“What a loser!” I’ve never hit another human in my life, but I’m more than willing to knock Isaac Cherian’s glasses off his nose right now. “‘Well-suited’? What does that even mean? You had two meetings together. With chaperones!”
“Maybe that was enough for him.”
I hold up my fingers to form an L against my forehead and this time Alisha laughs for real. “Let him make best use of his busy schedule, then,” I tell her. “You deserve better.”
“I do.” Alisha grins, looking a little more like herself. “By the way, your accent’s changing. Did you know?”
“What? No, it’s not!”
“Yes, it is! You pronounced schedule as ske-jule.”
Ske-jule instead of she-dyool. Tu-ishun instead of tyu-shun. Tri-go-gnaw-metry instead of trig-no-metry. Alisha isn’t wrong. I say twenty as twenny and forty as fordy without meaning to do so. I am careful to emphasize my r’s when I speak, instead of dropping them like I normally would have, so that teachers at school don’t ask me to repeat myself. My relatives in India insist on speaking to me in English to hear my “Canadian drawl.” They are disappointed when I give them replies in perfect, unaccented Malayalam.
“Does it matter?”
I must sound a little defensive because Alisha’s grin fades. “No. It doesn’t.”
“It’s different here,” I try to explain. “If I pronounce things the way I did in Jeddah, people don’t understand me. If I call a ruler a scale, they think it’s a weighing scale and give me confused looks. Specifics matter a lot.” I learned this the hard way—after calling an eraser a rubber in calculus and having a boy laugh his head off at me.
When I speak to Alisha now, though, I wonder if I’m fighting a losing battle. Especially when she says “Okay, Miss Canada,” with a laugh that borders more on sarcasm than humor.
I decide to change the subject and tell Alisha about Heather Dupuis and Preeti Sharma, who I now talk to regularly during and outside physics, feeling strange, yet also pleased to see the approval on her face.
“So you sit together at lunch and everything, now?” Alisha presses. “You’re not alone anymore?”
Blood rushes to my face. “No,” I say truthfully, thinking back to the feeling of Malcolm’s lips on mine. “I’m not alone.”
It’s not like Heather and Preeti don’t invite me to sit with them. But lunch is the only time I get to spend with Malcolm at school outside of English. And I don’t want to miss a single second of it.
“What about Malcolm? Are you friends again?”
I’m glad we’re separated by a pair of screens because there’s no way Alisha would miss the blush on my face if she saw me in real life. “Yeah.” I know now is the time to tell her. To say that over the last week, Malcolm has become a lot more than a friend.
“I’m glad.” Alisha’s smile splinters. “You know I think you were right when you said that boyfriends are overrated. Friendship’s better. Less painful.”
I bite my lip. I can’t tell Alisha about Malcolm now. Not when she’s still heartbroken over Isaac Cherian. Even though Alisha is my biggest cheerleader, I know that in this moment my news will feel like salt rubbed into a fresh wound.
“You’ll only say that until you find your next crush,” I say, trying to cheer her up. “Someone a lot cuter than Whatshisname.”
“Isaac.”
“Isaac, who?”
She smiles. “I’m glad I have you, Suzy.”
There’s a lump in my throat. “I’m glad I have you, too.”
* * *
On Monday, in the schoolyard, Malcolm tells me why he hates Mr. Zuric so much.
“I was doing badly in ninth-grade English, so Zuric called my parents to complain. It was the first time the old man came to school. Suited up, as polite as can be.” Malcolm flicks a piece of lint off his jacket. “Until we were back in his car and he slammed my head right against the window. I guess he was lucky no one else was around to see.”
I stare at him for a second, wondering if he’s exaggerating, but the bleak look on his face tells me otherwise. “That’s terrible!”
He shrugs, jaw tightening. “It’s not like it was the first time.”
“I can’t believe this would happen here, of all places!”
“Abuse doesn’t have borders.”
“But you have child protective services here, the police! I mean, there are running jokes about this in India—how kids tend to have the upper hand over the adults!”
