Mariam Sharma Hits the Road

by Sheba Karim

  By the grand finale, I was pretty drunk, though I’d only had one; the vodka soda I’d ordered was basically all vodka with a splash of soda.

  After the show we headed downstairs, but when Umar went for the exit Ghaz pulled him back into the club. Behind the bar were two huge screens displaying the video of whatever pop song was blaring from the speakers. The bartender was shirtless, and there were two ripped dancers standing on either leg of the U-shaped bar, one in a tighty-whities, the other in a G-string.

  Ghaz immediately gravitated to Mr. G-string, waving a dollar bill. Seeing her, he bent over, his hands flat on the bar, his smooth, sculpted, and very naked buttocks gyrating madly.

  “That’s called serving cake,” Umar told me, watching intently while maintaining a careful distance.

  “What?”

  “Buttocks are cakes,” he reminded me.

  “Oh, right.”

  Ghaz lightly slapped Mr. G-string’s cakes, added a dollar bill to the others in his barely there waistband, and danced back to us.

  “Don’t touch me with that hand,” Umar warned her, yelping as Ghaz proceeded to rub her hand down his shirt.

  “Mars! Let’s do shots!” Ghaz cried.

  “I’m already drunk,” I said. “I need a breather.”

  As Ghaz went to do a shot alone, Umar and I stood by the wall, dancing to Adele’s “Send My Love.” Next to us, a short muscly white guy in a baseball cap hit on a black guy dressed in a fringed vest, a tattoo of a flock of geese on his bicep. By mid-song, they were grinding. By the song’s end, they were making out, holding on to each other’s cakes.

  Umar turned toward me.

  “I couldn’t do that,” he said apologetically, though I was the last person he needed to apologize to. “Hook up with someone I don’t know. Even touching the butt of someone I don’t know . . .”

  “You don’t have to do that,” I assured him.

  “I don’t belong at the IANA convention,” he said, “but I don’t quite belong here, either.”

  “Didn’t Ghaz tell you about some LGBTQ Muslim group that has an annual retreat?” I said.

  “Yeah.”

  I could tell he didn’t want to talk about it more, so I held his hand and got him to dance.

  After the song ended, I said, “What did she whisper to you?”

  “Who?”

  “Britney.”

  “She said, you’re too beautiful to keep hiding.”

  We heard Ghaz’s raucous, drunken scream. She’d befriended a bachelorette party at the bar, hollering along with them as the bride-to-be did a body shot off Mr. G-string, licking salt from his groin.

  “You think we can check out some live music?” Umar said. “I’ve had enough gay for the day.”

  I dragged Ghaz away from the bachelorettes and we took a Lyft to Frenchmen Street. To Umar’s relief, the allure of Frenchmen Street was less soft porn debauchery and more music and dancing, bar after bar of live music, people spilling out onto the streets, dancing on the sidewalks. The energy was infectious, even the blues music was tinged with a certain joy. All kinds of people were out and dancing: white people, black people, brown people, old people, young people, lanky girls sporting dreamcatcher earrings and ankle boots, hipster guys with T-shirts to their knees. There was even a guy in a white horse mask and red sneakers sitting on a chair on the sidewalk rocking out on his guitar.

  We were in love.

  The number of bars was a little overwhelming, but we found ourselves drawn into one by the female lead singer’s deep, soulful voice. It was a blues/funk band, and next to the stage danced a pasty man wearing tap shoes decorated with glow-in-the-dark skeletons, his heels clattering rhythmically, the other dancers allowing him ample room to do his thing.

  Ghaz and I ordered drinks, Umar a Diet Coke.

  “To NOLA! And to homosexual urges!” Ghaz proposed.

  After we toasted, she declared, “I love New Orleans! This is a city that knows how to live. I mean, look at this street, look at how alive it is. And this is a touristy street—imagine all the cool non-touristy places you can discover! I think I’m gonna stay here.”

  “What?” I said.

  “I can’t go back home, and now that my parents won’t help pay for NYU, how am I going to afford the exorbitant tuition? It’s one thing to have one hundred thousand dollars in loans, but two hundred, plus like another eighty for room and board? To study acting? How will I ever pay that off?”

