Yours, Eventually

Chapter Five

Five

Asma wasn’t planning on being home the day that Farooq’s sister, Sophia, and her husband, Yusef, came by for a walk-through of their house. She still didn’t know how she’d conduct herself around this woman who could’ve become her older sister through marriage. But despite her reminders to her father and Iman that the house needed to be cleaned—or at least presentable—before the showing, it was a wreck when she came home from work that morning. Everything was still partially packed, with moving boxes stacked in every corner and cabinets half emptied onto countertops. And, of course, Iman was nowhere to be found. Asma felt an old embarrassment—about her family, their garishness, their sloppiness, the ways in which they’d all coarsened since her mother died—at the thought of Farooq’s family seeing the Ibrahims’ carelessness.

There wasn’t much she could do in the kitchen besides clearing off the counters and shoving the stack of boxes into the farthest corner she could. She did her best to straighten up the dining and living rooms before heading upstairs. Asma particularly resented cleaning up after Iman in their former guest room turned Iman’s home office, for which Iman had hired an outrageously expensive interior decorating firm. The room, filled with custom-built furniture and overpriced, mass-produced art, ended up just being a fancy storage space. Asma gathered dozens of gold tiaras strewn around the floor into a box with an equal number of small glass slippers. She then went to work on her father’s office, piles of unopened magazines that he had subscribed to and never read covering the big mahogany desk she’d never seen him use. She was wiping down the counter in the upstairs hallway bathroom when she heard the doorbell ring.

“They’re here!” Mr. Ibrahim called out.

Asma slipped down the stairs at the back of the house and out the patio door, shoving her bare feet into an old pair of sneakers that lived outside. Her father’s booming salaam echoed through the house. Asma was intent on escaping before anyone saw her. But when she tried opening the side gate, it wouldn’t budge. She shoved once, twice, to no avail. The garbage cans were blocking her exit, even after she’d told Iman and her father a million times that the gate swings out!

Asma took her frustration with her family out on the gate, pushing with all her might, managing to pry it open a few inches, just wide enough to squeeze one leg through. She kicked at the garbage can closest to her, but it was of no use—it wasn’t budging.

“Asma?”

Mr. Ibrahim was standing by the side of the house accompanied by a young couple who could only be Sophia and Yusef.

Sophia’s face was framed by a brilliant blue hijab that made her look regal, even though she was wearing jeans and a T-shirt. She had big brown eyes that crinkled at the side as she smiled at Asma—just like Farooq. The resemblance struck her immediately, a pang in her chest that made her draw in a quick breath.

Yusef was a handsome man with glasses and a huge grin that showed off his dimples. Asma thought he was better-looking in real life than he was on the YouTube clips she’d watched. Sophia’s expression seemed pleased, perhaps a bit curious, to be meeting their new landlord’s middle daughter. But her smile betrayed no hint of recognition, even though part of Asma was desperate for it. Asma had insisted that Farooq keep their relationship a secret from his family, as she had from hers. The Desi community was well connected and she didn’t want their relationship to be fodder for gossip or—worse—to get back to Mr. Ibrahim.

Asma knew Farooq’s family was different, which was why he had found it so difficult to understand hers. His parents had immigrated to the Central Valley from Pakistan shortly before Sophia was born. And while they were deeply religious, they exhibited an open-mindedness that was foreign to most of the families in Asma’s upper-middle-class Pakistani community. Farooq’s parents encouraged all their children to get an education, starting with their only daughter, Sophia, their eldest—even allowing her to move to the Bay Area for college. And when she brought home Yusef, a Black Muslim man born and raised in Chicago, whom she met in a freshman seminar, their blessing of the relationship made them outliers in their community. Such an interracial marriage—between a Pakistani woman and a Black man—was virtually unheard of at the time given that many Desi families harbored deep racial prejudices that they were perfectly comfortable revealing publicly when it came time for their children to marry.

Asma wanted to meet Sophia when she and Farooq were together, but they couldn’t risk it. In Sophia she imagined an older sister who would have been more compassionate and attentive than Iman. Someone who might have noticed—and offered—some of the comforts Asma so missed from her mother. Or, at the very least, a friend. An ally in her relationship with Farooq. Asma never imagined she’d meet Sophia for the first time halfway stuck in the side gate of her yard by the trash cans.

