Chapter 13
Harun picks me up for the second of our eight dates, but he’s not alone.
I do a double take at the drop-dead gorgeous woman in the passenger seat of his BMW. Curly hair cut in layers with ombre highlights shot through them frames her heart-shaped face, spilling in elegant waves down her shoulders.
Long-lashed brown eyes take me in from head to toe while I squirm on the sidewalk in front of our building, before her lips curve into a crimson smile. “Harun, you dog! I didn’t know you snagged yourself such a cute new girlfriend.”
Harun glares, but she’s too busy stepping out of the BMW to notice. She takes my hand in both of hers and presses it against her sequined bosom, oblivious to my bashfulness. “Zahra, right? My name is Sharmin, but everyone calls me Sammi. I’m Haru-moni’s oldest cousin, and I’ll be your chaperone tonight.”
I blink. Haru-moni?
Ice prince Harun has such a cutesy dakh-nahm?
For his part, Harun groans and thunks his forehead against the steering wheel. Sammi ignores the ensuing beeeeeep to help me into the passenger seat. “Don’t worry, I know you two would rather be together. I can chaperone fiiiiine from the backseat.”
“Um.” I self-consciously buckle the seat belt over the tunic Amma beaded for me. “What happened to Hanif Bhai?”
“Oh, that stick-in-the-mud?” Sammi flaps a manicured hand. “He’s probably at some symposium to discuss the reproductive habits of worms.”
Harun frowns again. “Or something.” To me, he explains, “Hanif Bhai went to a retreat planned by the Muslim Student Association of NYU.”
“Close enough,” Sammi mumbles.
Harun breezes right past her snarky comment. “Anyway, my parents thought it was for the best. They think we can ‘get to know each other better’ with Sammi Afa.”
Sammi leans over the center console to wink. “I’ve gotcha, babes.”
Harun grimaces like her proximity is giving him a headache. I wonder if Pushpita Khala and Mansif Khalu have somehow seen through my— our —ploy to avoid exactly this scenario. Days of texting new ways to make Hanif clutch his pearls, going so far as to draw up a script for us, have gone out the window.
Guess the students haven’t quite surpassed the masters.
There’s no time to freak out about it, though. Meeting his gaze with resolution in my own, I nod once, an unspoken message: We just need to make it through tonight. Nothing has changed with Operation Zahrun.
Sammi’s squeal as she pops her torso between us again nearly causes Harun to swerve on the highway. “Oh my God, you two are precious! I can’t take these lovestruck stares!”
“L-lovestruck?” I stammer.
Harun barks, “Can you please put on your seat belt?”
Pouting, Sammi does so, but her stream of intrusive questions doesn’t subside even when we reach our destination. I work my jaw, wondering if she’s truly related to Harun and Hanif, who are both so stoic, or a changeling left by the pari who stole the real Sharmin in her infancy. Then again, who but family are such experts in annoying the hell out of you?
Case in point: this date.
“So what do you think about our Haru-moni?” she singsongs as we veer into the parking-lot area of Willowbrook Mall, not far from the theater where we had our last date.
Are we doing dinner and a movie again?
A bit unimaginative, but we can put our plans into action anywhere.
I arch an appraising brow at my date.
“He’s passable, I guess, but I doubt I’ll be calling him ‘moni’ anytime soon.”
“Thanks for the rave review,” Harun intones dryly, ducking out of the car, a glare fixed in place as he steps perfectly into his own role.
Sammi droops at our incompatible act. “Oh…”
I bow my head to hide a victorious smirk, pleased that she’s showing her hand more than Hanif did. Maybe Harun’s parents sending her will be a blessing in disguise.
But then she snatches up Harun’s arm so we’re less than a foot apart and says, “You mustn’t let his grumpy face fool you, Zahra. Harun is a sensitive soul when you get to know him. He even wore a special cologne to impress you.” She wrinkles her nose. “A bit too much, possibly, but it’s the thought that counts. I made him change that shirt, so you’re welcome.”
I snort at said sensitive soul. Really?