A raised eyebrow. “Stereotypes, you mean.”
I slide a hand into his. “I’m sorry,” I say, and it’s true. Both for having made the assumption and for what he has gone through.
For long moments, we simply watch students trickling back to school, in twos and threes, hoods pulled over their heads against the wind. Even I’m wearing a cap, but Malcolm wears nothing except a puffy black jacket. Sometimes I wonder if he feels the cold at all.
“When I was fifteen, he beat me up so bad, I was sure he was going to kill me,” he says, his voice eerily quiet. “It was partly my fault. I stole his car, sneaked out to a party, and got wasted. In the movies, it’s usually your lip that’s the first to split open and bleed when you get punched in the face. In my case, it was my tongue. My teeth cut into it. Should’ve shut me up then and there, but it didn’t. I laughed at him. It made the old man so mad. He used to be a wrestler, you know? Every hit felt like a thunderclap against my skull.”
Malcolm’s hand tightens around mine, almost to the point of being painful. I don’t think twice before pressing it to my lips.
“He thought I’d driven home drunk.” A short sound that might have been a laugh. “I might have broken every rule in the old man’s book, but that wasn’t one of them. I made sure I took a cab back home. But he never really paid attention to what I said, did he? Even when Mom was alive. Kept hitting and hitting me, until Mahtab came between us. The next thing I knew, my twelve-year-old sister was on the floor, knocked out.” Malcolm’s mouth is drawn so tight that his lips are colorless. “The only good thing that probably came out of it was that it shook up the old man like nothing else. He’s never raised a hand to me again.”
I want to say something. Put words to the horror I’m feeling right now. But everything tastes inadequate. Sour like bile at the back of my tongue.
“I wanted to leave. Report him to the police. But Mahtab and Freny begged me not to. What if we were put into foster care and got separated, Mahtab kept saying.” He shrugs. “So I stayed. Kept quiet. Waited for the bruises to fade.”
“Did Mr. Zuric know about your dad hitting you?” I finally ask.
“No. No one did. Well, Ahmed and Steve know about some stuff. But not everything. They definitely don’t know about this.”
I’m quiet for a long moment. Part of me knows Malcolm should have told an adult. That it isn’t exactly Mr. Zuric’s fault for not knowing about Malcolm’s situation at home. But then—
“When I was ten, my mom found pictures of another woman on my dad’s phone,” I begin. “It was a family friend of ours. One of them was of her wearing lingerie. My mother grew hysterical. She began packing bags for herself and for me to go back to India. I spent a whole week in terror, waiting for the divorce announcement. But it didn’t happen. Somehow, someway, Appa convinced her to stay.”
It’s a story I didn’t tell anyone. Not even Alisha.
I look into Malcolm’s eyes. “I can’t begin to understand the horrible things you went through. But I get why you didn’t tell anyone. Why you didn’t want to tell anyone. It’s … it’s…”
“Embarrassing,” he fills in.
“Yeah. You want to put it behind you. But you can’t. Not really.” The air nips at my cheeks, stings when I breathe it in too quickly.
“Maybe we can. For a few moments.” He slips a hand around the back of my neck; the thumb circling the skin there is warm. “Maybe we can make the most of the time we have.”
And for the next fifteen mi
nutes, that’s exactly what we do.
* * *
Later that evening, I’m in the living room with my sketchbook, trying to come up with ideas for my final art project. Worth 30 percent of our overall grade, it has to be a painting in oils or watercolors, using the techniques we’ve learned during the semester. Which wouldn’t be that bad except for the following stipulation: the painting must also represent the artist or their life in some way. “I don’t want to see Da Vinci or Kahlo,” Ms. Nguyen said firmly. “I want to look at the painting and be able to see you. Bonus points if it’s not a self-portrait.”
I stare at the ideas I’ve doodled so far, along with potential titles, each one worse than the last:
– A pair of girls standing next to the Red Sea, friendship bracelets fraying under the sleeves of their abayas. BFF? Breaking Bonds?
