Hot Pink in the City (11 page)

"What do you want?" Nasreen asks.

"You two are up to something," he says.

"And you aren't? All you do is spy on
people."

"Me? Spy? Something about you two is off, and
I'm going to find out what it is."

"Get out of here. Go behind your curtain, you
little troll."

He sticks his tongue out and disappears, his
green curtains flapping behind him. Ever since that area was
sectioned off, I've never been behind those curtains.

"Do you think there's a chance we can open
that closet and get to Omar's money?" I whisper. "It'll only be
fair since some of it is ours."

Nasreen gives me a sideways glance. "Are you
crazy? If anything goes missing, he'll know we're behind it. We
have a motive since he recently blackmailed us. Anyway, only Dad
and the super have the key to that closet."

My hopes regarding the coat closet and Omar's
cigar box are dashed. An hour later Auntie and Omar are by the
front door, dressed for their outing. She's wearing a lavender
dress, and he's wearing shorts and a Spiderman t-shirt. She blows
her holy wind on him and says a prayer. I realize that while she
blows on everyone, no one blows on her. Who will pray for Auntie's
safety?

Omar bends down to tie a shoelace when I
notice something disturbing. There are two white patches on each
side of his head. Typically, on people with short hair, I notice
one whorl, where the hair has a natural pattern of growth spiraling
from the middle of the head. Omar doesn't have one whorl but
two.

I nudge Nasreen's ribs. "Take a look at
that," I say.

"Devil's horns," she whispers.

My mom told me that people with two whorls
represent the devil, because that's where horns grow. Here Auntie
is so superstitious, taking heed of everything from the old
country, but she never mentions that her own son has the markings
of Satan. It doesn't surprise me. At least he'll be out of our way
for a few hours and the apartment will be a demon-free zone during
that time.

***

"Okay, they're gone," Nasreen says, leaping
off the couch. "Let's start looking. Just make sure you put things
back exactly as you found them."

"Will do."

Nasreen is twice as fast as I am. It's her
home, after all. She looks through her parent's room and living
room, finding four dollars worth of loose change. I try the closet
door in the front hallway to make sure it's locked, still thinking
of that box of money, but Uncle hasn't left it open. Then I'm in
the kitchen, putting utensils and appliances back where I found
them, handling them with care since I'm afraid Auntie will notice
something's awry. When I reach the last drawer, I hit pay dirt.

There's a list, but it's in Persian. It's
paper-clipped to six ten dollar bills. Sixty dollars! It's not the
one hundred we're looking for, but it's something.

"Nasreen, I found something!" I say.

She rushes over and smiles. "This looks like
an old shopping list for groceries, sewing stuff, and school
supplies," she says. "I think it's from September. Mom must have
forgotten about it."

"Yeah, or she would have taken it with her
just now."

"According to what you say you have left over
for your trip expenses and considering that Omar fleeced me, we
don't have one hundred dollars, but maybe if we go back to the
store in Brooklyn the guy can lower the price or we can haggle.
Maybe he'll drop the price to seventy-five or eighty."

"But what if your mom notices today or
tomorrow that the money's missing?"

"I don't think she'll notice anytime soon
since it's been here awhile. Also, in a few weeks I can replenish
it. Aunt Latifah is visiting from Buffalo in August, and she always
gives me money when she comes down here. Also, I won't spend a dime
of my allowance."

"Still, a few weeks is a long time."

"Not for my mom," Nasreen says. "She won't
notice it missing right away. Anyway, if she sees something is
gone, she blames jinn. You know, genies? She says they move stuff
to cause mischief."

My parents have warned me about jinn, that
they shift things around people's homes as a prank. Shortly before
I left, my mother lost her sewing kit and blamed it on them. "In
that, case, let's go to Brooklyn, and I'm sure the store owner
can't turn this money down," I say. "Let's go today."

"We'll wait for Mom to come back so I can
tell her we're sightseeing." She says the last word with air
quotes. It's okay since I've seen all of New York's biggest sights
during previous trips. Right now my mind is on the replacement
tape.

