Chapter 4
When our table gets cleared at the end of dinner, I attempt to flee from the circle of hell that awful blind dates belong in, but Amma’s sturdy grip on my knee keeps me in my chair. A wily smile spreads across her lips as she surveys Harun, whose Adam’s apple bobs at the sheer intensity of her scrutiny.
“I would love to take a photo,” she says. “You know, to commemorate the occasion.”
“What occasion?” I grumble, then yelp when she pinches me.
Harun’s eyes grow huge. Before he can answer, Pushpita Khala claps her hands. “Oh, what a marvelous idea! Zoey”—she snaps her ring-laden fingers until the hostess emerges and accepts her iPhone—“take a picture of us with the Khans, won’t you?”
Between our two mothers, the rest of us are soon herded in front of an intricate tapestry that hangs from an entire wall of the restaurant, portraying colorful deities out of Hindu epics that make zero sense in an establishment owned by Muslims—likely window dressing for any customers who ordered a side of orientalism with their dinners. Harun attempts to slink behind the drapery, but Pushpita Khala stays him with a hand.
“Why don’t you stand next to Zahra?” she asks innocently.
It takes every ounce of my willpower not to scream as our mothers maneuver us close together. Harun stands rigid next to me, while Amma, Arif, and Resna hover at my other side—the latter rubbing her eyes with a chubby knuckle—and his parents pose on his side.
Then Zoey chirps, “Say chhena!”
Harun doesn’t bother to smile, and he beats a hasty retreat the second we’re done. Well, fine. I’m hardly about to fall swooning into his arms either.
Glaring daggers at his back, I tug at the veil of my mother’s shari, summoning her away from where she’s squealing over the photos with Pushpita Khala. “Amma, it’s getting late.” I incline my chin at Arif, who has lifted a drowsy Resna into his arms. “If we’re going to catch a bus home, we have to leave now.”
“Bus?” Pushpita Khala lifts a hand to her chest.
Between her scandalized expression and the warning glance my mother levels at me, I get the sense I’ve made some bhodro society blunder, but Amma just flaps her hand. “I told you about my late husband, didn’t I? He was the one who drove… before.”
“Oh, you poor things,” Pushpita Khala tuts.
Amma’s smile stiffens. “It’s fine. Please don’t fret, Afa.”
“Don’t be silly,” says Pushpita Khala. “Mansif, we can’t let these children take the bus home so late.” She wrinkles her pierced nose like the very notion stinks. Amma opens her mouth to protest but stops in her tracks when Pushpita Khala adds, “Perhaps Harun can drop them off?”
Her husband hmm s in concession.
My jaw hits the carpeted floor. I wait with bated breath for Harun to decline, but he simply frowns at my sleepy siblings and consents with a shrug.
Amma beams. “Are you sure it won’t be a bother?”
“Of course not,” his mother says. “We’re also returning to Paterson, and Harun drove here in his own car. Go on, Zaynab dear. I’ll WhatsApp you the pictures soon.”
“Thank you, Pushpita Afa,” Amma replies. “For everything.”
They share a hug and kiss each other on both cheeks. Harun observes them with practiced boredom, hands in his pockets. After a quick sidebar with his mother, she gives him something from her purse—a pair of thick-framed black glasses, which he immediately puts on.
Wait, is that why he’s been glaring at me all night?
Narrowing my eyes in suspicion at his back in return, I start to follow him toward the parking lot, then notice Arif’s struggle to see around Resna’s sleep-mussed pigtails. As I stick out my arms to take her, I grumble, “You knew about this, didn’t you?”
“Um. I plead the Fifth?”
I glower. “We will be talking about this.”
When we don’t have a gloomy, looming tagalong, anyway.
The valet drives Harun’s car, a sleek silver BMW, up to the curb and tosses him the keys. Harun holds the door open for us, eliciting another charmed giggle from Amma. “Such a gentleman. Isn’t he, Zahra?”
“A regular Sir Lancelot,” I mutter too quietly for her to hear, but Harun’s forehead creases like he has. Entering the backseat with Resna proves to be much less of a Herculean labor with his help, however, so I reward him with a reluctant, “Thanks, dude.”
As he observes me, his big, dark eyes seem to swallow the twinkling fairy lights strung all around us. My own eyes dart away, unwilling to be complicit to the abrupt racing of my pulse.
Harun’s voice prompts a reluctant glance back, so soft, like a secret between us, that I have to strain to pick it up over the whistle of the wind. “You’re welcome.”
Half an hour later, he pulls up to the sidewalk in front of our run-down multifamily house. I unlock the door and scoot out of the BMW as fast as humanly possible with Resna still hanging on to me like an octopus, not giving him the chance to repeat his earlier display of gallantry.
Not giving him a chance at all, perhaps, but I push that thought out of my mind.
“Good night,” I call over my shoulder.
Without waiting to gauge his reaction or to see if Amma follows, I hoist Resna into the building and scale the creaking steps, my brother at my heels. Inside our apartment, my legs almost buckle, but I prop myself against the doorjamb, clinging to my sister.
