Chapter 23
We hover awkwardly in front of the Emons’ gate for our Uber, avoiding the stares of their dog-walking and barbecuing neighbors.
Although I’m sweating buckets in my long-sleeved dress outside the house’s central air, the summer heat is preferable to staying in there.
It was worse than anything I imagined leading up to tonight.
That should be a good thing, but I already find myself missing how things were before. Pushpita Khala sending us home with leftovers to replace the original contents of our Tupperware. Harun’s offers to drive us back. Meeting his gaze in the rearview and sharing a secret glance, a smile no one else was privy to.
We both got what we wanted… right?
It takes every ounce of my willpower not to sneak a peek at his bedroom window.
In all fairness to my mother, she’s the picture of calm that entire time—unnervingly so, in fact, while the rest of us squirm on the sidewalk, cicada song suffusing the silence.
The instant we enter the minivan, our Decidedly Not Harun driver closes the partition separating us, bopping his head along to Egyptian house music. Nanu shoos Arif and Resna into the very back seats alongside her, affording Amma and me a modicum of privacy in the middle passenger seats.
Amma pounces on me. “How could you do that?”
“Do what?” I ask, crossing my arms.
A blotchy flush flares across the bridge of her nose even as her lips whiten from being squeezed together so tightly. “Amare keetha faiso? Do you take me for a fool, Zahra?”
I heave a breath.
Despite acting so flighty, and often doubting her own ability to take care of our family without Baba, Amma is one of the smartest and most resilient people I know. Which is why it bothers me all the more that I’m the one puzzle she either can’t figure out or doesn’t want to.
“No,” I murmur at last. “I know I was acting weird—”
“Your behavior was completely unacceptable,” she interrupts. “Since when could you not use a spoon ? You made our family seem so backward in front of them. How can I ever show my face in town again? I did not raise you to behave like such a—a—”
Behaya, beshorom, be-other qualities I’m lacking because I’m such a flagrantly disrespectful daughter and person.
“I know , okay?” I proclaim before she can choose one, so loud that the startled driver meets my eyes in the rearview disapprovingly. Get in line, I glare back at him. Harun’s words cut me deep enough for tonight, fake or not, and I don’t have any room left for Amma to rub salt into that wound. “I just… it was all I could think to do. No matter what Harun or I said or did in there, you and the Emons seemed dead set on us being together. I couldn’t take it anymore.”
She’s quiet for a moment, playing with the lids of the half-full plastic containers in her lap that Pushpita Khala returned earlier. I wince when she says, in that I’m not mad, just disappointed hollow voice that’s somehow worse than getting yelled at, “If your behavior wasn’t appalling enough, what you did to that boy was wrong, Zahra.”
“What?” I gape at her, unable to believe what she’s saying. “I tell you he’s been with some white girl and you still find a way to blame this on me?” I whip toward the window. “I should have known all that mattered to you was his money and not how I feel—or how he feels, for that matter. What kind of sexist garbage is this? He can do no wrong and I’m just supposed to accept—”
“Oh, stop,” she says, frowning. “This isn’t about any of that.”
“It is, though,” I reply, scowling at her again. “You’re fine with him dating whoever he wants, because he’s a boy, but when I told you I liked a boy, you—”
A sharp shake of her head interrupts me once more. “No, Zahra. No matter what you might think, this isn’t about Nayim. It’s about Harun. I’m not sure how you learned about his girlfriend, but you shouldn’t have flaunted his secret that way, in front of his parents and cousin. You did more than embarrass our family. You humiliated and hurt him.”
“That was pretty messed up,” I hear Arif whisper from the backseat.
“Messed up,” Resna’s squeaky voice agrees, though whether she comprehends the situation remains to be seen.
Although Nanu doesn’t intervene, her silence is revealing enough.
Tears sting in my eyes and nostrils, but I refuse to let them fall, wrapping my arms around myself to quell my trembling. What hurts the most is that Amma’s right. But that she can have so much sympathy for Harun and never me breaks my heart.
“No matter what, I was always going to be the disappointment if I didn’t go along with your plans, wasn’t I?” I ask in a hoarse whisper. “I try so hard to be what you want, but I can’t do anything right in your eyes.”
Her fists ball in her lap, but before she can retort, the driver tells us, “We’re, ah, here.”
Amma immediately storms out of the car. The rest hesitate, but follow her to the apartment. The driver watches me pityingly but says nothing. To reward him for not being a busybody, I give him five stars and a tip higher than I can afford.
That weekend is the Bangladeshi community picnic.
Folks from every part of Bangladesh gather to eat, socialize, and play games, competing for the honor of their districts—and prizes— Hunger Games –style.
When Mr. Tahir orders Nayim to come along and help carry boxes, I volunteer to accompany them, while Dalia and Dani supervise the shop.
