A Girl Like That(41)

I didn’t have the time to do much anyway. A moment later, Asma came racing out of the gateway, scattering girls left and right, her abaya flying, a small gold trophy clutched in her hand. She gave her brother a high five and then brandished the little gold cup.

I won. I could read her lips. I won, Farhan-bhai.

I turned away from both of them and focused on the seat in front of me—the maroon leather discolored to a fleshy pink by the sun, the white thread holding it together unraveling, exposing yellow sponge. I plucked at a thread curling up into the air, dug my nails into the soft leather. I took a deep breath and willed myself to calm down. I examined my trophy again—a small silver-and-gold cup with Best Speaker engraved on the front.

When I looked up, I saw Mishal standing at her usual place at the front of the bus. She was staring at me with an odd smile on her face, one I couldn’t quite understand.

“Congrats!” I called out, raising a hand, not realizing at first that it was the one that held the trophy. Mishal’s face hardened and she sat down without saying thanks. Obviously she thought I was making fun of her. I hesitated for a moment, wondering if I should approach and tell her that it had been unintentional.

“Okay, girls, settle down!” the bus driver called from the front. I would apologize afterward, I told myself. But somehow I knew it was too late. The moment was already gone. I turned off the knob of the air conditioner overhead and closed my eyes, giving in fully to the afternoon heat and the headache that now seemed to press on me from all sides.

*

The next morning, Mishal approached me a few minutes into break.

“Hey, Zarin. Can I talk to you for a bit?” She slid into the empty chair next to mine.

I closed my book. “Hi. Sure.” I hesitated for a brief moment. “By the way, I didn’t mean … I wasn’t rubbing it in your face yesterday when I said ‘congrats,’ you know. I meant it. You did a good job in the debate.”

Mishal’s eyes narrowed for a split second, as if surprised. Then she shook her head. Smiled, even. “That’s okay. You win some, you lose some, I guess.”

“Right.”

There was an awkward silence. “You wanted to—”

“Look.” Mishal leaned in to keep our conversation private. “I know you’re going out with Abdullah.” A small shock went through me, but Mishal kept going, placing a hand over my arm. “I don’t really care about that, okay? It doesn’t really matter to me who he messes around with in his spare time.”

“As it shouldn’t,” I said calmly. I should have known this was too good to be true.

“You should hear the things he says about you.” She laughed, her pretty face glowing even more than usual. “Let’s see. He called you a tease, didn’t he? Oh yes, I can see from your face that he did. He was telling his friends about it this weekend.”

She went on to tell me the other names Abdullah called me. Some so awful that they were unforgivable.

The things they called her, Masi had said about my mother. The things they said behind her back.

The smile Mishal gave me was almost gentle. She rose to her feet again. “Anyway, I wanted to say congrats too,” she said in a clear voice. “You did a good job at the debate, even if you were a little emotional.”





Mishal

It didn’t surprise me when Zarin phoned Abdullah that evening to confront him about the things I’d said. What did surprise me was that she did not give him my name—like it didn’t even matter that her only source of information against her boyfriend was a girl who hated her in school.

Luck favored me even more when Abdullah did not choose to deny her allegations. I bit my lip to hold back a laugh. Though I was no longer afraid of being the target of my brother’s wrath, the less he knew about my involvement in this, the better. As far as Abdullah was concerned, I was clueless about his “secret relationship” with Zarin, even though it was thanks to me that their relationship was still secret from the rest of the school. I rolled my eyes as my brother’s voice rose in pitch and volume.

In any case, what I’d done didn’t really matter. From the sound of their conversation—if you could call a five-minute insult fest a conversation—it seemed that the relationship had already been a little rocky and a breakup would have been inevitable at some point. Zarin probably thought the same thing, especially when Abdullah lost his temper and said: “Who told you? Was it one of my friends? Are you screwing one of them now?”

I carefully switched the cordless phone I was using to eavesdrop on their conversation from my right ear to the left.

Not now, I thought, mentally answering my brother’s question. But if the way she and Rizvi had looked at each other after the debate yesterday was any indication, it would happen fairly soon.

Rizvi had stared at her so hard I thought his eyes would pop right out of his shades. It was also clear that Zarin was not unaffected. I had watched the slow drop of her smile when she realized Rizvi was watching. The nervous way she bit her lip. How quickly she’d turned around after Asma burst through the gates, her cheeks flushed pink. In that moment, she wasn’t the Zarin Wadia I knew, but a girl like any other in the face of a crush: insecure, tongue-tied, and shy.

“Don’t bother calling me again,” Zarin told Abdullah before hanging up.