Intezar laughed, a little harder than necessary, and buckled in. “I heard some people talking, and they’re just going to ask him who he’s nominating.”
“Whatever. I don’t want to talk about Algie.”
Zar held up his hands in surrender. “Sure, dude. Let’s go fry some Sectoids.”
“Or, you know, we could play a game that isn’t old.”
“XCOM 2 is a classic, all right? Being old is how something gets to be a classic. Besides, it’s all about the brown experience.”
The game was actually about aliens who invade Earth, take over all governments, and have to be fought off by a small resistance force of elite soldiers the player recruits from various countries. Intezar thought the whole thing was a metaphor for colonization. I, on the other hand, seriously doubted the developer had been thinking about the plight of our ancestors when the game was made.
Anyway, I was a little bored of it. “Let’s see what Sohrab wants to do,” I said, because I knew he felt the same way about Zar’s XCOM obsession. “Maybe we can just play some 2K.”
“Fine,” Zar grumbled, folding his arms across his chest. “If you feel like being lectured about praying on time or something for the rest of the day, I guess.”
Sohrab was the last member of our trio. We’d all been close once, but recently he and Zar had seriously cut back on the time they spent together. This was mostly because Sohrab couldn’t help but talk about religion, and Zar didn’t want to hear anything about it.
Arguing about whether to call Sohrab ended up being a waste of time. He couldn’t hang out with us because he’d apparently decided to join some after-school Quran study group. I told Zar that he sounded sorry to be missing out, which was true, but Zar just rolled his eyes and made me play XCOM 2 after all.
The forces of humanity weren’t doing all that well when my phone rang half an hour later. It was my mom.
Not a lot of Pakistani guys could say this, but my mom was cool. She was the one who taught me to play the guitar, who secretly told me it was okay to go to a culinary school if that’s what I wanted, and who had passionately argued against my getting a minivan, suggesting a 1977 Pontiac Firebird instead. I think the name of that car spoke to her soul. She’d loved it since she’d seen it in a movie with Burt Reynolds. She’d said that Reynolds was the only man she’d leave my father for. Knowing my father, I’d have thought the list would be longer.
“Come home,” she said.
“I’m kind of in the middle of something, Mom.”
“The Akrams are here.”
“Okay. And?”
“They have a daughter. She’s your age.”
I groaned. “Mom.”
“Just come home. I know you’re probably with those nerd friends of yours, playing games on the computer, haan?”
“No.”
“Hold on.” I could hear Dad’s voice in the background. When she got back on the line, she said, “Your father says not to be a nonsense fellow and to come home right now.”
“How long do I have to listen to him call me names?”
“Probably as long as he’s alive.”
I grumbled under my breath. For someone who was usually awesome, Aisha Jilani was being a real mom right now. “How long is this thing with your friends going to take?”
“Not long. I promise.”
“Fine,” I sighed. “I’ll see you soon.”
“Excellent. And Danyal? Keep an open mind about this girl. She’s not, you know, hot, exactly, but she’s got… sex appeal.”
I made a gagging sound. Not a phrase that was okay for mothers to use.
“I’m serious,” she insisted.
“Those are the same thing,” I told her.
“No,” she said, in the manner of someone imparting an ancient wisdom. “They really aren’t.”
“Have to head out?” Intezar asked as I hung up the phone.
I told him where I was going, and he made a face. This wasn’t my first rishta meeting, where I’d be introduced to a girl because our parents hoped that we’d hit it off and ultimately decide we liked each other enough to get married. I was “on the market,” as Zar put it.
He thought arranged marriages were really old-fashioned, but they were pretty much the only option in my opinion. Muslim men and women aren’t supposed to hang out alone with each other or go on dates, which makes finding someone to marry on your own pretty hard.
And getting married is super important because, Islamically, if you’re going to have sex with a girl, you need permission from your parents. And her parents. An imam has to sanction it. And the state has to be informed, of course, and the proper paperwork has to be filled out. And you need witnesses who can swear that all the necessary parties were advised. You also need to throw a party, so everyone you know can dress up in their best clothes and come to congratulate you about the fact that you’re going to finally get fucked.
It’s the way things are done in polite, proper society.
Once you have your official papers in order, what was once forbidden becomes legal. It’s like getting your driver’s license, except going to the DMV is a lot less frustrating than going through the arranged marriage process.
“We’re way too young, dude. Your parents are crazy. No disrespect.”
I really was pretty young for the market, but my parents were looking because, as they told me, they feared my personal charms and extraordinarily poor judgment would lead me into sin.
Anyway, getting an arranged marriage didn’t bother me. What did bother me was that even though I’d dropped a ton of hints about Kaval, my mother had completely ignored them. I was going to have to just spell it out for her soon, so we could stop with these pointless rishta meetings.
Because no matter how great the girl I was meeting now ended up being, she’d still be a distant star next to the shining moon that was Kaval Sabsvari.
CHAPTER TWO
The Akrams—was I supposed to know these people?—were seated in the formal living room of my parents’ deceptively nice house when I snuck in. Mom and Dad had bought it with the only serious money they’d ever had, my father’s inheritance, and were lucky that they’d made the purchase just before houses in the Bay Area got crazy expensive.
