Hot Pink in the City

Hot Pink in the City

By Medeia Sharif

Copyright 2015 by Medeia Sharif

Smashwords Edition

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters,
places, and incidents either are the product of the author's
imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual
events, locales, organizations, or persons, living or dead, is
entirely coincidental and beyond the intent of either the author or
the publisher.

Torquere Press Publishers

P.O. Box 37, Waldo, AR 71770.

Hot Pink in the City by Medeia Sharif
Copyright 2015

Cover illustration by BSClay

Published with permission

www.torquerepress.com

ISBN:
978-1-61040-955-1

All rights reserved, which includes the right
to reproduce this book or portions thereof in any form whatsoever
except as provided by the U.S. Copyright Law. For information
address Torquere Press. LLC, P.O. Box 37, Waldo, AR 71770

First Torquere Press Printing: August
2015

Hot Pink in the City

by Medeia Sharif

Chapter One

People are being snatched right off the
street. You'll be dragged into vans and alleyways.

Everyone is doing drugs, but not my
children.

Don't go out alone. Always take someone with
you, and never at night.

Waiting for this plane to take off, my
parents' words stick in my head. News headlines run through my
mind. But I'm not with my parents, and there's no TV in front of
me. I'm on my own, and I have to entertain myself. My purse is in
my lap with my smorgasbord of stuff. I take out my illicit makeup
bag. Makeup isn't for me. I'm a tomboy and my parents don't allow
me to wear it in public, yet I'm ready to be girly.

I pull out a compact and paint my face with
blue and lavender eye shadow, hot pink cheeks, and fuchsia lips.
Smiling, I like the shape of my colored lips. I pull at my sleeves
so that both shoulders become bare, although I'm wearing a tank top
underneath my shirt. For the last three years I've dressed like a
boy, wearing shirts, shorts, and jeans. I'm the soccer star in the
school and local papers for all the goals I make. My hair is always
up with a scrunchie or banana clip, but I'm ready for a change. On
this plane ride, I'll become a woman. I want to look like Kelly
LeBrock, as if I stepped right out of a Pantene commercial. With
the way I'm dressed I'd shock my best friends, Misty and Tamara.
They wouldn't believe it. Maybe I'll take a picture for them
later.

I pull my scrunchie off so my straight hair
tumbles down my shoulders. I have the clothes and makeup, but
there's one more thing I need to be free, to be me, to be a woman.
Where is it? I stick both hands inside the bowels of my purse to
look.

"It's not here," I whisper. "Where is
it?"

I don't care that I'm talking to myself and
that people might look. The long fringes of my denim purse brush
against my knees as I look for my Madonna mixtape. It has to be
here. I only spent three hours making that tape, figuring out how
to use my brother's new boom box with dual cassette players, with
my mom yelling at me because she said the music was too loud. All
that work for nothing when I can't listen to my favorite singer
during this plane ride.

Our plane is filling up. I look up to see
people shoving things in overhead compartments. I check out guys to
distract my frazzled mind in hopes of quelling my panic over the
missing tape. Blonds, brunets, green eyes, and hazel eyes walk past
me. A screaming child hurts my ears.

But with the bad comes the good. After the
child disappears to the back of the plane, a hunk with ripped
muscles underneath a tight tank top, tawny skin the color of sweet
caramel, and black hair with a braid across his shoulder reaches up
to put his baggage away. Then he sits right next to me. I try not
to stare, but it's hard when he's also checking me out.

"Hi," I say.

"Hello," he says.

His breath smells like peppermint, and his
bulging arms remind me of ripe fruit that I want to take a bite of.
Oh, and he looks like John Stamos. I never miss ABC's Friday night
lineup because of him. As a soccer star, I get to ogle the boys'
soccer team, the track team, the football team, and other boys at
practice, admiring them from afar. My mom picks me up after
practice or after a game, so it's not like I get a chance to talk
to any of these boys, but here is one right in front of me.

"I'm Abe, short for Ibrahim," he says.

"I'm Asma," I say.

His name intrigues me. It sounds Middle
Eastern. Other than relatives and family friends, I don't come by
too many Middle Eastern people.

"I live in Miami, not too far from the
airport," I say.

"I'm in North Miami."

We talk about what high schools we go to. He
plays basketball and I play soccer. It's like a marriage of sports
teams. The two of us had no knowledge of each other's existence in
Miami, but we're headed to New York together. Maybe I can see him
when I'm there, which will be hard since I'm going to visit family,
and my uncle and aunt are as overprotective as my parents are.

"Excuse me, young man, but that's my seat,"
someone hovering over us says.

We both look up at a behemoth of a man, a
John Candy look-alike who glowers down at us. "I'm 11-B," he
says.

Abe lifts up his pelvis to reach the back
pocket of his jeans -- yes, I'm noticing his every move -- and
pulls out his boarding pass. "I'm sorry, I am in the wrong seat,"
he says. He gets up, pulling away from me, and retrieves his duffel
bag. As he moves along with the tide of latecomers finding seats,
he turns around to say something, but I can't hear him. I believe
he said, "Talk to you later." I hope so.

