A Girl Like That(10)
The boy stretched back his arms and then leaped off the chair, his sneakers throwing up dust as they hit the ground. Unlike the men near the stalls, he didn’t kneel or turn in the direction of Makkah, but spun around to face me.
Black hair. Tanned skin. Narrow jaw. But it was his eyes that caught and held my attention, the irises hazel, almost pale gold in the fading afternoon light. They traveled over me: from the top of my scarf to the tips of my sneakers peeking from underneath the black abaya. I was aware of the shapelessness of the garment, the worn laces of my shoes, the boyish crop Masi had been forcing on me ever since I was four years old. For a moment I wished my abaya was fancier: a pastel shade of white, sky blue, or yellow instead of the usual black, or embroidered and sequined like the ones Mishal and her friends wore. I wished I could, like some other girls at the fair, feel bold enough to leave my abaya open at the front and show off glimpses of a colorful new outfit. But even underneath the abaya, my clothes weren’t much better—an old T-shirt and the cheap jeans that Masi bought by the dozen from Manara Market.
“It’s not like anyone’s going to see what you’re wearing,” she had always said and I had never found a reason to question this rationale. Until tonight.
The boy tilted his head slightly and then flashed me a smile—white teeth, a dimple deep in his left cheek.
My face warmed. It was ridiculous, really. I had never blushed in front of a boy before—not even in Masi’s presence. Smile back, my mind told me. Smile back.
However, by the time I felt the corners of my mouth turn up, the boy was distracted by other matters, more specifically by the head girl, who jogged by us with a money box clutched in her hands, her big breasts bouncing like a pair of water balloons.
“Nadia!” the boy called after her. “Hey, Nadia, do you need some help?”
“Farhaaaan.” I’d never heard the head girl sound so breathless. She held the box out to him. “Oh Farhan, you’re a lifesaver. May Allah forgive me for missing my prayers today, but I’ve been so busy! Could you please get this to the headmistress for me?”
“Of course, Nadia.” This time his smile was for her, only turned up in brightness. The dizzy, megawatt grin of a guy who’d finally been noticed by a girl he’d been eyeing for ages. Instead of walking away, they continued to talk, the head girl giggling at something the boy said, seemingly oblivious to the glares they drew from the praying men. By the time they walked off, the salah had ended and voices around me rose again, indicating that the stalls had reopened for business.
“There you are.” Masi’s voice floated to my ears a moment later, as pleasant as the snap of a rubber band on skin. “We’ve been looking everywhere for you.”
I turned away from the boy and the head girl, my face burning. My aunt and uncle approached: Masa, smiling, with plastic packets of blue and pink cotton candy in his hands, and Masi, frowning, her magnified bifocal eyes focused somewhere over my head.
“Who’s that boy?” she asked.
“No one.”
“You were staring at him. Clearly he isn’t no one.”
“So is it now a crime to look at people?”
“Stop it,” Masa interrupted. He gave me one of the packs of cotton candy. “Stop it, both of you.”
I tore out a chunk of the spun pink sugar with my fingers and stuffed it into my mouth, barely listening to Masi’s lecture about bad manners. To my relief, we did not see either the boy or Nadia again for the rest of the evening—not that we stayed there very long.
Hours later, I pulled out the school yearbook in my bedroom, turning page after page until I came across one with his photo. Farhan Rizvi. Captain, Qala Academy soccer team. Second-place winner at the regional school debate held last year in Dubai.
His smile didn’t seem that special now. It was too toothy, I told myself, too white. Like he was modeling for a toothpaste commercial. His nose looked like it had been modeled by a plastic surgeon, it was so perfectly shaped and centered. Fake, I decided. Completely fake.
I stared at the photo for a few more moments, remembering the way his gaze had traveled over my body, almost as if he was mapping it, the slight narrowing of the eyes, as if something was missing, as if there was something about me that fell short of his expectations.
“It will be difficult,” I’d heard Masi telling Masa once, in reference to me. “So difficult to find her a good boy once they find out about her family.”
“That happened a long time ago. It won’t matter.”
“Not everyone is like you, Rusi.” It was the first time I’d heard her sound sad, resigned. “Most boys listen to their parents. And they are not going to ignore her past.”
The taint of bad blood, the Dog Lady called it. It didn’t matter how good your reputation was or how pretty you looked. Though I had never thought about marriage before, I could imagine what the Dog Lady and Masi would say when the time came.
“She will be lucky if she can even find someone,” the Dog Lady would say in her patronizing tone. “As is, it is so troublesome, you know, Khorshed dear, when it comes to finding someone for a child from a mixed marriage, and in her case … well, you know how people talk.”
Of course Masi knew. I knew as well.
Illegitimate. Half-Hindu. Gangster’s daughter. I’d heard the words before.