“What are you doing?” Mr. Ibrahim asked Asma as she gave her salaams with an awkward wave.

“Taking out the trash.”

“Trash day isn’t until Wednesday.” Mr. Ibrahim looked confused. “It’s only Saturday.”

“I didn’t want it stacking up.” Asma dislodged her leg from the gate as she spoke, losing a shoe in the process.

Asma stuck out her hand to Sophia, who, God bless her, pretended not to notice that Asma was standing before her with one bare foot.

“We can’t wait to see the house,” Sophia said. “The pictures Uncle Shafiq showed us were beautiful.”

Asma had worried that their gaudy home with its intricate columns, excessive use of marble, and mirrors in inappropriate places would be a turnoff, but apparently it photographed well.

“We’re so lucky we met him,” said Yusef. “This rental market is absurdly tight.”

“No thanks to all the tech bros.” Sophia smiled warmly at Asma. “Asma, your dad told us you’re a doctor. And that you went to school with my brother!”

“I did, yeah.” Asma kept her expression neutral, using the poker face she had perfected over years of giving patients difficult diagnoses.

“It’s too bad you two won’t have time to do any catching up. It turns out he’s moving back east with his fiancée. We’d been hoping that they would settle here after the wedding, but it looks like it wasn’t meant to be.”

“I didn’t realize he was engaged.” Asma surprised herself by how measured her voice sounded. Of course, the minute Asma admitted to herself that she still had feelings for Farooq, she’d find out he was getting married. She swallowed hard, her mouth going dry. She felt like her legs might be shaking.

“Just this past year. Her name is Seema. She’s so lovely. A doctor, like you!”

A doctor. Farooq was marrying a doctor. Asma leaned on the gate to steady herself.

“A doctor! MashAllah!” said Mr. Ibrahim. Mr. Ibrahim had apparently forgotten the insurmountable impropriety of a college dropout marrying a doctor. Fame- and wealth-induced amnesia, Asma assumed.

Mr. Ibrahim checked his watch. “Shafiq will be here any minute, let me show you the house.”

“I’ll catch you all inside,” Asma said.

Asma collapsed against the gate the minute they were out of sight. Her eyes filled with tears that she angrily brushed away. It felt like a cruel joke, like everything that had happened in the past few weeks—Farooq’s company being in the news, her conversation with Rehana, the fact that Farooq’s sister was renting their house—had conspired to make this news even more difficult to bear. Now, after spending days thinking about Farooq, replaying their relationship in her mind, second-guessing her decision to break off their engagement…now it brought with it a wave of pain and regret that made her think of all the time she’d spent mourning their breakup.

But no. Asma refused to go back to that kind of desolation. She straightened up and wiped her eyes, sniffling. She was a doctor now too. She had a life that anyone would be proud of. And she’d been the one to break off her engagement to Farooq. It was childish of her to expect him to stay single forever. All she could do now was move forward.

Except she couldn’t. Not until she found her damn shoe.

Asma peered through the gate and saw the sneaker on the grass next to the trash can. She stretched her leg back through the opening, but it was too far out of reach. She looked around to see if there was a rake or other garden tool she could use to drag it closer, but seeing none, she got down on her stomach and stretched out her hand. Her fingers managed to grab hold of one of the laces and she dragged the shoe back through the gate, scraping her arm in the process.

“Ow!” she yelled, struggling to her feet.

For a tiny scratch there was a surprising amount of blood. Asma hopped on one foot and threw her arm in her mouth to stem the bleeding. So much for her plan to escape unnoticed. She would have to go back inside to clean up her arm.

She turned, still on one leg, and froze.

There, standing just a few feet away and staring straight at her, was Farooq.

At first, she thought she might be hallucinating. There were cases, weren’t there? Hallucinations brought on by stress? After all, it wasn’t possible that she’d spent the past few days thinking of little but him and had somehow conjured him as a result.

But then his eyes met hers. And time stopped—along with Asma’s breathing. There it was, that electric recognition that had existed between them from the moment their eyes met during that freshman orientation trip in college. Like kindred spirits, he once said. It was a feeling she hadn’t experienced since the last time she saw him, and it was that feeling that made her recognize that this was, indeed, reality. Her body went numb. How long had he been watching her?

