“She lives in your building,” I say without thinking.
“What? How do you know that?”
I bite my tongue. “I don’t. Forget I said anything.”
Ahmed grins the way a cat might right before it eats a mouse. “Aww, come on. Don’t be like that. If she does live in my building, I can hook you up.”
“It’s fate,” Steve says. “You have a thing for her; looks like she has a thing for you—ow!” he shouts when I punch him in the arm.
As embarrassing as it was to be caught salivating over a girl—that’s Steve’s thing, not mine—I am not ready yet to get into a relationship like the one I had with Afrin. Afrin wasn’t only the first Zoroastrian girl I ever dated, but also the first girl I felt something for that was more than lust. I’ve faced disappointments with girlfriends before, but Afrin was different. She taught me the meaning of heartbreak.
Ahmed and Steve think that hooking up with other girls will change that. But whoever these fictitious girls are, I know that the new girl isn’t going to be one of them. She’s way too shy, for one thing. It’ll be a miracle if she says hi to me by the end of the semester, let alone allows me to slip my hand into the back pocket of her jeans.
“Malcolm. Come on.” Ahmed’s face is a little more serious now. “Don’t you think it’s time? I know what Afrin did was awful, but—”
“I don’t want to talk about Afrin.”
I ignore the look Ahmed and Steve shoot each other, ignore my heartbeat, which has gone from a steady canter to a gallop.
“In any case, it looks like she’s taking calculus along with the rest of the nerds,” I say, pointing toward the room the new girl disappeared into. “It’s not like we’re going to have any classes in common.”
Or anything in common.
Pretty as she might be, I know that girls like her do not go for guys like me. Heather Dupuis. Elle Fernandez. Preeti Sharma. All straight-A students with crushes on star athletes like Vincent Tran and Sergio Garcia.
I look up at the new girl’s locker which, as luck would have it, is right next to mine.
“Should we leave you here?” Ahmed asks.
“Yeah, maybe you can practice talking to her locker,” Steve says.
“Shut up,” I tell them, and head to class as the warning bell goes off.
* * *
I don’t see her again for the first half of the day. Not in college-level math. Nor in accounting. Not even during lunch, when the guys and I go out (with everyone else who knows better than to eat the cafeteria food) to inhale giant gooey cheese slices from Joe’s Pizzeria across the street.
Before the start of the third period, a part of me relaxes, thinking that maybe I won’t see her, when I suddenly do, right at the back of the room, in a university-level course I would never have enrolled in had it not been for my surprisingly good performance during eleventh-grade English and the insistence of the teacher, Mr. Kristoff, who thought I had “great ideas” and a “way with words.”
The new girl is sitting right at the back of my English class, in the second-last row, inches away from where Ahmed, Steve, and I usually sit when we have the same classes together. I can already hear Steve suppressing a laugh behind me. I school my face into its usual indifferent mask and scan the rest of my classmates, familiar faces I know by name, but barely talk to. Then I see her and feel my mask slip again. Godafrin, a.k.a. Afrin, Irani. Long hair. Longer legs. Settled in the lap of some guy, her high giggle unmistakable, painful to my ears.
I walk to the back of the room, nodding at a couple of guys I recognize from basketball, and then, casually, without thinking too much about it, slide a hand over the new girl’s desk. I don’t miss the way her head jerks to watch my hand, or the slight blush on her brown cheeks.
She stares at the three-ring binder in front of her, already opened to a freshly lined page, the date and course code neatly written down in the upper-right corner in blue ink. An HB number 2 rests right next to the pen, the point fresh, sharpened.
A perfectionist. So not my type.
My fingers slide off the desk.
I begin chatting with Ahmed and Steve, ignoring the girl’s presence, or at least pretending to, seeing her shoulders slowly, infinitesimally relax into a slouch. She picks up a pen again and flips to the back of the binder where she begins scribbling something.
Probably math equations. Maybe she’ll be the one to finally discover a solution to world peace through numbers. I turn to face the front when I hear the door closing, the level of noise in the classroom growing subdued, announcing the arrival of the teacher.
