The Henna Wars

by Adiba Jaigirdar

  But Priti recoils from me, like my tears are something heinous. Before I know it, my bedroom door is slamming shut behind her.

  25

  PRITI CATCHES THE EARLY BUS THE NEXT MORNING. OR SO Ammu tells me, when I stumble down the stairs. I’m not sure how to feel about it. If anyone should be angry, it should be me, for how she lied to me.

  “Ammu,” I say, at the edge of the doorway, ten minutes before my bus.

  She looks up and catches my eye, a frown on her lips. We’ve gone back to barely speaking a word to each other since I was outed to the whole school.

  I blink back the tears prickling behind my eyes and swallow the lump in my throat.

  “Is Nanu sick?” I manage to get out.

  The look on Ammu’s face, stricken and sad, makes me instantly regret saying anything.

  “She’s … she’ll be okay.”

  “So she isn’t now? Why didn’t you tell me?”

  “Who told you?”

  “Priti …”

  Ammu shakes her head. “Your sister spends a little too much time eavesdropping when she should be studying for her exams.”

  “There are more important things than exams, Ammu.”

  For a moment, I think she’s going to protest, but instead she nods slowly. “I know.” She looks at me with something that resembles a smile, something that softens her face, and says, “Don’t worry about your Nanu. Or … about your sister. Go, or you’ll miss your bus.”

  But I can’t help the worry that floods my brain about both Nanu and Priti. How have so many things been happening around me and I haven’t even noticed?

  When Flávia catches my eye by the lockers I know exactly how. Priti is right. I’ve been so caught up with Flávia and the competition and everything else that I’ve forgotten to pay attention to the important things.

  But as Flávia approaches me with a brown shopping bag clutched in her hand, I’m not sure I regret any of it.

  “This is for you,” she says as she hands me the bag. Our fingers brush as she does it. I try to tell my body to shut up, to not react, but obviously—obviously—my heart isn’t very good at listening to me. It beats a million miles a minute.

  “What is it?”

  “Open it.” She nods encouragingly.

  A furled white poster paper sticks out of the top of the bag. I pull it out and unroll it—and almost gasp aloud.

  It’s a banner.

  It has NISHAT’S MEHNDI written in colorful letters in the middle, and below it even has some words in Bengali script. It’s carefully done so that it looks sharp and geometrical—not like the rounded and soft letters that my Bengali handwriting usually is.

  The background is a mishmash of bright colors, and on one side there’s a drawing of joined hands with henna winding down the palms.

  It’s far better than anything I could ever have done.

  There’s something lodged in my throat. I think it’s my heart.

  “This is beautiful,” I breathe.

  Flávia just shrugs like it’s no big deal. It’s definitely a big deal. It’s a huge deal.

  Trying not to steal too many glances at Flávia, I slip the banner into my locker. When I close my locker though, we catch each other’s eye. She smiles, dimples and all, and I can’t help the grin that spreads out across my lips too.

  “So, um.” She brushes back a curl that’s fallen in front of her eyes. “Yesterday with Chyna … I’m sorry about that. Her parents are away a lot so she comes over to ours or my dad’s, but …” She shakes her head like she’s not sure if she wants to finish that thought. “Do you … want to come over this weekend? We could … work on our French homework?”

  The yes is on my tongue, pushing its way out, before I remember that this weekend I’m supposed to set up my henna shop at a booth in Abbu’s restaurant. He agreed to let me set up shop for a few hours on Saturday and Sunday, in the hopes that my customers could also become his customers. After all, if they’re interested in getting henna, maybe they’re also interested in eating authentic South Asian food.

  “I want to but … I’m busy this weekend.” I’m unsure if I should mention the henna shop or not. I’m still not sure where we stand, but no matter what, our competition still hangs over us uncomfortably.

  “Oh.” A flash of hurt appears in her eyes but disappears so fast that I’m not sure if I just imagined it.

  “I’m opening up the henna shop this weekend.” The words slip out of me unprompted. I know I shouldn’t tell her. She’s my competition. But obviously my heart prefers her, so the words are out and I can’t take them back.

  “Oh.”

  Silence hangs between us for a moment too long. It’s thick with everything that’s already been said and done, everything we can’t change. It’s broken by the loud trill of the bell.

  “I should …”

  “Yeah.”

  She catches my eye and gives me a smile that’s half guilt and half apology. I smile back.

  When I get home from school that day, Ammu surprises me by knocking on my door. At first I’m convinced it’s Priti, coming to figure things out. But then Ammu leans her head in.

  “You want to talk to Nanu?” she asks, holding up her phone. I can make out Nanu’s face on the screen.

