Page 8

The next day at work, I’m determined to tell my friends about the arrangement—and the arrangement within the arrangement.

It was hard enough keeping things from them when I thought the Harun problem would fix itself yesterday, but now that I know it’ll drag on for two more months, I’m bursting with the urge to reveal everything, if only to have other people to opine to.

Unfortunately, with Mr. Tahir, Nayim, and a shop full of customers to contend with, I don’t get the chance until Chai Ho closes up for the night. On the weekends, we lock up even later than the rest of the week, to accommodate for increased business. Normally, the three extra hours of wages, which count as overtime, are a blessing. But the darker the sky grows outside, the more my mood dims as well. At least Ximena dropped by and stayed to hang out with Dani, so I can catch her up as well.

“Ay shallah,” my boss curses under his breath, tugging at the loose tie around his stiff collar in an effort to make it sit right. “If I’m any later to dinner at your mamu’s, your ammu will use my skull for a bowl.”

“Uhhh, then why don’t you let us close up for you?”

His eyes narrow at my suggestion.

I bat my lashes, summoning my most innocent expression. The twins meet each other’s gazes from where Dani is polishing the counter with Ximena and Dalia is standing on her tiptoes on a tabletop, dusting off the decorative umbrellas open over the light fixtures. Even Nayim watches through the open kitchen door, clasping a sudsy plate and a dish towel over the sink.

Okay, so I’m not about to win best actress anytime soon.

Thank God for my friends, though, because they pick up on my tactless cue and nod along. Dalia hops off the table to do up her father’s tie, while Dani bulldozes him toward the door, catching the car keys Ximena tosses at her from a hook behind the counter and pushing them into his hands.

“Zahra’s right. We’ve got this, Abbu!” says Dalia.

“Don’t want Ammu to make ya sleep on the couch, do we?” Dani chimes.

The twins shove him out the door. Before he knows it, Mr. Tahir is blinking at us from the sidewalk. To his credit, he broaches the subject one last time with an incredulous, “Why so eager to close up all of a sudden? Usually, I can’t pay you enough to do it, especially on weekends.”

That’s not strictly true. I’d take any extra shifts he offered.

Without missing a beat, the twins say in unison, “For old times’ sake, before we go off to college,” and that’s that.

He huffs and stomps toward his minivan, grumbling a final reminder for them to be careful on the way home. Although he comes off as very gruff, Mr. Tahir actually has a gooey marshmallow center—halal, of course—when it comes to his daughters and wife.

“You three are lifesavers,” I declare once he’s out of sight.

“How exactly did we save you this time?” Dani asks, hitting me with an unimpressed double-eyebrow arch nigh identical to her father’s, arms crossed over a Ms. Marvel T-shirt.

“You’ve been acting kind of twitchy, Zar,” Ximena adds.

Ah, so they have noticed my caginess.

Dalia tackles the topic with more decorum. “Is something going on at home?”

Yes. No. Yes.

I risk a peek over my shoulder at the open kitchen door, but now that Mr. Tahir is gone, a humming Nayim appears otherwise occupied with stacking dishes inside the wooden cupboards all around the kitchen without breaking any new ones.

Having clocked my unease, however, Dani strides casually behind the counter and kicks the door shut in one smooth motion while giving the surface one last exaggerated swipe. She then turns her no-nonsense gaze back to me and steeples her fingers, rag forgotten.

“Spill. The. Chai.”

I all but blurt out everything that’s happened in the past week, starting with the wedding and ending with what was decided at Harun’s house yesterday.

“But neither of us are into it,” I hurry to assure them, out of breath after my long-winded explanation. “We’re going to do whatever we can to make it seem like we’d be a disaster couple, so our parents put the whole matchmaking ruse out of their heads by September.”

I don’t admit that Harun is sort of cool.

And hot… if you’re into the repressed Mr. Darcy type, which I’m totally not.

That’s not as important right now as them not getting the wrong impression of me. They’ve always known that I didn’t so much as look at boys in high school because I was too busy helping my mom with the bills, but I don’t want them to think I’m the sort of person who’d hook up with one just because of the size of his wallet, like Harun apparently does.

Would it help us out? I guess so. Rich people who say, “Money can’t buy you happiness,” are bald-faced liars, ’cause being poor sure doesn’t do it for me.

But trading my heart for wealth? That’s not who I am .

I peer at the three of them helplessly, trying to convey all this. The twins exchange a look I can’t quite decrypt. Another of their silent psychic conversations, even more formidable than the ones Harun and I shared last night.

At last, Dalia says, “I’m sorry you have to deal with this, Zar. Of course, we’re happy to help however we can with staging the breakup.”

