Operation Oleander (9780547534213) (3 page)

“It was in Kabul, Jess. I have to go. Mom's waiting. We can give you a ride.”

“No, I can't go yet. Meriwether's dad came and got her.” All the things left on the table still. The poster of Dad and Meriwether's mom and Warda.

“Let me help you,” he says, grabbing snacks and slapping them into a half-filled box.

“No.” I seize the box.

He stands there looking lost the way Mr. Scott did.

“I can do it,” I say.

He doesn't argue with me.

“I'll call you later,” he says.

I want him to argue with me, but he's already through the doors and gone into the July heat that shimmers over the asphalt like waves of dark water.

How many hours since Dad wrote? Did he write as soon as he heard about the bombing? So we wouldn't worry?

Kabul.

Troops.

Bomb.

The words swirl in my head.

I cram the snack boxes onto a shelf in the storage closet. Pretzel bags mix with chips. Candy bars jostle out of their trays. I tug, but I can't lift the cooler with the ice in it.

I can't leave it. It belongs to Sam's family. I drag it to the side door, turn it upside down. Ice and cans spill onto the fresh-cut grass outside. One at a time, I grab the sodas and toss them back into the cooler. Each one thuds against the hard plastic sides like my heart against my chest. Bits of cut grass stick to the slippery cans and the bottom of my flip-flops, but I don't stop to brush them off.

I push the cooler inside the closet and slam the door, the key in both my hands, which are still wet from the grass and ice. I fumble with the lock. Finally, it catches, and I yank out the key. I grab my iPod.

When I run through the doors, the white light sears my skin.

Home.

T
HE HOUSING
area seems so ordinary. No sirens blaring. No police cars speeding by with blazing lights. Instead, automatic sprinklers whir across magazine-perfect lawns. Hibiscus bushes bloom, and oleander. I skip the cracks in the sidewalk just like Cara does.

A flock of monk parakeets spirals overhead, heading toward the grove of guava trees behind the parade ground. At the height of guava season, the birds sound like monkeys screeching. Teenagers scare little kids into thinking the trees are haunted.

Just the tattered red paper reminds me yesterday was the Fourth of July.

Maybe the early damage reports were wrong. Maybe Mr. Scott and Sam worried for nothing. Maybe I'll get home and find out it's all a mistake. False alarms happen a lot in a war zone. Right?

If Fort Spencer troops are affected, why isn't everybody in full gear? Isn't that what army posts do in a crisis? Mobilize? Even if the crisis is halfway across the world?

Check e-mail for any more news from Dad.
He'd write as soon as he could. Already maybe there's a message there, waiting for me.

Don't trip over your flip-flops. Concentrate on street names.
Don't panic.
North–south streets are presidents, like Lincoln and Monroe. Lisbon and Canton, cities, run east–west. On the coast, the Gulf of Mexico cuts into the post like a scimitar, leaving a curved scar on the beach. Sometimes the South Seas Road washes out along the shoreline near the airstrip and parade ground.

I cut the corner on Madrid Street and look for my house half a block down. When we moved in, the administrative office called the concrete blockhouses “historic bungalows.” Mom called them “matchboxes.” Small and look-alike. Maybe one house has a carport on the right side and another has one on the left. Or maybe the trim's painted a different color—army green or battleship gray. At first I could only find my house by the number 306 spray-painted on the curb. Or by seeing Cara's big tricycle on its side in the driveway.

That was last year. Now I can find it even if I'm running in the dusk of summer, flying ahead of mosquitoes, the sound of Meriwether laughing about a boy at the pool still in my ears.

Straining to see my house, I pretend I'm looking at it for the first time. That it belongs to another military family and the gray house trimmed in green is unfamiliar. And I've never seen the green mold almost the same shade as the trim growing on the outside, near the drainpipes. That I don't know about how the jalousie windows in the living room don't close all the way or that at night, or after a rain, palmetto bugs slip in through the cracks. With Dad deployed, it's my job to be brave and kill them so Mom doesn't have to. So Cara doesn't scream when she finds them crawling in the kitchen.

