The Chai Factor

by Farah Heron

  “Wow, I would never have guessed,” Travis said. “You two both look so young! I’m twenty-eight, same as Barrington. Sameer is twenty-five, and Duncan, our wise elder, is thirty-two.”

  “Nice! I know you two are together”—Reena waved her hand towards Sameer and Travis—“but Duncan and Barrington are single, right?” The cider was most definitely going to Reena’s head. Amira pinched her friend again, hoping it would put a stop to this interrogation.

  Although . . . it was interesting to learn Duncan was thirty-two. He definitely carried himself like the wise elder in the group, despite his current immature sulking. She saw his mouth tighten to a straight line. His maturity seemed to match Zahra’s tonight.

  Did that pout have something to do with his single status? Maybe this was a sore spot for him?

  “I’m getting married in the winter,” Barrington said. “But Duncan’s still looking for perfection. Of course, he’ll never find it, since I’m marrying it.”

  “Perfection is highly overrated. I like less determination. A more easygoing personality,” Duncan said.

  Barrington laughed. “That is so not true. You like them complicated and fastidious.”

  Duncan scowled again, before looking straight at Amira. “Nah, what would a meticulous planner do with me? You know, Princess, spending so much time with noise dampeners may dampen your ability to enjoy life.”

  That’s it. Amira was done turning the other cheek. She pointed her finger at Duncan. “Look, gnome boy, if you think I’m going to show some new disdain for my life by seeing it through your eyes, you’re sorely mistaken. We are all aware that you have nothing but contempt for my life choices, so why don’t you take that Yukon Cornelius beard and shove it up your—”

  Reena pinched Amira this time. Hard. She winced and glared at her so-called friend.

  The lights in the restaurant suddenly dimmed. “Group’s coming on,” Sameer said.

  Travis turned to Amira and Reena. “This is Fourth Fret. They’re huge in the barbershop community out here. Our toughest competition.”

  Fourth Fret consisted of four singers: two attractive men and two attractive women, all with dark hair and looking to be in their early to mid-twenties. The men wore slim black suits, white shirts, and skinny black ties, and the women wore white blouses and black velvet skirts. Even before they opened their mouths, Amira wasn’t impressed. They looked so . . . cookie cutter. The same. They were different races, but they still looked like siblings. She liked the eclectic look of Duncan’s group better. Or, rather, Sameer’s group.

  But from the moment the guy on the far right pulled out a pitch pipe to find their first note, Amira was transfixed. She knew so little about barbershop music, but these guys were spectacular. They didn’t just sing, they entertained. Unexpectedly, they started with a Taylor Swift song, and after they shook it all off, they seamlessly transitioned to “Bohemian Rhapsody.” They snapped their fingers, danced, and were so expressive, their bland cookie-cutter looks were all but forgotten. In between songs, they told jokes and interacted with the crowd. In a word, they were amazing.

  Amira eyed her companions. Sam I Am What I Am had the vocal talent, but did they have that certain unknown factor? The “spark” to beat Fourth Fret? Sameer with his rambling and scowls, Barrington with his pleasant professionalism, and Duncan with his smirks and underhanded comments. Not to mention all the infighting whenever they rehearsed. She could only picture Travis engaging with the audience like this, but if they were going to compete with these guys, they would all have to be on.

  After the quartet sang their final number (“The Longest Time” by Billy Joel) and left the stage, the table was silent. Amira wondered if they were thinking the same thing as her.

  “Those guys were . . . good,” Reena said, diplomatically.

  “They were awesome,” Barrington groaned. “We have a lot of work to do.”

  “But we’ll do it,” Travis said. “We can sing those guys into a corner, we have the chops.”

  “But we’re nowhere near that calibre.” Sameer fidgeted with the cardboard coaster on the table.

  “We will be, Sameer.” Travis looked at him. “We’ll get there.”

  Amira looked at Duncan, conspicuously silent during this pep talk. Of the four of them, he was the only one who worked professionally in the music industry. No doubt his opinions on their chances were different from the others.

