A Place at the Table

by Saadia Faruqi

  Elizabeth puts her hands on her hips. “But your parents are nice.”

  “You’ve met my dad, what—twice?” I protest, throwing a pillow in her direction. “And you see my mom once a week for an hour.”

  “What can I say? I’m an excellent judge of character!” She throws the pillow back, and I catch it with both hands. She plops down on the bed next to me. “Seriously, Sara. You need to stop worrying about what people will say and be yourself.”

  “Oh, yeah, Miss Philosopher?”

  “Yeah. Just look at Maddy. She’s turned into a carbon copy of Sweet Stephanie, and it’s enough to make me puke. She’s a carbon cupcake.”

  “Maddy’s not sweet enough to be a cupcake,” I mumble.

  Even though we agreed not to talk about Maddy today, Elizabeth’s right. In every interaction with kids at school, I always worry about saying the right thing, being the right way. I always obsess on what others think of me, even stupid mean girls like Maddy and Stephanie. It’s just how I am.

  Elizabeth softens. “I am simply pointing out that you’ve got to be more chill. Try being less intense.”

  “Intense?” I want to be mad at her, but she’s right.

  “Yes! Intense.” She pushes her glasses up and brushes her bangs out of her face. “Which is good when you’re drawing, not so much if you’re trying to make friends in middle school.”

  “Enough lectures.” I pull my laptop toward me. “Since we’ve decided not to make paratha s’mores for the competition, we’re starting from scratch.”

  “That means more cooking videos!” Elizabeth is so excited, she bounces up and down on my bed. “Salma aunty dropped a new video about appetizers yesterday. I haven’t watched it yet.”

  “Less intense, please!” I mock.

  She throws a pillow at me.

  * * *

  All the cooking videos make us hungry, while giving us zero recipe ideas for the International Festival. We peek into the dining room, where Mama is putting the finishing touches on a pile of catering orders.

  “I’m sorry—I forgot I’d promised to help you!” I groan. Now she’s going to look all tired out, and it will be my fault.

  She hardly looks up. “Don’t worry. Your father helped me this morning while you were snoring away. I’m almost done.”

  Elizabeth comes closer. “Can I help you with anything, Mrs. Hameed?” I can tell she’s trying to read the labels on the boxes and figure out what’s inside.

  Mama waves to the box of labels on the table. “I need these fixed on the smallest boxes, then the words ‘Chicken Tikka’ written on them.”

  Elizabeth gives me a knowing look. “Wouldn’t it be nice if you had an actual label with a logo for your business?”

  Mama looks up, startled. “What?”

  I step on Elizabeth’s foot to shut her up. “Nothing,” I say loudly. Nervously. I’m not ready yet to reveal my business ideas to my family. I don’t know if I ever will be.

  Elizabeth shakes her head at me and picks up a plain white sticker. “Yeah, nothing,” she repeats.

  I relax. That was a close call.

  Mama goes back to her labeling. “What were you girls doing upstairs for so long?”

  Elizabeth sniffs at the box she’s holding in her hand. “Watching videos.”

  “To get inspiration for our Secret Award-Winning Recipe,” I add. “We still can’t think of what to cook.”

  Mama looks up in surprise. “You’d better hurry up and decide. You don’t have much time left.”

  Elizabeth dazzles Mama with a smile. “Can’t you give us some ideas, please, Mrs. Hameed? You’re the expert, after all.”

  Mama shakes her head. “Sorry. That would be cheating. I can’t help any of my students, because I’m the event organizer.” She picks up an armful of plastic boxes and a blue hijab from the back of a chair. “I’m off to deliver these orders. You two are on your own.”

  Elizabeth and I sit at the kitchen table after she’s gone, munching freshly baked zeera cookies. Baba’s cricket match is still going, but he’s sleeping on the couch with his cup of chai still balanced on his stomach. I bring my recipe notebook with the glittery purple lettering on the cover, and we go over our notes again. And again. I can’t believe how many ideas we’ve discarded. Parathas. Sandwiches. Samosas. Even a strawberry lassi mixture that I’m secretly dying to make.

