“There’s time enough.”
Wyatt did away with the pretenses and shot a look toward the main office behind them.
“Security’s on your right,” Hassan said, low enough so that only he’d hear. After all, he still had a hand on the boy’s slight shoulder. “We’ll keep them in view. Now let’s go. You don’t want Edy thinking you’re afraid of me.”
Hassan looked up to find hesitation in Edy’s expression. He disarmed it with a raise of his brow.
“We’ll only take a minute,” Hassan said. “If you can stand our absence that long.”
It worked. Edy broke into a smile.
On the way out, they passed a pack of upper- -classmen shouting greetings to their star running back. He steered Wyatt, grip tightening on his shoulder as he pretended not to notice the slight pull of resistance. Once they exited the chain-link fence that lined the student parking lot, they crossed the street, and Hassan released him. Wyatt shot a look back to the security guard booth outside.
“No point in running,” Hassan said. “You know I can catch you, like you know I can beat the hell out of you before help arrives.”
The sudden slump of Wyatt’s shoulders served as quiet acknowledgment of the facts.
“Great,” Hassan said. “Now that we’ve got that out the way, tell me your goal with Edy. And if you feed me some crap about platonic friendships, I’ll hammer you.”
Wyatt withdrew; face a blank slate, blood drained from the truth.
“Don’t you have a practice or something?” he said.
“I’m willing to be late for you,” Hassan said, voice tender as if flowers and chocolate might follow.
“Then I’m honored,” Wyatt said.
Hassan glanced at his watch. “Let’s try this again. This time, note the impatience painted plain on my face. “What-is-your-goal-with-Edy?”
“Whatever it is, it’s more realistic than yours!”
Hassan managed a deep breath before strangling the urge to dive on him. “Okay. She know that?”
As expected, the indignant look slid straight from Wyatt’s face. “What difference does it matter?”
Hassan snatched him by the shoulder and they started down the street together, for a conversation that required distance from so many ears.
“You love her?” Hassan said.
Wyatt’s face twisted in a grimace. “Does it matter?”
“You know it does,” Hassan said.
“Then no. I don’t.”
Hassan stopped. Looked him over. “You know better than to say it. You know that if she understood what the ice cream dinners, hugs, and thousand text messages a day really meant, you’d have nothing to hold onto but your own worthless memories.”
Wyatt’s Adam’s apple dipped quick down a long, pale throat.
“But I can’t prove you’re only pretending, can I?” Hassan said. “My saying so would jeopardize our new relationship. She’d think I’m trying to run her life. The overprotective boyfriend,” he paused, surprised at having used the word, but knowing it to be the right one. “The over protective boyfriend coming between her and a friend. She wouldn’t believe it if I told her you were a common snake.”
Hassan bent to pluck a jagged rock from the ground. He ran a thumb over its contours as he contemplated.
“I don’t have many options,” he admitted. “But neither do you. So, you know what I’m going to do? Pretend right along with you. As of now, you’re a stand-up guy, not the creep next door trying to get lucky.”
“What? But why?”
“Because me and you are gonna play the same game. But we’re gonna play to different ends and see who comes out on top.”
Wyatt frowned thoughtfully.
“Equal parts brawn and brain,” he said. “Pradhan gets in the game and in the mind of his opponent while other guys are still suiting up in the locker room.”
“September seventh, Globe, Special Edition,” Hassan said. “Glad to know you’re a fan.”
He tossed his rock away and took off on a shortcut to practice.
They were equal now, he and Wyatt, both having recognized the other as an opponent. Now, their game could begin.
Twenty
Dinner that night was a fabulous concoction of curries, meats and breads, pressed over and running with plenty because of the Purnima or full moon fast Hindus observed intermittently.
“I made your favorites, samosas, because I know you haven’t eaten today,” Rani said to Hassan as he took a seat at the table.
