Out of Nowhere (16 page)

Bless us, O Lord, for these thy gifts which we are about to receive from thy bounty through Christ, our Lord. Amen
.

We always do the grace in English, but sometimes Aunt Maddie and Mom ask Grandma to do it in French. I don’t know why, maybe for my benefit?
Bénis-nous, ô Seigneur …
At any rate, whether we pray in English or in French, Grandma always follows the amen with
Bon appétit!
I know it means “good appetite,” but in my head I always think:
Dig in!

As we passed salad and bread and Grandma served up big portions of the pie, Maddie spoke.

“Sorry if I’m a little out of it,” she said breathlessly. She sounded as if she had just been running. It’s what she does when she’s either super-stressed or overly excited. Or both. A lot of times she’s both. “I was out till all hours last night, then on the phone with Yousef most of the morning.” Yousef is one of her coworkers at Catholic Charities. He’s from Africa, but he’s not Somali. He’s actually been in this country for a while.

“And what were you and Yousef cooking up this morning?” Paul asked amiably.

Here it comes
, I thought.

“We’re trying to organize a group to draft a response to the mayor,” she said. “Actually …” She reached into her pocket, pulling out her cell phone and glancing at it briefly. A real no-no at Grandma’s table. “Mom, I may get a call and have to leave. We’re preparing something for the paper tomorrow.”

“That shouldn’t be hard,” Paul said. “How about ‘Dear Mayor Smith: You are the
woman
! Enclosed please find a campaign contribution’?”

I saw Aunt Maddie’s glance move quickly in my mother’s direction, then away. Two rosy patches appeared on her cheeks. No one spoke.

“I mean, I’m just a taxpayer who works for a living, so what do I know?” he continued. “But it seems to me that the mayor is on to something. Like, why are we giving handouts to illegal aliens who would have been better off staying put in their own country and getting jobs?”

“It’s kind of hard to apply for a job when a member of a rival
clan just cut off both your arms with a machete,” Aunt Maddie replied evenly. “Which is why they’re refugees, not illegals.”

Uncle Paul didn’t miss a beat.

“You know, Maddie, as awful as that is, it’s not our problem. We’ve got our own problems, and we don’t ask other countries to solve them for us.”

“These people have fled war zones, Paul. Where is your compassion?”

“People who were born and raised in this town are on waiting lists for housing, while these folks show up by the busloads and are handed a clean, free apartment and a check from the government every month while they sit home, have children they can’t afford, and pray to Allah … what? Six times a day?”

“Five,” my mother corrected, smiling brightly. She took a big bite of
tourtière
. “Delicious, Mom,” she said.

“Thank you, dear,” Grandma said.

“Yeah, Mrs. Thibeault, this is amazing,” Donnie added.

Paul slammed his hand down so hard on the table our plates jumped.

“Am I the only person in this family who doesn’t have his head up his ass?” he demanded. “Did you not watch, along with the rest of the world, when those towers went down? Who do you think these people
are
?”

“Paul, stop it, please,” Grandma quavered. Mom put her hand over Grandma’s.

“They are our neighbors,” Dad shot back. “They are Donnie and Tommy’s classmates. Teammates. They are women and children—”

“Take a stroll down Main Street some Friday afternoon, Bob,”
Uncle Paul interrupted. “It looks like freakin’ Little Mogadishu. It is packed with unemployed, Muslim
men
—all lookin’ pretty able-bodied to me, by the way, Maddie—filing into this unmarked storefront. A few doors down from the senator’s office. I mean, it’s unbelievable! We’ve got jihadists meeting next door to a U.S. government office and nobody seems to give a damn!”

“That’s their mosque, you idiot!” Maddie practically yelled. “They keep it unmarked so as not to attract attention from morons like you!”

“A hundred guys all walking in the same direction on Main Street isn’t my idea of a low profile, Maddie.”

“They go there to pray on Fridays. How is that any different from the crowds outside the cathedral this morning?” she fired back.

“How do you know they aren’t in there making explosive devices that they’ll strap on their backs next time they go to the mall?” Paul shouted.

“Stop. Please,” we all heard. Grandma. Everyone turned to her. Her eyes brimmed.