"But, maybe there is more money somewhere," I
say.

"We've checked every room. I even checked the
toilet tank, because people keep things in there to hide from
burglars."

"Yuck."

"I checked my dad's desk in the living room.
Really, there's just the closet."

"You're forgetting one place. I know you said
we can't take from him, but at least we can take a peek behind
Omar's curtains."

Nasreen's eyes darken. I also feel a bit ill
thinking about it. Those curtains have come to symbolize something
mysterious and sinister, but I'm still curious. What's behind those
curtains? What does Omar do for hours a day behind them?

"All right," Nasreen says. "Things are so
rocky between me and him that I haven't been there in months."

"Really?" I say.

"Yeah. Let's go though."

Nasreen follows me. When something pokes my
back, I jump up and yelp. She laughs at my fear. "Oooh, the
boogeyman will get you," Nasreen howls in a spooky voice.
"Boooogeyman."

"I don't expect rainbows and butterflies, but
I know we're bound to see something frightening in there."

"You first," she says.

"No, you," I say.

"No... you!"

"All right, all right, I'll go first."

Chapter Thirteen

The curtains are emerald green and shimmery.
In my opinion, they're too good for Omar. He should be living
behind flaps of burlap or something. Auntie hand-sews many things,
and looking at the stitches they look like they're her work. Not
that her sewing is bad or anything, but I can tell the stitches
aren't from a machine. The fabric is something she probably
purchased during bargain shopping, and it's good quality. She got
the best for the prince of the household.

Nasreen stands behind me, humming the theme
song for
Jaws
. I grab the curtains and yank them apart.
Nasreen stops humming to gasp. The alcove joins the living room,
but it's two thirds of the width. So much stuff is crammed inside
that small space. The rest of the apartment is cramped, with every
inch of closet and drawer space used, but this is something
else.

There's a sofa, desk, TV, Atari, Nintendo,
boom box, and dresser. I guess Omar can move around in here because
he's a little kid, but when Nasreen and I step in it's a small
fit.

"How does anyone stay here for hours a day?"
I ask.

"He has everything he needs," Nasreen says,
picking up a Nintendo cartridge. She studies the cover and then
throws it back down with the rest of the pile on the floor.
"Everything that's important to him is here. Anyway, you see how
he's always going to the playground with friends. It's not like
he's here all the time."

"Still..."

The sofa is unmade, with a blanket scrunched
up and a pillow indented with the shape of Omar's head on the other
end. Nasreen sits down, while I'm on my knees on the floor. She
turns to the side, leaning forward to look through his dresser.
There are clothes, candy, and toys in there. Everything is a
disorganized mess. If Nasreen's room looked like this, Uncle and
Auntie would rag on her, but Omar can get away with sloppiness.

I sit on the carpet and see some things
stacked underneath the sofa. It looks like Omar's classwork from
the school year that just ended. There are math equations, grammar,
As, and Bs. He seems like a good student. And based on how Uncle
and Auntie treat him, he's the perfect son. Too bad he sucks as a
brother and a cousin.

I flip through the next notebook. This is
different from the others. Omar hasn't labeled it with his name or
a subject area. Each page has a list on it.

Handball Teams

Team 1: Reinaldo, Jesse, Omar, Freddy,
Haider

Team 2: Chris, Luke, Mike, Winston,
Hector

Winner: Team 1, $20

I flip through the pages and see the same
thing on each of them. Sometimes instead of "handball," I see
"cards" or "basketball." The winning teams win anywhere from ten to
thirty dollars, with each list having three to six players
each.

"Nasreen, check this out," I say.

"What's this?" she asks when I put the
notebook in her lap.

"It looks like your brother is partaking in
some gambling."

"What?" She flips through the pages, her
mouth forming an
O
.

"It's quite lucrative," I say. "They must
pool the money and then split it, and Omar is on many of the
winning teams. This goes on for pages and pages. He must've been
doing this for months."

