CHAPTER THREE
✈ ✈ ✈ CAIRO
When I finally venture out of my room, I realise that time has already eaten the afternoon and most of the evening away. The night lamps outside are lit, the light seeps through the papery thin curtains, bathing the living room in the soft, warm glow of dusk.
I'm fast regretting refusing my mother's offer to make me food. So when my stomach rumbles again, I find my feet heading towards the kitchen of their own accord, like a magnetic force field pulling me, the metal, towards it.
The pale grey surface of the refrigerator is cool to the touch, but I'm still completely unprepared when the frigid blast of air hits me the second I open the door. The top compartment of the freezer is emptied out, save for a pint of strawberry ice-cream. Hardly dinner-worthy.
My gaze wanders to the lower shelves of the refrigerator. Milk. Salad. Peanut butter. Celery sticks – thanks to my mother, who's permanently on a strict diet, dabs the layer of oil off fries with a napkin and frowns every time she sees me gobbling down a tube of Oreos.
There's nothing else but cereal, bread and biscuits in the cupboard. Clearly, what with the court case and all, my mother hasn't had the time to go grocery shopping. She never needed to. We used to have a housekeeper who cleaned the place twice a week, and bought the groceries we needed. But Marnie no longer works here, and this is all the food that's left from two weeks ago.
The sight of the food (or lack thereof) depresses me. Without further thought, I grab my cell phone, wallet and house keys from the counter, before stuffing them into the pockets of my sweater.
The clock on the wall reads eight-ten, and judging from the silence, the reporters are long gone by now. Most of them, at least. But I would hardly dare to venture out the front door without my mother with me. She is my armour, all five feet six inches of her, and without her, I'm helpless.
Instead, I leave through the back door. The trees and bushes in the backyard create insidious shadows that would've frightened me had I been younger. But I'm seventeen, going on eighteen, and I know that some hearts will be more insidious than shadows or monsters ever will be.
The side gate makes barely a rattle when I unlock it and slip out. But it does, however, make a sharp squeak when I push it close behind me, and I hold my breath, freezing in place for a brief moment. Silence reigns, thankfully, and I lock the gate, before making my way down the side alley that leads to the main street.
I soon get there, only to find myself stuck at junction, a crossroad, if you would call it that. If I turn left, I know that walking about five blocks down would lead me to the mall, where I'll be able to get all the groceries I need – soda, potatoes, pizza, tacos, strawberries, you name it, they've got it.
But it is paranoia that makes me turn right instead of left. The reporters aren't anywhere nearby, but news gets around. The people in the neighbourhood probably know who I am. I bet they've heard all about the scandal surrounding my family.
A couple brushes past me on the sidewalk, and the girl tosses a "sorry" over her shoulder, giving me a small smile and a quick nod. I freeze in place, wondering if she's recognised me. Maybe not, because she's soon turning back around, but it still doesn't stop my heart from racing or my palms from sweating.
My paranoia unsettles me. If a random gaze from a random stranger can throw me off so easily, I don't know what will happen when I have to go back to school. Multiply the gazes by tens, hundreds, thousands, this time coming from people who have known me all their lives. I'm terrified by the very prospect of it.
Keeping my gaze down, I weave my way down the street, passing and traffic lights and shops and lampposts. There's another grocery at the end of the street and it's the one I'm heading towards.
I know because I once went grocery shopping with Marnie, and she said the fruits there were less expensive than those they sold at the mall. Less expensive, but not organic. My mother only eats organic fruit and vegetables. I guess we'll have to go without either for awhile.
I'm so absorbed in avoiding people that I hardly notice him at first. But when I glance up to avoid the upcoming pothole, I realise that not noticing him is next to impossible because he's missing an arm.
The right sleeve of his shirt drapes over his shoulder like a dishcloth would over the edge of a counter. It's a horrible analogy, but I can't help it. I can't help staring either, it's so blatantly obvious.
People are staring at him, at the handicapped boy standing in the middle of the street looking up at the night sky. Occasionally, they glance up to see what he's staring at, if it's as interesting as what he makes it out to be. I have to stifle a smile when I see that.
My friends and I used to play this game all the time – stop right in the middle of nowhere and just look up. We'd generally get the attention of the people around us, and they'd look up to, only to glance back down and see us killing ourselves on the pavement with laughter.
I suppose people's natural curiosity makes them look like idiots sometimes, but you can't blame them. People generally stare at things that they aren't used to seeing, that aren't normal.
And this boy, the one standing a few feet away from me, is anything but normal.
No one just stops in the middle of the street and looks at the moon. Although, when I hazard a quick glance up, I realise that the stars and the moon look particularly beautiful tonight. The moon is full, large and round, and the stars are brighter than usual.
It makes sense, because the street here is less crowded than the one downtown, the streetlamps fewer and positioned in wider intervals. It allows the darkness to soak up the places where the light doesn't shine, allows the astronomical light-bulbs in the night sky to brighten the place considerably.
Eventually, I realise that people are beginning to stare at me, too, and that's the last thing I want. So I duck my head down and hurry on my way. But when I pass the boy with one arm, I can't help but sneak a glance at his shoulder, the empty space beneath his shirt-sleeve where his arm should've been.
"You were staring."
The voice comes from the boy next to me, but there's no note of accusation or reproach in it.
I flush in embarrassment and gaze up at him meekly, meeting his eyes. His eyes are completely black, which I think is odd because he's spent all this time looking up at night lights, and yet his eyes simply can't catch a single gleam of light in them.
My first instinct is to apologise and tell him how sorry I am about staring, and about his handicap, but I hesitate when I realise he'll probably mistake my good intentions for pity.
And I know how defensive people can get in the face of pity. Like my mother, who gives an icy cold glare every time someone asks if she's okay. Mr Harrison, our lawyer, asked her that just yesterday. If looks could kill, he would've been dead there and then.
So instead of offering a prettily-worded apology like I would've, I stupidly blurt out something else altogether. "What?"
"At the sky," he states, simply, turning his gaze back up skyward, and I begin to realise he wasn't referring to me staring at his arm at all. Perhaps he'd gotten far too many stares directed at his arm, or lack thereof, that it hardly bothered him anymore.
"Oh," Shifting nervously from one foot to the other, I glance up, deciding it's easier to stare at something than at someone. It is easy to lose yourself in the night sky, with the pretty stars and full moon that looks like a meteorite that could crash into earth any time.
When I was a kid, Dad used to call me nocturnal. I loved the night, loved the darkness and the silence that came along with it. Of course, living in the city made the silence pretty much impossible. But I remember climbing out of the balcony to the roof, and my Dad would drag out blankets to keep us warm in the cool night breeze.
We used to play a game. I'd point out the lights I thought were stars, and he'd tell me if I was right or wrong. Having studied astronomy in his college days, he could tell the difference between man-made stars and real stars.
I am looking at the stars now, and I can almost imagine him speaking to me.
That's a pretty star,
I would say, but he'd correct me.
No, sweetheart. That's a plane. See it moving across the sky?
How 'bout that one?
That's a star. It's a pretty one.
That one?
Satellite, honey, try again. See the blinking light?
That one?
…
Dad?
…
Dad?
…
In my head, he no longer replies, and I am left with questions that will never be answered, stars that will never be identified. I am alone, or maybe I am not, because when I turn my head to look at the boy, I realise that he's staring at me, a crooked smile on his face.
"Who wouldn't stare?" I say, in response to his earlier comment. "The sky at night is beautiful."