The man—an awfully familiar man—clears his throat and adjusts his tie, probably still a clip-on, from what I remember from ninth grade.
Crap. What’s Zuric doing here?
I check my schedule, wondering how I managed to miss this, but the bright pink paper still only says TBA in small black letters next to Instructor.
“He’s the only one teaching twelfth-grade English this year,” Ahmed says, and I realize that I’ve spoken my question out loud.
“I’m dropping.”
“Don’t be an idiot. You can’t. You won’t graduate otherwise. Come on, man. It’s only a dumb teacher.”
I curse again.
When I signed up for this course last year, still doped up on Mr. Kristoff’s praise, I completely forgot that he would not be teaching English this year, that he never taught the senior class. Clearly there’s only one teacher for university-level English this year and that is my old nemesis Emil Zuric. The man who you’d think was a nervous wreck from the way he conducted class, from the way no one took him seriously, until the day he called my normally MIA father in the ninth grade to tell him I would fail English that year if I didn’t wise up. I never lost the scars from the caning I got after that. Or forgot the role Zuric had to play in them.
“Good afternoon, everyone. Hope you’re having a great first day back to school.” Zuric’s teeth flash a dull yellow; the classroom lights aren’t doing him any favors.
His eyes move in that practiced way teachers have, scanning the room for old favorites, picking out new faces. Narrowing when they land on me, his smile slipping slightly.
“I heard some of you did really well in your English exams last year.”
Afrin’s highlights shimmer when she tosses her hair behind her back. She turns to look at me. I roll my eyes at the ceiling and ignore both her and Zuric.
“This is a good thing. Because let me tell you that this course won’t get any easier. We have a play and a novel to cover this semester, not including your independent study, along with several short stories and poems. This course is heavily focused on analyzing literary themes and will be more challenging to some of you than to others.”
Zuric fumbles with the bulldog clip holding a stack of course outlines together. He splits the stack in four, one for each row of desks, and hands the outlines to the kids sitting in the front row.
I pull out a pencil from my binder and spin it on the desk like a compass. As the outline makes its way to the back, I tune out Zuric’s mumbling monotone and once more find myself staring at the back of the new girl’s head. I spy a thin strand of silver peeking from the hair tie at the center of her skull. A blessing from a loved one, Mom used to call them when they appeared on anyone younger than thirty.
I ignore the stabbing sensation in my chest that always comes with thoughts of my mother and force myself to smile for the crowd. The fake smile remains on my face when the new girl finally turns in her seat, holding out the last couple of outlines. She does not smile back, but this time looks me in the eye again.
Five seconds. Ten. Fifteen. She does not look away and this amount of time is pretty much an eternity when it comes to engaging a guy’s attention according to those teen girl magazines Mahtab keeps reading. Despite my vow not to get involved with anyone this semester, I find myself leaning forward, reaching out to grab the papers and brushing her fingers in the process.
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My skin tingles in a way it never has before, not even with Afrin, and I pull away, startled. The new girl turns quickly, tugging her long ponytail over one shoulder, exposing her nape and the tiny birthmark there, a dot placed right where her spine begins.
I roll my fingers in, accidentally crushing the paper’s edge in the process. I am so distracted by what happened that I don’t hear the announcement Zuric makes about class introductions. But he must have made one because I see a couple of girls in front stand and recite their names, favorite books, and hobbies to the rest of the class. Normally I couldn’t care less about class intros, but I am now desperate to know who this new girl is, to put a name to the mystery, solve it and be done with it. Names classify things, make them familiar, easy to understand. Ordinary.
It takes a long time to get to the last few rows. The girl finally stands, a wrinkle in the back of her lavender shirt from sitting all day.
“My name is Susan Thomas. My favorite book is Macbeth. I like drawing things.” Her voice is smooth and clear, the Indian accent unmistakable.
Mr. Zuric’s face glows in the way it always does when someone mentions one of the classics or Shakespeare as a favorite book. “Thank you, Ms. Thomas. That’s one of my favorite books, too.”
