Operation Oleander (9780547534213) Read online

  My brain feels thick as felt.

  “And you know what else?”

  Now I am the one unable to talk. Unsure of what comes next. I am sinking, pulled down by undertow in the gulf, and there’s no lifeguard on duty to save me. I see myself sucked farther down and away from shore. I can’t fight it.

  “I never said this before because I didn’t want to hurt your feelings. But oleander, Jess? That’s the stupidest name I ever heard of. Oleander is poisonous. Don’t you know that?”

  I nodded. Every summer the local news carries stories about people who poison themselves accidentally by inhaling oleander fumes from a beach bonfire. Or people who use oleander twigs to roast hot dogs. But what had drawn me was the photo of the oleander growing next to the orphanage, all the way in Afghanistan. It bonded us all together—Warda, Dad, and me. Poisonous, yes, but in its own way, oleander is beautiful, and it grows in places that more delicate plants can’t.

  “You knew and you wanted to use the name anyway?”

  “Yes, I—”

  “Just go. Get out.”

  Her words pummel my body.

  “Okay,” I say. “I’ll go. If you really want me to.” I wait, hoping Meriwether will say something else.

  She just sits there, protected by her pillows.

  “I didn’t know this would happen. I love your mom too.” I don’t tell her my dad’s condition, how he might still die.

  I slip out and close the door behind me. I feel my heart stabbed through like an insect pinned to a board.

  Outside, my eyes blurry, I walk past the flower beds. Where Meriwether removed the day lilies, a bare spot of earth lies exposed, a gaping wound.

  Ten

  THIS TIME of the day, heat builds over land. Later, an afternoon thunderstorm will crackle, and rain will pour down out of the sky as if a dam holding it back has given way. But right now it’s just hot and sticky, and the sunlight hurts my eyes. I walk to the beach anyway.

  Away from Meriwether’s house. Away from the pond with its two frightened goldfish and the flower bed that looks like a war zone. And my best friend who says her mother wouldn’t have been at the orphanage that morning except for me.

  When the news of the bombing broke, I only thought about Dad. It hadn’t come to my mind that Meriwether’s mother might be hurt, or that others I knew would be killed.

  No, it was Dad and the orphanage I thought about first. And Warda. And, if she’s alive, whether her eyes now hold more pain in them than I’d already seen in the photos. The newscasters don’t report on the orphanage. Maybe they think there’s no story in that here.

  I follow the beach road until it curves like the scar created by the water. Then I slip off my flip-flops and run onto the sand, toward the gulf. The whiteness of the sun reflecting off the beach burns my eyes.

  Because of Operation Oleander.

  Everything is whiteness. Hot whiteness.

  I dash toward the surf, but I don’t dive in. Don’t swim alone, my dad’s voice reminds me. Instead I run through the surf, kicking up water and sand. Water courses down my legs. One wave surges toward me, and water splashes up to my thighs. The edges of my shorts turn damp. Later they’ll dry stiff from all the salt water.

  This morning there’s no one here except for one old man. He wears a faded green army cap and fishes in the surf. I’ve seen him before. I think he’s retired. He’s so dark and wrinkled that it’s as if he’s turned to seaweed that washes up on the sand at high tide.

  The sun’s overhead. I keep running. My feet push off. Digging into the wet sand, trying to release myself, tugging against the wet sand pulling me down, holding me back.

  I fight. Push harder. Run faster.

  And then I am finally flying, tripping, and soaring until I dive into the water.

  When you’re in it, water has a sound of its own. I am underneath, and it washes over me. Close my eyes because it stings. But I hear the gush of it, the gurgle all around me, almost as if the gulf is breathing. I listen to it gather and swell toward land.

  I hold my breath until my chest aches.

  Then I bellow out of the water like a breaching whale, gasping for air.

  Beyond the point, the old man who’s fishing raises his hat to wave at me. He’s checking on me. He must think I’m crazy or drowning.

  I am both.

  In the water, no one can see my tears.

  In the water, I am not even sure I am crying.

