Ten Things I Hate About Me by Randa Abdel-Fattah Page B

a long story about the scent of freshly roasted chestnuts on their first movie outing in Beirut or the smell of henna in her hair. When my mother was young, she had long wavy hair down to her waist, kissed raven-red from her dedicated use of henna powder.
    My favorite stories are of Mom and Dad’s engagement days. My dad sounds like an entirely different person then: carefree and full of spirit. Not bogged down with rules and traditions.
    They met at a mutual friend’s house in Beirut. My mom had been playing tennis with her girlfriend Maha. Maha was married to Hatim, my dad’s close friend. I’m pretty sure Maha and Hatim set the whole thing up. Mom arrived at Maha and Hatim’s house and Dad was there, in his light-blue flared pants, puffy white shirt (tucked in), Afro hair, and thick black mustache (AGH!). Dad says it was love at first sight for both of them. I asked Shereen to verify this. As the oldest, she was closest to Mom and a teenager when Mom passed away. Shereen flatly refutes Dad’s claim. According to Shereen, our mother was attracted to Dad and thought he was funny, but it took several dates before she was convinced he was “the one.” Dad still stands his ground. “The mustache was very handsome,” he says.
    Apparently my mother was a very bad cook in her newlywed days. She eventually became a whiz in the kitchen. I’m not able to personally testify to this given that I was nine when she died and my taste in food ranged from peanut butter on toast to fries. I can say that she could make a bowl of Cocoa Pops into a five-star meal.
    I remember Dad was cooking roast beef one day and as he was garnishing the meat he suddenly burst into a fit of laughter.
    “What’s so funny?”
    “I just remembered something.”
    “About?”
    “Your mother. When we were engaged I took her on a picnic. She insisted on bringing lunch. At one stage I’d mentioned to her that one of my favorite dishes was roast beef stuffed with spices and garlic. She was so sweet. She tried to make it. Except she stuffed the meat with about five whole heads of garlic. She hadn’t minced the cloves, she’d just shoved them whole into the meat! I nearly choked! Of course, I pretended it was the best I’d ever eaten. But we both stunk until December.”
    I love hearing stories like that. My dad’s eyes light up as he wanders back into his past. I wish I could sit him down and ask him to tell me more about Mom. But something always holds me back. I don’t want to admit how much it hurts or how much I need his memories. That’s why I keep it all bottled up inside. It fizzes and fizzes until I’m ready to explode sometimes. So when Amy opens the topic up today, I resist the temptation to let it all burst out.

12
    WHEN I COME home from school today Dad has a bundle of investment brochures he needs me to read to him.
    Ever since I was little, Shereen, Bilal, and I have been my parents’ interpreters. If there were letters to read, bills to decipher, or forms to sign, our parents would rely on us to translate.
    Now that Bilal spends as little time at home as he can and Shereen’s busy changing the world, Dad seems to rely on me more and more. Last week it was insurance renewal papers. The other day it was a parking fine. It’s child labor exploitation whenever his friends visit. Uncle Kamil brings me his immigration documents. Uncle Yusuf needs me to explain whether his daughter’s report card is really recording an A + average. (It is. She’s a genius, that girl.)
    Sometimes I feel frustrated and embarrassed that my dad’s English is still so broken after all the years he has been here. He can get by, of course. He drives a cab, so he can obviously communicate. But sometimes I feel that people would take himmore seriously if he were fluent. They hear his heavy accent and he’s suddenly less Aussie.
    My father talks to us in Arabic all the time, watching Arabic satellite channels, reading Arabic newspapers. Sure, he watches