  “Well, you could talk to the financial aid office—”

  “Why bother? I won’t qualify for a free ride, which is what I need. It’ll take me some time to figure stuff out anyway, and what better place than here? It’s such a cool city, and way cheaper than New York. I’ll find a job, a place, take a few acting classes on the side. You guys will come visit me. It’ll be awesome.”

  Before I could respond, a cute guy who’d been eyeing Ghaz since we’d walked in made his move.

  “Hello, beautiful,” he said in a Scottish accent, which meant he had her at hello, “would you like to dance?”

  “Certainly,” she said, giving me her drink and accepting his hand.

  “Do you think it’s a good idea for her to stay here?” I asked Umar.

  “Honestly, I don’t know,” he said. “She can’t go home. But she has no support network here. Should we go keep an eye on her? She’s pretty drunk.”

  Ghaz and the Scot were alternating between wild dancing and making out. At one point, they started spinning each other around, succeeding in knocking over the merch table, the skeleton-shoed tap dancer nearly crushing a few CDs as they slid beneath his feet. As the band looked on in dismay, a bouncer came over to kick Ghaz and the Scot out. Ghaz dashed over to us, grabbed our hands, and said “Run!”

  “What happened?” Umar said as we ducked into another bar. “He was hot.”

  “Rodent breath, alas,” Ghaz said, but we didn’t hear more because the band began a pumped-up rendition of Stevie Wonder’s “Superstition,” to which you had no choice but to dance. After a few songs, we left, thinking we’d go home, but as we passed the next bar, the music beckoned yet again, and we danced for a song, and then we said we were definitely going home, but as we walked by the next bar the same thing happened. When we ran out of bars there was the brass band of teenage boys who’d started playing in the street, and as exhausted as we were we couldn’t stop moving. With all this eating and drinking and dancing it was a wonder people in New Orleans got anything done.

  By the time we finally called it, Ghaz’s feet ached so much she was hobbling down the sidewalk barefoot, heels in hand, taking drunken swigs of toxic green Gatorade, while insisting we walk for a bit. We wandered away from the revelry of Frenchmen Street, stopping to give a few bucks to two homeless teens with a mangy dog. When we passed a side street lined with elegant, lamp-lit houses, Ghaz pointed at a stoop.

  “Sit,” she said.

  The stone steps were just big enough to fit the three of us across. We let out a collective moan as our bums hit something solid. It had been hours since we’d been still.

  There was a party at the other end of the block, in a redbrick house with lovely arched doors that opened onto an ornate balcony, funky soul music and peals of laughter floating downwind toward us.

  “The city is so full of mirth!” Ghaz exclaimed. “Do you think it has a dark side?”

  “Voodoo,” Umar said.

  “Katrina,” I said.

  “Poverty,” Umar added.

  “Endemic racism,” I said.

  “Of course. Everything has a dark side, doesn’t it?” Ghaz gulped the rest of the Gatorade then set down the empty bottle. I made a mental note to make sure it was recycled.

  “So you guys,” I said. “I think I want to visit India.”

  “What will you do there?” Ghaz asked.

  “I don’t know—travel. This trip has been intense in so many ways, but it made me realize, sometimes it’s good to get out of your comfort zone. India is
completely foreign, but I also have roots there. I think it would be interesting to see what I’d discover.”

  “It’ll be your Eat, Pray, Love,” she pronounced.

  “Um, no. More like . . . Explore. Wander. Ruminate,” I said.

  “Ruminate on Rumi,” Ghaz said.

  “That’s terrible,” Umar told her. “Plus, isn’t Rumi from Iran?”

  “It’s a pun pun pun,” Ghaz sang, and nudged him. “What would our Umar darling do if he went to India?”

  “I know,” I said. “Sigh. Shop. Dance.”

  “Sign me up,” Umar said. “But I’ve decided to do something, too. When we get home, I’m going to get in touch with the people who run that queer Muslim retreat.”

  “Awesome!” Ghaz declared. “So, this time next year, Mars will be in India, Umar at gay Muslim camp, and I’ll be living in one of these lovely apartments with French doors that open onto a moonlit balcony.”

  “Ghaz,” I said, “are you sure about this plan of yours?”

