Page 29

Tuesday morning, I wake up to the sound of Amma and Nanu in full triage mode.

Scrambling out of my top bunk, I trudge barefoot into the living room, then stumble back when a ball of thread rolls by. “Amma, what’s—”

“Oh, Zahra, good morning,” my mother says without looking up.

“You can heat up khisuri for breakfast,” Nanu chimes in.

The tornado-swept living room has become a familiar sight by now. My mother and grandmother are stooped over a chaotic assemblage of fabric rolls, beads, zari-work, fake jewels, and mannequins with needles sticking out of them like voodoo dolls.

I still cock my head. “What’s going on?”

“The bride-zolad and her fiancé are coming tomorrow to see what we’ve prepared so far,” Amma replies. “Thanks to her unexpected material change, I’m far from ready.”

Resisting the urge to give her awful client an earful, I say, “Can I help?”

The two of them blink up at me at last, wearing identical amused expressions, but it’s Amma who says, “Nonsense. You can’t possibly do much now that we’re in the final stretch. It will only slow me down if I have to worry about you stabbing yourself while trying to thread a needle.”

“Why don’t you go check on your siblings?” Nanu adds. “Or your friends?”

That’s a bit harsh. I’m great at pouring tea, which requires stellar hand-eye coordination if you don’t want to spill it on the table or a customer’s lap—ask me how I know.

They quickly return the topic to the bride-zolad’s visit and what foods to serve her. I make my way to the kitchen. Arif and Resna are at the table, poring over stapled pages of coloring and alphabet worksheets, nubs of crayons scattered around them.

My brother taps a page. “Your uppercase Q is missing a line.”

“Not a line,” pouts my baby sister. “A squiggle .”

Arif rolls his eyes. “If you know the squiggle is missing, add it.”

Hiding my smile behind the rim of the cup of tea I pour myself from the kettle Nanu’s left on the stove, I realize that I’d crave this if I ever left. Sure, my family can be messy, but they’re my mess.

Back in my bedroom after finishing breakfast, I plop onto my creaky chair. It rolls for a second. I’ve been trying to write, so my laptop is open next to my notebook. When I pass my fingertips over the faded keys, the screen blinks on and my muscles go rigid.

Gmail displays one new message.

Unlike the spam I’ve been getting from colleges, financial aid scammers, and scholarship websites for the last six months, this one comes from a familiar sender—Professor Liu—with the subject Manuscript Feedback .

Oh my God!

Oh no, oh no, oh no, no, no, no, no starts running through my head on a loop, while I try to quell the tremor in my hands and lungs.

Aside from my friends, a handful of encouraging teachers, and fangirling internet strangers, very few people have read my writing. In most cases, it’s been excerpts, essays, or fanfics, whereas this book is the most me thing I’ve ever written.

I was so excited to send it to Professor Liu, but I’ve been dreading that decision since, obsessively checking my email and feeling a blend of relief and disappointment every time she didn’t write back. If she tells me my book is trash, I don’t know if I can find the will to keep dreaming after getting so many signs to give it all up.

Somehow, I find my phone in my grasp, my fingers moving with a mind of their own. I shared some of my writing with a professor at the community college and she finally responded.

That’s great, comes Harun’s instant reply. Isn’t it? What did she say?

I haven’t opened it yet…. What if she hated it?

Then she’d be a shitty professor, he texts, matter-of-fact as ever.

I choke out a watery laugh. You’re ridiculous.

I’m not. I just know you’re a good writer.

Although I can’t hear him, the conviction in his words rings clear. But did he actually track down some of my pieces? It wouldn’t be particularly challenging. My school published some poetry, essays, and short stories in their online newsletter, while other snapshots of my work are available if you scroll for a while through my Instagram page.

But he actually likes them?

My silly heart flutters in my chest. I swallow the giddy feeling and defend Professor Liu. She probably won’t tell me outright if it’s godawful, anyway. She’ll give constructive criticism.

It’s kind of scary that I’ve bared my soul for someone else to measure its worth, but that’s what’s supposed to happen in creative writing classes. It can’t be that much worse than the trolls on the internet who flamed me for writing about brown girls, could it?

