I touch my own nose ring self-consciously as I look at hers. After putting on my salwar kameez earlier today I swapped out my usual stud for a golden hoop. I wonder if I can pull off a chain like Sunny Apu. I wonder if I’ll ever get the chance to. You only really wear them at your wedding, after all. And with the way things are going …
“Will you come with me to take a photo with them?” Priti asks, cutting off my train of thought. She’s already whipping her phone out of her beaded white clutch, so I know I don’t have much of a choice. But right now I’m so grateful that she’s here, that she’s my sister, that I don’t care.
“Sure.” I give the Auntie at our table a smile that I hope conveys apology, condescension, and mischief all in one, and the two of us slip away from the tables and into the throng of people waiting to take a photo with the bride and groom.
“She looks so happy now,” I say.
“Well, duh,” says Priti, even though it’s not very “duh” at all. She thrusts her phone out, nearly punching a guy in a khaki sherwani standing in front of her. He ducks out of her way, shooting us a glare while I try to give him an apologetic smile. Priti is too busy checking that she has nothing in her teeth to even notice.
“I gotta run to the bathroom to fix this.” She waves her hand over her face.
“It looks okay,” I say. I want to add “your face,” but that might be too complimentary. And “your makeup” might make her scoff, because she probably means something specific. So I settle for adding nothing.
“Thanks, now I feel confident. Do you want to come?”
“To the bathroom?”
“No, the moon. I hear there’s a really big mirror there—perfect for fixing up your makeup and taking selfies, didn’t you know?”
“Okay, there’s no need to get sarcastic.” I punch her on the shoulder.
“I’m going, I’ll be right back. Don’t go up on stage without me, okay?” She turns around and whips me in the face with her urna.
“Okay,” I mumble, but Priti has already disappeared into the crowd. I turn back to face the stage. The Irish girls from the back room are up there now, their faces arranged into wide grins as the professional photographer clicks away. One of them rushes off the stage, nearly tripping, and hands the photographer her iPhone, mumbling something. The photographer frowns but begins to click away with the iPhone. I wonder if photographers feel a little insulted when people ask them to do that.
“So is this what weddings in your country are usually like?”
I turn around and come face-to-face with the girl with the curly brown hair who has been dancing in the back of my mind all night. She must remember me to come up to me like this. There’s a hint of a smile on her face; I can’t tell if she’s impressed by the wedding or if she’s trying to insult it.
“Sorry?” is all I can say, though there are a million other things I could have said that would have made me seem a little more charming and a little less dumbfounded.
“You don’t remember me.” Her smile shifts into a smirk. It suits her, weirdly. There’s a dimple that forms on her right cheek.
“I do.” It comes out more defensive than I want it to, but I do. More clearly than I should.
“And my name?” she asks, raising an eyebrow.
I bite my lip. Then, acting braver than I feel, I say, “Do you remember my name?”
“Nisha.” More confident than she should feel.
It’s my turn to smirk. “Wrong.”
She looks bewildered. “No, I’m … that’s …” She knits her eyebrows together, like she’s really thinking about this. “That is your name. I remember, you’re from Bangladesh. Ms. O’Donnell made you do a presentation about it in your first week in class and you were so embarrassed or shy or something that your entire face was on fire, and you stuttered through the whole presentation.”
I do remember that presentation. It was my first week in school, my first month in the country. Everything was still new and everyone’s words blurred together in an accent I couldn’t yet understand.
“It’s Nishat,” I offer. “I can’t believe you remember that.”
“You were kind of distinctive.” She’s trying to bite down another smile. I can tell from the way her lips are turned up at the edges.
“Flávia,” I say, and she brightens at the sound of her name, like she really didn’t expect me to remember.
“You look nice in that.” The words slip out, and I immediately feel heat rushing up my cheek. But she does look nice. She’s wearing a salwar kameez that a Desi girl wouldn’t be caught dead in at a wedding, but Flávia wears it with such nonchalance that she pulls it off. It’s royal blue, with a silver floral pattern on its torso. She’s wrapped the urna around her neck like a scarf, with the long end of it hanging off to the side. It’s beautiful, but far too simple a design for an elaborate wedding like this.