“Never grow up,” I breathe into her hair.
Maybe then, she can just keep being without having to worry about making herself smaller, prettier, quieter, for everyone else’s sake but her own.
“I’m sorry, Afa,” Arif mumbles as he takes her from me. “Amma told us this would make you happy, but I should’ve given you a heads-up.”
Happy.
I flip the word over and over in my mind. How could she possibly think that? She doesn’t understand me at all. I know that it’s my fault because I don’t tell her much, but it’s because I’m afraid my dreams won’t be enough for her. That I won’t be enough for her.
But she does know I’d like to go to college someday. That I’ve been busting my ass at work and school for years for the chance to be something other than some guy’s future wife. That I’m only eighteen, for God’s sake.
That and you didn’t want your first-ever date to end up like this, a pitiful voice in some dusty corner of my mind bemoans. How long had I fantasized of the day it would happen, only for my first date to be with a boy who can’t stand my guts?
But none of that is my brother’s fault. Forcing my fingers to unclench from the material of my skirt, I scuffle his scruffy hair. “It’s okay. Go tuck Resu in.”
Aiming one last troubled glance at me, he disappears into Amma’s bedroom and doesn’t return, wanting to give the two of us time to hash everything out. I round on our mother the minute she locks the door.
“Amma, what the hell?!”
“Don’t curse,” she says with a frown, as if that’s the problem here.
“How could you lure me into a blind date like that?” When she opens her mouth to retort, I hold up a hand to stop her. “And please don’t insult my intelligence by claiming it was all some random meet-cute.”
If anything, it was a meet- ugly .
Her mouth snaps shut. “Accha, accha. It wasn’t random. But your Pushpita Khala truly did extend the invite today. I didn’t want you to say no without giving it a chance.”
It’s far from an apology. Brown parents don’t have the capacity for those wired into their DNA. Normally, any admittance of wrongdoing on her part would satisfy me knowing that, but I narrow my eyes, cross my arms, and tap my foot. Her signature disappointed look.
She cringes, then changes course. “Wasn’t it a lovely evening, though?”
“What?” I suck in a sharp, disbelieving breath at her chipper expression. “ Lovely? Amma, that was a train wreck.”
Now it’s her turn to gasp. “How can you say that? You and Harun hit it off so well. Why, he couldn’t take his eyes off you!”
“No,” I counter, throwing my hands into the air. “You were acting like such a drama queen that he couldn’t take his eyes off you . No one could.” Amma sputters as if I’ve slapped her. Taking advantage of her rare bout of speechlessness, I add, “I can’t believe you would do this to me. Even village girls in Bangladesh are graduating college before marrying these days. Kids don’t do this anymore.”
“Oh, Zahra…” She reaches for my cheek, and I resist the urge to recoil. “I know you think I’m some kind of evil mastermind, but I didn’t plan this. I wanted to show you off at the wedding, so people in the community would know you’ll be marriageable in a few years.” As if I need preview trailers. “Sitting next to Pushpita Emon was a complete coincidence. I had my doubts when she first proposed introducing you two. Their family isn’t what I would have envisioned for you before… But though you’re both young, Harun is polite, good-looking, and clearly going places. Proper Bangladeshi boys like that don’t come along often. Would getting to know him be so bad? You’re so quick to be pessimistic, shuna. I only wanted you to give him a chance.”
Some of the anger dims in me, leaving weary defeat.
She’s not wrong: pessimism is my default, but she’s had a hand in that herself. Over the years, all my hopes have become hobbies to her, my dream to be an author someday equally as silly as when I was eight and begged her for a pet chicken like the ones we had in Bangladesh. Even if I make it to college, will I ever get to study writing? I’m afraid she won’t be proud of me, the way Harun’s parents are of him, and then I won’t be brave enough to keep trying.
“Well,” I say, “I sat through dinner and so did he, despite wanting to be anywhere but there. We gave it a fair shot, okay? Time to move on.”
Amma fidgets with her urna. A sinking feeling anchors in my gut. “What is it?”
“The Emons have invited us to another dinner this Friday,” she replies, looking anywhere but at me. “I already accepted.”
“What?!” I shout. “Without asking me? Again? I’m not going.”
“Don’t be that way,” she pleads, mouth set in a moue. “If we don’t go, I’ll never be able to show my face in Paterson. I don’t know if they’d be willing to give us another chance.”
I press my fingertips into my throbbing temples, stamping down the ridiculous urge to protect her from the monster of her own making. Are the Emons so much better than us because they’re rich? Is their irritatingly perfect, future doctor-engineer son better than me?
“You should have thought about that earlier,” I say.
We stare one another down for the longest time.
Amma’s expression has transformed from cajoling to unreadable, the dark eyes we share like flat shards of glass, her plum-colored lips pressed so tightly together, all the blood drains from her face. She’s not used to me talking back to her. I’m not used to it either. But I lift my chin, a mulish set to my own jaw. She won’t make me back down.
Not this time, because I know I’m right.
She knows I’m right.