  “Too bad Mama won’t help us,” I complain. “What’s the point of having a cook for a mother if we can’t use her expertise?”

  “We could do something Jewish, like matzo balls,” Elizabeth suggests, rubbing her eyes under her glasses. “My bubbe would help us.”

  “What’s she like?” I imagine an old white lady with gray hair and old-fashioned glasses hanging from her neck.

  “She’s the best! She wears bright colors and funky jewelry and her hair is all spiky. Mom says I get my sense of style from her.” Elizabeth grins and shows off her very colorful autumn-leaves leggings. “She’s coming to visit for Hanukkah. I hope you get to meet her.” She pauses. “What about you? You never told me about your grandparents.”

  “They live in Pakistan. I don’t see them very often,” I say slowly, trying to conjure them in my mind. Nana and Nani, who are Mama’s parents. Dada and Dadi, who are Baba’s parents. Or in the case of Dada, that grainy, serious picture of him.

  Elizabeth looks at me with big eyes. “That’s so sad. When was the last time you saw them?”

  I tell her about our summer vacation in Pakistan three years ago. My first international air travel. The heat of the season. The crowd of cousins, aunts, and uncles. The food. The fragrances. The noise. We flew first to Karachi, where Mama’s parents live, in a poor but bustling city. Then we traveled by train to Lahore, where my dadi lived on a sprawling village farm outside the city, complete with chickens, cows, and fields of turnip greens.

  It’s kind of cool, though. My parents were a city girl and a village boy, but they still found each other thousands of miles away in America.

  Elizabeth closes the recipe notebook and listens to everything I’m saying as if it’s the most interesting thing she’s ever heard. I get a happy feeling inside, like I’m made of bubbles.

  But I know bubbles don’t last forever. There’s another part of me, my brain, perhaps, that’s telling me this is too good to be true. Elizabeth’s real friends are Maddy and Micah and the other kids she’s grown up with. Sure, we have some similarities. We both go to religious Sunday school. We both have at least one parent who comes from another country. But exchanging secrets and being there for each other is still easier with Rabia.

  Yeah, but we’re getting better at it, my heart reminds me.

  22

  Elizabeth

  MOM ARRIVES AT the same time as Mrs. Hameed. The cricket match on TV is ending. Mr. Hameed is clapping for the home team. He gives Sara’s brothers high-fives and fist bumps.

  Mrs. Hameed pulls off her hijab and brings out some fresh tea and fruit. “Sara, boys, everyone! Come into the family room, please. We have something to tell you.” It’s obvious that tea—chai—is a big thing in the Hameed household.

  My mom’s bright pink cheeks tell me it’s surprise time. Justin, Tariq, and Rafey tumble onto the couch. They’re adorable, but sweaty and fidgety, so I take a spot as far away from them as possible. Sara sits on her father’s ottoman, and he pats her shoulder. He’s grinning. He must be in on the secret.

  Our mothers stand, facing us all. My mom is tall and regal. She’s wearing a navy blue dress. An actual dress! Next to Mom, Mrs. Hameed is petite, but her lifted chin as she motions to my mother means she’s the one in charge.

  “Nicole and I have something to tell you.”

  “You won the lottery?” Mr. Hameed jokes. Okay, maybe he’s just as clueless as the rest of us.

  She gives him her teacherly Settle down, now face, but she’s holding back a smile. “No. We both received our interview dates for citizenship.”

  My mother’s smile
rises like a sweet golden cake. “We got the same date! And if we pass, we’ll be at the same ceremony.”

  Sara and I exchange glances. I can’t believe it. It’s happening. Even if Mom goes through with her plans to visit London, she’s going to go as an American. This is huge.

  “I won’t feel as anxious, knowing Hina is with me the whole time,” Mom says.

  Justin rushes over to give her a hug. “I’m proud of you, Mom!”

  Mr. Hameed clears his throat. “Congratulations, ladies. Now, let’s talk about dinner. Nicole, are you sure you won’t join us?”

  I want to jump up and say, Thanks, Hameeds! Of course we will join you for dinner. Don’t know why we didn’t think of it earlier.

  But Mom is making excuses. “You have enough to do, Hina. And we wanted a quiet holiday this year.” The three boys have tumbled off the couch and are wrestling on the floor.

