The Beauty of the Moment

by Tanaz Bhathena

  I duck under her arm and make a beeline for my room. Poor Yvonne. It’s like you can’t turn twenty without getting a slew of marriage questions. Forget about building a career or buying a house, the modern desi girl needs to have everything to be considered successful. My phone buzzes with a text.

  Alisha: It’s okay. I read through my own texts again and I can see why you reacted the way you did. I’m sorry, too.

  I check the time; it’s a little after 10:00 p.m. in Jeddah. I type and erase my reply several times with shaking fingers before finally hitting Send: Skype?

  I expect Alisha to say no, but a second later, she replies: I’ll log in from my phone.

  “Hi,” I say, once she picks up.

  “Hi.”

  A pause.

  “How was school today?”

  “It’s Friday. Weekend here, remember?”

  “Oh. Yeah.” I completely forgot that weekends in Saudi Arabia fall on Fridays and Saturdays, not Saturdays and Sundays, the way they do here.

  Longer pause.

  “I bunked school today,” I finally say.

  She snorts. “Nice. What did you do, then? Paint graffiti on the school walls?”

  “Nothing that extreme. I ate a shawarma at the mall. With Malcolm Vakil.”

  It sounds unbelievable, even to me. But Alisha must have sensed the truth in my words because her eyes widen and I start giggling.

  “Oh my God. You’re serious!”

  “Taking the Lord’s name in vain.” I click my tongue disapprovingly. “What would Pastor Verghese say?”

  Alisha rolls her eyes at our nickname for George Verghese, Verghese Madam’s ultra-religious husband, who isn’t a real pastor by any means, but almost always acts as if he was one. “Pastor Verghese will excuse me in this instance. Susan Thomas did a bunk? And is this the same Malcolm we’re talking about? The hottie from your English class?”

  “He’s not a hottie!” I clap my hands over my mouth, heart hammering, hoping I didn’t yell that out loud.

  “Relax, your mom didn’t hear. And judging by that reaction you gave me, he definitely is. Or at least you think he is.” Alisha laughs. “I can’t believe this. We don’t talk for like, a day, and you actually skip school with a boy you have a crush on!”

  “I do not have a crush!” I say as emphatically as I can without raising my voice. “It just happened. I mean, he’s been a little nicer to me ever since he accidentally saw my sketch of Zarin Wadia and—”

  “Wait—he saw your sketchbook? You drew Zarin Wadia and didn’t show me?” Alisha sounds disappointed about this.

  “It wasn’t my sketchbook and I wasn’t planning on showing anyone.” I’m not entirely sure why I drew my old classmate’s picture. Zarin and I were not friends. In our time together at Qala Academy, we barely said a few words to each other. But she was Appa’s patient. The day Zarin died, he went unusually silent, spoke to no one for a whole evening—something I never saw him do before.

  “It was an accident,” I tell Alisha now. “He saw the sketch, we started talking and…” I think he asked me out. I bite back the words. “Then yesterday was … crappy. You know about the whole art school thing. Also, Amma and I had a fight. So, this morning, after physics, I was at my locker and he was there, too, and … something came over me.”

  “Oho!” Alisha bobbles her head like a cheesy dancer in a ’90s Hindi movie, a knowing smile on her face. “I see what came over you!”

  “Shut up.” I can’t help but grin. “So anyway, I asked if he wanted to skip class. And we did.”

  A long pause. “You so like him.”

  I groan, partly wishing I hadn’t told her a thing. But there’s this other part of me that’s secretly pleased at having surprised Alisha—at having done something she’d never have thought me capable of doing.

  “Tell me you have his number, at least.”

  “What? No! We’re not—we’re barely even friends, Alisha!”

  “That’s what she said … before racing off into the sunset with him!”

  That’s not how that joke works, I’m about to retort when there’s a knock on my door. Amma pokes her head in, eyebrows raised.

  “What are you doing still dressed in your school clothes? Don’t you want dinner?”

  “I’ll be right there, Amma.” I turn to Alisha. “I gotta run.”

  “I want details later!” Alisha shouts seconds before I sign out.

