by Sheba Karim
After a few exits on I-95, when Umar deigned to drive below eighty, and Ghaz had ceased her high-pitched exclamations, I said, “How did you come up with that rope idea?”
“Before Google, there were books,” she said, “and I happened to have this one. I got it in high school, for, like, fifty cents at the Strand. I brought it with us because you never know.” She unzipped her duffel bag and tossed a worn paperback onto my lap.
“How to Escape Every Situation,” I read. “The essential guide to breaking free, whether from a banana republic or a Republican boyfriend.”
“A lot of it is tongue-in-cheek,” she explained. “But they did have a section on how to escape curfew, which said to make a rope from strips of bedsheets, secure it to a bedpost, and climb down.”
“How did you know how to make the rope?” I asked.
“Girl Scouts! When they taught us basic knot tying, I used to practice tying knots in my mother’s dupattas and she’d get so annoyed. I wasn’t sure I’d be able to climb down, but I guess my yoga practice paid off.”
We stopped at a rest area to refuel. Ghaz got out of the car, unleashed another howl, ran in place for a second, then threw her arms around us, crying, “Darling Umar! Magnificent Mars! Thank you, amigos! I love you!”
Umar grunted his assent. Though deep down he was a hopeless romantic, a sucker for a cheesy rom com, he was uncomfortable verbalizing his own sentimental emotions. His preferred method of expressing he loved you was making fun of you.
“We love you, too,” I said. “I’m so glad we’re all together.”
As she stepped back, I scanned her for bruises but didn’t see any, at least not on the outside.
“Why are you dressed like you’re a member of Hamas?” Ghaz asked Umar.
“Ha! Great minds think alike,” I said.
Umar tugged at the kaffiyeh scarf around his neck and rolled his eyes.
“I’m going to get a coconut water,” she announced. “Requests?”
“A Kit Kat,” Umar said. “And a Mountain Dew.”
As Ghaz walked toward the convenience store, Umar nudged me. The attendant filling our tank was a skinny, mustached Indian uncle. He was checking out Ghaz so intently he didn’t hear the click of the fuel nozzle.
“Do you think he recognizes her from the billboard?” Umar said.
“I don’t know. A lot of men have that reaction to Ghaz,” I replied.
“True. She has, like, the elegance of Waheeda Rehman, and the spark of Kangana Ranaut.”
“Who are they?”
“Waheeda Rehman is this beautiful, famous Bollywood actress from the sixties, and Kangana—haven’t you seen Queen?” Umar said. “Tanu Weds Manu?”
“You know the only time I watch Bollywood is when you make me.”
He shook his head. “And to think you’re the actual Indian among us.”
“Half Indian,” I reminded him.
Ghaz returned with a bag stuffed with drinks, candy, and chips. This time, when Umar started the car, he was careful to say bismillah ar-rahman ar-rahim, which he recited before driving, eating, taking an exam, or embarking on any activity in which he had a stake in the outcome.
“So where are we going?” Ghaz asked.
“New Orleans, baby,” Umar said.
“Sweet! I’ve always wanted to go there. Wait—Napoleon and company is cool with you driving so far alone?”
Napoleon was our nickname for Umar’s dad. I’d only ever seen him in photos. He was small in stature and wore impeccably tailored suits. He had been captain of his school’s cricket team, class president, chief resident, navigated the world with the confidence of someone accustomed to being both uber-successful and highly respected, and expected his children to follow a similar trajectory. Umar said he became uncharacteristically quiet around him. His father didn’t appreciate Umar’s penchant for humor. “No one takes a joker seriously,” he’d tell Umar.
“Well,” Umar said, “they’re not thrilled I’m driving alone. They don’t get why anyone would want to drive so far by themselves. But since I’m driving to the biggest Islamic convention in the US, they’re cool with the destination.”
“Subhan allah!” Ghaz declared.
“But I have to message them and my sister every day. And none of us are posting anything on social media! They cannot know I’m with you guys.”
“Girls,” I corrected him.
“Witches,” he said.
“Speaking of social media, give me a phone,” Ghaz said. “I need to check my email. I’m sure my friends have been going nuts.”