  Now that the couch is open, Sara slides next to me. “I guess we’ve got another event to plan, after the festival.”

  It takes me a second to catch on. “A citizenship party. Yes! I’m in.”

  “We’ll need flags,” Sara says. “I may need another notebook. Operation Citizenship Party.”

  “I’ll bake cookies. With striped icing and star sprinkles.”

  Sara lifts one dark eyebrow. “Should we hire Stephanie to bake cupcakes for the occasion? She is the cupcake queen.”

  “If she does say so herself,” I add.

  Mr. Hameed says, “Flags, cookies, cupcakes. This sounds like a big celebration.”

  “I hope it’s after the festival,” Sara whispers to me. “We need to focus. We only have a month left to get our recipe ready.” She crosses her fingers and turns to her mother. “Mama, you haven’t told us the date yet.”

  Mrs. Hameed checks the calendar on her phone. “Wednesday, January ninth,” she tells us.

  My chest tightens. “It’s on a Wednesday?” I ask my mom. I touch the charms on my bracelets—Star of David first, then flag, teacup, TARDIS. “What if Dad’s traveling?”

  “Let’s talk about that later. At home,” Mom says. She reaches for her cup of tea and focuses on Mrs. Hameed. Away from me.

  I cross my arms at her, even though she won’t meet my eyes. Let’s talk about that later means bad news. It means Dad won’t be there for Mom’s citizenship ceremony.

  * * *

  Mom drives me and Justin home, but I refuse to go into the house. I am boycotting this family. They can eat their grocery-store Thanksgiving dinner while I sit out here on the cold front steps.

  Mom pushes Justin inside and hesitates in the doorway. “Elizabeth, stop being so dramatic. I don’t need Dad at the swearing-in. I’ll have you and your brothers.”

  “It’s not right,” I insist. “I am protesting. I’m doing a sit-in.”

  “Looks more like a sit-out,” David says as he pokes his head out the door.

  “Mind your own business,” I tell him.

  He pulls Mom inside. There’s some emergency with the meat-thermometer app that David insisted on using for the turkey. They leave me out here to shiver and fume.

  When the door opens a few minutes later, I’m surprised that it’s Dad. He likes to joke that he’s in charge of car repair, compost, and recycling. He leaves friend trouble and “minor emotional sprains” to Mom.

  Dad sits, long legs stretched out in front of him, and wraps an arm around me. “I hear you’re staging a sit-out,” he teases.

  “Humph. Sit-in.”

  “Want to tell me what happened?”

  Usually when I’m sad, Dad’s deep voice resonates in my chest, soothing my hurt feelings. But not this time. When my parents sent me away this summer, I shut down all my sadness about Nan being sick, about missing home and Justin. I couldn’t show those feelings to the girls in my cabin. They would have started singing “The sun will come out tomorrow” at me. But today, all the sadness I’ve been holding inside wants to burst out of me.

  “Dad, you can’t skip Mom’s citizenship ceremony,” I say. “We’re supposed to go together, as a family.”

  Dad shakes his head. “It’s not that easy, Elizabeth. I have to work.”

  “Take a day off.”

  “You don’t understand.”

  “You don’t understand. If you don’t come, it’s like you don’t care. I thought you wanted Mom to be an American, so she can vote, and go through Customs with us at the airport, and stay here forever.”

  “Of course I want those things. The ceremony isn’t that big of a deal.”

  “Did Mom say that?” I ask. “Because if she did, she was lying to make you feel better about not being there.”

  Dad pulls his knees awkwardly into his chest. “We’ll give Mom a party on a weekend, when it’s convenient.”

  I face my father and tap his chest with two fingers, the way Bubbe does when she argues with him. “You’d better be at that ceremony. I need to know that I have at least one parent who’s not going anywhere.”

  Dad gapes at me. I glare right back.

  “What does that mean?” he asks.

  I shift on the cold concrete step. “Mom’s been talking to Aunt Louise about going back to England. She’s always checking airfare sales and making packing lists. If she goes, how do we know she’s coming back?” Tears start to flow down my cheeks. I bat them away with my knuckles.

