Operation Oleander (9780547534213) Read online

  She reminds me of when Mom was pregnant with Cara over three years ago. How the fear crawled under my skin and I didn’t want to look at her. The baby would be part of a circle I couldn’t ever enter. Mom and Dad hadn’t stopped loving me when Cara was born, but things sneak up on you like speeding cars and train wrecks. Worry creeps in like trumpet vine.

  “Hello,” the woman says.

  “Would you like to help?” I start into my memorized speech. “We’re supporting the girls’ orphanage in Kabul. Since January we’ve sponsored a milk goat and sent school supplies. We’ve had concrete results.” Concrete results—that’s what adults call success.

  The man shifts on his heels, but the woman edges closer. She’s drawn to the photos, I can tell.

  “Look, honey. See this girl?” the woman says.

  “Yes,” I say. I start to tell her the story about Warda, but the man is frowning.

  “We’d better hurry,” he says.

  His arm brushes the poster as he touches his wife’s shoulder and steers her away. The poster slides off the tripod and floats toward the floor. The man doesn’t notice. He’s only looking at his wife. He acts like something can go wrong with her baby just by her looking at photos of orphans.

  Meriwether reaches for the poster, but she misses. For a second I am falling with it, but Meriwether reaches down and retrieves it from the floor.

  “He didn’t want to be here,” she says under her breath to me, and straightens the poster back on its stand.

  “No,” I say, breathing again. But it was more than that. He didn’t want us to be here.

  I rearrange the paper oleanders, positioning them as if they’re real flowers going into fresh water. Then I place the vase next to the poster so people can’t miss the oleanders.

  So they can’t dismiss our mission.

  Three

  OTHER PEOPLE begin to arrive. Mothers walk by with toddlers in tow. Kids with money in their pockets park their bikes and dash inside to spend it. Meriwether and I smile at everyone. Some people pause long enough to check out the photos at our table. A few coming out of the PX drop pads of paper or colored pencils into the basket.

  Every time a donation lands on the table, I smile like the Salvation Army bell ringers at Christmas. Even when someone looks at the photos and walks away without donating, I make myself say, “Thank you for coming by.” My cheeks hurt from smiling. Not everyone can give. Not everyone wants to give.

  When people just walk away, though, it bothers me. Still, no one acts like the man who knocked over the poster.

  Meriwether reaches into a box under the table and refills empty spots in the baskets. “If Sam doesn’t come . . .”

  “He said he was coming.” I believe him. Really. To him, “duty, honor, country” aren’t just three words. At least, if it doesn’t mean contradicting his dad.

  “But he’s not here.”

  I shrug. “Call him.”

  “I’ll wait.” Meriwether sighs and sits at the table with her chin in her hands. She fluffs the packages of chips. “Maybe Caden will come by.”

  A couple of army officers walk up.

  “Good morning, ladies. I’ll take a soda. Here, keep the change,” one of them says, handing me a five-dollar bill. That means another box of pencils and then some. Maybe we’ll have enough to send a large tin of colored pencils. Not just the eight-pack of basic colors but the set of ninety-eight, with names like sepia and scarlet tanager.

  “Thanks,” Meriwether says, and reaches into the cooler for a can.

  “I’ll take some chips, too,” he says.

  “Nice breakfast,” his companion says.

  The first man shrugs. “I had cold pizza yesterday. It’s been one of those weeks.”

  “We’d better get going.” The other man’s voice is tight and narrow, as if he doesn’t trust himself to say much. He sounds like he’s already in the office checking computers and orders and maps of the war, or whatever he does there. But he fishes for change anyway and drops some coins into our basket. “Thanks, ladies. Keep up the good work.”

  “We will,” Meriwether says, sitting straight and tall in her chair. As if our mission had been her idea.

  I tease her after they leave. “We?”

  Meriwether ignores me and tosses her hair. She grins. “Okay, I know. But I’m helping. More than Sam.”

  “That wouldn’t be hard.” I move the baskets so they’re straight, with their corners touching. Orderly, like the army. The way Dad would arrange things.

  Meriwether grabs my arm. “There he is.”