"That little shit!" Nasreen yells. "We can't
even afford the tape from that asshole in Brooklyn, and one of the
reasons is because we gave money to Omar to keep quiet so he
doesn't tell my dad we were using his stereo, when he doesn't need
the money. He's making plenty of dough! That's why he's always
begging to go out to the corner playground to play with the
neighborhood kids. This is why he's always asking Dad to take the
cigar box out of the coat closet, because that's where he's saving
his money. He must lie to Dad and say he's saving his allowance,
Ramadan money, and family gifts. No, he's getting most of his money
by doing this!"

"I wouldn't doubt he's the brainchild of this
operation," I say. "Your brother is greedy and has brains, although
he uses his intelligence for evil."

"Yeah. And if you notice, his friends are the
ones who seek him out. If he doesn't come out, they're knocking on
our door, so polite to my parents and asking them if Omar can come
out and play."

"Yes, I've noticed."

Nasreen puts the notebook on the arm of the
sofa. "We need to make a copy of this gambling diary."

"How?" I wonder. "If we take this for
photocopies, Omar will notice it's missing."

"Go get my camera," she says. "I'll set up
here."

I know where her camera bag is. It's hanging
off a nail in her closet, above the TV she's not supposed to be
watching late at night. When I bring it to her, she opens it and
takes out the Kodak camera. "We're ready," she says.

It feels like we're in the secret police.
This is what spies must do in Iran. I'm always hearing about police
and spy activity, cloak-and-dagger stuff, torture rooms,
abductions, and political intrigue. Nasreen and I don't keep up
with what's going on in the old country since we're part of this
new country, but we listen to our parents go on about spies and
family friends who sell information. Sure, this only involves my
cousin and gambling on the playground, but it still feels exciting
and wrong -- in the right way since Omar deserves being found out
like this. He holds things over others, so we'll hold something
over him.

Nasreen turns on the alcove light since there
are no windows and the meager light from the living room doesn't
reach this area. Then she stands on the couch at an awkward angle,
slightly bent over, while the notebook is on the floor. She can't
do close-ups because the camera manual doesn't suggest it. I flip
the page, getting out of the way as she snaps. I flip, she snaps,
until we've taken a picture of many of the pages. Nasreen doesn't
have enough shots for the whole book since Omar has been gambling
for quite a while.

"We're done," Nasreen says.

"So how will we use these pictures?" I
ask.

"My parents think the world of Omar. They
think he's heaven-sent. What a joke. We'll have to use these at the
right time and really threaten him, or else he'll give my parents
some bullshit lie that this notebook was for math class or that he
was only gambling in monopoly money."

"Yes, we'll have to be careful." He's only
eight, but we're talking about him as if he's a mafia kingpin --
he's as wily as one, though.

"My film has one last picture left."

"Let's get someone to take our picture!" I
say.

"Good idea," Nasreen agrees. I don't want
Auntie and Uncle to take any more pictures of me. I can't forget
our picture-taking experience a few days ago, when I felt like I
was taking mug shots rather than family pictures.

We both step outside and approach a cute guy
who's hailing a cab. When the cab zooms past him, ignoring him, we
ask him to take our picture.

"Anything for you two beautiful ladies," he
says in a deep voice. He has a sexy radio voice. I've heard the
joke that people with a radio voice have a face for radio, but he's
an exception to this belief.

I giggle and Nasreen smiles, putting her
guard down. She hands him her camera. We put our arms around each
other, my lime-green shoulder against her black shirt, and my
straight hair against her prickly spikes. We smush our cheeks
together and smile wide. Auntie and Uncle would disapprove of this
pose, calling it childish and improper, but they're not here.

Click.

***

The guy is gorgeous. He has thick, black
lashes, cheekbones, a jawline that could cut glass, and muscles
straining against his sleeves. He chats after he takes our picture.
He tells us he's a student at NYU studying archeology. Ooh, an
older man. Nasreen and I are glued to the sidewalk. When another
cab comes his way, he manages to get it. "Sorry, ladies, but I'm
late for an appointment," he says. "Thanks for keeping me
company."