“Tell them you’re safe, but don’t tell anyone where you are,” Umar warned her.
“What? Even my friends?”
“No one,” he insisted. “I’m serious. We need to be on the DL, like, for real.”
“All right, all right. How are we on dough?” Ghaz said. “I’ve got, like, one hundred dollars in cash.”
“I’ve got my credit card,” Umar said. “I can cover gas and our accommodations, though nothing too fancy.”
“My mom gave me a couple hundred,” I said, “and I’ve got a couple hundred more in the bank, plus a credit card.”
“We’re rich!” Ghaz said.
“Keep the change!” Umar cried.
Ghaz leaned forward, planting a fat kiss on Umar’s cheek, then mine.
“The Big Easy or bust!” she exclaimed. “Let the road trip begin.”
Ten
UMAR AND I BEGAN TO FADE, but Ghaz was wired, singing along to Madonna. When “What It Feels Like for a Girl” came on, she ratcheted it up ten octaves.
“Do you knooooow what it feeeeels like for a girl,” she crooned, swaying the length of the back seat. Ghaz’s voice was one aspect of her that was decidedly unbeautiful, though unfailingly impassioned. Umar was the talented crooner among us, but he hardly ever sang.
After a minute, Umar turned the volume down, but Ghaz didn’t seem to notice.
“Ghaz,” Umar said.
Ghaz stuck her head between our seats. “Do you knoooooow—”
“Ghaz!”
“What? You should thank me. I’m keeping you awake.”
“And giving me a migraine.”
“Tone-deaf people have rights, too.”
“Friends, we are a half hour from Philly and we have no idea where we’re staying,” I reminded them. “Ghaz, maybe you can find us a place on Umar’s phone?”
“Is this so I will shut up?” Ghaz objected, but started searching. “What’s the budget, Sugar Daddy?”
“Fifty bucks.”
A few minutes of peaceful quiet later, Ghaz announced, “Okay, I booked one for one hundred dollars a night right in town.”
“One hundred dollars!” Umar exclaimed.
“You can’t get cheaper than that in Center City unless we stay in a hostel. Which means sharing a room with strangers. And a bathroom.”
“No way,” he said. “Unless the strangers are hot guys.”
“Like you’d do anything anyway! One hundred bucks a night it is.”
We perked up as we crossed the Ben Franklin Bridge and the Philly skyline beckoned. There was only a handful of proper skyscrapers, concentrated in the same area but comfortably spaced apart. Even though Swarthmore was within commuting distance, I’d only visited Philly a few times. I liked it immediately. It was unpretentious, easy to navigate, a city you could breathe in.
The hotel Ghaz had booked faced the back of the convention center, on a narrow street that lacked both charm and adequate lighting. The stringy-haired male receptionist in the cramped lobby was possibly inebriated, and after sneezing into his shirt, failed to notice the huge asparagus-colored gob of phlegm he’d deposited on his sleeve.
“Ghazala?” he said. “That’s a pretty name.”
“Thanks,” she told him.
“What does it mean?”
Umar and I exchanged an exhausted glance. It was a mistake to have Ghaz check in; tasks often took longer with her because you
had to account for flirting time. Usually, she played along for a bit, longer if she thought the guy was cute, but even she was too tired to be nice.
“It means gazelle,” she said. “And, um, there’s something on your sleeve.”
He raised his arm. “Would you look at that,” he declared, yet did nothing about it.
“The key, please?” Ghaz said sweetly.
“I hope Booger Man isn’t also in charge of cleaning the rooms,” Umar grumbled after the elevator doors had closed.
“Ah, give him a break. He’s working the graveyard shift for minimum wage,” Ghaz said. “You’d be drunk, too.”
Given the conditions down below, we weren’t surprised by the sorry state of our room, which smelled like mildew and antiseptic. The toilet lid had marks like some cat had used it as a scratching post, and the shower was tiny and plastic. The sink was in the main room, in a corner next to one of the beds. Even the muddy brown color of the carpet couldn’t mask its amoebic-patterned stains.
“One hundred bucks a night for this?” Umar exclaimed.