  Only Meriwether could conjure up a boy just by wishing him there. She sits in her chair acting like she doesn’t see him.

  “What’s he doing?” she asks.

  “What do you think he’s doing? This is the way to the PX.”

  I wave at Caden, trying to get his attention.

  Meriwether yanks on the hem of my shorts. “What are you doing?”

  “Trying to get him to come over.”

  “Don’t do that!” Meriwether tugs on my shorts until I sit down, hard, in the folding chair.

  Caden walks by, not looking our way.

  “Meriwether, you’re never going to talk to him if—”

  Outside, a car screeches to a halt. I cringe as the sound echoes through the long hallway. The sliding glass doors part, and a figure runs through.

  It’s Meriwether’s dad.

  Meriwether drops the iPod on the table. “He didn’t bring the frappés.”

  Mr. Scott dashes toward our table. I stand up, but that’s all I can do. Everything around us seems more intense. The chill in the hall. The glare from outside as the sliding doors open to admit shoppers. When Mr. Scott reaches us, he looks lost. For a second the wide, startled expression in his eyes reminds me of Warda.

  “Dad?” Meriwether asks.

  “Come on. We’ve got to go home.”

  Meriwether doesn’t move. She sits there as if caught in an undertow and unable to swim to shore.

  “What’s wrong?” I ask.

  “A bombing,” he says. “I heard on the radio. Back in the office. Meriwether, come on. We need to get home now. See what the networks are saying.”

  “I can’t. I just got here to help Jess.” Meriwether folds her arms.

  “Bombing? Where?” I ask.

  “Kabul,” Mr. Scott says as if I’m an idiot. That of course a bombing occurred there. As if a bomb could have exploded anywhere else. “Come on, Meriwether.”

  Last month a market in Kabul was bombed. The television talked about women and children dying. That’s probably what’s happened this time—another market attack.

  “Go.” I nudge Meriwether out of her chair. “Just go. I’ll put this stuff away.”

  “Are you sure?”

  “Yes, it’s okay.”

  “You should go home too, Jess. We can drop you,” Mr. Scott says. My street comes before theirs in the housing area. But he’s already backing toward the door, even as he looks to me to answer.

  “That’s okay. I’ll follow you.” I can’t leave things where they are. Dad always says, “Duty first.”

  Straighten up.

  Stay calm.

  Keep order.

  Put everything away.

  Mr. Scott nods and speeds toward the exit.

  Meriwether mumbles under her breath, and I hear her say Caden’s name. But she sprints after her dad.

  Seconds later, the car squeals away.

  Mothers with their children are pushing full grocery carts from the PX. They look sideways at me as they rumble like tanks toward the parking lot. With their eyes they ask if there’s anything they should worry about.

  Don’t panic. I make myself slow down. Pick up the storage boxes one at a time. At least, I do while they’re looking, because I don’t want to upset them. Because that’s what military families do: they stay calm, even in an emergency. Dad would say that, too.

  As soon as they exit, though, I stuff bags of chi
ps and snacks into boxes. I don’t care if they’re mixed up.

  A bomb.

  Maybe Mr. Scott heard it all wrong.

  “Jess!”

  Sam’s marching toward me. Even when he doesn’t run, his walk covers a lot of ground. I have to jog to keep up with him on a regular day.

  Today he walks even faster. But he, too, projects calm and order, even though tension pulses just under his skin. I can tell by the way he holds his arms at his sides. Like a soldier.

  “Now you show up.” I slam the rest of the snacks into boxes.

  “Don’t be mad. I was going to come earlier. Honest. But something’s happened.” Sam’s face is damp from sweat, from the heat.

  “I don’t want to hear it.”

  He touches my arm. “Come on. It’s important.”

  I snatch it away and step back from the table.

  “There’s been a bombing,” he says. “The TV says Fort Spencer troops are involved. Mom drove me here so I could tell you.”

  The cool air makes my chest ache. Mr. Scott didn’t say anything about Fort Spencer troops.

  I wait for him to continue. Through the glass doors behind him, Sam’s mother must be sitting in her air-conditioned car.