Here’s what you never want to do: make Grandma cry. You feel like absolute shit. Because she is probably the nicest person in the world, and if you’ve made her sad, you must suck. Big time.

“Enough! Both of you!” my mother said loudly. “Donnie, I apologize for our family’s bad behavior. This is no way to act in front of guests.” She said that last part with emphasis. As if she could shame my aunt and uncle into speaking respectfully to each other.

“Oh, don’t mind me,” Don replied cheerfully. “This is nothing compared to when my parents fight. And the food is
way
better.” He smiled at Grandma.

That’s the thing about Don. He’s either a complete idiot or really smart about emotions. Because that made Grandma laugh.

“Sweetheart, you are welcome in my house
any
time,” she said to him. Then she looked at Paul and Maddie. “You two … I’m not sure.”

They shut up after that. Maddie ate fast, then left in a hurry; we could hear her phone, set on vibrate, buzzing every few minutes as another text came in, but she didn’t look at it. Paul left soon after her. Neither stayed for dessert, which suited me and Don just fine. We ate obscene portions of the tart, and Grandma gave him a big slice to go. Nobody said another word about the letter, the mayor, or the Somalis.

Except Don, as I drove him home.

“So, you think Saeed is a terrorist?” he asked.

I laughed.

“Yeah, right. A real card-carrying member of Al Qaeda.”

Which sounded pretty funny when you said it out loud.

Of course, how the hell did we know what terrorists looked like? Acted like? And whether or not they played soccer?

Abdi was upset.

At first I thought it was because I was late. Practice went way over, and by the time I got to The Center, most of the kids doing homework had finished up and were already in the park across the street. But Abdi, who usually led the pack outdoors, sat inside with Myla at one of the long tables. Both wore very serious expressions. He was swinging that foot, and occasionally kicked the leg of the table. Hard.

I hadn’t seen Myla for three days. Since the night at Michelangelo’s. For some reason my homework help hadn’t overlapped with her schedule, which was funny because the kids gave me the impression that Myla practically lived at The Center. They would see her or talk to her or text her every day; she was that big a part of their lives. Mr. Bouchard, however, hadn’t caught a glimpse of Ms. College Student. Which made me wonder if she was avoiding me.

Which made me wonder why I was wondering.

I didn’t want them to, but Donnie’s comments sounded in
my brain as I approached Myla and Abdi. She looked up and a pleased, relieved smile broke over her face.

Blue, blue eyes. Yeah.

“Hey, guys,” I said casually, dropping my pack on the floor alongside Abdi. “Sorry I’m late. Coach kept us for sprints.”

“Hello,” Abdi muttered. He didn’t look up. He stared sullenly at the table. This was very un-Abdi-like behavior.

I crouched down to his level.

“What up?”

He pushed a crumpled piece of paper toward me.

“Man, that homework you did with me? It all wrong!”

I smoothed the paper flat and examined it. There weren’t any comments. Just big red X’s wherever Abdi had come up with a Somali word that began with
R
.

“Well, it’s not
all
wrong,” I said. “See, you got
river
right. I guess this answers our question, huh? They wanted just English words.”

Abdi shrugged. The expression on his face bothered me. It wasn’t just mad.

He seemed discouraged.

“Abdi, look at me,” Myla said gently. He wouldn’t. She glanced at me, and I could tell this was bothering her, too.

“Your work is not bad. Your work is good. It’s okay to get some red X’s. That’s how you learn. See, next time you’ll get the answer right.” Abdi’s head shot up, startling both me and Myla.

“What wrong with Somali word?” he demanded. “They want word with
R
, and
ri
got an
R
. That teacher, she makes no sense. She dumbass!”

I choked back a laugh. In his limited lexicon of English, you had to wonder where he’d heard this.

Myla looked severe.

“We talked about this,” she said evenly. “No disrespecting teachers. Now, I’d like you to take your paper and go over there.” She pointed to a table at the end of the room. “You spend some time fixing your homework on your own, then come back here to Tom and me and we’ll go over it.” Abdi grabbed the paper and slouched off to the other end of the room.

“I wasn’t sure whether to scold him or correct his grammar,” I said, sliding into Abdi’s vacant seat. “ ‘She
is
a dumbass.’ Not ‘She dumbass.’ ”

Myla pretended to punch me on the shoulder. Her fist lingered. Pressed into me a little longer than it had to. At least, that’s what I imagined.

