In the Key of Nira Ghani

by Natasha Deen

  “You don’t understand. It’s not like home.”

  “Home is poverty. People were lining up for milk, Nira.”

  “Yeah, but everyone is poor there. You don’t have anything, but who cares, because no one else has anything, either. Here, you don’t have stuff, but the other guy, he has everything. And no one understands why you don’t have the same food like them. Or, when they want to go to a movie or eat out, you can’t go because you don’t have the money for it.”

  “Nira—”

  But I don’t want to hear it. I shake my head, and the silence slips between us. She frees her hand, pats my lap. With a grunt, she’s on her feet and walking back to the house. I want to call her back, to take back what I’ve said. But it would be a lie, and I’ve never lied to my grandma.

  It only takes a few seconds for my anger to cool, then I’m nothing but the idiot brown girl, sitting alone in the dark and freezing her butt off.

  A few seconds later, she’s in front of the window, standing by the sink.

  Mom comes up to her. Gestures to where I sit.

  Grandma speaks.

  Mom argues. Hands up, hands out.

  Grandma speaks again.

  More hands.

  Grandma.

  Mom, hands down, ear cocked. Walks away.

  Five minutes, ten. I hold the cup until the lingering heat from the ceramic is absorbed into my skin.

  Mom comes out. “I have your jacket, but if you come inside, we can talk about it.”

  “Talk? Or you just tell me what I can do and what I can have.”

  “Talk. Promise.”’

  When I get into the kitchen, there are four cups and a teapot stacked by the boiling kettle. “I’ll make the tea.”

  “I can do it,” says Grandma. “You talk to your parents.”

  Mom gets Dad from the bedroom, then the three of us sit around the table. Dad’s anger radiates from him like static electricity. Mom looks disappointed in me. And I want to cry.

  I live in a world where the TV and movies show me happy families and parents who talk to their kids and try to understand their point of view. The kids at school have parents who backpacked through Europe or experimented with drugs. Their folks drank in the dorms and shacked up with poor life-mate choices. Canada is like this multicolored tapestry, where a parent’s life and a kid’s come together to make this amazing image.

  But my life’s not like that. My address may be in Canada, but I live in little Guyana, a benevolent dictatorship where I’m not a full citizen. The number-one rule here is to obey your elders. The number-two rule is to check your individuality at the door. This is a community, one organism with a bunch of parts, and we rise and fall together.

  Mom and Dad have never defied their parents. It would never occur to them that me having my own opinion isn’t rebellion. They grew up poor. They look at my wanting stuff like I’m spitting in the face of their sacrifices, and nothing I do seems to change their minds.

  “This job,” my mother starts the conversation as Grandma drops the tea bags into the pot. “Where are you going to work?”

  “I don’t know yet.”

  Dad snorts.

  “I don’t know yet because I didn’t want to get too far into researching places without having your permission.”

  He huffs, but his shoulders drop a few inches.

  “And you want this job because you want to buy a trumpet?” asks my mom. “It’s that important to you?”

  I nod.

  “We can get it for you,” she says. “I don’t like the idea of you working when you should be studying.”

  “It’s too expensive for you to buy it for me.” I smile at Grandma as she puts the teapot on the table and pours out a cup for each of us. “I don’t understand why you’re making a big deal about this. Keeping me focused on school isn’t preparing me for living on my own as an adult.”

  Dad smirks. “But letting you gallivant around and buy clothes—”

  “Letting me learn how to schedule my life when there’s more than one thing is what’s important,” I say. “What happens when I’m married with kids and a job? If I don’t learn how to juggle multiple things now, you think I’m miraculously going to learn it overnight?”

  That makes Mom pause. She reaches for the mug Grandma sets before her.

  Grandma puts my cup in front of me, and I catch the small smile at the edge of her mouth. She squeezes my shoulder.

  I take a sip. There are only two teaspoons of sugar in the drink. That’s a good sign. It means she doesn’t think this discussion will cause the end of the world.

  “But why do you need a new one? The old one is fine,” says Dad.

  “That’s what I told you when you wanted a new bike,” Grandma tells him.