Except he had eaten, breakfast, lunch, and an oversized coffee roll from Dunkin Donuts, so far as Edy knew. Anyway, he hadn’t fasted on a full moon since fainting at peewee league practice almost a decade ago. After hearing about it, Ali had excused him from skipping meals—without letting Rani in on it.
“Thanks, Mom,” Hassan said.
The second his mom turned from the table, he shot Edy a wink that had her blushing and grinning like crazy. It turned him to thinking of bedtime and whether how bad he wanted to join her again. They hadn’t done anything that night and yet her touch had him walking in circles.
With his mother tinkering around in the kitchen, bringing out dishes one by one as if she were in the world’s longest wedding processional, and with his father still holed away in his study, Hassan’s hand flexed open and closed on the table before he walked his fingers halfway across to where her hand rested. Teasing. Threatening to touch. Her fingers inched forward and he beckoned them. Come on. Take a chance with me.
His mother returned and they jerked at the sight of her, burned by the fear of suspicion. She wielded a tray stacked with pulses, an assortment of beans alone. But she was all busy hands and idle chatter as she arranged the table to maniacal standards.
“Homework?” she said.
“We did it,” Hassan said. Jeez, his heart beat like he’d run back a touchdown. Damn if he’d admit to anyone though.
“Football practice?” she said.
“Good.”
She gave him a warning eye. He knew that she hated the way he tended to answer in English, no matter what language addressed in. Rani turned to Edy.
“Ballet practice?”
“Long but good,” she offered in accented Punjabi, earning a smile from his mother. When Rani headed for the kitchen Hassan snorted.
“Brownnoser,” he said and stole a samosa, shoving it into his mouth before his mother returned.
Hours later, Hassan stretched out on his bed, arms folded behind his head, eyes upward on the ceiling. With dinner heavy in his stomach and his mom snoozing in bed before the Bollywood musical Ready for the umpteenth time, Edy slipped into his room and leaned against the door to shut it.
He had a Martha Stewart sort of room, if Martha Stewart slung a football all day long. Stark against otherwise white walls, life sized navy silhouettes sprung to life with pigskin in hand. One stretched, form flawless, his muscles tested in a gallop for his life. Another stiff armed with a ball cradled tight, while a third, his favorite, featured a fearless dive into the end zone. All this, of course, was in crisp contrast to the show room furnishings his mother adorned the room in.
Edy flopped onto her back next to him. He hadn’t been able to help the way his arm curled round her, nor the way the corners of his mouth eased up as she snuggled in. He listened to her breathe—in, out, in, out, until her chest synched with his, their rising and falling soothed him with a sense of security, teasing him with how basic and human they both were.
As if life could be that simple.
“How many Hindu gods can you name?” Hassan said. More than me, I bet.
His mother snoozed on the downstairs couch, volume amped on reruns of her Bollywood soaps. She would wait on his father’s arrival, feed him, then bypass Hassan’s closed door without issue. An adolescent boy required privacy, both parents agreed. Sort of.
“What are you really asking?” she said and turned so their noses grazed.
He claimed her mouth in what s
hould have been a gentle kiss, in what started as a brush of lips, but morphed when Edy mewled and hauled him in tight by the shirt. When Hassan extracted himself, every cell in him thudded with hard, hot blooded protest.
“Well?” he worked out, despite lungs deflated to the size of pebbles.
“Well what?” she said.
He rolled on his side to face her again. “How many?”
He . . . needed this answer. Theology never settled quite right with him, like a broken bone that wouldn’t set. Whenever it came up, which was rare, it was the mask used to hide another. Digging out the true thought, the true question, was something that few could do but Edy.
“I don’t know. Maybe twenty.”
“Out of what?” he said. “Thousands? A million?”
“Maybe.”
He drew back, so that he pressed against the headboard, a knee up to prop his elbow.
“To devote to one thing is to sacrifice another,” he said, still breathless.
“Who said that? Nietzsche?”
He looked at her. “Edy Phelps.”