  “Yeah!” I leap out of my chair to grab the phone. Ammu smiles and leaves me to settle into bed. I prop the phone up in front of me.

  “Assalam Alaikum,” I say.

  “Walaikum Salam,” Nanu says. Her voice sounds weaker than I remember, but maybe I’m just projecting. “Your Ammu said you were worried about me.”

  “Because Priti told me you’re sick,” I say, my voice taking on a chiding tone. Really I’m trying to keep it from breaking, because Nanu looks sick. She looks paler and thinner than I remember her, and there are bags under her eyes. As if she hasn’t been sleeping properly.

  “Only a small thing,” Nanu says reassuringly, though it doesn’t reassure me at all. “The doctors say everything will be okay, Jannu. You have nothing to worry about.”

  Obviously that doesn’t stop me from worrying, but I don’t let that show on my face. I want to ask her more questions, find out exactly what’s wrong, even if that means I’ll spend the next several hours on WebMD learning the worst possible outcomes of whatever it is.

  But before I can ask anything else, Nanu leans forward, a smile lighting up her face. She asks, “How’s your henna business? Your Ammu has been telling me a lot about it.”

  “She has?” I ask.

  “She said you’ve been working very hard.”

  I try to bite down a rush of tears.

  “Well … it’s been going okay.” I shrug. “I’m going to work from Abbu’s restaurant this weekend.”

  “Well, I’m very proud of you, Jannu,” Nanu says. “And of Priti. Your Ammu said she’s been helping you.”

  “Yeah.” I nod slowly. “She’s been helping me come up with ideas.”

  Priti must hear her name mentioned through the wall between our rooms—or because she’s been eavesdropping as always—because the door to my bedroom cracks open and she peers inside.

  “Is that Nanu?” she asks in a small voice.

  I nod, patting the space beside me for her to sit down. She comes over, hesitating in a way that she never has in my room before. But when she turns to the screen, her face breaks out into a grin.

  “Assalam Alaikum, Nanu!” she says. I put an arm around her and bring her closer to me so we’re both on screen at the same time.

  “We were just talking about how you’ve been helping me with the henna business,” I tell her. “How we’re both proud of you.”

  Priti blinks at me with some confusion for a moment, but I give her shoulder a squeeze, hoping she understands what that means.

  After Nanu finally hangs up, telling us very little about herself but saying, “Mashallah,” and “Alhamdulillah,” and “Insha’Allah,” about a hundred times in response to everything from the business compe
tition to Priti’s exams, I turn to Priti.

  “I’m sorry,” I say.

  “I’m sorry,” Priti says, in turn.

  “Okay, I’m trying to apologize and it’s rude to take over someone else’s apology.”

  Priti burrows her face into my hair and mumbles, “Okay, apologize away.”

  “That was it.”

  She looks up at me again, a frown settled on her lips.

  “That was your apology?”

  “I said sorry.”

  “For what?”

  “Being selfish?”

  She blows out a breath and sits back, crossing her arms over her chest. “And …”

  “Not … paying enough attention to you. You’re right. I’ve been so caught up with Flávia that I forgot to pay attention. What’s going on with you and Ali anyway?”

  She shakes her head. “We’re still talking about you.”

  “I’m just sorry, okay? You know I love you. I would never … I didn’t mean to … and I know that you …” I sigh. “Just … that. I love you.”

  A smile tugs at her lips and she leans forward, wrapping her arms around me. “I was mean yesterday.”

  “Very.”

  “I made you cry.”

  “You did.”

  “After everything else that’s happened.”

  I ruffle her hair and it’s like I can feel the anger and resentment slip out of my body with every breath. “It’s okay. I think I get it. Will you tell me about Ali?”

  “She just hasn’t been the same this year. She has her new boyfriend and this new attitude about everything. I told her about you and I thought she would understand, she would listen, but … she was weird about it. I should have told you before.”

  “She was weird, how?”

  “Like … she kept asking me weird questions,” Priti says, furrowing her eyebrows together like she’s trying really hard to remember exactly what was said. “She asked if Ammu and Abbu would force you to marry a man. And like … if you would be killed in Bangladesh if you went there now.”

  “Well, yeah. Everyone can smell the lesbian on me now,” I joke.

  She smiles, but I know she’s still thinking about Ali. “I don’t know if Ali is a racist or a homophobe or both. But … she sent the text. She said it was because everybody deserved to know about you. You were deceiving them by keeping it a secret.”

  “I’m against Catholic ethos, not how an all-girl school should be run.” I remember the words from the text that had been sent out, even though I wish I could forget them.

  I suddenly remember the conversation I overheard in school between them last week. “Is that what you were talking to her about when you were supposed to help me steal the henna tubes?”