“Location, location, location,” Ghaz said dryly.
“Maybe opening the curtain will help,” I said, pulling back the drapes before realizing the room’s only window looked out onto the interior hallway.
“Guess not,” Umar said.
“Only keep one lamp on,” Ghaz suggested. “Mood lighting.”
“On the bright side,” I offered, “things can only get better from here.”
We had just changed into our pj’s when the call to dawn prayer sang out from Umar’s iPhone.
“Umar!” Ghaz groaned. “You have got to silence that app.”
Umar only prayed Fajr when school was out, because then he could go back to bed and sleep in. He’d told me once that the first light of day rose vertically in the sky, but this was called the false dawn, because this light would disappear and the sky would turn dark again. The time for Fajr was the true dawn, which appeared as a horizontal glow, a river of light stretching along the earth’s edge. He said in the old days the muezzin would climb to the top of the masjid’s minaret while it was still dark, and wait for the true dawn light before singing out the call to prayer. There was something romantic about it, the muezzin in the tower waiting for the river of light.
Umar used his phone to figure out the direction of Mecca, spread out his prayer rug by the door, and started to pray. Next to me, Ghaz was falling asleep, her long lashes fluttering, her full lips slightly parted.
I reached into my backpack. In the inside pocket, tucked inside The Brothers Karamazov, was my only other memento of my father. My mother had thrown out his photos a long time ago, but I’d rescued this one and kept it hidden at the bottom of my sock drawer. In it, he has long, hippie hair and is dressed in baggy, light blue jeans and a rose-colored kurta. He’s standing in front of a carved wooden doorway. Over the doorway it says Restaurant, to the left of that, it says Volga in large brown letters. This restaurant doesn’t seem like it’s in India, more like eastern Europe somewhere. I’d always wondered who took this photo. I guessed it was a woman, because as he’s lighting the cigarette he’s looking up at her, his gaze both playful and intense, his lips set in a coy half smile. We look so much alike, but the attitude of his in the photo—cocky, coquettish with a hint of smoldering—was something I’d never be able to replicate.
“Hey,” Umar said, and I hid the photo under my pillow.
“How was your prayer?” I asked.
“Good. I spent most of the du’a asking Allah to look out for us, and especially Ghaz.”
I sat up, gave Sleeping Beauty’s soft cheek a gentle stroke. “She looks so peaceful. You’d never guess her parents had just kept her hostage in her room. But we can’t let her pretend everything is okay, not with something as intense as this, right?”
“No,” he agreed. “But let’s give her some time to decompress. And don’t worry so much, Mars. Everything will be better in the morning.”
“Darling Umar,” I said, “it is the morning.”
Eleven
I WOKE UP TO GHAZ jumping up and down on our bed, waving a white paper bag and singing, “Subah ho gayee, Mamu!”
Morning has come, Uncle.
She was already dressed, the same jean shorts as yesterday and a different tank top, hair pulled back in a slick ponytail, black eyeliner and pink lip gloss. She looked great, though she was the kind of girl who could wake up crusty-eyed with a head-splitting hangover and still look beautiful.
“What are you singing?” I groaned. “Why are you singing?”
“You’ve never seen Munna Bhai MBBS?” she exclaimed.
“Why do you even bother with the Bollywood references?” I said.
“True. By the way, it’s like homeless dude central outside this roach motel.” She waved the bag around my face, my nostrils flaring happily at the aroma of butter and sugar. “Chocolate or almond croissant?”
“Chocolate.”
“Eat up. We have a busy day ahead. How is Umar sleeping through this?”
“He’s that tired,” I said.
Umar was sleeping with his mouth wide open, his dream punctuated by the occasional snort. He was still in his clothes from yesterday, his scarf crumpled underneath him. In one graceful bound, Ghaz left our bed and landed on his, straddling him and slapping his face with her ponytail while eating her croissant. It normally took her several hours and a venti skinny latte to achieve this level of acrobatics.
Umar groaned, swatting away Ghaz’s hair. “Go away, witch. What’s up with you? You’re usually Zombie Apocalypse until at least ten a.m.”
“Call it . . . the road trip effect,” she declared.