Susan Thomas sits down, her shoulders hunching from the attention.
Steve is next: “Steve Patel. Favorite book—the Kamasutra.” I grin as the class bursts into laughter. “And ladies … I’m available!”
More laughter, and claps, as Steve bows.
Zuric’s face is a nice even shade of tomato. He squints beadily at Steve. “Thank you, Mr. Patel.”
Zuric has got to be the only teacher at Arthur Eldridge who still refers to us by our last names. It’s ridiculous, considering how he mispronounces every name that isn’t European.
When Ahmed’s turn comes, he winks at me. “Ahmed Sharif. Favorite book—Sports Illustrated swimsuit edition.” (A lie; Ahmed’s real favorite is Crime and Punishment.)
Zuric’s complexion deepens in color as the class laughs again.
“I like cars,” Ahmed adds. (The truth.) “The faster the better.” (Also true.)
A guy whistles from the front. A couple of girls giggle, one of them Afrin, who flashes Ahmed a flirty smile. I feel a sense of relief when Ahmed doesn’t smile at her but only settles down, winking at Susan Thomas, who looks scandalized. There is a brief moment of silence before Zuric finally looks at me and nods. I don’t stand up. I am never this disrespectful during other classes, but Zuric and I have a history. I know how to tick him off. I want to.
“Call me Vakil. Malcolm Vakil,” I mock, part Ishmael, part James Bond.
“Mr. Vakil, will you stand up so that everyone else can see you, please?” Zuric says.
I give him a wide, fake smile. “I’m happy right where I am.”
“Stand up.” Zuric’s hands are shaking. “Right now.”
Unlike all the others, who have turned to look at my reaction, Susan Thomas is facing front. Her back is ramrod straight. I slip out of the chair and stand.
“Malcolm Vakil. Favorite book—Moby-Dick.” Predictably this makes a few people giggle.
“I like drawing things, too.”
Giggles turn to loud laughs and this is when Susan turns around to glare at me. I raise an eyebrow, tilt my head to the side, and smile. I can feel Afrin’s stare from the front of the room, examining both Susan and me. When I sit down again, Susan’s facing the front of the room where Zuric is now going over the course outline.
The phone in my pocket vibrates. It’s Steve.
so you DONT have a thing for her, eh?
I look up again, pretending to watch Mr. Zuric write something on the board, before turning my phone off.
Susan
BENEFIT CONCERT FOR SYRIAN REFUGEES
Volunteers needed to help organize a special fund-raising concert to spread awareness about the war in Syria and the refugees struggling to make lives for themselves outside their homeland.
WE ARE CURRENTLY LOOKING FOR:
Fund-Raising Directors—4 positions
VIP Liaisons—2 positions
Secretary—1 position
Treasurer—1 position
Art Director—1 position
INTERESTED? COME TO THE FIRST MEETING:
Friday, September 25, 2015, School Cafeteria, 4 p.m.
QUESTIONS IN THE MEANTIME? IDEAS?
Contact chairs Ronnie Mehta and Mahtab Vakil at [email protected]
Printed in bold black, the posters are everywhere: on the bulletin board outside the guidance counselor’s office, on the insides of the doors of the girls’ bathroom stalls, flyer versions being handed out by a pair of boys at the door next to the cafeteria during lunch. One morning, a boy and girl show up during physics to talk about the concert as well.
“If you’ve been watching the news recently, you probably know about what’s been happening in Syria.” The boy who addresses the class wears glasses, pressed trousers, and a button-down shirt. I half expect him to carry a briefcase in one hand. “Many have been forced to leave their homes and seek asylum in other countries. Canada is one of those countries.”
He looks to the girl, who’s dressed more casually, in jeans and a green sweater. Her wide smile reminds me of Alisha—a younger version of Alisha with long, shoulder-length brown hair.
“We’re looking for volunteers to help set up a concert in January to raise money for Syrians forced to leave their homes,” she says. “Proceeds raised from the concert will go to the Red Cross.”
“Where do we volunteer? Here?” Someone asks the question that suddenly pops into my head.
