Chapter 21 Salma
Salma
Now comes the part of the story that I find hard to share. Every part of it is impossible to tell without my role, my blame, laid bare.
I thought the hardest part of Asma’s return home was behind us.
I lay on the couch downstairs watching a Cheers marathon with the volume low.
I couldn’t hear what they were saying upstairs, but there were no raised voices.
On the TV, Sam was explaining something with wide-open hands and a beseeching look while Diane, arms crossed across her chest, squinted at him skeptically.
And there was Woody, good old Woody, polishing glasses, pretending like he didn’t see anything amiss.
I wonder how Asma handled herself. Did Ami share all the pictures, even the ones with the old and fat men? What did Asma say to make them feel like she was taking them seriously?
In one way, it made total sense that Asma and Ruby were together.
In retrospect, their body language at the cast party was completely obvious.
But in other ways, I had so many questions.
Even though I had never kissed a boy or had any kind of a romantic encounter, I could imagine what it would be like because of Sam and Diane and the hundreds of other couplings I’d seen on television.
But I just couldn’t quite imagine what it was like between Asma and Ruby.
Because they were two girls, but also because Asma was not American American.
In my fantasies about my nonexistent love life at that point, the boys I kissed were always white boys.
If Asma brought Ruby home, which part would Ami and Abu have a harder time with?
The fact that she was American? The fact that she was not Muslim?
The fact that she was Black? Or the fact that she was a woman?
Asma came downstairs after one episode and flopped down on the couch.
“What were you doing?” I asked softly.
Asma reached over and patted my leg with the saddest smile. She left her hand on my leg, but instead of it feeling like a reassuring weight, it felt like a bird’s bone, undetectable, offering no comfort.
We watched a few episodes and at 10:50 turned the station to watch the New Year’s Eve ball drop in New York.
The buildup, the anticipatory energy seemed to work on everyone.
But I could never understand what came after.
What was the feeling I was supposed to have after the ball dropped?
Because all I ever felt was disappointment, an echo to Christmas.
Asma’s face was lit by the television screen and from within, her eyes shiny with tears or excitement.
The camera panned over the faces of people, elated, reaching up for life, screaming, happy; I felt like they were a different species of human than me.
The countdown wound down on the corner of the screen, and then it was the last ten seconds.
And then the ball dropped. Strangers hugged and kissed each other.
The TV played that song that always gets played on New Year’s Eve, a lonesome lament that reminds me of endings and loss and makes me want to cry.
I felt out of step with the world around me.
Was this just one of those American things I hadn’t yet learned or understood?
Was this like sauerkraut, an acquired taste?
The year before, I might have told Asma that I was thinking these things on New Year’s Eve. But on that night, our last New Year’s Eve together, I didn’t want to upset the delicate balance we had finally achieved.
We brushed our teeth, and I followed Asma to her room. The joy on her face had evaporated.
“What happened?” I whispered.
“Nothing to worry about,” she said.
“Come on. Don’t treat me like I’m stupid. I know you’re up to something; I can tell. You never listen to me, and I’m always right.”
“I’m not treating you like you’re stupid. It’s nothing.” She tried to make her voice sound soothing, but it just came out sounding strangled. “But listen.” She grabbed my hand. “I have to tell you something.”
I waited, anticipating finally being told everything.
That, somehow, even after all the secrets and half answers she had given me over the last few days, there was something more.
Some overarching, big-picture, comprehensive story that would tie up all the loose ends and complications of our liminal lives.
“I love you, Sal. I will always love you. No matter what happens, no matter where I am or where I go, no matter who I love, you are and will always be my favorite person on earth. Do you understand that?”
I think her voice was cracking, but I couldn’t tell.
Her words, her seriousness, her sincerity filled me with nostalgia.
She was telling me that things were going to change.
She was signaling that we were leaving behind the way we had always been.
I put my head against Asma’s shoulder and slumped into her body, crying.
She held me. It was the acknowledgment and understanding that I’d wanted for so long, and upon finally receiving it, I felt guilty for ever having needed such reassurance.
Once, when we were young, Asma read something about the prisoner’s dilemma and asked me who would be the one person I would save if we were all on a capsizing boat.
I didn’t like talking about such things, but Asma was not one to be dissuaded.
She insisted I answer. Finally, I said, “You. But what about everyone else?” She smiled all-knowingly.
She was always one who knew the answer before asking the question.
“I’ve got that part figured out. I pick Mamoo, you pick Aunty, and they pick each other. ”
The New Year broke. Asma bounded into my room from my closet, earlier than she had woken up all break.
She pushed her way under the covers with me, her feet ice cold, and wiggled against me until she had my warm spot.
I felt a heavy disorientation. My eyes were still swollen and my nose congested from the night before.
Asma started chattering that she was going to get organized because she was returning to school in a little over a week.
She sounded nervous but happy. I thought it was because we heard Abu leaving.
We got up and made pancakes with slices of the last banana.
We forgot to add chocolate chips to the batter and sprinkled them on top of the bananas afterward.
I was so busy feeling grateful that everything had gone back to normal between us that I didn’t focus on signals that should have been obvious to me.
Ami was going to pick up an extra day at the tailor starting this week and acted like she would be returning to work full-time, asking repeatedly how she was going to manage everything.
Asma offered to do all the family’s laundry because she would be doing her own.
As she gathered the kitchen towels and the towels from my parents’ bathroom, I heard Asma say to Ami, “Let’s boil it down to the final today. ”
School started the next day for me, and I regretted how much time over break had been wasted struggling for clarity with Asma.
With the resumption of our old selves, I could feel how heavy a burden I’d been carrying.
Late that afternoon, Ami said that she was going to lie down and that we should just make pizza for dinner.
Oh, frozen-pizza nights. It meant that Ami and Abu were tired and going to be absent.
It meant that we were left to our own devices, happily unwatched, uncared for, and unsupervised.
When we were younger, we could watch TV late with the volume down.
As we got older, we’d put on makeup and do each other’s hair in the style of the moment, gathered from old magazines.
Tootsie was going to be playing at 7:00.
Asma put the pizza in the oven while I set up our pedicure station and hair station in front of the TV.
I put down an old towel, got out the hair-conditioning oil, the bottle sticky from the last time it had been used at least a year before, hair covers, a wide and shallow bucket, and a nail file.
There were no nail polishes in the medicine cabinet, so I went to Asma’s room to see if there were any on her dresser.
When I put on the light, the room looked immaculate.
The way it looked when Asma was at school.
Nothing on the surface of the dresser or the bedside table.
No clothes hung over the bed railing or on the floor.
It was as though no one lived in there. I quickly shut off the light and backed out of the room.
I didn’t want to look in the closet to see if her clothes were still there or feel how heavy her suitcase felt out of fear of what I’d find.
I sat on the couch to wait for Asma, taking deep breaths to chase away my uneasiness.
So what if her room was clean? She’d said this morning that she was going to be getting organized for school.
I knew she was doing her laundry. There was nothing wrong with getting things in order.
On Tuesday, I returned to school. Asma was up before I left the house. I figured it was so she could see me off before having the whole house to herself. She casually ate her cereal while reading the side of the box and said, “I’m leaving the secret decoder ring in this one for you.”
When you know someone really well, it’s possible to tell when they’re acting. Even though they sound the same and appear the same, they are not the real person. It is a wrapping in which they’ve dressed themselves for some other reason. When Asma said that, I knew something was happening.
Ami rushed by with her head covered in a dupatta, like she was going to the mosque. “Hurry, hurry! You’re going to miss the bus. I can’t take you to school today.”