Cool. Then you’ll fix your book and impress her.

I glare half-heartedly at my phone. You are way too sure of my abilities.

You’re not sure enough, he answers.

Ugh, this boy!

Perhaps I should be irritated by how easy he thinks this is, envious of how easy everything always seems to be for him, but I’ve seen what lies beneath his unruffled demeanor by now and know he’s far from perfect, with a far-from-perfect life. Just texting him has grounded me and eased some of my anxieties.

Okay, I’m going to check.

His response elicits an unbidden smile: Call me after?

Sucking in a deep breath and screwing my eyelids shut, I click Professor Liu’s email. When nothing leaps off the screen to bite my head off, I open one eye and skim her message.

Miss Khan:

Thank you for sharing your work with me. You are such a talented writer. You have a grasp of setting and character uncommon in writers your age, and I look forward to helping you further hone these skills. I’ve attached comments below, but I’d prefer to read the rest of the novel before giving you overarching feedback. Do you think you can send it to me before the semester starts and I get busy with my new students? Or at least an outline, so we can discuss weak links in your plot? Congratulations on an excellent start to your first draft. This book is going to be so special!

My jaw drops.

Rather than opening the attached document to read her in-line comments, I blast my angry-girl playlist of Billie Eilish and Olivia Rodrigo from my laptop speakers to give us some privacy and immediately call Harun, who picks up on the first ring.

“Am I dreaming?”

“Um,” comes his clever retort. “I guess it went well?”

“It was unreal!”

His smile practically radiates through the phone as I babble about Professor Liu’s praise, and suddenly I wish I’d FaceTimed him instead, if only to see it.

I’m not sure what this means for me, especially after what happened with the bride-zolad, but I do know I’m finally ready to stop standing in my own way.

For the first time in the years since I started it, I know how my book ends.

It’s impossible to write the number of words I need to finish the book in one sitting, so I split my time between outlining the rest of the plot in detail like Professor Liu suggested, and word-vomiting as much as I can of the new chapters into my Google Doc.

Day shifts to night outside.

When there are too many spots dancing in front of my vision to ignore any longer, I send the new outline and additional chapters to Professor Liu, shoot her an email, and trudge out of the kitchen, where I’ve been working to avoid disrupting Nanu’s peaceful slumber.

Despite my best efforts, she cracks open an eye as I tiptoe into our bedroom, deposit my laptop on my desk, and scale the ladder to my bunk. “Bala asso nee, moyna?”

Are you okay?

For once, the answer feels like yes.

I whisper for her to go back to sleep. My now-charging laptop sits on the desk across from us, but I still have my phone. The temptation to check my email gnaws at me, though I already know Professor Liu won’t check it after midnight, so instead I text the other person I desperately want to hear from: Harun.

When can we see each other again?

He replies in just a few minutes, a boy after my own heart: Can you do tomorrow around 3-ish? There’s somewhere I’ve been wanting to take you.

I’m scheduled for work tomorrow, so I should turn him down. The old Zahra certainly would have. Hell, she would have avoided anything that meant a smaller paycheck. But I’ve been that Zahra for such a long time, without getting anywhere for my efforts.

Harun wants to spend time with me. Take me somewhere lovely. I want that too, so I text the twins, asking them to cover for me at Chai Ho, before finally giving Harun my answer.

Yes!

If he says something after that, I’m not sure, because I nod off, smiling.

I wake up the next morning to a good-night text from Harun and an email from Professor Liu: I had a chance to read your outline before my class. What an epic planned conclusion! Do you think you can stop by campus this morning so we can chat? My class finishes at ten.

Yes, thank you, Professor!!! I respond, as ecstatic as I was last night.

Only then do I realize that I’ve double-booked my day. I don’t have to meet up with Harun until later, but if I’m going to meet Professor Liu in time, I need to catch a bus downtown, which means I should get my butt dressed ASAP.

