Love from A to Z(52)

She relaxed her frown. “You wouldn’t believe what Noemi did. She volunteered to present her analysis to the class. Remember, the one about the Turkish girl buried alive?”

“Yeah?”

“She did an analysis comparing the incident to Austrian culture—Christian, European culture—linking it to the girl kept in a dungeon by her father for decades.” Kavi smiled huge. “Fencer lost it.”

“PLEASE TELL ME MORE,” I begged, conjuring an image of Fencer with his own racist methods thrown in his face like a fluffy creamy pie.

“Basically, he gave a BS rant about how that was an isolated case and she was generalizing about a sensational news story and how that was shoddy analysis, not senior-year-level work at all, blah blah blah. He was saying all this shit calmly, but his face was on fire. So Noemi just did this thing where she kept smiling while he kept getting redder and redder, and then, right before she went and sat down, after he’d done his whole you’re-a-bad-student spiel, she said to the class, ‘And, to sum up my presentation, that, boys and girls, is why you don’t generalize.’ Mic drop.”

Okay, I’m moving toward officially liking Noemi. “I wish I’d been there. Just so Fencer could see me enjoying the entire thing, and then giving her a standing ovation at the end.”

“Well, here’s the awful thing. For some reason, you did enter the picture, right after Noemi’s presentation. Before the next student went up, Fencer came over and told me that you had to turn in the analysis too. That he’d e-mailed you a copy of the assignment and article, and that it was due by the end of today. Or you’d lose ten percent of your grade.” Kavi shrugged her shoulders. “I’m sorry, but maybe Noemi triggered him into remembering to shit on you again.”

I drew my laptop to me and logged into my school account. There it was, an e-mail from the fiend, from four days ago.

GIRL BURIED ALIVE IN HONOR KILLING Analysis was the subject line.

“No problem,” I said to Kavi. “I’ll just follow Noemi’s brilliance and compare it to American culture, heh-heh. Lord knows I can find enough dirt.”

“That’s what I did too. But I wasn’t brave enough to present it like Noemi.” Kavi’s face suddenly lit up as she looked beyond her phone’s camera. “Speak of the devil and she shows up.”

Noemi? In our room again?

“Hey, I’m going to have to say see you later to finish this thing for Fencer. Bye, Kav.” I waved, reaching to end the call.

“Bye, Zay. Wait!” Kavi shouted. “If he makes sense, he makes sense. Adam. Okay?”

I nodded, pretty sure she was saying that because she didn’t want me to get upset about Noemi.

? ? ?

Auntie Nandy wouldn’t let me cut out dinner at the French restaurant on the Pearl, even though I’d told her about the homework I had to do (“EXCUSE MY LANGUAGE, BUT THAT DICK OF A TEACHER OF YOURS IS NOT GOING TO RUIN MY FRIDAY!” was her response), so we went and ate (me, gratin dauphinois, her, boeuf bourguignon), and then she drove me to a café that she said I could work in while she met with a friend.

The friend turned out to be Adam’s dad.

With an iced coffee by my laptop, and glasses on, I pretended to be completely absorbed in my homework, but I couldn’t stop myself from glancing over once in a while. They were near the entrance of the café, almost at an angle so that I couldn’t see either of their faces, but I could tell that Auntie Nandy was the one doing most of the talking.

She wouldn’t be revealing all, would she? About Adam?

He was planning on talking to his dad this weekend. I’ve gotta let at least three days pass after the date of Mom’s death, he’d texted.

Wait, weird. Auntie Nandy was laughing. Here in the café.

Her back was shaking the way it does when she guffaws.

I stood and made my way to the counter, as though I wanted to order something else. After studying the menu for a few seconds, I let my gaze fall on Auntie Nandy.

She wasn’t laughing. She was sobbing.

Adam’s dad was too.

In my urgency to get away, I almost ran back to my table in the corner.

? ? ?

As a result of not getting any work done at the café, due to a mind racing with wondering about what exactly Auntie Nandy was talking to Adam’s dad about, I stayed up on returning to the apartment to finish my analysis of GIRL BURIED ALIVE IN HONOR KILLING.

Springdale was eight hours behind Doha, so because I sent my analysis in right before twelve a.m.—with the subject line COMMUNITY COVERS UP RAPES BY FOOTBALL PLAYERS Analysis—I made the end-of-school-day, end-of-term deadline.

? ? ?

At one a.m., as I was climbing into bed, the best thing happened.

Ayaan texted me. All right. I still love you.

I clipped my hair up into a bun and smiled at the message in my lap. My heart is floating in the air right now.

I’m sorry for not answering your texts. And your crying faces. And the million broken hearts you sent.

My heart is swelling and pulsing, covered with a zillion golden beams of pure light.

Z, can we cut the drama. Enough of that happening in real life.

But what am I, if not drama?

I don’t want to leave Porter, graduate, with Fencer still here.

Ok, I’ll stop shakespearing. Listening.