The Henna Wars

by Adiba Jaigirdar

  Nanu’s whole face changes at that. She leans closer to the camera.

  “Really?” she asks.

  I nod, some of my previous excited energy coming back to me. I reach for my notebook and hold it up for her to see the design.

  “That’s the first one. I’ve been working on it all evening. What … what do you think?”

  Nanu’s eyes roam over the page I’m holding out. I can see her eyes moving, taking in all of it. Slowly and steadily.

  “It’s beautiful, Jannu.” Her voice is soft. Quiet. Like she can’t quite believe I’m the one to have done this. “It’s your first one? It’s amazing.”

  I feel pride swelling up in my chest.

  “You really think so?” My voice is barely more than a whisper.

  “It’s so much better than any design I did when I was your age.” She laughs. “Maybe next time you’re here I can show you all of my sketches. I have notebooks full of them.” Nanu has been decorating people’s hands with henna since she was my age. She used to put henna on all of her cousins. After she got married, she applied henna on her new nieces and nephews. I can’t even imagine what her sketch books look like. I can’t even imagine how many she must have.

  “Yes! Yes! I’d love that!” I say.

  “You know, your Ammu used to be quite good at it, too, once upon a time.”

  “Really? She never said anything about it.”

  Nanu chuckles. “Yes, she wasn’t very patient, Jannu. Not like you. She was great at it, but she couldn’t get all of the precise details right because she would rush. She got bored very easily. After she married your Abbu and moved over there … well, I guess she didn’t really have anyone to practice on for a long time. She lost interest and forgot about it.”

  I feel a pang of sadness at that thought. I imagine if Ammu had kept it up; maybe Priti and I would be experts. Maybe it would be a proper family tradition. Maybe we would already have notebooks full of original designs.

  I try not to dwell on it too much as I say my goodbyes to Nanu.

  9

  AT THE LOCKERS THE NEXT MORNING, CHAEWON AND JESS are still discussing their ideas, which makes me all the more nervous about telling them my idea. They’ve already cycled through so much.

  “You know, I was thinking …” I start, interrupting their argument about whether or not people will pay good money for Jess to draw chibi art of video game characters (Chaewon says no, but Jess insists yes). “Priti and I were brainstorming, and we came up with the idea of setting up a henna business.”

  “A henna business …” Jess repeats, like she’s trying to wrap her head around it.

  “You know, like …” I wave my henna-laden hands around in front of their faces.

  “You did this?” Chaewon grabs hold of one of my hands and inspects my palm. Her fingers run up and down the deep red vines sprouting leaves and flowers, sending a shiver down my spine.

  “Why didn’t you say so?” Jess looks impressed too as she edges closer to Chaewon and peers down at my hands like it’s the first time she’s seen them.

  I shrug, pulling my hands away and feeling a blush rise up my cheeks.

  “I didn’t know you were such an artist,” Jess says.

  “I was just practicing over the summer. You know, for that wedding?”

  “People would definitely be into this.” Chaewon begins to nod so fast that she looks a little like a bobblehead. “I mean, people love this stuff and you’re so good.”

  “Thanks. Jess?”

  Jess gives me a nervous smile that makes my stomach drop.

  “Don’t get me wrong, your work is beautiful,” she starts.

  “Stunning,” Chaewon adds.

  “But … we don’t know how to do henna. What part would we play in this?”

  “The business part? Like … pricing, advertisement, all of that good stuff.”

  “Wouldn’t that be unfair to you? You have to do all of the hard work?” Chaewon says, but I suspect that’s not what she’s worried about.

  “I don’t mind. No matter what we do, we’re all going to have our different roles, right?”

  “Right.”

  “That’s true.”

  Chaewon and Jess exchange a look.

  “I think we should do it,” Chaewon says finally with an encouraging smile toward Jess. “It’s unique. We might actually have a good shot of winning.”

  I grin at Chaewon like she is my favorite person in the world. Right now, she is.

