The Beauty of the Moment

by Tanaz Bhathena

  She’s not a bad person. I can’t remember the number of times I said the same thing to Ahmed, Steve, and Mahtab, whenever they complained about Afrin.

  ok, I text back after a moment. let’s talk.

  I guess I am more like my mother, more like Freny than I thought.

  * * *

  “What happened to you?” The disgust in Afrin’s voice, barely held back, almost makes me laugh.

  “I am touched by your concern. What do you think, Afrin? It’s the freaking flu.”

  “Didn’t you take your shot this year?” She eyes the tissues scattered around my bed and pauses a foot away from it. She’s still carrying the giant purse she brings to school and it’s bulging more than usual.

  I roll my eyes. “You’re the one desperate to talk to me.”

  “You could’ve said you were sick. I would’ve come later.” Sighing, she switches the bag from one shoulder to another. I almost forgot how scared Afrin is of getting sick. Or how much she hates hospitals in general. It was how we first bonded—me telling her about Mom, she telling me about her grandmother who died of pneumonia.

  “What is it?” I ask now. “What did you want to tell me?”

  “I wanted to apologize face-to-face.” Lines appear on her smooth forehead. “I messed up everything. With Justin. With you and Susan. When you told me you didn’t want to see me anymore in December, I couldn’t believe—didn’t want to believe—you. I know I’m fully to blame for cheating on you, but you wouldn’t accept any of my apologies, wouldn’t even talk to me. Then you started going out with Susan. You both looked so happy that I started to get mad, even a little possessive. I thought that by meddling in your relationship, I could get you back and make things right between us again. But I realize now it was a mistake. I let my ego get in the way and ruined everything.”

  Yeah. Maybe that’s true, but—

  “You weren’t the only one who messed up.” Pain stretches over the back of my head. “I kissed you back.”

  “A reflex.” She shrugs.

  “You knew?”

  She raises a perfectly shaped eyebrow. “That wasn’t the kiss of a boy who wanted me. Even when we dated, you never kissed me the way you kiss Susan.”

  My mouth falls open. I lick my suddenly dry lips. “And which way is that?”

  “Like she’s something precious.” There’s a strange, wistful look on her face I’ve never seen before.

  “You were watching us?”

  “The rest of us use the hallway on the second floor, too, you know.” She rolls her eyes. “You two were nauseating.”

  I suppress a smile. “What about Justin? How is he doing now? Have you talked to him?”

  To my surprise, a faint blush colors the skin under Afrin’s perfectly powdered cheeks. “No … not yet. I mean, I tried seeing him in December after … you know … but no one came to the door. He didn’t answer his phone or any of my texts, either. I later found out from Dave that Justin and his mom were at his grandparents’ place in Ottawa and that they came back last night. Dave said Justin’s doing a lot better now so today I skipped my last two classes and went to see him again. Spent an hour outside his house before I figured out he wasn’t going to let me in. Or maybe it was his mom who stopped him.”

  I pause before asking the next question. “Are you going to try seeing him again?”

  “I’m not sure I want to,” she admits. “And it’s not only my parents and their issues. Though now they aren’t interested in me seeing that other guy anymore, thankfully. He’s lucky Justin’s mom didn’t press charges for assault. There are times I think Justin’s mom was right, you know. That I should stay away from him. Especially since I’m not sure if I can love Justin the way he wants me to.”

  Silence, the sort that brims with unspoken questions, settles uncomfortably between us.

  “Love stinks,” I mutter, more to myself than her.

  Afrin smiles. “Oh, Malcolm. You always say that but your heart will never let you believe it. It’s bigger than anyone else’s I know. It always has been.”

  I watch Afrin leave the room, taking with her the scents of school and snow and perfume.

  I guess I could call Susan the way I used to call Afrin after a blowup. I could beg for her forgiveness again.

  Love should not be one-sided. The words echo in my head, a reminder from an old conversation I had with my mother when we first discovered the old man’s cheating ways. I pull up my phone and tap into the pdf of the flyer in the fund-raiser’s Dropbox account, expanding the last panel until I can see myself again.