So now my parents were house rich. Their home was all they really had in the world, which was fine. It wasn’t like we were living in the earthquake capital of the world or anything.
The house was their fortune and their misfortune. It made people expect that they would live lavish lives, hosting and attending parties, driving cars that cost more than they could make in a year. I don’t know why my parents cared about what “society” thought of them, but they did, at least enough that it made their finances really tight.
It would have given them hope, I think, to imagine that there was help coming from their son, that he could grow up to be a doctor or lawyer or engineer, capable of making the facade of their lives real.
I think they’d gotten to know me well enough, however, to realize they shouldn’t dream such dreams.
The slightly sweet smell of saffron-infused chicken biryani that lingered in the air distracted me from the guests and lured me into the kitchen. Given the pile of plates stacked in the sink, it was obvious that everyone else had already eaten.
Grabbing a spoon, I took a bite straight from the pot and let out a happy sigh. The basmati rice was perfect, each grain separate from the others. It was somewhere between spicy and mild, and the baked chicken wasn’t dry. Mom had the proportions of her dum biryani down to a science.
I was only going to have one bite, but there is nothing like the first spoonful of biryani to make you realize how hungry you are. Hoisting the entire steel pot onto the dining table, I began shoveling food into my mouth as fast as I could.
That was how Bisma Akram saw me for the first time.
“Hi,” she said.
I cleared my throat and wiped at my mouth with the back of my hand. “Hello.”
&n
bsp; “Bisma.”
“Danyal Biryani. I mean, Jilani. Danyal Jilani.”
She smiled.
Bisma was one of those people who, but for one defining feature, would’ve been unremarkable to look at. In her case, it was her swift smile. It caused her nose to wrinkle a bit, and her cheeks dimpled. She didn’t have anything remotely like Kaval’s scorched earth beauty, and she didn’t have the figure to make everything she wore look a little tight. Bisma was willowy—no, that makes people think of movie stars and models. Wrong plant. Bisma was… palmy.
Was it weird that I was so focused on her looks? A little, I guess, but that’s the reality of the arranged marriage process. Normally, our parents would have exchanged photos and biographical information before any of this happened—it was the old brown people version of trading baseball cards—and the picture alone would’ve determined whether or not we even met each other.
So don’t judge me for being shallow. Judge all desis.
Anyway, my mom was right. Bisma wasn’t hot.
There was, however, something undeniably attractive about her. Her vibe was very geek-California. She had on a pair of retro square eyeglasses that were slightly big for her face. Her long, light brown hair hung in loose waves. In white jeans and a baby-blue T-shirt with Spider-Man’s face in the shape of a heart, she obviously didn’t care enough about being set up with me to dress up. I liked that.
“Do you want me to twirl around or are you good?”
Crap. I’d stared too long. I could feel my face get hot. That was probably the first time in my life a girl had made me blush.
“Sure,” I joked. “Go ahead.”
She blinked, obviously a little taken aback, then shrugged her narrow shoulders and spun around.
I hadn’t expected her to actually do that.
“Well?” Bisma asked, hands on her hips.
I knew I should say something nice.
“Nice,” I said.
She let out an exaggerated sigh of relief. “Thank God. I feel super validated.”
Bisma laughed then, and I couldn’t help but join in.
“Hear that?” I heard my mother say from the other room. It was practically a squeal. “They’re getting along. I think now is a good time to send them out for coffee, don’t you?”
Going out for coffee was actually kind of a rare event in my limited arranged-marriage-process experience. Most parents don’t let their girls go out with a “prospect,” even for half an hour, without a chaperone. The Akrams were being rather liberal, and I suppose I should’ve been grateful. I was, however, too busy being mortified by the way Bisma raised her eyebrows when she saw my minivan.
“Sexy,” she said as she got in.
I felt myself blush again. What was it about this girl that made my face do that? “Makes it easier to move guitars and speakers and stuff.”
“You play?”
I nodded.
“Are you good?”
“I’m very good.”
Bisma chuckled. “Well, you don’t have any self-esteem issues.”
“Groundless confidence is one of my special skills.” I turned the ignition, and the old engine coughed itself to life. “Where to?”
“Anywhere.”
We drove in silence for a few minutes. Finally, she said, “You’re nineteen, right?”
“Yeah. You?”
“Yup. So how come you’re still in high school?”
I bit back a sigh. Desi uncles and aunties had been asking me that question for years. I hated it. I was pretty sure that by now my family’s entire acquaintance knew I’d been held back a grade in middle school, and they only pretended to be ignorant to feel superior about their own spawn. Jerks.
I guess it was a fair question, though, coming from a girl your parents were setting you up to potentially marry. I projected my best devil-may-care attitude. “I’m not very bright.”
Bisma laughed, but not unkindly. “I doubt that’s true.”
“What about you?”
“I’m actually very bright.”
I smiled. “I mean, where do you go to school?”