  It’s only afterward, when I’m eating, that I realize I never asked Alisha about what’s going on in her life. I’ll do it tomorrow, I promise myself. Or whenever we have time to chat next. I think back to the conversation we had today and grin, wondering if I’ve ever seen Alisha this excited before. You’d think I won the lottery or something.

  “What are you so happy about?” my mother asks, a curious look on her face.

  “N-nothing,” I manage to stutter before stuffing a spoonful of rice into my mouth.

  * * *

  Like Malcolm told me, we do get a recorded call at home about my absence at school. Amma also reacts exactly the way he predicted.

  “What nonsense,” she mutters. “Where would you go if not to class? Don’t worry, kanna, it’s probably one of those computer glitches.”

  She does not hear the sigh that rushes out of me once she puts down the phone. Okay, Susan, I tell myself. No more of this skipping business. Today was a fluke. An anomaly. In fact, if his reactions after our mall trip today were any kind of indication—like he couldn’t wait to get away from me—I’m pretty sure Malcolm and I will go back to not speaking during classes. Ignoring the odd tightness in my chest, I pull out the binder from my bag and get started on homework.

  Later that evening, I’m typing up the conclusion to my lab report for physics when a ping on my laptop makes me look sideways.

  And do a double take. I quickly save the draft and then, after a beat, open my email.

  From: Malcolm Vakil

  To: sthomas12@arhureldridge.ca

  Subject: chartreuse

  you were right. there is a version called chartreuse yellow. but i’m right as well.

  He has pasted a link below that leads right to a Wikipedia page about Chartreuse—the liquor, that is, not the color. Which, as he said, is a sort of lime green. But first …

  My hands fly across the keyboard.

  From: Susan Thomas

  To: Malcolm Vakil

  Subject: Re: chartreuse

  How did you get my email?

  A reply pops up almost immediately: school directory.

  Oh right. Arthur Eldridge assigns each student a log-in ID to access the school computers on the first day of classes. Though I didn’t realize the school directory was public.

  Before I can question him about this, he writes again: and it’s not like I had your number.

  I stare at the screen for a whole minute. Did he say that he wanted my number?

  I’m figuring out how to reply, when he sends another email: aaand. you didn’t answer my previous question. was i right or not?

  Fine, yes, you were, I type back hastily. To get him off my back.

  He doesn’t give up. i know i’m not as smart as you are, but i’m not a TOTAL dummy.

  I never said you were! I’m sorry if it came off like that!

  Does the tongue emoji mean he’s kidding? Or is it secretly a taunt that I’m too full of myself? Alisha calls me a know-it-all on a regular basis, but she usually means it as a joke.

  My heart skips a beat when another email flashes red in the in-box. it’s okay, susan. i know. He follows up with a smile emoji, which sends warmth prickling across my skin.

  I tug my hair back into a ponytail, twisting it so hard that I’m sure I’ll pull out a few locks. How did I go from ignoring the class troublemaker to bunking classes with him and exchanging flirty emails in the space of a couple of days?

  “This is ridiculous.”

/>   I take a deep breath. Why am I overreacting? Malcolm hasn’t done anything to antagonize me in these emails; he’s been pretty nice. Even the word troublemaker no longer feels right, not the way it did those first two weeks at school. Also, simply hinting he wanted my number doesn’t necessarily mean he’s into me. He dates girls like Afrin Irani—girls who walk the school halls like they’re runways, who are capable of getting good grades without burying themselves in schoolwork for hours at a time.

  I think about the calculus homework I’ve already completed, the physics lab report that’s nearly done, the English essay that I turned in yesterday, a day before schedule. Okay. Maybe I don’t have to bury myself in books either. Physics aside, schoolwork at Arthur Eldridge has been fairly manageable, leaving me enough time to study and do other things—if I so choose.

  I could join the science club, I think dully. Or try out for the qualifying exam for the Canadian Math Olympiad that our homeroom teacher talked about today. I could volunteer at the library and finish the mandatory forty hours of community service I need to perform to graduate high school in Ontario. I reach back into my binder and pull out the piece of paper tucked into the back.