  Is it a hello or a goodbye? I wonder. These days, I’m not sure if I can tell.

  * * *

  “Excuse me? Sir?”

  The politeness feels awkward on my tongue, the Sir even more so. I don’t exactly blame Zuric for scowling when he looks up from the papers he’s organizing in the staff lounge. “What can I do for you, Mr. Vakil?”

  After two days of resting at home, I no longer have a fever, but my head still feels like it’s stuffed with cotton balls. I also have exactly ten minutes before first period to make my case about my grade. Which is, I realize, more time than I had with Michelle during my first sponsorship pitch. You don’t give up, do you? Michelle had said last week. I don’t know why, but for some reason I want to prove her right.

  “I’m having a lot of trouble with English this semester. I know I’m not smart enough and that it’s probably too late with finals coming up this month … but I want to graduate this year. Go to university. I … I need help.” It’s not until the words spill out that I realize they’re true.

  Zuric’s frown deepens. “You’re not unintelligent, Mr. Vakil. That was never the problem. It’s exactly the reason you can be so exasperating during classes.”

  Great. Now I’m going to get a lecture. But for once I keep my mouth shut instead of snapping back.

  Zuric scribbles something on a piece of paper. “That said, it may not be too late. I haven’t marked your independent study essay yet, but you haven’t done badly with the unit on Alias Grace. I can set up an extra credit assignment for you. I’m also happy to tutor you for an hour every Wednesday after school. I noticed you had trouble with the Shakespeare unit during the midterm and it will be on the final, too.”

  Less Susan, more Shakespeare. I want to groan out loud. But with Zuric still glaring at me, all that comes out of my mouth is: “Cool. When do we start?”

  Susan

  Mahtab tells me the auditorium will be packed, but I don’t realize how much so until I see the crowd lined up outside the Rogers Theatre at the Living Arts Centre. The air buzzes with chatter, fills with the scent of chocolate when I pass by a group of teens. A few feet away, I spot Ronnie and Mahtab talking to a reporter, a giant video camera focused on their faces.

  The slim straps of my backpack, loaded with three small crates of extra programs, cut into my shoulders. It has been several months now since I’ve carried a full backpack the way I did at Qala Academy. I eye the table, already laid out with programs, and wonder if I can unload a couple of the crates there.

  “Four dollars for one lousy bag of potato chips?” I hear Yusuf say behind me.

  “You’re not here to eat, Shire.” Malcolm’s voice sends a shiver down my spine. “Where are the VIP guests?”

  “Relax, Vakil. They’re who I want to buy the snacks for. They’re inside the auditorium already.”

  “You can’t take food in there!”

  As they bicker a little more, I slip into the theater after flashing my volunteer badge at the usher. I can always unload those boxes later, I tell myself. I make my way down to the front rows and slip into an aisle seat for the time being, allowing my sore shoulders some respite. The twelve VIP guests are already seated. Most of them are children, but there are a couple of adults as well. I smile at a man with a little girl on his lap. They both smile back, flashing identical pairs of dimples.

  “Hey, Susan! Can you keep an eye on this one?�
� Mahtab comes down the stairs, clutching the hand of a small boy, probably six or seven years old. “Found him wandering around outside unsupervised.”

  The boy raises his head and looks at me: a picture of gray-eyed innocence. There’s a hint of mischief there, though, and I know I’ll have to keep a close eye on him so that he doesn’t wander off again.

  “Ismi Susan,” I tell the boy my name. “Ma ismak?”

  He smiles and I wonder if he finds my accent funny. At Qala Academy, our teacher always said that we had distinct Indian accents, unable to pronounce the Arabic words as they should be pronounced.

  But then the boy says, “Ismi Waleed,” and I welcome him warmly, saying, “Marhaba, Waleed.”

  “Marhaba, Waleed! Marhaba, everyone!” Mahtab announces. Waleed and the other kids up front start giggling.

  “I guess we stick out like sore thumbs with our accents, don’t we?” Mahtab grins. “I mean, you don’t as much, but still.”

  Warmth blooms under my ribs.