  “Hey,” Flávia greets me with a smile during lunchtime, taking a seat opposite me. Chyna takes the empty seat beside her, looking unhappy about being seen with me. She shoots me a smile that resembles a grimace.

  “You know my cousin, Chyna?” Flávia says.

  “Hi, Chyna,” I say, like we haven’t been going to school together for the past three years. Like she hasn’t single-handedly spread rumors about half the girls in this school, ruining their lives like that was something to get pleasure from.

  “I wanted to show you something.” Flávia extends her hands toward me on the table in front of us. For a moment, I think she’s going to take my hand, until I notice it. The red wrapped around her palms, weaving up and down her skin. “You inspired me at the wedding. Well, everything there did, really. And then Chyna told me about an Asian shop in town where we could probably get a tube of henna.”

  Discomfort flutters around in my stomach that I don’t really understand. It’s how I feel when Priti comes into my room in the middle of the night and pushes into my bed and steals almost all of the duvet. Annoyance? But annoyance verging onto anger almost.

  “How did you …?” I begin, not sure exactly what question I should be asking.

  “I just wanted to try it, you know,” Flávia says, extending her palm out in front of her. She’s looking at her hand and not at me anymore. She isn’t even asking for my opinion, just admiring her own handiwork. “I think I did a pretty good job, what do you think?”

  I frown. “I … I guess.”

  She looks at me, her smile still in place. But instead of the usual butterflies that smile sends fluttering in my stomach, the gnawing discomfort grows.

  “I really thought it would be a lot more difficult than it was,” she says. “But once I had that picture your sister put up on Insta … it was simple, really.”

  The gnawing grows from annoyance to all out anger. Flávia can’t just do henna because she saw it at the wedding, and because she saw Priti’s Instagram picture. How can she sit in front of me and act like there aren’t a million things wrong here?

  I have to stop myself from saying what I’m really feeling. What I’m really thinking. I don’t even know how to form the words. And I know Chyna won’t take it well.

  “Flá is this amazing artist,” Chyna chimes in. “She always has been. I knew she’d be amazing at making henna tattoos. Look.” She inches her arms forward and there it is, inked onto her hands. The same identical design in a garishly red color. It looks odd and out of place on her white skin.

  I can’t explain the lump that begins to rise up my throat, or the tears prickling behind my eyes. Before I can even think, I stand. The chair makes a loud scraping noise. Flávia is looking at me with a frown on her lips, maybe looking for some sort of an explanation. But I can barely look at her. I definitely can’t look at Chyna.

  “I have to go.” I dash across the room and out the door.

  “Hey, Nish—” I barely hear Chaewon’s voice as I walk out of the room as fast as I can, muttering don’t cry, don’t cry, don’t cry to myself in my head.

  “Apujan.” Before I know it, before I realize what exactly is happening, Priti is pulling me into one of the bathrooms. “What’s wrong, Apujan?”

  “Nothing.” I’m rubbing at my eyes, barely realizing that I’ve begun to cry for real. And for possibly the most ridiculous reason ever. I never thought that I’d be one of those people who holed up in the school bathroom to bawl their eyes out; most of my crying is res
erved for the privacy of my bedroom. And the only person allowed to see me cry is Priti.

  “You’re crying!” Priti exclaims. I somehow manage to put my tear-dampened hand onto her mouth to hush her.

  “MM-HM-HM-HM-HMHM!” Priti’s voice is muffled against my hand. I’m still crying, but silently. Each sob sends a jolt of pain through me.

  Priti hmms something else onto my hand. I can see her glaring at me through my blurry vision. I know what comes next, but I’m too slow; she bites my hand before I can pull it away.

  “I’m trying to help you!” she says.

  “You’re … being … very … loud,” I say between sobs.

  Priti’s still glaring at me, but she leans forward and wraps her arms around me. I bury my head in her school sweater.

  “You want to tell me what happened?” she asks.