  I wave back once and trudge out of the surf so he doesn’t think I need rescuing. Water streams down my face and my neck, into the folds of my T-shirt, my shorts. I squeeze out my hair and find my flip-flops in the white, hot sand.

  By the time I get home, I am half-dry and my skin itches with salt.

  In the time I’ve been gone, someone has tied red, white, and blue ribbons to the front porch of our house. A couple of smaller ribbons trim the branches of the gardenia like ornaments.

  For the first time, our house appears different from others on the block. It looks marked. Like Meriwether’s house.

  “There you are,” Mrs. Johnson says when I squish into the kitchen. She’s holding the lid of a casserole dish, and steam billows out into the air like a cloud from a genie’s lamp. Steam fogs the window and her glasses. She sets the lid down. “You didn’t drown—that’s obvious. What did you do?”

  At least she didn’t ream me out the way Dad would have.

  “I went to Meriwether’s house.”

  Her eyebrows wrinkle. “She doesn’t have a pool.”

  “I went to the beach. After.” I take a deep breath. “I had to take a walk.” I hold in my stomach as if she might scold me. Or drill me like a master sergeant for details about what happened with Meriwether.

  She just nods.

  “Look. Some women from the auxiliary dropped by with food for dinner. People are starting to hear about your dad, and your mom over in Germany. This is beef stroganoff. Enough sour cream to clog my arteries, but it sure smells good.”

  I breathe in, but the baked noodles don’t smell like anything. My nose still holds the sea and the scent of gardenias.

  “Isn’t that nice of them?” Mrs. Johnson asks.

  “I’m not hungry.” I don’t understand why people bring food when bad things happen. I don’t want to eat.

  Mrs. Johnson cocks her head to one side.

  “It’s nice of people to reach out in ways they can. And I’m not going to let you starve. What do you think your mom would do if she comes home and you’re thin as a rail? You’re practically that now.”

  Meriwether told me I was cheerleader thin. She meant it as a compliment. Back before deployment, I’d gone shopping for bathing suits with her and her mom. Mrs. Scott wanted to do everything to get Meriwether ready for the months she wouldn’t be here. I found two suits—I only had money for one, and I had to turn over every single wrinkled dollar bill I had—but Meriwether hadn’t found one that flattered her body.

  She isn’t fat, but she has high school girl curves already. Boys from high school are already following her with their gazes at the pool or the beach. If a car drives by with a teenage boy at the wheel, it slows down and slinks by when I’m with Meriwether. Never when I’m by myself, which is okay with me.

  Mrs. Johnson’s standing there waiting for an answer.

  What was the question?

  “I’ll eat later,” I say, hoping that’s what she wants to hear.

  “Deal.” She reaches for a serving spoon. “Cara’s playing in your bedroom. Have you written your dad a note?”

  My hand grasps the back of the spindle chair at the kitchen table. “No. Not yet.” What do I tell him? “I will later.”

  Her look says it all. That I should do it now.

  “I think I’ll go set up the table,” I say. “At the PX.” I want to say we, but I know there is no we. Meriwether blames Operation Oleander for interfering with her summer plans to get Caden’s attention. And now this. As for Sam, well, I can guess what he t
hinks.

  “You think you ought to be doing that? Earth to Jess, didn’t you hear what happened? They bombed our troops,” Mrs. Johnson says. She says it as if I’m deaf from the explosion.

  But I do hear. I don’t know the answer. I’ve never thought about what we would do if the orphanage were damaged, or how we’d get supplies there. But I can’t think about that now. I have to keep going until I know what happened for sure.

  “I know what happened. But they bombed the orphanage, too. That’s what the Taliban want us to do. They want us to quit and let things go back the way they were. When girls couldn’t go to school. They want us to give up.”

  I can’t do that.

  “Yes, they want us to give up. Two of our own dead, and one wounded. Sounds like they might get what they want,” Mrs. Johnson says. “For now. Trust me—no one on this post is going to want to be reminded about that orphanage. Not right now.”