  “Why wouldn’t I be?” she said, and slung her arm around me. “So, if you do go to India, will you get in touch with your dad’s relatives?”

  “I don’t know,” I replied. “Maybe. But what if they’re all like my uncle?”

  “You ever hear from Uncle Sanjeev Sharma?” Umar asked.

  “Nope. Probably better that way.”

  Ghaz shook her head. “Your father’s younger brother is supposed to be the cool relative, but mine’s a dick, too. Ugh. Even mentioning him makes me sick.”

  Sanjeev Uncle was actually my father’s older brother, but I didn’t bother correcting her; she’d adopted a protective posture, legs into chest, chin resting on her knees, her eyes, distant and contemplative and sad, offering a rare window into the closely guarded secrets of her heart.

  “Ghaz,” I said. “What is it? What happened with your uncle?”

  She didn’t respond. Umar and I glanced at each other.

  “Did your chachu do something to you?” Umar asked gently.

  “You wanna know what my chachu did?” she said, and let out a laugh. “Of course you do. You want me to spill my tea, the real tea, the kind that burns your throat to say it? Fine. I’ll tell you guys, but only if Mars does something.”

  “What?” I asked.

  “Call Doug.”

  “Seriously? And say what?”

  “That you’re sorry, and you looooooove him.”

  “I actually was going to tell him I’m sorry, but I was thinking I’d email him after we got back.”

  “Lame.”

  “Ghaz—”

  “Lame.”

  “But—”

  “Deal or no deal? Plus, considering the situation, don’t you think an email apology would be a cop-out?”

  Her secret would probably depress and worry me, but it would be one less secret that she had to carry alone. And she was right—an email apology was a cop-out. After ghosting as I had, a phone call was the least I could do.

  “Fine,” I said, marveling at how even the possibility of hearing Doug’s voice made my heart beat faster. “I’ll call him.”

  Ghaz clapped her hands. “All right! Mars and Doug, sitting in a tree! Mars and Doug, in sweet Monty Python love again!”

  She reached for the Gatorade bottle. Realizing it was empty, she threw it aside. I leapt up and retrieved it, placing it safely between my feet.

  Ghaz smiled. “I did that to make you jump.”

  “Ha-ha,” I said.

  She shook her head. “How are you going to handle India? In South Asia people have no qualms about throwing trash out their car windows.”

  “You had something you wanted to tell us?” I reminded her.

  “What? Oh, yes. God, you guys are suckers for sob stories.”

  “Your chachu,” I prompted.

  “Oh, my chachu. He was my favorite relative. He’d always play with me when I was a kid, say the nice things my momma never did. You know why they named you Ghazala? Because a gazelle has the most beautiful eyes. When he told me that, I coasted on it for weeks. He’d always bring me Starburst because I loved them. He’d ask me trivia, usually things I ought to know, and if I was right I got a Starburst. And he’d read me and my sister stories, and he’d be all dramatic, like if he was reading about a lion he’d get down on the floor and roar. Not many desi uncles will get on the floor and be silly with the kids, you know?”

  My stomach was already twisting into a knot. This did not sound like it would end well. By the end, Ghaz would surely be hurt.

  “He didn’t visit for a while, and when he came back I was eleven. I already had my period, and I had tits.” She cupped her breasts, lifting them slightly. “My mom took me to Target to buy bras and she was so pissed the whole time, like it was my fault that I had boobs so early, and nice ones, too.

  “Anyway, he’s visiting, he’s married now, his wife is super pregnant. She was nice to my brother and sister but cold to me. And my mom was watching us carefully. She wanted to make sure I wasn’t familiar with my uncle like I used to be, now that I had tits. But I felt different, too. I wasn’t about to sit next to him on the couch and ask him to read a story. And I’d seen him stealing a glance at my chest at the dinner table, when my dupatta fell to my waist. A few minutes later, my mother called me to the kitchen and yelled at me for not keeping it up.

  “She was like, ‘Do you want people to think you’re a slut who likes to show off her chest?’

  “And I didn’t, but the truth was, I kind of liked it when he looked.”

  She stopped there, glancing up at the redbrick house. The party had diminished to a few lingerers in the corners of the balcony, conversing softly to a soundtrack of mellow jazz.

