwasher?” Baba grabs his copper coffeepot from the top rack. He turns to me. “Why are you still wearing that black shirt?”

I look down at Deanna's shirt, all wrinkled now. “Oh—I'll go change.”

“Eat your breakfast first.”

I'm not hungry, but this isn't the time to argue—not that I ever do. I get the plastic stool I've used since I was five and reach for the Healthy O's on top of the refrigerator. I told Mom I wanted to try this brand because it's the one Deanna eats. I wasn't expecting it to taste exactly like the Cheerios I love so much, but the organic cardboard flavor was a surprise. Because we don't waste food in this family, I have to finish the box, even though I hate it.

I go to the dishwasher, which Baba left open, and pick out a spoon and my ceramic bowl with the faded bunny in the center, the one I've also used since I was five. Then I sit down at the kitchen table.

“I forgot the milk,” I announce, hoping Baba will get it for me. His eyes are glued to the coffeepot. If you don't take it off the heat as soon as it comes to a boil, the pot will spill over. And Baba never lets his coffee spill over.

I get up and open the refrigerator, and when I lift the milk carton, it's light. It's light because it's empty. This is so not going to be my day. Mom enters right on cue. She's dressed already.

“Good morning,” she says, walking past me, skipping the kiss on my cheek she's given me every morning as far back as I can remember.

I drop the empty milk carton in the recycling bin. On any other morning, I'd ask her if she was the one who left it empty in the fridge.

Mom turns on the gas under her teakettle. “The coffee!” she shouts.

Baba pulls the pot off the heat but not before most of it has overflowed onto the stove.

Baba grumbles something in Arabic, grabbing a sponge.

Mom takes the sponge out of his hand. “Go take your shower. I'll clean up the mess and make you another pot, okay?”

Baba nods, and as he leaves the room, he says, “If I get a call, come and get me, even if I'm in the shower.”

I sit down with my cardboard cereal, take one bite, and almost choke because it's so dry.

“Are you okay?” Mom asks, handing me a glass of water. “Why are you eating dry cereal?”

I gulp down the water. “No milk.”

Mom walks back to the sink and rinses out the sponge. Now I know she's furious with me. If things were even just a little okay, my mother would've offered to make me something else to eat—an omelet, toast, anything.

“I'm really sorry, Mom.”

“Mariam.” She turns to me. “Your father and I have decided—”

The phone rings. I can't take this. The punishment can't be as bad as the waiting for it.

Before either one of us can answer, Baba comes running into the kitchen, wearing only a towel around his waist. He grabs for the phone.

There's a short pause as Baba listens; then he begins to speak in Arabic. He doesn't look upset anymore; he's almost smiling.

Mom's staring so hard at him she's not even blinking. I know she doesn't understand much Arabic, so she must know what's going on.

“
Alaikum
salaam
, Mama,” Baba says in closing. Baba's talking to Sittu. After Baba hangs up, Mom moves closer to him. “She's very happy,” he says. Baba looks over at me and back at Mom. They exchange that not-in-front-of-the-child look I know all too well.

“Mariam, make the coffee,” Mom says.

“Sure,” I say, as if I could say anything else. But they have never, ever let me make the coffee. I have to beg to boil water. Whatever is going to happen to me must be bad. Really bad.

“Make sure you bring it to a boil three times,” Baba reminds me as he and Mom head to their bedroom.

Like I don't know this already. Eventually, the coffee boils. I lift. I count out loud like Baba does. “One…two…three…four…five…” As I put the pot back on the stove and wait for the second boil, the phone rings again. Baba left the phone on the counter beside me, and I can see that the call is from ROBERTS, CAROLE.

For a second, I think it might be Deanna's mom, but when I answer, it's Deanna. She is crazy.

“I don't think we should talk right now,” I say.

“Did your parents tell you?”

“Oh no, the coffee!” I drop the phone and run to the stove. Too late. The coffee has overflowed onto the stove again. “Crap!”

“Mariam! Your language!” Baba says as he walks into the kitchen. He says language is too beautiful to corrupt, so we shouldn't swear. “What has gotten into you these days?” he asks me.

“We already know what. There are too many bad influences around here,” Mom says, standing behind him.

“Sorry,” I say. “The phone.” I point to it lying on the table where I dropped it.

Mom picks it up. “Hello? Deanna? She can't talk to you right now.” She clicks off the phone and says, “Mariam, please sit down.”

“But the stove,” I say.

“Don't worry about that now,” Baba says. The three of us sit before he starts talking again.

“Mariam, I think you know how disappointed we are in your behavior.” He pauses, but I don't dare say a word. I know anything I say, now and forever, will be held against me for life. “You lied about going to this party. Drugs, Mariam. Drugs.”

“I didn't know there was—”

“You didn't know,” Baba says. “This I believe. And I blame myself for you not having better sense about such things.”

“Do you know that you and Deanna could have been facing a prison sentence?” Mom looks at me like she's expecting an answer, but I just nod. I don't even want to breathe too loudly.