– A boy and a girl perched on a staircase poring over a book, against a background of brilliant red and yellow leaves. Boy. Friend. Canadian Fall?
– A girl seated at a table littered with textbooks. There’s an empty thought bubble overhead, one that I could fill with a myriad of things: paints, canvas, a smock, a comic strip in a major newspaper.
“Seriously, Susan,” I mutter to myself. “What would you title that? Unfulfilled Dreams?”
“What are you doing?”
My head snaps up at the sound of my mother’s voice. “N-nothing … I mean, I’m working on ideas for my final art project.” As an afterthought, I add: “I thought I’d get it out of the way so that I can focus properly on my other courses.”
Amma nods. “Will it disturb you if I watch TV?”
“Of course not.” It’s not like I’m getting anywhere with the project anyway.
Amma switches on the television, flipping channels until she finds a science program. The show features a female scientist developing an app to help people with Parkinson’s disease write again.
“Clever.” Amma’s eyes are both critical and approving. “Whatever we say about the West in India, when it comes to technology and modern medicine they are still far superior to us.”
“Don’t let Appa hear you say that,” I joke. I don’t know if it’s homesickness or a heightened sense of nationalism, but my father’s attachment to India has always been greater than mine—even greater than Amma’s. It’s part of the reason we were both so surprised when he decided to have us immigrate to Canada for my final year of high school.
“Do you think this would have been possible in a place like India? There, she would’ve been married off and told to raise children.” A tiny nerve pulses at the base of Amma’s jaw. “Or her husband would’ve said that it’s better to stay home. That two working parents would make it difficult to have a family life.”
Her statement is a bit of an exaggeration; these days it’s getting common to see both parents working—even in India. But I don’t articulate my thoughts.
An image surfaces in my head: an old jewelry box, and inside it, a letter from my maternal grandmother in India, to Amma. It was the first time I discovered that words could burn themselves in my memory, leave an imprint even though I read them only once. I was five years old.
I know how difficult it is for a married woman, Ammachi wrote. Once we marry, it becomes our lot as women to follow our husbands. To have children we never wanted in the first place.
Years passed by, but the jewelry box and the letter always stayed at the bottom of Amma’s cupboard in Jeddah, where I first found them. I never asked Amma why she’d kept the letter or if she brought it with her to Canada. If it was the reason she’d refused to have more children after me.
“I’m glad your father chose this place over India for your higher education,” Amma says now. “Or even over Jeddah.”
“I thought you loved Jeddah.” She certainly never complained about it as she does about Mississauga. “That you didn’t want to leave.”
Her face drops a second before she fixes it with a smile. “Of course I love Jeddah. Many of my happiest memories with your father, with you”—she pinches my cheek—“are attached to that place. But there were no opportunities for me to work there unless I became a teacher or a nurse. I don’t want you to end up like that. Sitting at home. Wondering how it could have been if you’d waited a little longer to get married.”
“You can still do it, you know,” I say after a pause. “Amma, you’re so brilliant. Maybe even more brilliant than that scientist on TV. I know if you did a few courses at a college or university, you could get a good placement. Even in a lab.”
After what happened the last time we discussed this topic, I brace myself for another scolding. But my mother’s hand simply smooths out a knot in my hair. She doesn’t look into my eyes.
“You’re a good girl, Suzy. But this move has always been about you and your future. Right now, your father has a stable job in Saudi, but who knows about tomorrow? We are and always will be foreigners over there. As for India—neither your appa nor I wanted you to languish in a place saturated with red tape and bureaucracy. What a waste that would be—with brains like yours! It’s why I’m so glad you put that art school nonsense behind you.” She kisses my forehead.
Something inside me curls tight, stays balled up under my ribs. The question about Ammachi’s old letter rests on my tongue. I swallow it when Amma asks me if I want the gulab jamuns she bought this week from the Indian grocery store. I focus instead on mundane conversations about life and school, the way I would have in Jeddah. I hold on to the love my mother offers: a pair of rose-brown dumplings soaked in syrup and garnished with pistachios.
