—I never asked where you got the money for the ticket. I guess I must already know the answer.
—You’re wrong. I asked him for money at Christmas. He told me it was out of his purview.
—His what?
—That’s what I said. He told me to go home and look it up.
—Well doesn’t that just sound like our professor. She coughed into her fist. —I tell you what, though. I bet it gooses him in all the right places, this life plan of yours. I bet he feels fulfilled and justified.
—He’s got no reason to feel one way or the other about it. None of this is on account of him.
—Who do you think you’re talking to here, Aden? Who do you think you’re fooling?
—I’m telling it to you as clear as I can. I can’t help it if you don’t want to listen.
—For those with ears to hear, let them hear, said her mother.
—That’s about right.
—That comes from a different book, though. Not the one in your pocket. She curled her toes into the carpet. —I should have made you learn that book by heart.
—You tried to, said the girl.
—Noticed that, did you? I guess that counts for something.
—It’s not your fault I turned out like this. She bit down on her thumbnail. —You did what you could.
Her mother turned back to the window. —I’m tired. Go on out and leave me alone.
—I will if you promise to sleep.
—I’ll sleep when I’m ready. She arched her back and lit a cigarette. —I can’t say I’m going to miss your goddamn fussing.
A jet passed overhead as the girl turned to leave. The house was on the flight path up from SFO and she’d always loved to hear the planes go by. It was a carelessly built house, cheap as the frames on the mantel, but when it shook she felt less separate from the world.
—I’m going for a walk, she said. —I’ll be back in an hour. I’ll make us some dinner.
—Whatever you say.
—He never paid a cent for it. I saved up from work. The church got me a discount on the ticket.
—Don’t you call it a church. There’s a word for that place you go to, Aden. Even I know the word.
—You can forget it as soon as I’m gone, said the girl.
Her mother’s face caught the light as she pulled the door closed. Impassive and prideful, prepared for the worst. She recognized her likeness there at last.
She walked down Hidden Valley Drive to the cemetery, past Carmen’s Burger Bar, past Ramirez Pawn N Carry, then up Pacific toward the junior college. On Mendocino she stopped in front of a shop window and shaded her eyes and looked in through the glass. A pyramid of mobile phones, leather protective cases for the phones, matching plastic belt clips for the cases. She imagined a world in which she might possibly enter that shop—in which she would work and save to buy the items offered there for sale—and it was not a world in which she cared to live.
Some kids from school walked by and snickered, and she allowed herself, for the last time, the luxury of picturing them dead. She watched them in the glass until they passed out of sight, then took stock of her own reflection, frail but straight-backed in a white shalwar kameez. Not a girl, not a boy. Just a ghost in a body. She felt a passing pang of sadness, perhaps even pity, but whether for herself or for the kids who’d laughed at her she couldn’t say.
The campus was quiet and dark and unnaturally flat, a painted backdrop in a silent film. Her father’s was the only office lit. She picked up the ancient security telephone at the service gate and waited for Ed Aycker’s sleepy mild voice and the sharp double tone of the buzzer. It had excited her once, this clandestine transaction: it had put her in mind of coded entry to a military compound, or the vault of a bank, or the visiting room of a prison.
—You came in the back way? said her father before she could knock.
—Same way as always.
—I’m surprised Ed let you in with that crew cut of yours. Not everybody gets past him, you know. Must be a sign that you are pure of heart.
—You made that joke last week, she said, lifting a stack of legal folders off a stool.
—As I recall, you didn’t laugh then either.
—I guess I haven’t changed my mind about it.
—Fair enough. He brought his hands together in an attitude of prayer, an unconscious salaam, a gesture he’d newly adopted. —You haven’t changed your mind about anything else, I suppose.
—I fly out tomorrow.
He lowered his hands to the desk. —And your mother? How’s she handling this, would you say?
—She turned all the pictures around. Even ones you’re not in.
—Don’t play dumb with me, Aden. It doesn’t suit you. He looked down at his hands. —How’s she handling this trip of yours, I mean.
She watched him for a time across the great round-cornered teakwood desk that took up half the room. He had brought her with him to work on certain rare afternoons of her childhood, a reward for good behavior, and she’d often napped beneath its creaking eaves. In her imagination and occasionally even in her dreams she’d sat behind it, poring over parchment scrolls and penning learned studies. It seemed unwieldy to her now, a monument to some forgotten culture, an ocean liner stranded in the desert. Her father’s soft complacent face was hard to get in focus.
—It’s not a trip, she said.
—Of course it’s a trip.
—Not the way you mean.
—No? Maybe you should explain.
—I shouldn’t have to explain. Not to you. She shook her head. —I’m not going over there just to see the sights, Teacher.
—I’ve never liked it when you call me that.
—I know.
He nodded for a time. —You’re traveling to the Emirates to study, he said finally. —To improve your language skills, to broaden your perspective, to see for yourself what the fuss is about. I appreciate that. You’re a serious girl, Aden. An asker of questions. You always have been. He pressed his palms lightly together. —Or is there some other reason?
She stared down at the floor between her feet, at divots in the carpet where a less stately desk had once stood. She wondered whose office the room had been then. She could picture no one but her father in that space.
—Have you given any further thought to your plans for the future? he asked her. —To your education?
—This is my education.
—I’ve spoken again with Dean Lawford. He’s agreed, very generously, to permit a deferral—
—I know all about that.
—I’d like to speak frankly with you, Aden, if I may. He arranged his features into a smile. —This past year has been hard on all of us. I was distracted when you asked for my help with this adventure of yours, and I do regret that. But things have stabilized now, as you’re no doubt aware, and I hope that you’ll regard me as a resource. I have friends in Dubai: people you may find it good to know. I’ve prepared a list.
Her father pushed an index card across the desktop.
—There will be some adjustment required, needless to say. A great deal of adjustment. And in the matter of your return ticket—