  Dad’s forehead furrows. “Any chance you overheard something your mother said and blew it out of proportion?”

  I make a sound in my throat. “Why does everyone in this family think I’m some kind of drama queen?” I complain.

  Dad doesn’t answer that question. He asks, “And where do you think I’m running off to? Tahiti?” The way Dad’s lips are smirking makes me want to storm into the house, but I’m determined to do this sit-in. Sit-out. Whatever.

  “It’s not funny, Dad. You’re never home. Never. Mom has been so sad, and sometimes she doesn’t do basic stuff like laundry or cooking or leaving the house. It feels like our family is buried under a blob of gray, lumpy gravy. When you’re home, she tries to act like everything’s fine, but it’s not. That’s just for show.”

  Dad takes a deep breath too. His exhale makes a cloud of steam.

  The door opens before he can speak. It’s Mom. “Dinner’s on the table,” she says.

  “No more moping on the steps.” Dad pulls me up by the arm. I guess my protest is over. “We’ll talk more later,” he says.

  * * *

  Dad is home for all five days of our holiday break. He gets up early, pours boiling water into a proper teapot, and puts the tea cozy over it to keep it warm. I add a dainty flowered teacup and some English digestive biscuits to the breakfast tray so Mom can have tea in bed. She loves this tradition. It was something her father used to do for Nan before he passed away. I was little when Granddad died, but I used to love crawling into bed with Nan for morning tea.

  The sadness falls off my mother a little bit each day, like peeling the ugly brown fuzz off a kiwi fruit and finding the sweet green goodness inside. I can’t tell if it’s because of Dad being home, or because the citizenship test is finally happening.

  Dad spends Saturday in the garage with David and Justin, trying—finally—to put the toaster back together, so Mom invites Mrs. Hameed over for a study session.

  Before Sara’s mom arrives, Mom calls me to the table and hands me a steaming cup of milky tea.

  “I hear you think I’m a flight risk,” Mom says.

  “Huh?”

  “Just because I want to visit Aunt Louise in London, it doesn’t mean I want to leave you, Elizabeth. I love England. I miss the countryside, and fruit pastilles, and lighting the Christmas pudding on fire, but there are other traditions we can do here.”

  “Don’t tell me Dad’s going to be okay with a Christmas tree. And angel ornaments.”

  She laughs. “Maybe not, but I think we can talk him into Christmas pudding. The point is, I love you, and Dad, and your brothers more than all
of those things put together.”

  I blow on my tea to help it cool. “What about Aunt Louise?”

  “She has her own family to take care of, and she has her hands full selling Nan’s house. She doesn’t need to solve my problems. And she will—try to solve my problems. She is my big sister, after all.”

  “David doesn’t try to solve my problems,” I grump.

  “Count yourself lucky,” Mom says. “He can’t even fix the toaster.”

  I sip my tea. “What about Dad? You’re happier when he’s home. And that makes the whole house feel better.”

  “He’s working on it, Elizabeth. I promise,” Mom says.

  “Working on what? Coming to your swearing-in?”

  “We’ll see. You need to trust us. There are some things you’re too young to worry about. Let the parents handle it.”

  Before Mom and I can finish talking, Mrs. Hameed arrives and the two of them get busy studying. I hear their happy chatter as they quiz each other on historical facts and dates.

  It’s fine for Mom to say Let the parents handle it when Dad is home. As soon as he’s gone again, Mom’s mood will crash and David, me, and Justin will be handling everything she can’t.

  * * *

  On Sunday afternoon, my whole family gathers at the table for tea, Jaffa cakes that my mom found at the supermarket, and a game of dominoes. We all laugh when she tells a story about the time Nan’s chickens escaped their coop. There were eggs hidden everywhere. In the hedges, in the flower beds, and one in the dry birdbath. Mom pats her eyes with a tissue, and for a second, I can’t tell if she’s laughing or crying. Maybe both.

  After dinner, all of us crowd onto the couch to watch Mom’s favorite episode of Doctor Who—the one where the hero of Nottingham, Robin Hood, is a real historical person. It’s the Sheriff of Nottingham’s knights who turn out to be evil robots.