Hot Pink in the City (20 page)

With the relief of getting the tape in order,
Nasreen and I decide to go ahead with our college mission since
it's still early in the day. Also, we're on fire after completing
the major task of replacing the tape. "We need Omar," I say.

"Okay, let's get him," Nasreen says, a smirk
on her face.

We do the unthinkable, something we wouldn't
have done last week. We march over to the playground, through the
open gate, and stop at a wall where Omar's playing handball. We're
on his turf, which is okay since we have dirt on him. How many
times has he snooped on Nasreen, opened her door to peek in on her,
and tattled on her? We'll do the same to him.

He's in the middle of a lineup of boys. He
doesn't see us or stop. Bounce. Bounce. Bounce. The balls waltz up
and down.

Nasreen clears her throat, which doesn't do
any good because as she does so an ice cream truck drives by, its
tinkling music washing over the boys like magic. It isn't my or
Nasreen's presence that makes the boys stop playing.

"Ice cream!" Omar yells in a war cry.

The boys charge towards the fence, completely
ignoring us, and end up on the edge of the sidewalk where the truck
has stopped. In minutes, all the boys have push pops and ice cream
cones.

I can't wait anymore. "Omar!" I say,
sprinting to where he is.

The boys look at us, their mouths crusted
with orange, red, and blue ice cream. Nasreen fusses at her
brother.

"We told you to be on call when we needed
you..." she begins.

Omar looks comical with ice cream dribbling
down his chin. He doesn't look like the mighty ringleader of his
gambling troupe or a bossy younger brother, favorite of the
family.

"Come on, Nasreen," he says. "You see that
I'm in the middle of a game."

"In the middle of business," I say.

"Okay, I'll come with you," he concedes.

"Let's go," Nasreen commands. "We need to
prepare. Dad will be home soon for dinner."

"I don't need time to prepare!" Omar says. "I
know what we're going to do. I don't have to leave right now. I can
stay out here a little longer."

"No, you can't!" Nasreen counters. She puts
her brother into a headlock, his demon whorls facing me. I take my
camera out of my purse and snap a picture. A fire hydrant is
gushing in the background. A man walks by with a boom box on his
shoulders. The clouds have cleared up, and it's summertime in all
its sunny glory. Omar's friends laugh and point.

"Wuss," one of them calls out.

"Ha-ha, beaten up by a girl," another boy
says. I count ten boys, all around the same age but varying in
height and hair color. They seem to be enjoying their leader
getting this dose of humiliation.

"What are you doing?" Nasreen asks, turning
to me. "Did you take a picture of us?"

"No," I lie. Yes, I took a picture of this
light moment -- after days of living in fear and working hard to
get the tape, this all seems fun in comparison. Nasreen is sour and
wouldn't understand that I like her spunk, and even Omar's
brattiness has a charm to it.

"Do you have the creature?" Nasreen asks.

"Yes," Omar says. He pulls out a medicine
bottle with said creature in it.

Nasreen frowns, and I shiver with disgust. We
need the moth for tonight, when we convince Auntie and Uncle that
Nasreen is meant to go to an out-of-state college.

"Let's go," Nasreen says. She grabs Omar by
the ear and pulls him as if he's on a leash. Omar doesn't resist
but plays along. He's always seemed older than his age, but now he
acts like a true eight-year-old whose sister is bossing him around.
What's Omar going to do when he's younger and smaller than she is?
He opens his mouth and proves he's mostly talk.

"You should be glad Asma is here," he says.
"You just made me look bad in front of my friends."

"You can't always be the boss," Nasreen
says.

"Yeah, Omar," I say. "You need to let people
take turns being in charge." And it's clear we're in charge. For
two weeks it's been the world against Nasreen and me, but now we're
getting exactly what we want.

***

At home, Auntie seeks Nasreen. "How's the
rice?" she asks.

Nasreen is being good. She's not making faces
or being sarcastic as she tastes rice, gravy, and salad. While
Nasreen is taste-testing, I'm in and out of the alcove. For the
first time I walk freely into Omar's space, the curtains swishing
back and forth as we get ready for tonight.