“Hi, Amma, bye Amma!” I shout as I snatch a couple of still-hot bhafa fita—round rice pastries with golden coconut flakes inside that I’d normally dip into my tea or drizzle all over in sticky honey—shove one into my mouth, toss the other between my hands to avoid scalding my fingers, and vault out the door.

She yells after me, but I don’t hear what. It’s worth it to reach the bus stop before my ride deserts me. I eat the second fita after dropping into an empty seat, and make it to the Passaic County Community College campus.

The girl at the front desk hands me a guest pass and points me toward the lecture hall, but I remember it from the last time I visited. When I enter this time, there are many more students, eyes affixed to Professor Liu’s projected screen, though a few cast me irked glances.

She smiles and juts her chin at a chair toward the back, mouthing that it’s almost over. The expression on her face is vaguely guilty, but I sit at the table she pointed out and peer around, adrenaline kicking through my veins. I’m in a real live college class!

No one treats me like I don’t belong despite my earlier disruption. Soon I lose myself in the comforting inflection of Professor Liu’s voice as she lectures on the concept of a three-act structure. When the class ends, I’m almost disappointed, although of course I’m dying to know what exactly she wants to discuss that required me to come all the way down here.

“Thank you so much for meeting me, Miss Khan,” she says once we’re alone. “There’s someone I want to introduce you to.”

I pick at a loose thread on my jeans. “Really? Who?”

“My co-chair,” she replies. “Come along this way.”

We stride down the long hallways toward what I presume is the faculty office area, where a harried-looking man wearing a yarmulke sits bent over a desk, a collection of papers fanned on top and a green pen in his hand.

He lifts his head upon hearing the clack of Professor Liu’s heels, smiling warmly. “Ah, Cecilia! And this must be the illustrious Miss Khan?”

“Um, hi, sir.”

Illustrious?!

Professor Liu nods. “Yes, the young novelist I’ve been telling you about.” She turns to me. “And this is Professor Elijah Lewenberg, the co-chair of the English department. I’ve been apprising him of your ambitions since I finished what you sent me.”

“Very impressive at your age,” Professor Lewenberg says. “Especially if you caught Cecilia’s eye. Impressing her is a true feat.”

A pleased blush warms my face. “Th-thank you.”

“Why don’t you take a seat, Miss Khan?” Professor Liu suggests, though she remains standing.

When I do as bidden, her co-chair says, kindly, “Cecilia also told me you won’t be able to enroll next semester. Financial hardships, was it?”

Now my cheeks redden for a different reason. “Yes, sir. I don’t think I can manage this semester, but maybe by the next one, or the following fall? I’ve been working hard to save up money, but I can’t handle going full-time yet because I need to help my family.”

“I see.”

He has cornflower-blue eyes that harbor no judgment in them. They flick to meet Professor Liu’s black ones, and the two of them nod.

“I don’t want you to get your hopes up, but I asked Eli to meet you before the two of us talk to the office of the bursar,” she says.

“Um, why?”

“I would very much like for you to be able to enroll in at least my creative writing class, Miss Khan,” Professor Liu continues. “I hoped if Eli and I campaigned together, we could get the cost of the class reimbursed for you, so you could attend this fall.”

My eyes grow huge. “Really? You’d do that for me? Why?”

Embarrassingly enough, my voice cracks on the last word.

Professor Liu sets her hands on my shoulders, while her co-chair’s smile widens. It’s he who says, “Because we see your vast potential, Miss Khan. Yours is a rare talent that will only grow if given the proper attention, and we’d like to do our part as educators in this community to see you harness it, without forcing you to choose between your passion and your next meal.”

I’m so choked up, I can’t reply right away, but finally direct another question at them. “How can I possibly repay you both?”

Professor Liu stoops closer to me to say, “You can put us in your acknowledgments when you become a famous novelist. And Miss Khan?”

“Yes, Professor?”

“Do finish up the rest of your manuscript so I can celebrate when my favorite heroine gets her happy ending, won’t you?”

Laughing, I prance out of the campus more inspired than ever.

Maybe Harun was right: maybe the world is already here for me.

For us.