The Importance of Wings (6 page)

“I need a favor,” he says smoothly, placing his hands on the counter.

“A favor?” Silver-Haired Mutant asks in disgust, drawing back.

“Yes, a favor, miss,” he says, smiling. He turns to Liat. “This is my daughter.” He tenderly strokes her cheek. “This is her first day of school.” He turns to me. “This is her new friend. She lives next door to us. She is wonderful girl.”

My face burns. This is about as embarrassing as parental behavior can get.

“It would make all of us so happy if two girls could be in same class,” he says. “Do you think you could find in your heart to help us? It mean so much to us.” I wonder what she makes of his broken English.

“Your name?” Silver-Haired Mutant asks me.

I’m startled. It takes me a few seconds to remember it. “Roxanne Ben-Ari,” I finally whisper.

“Your daughter’s name?”

“Liat Asher,” Liat’s father answers solemnly.

Without a word, Silver-Haired Mutant leaves the counter and vanishes into another room. We wait, me dying quietly of suspense and embarrassment, wondering what on Earth is happening.

Silver-Haired Mutant returns, holding two manila folders—one for each of us, I suppose. “SPE-10,” she says, making a notation in each folder. “You were tracked to that from the beginning, except for gym, when we got the records from your previous school. But I’ll make sure your class schedules are exactly the same.”

“Thank you so very, very much,” Liat’s father says. “You are so, so kind.” He pats her hand. She smiles at him.

I can’t believe any of this:

“Okay, my sweet girls,” Liat’s father says as we leave the office. “You have a great day.” He takes Liat into his arms, then gives me a stifling hug. I’m not expecting it and stiffen in his arms. “Take good care of each other.” He walks away, stopping to blow us a kiss, and disappears around a corner. I watch him go, trying to make sense of these astounding events.

“Well,” Liat says breezily, disrupting my thoughts, “where to?”

I turn to her, my face grim. “Homeroom,” I reply. “Then gym.”

Nothing like a trial by fire.

Homeroom is in a music classroom. The desks are arranged on levels. The cool kids sit in the back. Nerds sit up front. Liat and I sit right in front of the teacher’s desk. The Nerd District.

The first-period bell rings shortly after we take our seats, because we’ve missed most of homeroom visiting Silver-Haired Mutant. Everyone rises and heads for the door. We make our way through the halls to gym. As always, my hands begin to drip salt water. By the time we enter the locker room, they’re practically snow cones.

Our Too-Chirpy Gym Teacher gives Liat a locker next to mine. I don’t know if I’m surprised or not when I notice Liat doesn’t seem to mind the Undressing. I pull off my regular clothes only when I’m ready to pull on my gym clothes at exactly the same moment. It’s a system I’ve perfected for maximum protection. But like many of the other girls in the locker room, Liat strips down to her bra and panties, then leisurely looks around for her gym clothes.

When we’re all dressed for our twice-a-week torture, our Too-Chirpy Gym Teacher informs us we’re playing softball outside today. I want to jump for joy. The teacher selects two captains.

It’s not me, Gheeta, or Suri. It never is. I am a First-Class Nerd of the Sacred Order, unworthy of sports, un-American, uncool. I didn’t want Liat to know any of this.

Our classmates are picked off until it’s me, Liat, Gheeta, and Suri. I wonder what Liat makes of this humiliating savagery. She must have taken gym at other schools. For the first time, I wonder how schools in other states handle gym. Is gym like this in Alaska? I picture people dogsledding to school in heavy fur coats and conducting the Undressing in an icy igloo.

Liat is picked last.

I glance at her to see how she feels about it, but her face is expressionless.

Our team heads outside.

“Do you know how to play softball?” I ask her in a low voice.

“Sure,” she answers.

Donna, who is walking ahead of us in her butt-peeking-out-for-boys shorts, spins around. “Oh, you do, do you?” she asks viciously. She has impossibly long eyelashes—evidence of total mastery in mascara application. “Let’s make you first baseman, then. See how you do.”

I want to kill myself. Why did I ask Liat that question? Now look what I’ve done!

Liat places a hand on my shoulder as we reach the field. I nearly yelp. I wasn’t expecting her to touch me.

“It’s cool,” she says with a small smile.

I don’t know what to say in response, so I just jog to my outpost at the far end of the field.

The game begins. As usual, few balls come to the outfield, which is exactly the way I like it. Halfway through the game, a ball whizzes toward Liat. I want to shut my eyes, but I force myself to keep them open.

Liat catches it in her mitt.

On the fly.

I rub my eyes in disbelief.

Liat’s catch is the third out. Our team exchanges places with the other team. I position myself last in line. If it’s timed right, gym will end before I have to hit the ball.

Donna suddenly appears. “You’re up,” she says to Liat.

Liat walks to the plate. She picks up the bat. She looks comfortable. When the ball comes, she whacks it hard and sends it right over the pitcher’s head and past the outfielders.

Am I dreaming?

Liat navigates the bases. When she returns to home plate, Donna raises her palm. Liat high-fives it.

“it didn’t mean anything, roxanne.”

“It did too, Liat.”

“I’m the one who did it.”

“But I saw it!”

Liat and I have been sitting on her stoop arguing about her home-run-and-high-five for so long, I’ve missed
Gilligan’s Island.
If I don’t get my carcass in the house soon, I’ll miss
Wonder Woman.

“What you did meant something,” I say.

“Not if I didn’t want it to mean anything,” Liat replies.