“Berkeley,” she said. “For microbiology.”
I glanced over at her. Berkeley? Wow. She was bright. What the hell was her family doing trying to set her up with someone like me?
“What?” Bisma asked when I didn’t say anything.
“That’s a good school.”
“It’s got something of a reputation, sure.”
“I mean, that’s something that desi parents would approve of.”
She nodded.
“So… what’s wrong with you?”
Bisma frowned. “What?”
“You’re smart. And you’re okay to look at.” I winced as soon as I said it. “Sorry. I don’t know what is going on today. I’m usually much better at giving compliments. Anyway, what I’m saying is, given everything that you’ve got going on, why are your parents shopping for a husband in the bargain bin?”
“Wow. I was wrong about you not having self-esteem issues, wasn’t I?”
“This isn’t about what I think of myself.” I sounded defensive, but… well, Bisma knew what I was trying to say. Why was she making me explain? “It’s about how uncles and aunties value people. I mean, I don’t care, really, but I know what my worth is on the market.”
“If I were an English major, our parents putting us together would make more sense to you?”
“Yeah. I’m not saying that’s the way it should be. I’m just saying no desi parent wants their daughter to marry a guy planning to attend a culinary institute.”
She didn’t say anything for a while. Just looked out her window at the quintessential suburbia that was my hometown. Finally she said, “This is a waste of time. I’m sorry. I can’t get my mother to stop setting these meetings up.”
I sighed. I’d been too rude. Too direct. Or maybe she hadn’t known about the wanting-to-be-a-chef thing. Whatever. It wasn’t like I was trying to impress her anyway.
We drove in silence for another moment or two. Then Bisma said, “Let’s just go back.”
Except she didn’t say it like it was something she wanted to do. She said it like it was something she was agreeing to, like I was the one who wanted to bail. It bothered me. What was her deal?
“Did you kill someone?”
Bisma chuckled. “I think my family would prefer it if I had.”
“Are you a cyberterrorist or something?”
“Worse.”
We pulled up to a stoplight, and I had the chance to look at her. She was staring at her hands and had slunk further into her seat, as if she was trying to disappear into it. Then it hit me.
What was worse than being a terrorist when it came to an arranged marriage?
“You’re not… I mean, you’ve had… you’ve done—”
“I’m not a virgin.”
“That’s what I meant.” When she didn’t say anything further, I said, “That’s like… whatever, you know. I don’t really understand why desis make such an issue out of it. They treat it like it’s the end of the world or something, but it isn’t a big—”
“There’s video,” Bisma told me, very quietly. “Is that apocalyptic enough for you?”
“You haven’t said anything in a really long time,” Bisma pointed out softly.
I pulled into a parking spot in front of a small coffee shop I liked. They made the best mocha, which was the only drink I ever ordered, because it was the brownest of all coffees.
“Danyal?”
“I’m not sure what to say.”
“That’s okay.” Her gaze was still fixed on her lap.
More silence.
“So… in this video, you’re—”
“Fucking.”
I knew she’d used that word to shock me. I could respect that.
“What are you waiting for?” Bisma asked. “Take me back.”
I shook my head, not at her suggestion, but at the situation she was describing
. How was there video? That was insane. It was the kind of thing the reputation of a Pakistani girl would never, ever recover from.
Did anyone know? Did her parents? I had so many questions. I chose to ask one.
“So… you’re a porn star, then?”
Now Bisma did look up at me, eyes flashing with indignation. “What? No! How can you—holy shit, I’m not—”
I held up my hands. “It was a joke.”
“Was it?”
“Yeah. Of course.”
“It didn’t sound like a joke.”
“I’m super dry.”
She scowled at me. “It was stupid. There was some stuff going on at home and I was really angry. I went to a party because my parents wouldn’t want me to and drank because they wouldn’t want me to and… Anyway, I decided to sleep with this guy and I didn’t realize he had a camera in his room. I guess he thought it’d be funny to record it or something. Then he posted it online. He called it ‘Muslim Girls Like Dick Too.’”
“What? Seriously? That’s… wow, that’s messed up.”
Bisma ran a hand through her hair. “Yeah. Well, then his friends showed their friends. By the time he agreed to take the video down, because I told him I’d go to the cops, it was too late. It was all over school, and then the mosque. Then my parents heard about it, and my father almost kicked me out. Anyway, we couldn’t live there anymore. We moved to California to make a fresh start.”
“And that’s why you’re in the bargain bin.”
“Yeah.” She sighed. “So now that you know, can we please go back? After we leave, you can tell your family all about how I’m a slut who slept with a white boy, and the whole world saw it. They’ll never mention me again.”
“You’re probably right.”
“I know I am,” she said, sounding very tired, and something she’d said came back to me.
I can’t get my mother to stop setting these meetings up.
“This has happened before,” I guessed. “You’ve had to tell this story before.”
“Every single time my parents introduce me to someone. I get my mom to ask the guy’s mom to send us out for coffee, and then I have this conversation with them. There’s no point in talking to someone who can’t handle what happened.”
More Than Just a Pretty Face Page 2