“Thanks.” This time she does smile, dimple and all. “I like your henna. Did you do it yourself?”
I look at both sides of my right hand, filled with vines and flowers and leaves darkened to a deep red.
“Yes. I’ve been trying to teach myself.”
“Do you find it difficult?”
I shrug. “A little. It was … really just for the wedding.”
“Oh …” Her eyes leave me, and travel up to the stage where Sunny Apu and her husband are sitting with a group of people that I don’t recognize.
“Do you want to go up?” she asks. “I don’t really know anyone else here.”
She doesn’t really know me either. It’s been years since I last saw her. She’s changed so much that I hardly recognize her now. And we weren’t exactly friends back in primary school, either, but now I’m kind of wishing we had been.
“Sure, yes. That’d be nice,” I say.
“You haven’t yet?”
“No, um … there’s a queue.” It’s not so much a queue as people pushing in front of each other whenever they get the opportunity.
“I think you have bridesmaid priority. Come on.” She takes hold of my hand. Her grip is soft and warm and kind of sweaty because there are a lot of people around us, but I don’t really mind. I’m on cloud nine because this beautiful girl is holding my hand. I’m sure it doesn’t mean anything, but my heart is beating a mile a minute and I can’t help but think that this is better than the kebab. Maybe even the kebab and the biryani combined.
I’m barely aware of pushing through the crowd and onto the stage. I only realize we’re there when Flávia lets go of my hand and smiles. She takes a seat next to Dulabhai and I slip into the space beside Sunny Apu, suddenly uncomfortably aware of how small the settee is.
“Congrats,” I whisper to Sunny Apu, taking hold of her hand and giving it a small squeeze.
“Thanks, Nishat,” she says. “Where’s Priti?”
My eyes dash to my right, like I’m expecting Priti to simply appear there. It only occurs to me now that I did exactly the one thing she told me not to do.
“She’s in the bathroom,” I say, turning back to Sunny Apu.
“Oh,” she says with a polite smile.
“She has to fix her face,” I say. “Like … the makeup.” I should have probably shut up at bathroom.
“Excuse me?” The photographer is looking at me with some exasperation. She gives a wave of her hand, indicating that we should all look ahead. There are a few clicks and flashes, and then the photographer is ushering us off the stage.
“Bye,” I mumble to Sunny Apu. In a moment, my seat is occupied by a petite girl that I’ve never seen before. She whispers something into her ear, and I feel a weird pang of jealousy, realizing that this is probably an in-law. It feels as if Priti and I have already been replaced by Sunny Apu’s new relatives.
“Coming?” Flávia asks with a tilt of her head. I nod, hoping she’ll take my hand again, but she doesn’t.
We’re ambushed by my sister before we’ve even descended from the stage.
“I told you
not to go up without me!” Priti cries, standing at the bottom of the stage with her hands on her hips. She looks so much like Ammu when she’s angry that I have to bite back a smile.
“Sorry,” I say, not really meaning it. I figure it’s best not to mention how much she looks like Ammu because it’ll make her even angrier. “Just … Flávia here doesn’t know anyone.” I nod at her standing beside me. “This is Flávia, by the way.”
“Hi,” Flávia says.
“Hello.” Priti looks Flávia up and down, judgment flashing in her hazel eyes.
“She used to go to school with me,” I say, and add—again—“she doesn’t know anyone here.”
“She has a sister. She was a bridesmaid, remember?”
“Priti.” I try to squeeze a lot into her name; a warning, and some of my excitement about the fact that Flávia was holding my hand only minutes ago. And also an apology.
Priti obviously doesn’t understand any of it, because she just glowers at both me and Flávia.
“I actually better go find my sister,” Flávia says, and even though I want to say, no, stay and hold my hand for longer, I say, “Okay, see you later.”