  He noticed her looking at him again, but this time he didn’t smirk, or scowl. He nodded, smiling sadly, as if he understood what she was thinking. They needed so much more than singing chops to win, and they were far from ready.

  But what she didn’t get yet was why this was so important to them. Duncan said he intended to win this thing as if his life depended on it. All of them had put their personal and professional lives on hold and tucked themselves away in her grandmother’s basement to rehearse for a barbershop quartet competition. Why? It seemed so silly. Certainly silly compared to her current goals. But these guys seemed even more stressed than she was.

  And a tightening constriction in her stomach told her that their stress was rubbing off on her, which perplexed her to no end. Why did she care what happened to these four singing misfits?

  * * *

  THE NEXT DAY, Amira kept to her routine and worked all morning. But by afternoon, yesterday’s late night caught up with her and she couldn’t convince herself to keep working, so she wandered upstairs to see if anyone wanted to do something.

  Her mother was in the kitchen, standing by the microwave and looking into her phone. Amira watched her for a second before interrupting. Mum was looking amazing these days. She used to wear her hair long, and usually pulled back into a ponytail, but she’d recently had it cut into a more structured shoulder-length style that brought out her natural waves. And although she’d always been small and slim, her mum looked stronger these days. Less stressed and overworked, more vibrant, and as a result, even more beautiful than ever.

  “Hi, Mum, you’re not working today?”

  She turned and smiled at Amira, slipping her phone into the pocket of her jeans. “No. I’m taking Zahra to a dance class later. Do you want some biryani?”

  “Sure.” Amira pulled down a bowl from the cabinet. “Where is she now?”

  Her mum spooned the chicken biryani from a plastic container into Amira’s bowl and put it in the microwave. “She’s at Bollywood Beat but she has an emergency Kathak lesson in an hour.”

  Amira laughed. “Emergency? I don’t think I want to know what constitutes a dance emergency. I was hoping you, Zahra, or Nanima were free this afternoon to go to a movie or something.”

  Her mum took her own bowl to the dining table and sat down, putting her phone on the table in front of her. She shook her head. “No one is ever free in this house. Your grandmother is at a funeral.”

  “Anyone I know?”

  “Probably not. At her age, funerals are social events.”

  Amira laughed. After the microwave chimed, she brought her bowl to sit with her mother. “Nanima says you work too much lately.”

  Her mum’s mouth tightened. “I know, she said that to me, too. But I’m not working any more than I always did. She’s the one out of the house all the time. The woman is in her seventies and out six days a week, and she says I work too hard?”

  “She’s always had a busy life.”

  Her mum sighed. “I know. I’m happy she’s healthy and vibrant at her age, but I can do without the judgment. She’s annoyed that I have a social life one minute, then tells me I don’t get out enough the next.” Mum took a bit of her rice, furrowing her brow in disdain.

  Amira didn’t know what to say. She agreed that Nanima was a touch too judgmental, but she’d never heard her mother complain about Nanima judging her, instead of others.

  “Anyway, enough about that,” Mum said. “Are you available to watch Zahra tomorrow morning? I’m on the early shift.”

  “I’m home, but I need to be w
orking on my project.”

  “I’ll tell her to stay out of your hair. She has homework, too. I don’t want to ask your grandmother. I’m much too dependent on her.”

  “Did Nanima say that?”

  Mum didn’t answer for a while, only ate quietly. Amira could see the tension in her mother’s shoulders. It suddenly occurred to her that she hadn’t seen her mother and grandmother in the same room even once since she’d come home. Of course, with everyone in the family busy, and Amira’s head in academic journals most of the time, it was no wonder. She couldn’t expect everyone to be around at the same time.

  She’d always assumed her mother and grandmother had a good relationship. They’d have to have been close for Mum to move back here after the divorce. But thinking back, she didn’t remember them ever doing anything social together. Not cooking together, not shopping or going to movies together. Certainly not the relationship Amira had with her mother. Or the relationship Amira had with her grandmother, for that matter. True, Mum always worked hard, but Mum made time for Amira and Zahra consistently, rarely for her own mother.