  Art Director. The words still circled in red.

  Fund-raising counts toward volunteer hours, too, right? My parents can say no to art in college, but they’ll never say no to anything that could jeopardize my graduation.

  Maybe there’s still time, I think hopefully. Maybe Mahtab didn’t get anyone to fill the spot. My fingers hover over the keyboard. I could send an email to the account listed on the flyer—though I don’t know how often they’re checking it. Better yet, I could ask Malcolm for Mahtab’s number. But he’ll want to know why. I glance at the flyer again. It’s not like it’s that important, I reason. Besides, today was only the first meeting. I can easily wait until Monday and find Mahtab myself to ask if the position is still open.

  Coward.

  Outside my window, the sky glows yellow and pink, the temperature sinking along with the sun, after the afternoon’s unexpected heat wave. Outside the mall entrance, it took me a moment to remember that I was wearing a fall coat and not an abaya, that I could actually take it off without being stared at or, worse, reprimanded by the religious police.

  There are days when I still grow disoriented—like today, when I forgot about Friday being a weekend in Jeddah. Fridays were when Appa usually had a day off from the clinic; when he would, without fail, drive us to the Corniche or to a friend’s house or to the mall, where we would scarf down a meal of shawarma sandwiches exactly the way Malcolm and I did today.

  I chalk up what I do next to the overall stress of the week. To the coffee I drank—Amma’s strongest Kerala kaapi—while doing today’s homework. To that pesky voice in my head that keeps telling me to live a little.

  I type a new email. You said you wanted my number, right? Here it is. I enter ten digits before I have the time to think—or breathe—and hit Send.

  One minute passes, then five.

  Just when I’m cursing myself—great, Susan, now he thinks you’re a despo with a crush—my phone buzzes with a text from an unknown number.

  hey. it’s malcolm.

  It’s embarrassing how quickly I save the number. Even more embarrassing how I wait a full thirty seconds before texting back: Hi.

  what’s up? finished your homework? applied for a phd at harvard?

  I send him an eye-rolling emoji in response.

  hey, susan, he writes after a minute.

  Yeah?

  today was nice. at the mall.

  It was? I’m so surprised that I nearly text him my thoughts. But I see that he’s typing a new message.

  i mean, before afrin and company showed up. Cross-eyed emoji, followed by a devil emoji. i had fun talking to you.

  It’s okay. I had a nice time, too. It’s only after I hit Send that I realize it’s true. I did enjoy talking to him. There were several moments when I forgot to be self-conscious the way I normally am around boys. Around him.

  soooo. see you at school monday?

  The question mark at the end almost feels like hesitation—as if he thinks I might have not enjoyed his company as much.

  Yes, I type back quickly. See you Monday.

  This time, I’m the one who sends him a smiley. And I don’t even feel embarrassed by it.

  Malcolm

  I don’t know why I looked up the color. Or her email—using one of Ahmed’s old hacks to sneak into the school’s database. I sure didn’t expect her to give me her number or myself to spend the next few minutes trying to compose a text that had the right balance of interest and nonchalance.

  hey, it’s malcolm.

  Okay, so Mahtab got the creative genes in our family. But in the end it didn’t matter. Somehow, with Susan, my usual mask slips off and I go from being cool, calm, and collected to embarrassingly sincere. It was probably why I was grinning for a good hour after she sent me that silly smile emoji.

  I don’t text her on Saturday. Or on Sunday. Even though there’s some English homework I can probably ask her about, stuff she probably finished a year ago. On Monday, I decide enough time has passed to talk to her again without looking like a stalker—even though stalking is what I end up technically doing, when I spot her passing by my accounting classroom after second period, following the swing of her ponytail down the business studies hallway and out the side doors.

  “Hey. Mind if I join you?”

  Her head snaps up and she blinks, as if surprised. Like I’m a stranger and Friday never happened.

  “It’s cool if you’re waiting for someone else—”

  “No, no, it’s okay!” She’s suddenly scrambling to make room for me on the steps. I take a little pity on her and sit down, careful to leave a few inches between us. “You can … oh, never mind, you’re already sitting.”