  “I can’t quit.” Duty, honor, country. Dad wouldn’t want me to give up because of violence. That’s what people do when they’re not tough enough. When they let things knock them off track and lose sight of what they believe in. Right? He’s right, isn’t he?

  Mrs. Johnson’s cheek twitches, and she snaps the lid back on the stroganoff. “Flags are half-mast on post. You ought to give it a rest.”

  “Is that an order?”

  “Jess—”

  But I plug in my earbuds. I’m no longer listening to her.

  Eleven

  I SHOWER AND change clothes. Mrs. Johnson left a note saying she and Cara have gone for ice cream, and she’ll bring me a cone.

  A peace offering?

  I scribble out a note that I’m at the PX.

  When I get there, the whole place is crowded. People stream in and out. Little kids and high schoolers congregate at the far end of the complex near the rec center. On the far end, there’s also a basketball court.

  The table’s still in the hallway. Empty cups and candy wrappers have been left on top, so I clean it off. Then I unlock the closet and get our supplies. First I cover the table with the cloth and Mrs. Scott’s baskets. I flatten out the wrinkles in the blue linen with my palms and sort the snacks the way Meriwether would have. Potato chips and pretzels in separate baskets.

  Everything’s out, except for the sodas. When I finally prop the poster of Warda on the metal frame, it wobbles. I hold my breath, ease it over until it balances. Then I wipe my palms on my shorts.

  I take one of the extra posters and tape it to the sliding glass doors in front of the PX. To make sure everyone sees it.

  A soldier walking into the building detours around me. He frowns. Whether at me or the poster I’m not sure. I press harder on the glass, getting the edges of the poster smooth. Trying to get the air bubbles out from underneath the tape.

  Behind me, I hear voices at the table. A man in uniform says to a woman with him, “That’s Master Sergeant Westmark in that photo.” They study the picture. “We ought to be giving money for him.”

  Maybe I’m wrong to be here.

  But I can’t forget about the orphanage. It’s why we were here. Why Dad was there when the bomb went off.

  The woman lays the poster on the table.

  “Come on, honey.” She touches the man’s arm.

  I force myself to smile. Stepping closer, I make myself speak up. “Can I tell you anything about the orphanage?”

  The woman blushes, but she doesn’t put the poster back where it belongs.

  “I just don’t think we should play on people’s emotions right now. To earn money for charity, or for anything else. It’s like those animal-shelter ads—they try to break your heart.” The woman folds her arms.

  “It’s not the orphans’ fault. Since the bombing, they need us more than ever.”

  The woman’s cheeks go a deeper red. “I’m sure they need lots of things. Things we can’t do for them. But what about our own soldiers? How about this Master Sergeant Westmark? He’s gravely wounded in Germany.”

  “Yes, he is,” I hear myself say.

  “We should focus on him.” She twists the wedding band on her hand.

  “Yes, well, he’s my dad. I think he’d want me to continue.” Dad never gives up. When he and Mom wanted to have children and they couldn’t, they looked into adoption. Dad said it took them years to find a child, the right child.

  If they’d given up, I wouldn’t be here.

  The woman’s face drains of color. “I’m—I’m sorry,” she says, and walks away, weaving her way between people coming from the PX with piled-high grocery carts. The soldier calls after her to wait for him.

  I squeeze my eyes shut.

  Everything I touch is going wrong. Dad, Meriwether, Operation Oleander.

  I stab the paper flowers into the vase.

  “Those are pretty,” a voice says.

  The voice belongs to a girl I’ve seen before. She arrived new at school just before it ended. Her white-blond hair is clipped on one side with yellow and green barrettes. Evie or Aria or something like that.

  “Thanks.” I try to keep my voice even and not make eye contact.

  Looking down, I see her toenails painted bright green and yellow, too, like parrots’ wings.

  “Who’s that?” the girl asks.

  Why doesn’t she leave?

  I study the poster with its collage of photos the way a stranger would. “An orphan.”

  Just like millions in the world. Like I was once.

  “Does she have a name?”

  “Does it matter?” I ask.

  The girl steps back as if I’ve yelled at her. She is thin and frail, and I am suddenly mean.

