Under the Same Stars by Libba Bray(38)
“To Sophie Scholl!” Lena toasted.
“To Sophie Scholl!” the girls all said, and clinked their bottles together.
Zehra offered Jenny one of her hand-rolled cigarettes. “For my new favorite punk.”
It seemed rude to refuse. Jenny sputtered and coughed on her first puff.
“It’s Turkish. They are stronger than American cigarettes,” Zehra said.
“I’ve never smoked before,” Jenny choked out, eyes watering.
“First time is always the roughest.”
Jenny handed it back. “I think that’s also my last time.”
“I’m starving. Hey. Anke. You have money?” Lena held out her palm.
“Frag deine Freundin,” Anke said, giving the last two words an extra dose of venom and shooting a look to Zehra, who smirked.
“Who is Deine Freundin?” Jenny asked. She hated missing the joke.
“Nobody.” Lena silenced the others with a sharp look. “Dallas, do you have money for some kebab? Pretty please?”
Jenny’s mother had given her an allowance. It was supposed to last the week. But what was she saving it for if not a moment like this? “I’ve got twenty deutsche marks. Is that enough?”
Anke spit up her beer. “Scheisse!”
“That’s a feast,” Zehra said.
* * *
Lena and Jenny pushed out of the squat, talking fast. Late afternoon sun had broken through the earlier gloom. It glinted off the scarred dirt of Kreuzberg’s bullet-riddled buildings, giving them a dusty shine. Lena and Jenny lined up at the Turkish takeout place on the corner. Jenny’s mouth watered as she watched the cook scrape diced lamb across a flat cooktop, moving it quickly with two spatulas. The cashier delivered a bag weighted with sandwiches wrapped in newspaper. The spicy lamb and fragrant onions joined the discordantly beautiful concert of smells that was Berlin—Jenny’s Berlin.
Lena pulled Jenny onto a bench. “They can wait. Let’s eat here. I’m starving.”
Jenny bit into the sauce-laden sandwich. It was delicious. “Wow!”
“What do you eat back home, McDonald’s and Coca-Cola?”
“If I’m with my friends. Salad, if my mom is watching.”
Lena licked dripped sauce from her knuckles. “Your mother watches you eat? Why?”
“I’m supposed to be on a diet.”
Lena growled. “Diets! That is a capitalist trap. Don’t let them use your body as a battlefield for profit.”
Jenny liked the sound of that. As if she and her body were revolutionaries. “I could stand to lose some weight, though.”
“Bullshit! True, your clothes are shit, but your body is beautiful. Very sexy.”
Jenny tried to swallow the bite in her mouth and found she couldn’t. Lena thinks my body is sexy. Lena gobbled a mouthful of sandwich, followed quickly by another. Her lips bulged with food. Tahini drizzled down her chin. She wiped it away and licked her fingers. “It’s so good!”
“I know!” Jenny said, savoring the bite in her mouth. It was the first time she could remember tasting food without guilt.
A group of college boys approached. They exuded an air of casual menace. Jenny tensed.
“Warum machst du dich h?sslich?” the tallest boy sneered.
His friends burst out laughing. Jenny didn’t know exactly what was said, but the cruelty of it required no translation. She knew H?sslich—ugly. Her earlier joy evaporated. Out of habit, she shielded her stomach with her arms as if to hide it. Lena looked up from her sandwich. Mouth still full, she spit guttural gunfire at the tall boy, spewing fierceness and bits of lettucey lamb all at once. The boy looked furious. He started toward them but one of his friends held him back. “Komm schon. Lass uns ein Bier trinken.”
The tall boy knifed out one last word from across the street—“Hündin!”
Bitch.
“What did he say earlier?” Jenny asked once the boys were a safe distance away.
Lena swallowed and wiped her fingers on her pants leg. “He said, ‘Why do you make yourself so ugly?’ and I said, ‘So I never have to fuck boys like you.’”
Jenny could never imagine saying something like that to the boys back home in Texas. She would nurse such a bruise, certain that there was truth in it. Once, in the hallways between second and third periods, Billy Williams had told her she looked “healthy.”
She had smiled and said, “Thank you.”
“That’s not a compliment,” Heather had whispered to her. “He basically just called you fat.”
Lena finished her kebab and shoved the used paper wrap into her jacket pocket since there was no trash can nearby. She was an anarchist but German enough not to litter. She shook out a cigarette and grabbed it with her teeth, letting it seesaw on her lower lip while she patted her pockets for her matchbook. “You should let me cut your hair.”
“My hair?”
“Yeah. So that you will look more like you belong in a punk band.” Lena tore a flimsy match free from its homogenous row and struck it against the bottom of her boot heel, cupping the flame as she brought it to her cigarette. She pinched the hot end and tucked it behind her ear while exhaling smoke. “You know?”
Jenny’s hair was a long, thick chestnut. Everyone said it was her crowning glory. It was the second thing they’d comment on after You have such a pretty face. “My mom would have a freak-out.”