I’m not saying what I’m really thinking. The truth is, Liat can be good at sports, even if it’s the most All-American sport of them all. And she can high-five anybody she wants. And be friends with anybody she wants. What I’m really thinking is

“Why didn’t you tell me?” I mutter.

I don’t know if Liat understands what I’m getting at. But she does, because she says, “I didn’t know gym was so important to you. I didn’t think it was a big deal.”

“It’s a
huge
deal,” I say bitterly.

“Why?”

That stops me. Because:

“Look,” I say, standing up. “I’m going to miss my shows.”

Liat seems puzzled. “Shows?”

I clear my throat. “Yeah, you know, TV shows.”

Liat frowns at me. “Come on, Roxanne, let’s keep talking about this.”

“But I can’t miss
Wonder Woman.”
This sounds lame and is lame, but it’s the truth, and besides, I’ve had enough.

“Why do you have to watch
Wonder Woman?”
Liat asks.

That stops me, too.

Because:

But I can’t say this to Liat. And I can’t tell her my biggest fear—that any second now I’ll say something moronic … and she won’t like me anymore.

I start to move toward the door. At that moment, Joe struts up the walk with his never-far-behind-him troop of little boys in tow.

“Oh, what do you want now?” I ask, then gape at my own outburst.

Joe seems shocked. But he recovers quickly.

“You’ve got food on your face,” he says to Liat, which is true. Liat has a tiny speck of pink bubble gum stuck to her upper lip.

Liat automatically brings a hand to her mouth but says nothing in response. I can’t tell if she’s embarrassed about it.

“Oh, leave her alone,” I say, surprising myself again. But I take a deep breath and go on. “If you came here to annoy us, you’re wasting your time.”

I head into the house, leaving Joe and Company in my dust, stunned at my own boldness.

saturday morning.

Super Friends.

Wondering if I will ever hit a home run in my entire life. Wishing I could turn into Wonder Woman, marry Superman, and live in the Hall of Justice happily ever after.

Gayle and I are on our second bowls of Captain Crunch when the doorbell rings. It’s Liat. “Whatcha doing today?” she asks brightly. Gayle and I look at each other. “Nothing,” I reply.

I had assumed Liat was a regular kind of person, the kind who holds grudges, like Kathleen. But she’s forgotten our little argument from the other day as if it never happened. And don’t look at me, because I’m not about to bring it up again.

“Want to do something?” Liat asks.

Pause. “Well,” I try to explain, “my dad usually takes us to the mall.”

“Want to come with us?” Gayle asks.

“Sure.”

I want to kill Gayle. I don’t want Liat there. It will be too weird.

An hour later, the four of us are wandering around Sears.

“This is the boring part,” Gayle explains.

Aba
is in his glory—surrounded by hammers and saws and screwdrivers and tubes of caulk. I wonder why the world needs robin’s-egg-blue caulk.
Aba
carefully examines fifty boxes of nails before choosing one. He pays for it, and we’re off to the food court.

It takes a few minutes, but we finally find a free table. The family that used it before us made an ugly mess. There’s a puddle of soda on the floor and soaked napkins disintegrating in a disgusting mountain on top of the table.

“Chazeerim,”
says Liat, which is exactly what I think—pigs.

Liat and Gayle go to the Greek stand to get the food while I sit silently with
Aba.
At the table next to us, a toddler is holding a mustard-drenched hot dog in each hand without buns. He’s waving them in jagged circles and mustard is splattering everywhere. His mother ignores him. I turn to Aba. Something’s been bugging me, but I hesitate.

“How come you never talk about anything,
Aba?”
I ask before I lose my nerve. Is it an Israeli gene—this not bringing up things? Liat and
Aba
both clearly possess it. “How come you never answer my question about when
Ema’s
coming back?”

Aba
turns to me. He seems bewildered. “I don’t know,” he says. He’s silent again.

I frown. This isn’t going the way I want it to go.

“You want to talk?” he asks.

“No,” I snap.

“Okay,” he says.

I sit there fuming. It’s absurd! My father asking me if I want to talk, as if he’s Mike Brady or Pa Ingalls, pretending to care. I turn to him again. “How come you never, like, pursue anything?”

“Pursue?” he asks.

“Yeah, ask me more than once about something.”
Aba
shrugs. “Asking once is enough,” he says. “It’s not enough,” I say. “How much is enough?”

I can’t believe this. “Three times,” I sputter, as if I’ve had this answer prepared the whole day. “Three times is enough.”

“Okay,” he says, then asks me three times in a row, “Are you going to talk to me? Are you going to talk to me? Are you going to talk to me?”

“No, no, no,” I say.

“Okay,” he says with another shrug.

I don’t know if this lack of communication is an Israeli thing or an
Aba
thing, but either way, I don’t like it.

Gayle and Liat return with the food. We eat in silence. I can hardly taste my
moussaka.
See, the thing is, Carol Brady would never fly off to another country and leave her family for three months. Maybe that’s something Israelis do, but Americans don’t do that to their kids.

After we’re done eating,
Aba
says he needs to look at car batteries in the Auto Center. He says he’ll meet us at the arcade.

We take the escalator down to the first floor. The arcade is packed. Bleeping, whirring, and shooting noises drift out. There are four guys blocking the entrance. They look like thugs. They have ornate green tattoos all over their arms and spiked blue hair.

I hesitate. So does Gayle. Liat does, too. Finally, she walks over.

“Um, excuse me,” she says to the tallest thug.