20

JAWAHIR

“You can’t sit here,” ZamZam says sharply as Jawahir tries to sit at the table filled with other ninth-grade Somali girls. Girls she’s known most of her life, girls she thought were her friends. “Nobody wants you at this table. Nobody wants you at this school. Why don’t you and Rodney do all of us a favor and take your disgusting little love affair someplace where we don’t have to watch.”

Jawahir pulls a deep breath into her lungs, shuts her mouth tight, and heads for another table.

With the same response.

And another, and another, and another until she’s exhausted half of the tables occupied by Somali students. She looks quickly over at the tables occupied by the African American students. The one closest contains the girls who were about to jump her when she was down, if not for Rodney.

Humiliated, she turns and dumps her lunch into the garbage. Trying not to cry, she walks head down out of the cafeteria, but once she’s outside, she breaks into a run.

As she’s running down the hallway, she hears a voice yell her name over and over. She collects herself, turns, and sees Principal Evans standing, looking very much pissed off. “Jawahir, in my office, now.” Evans motions for Jawahir to follow her like she was a scared pet dog.

Jawahir’s stomach clenches with fear; she’s never been in a principal’s office. Never been in trouble, never been anything but an A student and obedient child with lots of friends. Now she’s lost all of those things, and the reason she lost them—Rodney—isn’t anywhere close.

“You can’t run in the hallways,” Evans scolds after Jawahir steps inside the doorway.

Jawahir nods but thinks it’s odd Evans called her in to say that. What am I doing here? she thinks.

“Now, Jawahir, as you know we’ve had a few little issues recently between different groups of students.” Despite feeling terrible, Jawahir feels like laughing at Evans describing brawls, a stabbing, and multiple arrests as “a few little issues.” Evans continues, “I brought together a small group with some outside help, but basically, that doesn’t seem to be working. So what I’m thinking, and I think Coach Martin might agree with me: go big, go long.”

Jawahir nods but says nothing. All she knows about football is that Martin coaches it.

“I understand that you and Rodney Marshall have become quite close, actually. A couple, I understand, is that correct?”

Jawahir shakes her head to the negative. “We were, but that’s over.” It hurts her to tell the lie, as if it might jinx their love and that somehow by saying those words it might make them true.

Evans fiddles with items on her desk. “Really? I must have had some incorrect information.”

She knows she shouldn’t, but Jawahir asks anyway. “Why does that matter?”

“Like I said, go big, go long. As you know, homecoming is almost upon us, and I think you and Rodney as a couple could be a symbol of these two groups coming together. Everyone would see that it is possible for people to overcome their prejudices when they get to know each other as people. Agree?”

Jawahir nods again. “But like I said, that’s over between us.”

Evans shakes her head back and forth, sighing but saying nothing. “Then who were you texting on your cell phone during first period? And second period? Do I need to go on?”

“Nobody.” Did a teacher see her or was it Ayaan snitching on her again?

“Well, if you should happen to text this person you say you broke up with, you can tell him that I gathered enough information about what happened with Farhan to convince his PO to leave him alone. And you can also tell him that if he agrees to my plan, then I’ll talk to his PO, and I’ll let him back in my school. If not, then not.”

“You can’t do that!”

“Actually I can.”

Jawahir starts to speak, but realizes her words mean nothing to Evans.

“I’d hurry up about it,” Evans says. “Homecoming is on Friday. Basically, Jawahir, the clock is ticking.”

Jawahir turns from Evans and stares at the clock on the wall. Never has time moved more slowly than now; never did it move so quickly as the night she spent with Rodney.

“You’re dismissed.”

After leaving Evans’ office, Jawahir heads not for her next class, but for the light rail. She’ll finish up her few precious phone minutes talking to Rodney, pretending he is sitting behind her on the train as she whispers, “Rodney, I love you, please come back to me because my life is broken and only you can fix it.”