  It was funny how coming back after being gone so long illuminated a family dynamic she hadn’t noticed before.

  “No, of course not. It’s fine,” Mum finally said. “Just some old ghosts that have come back to haunt me. I’m honestly grateful for my mother’s help with Zahra. And yours, too, Amira.” She reached over and squeezed Amira’s hand for a second. “I’m glad you’re back in the city . . . but I hope you don’t think you need to keep living here with us because of me. If you can help with Zahra when you’re here, that’s great, but your own future should come first.”

  Mum stood, talking her empty bowl to the kitchen. She clearly didn’t want to talk about these ghosts, and Amira was fine with that right now. Mum would be leaving to ferry Zahra from one dance class to another very shortly, and this sounded like a big conversation. She wondered if it had anything to do with this mystery man. Mum still hadn’t mentioned him.

  “Mum, let’s do dinner, soon. Just me and you. Maybe after this report’s done and I have time to breathe. We need to catch up properly.”

  Mum turned back and smiled. “I’d love that, sweetie. Focus on your paper now, and we’ll find time when you’re done. And be honest with me—if the responsibilities here are getting in the way of your work, let us know. We can manage Zahra on our own. Education always comes first.”

  After finishing her rice alone, Amira went downstairs. She still didn’t feel like getting back to her report. Maybe one of the guys was around to chat with.

  But the basement was empty. Quiet. Eight people living in this small house, and no one around the rare time Amira wanted company. She made a pot of chai and sat on the sofa. She was about to call Reena when the side door opened and heavy footsteps came down the stairs. Amira sat up straighter and smoothed her hair. When the footsteps finally reached her, it was only Barrington and Duncan, not the whole group.

  “I just had, easily, the best burger I’ve had in my life,” Barrington said, falling heavily into the armchair. “They used grilled cheese sandwiches as buns.”

  Duncan chuckled as he sat on the other end of the couch. “I can’t get over the food you guys have in this city. Going to have to start running again or I won’t be able to do those dance moves you’re insisting on, Barry.” He paused. “On second thought, maybe it’s a good thing. It would mean the audience wouldn’t be tortured by my spastic twerking.”

  Amira had been aiming to ignore the garden gnome but she snort-laughed at that. And made a mental note to sneakily watch one of their rehearsals.

  “You guys aren’t practising today?” she asked.

  “We should be,” Barrington said. “After seeing what Fourth Fret can do, we should be working double time. But Travis and Sameer had plans for brunch with a friend who lives here now. Anyway, I need to call my beautiful lady. See you later.” He stood, smiled, and left the room.

  That left Amira alone with Duncan. She was aching for company, but alone time with the garden gnome wasn’t what she had in mind. She considered the politest way to escape, since she didn’t want a rehash of last night’s snarkfest.

  “He’s so whipped,” Duncan said, lounging comfortably two feet away. “He talks to her every night before going to sleep. As his roommate, I have to state how glad I am they haven’t discovered phone sex yet.”

  “It’s sweet, though. They must miss each other.” Amira placed her empty mug on the coffee table.

  “Maybe. I’m glad I have no relationship getting in my way right now. Between Barry calling his girl every two minutes, and Sam and Travis’s bickering, it’s a wonder we get any practising in at all. Not to mention the constant sour moods.”

  “So, that’s why no girl back home in . . . Om . . . where was it? It’s not your futile search for perfection?”

  “Omemee. And no. Perfection or not, my life wouldn’t suit a relationship right now. No steady job, I work week to week. What about you, Princess? No prince to show you his magic carpet?”

  Amira frowned. Was that sexual innuendo? She honestly had no idea. “No. Only grad school in my world right now.”

  He sat quietly next to her, clearly deep in thought. This conversation had to be a record—the longest they’d gone without snarking at each other since the day they met. Amira didn’t want to poke the bear, so to speak, so she said nothing lest she set him off again.

  He sighed audibly and scrubbed his hands over his face. “Ugh. I should have brought my guitar,” he mumbled with hands over his face.

  “What?”