An hour later, I use the restroom but don't
see Abe on my way there, although some creepy guy can't keep his
eyes off me. I scurry away from him. When I'm back in my seat, we
hit some turbulence. My heartbeat quickens, but not just because of
the shaking airplane. I'm traveling from Miami to New York to stay
with my uncle and his family for two and a half weeks and I don't
have any Madonna to listen to. "Who's That Girl," "Like a Virgin,"
and "Dress You Up" play in my head, the tunes almost right in my
mind since I know the lyrics by heart. Also they match the feelings
I have for this boy I just met. But hearing the songs in my head
isn't the same. I want to be able to stick a cassette in my Walkman
and press Play. Her music makes me want to dance, see the world,
and experience things. Inside of this cramped plane, my energy
can't go anywhere.

Digging into my purse again, I find something
to occupy my time: my scrapbook. I've kept it since sixth grade and
I've put mementoes of all the important things that have happened
to me inside it. There are letters from pen pals, pictures of me in
local newspapers for high school soccer news, report cards, honor
roll certificates, goofy pictures of my friends Tamara and Misty,
and plenty of boys from my favorite shows and TV movies... and of
course there's John Stamos.

With this summer in the greatest -- and most
dangerous -- city in the world, I expect to add more to my
scrapbook. I start now, though. There's glue and a stapler in my
purse, because as a scrapbooker I have materials on hand. Taking my
boarding pass, I glue it on a fresh sheet of paper. The book is
thick, and wrinkly where I used too much glue. Still, this book is
my life. I hope to fill it with many exciting things. My life has
been plain, uneventful. I go to school and play soccer, day in and
day out. A change is needed. This trip will give me one.

***

We land and people clap, which annoys me,
because what did they think? That we would crash? I've been to New
York before, but this time there's a difference. It's summer
vacation, and my parents have sent me all by myself. They started
doing that with my older brothers, sending them by themselves to
visit relatives, which to them is safer than sending them to summer
camp and cheaper than going all together as a family. My parents
wanted to come to New York, but they need to save money for a new
car. I begged them for a New York trip and my uncle wanted them to
come, so my parents sent me to represent the family. Also, I'm old
enough to travel by myself at sixteen. I will be the spokesperson
for the Bashir family. It's so totally awesome that I'm on my own.
I even feel closer to Madonna, since she lives in New York, not
that it's likely I'll bump into her or anything.

My parents taught me to be afraid of the
world. One wrong turn -- being at the wrong place at the wrong time
-- can lead to death and destruction. Just standing by myself at
the airport makes me nervous, which overrides the delicious freedom
I have before me. I find my luggage and in the distance are the
polar opposites, the creepy, oily guy who had been staring at me on
the plane and Abe. The creepy guy looks like he's in a hurry, maybe
to stalk a girl or something. I'm glad he's leaving. On the other
hand, Abe is taking his time slinging his duffel bag across his
shoulder and lifting another piece of luggage. I'm thrilled to see
him. If I don't know where I'm at, I tend to follow others. Instead
of reading the Exit signs, I follow Abe. His eyes don't catch mine,
so he must not have any idea I'm behind him. His cute butt goes
bump, bump, bump. Next to getting away with makeup and skimpy
clothes -- but not going overboard, because Uncle may complain and
call my parents -- maybe I can have a summer fling. I've never had
one of those before. I've never experienced any sort of romance,
period.

Abe is becoming more distant, and jeaned
buttocks are blurring together. Too many people are wearing denim.
I've lost him! "Asma!" someone yells. Does Abe remember my name? Of
course, he must. It's only been a few hours since we've spoken
before we took off.

"Asma!"

Oh, it's my uncle. Not Abe, the Uncle
Jesse-John Stamos look-alike, but my uncle-uncle. Uncle Farhad
waves at me. His handlebar moustache looks ancient, seventies style
when we're in the eighties. Even his polyester pants and plaid
shirt look outdated. He needs to get with the times.

I walk to him, giving him a hug and kiss. His
moustache tickles and abrades my cheek before he darts his hands
behind me to get my luggage. So far, so good. He hasn't said
anything about my altered appearance.

Uncle lifts my suitcase while I carry my
duffel bag towards an Exit sign. Next thing, we're on a bus headed
to Manhattan. I can't wait to call and write to Misty and Tamara. I
told them I'd keep in touch with them during my stay here. They
didn't seem thrilled that I was leaving, probably because they're
going to miss me. Misty sort of dug into me before I left by
saying, "New York isn't for a homebody like you." I know I don't go
out much, unless it's for soccer games, but of course I'm not going
to be a homebody during vacation.

I could stare out of the window forever, at
all the New Yorkers and their dwellings... but my mind drifts to
Madonna. I look through my purse again, but then it dawns on me
that I changed purses last minute, picking a larger one, and I must
not have emptied my other one out completely!

The mixtape has all my favorite songs. I
don't have the money to purchase several brand new tapes. It'll be
hard to glue myself to the radio to hear Madonna since Uncle is a
despot when it comes to noise. He doesn't let my cousin, Nasreen,
play the radio. She only plays it when he's gone. How am I going to
live without Madonna? There's Cyndi Lauper, Lisa Lisa, Taylor
Dayne, and some other favorites in my purse, but nothing beats
Madonna. It's her sound, her chameleon hair and makeup, and the
most rad costumes I've ever seen on anybody that beats out everyone
else. I have no problem being me, but if I were to choose someone
else's life I would want to be her. When I zone out in class I
pretend I'm wearing a bustier and leggings.