Across the street, Mrs. Johnson's sprinkler's turned off. Despite the brightness, her curtains hang wide open. That usually means she's peering out to see what's happening. She always knows when our neighbor's dog does his business near her mailbox.

I unlock the door, half expecting to see Mrs. Johnson sitting on the sofa, drinking coffee out of Dad's Texas Rangers mug. She's over almost every day.

No Mrs. Johnson. Not yet anyway.

I plug in the computer in the kitchen and hit the on button. In the living room, I grab the remote and punch on the television, holding the volume down. Everything in the house sits quietly, waiting. Mom and Cara must still be asleep.

I won't wake Mom yet. Not till I know there's something to worry about for real.

Troops.

Bomb.

The words in my head repeat like music that won't stop.

Images on the television appear smoky and unclear. They don't have all the details. It's a developing news story. At the bottom of the screen the words “breaking news” blare in red letters. Smoke rises from a street area in the hazy background.

I press the volume button.

“A massive car bombing has damaged a Kabul neighborhood near a market destroyed weeks ago, in what appears to be a larger, better-coordinated attack on infrastructure. Fire still rages in the streets. Civilians, including children, and possibly U.S. soldiers reportedly are among the dead. A U.S. Army Humvee has been destroyed in the attack.”

The station breaks for a commercial. I dash into the kitchen to check e-mail. No new e-mail. I press refresh and look again. Nothing. Maybe Dad hasn't heard anything. Or, more likely, they're on lockdown after the explosion. Maybe he couldn't get to a computer to send an all-clear message.

I dial Sam's number.

Busy.

Then I try Meriwether's number. It, too, rings busy. It's like when the hurricane hit last fall and everyone got on their phones after the worst was over to tell relatives they were okay. The phone service got overloaded. Just busy signals for hours.

In the living room, I jab the controls, searching for another channel. There has to be more information. One exclusive shows the actual explosion, which was captured by chance by a man who had been reporting on educational statistics. The replay reveals a static city scene glimmering in the distance. In the foreground, palm fronds wave in the sunny late afternoon. Wind ruffles the reporter's hair.

Without warning, the screen rips apart. For a second the flash of an explosion consumes everything, and I can't turn away or close my eyes. The reporter crouches, covering his ears, and for a second drops the microphone. The footage shimmers as if an earthquake is upending everything.

I squeeze my eyes shut. The red and white streamers from the fireworks reflect against the back of my eyelids. The sound of the explosion rockets through my eardrums. The scene on television reminds me of last night on the beach, the way the silhouettes made everyone look like soldiers. I was afraid, afraid for Dad and everyone in the unit. It was just a moment, a flash, and then I tried to brush it away like sand off my legs.

On television, smoke and dust are all I can see.

The anchor cuts away. “We'll be back with more on this unfolding story.”

The scene changes to a cat food commercial.

The phone rings, and I snatch it off the receiver.

“Meriwether?”

“It's Sam.”

“I tried to call you,” I say. “My mom's still asleep. What's happening?” He has to know something, or he wouldn't call. He won't let what he thinks about Operation Oleander stop him from doing the right thing. From telling me what he can.

“The major offensive. It's started. Troops are moving south.” Sam's voice sounds like a television reporter's. Neutral and practiced. “A car bombing got part of the unit before they could join the convoy. They'd stopped at an orphanage.”

Orphanage.

The word reverberates in my head.

“Ours?”

For a moment he doesn't answer.

“Yes.” His voice drops as if he's telling me something he shouldn't.

“Casualties?”

“Yes.” We talk as if in Morse code: clipped, in as few words as possible.

“Soldiers, too?”

“Yes.”

“Who?”

Again Sam is silent. The emptiness inside the receiver deafens me.

I close my eyes. He knows. He has to know. His dad is Commander Butler. He'd get word here first. Even though he's here now, not in Afghanistan, he'll know, since the soldiers are from Fort Spencer.

Opening my eyes, I check the muted television screen again. Smoke curls toward the late-afternoon sky. People behind the announcer run back and forth on streets crowded with honking cars jammed at all angles like Cara's toy trucks. A man dodges through the chaos, a child limp in his arms.

“Sam. Tell me. Who?” Was that why he came to the PX? Because he knew then but he couldn't tell me? And he still can't tell me?