His shoulders hunch as he glances away, muttering something about how it was supposed to set off Hanif’s allergy.
“He seems so much happier since you met,” Sammi barrels on without paying him any mind. “After the way he got his heart broken, I’m glad he’s—”
“Afa,” Harun snaps, agitated for real now.
She slaps a hand against her lips in a clear oops while I swivel my head between them.
Heart broken? Harun? I’m learning so much about him today.
He did hint at a girlfriend, and when I snooped on his social media profiles, although most of his stories featured Rabeardranath, his family, and some guy friends, there were a few older Instagram posts of Harun with a dazzling blond girl.
They no longer follow each other.
He refuses to look up from the pavement, his jaw set tight, but I don’t have a chance to check in because Sammi skips the last couple of paces to the setting of our date and flings an arm at it with a flourish. “Ta-da!”
It’s TGI Fridays.
“Have you been?” she asks.
I nod. Ximena invited me and Dani here when she got a summer job as a waitress at the restaurant, but although I’m not as strict about eating halal as Dalia—I just don’t order anything with pork or alcohol and say “bismillah,” hoping for the best—the prices were way too high for me to willingly return, even after her friends and family discount.
Ignorant of my penny-pinching musings, Sammi struts into the dimly lit restaurant, pointing at a sign as we enter. “Would you look at that? They’re having a karaoke night! I should come back with my darling hubby.”
She’s married ?
The last thing I hear before loud music drowns out every other noise is Harun groaning. Not ten minutes later, a waiter carrying three laminated menus directs us to our table. Harun and I sit across from each other, Sammi cozying up next to me. There’s indeed a gold band with a hunk of diamond on her ring finger.
She puckers her lips at her own reflection in her iPhone’s camera. “Why did no one tell me my hair was a mess? Excuse me while I freshen up in the bathroom, Zahra.”
I watch her sashay away, confused since I don’t spot a single strand out of place, then shift my wary eyes back to Harun, who’s carefully reading the menu in front of him. He no longer seems upset about Sammi’s slipup. Though curiosity burns inside me at what she revealed, do I really have a right to know intimate details about his life and past? Would I be willing to spill about Nayim in return?
These past few weeks, it’s almost started to feel like we could be friends… in the totally platonic, comrades-in-arms sort of way. But the fact of the matter is, we’re faking everything.
“So… Sammi Afa sure is something,” I venture.
He snorts. “You can say that again.”
I worry my lip at the undercurrent of irritation in his voice. “Sorry you got stuck with her. And me. I’m sure you had better things to do on a Friday night.”
I’d be working, babysitting, or sleeping if I weren’t here, but he could have been going out on actual dates to mend his supposedly broken heart if we didn’t have to carry on with this ruse. In spite of his hang-ups, plenty of girls would line up for a chance with his chiseled good looks.
Including stunning blondes, apparently.
But he shakes his head, dragging a hand over his face. “No. It’s not your fault. We’re both stuck doing this to make our parents happy.” His voice dips lower as a smirk quirks his lips, his eyes meeting mine. “Besides, you’re not as bad as I thought when we first met.”
“Uh, thanks.” My stomach does a nervous flip that I blame on hunger.
Harun must be feeling something too, because he goes back to focusing on the menu and adds hurriedly, “Neither is Sammi Afa.”
“What?”
“Not that bad, I mean,” he says. “She’s always been there for me, like a big sis. And her brother Shaad is probably my best friend. Oh, and Afa can hand us all our asses at Mario Kart . She made Hanif Bhaia cry last Eid, though he blamed it on fasting all month.”
I giggle. “That’s cute. She must really love you guys if she’s practicing Mario Kart in her spare time.”
“Yeah, yeah.” He rolls his eyes. “But honestly, I think she acts like this to blow off steam. She and her husband are both neurosurgeons at Mount Sinai.”
My jaw hits the metaphorical table. “Neurosurgeons? She’s like Grey’s Anatomy –level gorgeous.”
“Are you bragging about me again, cuz?” Sammi drawls, sliding into Harun’s side of the booth to give his curly hair a good muss before releasing him.