  “It was in Kabul, Jess. I have to go. Mom’s waiting. We can give you a ride.”

  “No, I can’t go yet. Meriwether’s dad came and got her.” All the things left on the table still. The poster of Dad and Meriwether’s mom and Warda.

  “Let me help you,” he says, grabbing snacks and slapping them into a half-filled box.

  “No.” I seize the box.

  He stands there looking lost the way Mr. Scott did.

  “I can do it,” I say.

  He doesn’t argue with me.

  “I’ll call you later,” he says.

  I want him to argue with me, but he’s already through the doors and gone into the July heat that shimmers over the asphalt like waves of dark water.

  How many hours since Dad wrote? Did he write as soon as he heard about the bombing? So we wouldn’t worry?

  Kabul.

  Troops.

  Bomb.

  The words swirl in my head.

  I cram the snack boxes onto a shelf in the storage closet. Pretzel bags mix with chips. Candy bars jostle out of their trays. I tug, but I can’t lift the cooler with the ice in it.

  I can’t leave it. It belongs to Sam’s family. I drag it to the side door, turn it upside down. Ice and cans spill onto the fresh-cut grass outside. One at a time, I grab the sodas and toss them back into the cooler. Each one thuds against the hard plastic sides like my heart against my chest. Bits of cut grass stick to the slippery cans and the bottom of my flip-flops, but I don’t stop to brush them off.

  I push the cooler inside the closet and slam the door, the key in both my hands, which are still wet from the grass and ice. I fumble with the lock. Finally, it catches, and I yank out the key. I grab my iPod.

  When I run through the doors, the white light sears my skin.

  Home.

  Four

  THE HOUSING area seems so ordinary. No sirens blaring. No police cars speeding by with blazing lights. Instead, automatic sprinklers whir across magazine-perfect lawns. Hibiscus bushes bloom, and oleander. I skip the cracks in the sidewalk just like Cara does.

  A flock of monk parakeets spirals overhead, heading toward the grove of guava trees behind the parade ground. At the height of guava season, the birds sound like monkeys screeching. Teenagers scare little kids into thinking the trees are haunted.

  Just the tattered red paper reminds me yesterday was the Fourth of July.

  Maybe the early damage reports were wrong. Maybe Mr. Scott and Sam worried for nothing. Maybe I’ll get home and find out it’s all a mistake. False alarms happen a lot in a war zone. Right?

  If Fort Spencer troops are affected, why isn’t everybody in full gear? Isn’t that what army posts do in a crisis? Mobilize? Even if the crisis is halfway across the world?

  Check e-mail for any more news from Dad. He’d write as soon as he could. Already maybe there’s a message there, waiting for me.

  Don’t trip over your flip-flops. Concentrate on street names. Don’t panic. North–south streets are presidents, like Lincoln and Monroe. Lisbon and Canton, cities, run east–west. On the coast, the Gulf of Mexico cuts into the post like a scimitar, leaving a curved scar on the beach. Sometimes the South Seas Road washes out along the shoreline near the airstrip and parade ground.

  I cut the corner on Madrid Street and look for my house half a block down. When we moved in, the administrative office called the concrete blockhouses “historic bungalows.” Mom called them “matchboxes.” Small and look-alike. Maybe one house has a carport on the right side and another has one on the left. Or maybe the trim’s painted a different color—army green or battleship gray. At first I could only find my house by the number 306 spray-painted on the curb. Or by seeing Cara’s big tricycle on its side in the driveway.

  That was last year. Now I can find it even if I’m running in the dusk of summer, flying ahead of mosquitoes, the sound of Meriwether laughing about a boy at the pool still in my ears.

  Straining to see my house, I pretend I’m looking at it for the first time. That it belongs to another military family and the gray house trimmed in green is unfamiliar. And I’ve never seen the green mold almost the same shade as the trim growing on the outside, near the drainpipes. That I don’t know about how the jalousie windows in the living room don’t close all the way or that at night, or after a rain, palmetto bugs slip in through the cracks. With Dad deployed, it’s my job to be brave and kill them so Mom doesn’t have to. So Cara doesn’t scream when she finds them crawling in the kitchen.