  Her smile’s nervous, a lot more like the girl I remember from the first couple of weeks of the semester—the one who could barely look at me, let alone talk the way she did last Friday. I unzip my bag, and pull out the sandwich I packed this morning instead of going for my usual slice with Ahmed and Steve. I glance at Susan, who’s fussing with her own lunch, and wonder if I made a mistake. If our connection last week was a fluke.

  I’m beginning to regret this whole idea when Susan’s phone rings.

  “One minute,” she says, before picking up. “Hello? Appa?” Her face undergoes a transformation, nerves melting into happiness. She chats for a bit with the person on the other end in a mix of English and an Indian language I don’t understand. As the conversation goes on, though, her smile slowly fades. The words blame and Canada emerge and then she’s silent for a long moment.

  “Fine,” she says, her tone clipped. “We’ll talk later.” She hangs up and rubs the bridge of her nose. I’m pretty sure she’s forgotten I’m here.

  “Is this a bad time?” I ask after a pause. “Maybe I should go.”

  “What?” Her eyes widen. “No! I mean there’s no need for you to go.” She shakes her head. “It was my father.”

  A minute of silence follows before I venture another ask. “You guys have a fight?”

  “Not really. Well, sort of.” She stares off into the distance. “Appa was supposed to leave his job in Jeddah and come join us this month. Now he’s saying that he needs another month, that his replacement at the clinic hasn’t come in from India. When I asked him if he really had to wait for his replacement, he said he had to go. Probably for a smoke break.” She mutters the last sentence under her breath.

  “Your dad smokes?” I don’t know why this surprises me. ER visits were the norm when Mom was still alive and I often saw a doctor or a nurse smoking in the alley outside the hospital, breathing out the shift’s stress in puffs of smoke. But it does explain Susan’s reaction last Friday, the distaste on her face when she saw me smoking.

  “Yeah. I mean, no one else knows. Not my mom, not my best friend. It was an accident that I even found
out.”

  There’s another long pause—the sort that I know better than to fill in with pointless conversation.

  “When I was little, my dad took me to his clinic in Jeddah. He wanted me to see what it was like, being a doctor. I couldn’t stand the sight of the blood.” She shudders and I laugh a little. “So, anyway, I was in his office getting bored, when I glanced out the window, and there he was. Smoking a cigarette next to the garbage bin behind the clinic. My appa who, until then, had lectured me about the bad effects of smoking. He begged me not to tell anyone. Even bought me a DVD of my favorite cartoon.”

  She huddles deeper into her coat, though I’m not sure how much of it is because of the weather itself.

  “Thanks for telling me,” I say.

  I know it’s nothing special. Strangers are often our best outlets for secrets—especially those who never have and probably never will meet our families. But she could’ve easily told me to mind my own business. And for some reason she didn’t.

  She shrugs. “I guess I’d better get some reading done.” She pulls out her copy of King Lear.

  “Don’t know how you even understand that.” I begin unwrapping my sandwich. “I mean, I have a hard time understanding modern-day stuff, let alone that seventeenth-century drivel.”

  She straightens and, for the first time that day, looks me directly in the eye. “It’s not that hard once you get used to it. What are you having trouble with?”

  I would laugh if not for the cheese and meatballs stuffing my mouth—or the absolutely serious expression on Susan’s face.

  “It’s okay.” I try to chew and talk at the same time, which ends up garbling my words to something completely indecipherable. Susan’s mouth twitches, as if she’s trying not to laugh. I force myself to swallow. “Really, Susan. I don’t—” have any plans for this to turn into a study session, I’m about to say, but Susan cuts me off.

  “No, really.” She opens the book to the first page. “I mean it. What don’t you understand? Maybe I can help?”

  I should get up and walk away, saying I have things to do (semi-truth: other homework I’ve been procrastinating on), people to meet (false: no one). I should simply say Everything! and pull the book out of her hands, the way I would with another girl. But one look at Susan’s face, those too-long lashes blinking at me expectantly, and I realize I don’t want to walk away. Don’t want to break this moment, whatever it is.