“Friday the 25th, in the cafeteria,” the girl says. “Everything’s on the poster. If there are multiple people trying out for the same position, we’ll do interviews.”
I take one of the flyers being handed out and fold it in half before placing it neatly into my binder. Art Director. The words have a nice ring to them. I think back to what Alisha told me last week. What if I do tell my parents about art school?
“What if?”
I sing the words under my breath, feel them add a skip to my step as I walk out the door at the end of the period. Daydreaming does me no favors: instead of the stairs that lead to the cafeteria, I reach a dead end, an entire wall of lockers and—my cheeks flame—two students making out.
I double back, wondering if I’ll ever get used to scenes like this or even to attending a coed school. Relief floods through my veins when I finally locate the stairs leading down to the cafeteria. I take a deep breath and tell myself to stop being silly. They’re boys, not aliens. I, on the other hand, might as well have come from another planet.
My first week at Arthur Eldridge passed in a haze of rooms and hallways, a surprising maze of confusion for a building so small. At Qala Academy, our classes were static, which made sense as it was ten times larger. Over there, I would never have been able to make it from one end of the building to another on time, even at a dead run.
The schoolwork isn’t nearly as bad. Calculus is a breeze, the syllabus almost equivalent to what I already studied last year in Jeddah, except for the functions, which are a lot more complex. English isn’t difficult either; unlike Alisha and a few of my other friends, I’ve always liked reading. Art is pure joy—by far the best course I’ve taken at any school, I admit to myself, even though it feels like a minor betrayal of Qala Academy.
Physics is the most challenging of all my courses. I never really liked physics at Qala Academy, but I didn’t exactly find it difficult to follow. However, unlike at my old school, at Arthur Eldridge the assignments are not a matter of rote learning. Not only does my new school have bigger and better laboratories, but here, class time is devoted to actually performing the experiments and drawing conclusions from our results—even if they don’t match what we know of the theory. Our teacher, Mr. Franklin, may crack jokes in class and smile all the time, but when it comes to mar
king our assignments, he’s even tougher than Verghese Madam.
Bridgita Aunty said kids who come from educational backgrounds like mine face similar issues with lab work. “You can’t get away with mugging here, Suzy,” she teased me last night over the phone, using the South Asian colloquial term for memorizing large sections of textbooks and spitting them out word for word.
I join the flow of bodies pouring into the cafeteria, dodge elbows, skip over stretched-out feet. The air is thick with the smell of grease. French fries are the only item the cafeteria sells hot, in red boxes filled constantly by a woman with pale blond hair. No one asks for the pizza, and it took me only one bite on my very first day to figure out why. I can still recall the taste of the burned cheese and too-sweet sauce, the paste-like texture of the crust.
A pair of girls from my homeroom pass by and find seats at a nearly full table. Spotting an extra chair at the table, I head in the same direction. As if sensing my approach, one of them drops her bag into the empty seat. “Sorry. This one’s already taken.”
I smile back stiffly and nod before turning and facing a sea—no, a veritable ocean—of tables, nearly every chair taken by a body or a bag. On my second day, I sat at a table full of ninth graders who appeared so intimidated by me that they gave me nothing more than monosyllabic replies or shy smiles when I tried to make conversation. Today, the only free spot appears to be at a table where a group of boys wearing the school’s basketball team jerseys are cheering on a teammate’s attempt at inhaling soda through a pair of straws in his nostrils.
“Forget it,” I mutter. I slip out of the cafeteria and walk rapidly in the opposite direction—past the brightly decorated art and music hallway where I have class fourth period, past the flowcharts and staid brown stencils marking the business studies wing, and through a pair of heavy green double doors—a side entrance that directly opens into the school’s now-quiet parking lot.
It’s here, atop a small set of stairs, that my lungs finally begin filling with air. A moment after I settle down, I hear the doors open again. I brace myself for a teacher or the stern vice principal, Mr. Han, who often lurks the halls in search of truants. But it’s only a group of students who amble past, talking among themselves, paying me no attention.
The Beauty of the Moment Page 3