  Across the street, Mrs. Johnson’s sprinkler’s turned off. Despite the brightness, her curtains hang wide open. That usually means she’s peering out to see what’s happening. She always knows when our neighbor’s dog does his business near her mailbox.

  I unlock the door, half expecting to see Mrs. Johnson sitting on the sofa, drinking coffee out of Dad’s Texas Rangers mug. She’s over almost every day.

  No Mrs. Johnson. Not yet anyway.

  I plug in the computer in the kitchen and hit the on button. In the living room, I grab the remote and punch on the television, holding the volume down. Everything in the house sits quietly, waiting. Mom and Cara must still be asleep.

  I won’t wake Mom yet. Not till I know there’s something to worry about for real.

  Troops.

  Bomb.

  The words in my head repeat like music that won’t stop.

  Images on the television appear smoky and unclear. They don’t have all the details. It’s a developing news story. At the bottom of the screen the words “breaking news” blare in red letters. Smoke rises from a street area in the hazy background.

  I press the volume button.

  “A massive car bombing has damaged a Kabul neighborhood near a market destroyed weeks ago, in what appears to be a larger, better-coordinated attack on infrastructure. Fire still rages in the streets. Civilians, including children, and possibly U.S. soldiers reportedly are among the dead. A U.S. Army Humvee has been destroyed in the attack.”

  The station breaks for a commercial. I dash into the kitchen to check e-mail. No new e-mail. I press refresh and look again. Nothing. Maybe Dad hasn’t heard anything. Or, more likely, they’re on lockdown after the explosion. Maybe he couldn’t get to a computer to send an all-clear message.

  I dial Sam’s number.

  Busy.

  Then I try Meriwether’s number. It, too, rings busy. It’s like when the hurricane hit last fall and everyone got on their phones after the worst was over to tell relatives they were okay. The phone service got overloaded. Just busy signals for hours.

  In the living room, I jab the controls, searching for another channel. There has to be more information. One exclusive shows the actual explosion, which was captured by chance by a man who had been repor
ting on educational statistics. The replay reveals a static city scene glimmering in the distance. In the foreground, palm fronds wave in the sunny late afternoon. Wind ruffles the reporter’s hair.

  Without warning, the screen rips apart. For a second the flash of an explosion consumes everything, and I can’t turn away or close my eyes. The reporter crouches, covering his ears, and for a second drops the microphone. The footage shimmers as if an earthquake is upending everything.

  I squeeze my eyes shut. The red and white streamers from the fireworks reflect against the back of my eyelids. The sound of the explosion rockets through my eardrums. The scene on television reminds me of last night on the beach, the way the silhouettes made everyone look like soldiers. I was afraid, afraid for Dad and everyone in the unit. It was just a moment, a flash, and then I tried to brush it away like sand off my legs.

  On television, smoke and dust are all I can see.

  The anchor cuts away. “We’ll be back with more on this unfolding story.”

  The scene changes to a cat food commercial.

  The phone rings, and I snatch it off the receiver.

  “Meriwether?”

  “It’s Sam.”

  “I tried to call you,” I say. “My mom’s still asleep. What’s happening?” He has to know something, or he wouldn’t call. He won’t let what he thinks about Operation Oleander stop him from doing the right thing. From telling me what he can.

  “The major offensive. It’s started. Troops are moving south.” Sam’s voice sounds like a television reporter’s. Neutral and practiced. “A car bombing got part of the unit before they could join the convoy. They’d stopped at an orphanage.”

  Orphanage.

  The word reverberates in my head.

  “Ours?”

  For a moment he doesn’t answer.

  “Yes.” His voice drops as if he’s telling me something he shouldn’t.

  “Casualties?”

  “Yes.” We talk as if in Morse code: clipped, in as few words as possible.

  “Soldiers, too?”

  “Yes.”

  “Who?”

  Again Sam is silent. The emptiness inside the receiver deafens me.

  I close my eyes. He knows. He has to know. His dad is Commander Butler. He’d get word here first. Even though he’s here now, not in Afghanistan, he’ll know, since the soldiers are from Fort Spencer.