“It’s either that or there’s cocaine in that croissant,” I said.
“Mars!” Ghaz cried. “You really are becoming funnier every day. Now get up, both of you! Chalo, utho! We have lots to do.”
“Like what?” Umar asked.
“Well, first off,” she told him, “we have to get you a fake ID.”
“I don’t have a fake ID either,” I said.
“What? You went through freshman year without one?” she said.
“I didn’t really need one.”
“Wow. Swat sounds like a blast. Correction—we need to get both of you losers fake IDs,” she said.
“Fake IDs for what?” Umar asked.
“Uh, to go to bars and clubs, what else? We are planning to have fun on this road trip, yes?”
“Fake IDs are illegal,” Umar pointed out.
“So is sodomy, in Louisiana,” she shot back.
“I’m not planning on doing that, either.”
“That’s what you think!” she exclaimed, pushing his hair off his forehead. “Although this dandruff has gotta go.”
“I can tell you something else that’s gotta go,” he protested, somehow managing to flip onto his stomach with Ghaz still on top of him.
She folded her arms. “What is up with you guys? It’s the first day of our road trip and you won’t even get out of bed! Come on, we need to celebrate!”
“Celebrate what?” I inquired.
Ghaz lay down next to Umar. “Listen, I know you guys think that I should be all traumatized, but it’s cool. There are actually positives that came out of the billboard. I’m now free of all expectation. My parents aren’t going to pressure me to get married because no decent Pakistani boy would marry me anyway. They aren’t going to tell me not to have sex because the whole world’s already seen me in my underwear. And I get to go on a road trip with my best friends! So, in short, life is good, and worth celebrating.”
“Speaking of your parents, shouldn’t you call them and let them know you’re safe?” I suggested.
“Yes,” Umar agreed, claiming what remained of Ghaz’s croissant. “They’re probably worried.”
“I already sent them an email from Mars’s phone. I’m safe, won’t be in contact for a while, peace. Now get up! Let’s goooooo.”
My mot
her texted as I was brushing my teeth.
How is Ghazala?
I wasn’t sure how to answer this question. Fine, yet probably not fine? Happy, yet suffering in secret? Acrobatic, yet surely wounded?
I settled for
Okay. I think.
Twelve
TO ME, THE SCENT OF PHILLY was grilled meat and hoppy beer, which, even though I was a vegetarian, was actually kind of nice. The stretch of Spring Garden we were walking along, however, smelled like putrid heat radiating off broken asphalt, with the occasional whiff of Chinese takeout. Ghaz led us into a decrepit Laundromat at the end of a block that boasted two firearms shops and a pistol range. After engaging in hushed conversation with Ghaz, the woman behind the counter opened a back door, yelling down in what seemed to be some kind of code. She gestured for us to descend a dark set of stairs that led to a basement room with a computer and industrial-looking printers. A white guy with a fake tan and dreadlocks was sitting cross-legged on a metal stool, playing a video game on his phone that featured explosions and an occasional high-pitched shriek, which I hoped wasn’t a woman dying or being assaulted.
“How many?” he asked.
“Two,” Ghaz said. She turned to us. “It’s one fifty each, but I bargained for two for two fifty.”
“Two hundred and fifty dollars? Are you serious?” Umar said.
“Best IDs money can buy,” the guy said. “Cheaper ones can be had, but those won’t fool any bouncer worth his hulk.”
Ghaz gave us an imploring look, and Umar sighed.
“Fine,” he said.
“Cash only,” the guy said, hopping off the stool and picking up his camera.
When asked to pick a state, I chose New Mexico, because that’s where Doug was from. He made it sound so beautiful. In high school, he and his friends used to drive onto a mesa outside of Santa Fe to watch the monsoon lightning storms. He liked the nocturnal storms best, when the whole sky would go from black to deep purple, and there might be what he called a monotheist—a single lightning bolt—or several bolts intertwined, a radiant web of light. Sometimes it was so intense, he said, you’d feel it in your veins. I’d imagined that we’d drive onto the mesa together one day and watch the lightning dance, hold hands as our bodies turned electric.
