“So?” he asks me. “What do you think? Better? Worse? The same?”
I nearly choke on the slice of dyed-pink turnip I bite into, my guilty conscience engaging in a split second of panic before realizing that he was asking me about the shawarma and not himself.
“It isn’t bad,” I say after a quick swallow. “We never use these over there.” I hold up the turnip. “Only pickled cucumbers and fries. But the chicken is the same. They even have the same garlic sauce. Or toum, actually.”
“Yeah, they’re one of the few places that use it. Others use hummus or tahini.”
I grimace. “Who pairs hummus with chicken?”
“That’s a no-no, then?”
“I guess there isn’t exactly a no-no,” I admit. “I mean, there are restaurants that serve chicken shawarma meat on hummus. And these days people mix all sorts of foods anyway. But as a dip, hummus goes way better with beef. The toum tastes better with chicken.”
“Sounds like the beginning of your PhD thesis.” He dips a fry into my container of garlic sauce and slathers it over his beef.
“Ha! Very funny.”
He gives me a wide, toothy grin. I control my own twitching lips by focusing on my sandwich, absorbing the flavors that take me back to Jeddah. If I concentrate hard enough, I can even pretend we are at the Red Sea Mall, under the cold draft of the central AC.
“Are you cold?” Malcolm’s eyes are focused on my bare forearms.
“I’m always cold. It’s the air-conditioning.”
He stares at me for a moment and then shrugs off his flannel shirt. “Here.”
“Malcolm, I’m fine. I have a coat.”
“Yeah, whatever; you can return it. It’s not like I’m topless.” He points out the plain white T-shirt he had been wearing under the flannel.
A part of my brain rebels. Warnings, accumulated over years of mentally rejecting boys before even talking to them, flash through my head on a marquee, until logic finally intervenes: It’s a shirt, Susan. A temporary source of warmth.
I slip it on, rolling up sleeves that are longer than I expect them to be, but not giant size like the men’s shirts I’ve seen hanging in stores. The cloth still retains the residual warmth of his skin. I lean back into my chair, basking in it.
Malcolm gives me a little smile and wipes the side of his lip with a thumb. “We’ll need to leave in another five minutes if you want to get back to school on time,” he says, crumpling his shawarma wrapper into a ball.
Reality, held so well in check by good food and a boy’s flannel shirt, forces me to sit up again with a groan. A part of me wants to continue this day, prolong it with a movie or a walk through the open square across the mall that fills up every week or so with crowds for concerts and food festivals, for open-air Zumba and salsa and Bollywood dance classes.
Somewhere at the back of the square, there is a wall dedicated to graffiti art—murals of the city and random people—that Amma and I accidentally came across once when we got lost trying to find our way back to the bus stop. I could have spent hours standing there, studying the paintings, imagining one of my own on another blank patch of wall. But when Malcolm stands up with his tray, I follow suit without saying anything. Thoughts of the graffiti wall bring back thoughts of my mother and the reason I skipped school in the first place. I squash down the guilt before it begins to set in.
“Solving math problems in your head again?”
First that crack about the PhD thesis, now this. I scowl. “Do you really think I’m such a nerd?”
Malcolm shrugs, which I take to mean yes.
“At least I care about school.” Even as the words come out from my mouth, I realize how nerdy I sound.
“By skipping class?”
Okay. Fair point.
“I still don’t skip as much as you do,” I argue.
“Actually, I’ve been pretty good about skipping this year. I might even graduate on time.” There’s a slight edge to his voice—as if my words may have unexpectedly hit a nerve. But then I wonder if I’m imagining things because he simply shrugs and in the blink of an eye, the Malcolm I know reappears. “Besides, can’t get too many calls back home about my absences or my old man will get mad.”
I feel the blood drain from my face. “They call your parents if you don’t come to class?”
“For a smart girl, you sure didn’t think this through.”
When I don’t answer for a while, Malcolm’s eyes soften.
“It’s a recorded call,” he explains. “Your parents will get it hours after you come home. You can always pretend that your teacher made a mistake. I bet you’ve never skipped a class before.”