  “I … don’t know.”

  “You don’t know?”

  “It doesn’t make much sense.”

  “I’m used to that. Tell me, okay?”

  “It’s Flávia … and Chyna.” I hiccup.

  Priti sighs. I’m half expecting her to burst into her usual, “I told you so,” routine, but she doesn’t.

  Instead, she says, “What did Flávia do?”

  “It’s not … imp–important.” My voice is both muffled by Priti’s sweater and coming out in a weak stutter. It’s a wonder that Priti can understand me at all.

  “Nishat.” Her voice is stern in a way that reminds me of Ammu.

  I pull my head away from her shoulder and rub at my puffy, red eyes. Feeling ridiculous and pathetic and horrible all at once.

  “Flávia stole the henna design on your hand.” My voice is barely above a whisper. “From your Instagram.”

  “That bitch!”

  “Priti!”

  “Okay, sorry.” She looks sheepish, but only for a moment. “Still though, that was your first original design. I didn’t put it up so she could steal it. Where did she even get henna?”

  “She said she got it from some Asian shop, but Priti … Chyna had it too.” That’s what makes it all the worse. Chyna, who spent the past three years of school coming up with the most horrendous, racist rumors about me and my family that she could think of, is now sporting henna on her hands like it’s nothing.

  “I did tell you about her …” Priti says, like she’s treading the waters before pulling the haughty “I told you so.”

  “I know.” I don’t need her to say “I told you so.” I feel foolish enough as it is. I look at the faded red henna on my hands. Not a single person at school has even noticed that Priti and I are decked with henna. Not a single person has commented on it.

  The bell rings and Priti picks up her backpack from where she dropped it on the floor when we came in.

  “Are you going to be okay?” There’s concern in her eyes, though I can tell that she wants to be snooty about being right. I appreciate that she can put her pride aside to comfort me.

  “Yeah,” I say.

  But for the whole day, I can’t get Flávia out of my head—and not in the way she’s been on my mind lately. It’s like somebody flipped a switch and changed everything. Like I can’t see her the same at all anymore. No matter how much I try to stifle my anger, my upset, it keeps bubbling up inside of me. Over and over and over again.

  On the way home, Priti soothes me like only a sister and best friend can.

  “You’re too good for her anyway,” she says. “She’s like … I don’t know.” She crinkles up her nose, presumably thinking of Flávia. “She seems kind of cold, doesn’t she? And she’s Chyna’s cousin.”

  “You’re still going to Chyna’s birthday party,” I point out.

  “That’s different. I’m barely even going to see her there. It’s a big party, there’ll be a lot of people.”

  “So all of that stuff you said about Chyna extending a hand and you meeting her halfway was bullshit.”

  Priti looks at me with narrowed eyes but doesn’t deny what I’ve said. “Maybe it’s not the most accurate portrayal of my feelings … I know what Chyna’s like.”

  Everybody in our school knows what Chyna is like. She single-handedly runs the rumor mill. It started with the lies she spread about me, but it grew into something larger than life. Or, at least, larger than all the people in our year.

  What I can never understand is why people stand by her despite the rumors she spreads. She’s not exactly a credible journalist; half the things she says are outright lies, but people still accept them like decrees from the Pope himself. To the people at St. Catherine’s Secondary School, Chyna Quinn basically is the Pope, and you don’t go up against her.

  At home that evening, I spend hours poring over blank pages, trying to perfect more original henna designs.

  “You need to actually practice, you know,” Priti says when she slinks into my room with her math book.

  “Are you offering your hand as a canvas?”

  She examines her hand with careful eyes, like it’s about to reveal the answer to my question. Like it’s a sentient being instead of part of her body.

  “I suppose I must make this sacrifice to aid my sister.” She sticks her hand out in front of her. “I offer up this hand to—”

  “Oh, shut up.” I can’t help but smile. If there’s one person who can take my mind off of miserable things, it’s my little sister.