“I don't know.” He evades me like Cara does when she's taken one of my gel pens without asking.

“You do know. Who's injured? Tell me.” I can't ask if anyone's dead. I can't get those words out. I won't think them.

“I'd better go.”

“Is it my dad?” I rush to get the words in before he hangs up.

“I'm not sure. I wasn't supposed to hear anything. I was standing outside the living room when the colonel came to talk to my dad. Dad barely had time to get dressed, and then he ran out.”

“You don't know about my dad? Really?”

“I don't.”

“What about our orphanage?”

“What do you mean, ‘ours'?”

“Yes, ours,” I say. We sent pencils and paper. Contributed toward food. “Even you.”

“I helped. I got us the space, didn't I?” he asks, his voice rising.

He did.

“Yes, but you haven't been around much,” I tell him. Not ever since Mrs. Johnson complained that the operation is unsupportive of our troops and we shouldn't spend that kind of effort on the orphanage.

“I said I was sorry about that.”

Behind me, I hear stirring from Mom's bedroom.

“I have to go. Mom's up. Sam, what about Warda?”

“I don't know. Really.” His voice pleads for me to believe him.

I hang up and turn off the television, the screen narrowing to blackness, then prop myself up on the couch, my back to the wall. Mom's coming down the hallway. Her slippers sound like palm fronds rustling in the breeze.

What will I say?

Mom stops at the doorway to the living room. Her hair's not brushed. She squints as if half-asleep. She says that with Dad gone she stays up too late at night. She turns on her headphones and listens to music until she falls asleep.

“Jess? Who was that?”

No one,
I almost say. That way, maybe Mom won't have to know something's happened. Maybe in a few hours the news will be clearer. Dad will call.

“Jess!”

“Sam. It was Sam.”

“This early? What time is it, anyway?” Mom fumbles for the light switch.

“It's not that early.” I don't bother to tell her I've been to the PX already. She knows that's where I go. She doesn't really like me going so early, before so I try to keep quiet. To fly under the radar.

A knock sounds on the door.

I freeze. I didn't hear a car door slam, like in one of those old World War II movies Dad used to watch. The car is always black. It creeps down the street, stopping in front of some unlucky family's house. Someone inside pulls back a curtain. The camera pans so that you see the military officer walk slowly up to the front door and knock. They never use the doorbell. They always knock.

“What's going on around here?” Mom's voice sounds sharp, more awake.

I stay still. If I don't move, this might pass.

“I swear, Jess.” Mom runs her fingers through her hair and straightens her sleep T-shirt so it covers her thighs. She cracks open the door, and we both squint against the sudden light.

“I came as soon as I heard.” Mrs. Johnson pushes inside, carrying a box of glazed doughnuts. The sweet scent makes me dizzy.

“I went down to the gas station,” she says. “I got us some snacks and tried to get the latest news from Pops. He knows everything.”

So that's where Mrs. Johnson was—getting the gossip. I should have known.

“Heard what?” Mom asks.

Mrs. Johnson stops midstride from where she was going to plant herself in Dad's recliner. “You don't know? Really?”

“Know what?” Mom makes an exasperated sound. “People sneaking around at all hours of the morning. Yet no one says anything.” She frowns at me.

I hug myself.

“Turn on the television, Jess,” Mrs. Johnson says. She turns to my mom. “You got coffee brewing?”

Mom starts to say “No.”

“It brewed at eight this morning,” I said. “I programmed the coffee maker.” I wanted Mom to know I could help out—that's why I started setting the coffee to go on automatically in the mornings. Just lately, since summer started, Mom's been sleeping in later and later. Until the coffee smell turns bitter. Sometimes I toast waffles for Cara's breakfast.

“Well, that'll be strong enough to walk to Cuba,” Mrs. Johnson says. “I'll brew fresh. You stay here.” Mrs. Johnson steers Mom to Dad's recliner and stalks into the kitchen. I hear her turn on the water and pour all the coffee I already made down the drain. The new canister of the ground coffee hisses when she opens the lid. Mrs. Johnson knows our kitchen so well, she doesn't have to ask anymore where to find things.