“Yeah, girl,” Dani adds. “Just say the word and I’ll happily tell your mom you can’t marry this guy because you and I are running off to Paris together.”

I snort. “Yeah, because then my mother, your parents, and Mena would team up to hunt me down. Thanks, but no thanks.”

Ximena fake-glares between us. “Mm-hmm, you’d better not leave me behind, Dan. I want to see the Eiffel Tower too.”

The kitchen door creaks open.

“Did someone mention Paris?” Nayim asks, moving to join us.

His honey-brown eyes land on me as he hops on top of the counter, apron now discarded. Like the first time we met, he wears a shirt a size too big underneath it, splashed with so many hues that I can’t help staring. The sort of vibrant that they warn about on the nature documentaries Nanu likes to watch, although his languid smile is welcoming. No one has any business looking that attractive in such a gaudy Hawaiian-print shirt.

My tongue feels too thick to maneuver into a response, but Ximena comes to my rescue. “Oh, we were just talking about college. I think I’d like to study abroad someday.”

Dani blinks. “You would?”

“You should do it,” Nayim replies. “Nothing beats gazing up at the Eiffel Tower from the Champ de Mars, lit up with the rest of the city.”

My jaw drops. “You’ve been to Paris?”

He nods. “Didn’t realize it got so cold there, though. Sleeping on benches is much easier in Bangladesh or India than it is in Europe during wintertime.”

I gape at him, unsure what detail to pick up first. He’s been to so many places? He’s been homeless ? I must not be alone in my curiosity, because the four of us crowd around him, a dozen questions simmering inside us.

Surprisingly, it’s Ximena who has the most to say, asking him when he went, who he went with, what he did there, how he could afford to go, while a worried Dalia wonders whether he encountered any Islamophobia in France like she’s read about.

Nayim’s eyes grow owlish at all the attention as he waves his hands in front of us. “Er, no, I went alone. I—I guess it was lovely, and might be a nice place to return with someone”—he pauses, pupils darting briefly toward me and then away—“but I had other things on my mind, trying to save up for a ticket to the States.”

Before I can figure out if I imagined his glance, or inquire why he wanted to come here so badly, Ximena emits a wistful sigh. “I want to see more of the world. Last summer, my folks took me to Hispaniola to visit my grandparents. I have family on both sides of the island, and it opened my eyes to how big the world can be.”

Dani grins. “I guess if you enjoyed yourself, my Mena withdrawal last year wasn’t in vain.”

Ximena gazes back at her, expression in somber contrast to Dani’s cheer. “There are so many beautiful places out there, Dan. I wonder sometimes if I’m wasting my life getting into debt and spending four years studying art at RISD when I could broaden my horizons more by traveling.”

“Whoa, babe.” Dani’s smile falters. “I didn’t know you felt that way.” When Ximena shrugs, her downcast face lost amid a sea of curls, Dani elbows her teasingly and jokes, “I’m invited if you run off, right? Or are you ditching me ’cause I said I’d elope with Zahra?”

Nayim’s eyes flick to me.

Flushing, I reply, “She’s kidding. These two have been dating since middle school. No one else is a match for how disgustingly cute they are.”

There’s a breath as we await his reaction. If he’s a douche about the girls, Mr. Tahir will—and should—give him the boot, but he nods.

Dani, meanwhile, objects to my words. “Hey! I’m serious. I’d love to travel. I’ve only been to Pakistan twice my entire life and want to see stuff outside Jersey too.”

Ximena brightens, but a wrinkle forms between Dalia’s brows. “What? You whined constantly when we went to see Dada and Dadi. You claimed the mosquitoes were homophobic for biting you more than me.”

“That was years ago,” Dani insists, hands on her hips. “I’m a different person now.”

Her sister sighs. “Well, that’s a problem for the future. This summer, we’ve got to arrange our schedules and dorm rooms for fall.”

“Yeah, yeah, Ammu,” Dani mutters, but perks up when Ximena pecks her cheek.

Nayim turns to me. “What about you, Zahra? What are your summer plans?”

“Oh, well, I…” I tuck a loose strand of hair behind my ear, smiling at the floor more for their sakes than my own. “Nothing much. Traveling, college… All of that sounds magical, but like Dalia said, it’s a problem for the future. I can’t really afford much of anything right now.”

Regardless of my best efforts, the inkling of melancholy in my voice saps the jovial mood from Chai Ho, and we awkwardly return to what we set out to do in the first place: shut down shop for the night. It goes a lot faster with Nayim’s help—and his height, since he can dust in high places without needing to stand on anything. Soon the door is locked behind us.