  “Harry Potter,” she said. “The third one, the best one. I couldn’t put it down, so I stayed up late, reading it under the covers with a flashlight. When I heard my door open, I thought my mom had come to yell at me, so I turned off the flashlight and hid under the covers, hoping she’d think I was asleep. But it wasn’t my mother; I could tell by the way the person was breathing, by the heaviness of the footsteps. He didn’t come all the way to the bed, but I could smell his sandalwood perfume. He wore it every day—his clothes smelled like it. I tried to stay really still, pretend to be asleep, but oh my God, my heart. I thought it would leap out of my chest and hit him in the face. There was this weird sound, like slapping. It didn’t last long, a few minutes. One of my feet was sticking out of the blanket and it twitched and I was so nervous he’d know I was awake. I heard him suck in his breath, and then I heard him leave and shut the door.

  “When my mom came to wake me up in the morning, she freaked out; she grabbed me and started shaking me, saying, ‘What did you do what did you do?’ I kept saying nothing, and she slapped me and pulled my hair and said, ‘Don’t lie, I can smell him in your room.’

  “I don’t know why I felt like I had to protect him, but I said he came in to give me a book, but I’d already read it. But I also said it to protect me, you know, because I didn’t think my mother would ever believe me.”

  Ghaz paused. Umar had been squeezing my arm ever since her chachu had entered the bedroom, hard enough for me to know it was time to trim his fingernails.

  “My mom never brought it up again. My chachu moved to the West Coast, so I didn’t see him for a long time. Then, when I was fifteen, I hooked up with this guy and he told me to go down on him and I said no because I’d already decided I didn’t like how pushy he was. So, he started jerking off, and I thought, I know that sound, that’s the same sound my chachu was making that night. He was watching me, I mean, not even me, the outline of my body as I lay under the covers in the dark, and jerking off.”

  “Have you seen him since?” I asked.

  “I saw him at a wedding a few years ago and it was all I could do not to spit in his face, because apparently, the desire to spit in other’s people faces runs in my family. And there you have it. My chachu’s secret. My secret.” She leaned b
ack on her elbows. “In vino veritas.”

  “Oh, Ghaz,” I said. “I’m sorry.”

  “Yeah,” Umar said. “Me, too.”

  “Is that the piece of the puzzle you wanted?” she asked.

  “What?” we said.

  “Is that the clue that explains my sexual promiscuity, which, by the way, is partly a figment of your imagination because I haven’t had sex in months. Does it explain my desire not to have serious relationships? Listen, I know that I have had fucked-up things happen to me, but I’m not going to let it define who I am. I won’t let it. And if there’s anything that’s messed me up, it’s my mother. All I’ve ever wanted in my entire life is for her to say, ‘Ghazala, I love you, Ghazala, you make me proud, Ghazala, you have nothing to be ashamed of, Ghazala, I’m sorry I hit you and called you all those terrible things’. I got an email from my friend today; she said the billboard’s gone, there’s some Swatch ad there now. It wasn’t even up a month, and I thought, was it worth losing my family? But then I thought, I never really had one, not in the way I wanted. My father has never once stuck up for me in front of my mother. Even when he thought she was being too harsh. The bitter irony of my life is that it’s when I’m with my family that I feel the most alone.”

  Before we could respond, she jumped up, stretched her arms toward the sky. “I’m done,” she said. “No more depressing talk. And I’m hungry! Come on, get up! Let’s find some Cajun nachos, stat.”

  Thirty-Three

  WHEN WE GOT BACK to the hotel, I stayed down in the courtyard to call Doug. It was four thirty a.m., and I figured he wouldn’t answer, that it would go to voice mail, I’d leave a heartfelt message of apology, the ball would be in his court.

  Except he answered on the fifth ring, the last ring, the one where you’re convinced it’ll be a missed connection.

  “Hello.”

  “Doug? It’s Mariam.”

  “Mariam. Hey. This is a surprise.”

  “Did I wake you?”

  “No, I was up. Drove out to the mesa to stargaze. Just got back a little while ago.”

  “Must have been beautiful.”

  “It was.”

  “Any shooting stars? Comets?”