Invisible Girl (16 page)

I’ve found the library and I slip in knowing I can avoid the cafeteria. Aunt Sarah gave me money for lunch, but I’d rather eat nothing than have to deal with where to sit and all that. I’m just settling in at a table, ready to browse the soothing shelves, when Annie comes up and tells me that I have to leave. She tells a couple of other random kids that too, and she sparkles and surges as if she’s throwing a party. She pushes me and the other kids out the door, whispering, “It’s kind of private.”

I sneak a look around her and see Amal in the far corner of the library by the window. She’s on her knees, bowing. Annie says she does this five times a day and that Mr. Camp-bell, who is really cute and the school counselor, has designated this corner as hers for her noon prayer.

Gary and Chandler, who’ve obviously been looking for Amal, try to push past Annie in a pretend football move and she half squeals and says, “Am I going to have to call the principal on you two?” She laughs when she says this and her hormone force field zings around all three of them in blinding spurts of stars.

I stand at the drinking fountain and bend toward the water because it’s a place where you can hide in the middle of a crowd. A minute later, Amal comes out followed by Andrew, whom Annie allowed to stay in the library during Amal’s bows. Gary and Chandler look quickly at Amal, then at Andrew, like they’re not sure if something is going on or not. Chandler says, “Princess, may I escort you to the cafeteria?” and holds out his arm.

Andrew’s eyes flash in black fury, but he just smiles and says, “Don’t think so, bro,” then edges himself between Chandler and Amal and walks her down the hall without seeing me, even when he passes within two inches of my face.

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

Annie is furious at her mother because she forgot to turn off the sprinkler system in the afternoon, in honor of her upcoming sleepover, and the grass is soaking wet, so we have to sleep in the family room instead of the tent. Aunt Sarah keeps saying, “I know you’re upset” while Annie rants and raves. “How
could
you do this to me when you
knew
I was going to have a sleepover? We
always
sleep outside.”

I’m sitting at the kitchen table acting like I’m reviewing the syllabus for English class, but really I’m studying Annie. Her nostrils flare sharply when she says for the third time how it’s typical that no one ever thinks of her, ever. She brings up some birthday slight of a few years ago, where she told her mother at least ten times she wanted cream cheese frosting and she got chocolate. Her sense of being a victim energizes her. She puts her face closer and closer to Aunt Sarah’s and says she’s surprised her birthday is ever remembered at all.

I’ve seen the bounty of her closets and her jewelry box. I have to turn away. I focus on Aunt Sarah, who walks over to the oven to put in some giant pretzels that she’s baking for the sleepover. She looks hazy and undefined as if she’s a giant sponge, absorbing all the insults her daughter throws at her into the soft flesh around her chin and upper arms.

In the dim light of the afternoon, I see Aunt Sarah without the small lines around her eyes and mouth. I see her in high school, plain but wanting to fit in with the cool kids, dressed in expensive clothes, hovering near a queen like her daughter, maybe playing the mom like Leslie does or the quiet, unthreatening confidant like Emily. It must be because she marvels at the stunning physical beauty of her daughter, and feels some vague possessive interest in it, that she puts up with the onslaught of poison that spews from her child’s mouth and covers the kitchen in a diaphanous orange glaze.

Leslie and Emily arrive first. They’re giggly and filled with “omigods” when they hear we have to sleep indoors. Eva comes next, and she and Annie huddle together, making cracks about Amal’s baby voice.

When Amal rings the bell, Annie runs to let her in and hugs her as if she’s a best friend she hasn’t seen in five years. I see Annie’s profile during the hug, since she’s on the side of Amal’s head and Amal can’t see her. For a second, Annie drops the fake smile. So far, her plan is working perfectly: she’s conquered her enemy and neutralized the threat of Amal’s allure to anyone male by digging in her claim for Amal’s loyalty.

“We have to sleep in the family room,” Annie says disgustedly. “My mother forgot to turn off the sprinklers.”

Amal just shrugs and looks around shyly. Separated from the ferocious gregariousness of Annie, her eyes look wide and nervous, like a little girl’s at someone’s house she doesn’t know well. I don’t like to see her face without her body because then I feel guilty for hating her, as if I’m just hating some innocent kid who had nothing to do with stealing the boy I wanted to be my boyfriend.

I see Eva and Annie exchange eye contact when Amal unconsciously grabs a handful of chips. None of the other girls would ever eat chips at the beginning of a party if they didn’t know any of the other girls that well, and didn’t know if everyone else was going to eat chips that night or if boys were coming over.

Annie’s and my sleeping bags are already spread out next to each other, starting a circle on the thick rug covering the dark wood of the family room. Leslie puts hers on the other side of Annie, and Emily puts hers next to Leslie’s. Amal and Eva walk in with their bags at the same time. Annie takes Amal’s out of her hands and walks over to where mine is. She kicks mine over and puts Amal’s right next to hers. “Stephie won’t mind,” she says.

I’m so embarrassed I can’t even look up. I just watch Eva’s legs as she puts hers on the other side of Amal’s, further shoving mine to the side.

The guy with gourmet Chinese food comes and Annie runs to get it. I ignore her in case she thinks she’s going to ask me to get the paper plates. She brings the food to the center point where all the sleeping bags meet. The other girls go and sit on their bags. Amal smiles at me when I finally walk over to mine. I don’t even bother to smile back.