Ximena gives her girlfriend one last kiss before dashing to her car, art supplies clutched to her chest. Dani jerks a thumb at the lime-green Mini Cooper that Mr. Tahir recently bought her and Dalia so they could travel between their dorm and home. “Need a ride, Zar?”

“Nope, I’m good. I’ve kept you long enough.”

Dalia sets her hands on her hips, but before she can go full Mom Friend on me about all the potential dangers lurking in our neighborhood—flashers, drug dealers, gangbangers—Nayim says, “I can walk Zahra home.”

I latch onto his offer, bobbing my head. “Yep. So you two go on before your parents send out a search party, okay? I’ve got Nayim and my handy-dandy pepper spray.”

Dalia’s phone going off in her Vera Bradley tote—no doubt her mother checking up on them—seals the deal. With hurried goodbyes, they vanish into the Mini Cooper, not bothering to bicker over who gets to drive this time.

I wait until their car disappears around a curb, then start marching in the direction of my house. When Nayim’s sandals crunch across an errant lollipop wrapper behind me, I stop so abruptly that he almost bumps into my back.

“Nuh-uh,” I tell him. “I only said you could walk me home so Dalia would get off my case. The last thing I need is more Auntie Network gossip”—especially when he’s as eye-catching as a neon sign—“so thanks for your chivalry, newbie, but you can go off on your merry way now.”

Nayim’s eyebrows squish together. “The what now?”

“The Auntie Network,” I explain. “My mom’s group chat. They know everything. About everyone. Always.”

When I start walking again, however, I hear his footsteps continuing to pad along, and I whip around, reaching for my bag and the aforementioned pepper spray. “Are you stalking me?”

“Um, no,” he responds, pointing in the direction of my house. “It’s just… I live that way too. Or should I wait to go home?”

Mortification courses through me. “O-oh yeah, with the imam, right?”

Dam—er, darn it. I’d forgotten that Nayim would be living right next door .

He nods. “But I can wait. I’m aware I’ve become the subject of some imaginative rumors around here, and I wouldn’t want to make things tougher for you. I didn’t mean to eavesdrop, but it sounds like you’re dealing with quite a lot right now.”

I grimace. So he heard about Harun, huh?

“No, I’m fine. That’s no big deal, just my mother meddling in my love life.” We fidget on the sidewalk, looking all the more conspicuous for it, before I continue, “I guess you can keep doing what you’re doing.” Even though it’s late June, the suggestion of rain clings to the air. I pull my sweater tighter around my torso. “Just… walk behind me. Like, six feet behind, so no one assumes we’re together.”

“I’ll be a perfect stranger,” he promises.

We commence trekking home for the third time, but though he does his best to keep up his end of the bargain, I can sense his eyes on my back. A flush creeps up the nape of my neck. Am I imagining his interest in me? But why would my masochistic brain dream that up, when I already have enough boy problems?

I break the silence first. “About earlier… Have you really been to Paris?”

A beat follows, before he answers, “I’ve been to many places.”

“But… how?” I wonder, peeking over my shoulder. “Isn’t it hard, when you’re all alone? How do you pay for everything?”

He tilts his face toward the night sky. The full moon chooses that exact moment to duck out from behind some clouds and cast its silver halo over him. It glimmers across his raven-wing hair and gold-coin eyes in a way that makes my mouth go dry.

“I suppose it isn’t easy,” he murmurs at last, “but to me, it’s worth it, because it brought me one step closer to my dream.”

“Your dream?” I whisper.

He eyes me, as if he’s unsure whether he can trust me. I don’t know why, but I want him to, enough that I slow down, the six feet between us becoming five, four, three, until we’re side by side, my gaze affixed to his moonlit face. The intensity of it makes him stop in his tracks.

“When I was a kid, someone gave me a guitar,” he says. “I hung on her every word when she told me how she’d found it in New York. She went away again, like she always did, but I kept the guitar, and I’ve taken care of it ever since.”

“Do you still have it?” I ask. “Can you play it?”

His smile becomes a lovelorn thing, his eyes at once distant and dreamy. It makes my stomach do an unexpected flip. “I do. And I can. Never that well. I always had other obligations that prevented me from dedicating the time to playing it the way I wanted.”

“I know what that’s like,” I whisper, almost to myself.

Nayim’s pupils flick to my face. “But there’s nothing in the world that makes me happier than holding that guitar, teaching others how to play, watching them fall in love with it too. So it became my dream to go to New York City someday and open my own guitar shop there.” Without meaning to, I breathe a small gasp, and his mouth twitches self-consciously. “It sounds silly, huh?”

I shake my head. “No. Why would it if you’re serious about it?”