“I had to get my shoe.”

It was the first thing that popped into her head, as she struggled to catch her breath. Then she watched as her hand, seemingly of its own volition, held out the shoe to him as evidence.

Farooq looked from Asma to the shoe. There was blood on the toe.

“I should go get cleaned up,” Asma said when she couldn’t take the silence any longer. She bent to try to get her shoe back on, but the rush of adrenaline that accompanied Farooq’s presence in her backyard left her so shaky that she couldn’t manage it.

“Asma—” He stepped forward when she nearly toppled over, as if preparing to grab her if she fell. And she jerked away from him, a reflex so quick it seemed to startle them both.

Their eyes locked once more. He looked almost the same as he had in college: the same deep brown skin, large expressive eyes, and strong cheekbones, now with a shadow of stubble. He was wearing a black T-shirt just fitted enough for Asma to notice how he’d filled out—the outline of his shoulders, his chest, those biceps—she glanced away quickly, hit with a wave of heat that made her empathize with her menopausal patients experiencing hot flashes. Farooq, memorialized in Asma’s mind as a scrawny college boy dressed in jeans, a Cal hoodie, and scruffy Chucks, had morphed into an exceptionally fit and handsome man.

God, she’d missed him. And then she remembered. The fiancée. The doctor.

“Congratulations, by the way,” she said, before turning and rushing toward the house. Walking on her one bare foot, too embarrassed to remain in Farooq’s presence for one more second in this state.

She nearly crashed through the back door into the kitchen and went right to the sink, turning the water on full blast and splashing some on her face before she rinsed the blood off her arm. She was just stanching the bleeding with a paper towel when she heard a voice behind her.

“There you are!” It was Sophia, coming into the kitchen from the dining room. But Sophia wasn’t talking to her. When Asma turned, she found Farooq standing just inside the back door. In her house.

“I was worried you got lost,” Sophia continued.

“Nope, my phone has GPS too, Soph,” Farooq replied, and his voice, although deeper and more confident than Asma remembered, sent a shudder of recognition through her.

“Asma,” Sophia said, turning toward her, “this is my brother Farooq.”

“Right, yeah. We went to college together,” Asma said, her voice sounding far away. Hadn’t she and Sophia just had this conversation? Maybe this was all just a terrible dream.

“Oh! I thought you meant my brother Haroon!” Sophia said. “It all makes sense now. Of course, you’d be too young to be in Haroon’s class, how silly of me. So you know our tech bro—the reason we have to rent in the first place.”

Farooq flushed, looking everywhere but at Asma.

“So have you two been catching up?” Sophia asked.

“No,” Farooq said, quickly. “To be honest, it’s been so long, I didn’t even recognize her.”

Ouch. Asma couldn’t slow down the whirlwind of thoughts that were rushing through her. And with them, a small bit of hope. At least Sophia’s misunderstanding meant there was no fiancée. No other doctor.

“So I guess I shouldn’t have congratulated you on your engagement,” Asma said, fishing, though Farooq still wouldn’t look at her.

“Right, right,” Sophia said, stepping in. “Sorry, it’s Haroon who’s engaged. This one is just dating an Arab supermodel.”

And just like that, the hope rushed right back out of Asma.

“Sophia!” Farooq hissed at his sister, appalled.

“I’m kidding, I’m kidding,” Sophia said. “I like to tease him about this hilarious internet rumor that a Desi startup guy is dating an Arab supermodel. Everyone thinks it’s him!” Sophia gave Farooq a friendly jab to the shoulder. “Although maybe dating a supermodel would help you relax a bit.”

“Seriously?” Farooq reddened even more as Sophia laughed. Asma tried to smile but her mouth wouldn’t widen past what she could only imagine was a grimace. Still, the playfulness between the siblings and the fact that Farooq wasn’t engaged had brought some of the feeling back into Asma’s body.

“Now that I’m done embarrassing you, would you mind coming with me?” Sophia asked. “I want to show you the room that could work as my art studio.” Sophia grabbed Farooq’s arm. “We’ll see you in a bit, Asma.”

“Sure thing.”

Asma caught Farooq’s eye once more and held her breath. He turned abruptly. She slipped her shoe back on, considering running out the back door and not stopping until she hit New York, as Sophia and Farooq disappeared farther into the house.