  I have been called too Saudi for India even though I don’t have a passport from the Kingdom, and too Indian for Saudi Arabia even though in my birth country I am treated like a foreigner. For the longest time, I thought I didn’t fit in anywhere. Even at Qala Academy, among other kids straddling lines between two different cultures, there were times I felt like an alien. But here, in this moment, I wonder if fitting in is important after all. I pull out the sketchbook that I stuffed into my backpack at the last minute and a pencil.

  “Wanna see something fun?” I ask the kids.

  I settle into an empty seat again and begin tracing out a giant oval. A couple of small shadows fall over my book. Gasps emerge as I add details: a giant webbed face gazing at them with milky teardrop-shaped eyes.

  “Spider-Man!”

  I tear the drawing out and show it, handing it to Waleed who seems fascinated by how a face appeared within an egg.

  “Me! Me!” the little dimpled girl calls out.

  “Of course.” I draw Kamala Khan in her Ms. Marvel costume, focusing on the hair, the mask, the flying red cape. Other requests start pouring in. I draw the Hulk and Thor and Daisy Duck. Someone says “Captain Majid!” and the kids laugh, thinking I don’t know who he is. But I grin and the boy who made the request cries out with joy when I hand him the sketch of the character whose name is synonymous with soccer through most of the Arab world. By the time I’m done, each child has something of their own. I rise to my feet, electricity buzzing under my skin.

  Why fit in, I wonder, when you can stand out?

  Audience members trickle into the auditorium. Among them I see Preeti and Heather, both of whom had instantly bought tickets the moment I told them about the concert. I raise a hand and wave. They wave back enthusiastically. Now that the kids are occupied with swapping my drawings and talking among themselves, I make my way to the back, brushing past someone in the process.

  “Susan.” His voice stops me in my tracks. Malcolm takes in my face, still holding the afterglow of drawing for the kids. “You look good.”

  His eyes trail down to my neck, widen on seeing the chartreuse scarf he gave me for Christmas. I unglue my tongue from the roof of my mouth. “Thanks. So do you.”

  You look good? Seriously, that’s the best you both can do? The voice in my head sounds a lot like Alisha. But it’s true. Malcolm does look great today, in a black suit that I didn’t even know he owned and a skinny pewter tie that draws even more attention to the gray in his eyes.

  “Vakil!” Yusuf shouts from the front.

  Malcolm is still staring at my scarf. He opens his mouth as if to say something, but then shrugs. “I gotta go.”

  Was that a dismissal? I am not sure. Malcolm and I have been dancing around each other ever since the breakup. One step forward, two steps back. Why did I think wearing the scarf would change anything?

  “Hey, kids, welcome to the concert!” Malcolm and Yusuf are talking to the kids in the front row. I watch for a minute or so, see how effortlessly Malcolm manages to elicit smiles and chatter from them, even with the language barrier. My heart, silly thing, begins tap dancing.

  A hard elbow nudges me from behind, forcing me into the space in front of an empty aisle seat. Raucous laughter follows. A group of older white boys march past, wearing red jackets, like they belong to a club or something. The one who elbowed me does not even glance my way, completely ignoring my glare. I jump when a hand touches my shoulder.

  “Are you okay?” Heather asks, a frown on her face.

  “Yeah.” I force myself to smile. “I’ll go tell Ronnie to keep an eye on them.”

  I find Mahtab’s boyfriend farther back and point out the boys in red: stuffing popcorn in their mouths, allowing it to trail onto the carpeted floor, where it can be crushed underfoot. One of them tosses a piece of popcorn at an older blond woman in the front and then raises his hands in the air, as if in apology.

  “Looks like the publicity got us more attention than I expected.” Ronnie’s normally cheerful voice grows hard. “I better let security know. They’re not allowed to bring food in here.”

  Unease churns my insides. At the front, I notice Malcolm staring at the boys as well, his face looking like it might be carved out of stone. He steps forward as if to confront them, but is stopped by Mahtab, who says something in his ear. He turns to look at me, worry lining his forehead.