Uncle comes home and we eat dinner. Auntie
has made a stir-fry of rice and vegetables. It's juicy and spicy.
I'm truly enjoying food now that I don't have to think about Uncle
not being able to find a tape after dinner, when he's in the mood
to listen to music.

"Let me make the tea," Nasreen says when
everyone's finished.

"Thank you!" Auntie says. Nasreen partakes in
cleaning chores but rarely does anything in the kitchen. There's
the clatter of a teakettle and cups as Nasreen gets everything
ready. The steam makes the small apartment even warmer.

Everyone sits in the living room. Nasreen
fixes a plate of pastries as the kettle toots. "Mom, why don't you
read tea leaves for us?" Nasreen asks.

"I'd love to!" Auntie says.

I raise my eyebrows since Nasreen doesn't
believe in those superstitions, but she pulls it off. She sounds
interested enough, and her mom doesn't question her daughter's
request. "I love having tea leaves read," I act along.

Nasreen is back in the living room, bringing
in two cups of tea for her parents. After she serves them, she goes
back to get tea for the rest of us.

Omar nibbles on baklava as he watches his
parents finish off the tea while Dan Rather reports the news. The
volume is low as Uncle loudly slurps his tea, while Auntie sips
daintily. I blow on my cup, not interested in drinking. I want to
see what's about to unfold, this thing Nasreen, Omar, and I are
orchestrating. I perk up when Auntie is done with her cup of
tea.

"Okay, here we have some leaves," she
says.

"Read my fortune!" Nasreen demands, smiling
as she sits on the arm of the chair I'm occupying.

"Okay..." Auntie hums and then frowns as she
peers into the bottom of the cup. "This is strange."

"What is it?" Uncle asks.

"I could swear the tea leaves are not forming
pictures, but words."

Uncle takes his last slurp and looks into his
cup, which he rotates in his hands. Where I'm sitting, I can see
the tea leaves making a moist mess at the bottom of their cups. "My
cup looks like it says something too," he says.

"Free," Auntie says in Farsi.

"Nasreen," Uncle says.

"Free Nasreen," Auntie repeats.

"This is impossible," Uncle says, "but this
is what it's saying."

"But free Nasreen how?" Auntie wonders.

"Do you think this means..." Uncle trails
off.

The two are frowning, pondering two words
that formed in their separate cups. We've made them think things
over. Months of Nasreen wondering if she could leave and then me
hearing about her problem for days might finally be over. I hope
this is working.

Once we had something to blackmail Omar with,
I incorporated him into my plan. My bratty little cousin had taken
glue, wrote FREE at the bottom of one cup and NASREEN at the bottom
of the other. Then he poured loose leaves onto the glue and shook
out the excess. I remember doing that in art class anytime I
decorated with glitter. The cups dried overnight, and we made sure
Omar used Krazy Glue so the glue wouldn't melt off easily from the
tea. And tonight Nasreen didn't use more loose tea like the kind
Auntie or Uncle normally use but a tea bag so the tea leaves we
adhered to the bottom wouldn't be obscured.

Nasreen's lips twitch as she suppresses a
smile. I'm doing the same, forcing a straight face. "Wow," I say.
"The tea leaves are trying to tell us something."

"Maybe Nasreen needs to go to the college she
wants," Omar says.

Uncle shakes his cup, but those tea leaves
are there to stay until someone pulls them off along with the glue.
Auntie has many tea cups, so if the glue doesn't peel away -- and
it shouldn't since it's Krazy Glue -- we'll dispose of them. They
served their purpose tonight.

"Let me see what this says," Omar says,
grabbing the
free
cup from his mother's fingers. "I can't
see too well." He walks over to the window and pulls the blinds up
so that he can see better. On the right pane is a moth.

Auntie gasps. Even Uncle raises his eyebrows
in shock.

My mother once told me that a moth on the
right side means something good, while on the left side it's
ominous. There was once a moth stuck on the right side of our patio
all day long, so Mom told me something good was going to happen. If
I got all As on a report card or if Dad got a promotion, then that
was confirmed. To me she was just seeking things to solidify her
suspicions, much like how Auntie does. This superstition is working
well for Nasreen's case. Also, it's a good thing the moth is on the
outside, where Omar had tacked the dead thing onto the window with
adhesive. Yes, he had murdered a moth for us. I shiver with insect
heebie-jeebies.