Malcolm
“Come in.”
Michelle Walters, owner and operator of Michelle’s Coffee House, has the voice of an old country singer: slow and soothing, a tinge of melody rounding off her words. It’s the sort of voice that, if taken for granted, can turn quickly, deliver the nasty surprise of reduced hours or even a dismissal—as the café’s milk supplier (or ex–milk supplier) learned a couple of weeks ago.
Even in my best pants, a button-down shirt, and a tie—Dress to impress, Ronnie had advised me—I feel like I’m treading on thin ice. Especially in Ronnie’s too-tight dress shoes that pinch my toes. Michelle looks me up and down. “I have exactly five minutes to spare you this morning, so make it quick.”
“Of course!” Great. Now I sound like a Muppet. I clear my throat. “I’m here to talk to you about a concert my high school’s doing to benefit Syrian refugees.”
I lay out the plan: the concert, the probable venue, the sponsorships we’ve received from a couple of other organizations.
“That’s good,” she cuts in. “But what do I get out of it?”
“Your name will be on the banners,” I say, recalling what Ronnie told me about sponsor packages. “And on the programs.”
“How much do you need?”
When I tell her the amount, she shakes her head. “No can do.”
“It’s a really good cause!” Ugh, why do I sound so eager? I try to tone my voice down. “It would be great publicity for the café!”
“Malcolm, this café has been in my family for three generations. I didn’t keep it running by giving money away,” she says bluntly. “I’m not against donating to a worthwhile cause, but I’m also a businesswoman. Who’s publicizing the event? The local press? Will it be on television?”
My heart sinks. A part of me is tempted to lie and figure things out later, but I know it won’t help in the long run. “I don’t think so,” I admit.
“Then I’m sorry, son.” And she does look it. “I can give you a hundred. But that’s it.”
“Sure.” I keep my smile fixed in place as she writes the check. “That’s great. Thank you for your time.”
It’s only after the door shuts behind her that I allow my shoulders to sag. Sweat coats the inside of my collar. A hundred dollars—barely enough to cover dinner for a family of four at a restaurant these days, let alone rent out an auditorium with over a hundred seats at
the city’s most prominent arts and culture facility.
Some fund-raising director I am. I was so nervous, I didn’t even try to charm her. Not that charm would work on someone like Michelle. More than anything, I hate the idea of giving Mahtab the news at this afternoon’s meeting and seeing the look of disappointment on her face.
I check my phone. 6:37 a.m. My meeting with Michelle lasted a grand total of seven minutes. Which leaves enough time to change out of this Ronnie Mehta–doppelgänger outfit and into my regular school clothes. I pull my hood over my head.
When I get back, Mahtab and Freny are chatting over breakfast in the kitchen. The old man’s nowhere in sight. Great, I think. There’s still time to sneak upstairs, unnoticed.
“Where were you?”
I stiffen at the sound of his voice and do a slow one-eighty on my heels. Tehmtun Vakil is wearing the same suit he did the day Zuric called him to school: blue pinstripes crisply ironed, a silver tie that reflects the ice in his eyes. “What on earth are you wearing?”
“Clothes,” I say breezily. “Shirt. Pants. Tie. Like you.”
His hands fist at his sides and I brace myself for a hit. It does not come. “Mind your tone.”
I think of sassing him again. Of saying nothing. But then I decide the truth will be infinitely more shocking.
“I was at Michelle’s. Trying to raise money for the concert Mahtab’s organizing.”
“Don’t lie to me!”
“Not lying, old man.” Now I’m really pushing it. I’ve never called him old man to his face before. Before he can react, I hold out the check Michelle gave me. He snatches it from my hands and holds it up to the light to see if it’s real. Slowly, his arms lower to his sides.
“Do you mind?” I say when his stare begins to unnerve me. “I have to give it to the treasurer at today’s meeting.”
He drops it in my hand without a word. I still feel the weight of his gaze as I race up the stairs, two at a time, before slamming my bedroom door shut.
The Beauty of the Moment Page 17