My breath emerges in a sigh. “That’s true.”
“So why’d you do it today?” Apart from curiosity, there is something else in his voice, a genuine concern that I’ve had few people direct my way, apart from my parents and Alisha. “Why’d you suddenly decide to skip school?”
I had a fight with my mother. My best friend isn’t speaking to me. I don’t think my father will ever permanently move here.
The words appear in my head and have just slid to the tip of my tongue when loud voices echo with laughter somewhere behind me. The change in Malcolm’s expression—a shutdown of every bit of the concern he showed me seconds earlier—tells me more about who might be the cause of it even before I turn around to see her staring at me.
Godafrin Irani. A girl whose name I remember because of the way Mr. Zuric butchered it for an entire week while taking attendance. Tall and beautiful Godafrin—Aaf-reen, she enunciated carefully for Mr. Zuric—with red highlights in her wavy black hair, and a body that could probably have Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan burst into his famous song from beyond the grave. Afrin, who sometimes shoots me dirty looks; who always seems to be staring at Malcolm even though he rarely ever looks at her.
She climbs up the steps with a pair of friends, a large cone of ice cream held in a hand tipped with varnished red nails, the bronzed flush on her cheekbones so perfect that I’m tempted to ask her for tips on contouring. She walks toward where Malcolm and I now stand, our empty trays still in our hands, waving at us as if we were waiting here for her.
Afrin’s eyes narrow when they fall on the shirt I’m wearing, but the brightness of her smile never diminishes. She turns her attention to Malcolm, licks the tip of her ice cream. This time, instead of ignoring her the way he does in class, he watches, jaw tightening.
“Malc. It’s been so long. How are you?” Her free hand grazes his arm.
“I’m good, thanks.” Malcolm’s voice is so cool, I can almost pretend that he’s entirely unaffected by Afrin’s presence or her touch.
Amma told me once that the line between love and hate can be as thin as a paper’s edge. It’s why your appa and I get so angry with each other at times. Because we love each other so much. The real danger, she said, is when you no longer feel anything for the person.
Indifference is more dangerous to love than hate ever is and I can see that Malcolm, whatever he may pretend, is not entirely indifferent to Afrin.
Afrin’s friends, who flank her, are watching the whole exchange as if it’s a mildly entertaining gossip show. Their hands will flit to their purses the moment we leave, broadcasting the exchange to everyone they know on social media, elevating a random run-in at the mall to the second coming of Romeo and Juliet.
“We have to go,” Malcolm says after a pause.
And then, without warning, as if he always planned on giving these trolls more ammunition, he puts an arm around my shoulders, locking me to his side. I am pretty sure the expression on my face mirrors Afrin’s. An ounce of four-letter curses mixed with a tablespoon of When did this happen?
It’s only shock and Malcolm’s hard grip that keeps me from saying anything. On any other day, the whispers that Afrin’s friends break into—“He’s with her?”—would have embarrassed me enough to set everything straight.
It isn’t until after we dump our tr
ays and leave the food court, Afrin and her posse disappearing from sight, that Malcolm’s grip on my shoulder loosens. I force myself out of my stupor and push off his arm.
“What was that about?” I snap. “Why were you pretending we were together?”
To his credit, Malcolm looks a little ashamed. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to make you uncomfortable.”
“Is she your girlfriend?”
“Ex-girlfriend.” He frowns. “She … I really don’t know what she’s doing. We broke up before the summer and haven’t spoken since. She’s even dating someone else right now. It’s … She likes to mess with my head.”
“So now you’ve decided to mess with hers?”
I may not always be able to tell when a boy is flirting with me, but even I can sense that Afrin is jealous over seeing me with Malcolm, no matter who else she’s dating right now.
Malcolm says nothing in response. Rationally, I know my anger over this is silly. Why should it bother me if he plays a little pretense to get away from an old girlfriend? It’s not like he kissed me. Malcolm and I are not dating; we are barely even friends. I stare down at the shirt I’m wearing, the warm feeling of being surrounded by his heat now replaced by nausea.
