The Big Kahuna (Fox and O'Hare #6)(11)

I didn’t have it, I’d dropped it somewhere along the way, when I’d followed the woman from aisle to aisle, so I retraced my steps, but I couldn’t find the little envelope where we saved all our coupons. It had taken us weeks to clip that many, and now Driss was annoyed because we would have to pay more for our groceries, and he bickered with me about it while we waited in the checkout line. We had to be extremely careful with money back then, because we had just started our business. We worked hard in those early years, we worked very hard, and maybe we should have worked on our marriage, too, like Claudia Corbett said. Listening to her that night in the car, I was thinking that we should try again, stop arguing about everything, learn to forgive ourselves, and especially each other, for our mistakes, but when I walked in, Driss wasn’t home. Usually, he was in his lounge chair doing his crossword puzzles, that was how he improved his English, he was obsessed with finding all the answers, and hardly ever looked up when I walked past him on my way to the kitchen. But as I said, that night the chair was empty, and he didn’t pick up the phone when I called him, so I called Salma instead. It was nine forty. I remember the time because I was looking at the clock on the microwave while I talked to her, and she told me not to worry, maybe he was having car trouble or his cell phone was turned off. An hour later, the police came.





Nora




In sleep, I was lost to a world my father still inhabited. We were together in a bright room and the air smelled of the sprig of wormwood with which he flavored his mint tea. He was doing his crosswords, chewing on his pen cap as he considered each clue. Three letters, Nora. The father of all things, the king of all things. Any ideas? War, I said without looking up from my piano. Aha! Thank you, Nor-eini. Then I opened my eyes, and the walls of my bedroom closed in on me, their bright white an assault on my senses. A weight settled on my shoulders like an unwelcome coat. Waking up was the hardest time of the day now, when I remembered he was gone.

I turned to my side, curled myself up into a ball. Staring from above the dresser was a younger version of me, in a picture of the jazz band taken just before the junior-year recital. Black dress, hair in a severe bun, lips in an impatient pout. How eager I had been to leave home! And yet what wouldn’t I give now for another day here with him. I closed my eyes again, hoping to reenter the dream, but it was useless, I was wide awake. After getting dressed, I put some Coltrane on the stereo, and sat on my bed to send an email to the headmaster at Bay Prep. At the time, I was substituting for an English teacher who was on maternity leave, but I’d left Oakland immediately after hearing about the accident, so I composed a note to the headmaster, explaining what had happened and saying I hoped I would work for him again soon. He would replace me, I knew, and it would be tough to find stable work like that. Then I heard voices down the hallway.

When I walked into the living room later, I found Detective Coleman sitting on the leather sofa, her legs crossed at the ankles, a file folder on her lap. She had dark eyes and long lashes that jutted out like pine needles. A small scar cut across her right eyebrow. My mother had a framed photo in her hand, which she was showing to the detective. “This was in 1980, before we moved to California.”

“Hello,” I said, and the detective stood up to shake my hand.

But the moment Coleman sat down again, my mother continued, “This is my husband, Driss, and this is me. That’s our daughter Salma between us. She was two. And this—Nora, how do you say, the tower that warns the ships?”

“Lighthouse.”

“Right. That’s the lighthouse of Casablanca behind us.”

“You moved here from Morocco, Mrs. Guerraoui?” Coleman asked.

“Yes, in 1981. It’s a long story.”

“Would you like something to drink, Detective?” I asked.

“Coffee, if you have any. But please don’t make it on my behalf.”

I went into the kitchen, tossed out the coffee, and started a fresh pot. Over the years, I had heard the story of the old country many times from my father; I couldn’t bear to listen to it now. “It was a Saturday,” he would say. That was how he always started the story. “It was a Saturday. The Saturday before finals week.” I think he liked that story because it had the easily discernible arc of the American Dream: Immigrant Crosses Ocean, Starts a Business, Becomes a Success.

He told the story from time to time, just to remind himself that everything turned out fine for him. But all that changed one September morning. At least for me, it did. I remember that the smell of smoke reached me first. I was fiddling with the car radio, trying to find a station that wasn’t playing commercials. Next to me, my father drummed his fingers on the steering wheel, waiting for the light to change. “Just put NPR on,” he said. But I was sick of the news. That was why I’d insisted on going to work with him that Saturday morning—I couldn’t bear the news any longer. I settled on a station that played classical music, leaned back in my seat, and let the colors wash over me. Then I smelled smoke. When my father made a left onto the 62, I saw a gray plume rising in the distance. I thought it was a burning car or a propane tank, but as we got closer, I realized the smoke was coming from the shop.

We turned onto Kickapoo Trail to find Aladdin Donuts burning like a stack of hay. In a single motion, my father jumped out of the station wagon and pulled out his cell phone, just as Mr. Melendez at the 7-Eleven across the street came running toward us. “I called 911,” he said. He told us he’d been changing the paper in his cash register when he heard the sound of screeching tires. He’d thought nothing of it until the smell of smoke came drifting in through the doorway, a mix of gasoline, ash, melting plastic, and caramelizing syrup. Years later, a whiff of smoke, even if only from a beachside barbecue, can still conjure up my memories of the arson. Standing beside my father that day, I watched the flames lap at the store sign until the glass frame cracked. In the distance, a cacophony of sirens rose, ending in a deafening roar as the firefighters drew up to the lot. Under the spray of their hoses, the smoke turned a cloudy white that made my eyes water and my nostrils burn.