Amal’s eyes flash me a quick look of hurt, like a well-loved family dog that’s suddenly kicked in the face. I’m furious with her for trying to make me feel bad when she’s the one who walked into my life and stole Andrew.

Annie lights candles around the room, turns off all the lights and then passes around the little cartons of food. All the girls start eating in tiny bites except for Amal, who just eats like a normal person. Annie and Eva exchange looks as if they are already monitoring how much Amal will eat.

Megan is upstairs with Carmen. Annie’s parents went out to dinner so we could have privacy. When Annie’s mother told her they would go out, Annie said, “Ye-ah, like duh, since someone ruined sleeping out in the tent for us.”

After we eat, Annie says she’s dying for a “break.” We all stand up and I catch Amal’s little-girl face, confused and a little anxious. I’m excited that she might not know how to smoke and hope all the other girls notice if she holds the cigarette wrong or coughs. Annie grabs a couple of flashlights and we all troop outside and sneak out to the rocks below the gazebo. Annie throws the flashlights in the center and they cross, sending beams onto Emily and Eva’s legs.

I remember the first night when I went to Mulholland with the girls when everyone thought I was Annie’s cousin and I felt like I had friends. I want desperately to get that feeling back, so I pull out some cigarettes that I found in an old jacket of Annie’s that she gave me. I offer them around, at least participating in the group on some level. I pull out a match for Annie and she lights hers first. The other girls follow. All except for Amal. The pack sits in front of her on the ground.

“Go, ahead, Am,” Annie says casually. “My parents won’t be home for hours.” Annie does a hair flip and then blows out two perfect smoke rings.

Amal just stares at the cigarette package on the ground, her eyes big brown saucers. Annie must think she can’t see it or something because she goes, “Right there, Am.”

Amal still doesn’t take it, and now all the eyes turn sharply to her face. She looks scared. “I can’t,” she says in a tiny voice. “No, thanks.”

This is better than I thought. She’s an unbelievable baby in front of the whole group. I look at Annie in smug expectation. She nods to Amal. “Seriously, my parents won’t be home until after midnight.” She’s smiling to Amal, but her eyes are ice. She’s picked up that Amal’s refusal to take a cigarette has nothing to do with an expectation that Annie’s parents will be home. She’s trying, by brute effort, to roll over it.

Amal shakes her head. “I-I can’t. I’m, um, Muslim.”

Annie’s forehead recoils into her scalp like, What kind of weird-ass answer is that? Then she starts laughing. Leslie, Emily and Eva laugh too. I just watch.

“Good one,” Annie says and nudges her with her hand still holding the cigarette. “I’m Muslim too. Where’s my turban?”

A cloud slips back from the moon and I see Amal’s chin quiver and a tear glistening in one eye. “I really am Muslim. Why do you think I have an Arabic name?” she whispers. “And why do you think I do the noon prayer at school?”

Annie looks confused. She never bothered to ask Amal why she needed to bow at noon. She probably just thought it was something Amal learned in the South and she was too busy being important keeping everyone out of the library.

Annie doesn’t know what to do so she hits her cigarette again. Holding in the smoke buys her time. Finally, she exhales and says, “But you’re from Georgia.”

Emily giggles at this. Everyone else is silent. Amal looks like she wants to be anywhere but here. “I was born there but my dad and mom, they’re from Egypt.”

Annie’s irritated. “So, then, you’re not Arabian, you’re Egyptian.”

Amal sighs. “I’m an Egyptian and an Arab and a Muslim.”

Annie’s face tightens. I can tell she’s furious for coming out to smoke in the first place without first making sure that Amal smokes. It’s way too early for her to lose ground with her.

I look at the dirty ash growing on the cigarette in my own hand. I’ve learned how to smoke without coughing, but I still have to stifle my gag reflex as the smell always reminds me of the smell from her ashtrays. I knock the ash off and stare at Amal. A monstrous feeling raises its black, blubbery head from the swamp of my hatred for her. I don’t want to admit the thought full-blown to my brain, but it’s there, swimming in me.

Dripping over my scorn for her is the horrible acknowledgment that I admire her. Beneath her shaky, ready-to-cry face is the ability to refuse the offering of the group. A refusal I couldn’t muster when on my first night out here, all I could think about was the heady feeling of finally belonging.

I resent Amal for that. Who does she think she is that she can say no to something the group has decided is cool?

I see in her eyes something that gives her confidence even more than her breasts and beautiful face do. I see parents who must hug her good night and worry when she has a cold. I feel the same raw, savage hate I do when Aunt Sarah pulls Megan onto her lap and covers her with kisses.

I expel my smoke in a harsh gasp. I wait for Annie to issue the decree that Amal is exiled. Annie must do it, because she’s already staked a position regarding cigarettes since she has one in her own hand. I look for Annie’s lips to turn up mockingly at the corners and her sarcastic voice to say, “Okay,
Princess
, maybe you should call Daddy to come and take you home.”

Instead, she does the unthinkable. She stands up, drops her cigarette, grinds it into the dirt and wipes her hands against each other as if to cleanse them of the act in which she just participated. “Not really in the mood either,” she says. “But, since Stephanie seemed to need one so badly, I figured, whatever floats her boat.”

The other girls take Annie’s cue and stare at me coldly. They drop their cigarettes and smash them into the earth. Without even waiting for me to get up, they all start walking back toward the house. I watch them go, still speechless, wondering how I get blamed for doing something I never even wanted to do in the first place.