But then the ice in her eyes cracks, leaking big, fat droplets of tears. Lifting her trembling hands to suppress her sobs, she pivots away from me and dashes toward her bedroom. The door slams so loudly, the lightbulbs above my head quiver in their fixtures.
Frankly, she could give Aishwarya Rai a lesson in crying on cue.
I take a few breaths to temper my frustration, then stoop to pick up the scarves and other accessories that got tossed all over the couches and carpet earlier that night. When I glance up at a rustle, I discover my grandmother watching me and shake off the disappointment that it isn’t Amma coming to grovel.
“Did we wake you up, Nanu? Sorry.”
Nanu evaluates me for another few seconds, a somber cast to her weathered face. You can tell she’s Amma’s mother because we all share the same doe-brown eyes, long upturned noses, and Cupid’s bow lips, but that’s where all resemblances end. While Amma has all the scorching passion of the sun, Nanu is like the moon, cool and soft and dark.
Usually, I appreciate that about her, that she’s the stolid lighthouse at the heart of all our churning waves, the voice of reason I can turn to when Amma’s theatrics make me want to tear clumps of hair out of my scalp, but right now, I can’t tell what she’s thinking.
She beckons me forward. “Obaidi ao.”
Knot in my ribs, I plod after her into the kitchen. She raps on the nicked wooden table with her knuckles. When I sit down, a wisping cup of tea appears in front of me, and I blink, wondering if she’s been puttering around in here the whole time Amma and I were at each other’s throats. “Isn’t it kinda late for caffeine, Nanu?”
A tiny smile graces her face. “I have a feeling none of us will be sleeping well tonight.”
She’s got me there.
“You heard everything, huh?”
Silence reigns as we sip from our cups. It’s not milk tea, but rong saa—strong and black, with a pinch of grated ginger and salt, sweetened by honey—that immediately thaws me like a comforting blanket.
“You know, there’s something to be said for the old ways,” she says at last.
I groan. “Not you, too, Nanu. I thought you’d take my side.”
She trains a meaningful look on me. “Kun deen tumar ‘side’ nee see na?”
“You’re right….” I force my hackles down. “You do usually take my side.”
Nanu has always been my confidante. She’s a good listener, and though I know her vision of my future isn’t that far off from Amma’s, she’s never turned her nose up at my hopes for college or writing. When I told her I couldn’t go to Columbia, she was more devastated than Amma and me combined.
“I met your nana at seventeen….”
My eyes spring to her face, but though she never talks about my grandfather, it’s as placid as ever as she takes another sip of tea, lips red from the faan and gua she always chews.
“He was already twenty,” she continues. “It’s what was done when I was growing up. Much of my father’s ancestral gram had been burned by Razakar soldiers during the Liberation War. I was one of five daughters. Baba thought we’d be happier married.”
“Were you?” I whisper.
She peals a melodic laugh. “For a long time, no. I spent years of our marriage sleeping in his mother’s bed, missing my own, not yet ready to be a wife, but…” Her eyes go misty from the memories. “He let me. During that time, he traveled to Saudi Arabia to work, wrote me letters, sent home money and gifts. Perhaps there’s something to be said for that , too.”
The affection in her voice is gossamer-fine, but so clearly present.
“So you came to love him?”
“Love?” she muses. “I know he worked hard every single day to keep a roof over our heads and food in our bellies. I know we laughed together when his business saw profits and mourned together when we lost our children before your mother to miscarriages.” She considers the sifting surface of her tea. “He never told me ‘ami tumare bhalo bashi,’ like actors do in natoks. But when he died… I didn’t know how to be without him. Your mother was only a girl then, not even twelve. Had I not had her to live for, I don’t know that I could have gone on. Is that love?”
All I can do is nod, a lump in my throat and tears prickling in my eyes. I can’t tell if what I’m feeling is sadness, just that I’m bursting with it.
Deeper crinkles form around her eyes. “The Emon boy… do you find him handsome?”
Snapshots of Harun’s face return to me. The strong set of his jawline, the sharp angles of his cheekbones, those infinitely dark eyes and that thick head of curls.
“I—I guess he’s not a complete raikhosh.”
Too bad I can’t say the same about his trollish personality .
A hint of mischief gleams in Nanu’s eyes. “My, my. Young and good-looking. Shunar kofal faiso go, moyna.” She pokes me right between the eyebrows, eternally fond of her Bengali expressions about foreheads predicting one’s fortune. “I wasn’t so lucky. Your nana had quite the beard back in the day, and it itched terribly whenever he kissed me.”
“Nanu!” I yelp, scandalized.
I can’t begrudge her belly-deep laughter, though.
Her wrinkled hand moves to trace a thumb over my cheek, as Amma’s did earlier. “Just because something has always been done a certain way doesn’t mean it’s right. Every day, I thank Allah for giving you more prospects than your mother and I had. That’s all most parents want for their children. Give the boy another chance, moyna. For me. He may surprise you.”
She smiles, and I meet her gaze, sighing.
“Okay, but only for you.”