Chapter 4 Asma #5
“How’s your hand feel? Do you want some Tylenol?” Ruby asked, breaking into Asma’s reverie.
Asma looked away quickly. “It doesn’t hurt.” Her nerve endings felt dilated, and she couldn’t pinpoint any feeling other than her beating heart.
They sat for a while, rocking slowly. The music was loud but not so much that they had to raise their voices. The shadows of twisting, jumping bodies cast outside through the windows. Asma felt like she was in another world.
In the streetlight, Ruby was the most extraordinary gold, her smile like a beacon. “So what’s your story, Asma Chaudhry? I want to know everything.”
They left the party around two in the morning.
Asma could have stayed outside talking to Ruby all night, but Salma had eventually wandered outside to the patio yawning.
There were still a few people inside. Some slow danced, someone was passed out in the hammock, and others sat around drunkenly talking about the play.
It was probably for the best that she was with Salma.
If she had been by herself, she might have been tempted to stay.
The thought of what might have happened made her feel equal parts ecstatic and fearful.
She had never felt so alive and so weighed down at the same time.
“I stink of smoke,” Asma said.
Salma grunted.
“Did you have fun?” Asma asked.
“Yeah, I mean, I guess. I didn’t know anyone, and I’ve not really been to any parties before. But yeah, I did.”
“You did great.”
“What’s up with Ronny? What’s his story?”
Asma side-eyed Salma. “He’s a mess. His dad died last spring from cancer or something, and he’s a little out of control.”
“What does that mean? What’s out of control?”
“Do you like him?”
“No! No. I don’t even know him.”
“Yeah, okay. He’s a nice guy but pretty into drugs, alcohol, guys, girls, you name it.”
“Oh.” They walked in silence. Finally, Salma said, “Ruby was really nice. She paid a lot of attention to you.”
“I have a main part,” Asma said with a stupid grin plastered on her face, as though that explained it. She was glad for the dark.
They walked back to campus quietly.
Asma had always assumed she was straight.
She had kissed a few boys. One had even held her right breast. But she had felt nothing.
In fact, she had felt less than nothing.
Going through the mechanical movements, she felt removed from her body, watching herself from a distance and wondering if she was supposed to be feeling.
Was she supposed to look past, feel past, the stale breath of the person she was kissing?
Was she supposed to press into the hands that held her, or was a certain amount of repulsion normal?
She’d attributed her curious feelings of detachment to the events of that long-ago night when she had been fourteen.
She had assumed that the experience had shut things down in her, burned off the ends of the neural pathways required to feel the heady combination of head, heart, and groin.
But on the porch, she understood that it was more than that.
Whatever had happened in her past, whatever had happened with males—this—this thing with Ruby was a different animal.
She didn’t have the words for it, or maybe she was too scared to name it, even to herself.
The only thing she could identify was a pull.
She was pulled in a way that she had never felt.
Pulled by her center, by some spot deep in her being, to Ruby.
The fact was that there was nowhere for this to go.
Asma was reminded of what Salma had said about Free to Be .
. . You and Me. Those songs, these experiences, these choices were simply not meant for them.
She couldn’t even picture what it would be like to fall for a guy of her own choosing.
Not without her parents disowning her. The thought of it being a non-Muslim?
A white boy? A Black boy? A woman? A Black woman?
The continuum of unimaginable choices stretched before her to the vanishing point, each more improbable than the next.
Campus was mostly asleep, a few late-night stragglers here and there.
The lobby on the first floor of the dorm was up a half flight of steps and was brightly illuminated.
As they walked up, Asma started noticing police officers.
One stood outside on the landing at the top of the stairs.
One was talking to Bobby at the front desk and another to a group of kids who sat on the couches.
Asma slowed down, wary. Maybe there had been a fight.
She had witnessed two fights in her life, one in high school and one in the quad her second week of college, and never again wanted to see men hitting one another.
The grunting and sickening sound of human hitting human, the spectacle of people standing and cheering, made her physically ill.
She walked slowly up the stairs, afraid of what she might see. Inside, a girl silently pointed at her. Asma turned around to see what she was pointing to, but there was no one behind her other than Salma.
Bobby said to the officer, “That’s her.”
Then things started moving in slow motion. The few people in the lobby turned to watch Asma and Salma approach the front desk. The fluorescent lights were too bright. Asma felt Salma’s death grip on her left forearm.
The burly, red-nosed officer asked, “Are you Asma”—he looked down at his notepad and then back at Bobby—“Chowder?”
“What’s wrong?” Fear coursed through her. What had happened? Was it her parents? Mamoo?
“You need to call your father, young lady,” he said, not unkindly.
“Why? What’s happened?”
“Nothing. Now that you’ve been found.”
Asma cocked her head to the side, confused. What did he mean by “found”? She looked at Bobby.
“Your dad called looking for you. Both.” His eyes flitted to Salma.
“What are you talking about?” Asma could understand the sentences but not what they meant.
“He called saying his daughters were missing. We take those calls very seriously these days,” the officer said.
Bobby said, “He called your room, and no one answered, so he called up here and asked that I check your room.”
“Did you tell him I was at a party?” Asma was caught between rage and mortification.
“My job is to make sure everyone has a badge before they get in. I’m not your damn receptionist.”
The officer motioned to the other officers. He said, “I’m pretty sure your dad is on his way here. You need to tell him that this is not an appropriate use of resources.”
“Sorry, sorry,” Asma muttered.