He catches his lip between his teeth, as if to stop himself from explaining, and I wonder if whoever he left behind at home made him believe his dreams were unattainable, like Amma often does with me.

At my encouraging nod, he continues, “I was able to get enough money to go to Europe. It’s closer to Bangladesh and the ticket was cheaper. But then I had to save up to get to the States. Take odd jobs, sleep on benches, busk for change. People weren’t always kind, like they are here, but since it meant I could make my own way to my dream, I did my best. I may not be able to afford it yet, but I’m going to prove that it’s not impossible. That I can do it all on my own.”

I stare at Nayim, heart pounding wild fists against my chest as if it wants me to unlock the cage of my ribs so it can fly to him. Because he… he gets it. Nayim gets me in an intrinsic way that someone like Harun, who’s always had everything handed to him on a gold platter, never could.

It isn’t easy to come to America from Bangladesh. My father’s older brother applied for our family to come before I was even born, and it took almost a decade for the US government to approve us getting green cards. I have no idea how Nayim did that on his own, but I’m positive it was harder than it ever was for me, and I admire his perseverance.

“You will ,” I insist, though the words are thick with emotion. “That’s… That’s how I feel about writing.”

His head whips up. “You write?”

I cringe.

Ugh, why did I say that when I’ve barely written in the past two years? And why to him, an absolute stranger, of all people? One who traveled halfway around the world for his dream, while I let my own be deferred like Langston Hughes’s raisin in the sun….

“Not much, lately,” I say. “It’s romance and other silly stuff. Not literature.”

“You told me my dreams aren’t silly. I don’t think yours are either.” Nayim slants a glance at me. “Besides, isn’t every story about love, one way or another? What makes that less important?”

Of course, he’s right.

But I guess I’m so used to fearing other people will find my interests shallow that I sometimes talk them down before anyone else can.

Why do I care what Nayim thinks, though?

“It’s nothing. Helping my family eats up most of my time and keeps me from writing. What about you?” I hedge, trying to steer the topic away from my deepest insecurities. “I got the impression you also shouldered your fair share of responsibilities in Bangladesh. Do you help take care of your family too? Send money back?”

Does anyone take care of you? I don’t add, though I’m dying to know.

Surely, someone misses him there. Are they worried? Do they still talk? What happened to the woman who gave him the guitar?

He sighs. “What family? There’s no one left in the world who needs me. But enough about me.” A hint of teasing steals into his voice. “Tell me more about you and your romances.”

Although I squawk at the flirtatious deflection, deep down inside, I foresaw it coming. Haven’t I employed this sort of diversion tactic hundreds of times myself when the twins or Ximena or teachers touched on our financial situation?

It’s my own fault for asking him such a probing, personal question when we don’t know one another, but it serves to confirm what I already suspected: he’s an orphan from a poor, fragmented family. Possibly even worse off than my own, if he’s been homeless before.

Just then, a man shambles past: the owner of a bodega across the street called Bangla Villa. As his curious gaze traverses the two of us, I clam up, perspiration beginning to pool under my armpits. Nayim, for his part, drops to the sidewalk right away, where a stray black cat nibbles on a loaf of bread next to a tipped-over trash can.

He starts crooning nonsense at it, and I make my escape as the man stops to observe his antics, ignoring the nervous flutter of butterfly wings in my belly.

The feeling dissipates the instant I get home, when Amma inquires, “Has Harun contacted you today?”

What would she think if she knew I’d walked home with another boy? A poor boy from a family of no reputation?

“Uh, no, Amma, he hasn’t,” I mutter, then add, “I’m tired tonight. Gonna turn in if you don’t need anything,” before she can browbeat me about skipping dinner.

Her perturbed retort dwindles as I flee into the bathroom to take a shower.

Later, blessedly alone in my bedroom, I drag myself over to the window, trying to find stars amid the smoggy sky, and catch Nayim doing the same, sitting in the window seat of his basement apartment with a notepad in his lap, chewing on the cap of a pen.

He must sense me watching, because his eyes lift to my window and crinkle at the corners. Before I know it, he scribbles a message onto the notepad and holds it up against the glass for me to see. Sweet dreams, neighbor.

The butterflies return with a vengeance.

Pressing a hand to my stomach to quiet them, I whisper a “Sweet dreams” he can’t hear, then shut the blinds before Amma or Nanu can catch me in the act.

As I crawl into bed, I can no longer ignore what my galloping heartbeat betrays. I like Nayim. He is brave and funny and silver-tongued.

How messed up is it that he wouldn’t be considered as eligible as Harun just because of the coincidence of his birth?

Life’s not fair sometimes.

If it were, Nayim would have all the riches in the world.