Girl at War by Sara Novic

happening in Afghanistan—that it almost seemed a misuse of the word.
    My phone rang and startled me, and I answered in a shaky voice. It was Sharon.
    “Ana? Where’d you go?”
    “I just needed some air. Should I meet you in the lobby?” I realized I had wandered farther west than I should have. I jogged back across the avenues and up to the gates of the UN, where a tour group was clogging the entrance portals. I hit Redial on Sharon’s number, but she appeared through the exit moments later with an armful of file folders and my index cards.
    “I figured you wouldn’t be able to get back through that mess,” she said. “Do you want these?” She handed me the index cards. “You hungry?”
    I wasn’t, but I was eager to get away from the UN and have Sharon to myself.
    “I’ve got a reservation. We can walk.”
    I trailed behind her back up the stairs, in awe of the ease with which she carried herself in high heels. I still clomped whenever I tried to wear them, and the older I got the more unlikely it seemed I would ever learn the grace other women had. Each time we passed an expensive-looking restaurant, I held out hope we’d be going someplace more casual, where I wouldn’t make an ass of myself. Sharon pecked at her BlackBerry and gestured absently to UN-affiliated properties—the Malaysian consulate, the hotel where all the bigwigs stayed. I looked at them inattentively, but could think only of how I might begin the conversation I’d been suppressing for a decade.
    The sun broke through a patch of gray, warming my cheeks and sending India’s mission building shimmering. At the top, the inset porch was now awash in a spring gold, sun spilling through the latticed skylight and glancing off the mirrored cut-ins along the walls.
    “It is a beautiful one,” Sharon said, leaning back on her heels. “Something futuristic about it, almost.”
    I’d been thinking the opposite—that the russet granite suggested desert, an ancient-temple kind of beauty, but I said nothing and followed her across the street.
    The restaurant looked a little dingy, its awning faded and curtains caked in dust. When we entered, though, I was dismayed to find the place was indeed upscale, if not exactly clean. The tables were sheathed in stodgy white linen even for the lunch hour. I looked down at my sneakers.
    “I’ll have the house red,” Sharon said to a waiter in a metallic vest.
    “Can I have a Coke, please?”
    The waiter smiled and took my wineglass away with him. The room was lit with patchy spotlights, and I squinted at the menu. There were no prices on anything.
    “I think that went very well, don’t you?” said Sharon. I told her I thought so, too, but in reality I wasn’t so sure. I fiddled with my napkin, folding and unfolding the little cloth rectangle, and asked about her project. She responded with stock lines about busyness and moved her file folders beneath her chair.
    “But enough about that. How’s college? And your sister—Rahela?”
    The use of my sister’s name, the one no one had called her in years, caught me off guard. “They—we—call her Rachel here.”
    “And she’s well?”
    “She’s good, yeah. I’m surprised you remembered her.”
    “Petar often spoke fondly of your family when we were on duty together. Particularly during the period in which you were…missing.”
    Speaking of Petar. For all the times the question had lingered in my mind, it was difficult to shape in my mouth. The finality of knowing. “Do you—” I faltered. The waiter returned with our drinks, and I hoped Sharon, who had not picked up the menu, would tell him to go away. But sheordered a steak salad with mustard dressing, and, unprepared, I ordered the same. When the waiter left, Sharon sipped her wine and looked at me expectantly. “What were you saying?”
    “Nothing.”
    She paused but decided to take me at my word. “Then tell me more about you. I want to hear all about your new family, your new