Their father grunts but doesn’t protest.
Nayim smiles and I make myself smile back, praying I’m doing a decent job of masking the residual sadness that roils in my gut. Between the financial blow I took and Harun’s one-word responses every time I send him a text, I need to escape my life.
Even if only for a day.
The extra pay and fresh air won’t hurt either.
In the nearly six hundred acres of land that encompass the reserves, surely I might get a minute to sneak away with my boyfriend? I’m not naive enough to believe true love’s—or true “I really, really like you’s”—kiss can solve my problems the way it does in fairy tales, but I worked so hard to get to be with Nayim that I may as well enjoy it, right?
A couple of rented yellow buses pick us up at the Great Falls. Some girls I know from school call me over to sit by them, while Mr. Tahir instructs Nayim to join him and a chatty group of uncles in the back, who hold covered trays, boxes of Dunkin’ Donuts, and other assorted snacks on their laps. He nods at me as he passes, and I notice his guitar case strapped to his back. Maybe he has similar plans to be alone?
We reach the park in record time.
Garret Mountain overlooks Paterson, Woodland Park, and Clifton. Although I visited the park many times before Baba’s death, we haven’t had a chance to return since he passed, and not just because tickets to the picnic are a hundred dollars a family.
I can’t help following Nayim to the railing above the city. The buildings below look like points of a broken crown, studded with jewels of glass and feathery smoke, framed against a bright blue tapestry of sky embroidered with clouds and sunshine.
“It’s beautiful,” Nayim says, watching me.
Before I can agree, a familiar voice bellows, “Api!” and then Resna’s pudgy arms wind around my legs, her cherubic face squished against my knees.
“Resu, what are you doing here?”
The answer to my question appears from the direction of the parking lot: Amma and Arif, surrounded by a gaggle of aunties and their children. My mother’s eyes widen when she notices where Resna has gotten off to, then narrow at the realization of our present company.
No doubt sensing the daggers she flings his way, Nayim says, “I’d better go help set up or Boss Man will throw me off a cliff.”
Amma watches him go, then returns her attention to me. I almost expect her to walk away without a word, since we’ve been giving each other the cold shoulder since the Eid party yesterday, but she says, “I didn’t know you were coming to the picnic with Mr. Tahir.”
“I didn’t know you’d be here.”
Amma’s best friend, the Lady Whistledown of Paterson’s gossip mill herself, Meera Hussain, answers in her stead with a teasing, “Your mother has been so busy with that new job of hers, I had to force her to take a break today, Zahra.”
“You shouldn’t have paid for us,” Amma chides.
“Nonsense,” says Meera Khala. “My own children are too old to be seen with me anymore. Rumon is out with his friends, and Raisa had a work function she couldn’t skip. As you can see, your bhai is too busy for me too.” She juts her chin at her husband, a short, portly bald man holding a clipboard who oversees many of our local events. “So let me live through you and your precious kids, Zaynab.” Before Amma can raise another objection, she adds, “We can talk about the upcoming Bangla Mela, too. It would be wonderful for business, wouldn’t it?”
My mother relents. “Ji oi, Afa. You’re right, of course.”
She shoos Arif and Resna off to sign up for the games. I try to beat a subtle retreat as well, since Mr. Tahir is scowling at me from the picnic area where he’s setting up, but get swept into a tidal wave of eager aunties. They grip my arms and begin to carry me over to a secluded copse of dogwood trees, under which they spread out blankets away from the busier picnic area where the food is being prepared.
Sensing a lost cause when he sees one, Mr. Tahir marches over, carrying boxes of the tea shop’s sweets. To Amma and the other women, he says, “Assalamualaikum, ladies. Please enjoy these desserts from Chai Ho and find me right over there if you’d like a cup of tea.” He then lowers his head to whisper in my ear, “You can stay with your mother for the time being, so long as you’re selling her friends on how delicious our treats are, Miss Khan.” Gritting a smile at us all, he finishes his spiel with one last ingratiating advertisement, “If you like what you taste, find our booth at the Bangla Mela next weekend or visit the shop any day on Union Avenue.”
Pink petals dust my ponytail as I sit with the box of treats, holding them out to the aunties like their personal waitress. Flakes of shonpapri fly from their mouths as they volley questions at me about work and school, and then at last, calculatedly, one maneuvers the topic to Harun. “I heard Zahra has been seeing the Emon boy. Is it serious?”
The others titter, heads bobbing between Amma and me.
“Well,” my mother says demurely, wrists folded in her lap, “there isn’t much to say anymore. Zahra and Harun are very young, after all. They only saw each other for a handful of chaperoned dates before we decided they weren’t ready for an engagement.”
A harmonized string of ohhhhs rings out.