But of course, I won’t see her later. Or maybe ever again. Then all I’ll have to remember her by is the way our hands fit together for those few short moments.
“You know we can go up to the stage again,” I say once I’m sure Flávia is out of earshot. “It’s not like there’s a rule you only get to go up once!”
“I … I know,” Priti says, some of the fight gone out of her now. “I just … wanted to go up together. I’ve never heard you mention her before.”
“I told you, we went to school together. A long time ago,” I say, feeling deflated. And we probably won’t see each other for a long time again. If ever. “Well, do you want to go up then?”
Priti looks so huffy that for a moment I think she’ll say she really doesn’t want to. But she nods, even through her pout. I have to smile because it’s kind of adorable. I even mumble an apology as we step up to the stage again, taking either side of the bride and groom.
After the photographer has clicked away for a few moments, Priti rushes toward her—heels clicking loudly—and hands over her phone.
“Can you please take a few on this?” Her voice is all sugar and sweetness.
The photographer looks a little exasperated, but nods. It’s as she clicks away with Priti’s phone that I realize how ridiculously forgetful I’ve been.
Why didn’t I do this when I was with Flávia? I had the perfect opportunity to document the moments we spent together—fleeting and out of the blue as they were. But I was so busy telling Sunny Apu about Priti being in the bathroom doing her makeup that I missed my chance.
“Wow, these are definitely going up on Instagram,” Priti says, flicking through the photos on her phone as we step off the stage. “You look really nice.”
“I doubt it.” After all, I didn’t dash off to the bathroom with Priti to touch up my makeup. I haven’t even looked at myself in a mirror in hours. I can’t imagine what all of those helpings of food has done to my makeup.
“You do. You look even happier than Sunny Apu in this one. Look!” She holds the screen up in front of my face. It’s zoomed onto my smiling face. I don’t look half bad, even though my urna is half falling off of my body.
“Wait. I’m sitting next to Sunny Apu here. But I was sitting next to Dulabhai?”
“Yeah, in the picture with me. This is the one I took of you with … you know, that girl.”
“Her name is Flávia …” I mumble. I can’t really mean it as a reprimand when Priti has done what I naively forgot to do. I feel a strange flutter in my stomach that I know too well but don’t want to know at all. “Did you take many photos of us?”
“Only a few.” Priti’s head is buried in her phone once more.
“Can you send them to me?”
Priti looks up at this, a frown on her lips.
“Okay, what’s with you today?” she asks. “And with this girl, Flávia?”
“Nothing. I don’t know what you’re on about,” I say. “Look! They’re cutting cake!”
I cry it out loud enough for a few people in front of us to turn their heads and look at me. I don’t care because Priti does look ahead at where Sunny Apu and Dulabhai have come off the stage to cut a cake that looks to have at least eight different layers.
“Oooh, what kind of cake do you think it is?” she asks.
4
FLÁVIA IS FORGOTTEN UNTIL WE PILE INTO THE CAR LATER on. It feels strange that the wedding is over and done with; all those months of planning resulted in an event that lasted only a few hours.
Ammu and Abbu are in the front of the car discussing someone they ran into at the wedding. The intricacies of the conversation are more or less drowned out by the loud music blaring from the radio.
My phone pings in my purse. I root around for it only to find a WhatsApp message from Priti. I turn to give her a questioning look. She smiles cheekily and gestures that I should read it.
For a moment I think she’s being nice, though that’s obviously more than I should expect from my little sister. Three photos load from the wedding, all of me and Flávia on stage with Sunny Apu and Dulabhai. I smile, until I scroll to the bottom.
So what’s the deal with you and Flávia?
I frown. I really did think Priti would forget about it after the cake. I suppose the cake was lackluster; if it had been better, maybe …
Nothing, I type quickly. I pause for a moment before adding, can we leave it?
I can see Priti reading the text. She doesn’t type anything back, or say anything, so I think that’s that. But later, as I’m unclipping my dangly earrings and nose ring, Priti slips in through the door. She’s already changed into her pajamas and stripped her face of makeup. She’s fast.
