A Girl Like That(60)
On the surface, he seemed indifferent—almost bored—with the things that were happening to his ex-girlfriend, except for the time when he’d openly scorned Rizvi’s erectile dysfunction in front of Bilal.
But I knew this was not entirely true. While his friends constantly rehashed the incident when they came over to our house, Abdullah remained silent, rarely adding to the conversation, sometimes even growing impatient—“Do you guys have nothing better to talk about?”
I posted tips, answered asks, even made a few jokes about Zarin and Rizvi and Porus on my blog. But there were times when I wondered why I didn’t enjoy the gossip this time around, why, instead of settling inside me with a warm sense of contentment, it simply made me feel uneasy. Though Abdullah never gave any input about Zarin and refused to participate in anything related to Rizvi’s attempts to get back at her—“I have better things to do”—I couldn’t help wondering if he had known or maybe guessed that something like this would happen if Zarin and Rizvi ever went out. If his lack of involvement in the matter was simply a way of taking revenge on her for breaking up with him.
The only time I heard Abdullah speak up was when Bilal and Rizvi said something about getting even with Zarin’s new boyfriend.
“Do you want to go to jail?” My brother’s angry voice made me stiffen next to the door behind which I was eavesdropping. “There’s only so much your daddy’s wasta can do to keep you out of it, Farhan.”
“Since when did you start wearing your mommy’s bangles, Abdullah?” Rizvi sneered back.
Over the next week or so, stories began emerging about fights breaking out near the Hanoody warehouse on the edge of Aziziyah. Cars honking at each other, racing on the narrow street, heedless of the traffic coming in the opposite direction. Though Rizvi’s name was never mentioned, I had a strong feeling it had something to do with him—a tactic maybe to intimidate Porus, who supposedly lived nearby.
“I could hear the tires screeching on the road and I live on the fourth floor!” a girl from XI B said. “Horrible noises. They wouldn’t even stop for the police!”
A week after she and Porus became an item, Zarin was absent again.
“Another sick day?” Layla asked me during break. She pointed toward Zarin’s empty desk.
“Hunt for another boyfriend?” someone guessed.
“Why? Is the deli boy dead?”
In the row ahead of ours, Alisha turned in her seat to glare at Layla, but otherwise said nothing.
“Look!” Layla nudged me. I turned. Zarin had entered the classroom, schoolbag on her shoulders, a pink late slip crumpled in her hand.
“Hi,” Alisha said. “We didn’t see you yesterday. What happened?”
“I was sick,” she said. “Had to see a doctor.”
“A gynecologist?” someone behind me muttered. Giggles erupted.
I bit my lip.
Zarin, to her credit, completely ignored us. She dropped her bag on the empty seat by the door and began removing her books and pencil case.
“Should we ask her about her boyfriend?” Layla’s voice was quiet with suppressed laughter. “Maybe if we—”
“Maybe if you what?”
I turned around to see Zarin standing behind Layla, her hands clenched into fists, her lips white.
“Nothing to do with you.” Layla leaned back a little, her voice brusque, nervous.
“Oh really?”
The girls in the row in front of us were watching now, spectators to an unexpected catfight.
“How about I pull your precious hair out of your precious little scarf?” Zarin pushed Layla so hard that she nearly toppled into me, along with her chair.
“Zarin.” Alisha rose from her chair. “Zarin, please calm down.”
“Why?” Zarin shouted. “So you can continue your gossip fest?”
“It’s not like we’re saying anything wrong!” Layla’s cheeks were two large splotches of red. “You’re the one messing around with these guys. What do you expect people to say about you?”
It was then that I noticed the lack of talk and laughter around us, the breath humming in the silent classroom along with the AC. Outside the door, noises buzzed: the chatter of girls and the clatter of their lunch boxes, the squeak of their sneakers across the tiles in the corridor, the thump of balls on tarmac, clanging hard against the backboards of the old basketball hoops on the grounds outside our classroom. My heart strummed.
Zarin stared at us for a few seconds, her eyes finally falling on me. Mixed in with the anger on her face was desperation. It was a look that, for one awful moment, reminded me of Mother, six years before, when she’d begged Father not to take a second wife.
“Forget it,” she said quietly.
She stalked out of the room, leaving behind her bag and books, not returning again until the end of the last period, when it was time to go home.
Farhan
The men Bilal had recommended for the job did not tell me their names. “Safer that way.” Bilal gave me his sly, too-high smile. “What use will you have for their names anyway? All you should care about is that they’re willing to do this for you and that they know how to keep their mouths shut.”
I stared at them now, one tall and gangly, the other shorter and stockier, both eyeing the bandage on my nose before examining the hundred-riyal notes I gave them for the advance. I’d had to filch from Abba’s pockets this time around, but as luck would have it, my father never noticed the missing money.