“That’s a shame,” another auntie muses. “I met Harun at a wedding once. The Emons don’t have the same family stature as you Khans, but what a good-looking, well-mannered boy!”
Her friend snorts. “I say it’s for the best. His mother is so obnoxious. You’d never be able to stand her if she were Zahra’s shashuri.”
The first auntie gives her a playful smack on the knee but doesn’t refute this. “Could you imagine if she were here? Her son may be the strong, silent type, but she’d boast our ears off about what she made him for breakfast if she could.”
“More like, what their cook made him,” scoffs her friend.
Picking uncomfortably at a loose thread on her shalwar, Amma tries to come to Pushpita Khala’s defense. “She can be quite sweet once you get to know her….”
“To think she’s from a Gulam family, though,” tuts yet another woman, blowing right past my mother’s comment. “Who knows? Perhaps her great-grandfather served yours, back in the day. But I suppose family bongsho is less important these days than the groom’s potential.” Her gua-stained lips curve in wicked amusement. “And that boy certainly has potential.”
“Handsome, rich, and educated,” Meera Khala agrees with a milder smile. “He would have been a perfect match for our lovely Zahra. It’s too bad it didn’t work out.”
None of them spare a second to wonder how I might feel about them discussing my love life right in front of me, but I’m used to their “children are meant to be seen and bragged about, not heard unless we’re interrogating them” mentality. I almost wish Mr. Tahir had dragged me off to work, especially when the topic shifts away from the Emons to laser-focus on me.
“Zahra has grown into a beauty,” a grandmotherly woman in a gray-and-white shari says. “I still remember when her knees used to knock against each other whenever she ran the relays at the picnic. Never did want to participate, that one.”
“She used to bring a book to bury her nose in,” laughs her daughter, as my ears turn pink, recalling how they’d joke, Boys don’t want girls who are smarter than them, so why do you read so much? “Those books were bigger than she was.”
Yet another auntie scans me from head to toe. This one I recognize from work, though she’s dolled up in a heavily embroidered shalwar kameez today that must be hell in the sweltering summer heat, even beneath the shade of the dogwood trees. “At least her beauty means the Emon boy is only the first of many.” She lowers her voice into something sneering. “But I’d be careful if I were you, Zaynab Afa. Ulubone mukto chorano. If you aren’t careful who you give precious, pretty things to, they’ll be damaged and lose their value.”
I stiffen.
It’s a backhanded compliment, calling me a pearl to be taken and lost, like I have no say in the matter. It throws me back to what my mother told me after that fateful dinner with Nayim, except it’s Harun they’re insulting now.
In a clipped tone, Amma says, “You don’t need to worry about that. Zahra’s a smart girl. Even if she weren’t, she has me looking out for her.”
Just then, a rousing cheer erupts as Resna and the other children in her age group bolt down the hill toward a finish line set up for the picnic’s first relay race. My baby sister elbows aside the two boys closest to her and throws herself over the ribbon, shrieking a battle cry.
Arif, on the sandy pitch not far from the race, becomes a recognizable speck when he stops his soccer game to whoop, “Woo, yeah, that’s my sister!”
I grin and clap, until I notice the auntie from earlier evaluating the exchange with her nose scrunched like she’s been sucking on a lemon. “Charming. I saw your littlest one making the boys cry while playing kabaddi, too, Zaynab. Respectable in-laws will come in handy when it comes time to marry that one off.”
“She’s already darker than Zahra and burning worse in this sun,” laments her friend.
The first auntie lifts her chin, vindicated. “I hope she never becomes as tomboyish as the one Tahir girl. I don’t know how their parents will ever find matches for those sisters when one dresses like a boy and the other is so fat. My sons wouldn’t spare them a second glance.”
Annnnnnd that’s about as much as I can take.
Ignoring my mother’s warning look, I bare my teeth in a Good Bangladeshi Daughter smile so sweet, it would rot your gums. “It’s so kind of you to worry about the rest of us, Khala, but isn’t that your youngest son in the baseball jersey pulling worms out of the ground? You might want to stop him before he eats them….”
The auntie gasps and leaps to her feet, shouting, “Shubie, not again!”
Meera Khala slaps her knee and guffaws. When Amma frowns between the two of us, she says, “What, can you blame the girl? Zoba had it coming, running her mouth like that. I find those who judge other people’s children always end up weeping over their own one day.”
Her words censure the rest of the group. Soon they focus on less scandalous subjects, like the Bangla Mela, and whether they want to see the equestrian center, Barbour Pond, or Lambert Castle today.
“I heard the castle is closed,” one of the surviving aunties points out.
Only mildly thwarted, they decide to take a stroll around the pond first, giving me a window to escape at last. I should be happy to be free of their rumors and snooping, but though I managed to embarrass Zoba Khala with Shubie’s help, I can’t get her words out of my mind.
They sound like Amma’s.