“Thank God Deanna's mother is an attorney; otherwise, you would be facing a judge in court right now.” He shakes his head. “We're at a loss. But we don't blame you.” He's trying not to sound upset, but it looks like his head may explode. “Your mother and I have just not been strict enough with you…”

Not strict enough? It already feels like I'm living a life sentence. My only fun is watching reruns and reality TV. And that's if my parents aren't around to tell me to turn it off and do something more productive. They never let me do anything. Before Deanna moved here, all I did was go to school and come home and study.

Oh my God, Deanna. She's the only thing they have to take away from me. They're going to tell me I can't see her anymore. I hold my breath, but I really want to stick my fingers in my ears so I don't have to hear what's coming next.

“We're sending you to Egypt,” Mom says.

What? In the middle of the school year? My parents never let me miss school unless my temperature is above 101.

“We think some time spent—”

“You're not serious. Are you?”

“This is not an easy decision, but—”

“What about school?” I interrupt. “This is the end of my junior year. Colleges are going to look at my grades—”

“I've already talked to your principal this morning,” Baba says.

“You talked to the principal?”

“She thinks this would be an enriching experience for you,” Mom adds. “You just have to keep up with the assignments, which your teachers post online anyway, and do a research paper on the experience, which you will present to the school at a special assembly.”

“Special assembly?” They expect me to stand up in front of the whole school and talk about Egypt? Like I don't take enough crap because everyone sees me as some freak from pyramid-land.

“Honey,” Mom says, her voice softer, “I know this is a lot to take in—”

“How long?” I ask.

“We don't know yet,” Mom says.

“Maybe the rest of the school year,” Baba says.

“That's five months!”

“We think that some time spent with your
sittu
will help you gain perspective,” Baba explains. The calm in his voice makes me want to scream.

“Sittu? You're kidding me, right?”

“You think your grandmother is a joke?” Baba's voice starts to rise.

Mom gives the arm he still has wrapped around her a squeeze. “You don't know your grandmother very well…”

I haven't seen my grandmother since I was two years old, but from the stories my baba has told me over the years, I feel like I know her. I would probably have more freedom in jail. Every story Baba tells about my grandmother always start with, “If you think I'm strict, you should live with your grandmother.” It sounds like Baba spent his entire childhood chained to his desk, not allowed to do anything but go to school and study. Like father, like daughter.

“You're getting on a plane?” I ask my mother. Since the attack on the Twin Towers, my mom won't get on a plane—not even when we took a family trip to Disney World, and that's only a three-hour flight. We drove for two days. There's no driving to Egypt.

“Your father and I aren't going. We can't take the time off work.”

“Wait a minute. You won't let me go to the mall alone, but you're going to let me fly to the other side of—”

“Mariam, you've given us no choice.” Baba's voice is getting louder again.

“This will be good for you,” Mom says.

“Good for me? I used to beg for you to take me to Egypt when I was little, to go and see the pyramids and ride the camels. Both of you would always say, ‘Maybe next year.'” I'm surprised to hear myself talking back like this.

“After your behavior last night,” Mom says, “and lying to us like that, some time in Egypt with your grandmother will teach you about honesty and respect.”

“Like some sort of international scared-straight camp?”

“Mariam!” Baba bangs the table. “You CAN'T talk to us this way.”

“I'm sorry I lied. I'm sorry about the whole mess, but you can't send me to that awful place.”

“Awful?” Baba asks.

“You hated that backward country so much you ran away.”

“Mariam!” my mother shouts.

“No, Mom. For years, I've heard Baba talk about how everything sucks in Egypt and how everything is so much better here.” I stand up. “I make one mistake, I do one thing wrong, and you're going to punish me like I'm some criminal! And you know what? Jail would be better than spending
any
time with that horrible woman!”

Baba reaches out and slaps me across the face. Mom doesn't say a word. I'm too shocked to do anything but hold my cheek. My father has never hit me before—not once in my entire life.

“Don't you ever show such disrespect for your
sittu
!”

“You're the one who says she rules with an iron fist and was hard on you. So now you want me to suffer the way you did? For one mistake?”

“Go to your room, right now!” Baba stands up.

I've never heard him yell like this either, but I don't care. I look my father straight in the eyes. “You want me to live in a country where women are second-class citizens who take orders from men and have to cover their hair because the men are so perverted they can't be trusted!”

“This is why I don't want her watching television!” Baba slams his fist on the table.

Mom stands up and moves between Baba and me. “Go to your room now, Mariam,” she says quietly.

“The lies, Rose! Look at the lies she believes about her own people!”

“My own people?” I move around my mother so I can see Baba. “You may be my father, but I'm not like you. I'm American. I'm a real American. Not some wannabe—”

“MARIAM! YOUR ROOM! NOW!” Baba yells.

This time, I listen.

I drop down on my bed. I know I'm crying, but I'm too numb to feel the tears running down my cheeks. Mom's right behind me.

She sits down at my side and sighs. “I know you're very upset, but the way you just talked to your father—”

“Can I at least say good-bye to Deanna?” I say into my pillow.

“That won't be necessary.”

I flip over and sit up. I pull Deanna's T-shirt to my face and wipe my tears. “Mom, please. Just one call.”

She wipes the hair from my face. “Deanna's going with you.”

“What? Why would she be going with me?”

She must see the look of horror on my face, because she says, “You don't want her to go with you?”