  We plop down on the bed together, her with the math book propped up in front of her, and me with a stick of henna in my hand once more. It feels like we’re in the summer days again, when Priti and I did this so often. Lazing about. Spending all of our days together, cooped up in this room with nobody to bother us.

  I wish it could last forever.

  “Do you think helping you with this competition, a.k.a. sacrificing my hand to this worthy cause, is an excuse to not have my math homework done tomorrow morning?” Priti asks.

  “Definitely not.”

  She frowns and brings her math book closer, muttering, “I hate math.”

  10

  AFTER I’VE FINISHED APPLYING HENNA TO PRITI’S HAND, she actually looks more than a little impressed. She doesn’t say anything, but I can tell from the way her eyebrows shoot way up into her hair. She purses her lips because she’s usually not one to give compliments; she prefers backhanded ones, if she absolutely has to. The fact that she can’t come up with anything fills me with warmth inside. I’ve almost forgotten about the incident at school. And Flávia.

  I admire my handiwork for a second as Priti digs around, searching for her phone. It’s one of my original designs—and for once I don’t want to criticize it. I worked hard to perfect this design and clearly it’s paid off. I spent so long applying it to Priti’s hand though that most of the henna has already dried off.

  It’s a more intricate design than the one I attempted for the wedding. It starts with the basic mandala—a circle with flower patterns extending out of it. But then I filled in the main circle with another and another, each getting smaller and smaller. Outside of the flower petals I drew the leaves, weaving and wrapping around Priti’s fingers, surrounded by dots, getting bigger and smaller and bigger and smaller.

  Everything is as it should be. There are no smudges, no inconsistencies like before.

  “You have to put it up on your Instagram,” I say to Priti when she’s finally retrieved her phone and is aiming the camera at her hand.

  She lowers the phone to look at me with a frown.

  “On my Instagram?” she asks. “It’s your business.”

  “Yes, but you know what my Instagram is like.” By that, I mean small and unpopular. I only have fifty followers and I think half of them are random guys who try to chat up random girls and actually have no interest in what I post.

  “Because you never post on it!” I don’t want to tell her that it won’t matter if I post on it or not. She’s the likable sister. The pretty, perky one. The smart one. The sociable one. Everyone loves Priti. Unlike her, I don’t
exude natural likeability. I might be the older sister but Priti always shines brighter than me. If the photos go up on her Insta, more people will like them. More people will care. And Flávia and Chyna can steal it again, a voice whispers in my head. But I brush it off. Once I’m officially competing, they wouldn’t dare.

  Instead of all that, I say, “You already have a lot of followers. We can capitalize on that.”

  She presses her lips together and says, “No.”

  I frown. “Seriously? I’m asking you for help with this one thing.”

  “One thing?” Her voice rises slightly in a way that I don’t hear very often. “Hello?” She waves her hennaed hand in front of my eyes. “Did you not ask me to abandon my studies so you could practice your henna designs? Did I not spend half the morning calming you down in the bathroom at school?”

  “I didn’t ask you to do that.”

  “Well, I did it. Because that’s what sisters do. But you can’t just expect me to let you use my Instagram all willy-nilly because you don’t have any followers and I do.” She’s waving her hands around wildly as she speaks. I’m afraid that she’ll hit something and smudge the henna that I’ve carefully perfected over the last few hours. I grab her wrist just below where the henna stops.

  “Careful.”

  She rolls her eyes.

  “This is important to me, you know.” My voice is quieter than I mean it to be. It fills the room’s silence in a way I didn’t expect it to. It softens Priti’s eyes.

  “I know.” She picks up her phone again. I’m hopeful—even though we’ve just had an argument about it. “And my Instagram is important to me.”

  I frown. I know that Priti has spent time cultivating her Instagram page. Her couple thousand followers are her weird pride and joy. I don’t understand it, really, but I’ve never had the natural charm Priti does. I’ve also never had that need to be liked.