Eventually, she drew him to her and ran a hand through his hair. Even that, gentle as it was, stoked his flames a second time over.
“You’re a good son,” she said, “who loves his parents and has his own mind. Why does that have to be divorced? Accept truth in whatever way it comes, whether in the Vedas or your own self-reflection.”
Hassan snorted. “Spoken like the daughter of an Ivy League hippie.” He shot her a smile. “Enough with the jabber. Kiss me so I can stop thinking about it.”
She did as she was told before pulling away.
“What?” he said and puffed a breath of air into the palm of his hand. He smelled garlic, which was bad, but she’d had the same dinner as him.
Her nose wrinkled, gaze skating the length of his room. She set the headset on his dresser and sauntered to his walk-in closet.
“Neither,” she said and placed a hand on the handle.
A flash of sweat-fused uniforms and concussion heavy helmets k.o.’ing Edy had him slamming the door as she yanked it.
“Um, something I can help you find, Cake?”
She looked past him, then back, nostrils flared, lips thinned. “You have so much stuff,” she accused. “Things you never use.”
He had hoped her journey to his closet had been about some shirt she wanted to model for him, maybe some tee she could tie up and strut around in. What she was talking about had him wading in blind.
“Okay,” Hassan said.
“You have coats you’ve never worn,” Edy said. “Shirts, pants, sweaters you hate, stuffed back there, with tags still attached.”
“Even shoes,” Edy said. “I know there are sneakers Rani buys that you refuse to wear.”
That time she did snatch for his closet door, only to have him yank her back at the onset of the avalanche.
“Mind telling me what this is about?” he demanded, slinging his helmets in one corner. He returned for the funk-strewn practice uniforms as she disappeared into his closet and retrieved her by the wrist when the mess had been cleared.
“Wyatt,” she said.
His fingers unwrapped from her arm one by one until he withdrew from her.
“Hassan.”
“Edy.”
“You’ve seen him, Hassan. You’ve seen the way he dresses. It’s not right. And . . . and I thought if there was anyone I could come to for help, it would be you.”
He wanted his headset and Xbox; he wanted the Edy before Wyatt Green. What he didn’t want was this.
“I’ve seen plenty that’s not right,” he muttered and collapsed on his bed.
His girl. His girl digging in his closet to hand his clothes over to some slick smiling snake that couldn’t even make a secret of wanting to bonk her. In a justified world, no court would convict him for maiming Wyatt Green, or at the very least, going Jigsaw on him for a few hours.
“Hassan, please?” Edy said.
And he looked up to find not the fierceness of a girl readied for closet battle, but the huge brown eyes he drowned in, over and again, endlessly.
Eyes he never hoped to conquer. Hassan exhaled.
“He won’t wear them,” he warned. “He won’t even appreciate what you’ve done.”
Edy’s face split with a grin.
“He’s nowhere near my size,” Hassan tried. “You’d be better off trying your own closet.”
She threw her arms around him in a squeeze he returned despite his better judgment. This girl could lead him to the heart of trouble, if she wanted. Hassan would follow, right off a cliff.
~~~
Edy’s fingers flexed in their strain to maintain her burden. One, two, three seconds of silent confusion lapsed with nothing but the wind licking at her neck.
“What do you mean ‘no?’” she asked Wyatt. A careless look behind her said that Hassan had gone back indoors.
Wyatt stepped out on the porch, shutting the door on a muffled television and ghostly array of shadows.
“You don’t get it, do you?” His gaze held no one destination, darting from the two overstuffed bags Edy propped against the wall of his house, to a hundred other minutiae, eyes glassy. For whatever reason, he wouldn’t meet her gaze.
“Did I come at a bad time?” She probably should have called. She’d been so psyched about the coat, sneakers and half dozen other goodies that she hadn’t considered etiquette or—
“Edy, you can’t expect me—” He swallowed. “You must know . . .”