  His face screws up. He takes the mug from her hands. “It’s not the same thing. That bike was for work. I was a messenger, and the chain on the old one broke all the time. She’s not doing anything with the trumpet.” He takes a sip, grimaces, and ladles another spoon of sugar into his cup.

  Grandma nods at his words, and Dad shoots me a look of victory.

  “You’re right,” says Grandma. “She needs to do something with the trumpet. Nira, didn’t you say the school was holding jazz band auditions?”

  The table freezes into a stop-motion tableau. Our faces are caught in the moment—Mom, shock. Dad looks like the betrayal will become a generational grudge. I’m sure my expression mirrors a mongoose in the crosshairs of a snake.

  “Nira,” Grandma says, “fetch the flyer.”

  I don’t know what to do. I’m locked in a combination of delight that she’s doing this and terror of being grounded until I die.

  “Fetch!” Grandma barks, and I jump from my seat and scurry to my room.

  When I return, they’re still staring at each other. The only thing moving is the rising steam from the cups. I hold out the flyer. No one takes it. I let it fall to the table.

  “Now a job and band?” Dad asks. He drains his cup and refills it.

  “Is that so bad?” Grandma pushes the sugar bowl his way. “You did it as a child.”

  “It was different then,” he says.

  “How?” She speaks softly, but there’s a challenge in her voice. It’s the same challenge I hear in my parents—the one only a mom or dad can use on their kid.

  “Because—”

  “Yes, of course.” Grandma nods as though she’s answered the question herself. “School here is different than back home. Harder—”

  Dad makes a sound of exquisite contempt. “Here? Give me a break. Canadian kids have it so easy. They don’t even know how to add sums in their head!” His chest puffs out. “Guyana’s education is top-notch. What I was learning at Nira’s age, the kids here learn in university!”

  “If it’s not the school work, then it must be Nira,” says Grandma. “She’s not smart like Farah—”

  “She’s smarter than Farah!”

  Mom and I watch, dumbfounded. Grandma’s a Guyanese Geppetto, and she’s pulling Dad’s strings like a master puppeteer.

  “Then she can’t be trusted with the responsibility,” Grandma says it with a note of finality, and the curtain goes down on my hope.

  “Exactly,” says Dad.

  “I’ve talked to you, over and over, about how you raise the picknie.”

  My ears perk at the word. Picknie, it’s an affectionate term for a child. Grandma hasn’t deserted me, yet.

  “You train a child in the way they go. If she’s not responsible, that’s your fault.”

  Anger flashes in Dad’s eyes. “She’s plenty responsible. I know how to raise my picknie!”

  “Good.” Grandma smiles and takes a slow sip of her tea. “Then she’ll get the job and apply for band.”

  Dad goes slack in stunned silence. Mom’s eyes dart between her husband and her mother-in-law.

  I choke back my laughter, but I’m too ecstatic to contain myself, and the sound comes out as a squeak.
r />   Grandma, the puppet master, rises and I’m quick to follow. No need to sit here and risk Dad rallying the second round.

  “Safiya.” She sashays out of the kitchen. “I liked the chicken. It tasted much better than the one Gul and Raj cooked on that monstrosity of a BBQ.”

  My mother perks up. I want to kneel before my grandmother and beg her to teach me everything she knows about negotiating and manipulating. I hazard a peek at my parents as I leave the kitchen. Mom’s drinking her tea, a soft smile on her lips. Dad’s staring into the mouth of his cup, muttering to himself. No doubt trying to figure out how an octogenarian just bested him. I steal into my room, my steps made easy and light by the victory at my feet.

  CHAPTER FIVE

  FORTUNE IS A TWO-HEADED SNAKE

  “Where are you going to work?” Emily asks as we sit in the cafeteria, watching life pass by us. The lunch special is pizza, and the scent of pepperoni and mozzarella makes my processed cheese sandwich even more pathetic. I’ve tried to up its cool factor with a side of fries, but it’s a lost cause.

  Reynolds crosses my mind, but the fact Mom and Dad said yes means I need to move. Fast. Waiting and studying for a job gives the parentals time to change their mind. “I don’t know. Anywhere that will take me, I guess.” My gaze drifts to the popular table. I wish they would take me. I jerk my chin at them and ask Emily. “Do you ever wish we had more cred with them?”

