Love from A to Z(14)

“Of course you can, Zoodles, or Adam can show you where the young people are, right, Adam?”

“Sure. But I think you should get food first. It may be the best thing at the party.” I nodded at Zayneb. “Sad to say, but it’s true.”

“Okay. Then tell me what I should try.” She stepped into the kitchen and turned to me, standing in the hall. “My aunt told me your dad caters interesting cuisines.”

I followed her. “He went South Indian today. You’ve got to try the masala dosa. It’s this type of crepe with spicy potatoes. Those are my favorite.”

“This is too funny. My best friend is Tamil, and I’ve eaten this food tons of times.” She took a plate and put two round, spongy rice cakes on it. “My favorite. Idli. You just pour the sambar on top, and the idli soaks it in, and it tastes amazing.”

She ladled vegetable curry on top of the cakes. The curry had been kept hot on burners, so when she returned the ladle to the pot, wisps of spiced steam scented the air between us.

I took a plate and added dosa and potatoes to it. “I guess I can eat too. Energy for my door-duty shift.”

“It looks so good.” Zayneb scooped some of the sauce with a spoon and tasted it. “And it is good.”

We stood there for a minute not saying anything, just eating. Then she paused and looked at me. “So where are all these people my aunt wants me to meet?”

“Mostly outside. I’ll point the way, but I gotta stay back. Committed to the doorbell.” We walked to the living room with our plates, Zayneb looking at the pictures on the stucco walls along the way, mostly single-subject photographs taken by Dad.

She paused in front of a close-up of a bee and then glanced up at the dark wood beams running across the ceiling. “I like your house. It’s like how I imagined a Spanish villa would look. Like when you read stories where people live in pretty villas, you know? This is what I would picture.”

I don’t know why, but when she said that, the light went back on inside me, like it had at the door.

She was pretty open. Okay sharing what she liked.

I felt a need to show her the best part of our house.

“Then I think you’re going to like this.” Now that we had taken the two steps into the living room, I pointed to the left, where the three sets of arched French doors were flung open onto our large, cobblestoned patio, beyond which lay a neat lawn. Beyond that were steps leading down to a boardwalk edging the Arabian Gulf, with the white sails of small yachts and traditional dhows dotting the water along the horizon. It was my favorite scene to look out at, especially on a night like this, with stars flecking the vast dark sky.

“That is beautiful. Oh my God.” She set her plate down on a side table and went toward the middle set of doors.

The doorbell rang, so I put my plate beside hers and went to answer it.

When I got back from walking the latest guests in, she and her plate were gone.

? ? ?

Dad beckoned me over to where he was standing with some guests when I stepped out on the patio, doorbell duty done. “Adam, come say hello to some new DIS teachers. This is my son, Adam.”

I shook hands and, in between learning names, glanced around. And saw her.

She was sitting cross-legged on one of the enormous fake white rocks that the landscapers at our residential community thought would be perfect scattered around everyone’s lawns. She held up a bubble wand while talking to my sister, Hanna. Or, most likely while Hanna was talking to her.

“You must be so thrilled to be studying in London,” said one of the teachers I’d just met.

I nodded.

Zayneb blew bubbles as Hanna whacked them with a badminton racket.

Dad looked at me. “Adam, why don’t you go talk to your friends? They’ve been asking for you since they got back last week.”

I guess he knew my mind was somewhere else.

I nodded and made my way to Connor, Tsetso, and a few other guys from my graduating class at Doha International School. They’d gone on to universities in different parts of the world, and most had gotten back for spring break earlier than me.

Beyond the initial hellos and quick catch-ups, I hadn’t sat down with them yet.

They were on lawn chairs near the steps to the boardwalk, their backs to the water, watching the guests who were playing badminton on the lawn. I joined their semicircle, sitting on the grass.

“Adam. Right on time. Right person to tell us, who invited that guy?” Connor pointed at a kid swinging a badminton racket round and round until it hit him in the face, at which point he screamed and ran to a woman dressed in the uniform many nannies in Doha wear. After she consoled him, he went back and attacked himself with the badminton racket again.

“I have no idea.” I laughed. “But practically everyone here is a teacher at DIS, so he must be a teacher’s kid?”

Tsetso put his plate down on a rock next to him. “Okay, who invited that guy?” he said, nodding at a man who, while talking to a woman, was also getting a good scratch in, moving his back up and down on the trunk of one of the date palms separating our yard from a neighbor’s.

I shook my head. “Drawing a blank. Not a teacher.”

Connor pointed in Hanna’s direction. “And who invited her? With your sister.”

Zayneb was still blowing bubbles for Hanna, who was now popping them with a magic wand.