Harun looks adorably disheveled and murderous.
Sammi then aims her inquisitive eyes at me. “It’s true, though. Our parents introduced me to Bilal while I was in my last year of medical school and he was completing his residency. I was sooo not into the whole arranged marriage schtick, but then we met and it was love at first sight.”
“Wow…”
That she can have a career and love and her parents’ approval, while being so completely herself, fills me with both envy and awe. Even Harun looks at her in a way that betrays the childish hero worship beneath his standoffish veneer.
As if sensing she’s gotten back into his good graces, she flags down the waitress who shows up to take our orders and says, “Can you please add us to the karaoke list?”
“Us?” demands Harun. “Speak for yourself.”
Sammi juts out her bottom lip. “Come on , cuz. Don’t you remember the Bengali folk dance class Pushpita Sasi enrolled you in as a kid? You were so cute. It’ll be just like that!”
I whip my head toward him, delighted. Folk dance?!
“I’ve been trying to forget , thanks,” he grits out.
“Don’t be such a spoilsport,” she says. “These places always have a long wait for your food. We may as well have a good time. Zahra will do it. Won’t you, Zahra?”
My grin freezes into place. “I, that is—”
She slams me with the full force of her persuasive gaze, until I crumble and nod.
Maybe arguing onstage and embarrassing our families in front of a bunch of hangry people will be the final nail in the coffin of our relationship? But my date scowls like I’ve taken the butter knife off the table to stab him in the back.
I don’t realize the ramifications of my actions until I find myself standing next to a petrified Harun onstage, ready to perform a duet before an apathetic audience—and Sammi Afa, who already looks prepared to give us a standing ovation.
“You just had to volunteer us, Bollywood,” he hisses.
“Oh, shut up. I don’t want to do this either!”
“Coulda had me fooled,” he counters. “I thought you liked musical numbers.”
“Yeah, in movies .”
Now that I’m in the spotlight, I remember how my friends have always teased me for having a singing voice that could shatter glass.
How whenever I sing in the shower, Arif pounds on the bathroom door to tell me I sound like a pair of cats fighting. How Mr. Tahir lasted only one slumber party after buying the twins a karaoke machine for their tenth birthday before he realized our heartfelt renderings of BLACKPINK songs wouldn’t be winning any Grammys anytime soon.
Then I notice a movement from the corner of my eye and realize how pale Harun has become, knuckles blanched almost white around the microphone in his rigid, trembling grasp.
Oh, crap, he’s legit scared.
Glancing between him and the dispassionate audience, I realize I have to take one for the team, since he’s gone along with everything I’ve suggested so far, including this duet. His blown-out pupils flick toward me in surprise when I move to take his hands in mine, bringing the microphone between us.
A peppy collaboration between Ariana Grande and Justin Bieber blasts from the speakers. I start yowling along, purposely loud so all eyes—and formal noise complaints—fall to me instead of him, and then smile when thirty seconds in, his brisk voice choruses mine.
Our gazes lock, our lips part, and—
Well, we’re as cringey as you’d imagine, though Harun, with his gravelly baritone, is marginally better than my awful, keening pitch. At least our enthusiasm can give the Biebs a run for his money.
We screech the chorus simultaneously, not even bothering to attempt a sound that resembles the correct pitch. Even Sammi pokes her fingers into her ears at the highest notes, but by then, we’re fully committed, yelling into the mic and bopping our heads so hard, his glasses almost fall off.
In that instant, our faces are mere inches apart, his hand a comforting weight around mine. My feet move of their own accord. Harun’s eyes widen behind their frames when I retreat two steps and offer him my free hand. He shakes his head but doesn’t resist as I pull him into an awkward, bumbling dance.
It’s nothing like the choreographed numbers in K3G. Nothing like Nayim, with his deft, poised fingers. But I don’t mind because I’m breathless and dizzy beneath the beam of the spotlights, my heart drumming in my chest, veins, and temples as I spin, confident that dependable Harun won’t let me fall.