  He removed his hands. “My guitar. At the last minute, I decided not to bring it since I took the train because my brother needed my truck. I thought we’d be rehearsing non-stop, and this is a cappella, no instruments. But now I’m antsy. Longest I’ve gone without a guitar, ever. My fingers are itching . . .”

  “I have a guitar,” Amira said.

  He leaned towards her, a grin spreading on his face. “You do?”

  “Yeah, hang on . . .” She took her mug to the kitchen before fetching her rarely used guitar from under her bed and bringing it to him. “I don’t think it’s been out of its case in years. My dad got it for me on my seventeenth birthday. He didn’t buy me lessons, though. I learned a bit with books, but that eventually fizzled.” She handed him the hard plastic case.

  He unlatched it and whistled. “She’s a beaut. I expected a cheap entry-level instrument, not this.”

  Amira smiled at the sight of her old mahogany Fender acoustic/electric. Even if she didn’t know how to play the thing, she loved the look of it. “I know. My dad was going through a bit of absentee-father guilt. He’s away for work a lot, so we didn’t see much of him back then. He’d have bought me the moon if I’d wanted it.”

  He took the instrument in his hands and began strumming. It was fascinating how his whole stance changed once he had a guitar in his arms. Parts of him relaxed, while others held firm on the wood body. It looked as if a lost limb had been returned to him.

  He smiled warmly. “It’s out of tune.” He fiddled with the tuning pegs until he was happy with the tones the strings produced.

  Then he looked at the strings, smiled again, and started playing. He plucked individual strings as his hand snaked across the frets at a ridiculously fast speed. It was a complicated arrangement of a simple melody that Amira immediately recognized, a song she wouldn’t have expected him to play.

  “‘Enjoy the Silence,’” she said. “Depeche Mode.”

  “Yeah.” He grinned at her, continuing to play the melody. “Song’s been stuck in my head since last night, when you said you enjoy silence.”

  She loved that song, although it wasn’t one she’d heard or thought about in years. He started singing, his clear, deep voice resonating through the small room. That voice . . . it was the one she’d identified while listening to the boys rehearsing from her room. His was the best voice in their quartet. She watched him singin
g. His finger work on the strings was impressive enough, but what was remarkable was the way Duncan’s entire air changed as the song came out of him. It wasn’t just sound waves created by the vibrations in his throat or the guitar string vibrations resonating through the hollow wood body—it was more than that. As an engineer, Amira found it fascinating how the individual mechanisms that created music became so much more than their individual outputs. With Duncan, the effect was even more pronounced. The music wasn’t just coming out of him, it was him. When he reached the chorus, her skin erupted in goosebumps.

  When he finished the last verse, he continued finger picking the melody, then slowed down until a final strumming of all the strings with flourish. He looked at Amira, green eyes twinkling with shy pleasure. “It’s a nice instrument.”

  She couldn’t resist that look of bliss on his face. “Feel free to use it whenever you’d like, while you’re here . . . it’s great that it’s getting some love.”

  Still smiling, he ran his fingers over the neck with affection. “Needs new strings. I’ll pick some up tomorrow. Thanks a lot, Amira. This will really ease my nerves.”

  “No problem,” she said, getting up. “There’s more chai in the kitchen if you want.”

  She escaped to her room. Watching him play was strangely disconcerting, and she didn’t understand why it made her uncomfortable. She needed to put some distance between herself and Duncan. Plus, he called her Amira instead of Princess. It felt odd.

  But at least she’d discovered one thing—she and Duncan Galahad could coexist.

  Chapter Ten

  THERE WAS NO way in hell Amira could coexist with Duncan Galahad and his merry minstrels. She was sure she had been suffering from turmeric-milk-induced delusions when she came up with this deranged bearding-for-silence scheme. Despite a few successful days, the quartet had already reneged on their end of the bargain. It was barely ten o’clock Sunday morning, and after only two hours of silent work, Amira heard the heavy footsteps start. Zahra, who was sitting on Amira’s bed watching a movie, managed to hear it through her headphones and looked up.