I slip it off and hand it to him. “Thanks for letting me borrow this.”
Something flickers in his eyes and for a second I could almost swear he is disappointed. But then he takes the shirt back without a word.
* * *
The bus ride back to school goes by in frosty silence. We get to the school yard as the last bell goes off, Malcolm’s pace slow and relaxed, mine frenetic with what must be first-skip jitters.
“Hey. Hey! Slow down,” he says.
I pause a few feet from a ramp littered with tissues and cigarette butts and watch as Malcolm pulls a box of Marlboros out of his pocket.
“What are you doing?”
It’s a useless question (clearly, he’s planning to smoke) and I get an equally useless response: “Fulfilling my role in cancer research.”
“By being the subject?”
He lights up, a small blue-orange flame briefly flickering at the end of the cigarette. A thin veil of smoke pours from his nostrils and mouth. “School’s done. It’s time to relax. Do you mind?”
He leans against the redbrick wall, looking away from me. It’s the first time we’ve spoken at length after running into Afrin at the mall. From a window overhead, a teacher calls out last-minute instructions, fragments of her voice floating into the yard. Inside the room, binders snap, voices hum, chairs screech across tiles. On the other side of the building, where the parking lot is, where I need to be, cars and buses will have already lined up at the pickup point.
Here I am, once again in a standoff with Malcolm, who leans sideways against the wall next to the ramp as if he has all the time in the world, his shoulders jutting forward, his eyes cool, expecting my judgment.
“No,” I say. “I don’t mind.”
“You don’t need to lie. My sister doesn’t like it either. Neither would…” His voice trails off and his mouth tightens ever so slightly.
I remember the passing reference Heather made to his mom in physics class and wonder now if he stopped short of mentioning her. Not that I can ever ask him about it.
“I think we’ll only have a problem if you blow the smoke in my face, Malcolm.”
I expect him to laugh at my little joke but he only frowns. I shift my bag from one shoulder to the other, even though the straps aren’t cutting into my skin and my textbooks are still in my locker. Bunking? I can almost hear Amma screaming in my head. You bunked school?
My only consolation is that the two classes I did skip—English and art—are what my cousin Yvonne and her university friends call “bird courses,” the sort you can breeze through without much difficulty. A door to my left hinges open, muted chatter from the window rising into the air in full volume.
“Malc!” A slender figure—why does it not surprise me it’s a girl?—detaches from the group of students pouring out and approaches, her long brown hair pushed back by the wind, a grin on her face that mirrors his.
The resemblance between the two is beginning to sink in, along with a strange sort of familiarity—have I seen this girl somewhere before?—when she turns to me with a grin. “Hi! I’m Mahtab, Malcolm’s sister. What’s your name?”
I am simultaneously relieved and embarrassed at the petty thought I had about her.
I force myself to smile back. “Hi. I’m Susan.”
“Nice to meet you!” Mahtab’s grin widens. “Please don’t tell me that my big brother has been bossing you around.”
Malcolm makes a sound that could almost be mistaken for a snort.
“I don’t get bossed around that easily,” I say with a shrug.
“So maybe you can boss him around, then. God knows he needs it.” Mahtab reaches out and plucks the cigarette from his fingers. Ignoring his shouts, she puts out the glowing end with the heel of her boot.
“I barely even smoked that,” Malcolm mutters, watching her dispose of it in the trash.
“It’s a disgusting habit and I don’t want you chasing your new friend away with it.”
He glances at me sideways. “Who said she’s my friend?”
I watch the two banter, fascinated by Malcolm’s younger sister. From the way she’s dressed—jeans rolled up over low-heeled ankle boots, crop top, black leather jacket—to how tall she is (she must have at least four inches on me) to the confident way she holds herself, I would not be surprised if someone looked at the two of us and mistook her for the senior and me for the ninth grader.
“Is he always such a jerk?” Mahtab tilts her head in her brother’s direction.