  “Susan!” Isabel’s voice forces me to break eye contact. “We’ve run out of programs!”

  “I have more in my bag.” We head to the auditorium entrance and begin placing the programs in neat piles on the table there.

  “That’s such a beautiful poster!” I hear someone say.

  Isabel and I exchange quick grins. By the time the last program is handed out, the auditorium is full. Mahtab places each of us at a specific point in the auditorium and then scurries to the front, where Ronnie has started his welcome speech.

  “Good afternoon, everyone! The idea for this concert began in a basement—as most great ideas usually do—”

  Scattered laughter from the audience. Ronnie goes on to talk about the reasons behind the fund-raising effort.

  “When news channels talk about what’s happening in Syria, the first things they show are the faces of its children. And there’s good reason for this. When war begins, the innocent are the first to die.”

  “Boo hoo!” someone shouts.

  Ronnie’s smile freezes on his face, but he plows through the rest of the speech, pretending he didn’t hear. I scan the audience, my eyes homing in on the splash of red midway down the rows of seats. As Ronnie pauses to hand over the mic to Malcolm, who begins to introduce the choir, the boys in red begin to chant, their voices growing louder and louder with each passing moment. One of them rises to his feet and pours all his popcorn over the carpet before stomping it with his boots.

  “Hey, losers! Why don’t you go back where you belong with the rest of them. Go back home!”

  “Go back home!”

  “Go back home!”

  “Go back home!”

  The chanting gets angrier and angrier, even as a flurry of other voices break out:

  “Stop that!”

  “What’s going on?”

  “Where’s security? I’m calling the police!”

  The last voice is Ronnie’s and it’s nearly lost in the melee. Malcolm’s face grows harder than I’ve ever seen it. He places the mic on the floor and walks offstage.

  “Nonono,” I mutter under my breath when I see him jogging up the rows to where the troublemakers are. A red-faced security guard rushes past and, even though my brain tells me to stay put, my feet follow. By the time we get there, one of the boys is shoving Malcolm, who retaliates with a punch.

  Pandemonium erupts, people screaming. A couple of older ladies crouch at the bottom of their seats up front, terrified. While the guard tries to restrain one of the red-jacketed boys, another boy has joined in to hit Malcolm. A third approaches, silver glinting in his h
and.

  My sporadic evenings of using the heavy bag in Preeti’s garage aren’t enough to have me trained to do what I want to. I am not and never will be a boxer, let alone one who knocks out a boy nearly twice my size. But my bag is nice and heavy, the straps cutting into my hands. I swing it as high as I can and slam it right between his shoulder blades.

  Malcolm

  Of the things I thought would happen at the concert, I never expected a fight. Nor did I expect Susan Thomas to jump into the fray, slamming her heavy backpack into one of the hecklers so hard that he falls face-first to the floor.

  And she doesn’t stop there, but turns to slam another boy right in the shoulder. I jump in, pushing her out of the way, taking a punch to the chest. Pain laces through my ribs and I nearly stagger to my knees. I’m about to hit back when Susan grabs hold of my arm with a grip that is surprisingly strong.

  “Don’t!” she tells me quietly and, for a few seconds, I don’t understand why.

  Then a voice booms: “Police! You are under arrest for assault.”

  A pair of handcuffs gleam in the hands of a burly policeman, who pushes the boy hitting me to his knees. Another officer is already marching two other red jackets to the exit.

  “You okay there, son?” the officer’s shrewd eyes give me a concerned look. “We’ll have a paramedic look you over.”

  My body aches from the hits I received. But I wait patiently as a woman checks me over for injuries, finally pronouncing me good to go.

  The officer nods. “You kids go ahead. I’m sorry you had to face such stuff when you were trying to do good.”

  It’s only then that I realize that Susan never left through the whole examination process, and had stood a few feet away, watching me and the paramedic. I’m about to say something—anything to get her to talk to me again—when Mahtab rushes up to us.

  “The little kids are pretty shaken,” Mahtab says quietly. Ronnie and Yusuf are talking to them, trying to do damage control. “Do you think we should continue, though? I mean this incident—”