“That’s not helpful, Cap,” she said. Her breath smelled like peppermint Altoids. She’d pulled her hair over one ear with a green plastic barrette shaped like a frog.

“You know I’m kidding, College,” I said quietly. She looked at me, surprised. It was the first time I’d used the nickname for her that’d been bouncing around my head. “What’s going on with him?”

Myla sighed, glanced over her shoulder once to make sure Abdi wasn’t listening, then leaned in closer.

“Probably more than I know,” she said. “To a certain extent I think he’s just frustrated. Really frustrated. I wonder sometimes if he might have a learning disability, because he’s pretty verbal but is having a hard time learning to read. But how do you diagnose a learning disability in someone who doesn’t have the basic language skills you’re testing? I mean, the schools don’t even have the staff to teach all the kids who need ELL, never mind learning-disabled kids who need ELL!”

“Especially ’cause we’re so maxed out. Right?” I said.

Her face clouded over.

“
Don’t
get me started on that,” she said.

“Agreed. Let’s stick to Abdi.”

“Who may be dealing with a little PTSD on top of everything else,” she said. “I’ve been wondering about that.”

“PTSD?”

“Post-traumatic stress disorder. It’s like what soldiers returning from combat have. People who have experienced some deep, usually violent trauma. You wouldn’t believe what some of these kids have been through.”

Across the room, Abdi had his back to us and was hunched over his paper. That foot was swinging in a wide, sweeping pendulum beneath the table. He knew we were talking about him.

I didn’t know a thing about PTSD. But I did know what happened to sad little boys.

“You know my friend you met the other night? Donnie?” I said to her.

She nodded.

“Charmer,” she commented.

“Yeah, you’re probably the only female in a thirty-mile radius who would say that. But anyway … he’s had it tough. Parents are screwups, and he’s always had trouble with school. But the worst thing is at some point he started to believe he was stupid and just decided to party on, you know?

“Anyway, Abdi sort of reminds me of him. I don’t know what he’s been through, but the thing that’s gonna hurt him the most is if he doesn’t think it’s worth trying anymore. Can’t let little dudes give up, you know?”

Myla stared at me from across the table. Like she saw me for the first time. “You actually give a damn, don’t you?” she said.

I shrugged.

“Nah. I’m just here to log service hours. And argue with you. By the way, are you dating anyone?”

The words were out of my mouth before they fully registered in my brain.

This is it, God. The perfect time for the apocalypse. End the world, now. Or how about just a big, gaping hole that opens up and swallows me?

As usual, God didn’t answer.

Instead, two bright red patches appeared on Myla’s cheeks. Her mouth twisted into this awkward grin.

“Are you asking me out?” she said.

“No. Absolutely not. I’m just curious.”

“Because I hear you already have a girlfriend,” she said.

“That would be true,” I said.

“And you’re a high school boy. I’m a college
woman
.”

With a plastic frog barrette in your hair
, I managed to not say.

“Yeah, but you could be into the whole cougar thing, you know? Mature woman, young guy? We could pull it off. Especially because I’m taller than you.”

“Everyone’s taller than me.”

“Also true. You’re avoiding my question.”

Myla looked down, picked at her fingernails. Short nails painted navy blue. A little smile played out around her lips. A thought occurred to me. A pretty wild thought, but …

“Wow. You
are
seeing someone.”

She still didn’t answer.

“Is it … another woman?”

Her head snapped up.

“Oh. My. God. Are you for real?” I couldn’t tell if she was laughing because she thought this was funny or totally offensive. “Do you think the only reason I might reject you is because I’m a
lesbian
? ‘Ooh, watch out for that Tom Bouchard, ladies! Only a
lesbian
could resist him!’ ”

“No! Of course not. I’m sure you have plenty of reasons to reject me.” Pause. “But if you were, that’s cool. A lesbian, I mean. Not rejecting me. That wouldn’t be so cool.”

“But of course, you weren’t asking,” she said sarcastically.

“No. Not a chance. You scare me. I’m going to go sit in the corner with Abdi now and practice writing words that begin with
R
.”

“Like
ridiculous
,” she suggested.
“Rude.”