  She watches them.

  “They don’t see us.” I feel like an idiot, stating the obvious. “Doesn’t that make you feel—”

  Emily nods. “Yeah, whenever I think about them, I feel invincible.”

  “You mean invisible.”

  “Invincible. If they can’t see me, they can’t stop me.”

  I don’t know what I ever did to get a friend like her, but I have to figure out the answer so I can keep doing it and keep her with me.

  She clamps down on my arm. “We should.”

  “We should what?” I ask, even though I know what she’s saying. “Learn the two-step? Fly to Mars? Do whatever it is you want because we’re the Invincible Invisibles?”

  “Go to the mall and hand out résumés.”

  “You say it like you’re looking for a job.”

  She shrugs. “Extra money doesn’t hurt.”

  “Please. You have a live-in housekeeper and cook. What do you need money for?”

  Her eyes go dreamy. “I want to find a forbidden love and run away to a foreign land with her.”

  “Anna Karenina tried that with her lover,” I tell her. “It didn’t end well.”

  Emily takes a bite of her hoagie. “So, this Anna chick,” she says around a mouthful of salami and veggies. “She goes to our school or something?”

  I freeze, trying to figure out a way to tell her Anna’s not a real person but a character in one of literature’s great classics, and do it without making her feel stupid.

  She laughs. “It’s so easy to mess with you. I know it’s a novel. Leo Tallboy.”

  “Tolstoy.”

  “You shouldn’t be that easy to screw around with.”

  I punch her on the shoulder. “Thanks for getting me.”

  “Consider me the Jane Goodall of the neurotic brown girl tribe.” She waggles her eyebrows and shoves a banana my way. “Huh? Huh?”

  “You know that’s vaguely racist—”

  “Not all primates like bananas? Think I should shove some sprouted grains at you?”

  I can’t speak because I’m laughing too hard. She’s such a dork, and I’m lucky to have her. McKenzie looks up. She’s glowering at Emily, staring so hard, her gaze could laser through my friend’s skull.

  My cheeks heat. With anger. With shame. I shouldn’t be embarrassed to have fun here. I shouldn’t feel like I don’t belong. I’m going to get a job and then I’m going to get a trumpet that’s so great the rest of them can’t even dream about it. My shoulders go back, and I glare at McKenzie, vibe the message I know who and what you are. Stay away from my friend. I’m shocked when her face colors and she ducks from my stare.

  “Hey, Super Spy.” Noah slides into the chair next to me, and the cafeteria takes a collective gasp. The murmurs start. I know why they’re whispering. Why is he with them?

  “What’s up with that, anyway? Super Spy?” asks Emily.

  “It’s a long story,” I say, and turn my back, so I don’t have to see McKenzie.

  “About a trumpet.” Noah helps himself to my fries.

  “Have you heard?” Emily asks.

  “Heard her play?” Noah shakes his head. “Not yet.”

  Good god. He speaks Emily.

  “You think it’ll be easy for her to get into jazz band?” More fries disappear into his mouth. Which is just as well, because I’m too gobsmacked by what’s going on to be hungry.

  “Totally.” Emily jabs me hard in the ribs. “I’m glad I’m not the only one who thinks you should try out.”

  “I haven’t heard her play,” says Noah.

  “She’s good enough to be lead. She’s incredible, especially considering—”

  I don’t know if she’s doing her psychic twin thing or if she’s setting up the reveal that I play a pocket trumpet, but it’s time to end their cozy time. A sharp elbow to her ribs stops her midsentence.

  “Ah,” says Noah. “The super spy appears. Are you going to tell us what you’re playing for the audition, or is that classified?”

  In the corner of my eye, I see McKenzie edging our way. I guess my glare wasn’t enough to make her leave me alone on a permanent basis. “Did you come here to talk to me about music?”

  He pushes my plate toward me. “Yes and no. I came here for another reason.”

  No wonder McKenzie’s wriggling our way. Of course, he’s here for something other than the joy of sitting with Emily and me. “What did you want?”