“I just didn’t think we kept secrets from each other,” she says, like we left off in the middle of a conversation and she’s just picking it up. “I mean, we haven’t before.”
“There’s no secret.” I catch her eye in the mirror of my dressing table.
“Well, then, tell me.”
“There’s nothing to tell.”
“I know that look on your face, you know?”
“What look?” I ask, even though I know exactly the look she’s talking about. Priti has lived through too many of my crushes, all of which ended in nothing. In a way, it was better, I guess. All I have left of these—probably—unrequited crushes are the dreams and memories, and that familiar feeling of butterflies in my stomach.
“Apuj—”
“She didn’t know anybody there. Like I said.”
“You wanted me to send the pictures.”
“Just to like … keep, you know. You took them.”
“You made a weird face when you said it.”
I turn around. “What?”
“A weird face. Like, I don’t know. It was kind of goofy. I hope you didn’t make that face in front of her.”
I pull a goofy face then and Priti giggles. She slips away from the doorway and plops down onto the bed.
“I didn’t think she was your type,” Priti says after a moment of silence.
“I don’t have a type,” I say, and it’s true; I’ve never really thought about having a type. I guess my type is … beautiful girl. Which is a lot of them. Most of them? Pretty much all girls.
“Well, but … you do like her, right? That’s what that was about?”
I purse my lips and sit down next to her. Do I? The butterflies in my stomach and the staring and the thinking about how holding hands with her is better than biryani would indicate yes. But maybe it was just the rush of any pretty girl more than her.
“Just … be careful, okay?” Priti says.
“I probably won’t ever even see her again. Also, I’m the older sister. I’m pretty sure I’m supposed to tell you that.” Priti just smiles.
I’m kind of ashamed to say that
I spend a lot of time lingering over the photos on my phone. There are only three of them, and Flávia and I aren’t even next to each other.
In primary school, she was one of the smallest girls in our class. She hadn’t had her growth spurt yet. She was quiet, too. She liked to keep to herself, and didn’t have many friends for the few years that I knew her.
I dig up one of our old school photos. She’s easy to spot, but so am I. We’re both darker than the rest of the girls, standing on either end of the picture. She’s smiling with her teeth, showing a glint of braces. Her hair is tied up neatly in a short ponytail. Her hands hang limp by her sides, making her look uncomfortable.
At the wedding she seemed completely different. There was an air of confidence around her that I don’t remember back in school. That happens, I guess. People change when they go from primary to secondary school. They take on new personas, like they’re testing out a new self.
Of course, all of the things I remember about her don’t appear in the school photo. Like the fact that for my first few weeks in school, Flávia was the only one who would speak to me. That when Ammu gave me rice and daal for lunch and all the other girls made fun of me, Flávia stuck up for me. That I’m pretty sure she was my first crush ever, but I’m only realizing it now in hindsight. Back then, I didn’t even think about being gay, but I did think a lot about Flávia and the freckles that dot her cheeks.
After I’ve basically burned the three photos from the wedding into the back of my eyelids, I log onto Instagram and go to Priti’s account. I scroll through all of the pictures she’s put up just from today. I’m tagged in almost all of them. There’s the photo of her and me up on stage with Sunny Apu and Dulabhai, of course. Priti looks absolutely prim and proper. I look like kind of a mess.
There’s also a selfie she must have taken in the bathroom of the wedding hall, and there are photos of the wedding cake. The last photo is of Priti and me in my bedroom. It was after we’d finished getting ready, and Priti insisted that we needed a photo before we left for the wedding hall, just the two of us. She also insisted that we find a way to showcase the henna I’d spent all summer perfecting, so our hands are at awkward angles in front of us. We look totally unnatural, but in a way, it also totally captures our essence: goofy and weird. I smile. We could almost pass for twins. With our identical salwar kameezes and our thick black hair falling around us, you almost can’t tell where I end and Priti begins.
The Henna Wars Page 3