“I know they aren’t a perfect fit, but it’s the best I could do.”
“You can’t be this stupid!”
Edy stood, sure that her eyes had doubled in size, even as icicle winds battered them.
“What?” she whispered.
“Edy, please.” When he reached for her, she yanked clean of him.
“You need clothes,” Edy hissed. “Take them and leave it at that.”
She started for the stairs. This time when he touched her arm, she stopped. Exhaled. Took time to catch her breath.
“Edy, please.”
Please was right. She’d come there for a purpose. So, she lined the bags neatly on the porch railing, careful to keep her overburdened contents from spilling.
“Talk to me,” Wyatt said. “If you’d only give me the time of day. There are so many things I need to tell you.”
Edy stood and scanned Hassan’s house and hers for witnesses. Once she’d confirmed that no eyes gaped, she fled, ignoring Wyatt’s cries to come back him.
Twenty-One
The next night, the Phelps family had a meeting, all three in attendance plus the campaign staffer feverishly scribbling in the corner. “Meeting” was hardly the appropriate word, however; as mostly Edy’s mother talked and mostly they listened.
Her campaign was now underway.
They could expect changes around the house.
She’d be available less.
She would expect more from them.
Their family, as a whole, would be held to a higher standard. Therefore, the very highest level of decorum was expected.
She stared straight at Edy for that one.
There would be travel. A tremendous amount of travel, meaning that she would be away from home more often than not. Sometimes, she would require their presence, but she would make every effort to ensure this happened as infrequently as possible.
The press conference to announce her bid for Senate would be held in two and a half weeks, on a Saturday.
“My birthday?” Edy said.
It was that time of year again.
Her father, who had been staring off into the distance, sat up straighter.
“Rebecca, you can’t expect . . .”
The staffer stopped scribbling. And Hassan burst in.
“Hey, you guys! Guess who got free passes to—”
He froze, eyes darting from Edy to her mother to her father. Finally, it rested on the staffer.
“
Who are you?” he said.
Edy burst out laughing.
It was absurd, really. The family meeting with the court stenographer, Edy wounded by the notion of having no more loathsome birthday parties, and Hassan bursting in like the main attraction at a bull fight, running and blurting the question they all should have asked.
“Hassan, please,” her mother said.
Whether “please” meant “please get lost” or “please settle down,” Edy couldn’t be sure. But Hassan dropped down next to her all the same.
“Rebecca, we’ve been doing these birthday parties for Edy since she was a year old,” her father said.
“All the more reason why missing one shouldn’t be that big a deal,” she said. “Missing two if we’re talking about you.”
Hassan leaned over and whispered to Edy. “What’s happening, Cake?”
Quickly, she explained.
“Claudia?” her mother said.
The staffer stood. “Meeting opening followed by schedule expectations, expectations concerning proper decorum, brief overview of travel demands, and advisement regarding candidacy announcement in two and a half weeks.” The staffer looked up.
“Excellent. On the day in question, we’ll have breakfast out, in a very visible way, as a happy, smiling family. Then we’ll travel over to the Old State House, where I’ll make the announcement, with my doting husband and beautiful daughter by my side. We’ll follow that with a rally, then a fundraising dinner.”
Edy lifted a finger. “Is it possible to—”
“My fundraising dinner is being hosted by a very gracious governor and being attended by a number of city elites. The date was chosen by people with far more substantial interests to consider than a child’s birthday party,” her mother said.
“I was only going to ask—”
“Meeting adjourned,” her mother said and strode out of the room.
The staffer scrambled after her.
“Edy—” her father began.
She didn’t know how to feel. On the one hand, her mother had solved the dress problem. But on the other, her father stared back at her with eyes that said he’d been mortally wounded. She hated that look, hated what it meant: that the parties had been his way of holding onto an escaping childhood, that he was unanchored without them, lost in a sea of adolescence. She didn’t always mind being his little girl. Sometimes it wasn’t all bad.
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