I think of how he is now with Mahtab and compare it to the way he tortures Mr. Zuric. “Only in English class.”
Mahtab’s giggles infect me in spite of my vow to hold on to my deadpan expression, and more so because of the partly exasperated, partly amused expression on Malcolm’s face.
“He has been nice to me today,” I say, when we recover. “Surprisingly kind.”
The words slip out without intent, leaving me exposed to the heat of two stares. I study the pavement, the tiny yellow leaves gathering in the creases. Mahtab clears her throat after a pause, but Malcolm does not make a sound.
“I need to get going soon,” Mahtab says. When I look up, she smiles at me. “I’m part of a team organizing a benefit concert to help the people harmed by the war in Syria. The first meeting’s today.”
“That’s where I’ve seen you before!” I blurt out. “I mean, you came to my physics class two weeks ago. With a boy.”
Mahtab beams. “Yep, that was me. And that was my boyfriend, Ronnie. We were thinking of heading to Joe’s across the street to get pizza before the meeting. Do you want to come along? Malcolm won’t.” She scowls at him.
Friday, September 25. Still circled in red on the flyer tucked in the back of my school binder along with the words Art Director.
“I … I don’t think I can.”
“Are you sure? I mean, we haven’t picked a full committee yet. There are still lots of positions available.”
What’s the point? For a second I freeze, thinking I’ve said it out loud. But Mahtab is still staring at me expectantly so I shake the cobwebs from my head.
“I doubt I could contribute much.” The words taste both bitter and true. “I also have a lot to study this weekend. Tests and stuff coming up.” Not to mention that Amma is probably waiting at home for me right now, ready with questions about my sudden absence from my last two classes.
“That’s too bad.” A small frown mars Mahtab’s forehead. “Well, I better get going, then. Hope I see you around, Susan. Bye Malc!”
The sound of Mahtab’s boots fades away, but I can still feel Malcolm standing next to me, his stare like a touch on my cheek.
“Why didn’t you go with her?” he asks. “You wanted to, didn’t you? Like you wanted to go i
nto that art store at the mall.”
When a long time passes by and I say nothing in response, he sighs. “Also, did you tell my sister that I’m not a complete ogre? I’m so touched.”
“You were never an ogre.” Which is true.
He steps closer, the back of his hand brushing mine. If I was bolder, I would reach out, tangle my fingers with his. Instead, I will the ground to swallow me up.
“Thanks.”
This is when I screw up the courage to finally look; when I see an expression on his face I have seen only on other boys, directed at other girls, maybe only ever in the movies. Then he blinks and the moment is gone and he is Malcolm and I am Susan and he tells me to get going if I don’t want to get a “brown parent lecture” at home.
* * *
A lecture, surprisingly, is what I don’t get—mostly because Amma is so busy chatting with Bridgita Aunty over the phone that she doesn’t even put it down when I step inside.
“Yes, poor Vineeta,” Amma says. “That nose job certainly did not work well in her favor.”
I raise my eyebrows. Are they talking about my father’s eldest sister in Kottayam? A nose job? I mouth at Amma. What?
Don’t ask, Amma mouths back and, in spite of the crappy day I’ve had, minus my time at the mall with Malcolm, I feel a smile breaking through. Amma smiles back and then crosses eyes at something else Bridgita Aunty says—probably again about her least favorite sister-in-law. This time a laugh bubbles out, forcing me to clap my hands over my mouth.
There are moments when Amma and I are less like parent and child and more like sisters—a thing that Alisha says comes with being an only child, one of the few parts of my life that I sense she secretly envies. Amma squeezes my shoulder now and I know, with one look into her sparkling eyes, that she has forgiven me for our fight last evening.
“I’m sorry,” I whisper anyway. “For yesterday.”
She breaks the conversation to press a kiss to my forehead. “What? Oh yes, Susan just got home. Bridgita Aunty says hi,” she tells me. “So tell me, Bridgita, when are you and Edmund getting Yvonne married?”
The Beauty of the Moment Page 8