"These are signs," Auntie says.

"I don't know about that," Uncle says. "But
maybe we should rethink allowing Nasreen to go to another
state."

"Why not? She's smart and responsible."

"We have family in California who can help
her."

"My sister lives in Boston."

"We have relatives in at least five states to
look out for her."

We don't want to press things. We let Uncle
and Auntie stew in their conversation now the signs have convinced
them to be more open on the issue of Nasreen's college choices.

While Auntie and Uncle continue to discuss
Nasreen's good qualities and where she could possibly go, we clear
the table, squirreling away the cups so there's no investigation
and no one discovers the glue.

"The sun is hurting my eyes," Omar says,
pulling the blinds down.

"I'll take out the garbage," Nasreen says.
She'll also swipe the moth off the window to make it look like it
flew away. Everything's going as planned.

"Yes, we'll talk further about this
tomorrow," Uncle says.

"We'll look at exactly where Nasreen wants to
go if she has her heart set on leaving us," Auntie says. "My baby
leaving us."

"Our firstborn..." Uncle sighs.

Auntie wails, both happy and sad that Nasreen
may finally get what she wants by leaving the basement apartment.
Nasreen isn't even done with high school yet, with one more year to
go, and they sound like she's ready to depart. She actually is
ready, since it's all she's been thinking about, but it won't be
until next summer that she'll go away. It's a major milestone that
her parents have shifted on the idea of her leaving. I didn't think
it would happen. She was born a few blocks away at St. Luke's,
we've walked by her elementary school multiple times during our
treks around the city... I might be ecstatic to be here, but I can
imagine that if a place is too familiar a person will eventually
want to leave it.

"Thank you," Nasreen mouths silently when she
comes back. I'm thrilled that my idea worked. We'll soon see if our
other endeavor panned out or not. Uncle gets up to look through his
cassette collection.

"I want to listen to some music," he says.
"What happened tonight is too heavy for me to continue thinking
about."

"It's a time to celebrate though," Auntie
says. "This reminds me of myself at Nasreen's age. I also went off
to college."

"That was a different time," Uncle says.

"Uncle, the world will always be dangerous,"
I say. "You must admit that even in your country bad things
happened. It might be a different atmosphere here, but people can
take precautions, and they'll be fine. You raised Nasreen well.
She's careful around people, and she's always aware of her
surroundings. Whenever I'm out with her I feel safe."

Nasreen gives me another grateful look, her
top lip sucked in and her eyes teary. I meant what I said. Nasreen
has a tough exterior -- too tough at times, because I think she's
excessively guarded and occasionally rude -- and I can't imagine
any person or situation knocking her down.

"Time for music!" Uncle says. "How about some
Umm Kulthum? I haven't heard her in a while."

"Oh yes," Auntie gushes.

"Omar! Nasreen! Help me get everything off
these shelves so I can find my Umm Kulthum tape behind the
entertainment center."

"What are you talking about?" Nasreen asks.
"It's not there."

"Yes, it is," Uncle says. "Remember I checked
not too long ago. It's not in those boxes."

"You need to look harder," I say. "Maybe it's
on the bottom."

"I'm sure you overlooked it," Nasreen
says.

"Let me help you look," I say. I dip my hand
inside a box, pretend I'm digging around when I know exactly where
it is, and pull it out. This cassette, that I ran all over town
for, that I was harassed by those two brothers for, that almost
cost me a lot of money, that made me go to that dreadful audition,
that put me on TV for the country to see me kissing a boy... such a
small thing put me through all this.

"Play it," Nasreen urges.

"That's not my Umm Kulthum tape," Uncle says.
"To clarify... it is, but it isn't."

Nasreen's face falls and my heart sinks. I
feel sick. How can he tell when he hasn't played it yet? We must
have done something wrong. I study the outside of the cassette to
see if we missed anything, but in all appearances this is the tape.
It's the same case, same insert, and the replacement is the same
color and brand as the original. But Uncle knows. We aren't able to
trick him. We've been caught.