  “Your forgiveness,” he says.

  Now I’m worried. “What did you do?”

  McKenzie slides into the seat next to him, smiles, and rubs his arm.

  “I told Alec he should push Masao hard to hire you,” says Noah.

  “You did?” It comes out as a squeak.

  He nods. “You love that place, he told me so. Anyway—” He nudges me. “We musicians have to stick together.”

  Noah is on the front lines for me. I’m not stupid enough to read into it. Helping people is Noah’s trademark; it’s what he does. But the fact I made his radar, and he pushed his cred in my direction, is amazing. I put the job at Reynolds on the simmer setting in my brain. I’ll need to learn about other instruments, and I don’t know if I have time to do it—not while there’s a ticking clock with my parents. But Noah’s kindness leaves me dizzy.

  This is all too much, and I need Hedi Lamar, Adriana Ocampo, and Marie Curie here. Noah Who Is So Cool He Needs No Last Name is sitting at my table. So is McKenzie King. If it wouldn’t look super dorky, I’d take out my phone and check the compass to see if the poles have reversed themselves.

  “The audition’s coming up,” he says, and brings me back to reality. “How’s practice?”

  “I’m going so hard at it.” McKenzie rubs his arm, then wriggles closer to Emily as though that will cover her flirtation. “If I could be sax lead, that would be amazing.”

  Subtle. Noah said I could be lead, and suddenly, she wants it.

  “You should see Alec this weekend and follow up,” says Noah.

  It takes me a second to focus on what he’s talking about, and then I’m telepathically trying to get him to shut up, but it doesn’t work. He’s talking about the hours and store discounts, and it catches McKenzie’s interest. Which means she’s suddenly asking what’s going on, and he’s telling her, and now she knows I need money. And the whole time they’re talking, she keeps touching him, like somehow if she stops, he’ll disappear from existence.

  “We’re going to the mall to hand out résumés,” says Emily. “But now maybe we don’t have to—”

  “We shou
ld still go,” I tell her. “Nothing’s nothing until it’s something.”

  “Cool. Both of you are looking?”

  Emily answers “yes” for us, and that’s great because I’m too busy calculating how long it will take McKenzie to rub a hole into Noah’s skin. Which makes me feel like a giant loser. I don’t like Noah, not like that. I’m not even sure I like him as a friend. Sure, he’s been nice so far. But I’ve gotten third-degree burns from people who seem nice. And for sure, I’ve known a lot of good-looking people who spray locusts every time they open their mouths. Like Farah and her parents. I’m just pissed that McKenzie can’t let Emily and me have this moment with him.

  “Mind if I tag along?” asks Noah. “I wouldn’t mind getting a part-time gig.”

  “We should all go.” McKenzie shoots him a smile and slides her snake eyes in Emily’s direction.

  I know she’s judging my friend, judging the extra pounds and the extra chocolate on her plate, and it takes everything in me not to tell McKenzie off.

  “I have to print off my résumé, so…” I can’t believe I’m pulling an Emily, but there it is. Me, trailing off with the sentence and hoping they catch the hint.

  “No problem,” says Noah. “What if we went tomorrow?”

  Either he didn’t catch the hint, or he caught it and returned it with a curve ball.

  “After school,” adds McKenzie.

  Emily agrees for both of us, and before I can even comprehend what’s happened, I’m suddenly star of the weirdest teen movie, ever. Nira, The Girl Who Would Be Cool. The warning pings at the back of my mind.

  I’ve been invisible since always. Something apocalyptic is going to happen—there’s got to be a dark agenda behind McKenzie and Noah suddenly paying attention to me. Well, maybe not Noah. But McKenzie, definitely. But popular kids exude a kind of seductive pheromone, and I’m going under. I know I’m getting myself into trouble, but I can’t stop myself from going along with them.

  The next day, I spend most of my time scrolling through the possible scenarios for what will happen at the mall. If we even get to the mall. Maybe it’s a prank of some kind. Emily and I will get to the spot, but Noah and McKenzie won’t show. Instead, there’ll be a hidden camera, videoing how long it takes us to realize we’ve been stood up.