  “She’s just an Afghan orphan,” I say.

  I slash at the baskets with my hands, and they fly off the table. Packages of chips and pretzels skitter across the floor like insects looking for a place to hide.

  The girl with the painted toenails flees.

  I grab the paper oleanders from the vase with my bare hands, the way Meriwether uprooted day lilies. I grip them hard in both fists, ready to tear them into tiny bits of confetti. Like leftover fireworks.

  But I can’t.

  I pull them to my chest and cradle them. The faint, sweet smell of real oleander crushes into my T-shirt.

  “Jess!”

  Sam stands in front of me, his eyes wide. Like he doesn’t know me.

  “Don’t,” he says. In his hand he holds out the poster I’d taped to the glass doors. “What’s going on?”

  “I want to keep the operation going,” I say, still hugging the paper flowers.

  Strangers walk by the table, Sam and me on opposite sides of it, and they don’t stop. They pretend nothing is happening.

  “I called your house. Mrs. Johnson said you’d left a note while she was out, that you’d be here.” He says it like it’s a crime.

  “Oh, so you’re finally here to help me?” I glare at him.

  “I’ll help you put stuff away.” His voice is calm, the way I talk to Cara when she’s in super meltdown.

  “Maybe I don’t want to put it all away.” I slap the paper flowers onto the table, and they make a faint snapping sound. Not nearly loud enough. I grab for a basket that’s upended on the floor.

  Two soldiers walk close by. One cranes his neck and scans the poster that lies flat on the table. He shakes his head.

  “What are you looking at?” I dare him to answer me back. He marches away with the other soldier. The tips of his ears turn pink.

  “Come on, Jess. It’s too soon.” Sam moves closer. He lowers his voice. “Let’s go talk somewhere.”

  That’s too funny. Sam wants to talk to me, and I want to talk to Meriwether.

  “Now you want to talk about Operation Oleander?”

  “Seriously, Jess.” Sam corrals the bags of chips back into a storage box under the table.

  “Why’d you take the poster down?” The anger sparks in me like a fuse being lit under bottle rockets.

  “Becau
se we never had permission to do anything but the table. A discreet in-kind charitable drive.” He says the last four words like he’s reading from a military manual.

  I can’t believe it. “We need permission to put something in the window glass at the PX?”

  “Yes,” he says. “It’s not my fault. I don’t make the rules.”

  Of course the military would have some rule about whether posters could be posted. That would be just like the army. But I don’t want to hear it. Not now.

  I snatch snacks out of Sam’s hands and start restocking the baskets.

  “Don’t you know what they’re saying?” Sam asks. “Locals in Kabul are blaming our soldiers for the bombing.”

  “No.” I shake my head. “It’s not true.”

  “Some people believe it.”

  “Exactly. That’s why we have to keep going.”

  “People will think you’re disrespecting Corporal Scott and Private Davis. They’ll say you’re doing this for yourself. To get attention.”

  “How can you say that? Is that what you think I’m doing?”

  He shakes his head.

  “For my own reasons? Isn’t doing something for others a good thing?”

  “I’m sorry I said that, Jess,” Sam says. “But you have to know what people over in Afghanistan are thinking. It’s too soon to go back to this. That’s all I mean. This isn’t like Toby.”

  Toby was a boy from our class last year who had leukemia. The classes organized teams to collect pop tabs to help out with his medical bills. Sam, Meriwether, and I were a team. We collected the most of any team; that’s how good we were. We won free tickets to Calypso Crazy Golf and all-you-can-eat pizza.

  “I know that.”

  “Do you? Really?” Sam asks. “Because this is about Afghanistan. It’s about a war. It’s more than some make-believe operation.”

  In front of my eyes, fireworks flash.

  “You don’t have to tell me, Sam Butler, about soldiers in Afghanistan. Your dad isn’t there. Mine is. Or he was. Now he’s in a hospital in Germany.”

  Sam flinches, then shifts his weight from one foot to the other, as if he isn’t sure whether to go or stay.