  Priti nods. “I didn’t know how to tell you. I thought … I could just make it go away. But I made it worse.”

  “You should have told me.”

  “You were already dealing with Ammu and Abbu, and Chyna and Flávia, and then even Sunny Apu was being horrible to you. I thought you had enough on your plate.”

  “So you were trying to protect me?” The irony of it makes me want to laugh. By protecting me, Priti hurt me more than she would have if she had just told me the truth from the start.

  “I’m sorry. I thought I was helping.”

  I press her closer to my chest and say, “Next time, leave the protective sister act to me, okay?”

  “Okay, okay,” she concedes. But I already know that she won’t, and I’m okay with it.

  26

  ON SATURDAY I WAKE UP WITH BUTTERFLIES IN MY stomach. These butterflies are completely different from the ones I feel because of Flávia; around her, I feel anxious in a pleasant way. Like I’m going to throw up, but at least there’s a pretty girl in front of me. Now I just want to throw up.

  When I get into Abbu’s car with all my things, Priti’s already there with her schoolbag full of books.

  “What are you doing?” I ask.

  “I’m going to help you,” she says, tapping her book bag like that should explain everything. “I’ll just study there, while helping you.”

  I slip into the seat beside her, even though I know Ammu probably won’t be very happy about this. But Abbu doesn’t seem to mind. He even puts on Rabindranath Sangeet and sings along for the entire drive, even though Priti and I groan and ask him to shut up.

  As Abbu gets everything in the restaurant in order, I pull a curtain in front of the corner booth and stick a copy of the poster I made onto the cloth with some tape. I hung copies up around the school throughout the week, in the hopes that people would actually come down this weekend. It’s a simple poster—one of the pictures from our Instagram blown up, with NISHAT’S MEHNDI on it in cursive and the date, time, and place of the pop-up shop printed neatly below. Above it I hang Flávia’s banner.

  “Is that—”

  “Yeah.”

  Priti crosses her arms over her chest, and begrudgingly takes the banner in. “It’s nice.”

  It’s probably the most I’m going to get from Priti. I still haven’t told her about what happened with Flávia and me at her house a few days ago.

  We both slip inside the booth, and Priti takes her phone out of her pocket to snap a quick photo of the henna tubes that I’ve stacked up on the table.

  “There. We’re open for business,” she says, tapping at her phone with more gusto and flourish than necessary. She pulls her books out of her bag while I lean back against my seat, waiting for the sound of customers arriving.

  Five minutes pass.

  Then ten.

  Fifteen.

  No sign of customers.

  I unlock my phone and scroll through the Instagram account. The picture Priti put up has our location tagged and is captioned, open for business! It has a couple of likes, but no comments yet.

  My phone buzzes and I click into my messages to find a new one from Flávia. It just says, good luck today! :). I smile in spite of myself. Nothing has happened between us since that day in her bedroom. We haven’t spoken about it, either, and I can’t bring myself to ask her what it meant, if anything. I’m too afraid of the answer.

  But I can’t deny that we’ve been on better terms. We’ve been texting back and forth about almost everything under the sun, and every time my phone pings with a new message, I can’t help the flush that spreads through me, and the way my heart picks up pace.

  I want to tell myself not to get my hopes up, but it’s difficult to reason with my heart when Flávia has spent the entire week smiling at me from a distance like she wished we could reverse time and go back to her bedroom on that afternoon.

  I still remember the feel of her fingers in mine under the cloak of rain, and the way she smelled, and how her curls brushed against my chest when we almost kissed.

  How am I supposed to think rationally when all of those memories are imprinted into my mind?

  I write a quick text back: thank you! <3

  Then I delete the heart because that seems like too much. But without it, it seems like not enough. How do people do this?

  “Hi?” A voice on the other side of the closed curtain mumbles. I nearly jump out of my seat, dropping my phone onto the table.

  “Hi!” I say, scrambling to pick up my phone and slide it into my pocket. I pull the curtain open to reveal Janet McKinney and Catherine DeBurg.

  “This is where we come to get our henna tattoos, right?” Janet asks.

  “Um, yes,” I say. “You both want to get them done?”

  Catherine shares a look with Janet.

  “Is it okay if I just watch first? And then decide?” she asks.

  “Sure.” I’m trying not to giggle. I wonder if she knows that henna washes away in a couple of weeks.

  Both Janet and Catherine slip inside the booth, taking seats opposite Priti. I close the curtain again and take my seat.

  “This is Priti, my assistant.” She waves brightly at the pair of them, showing off her already hennaed hands.
r />   “We know her, she goes to school with us,” Catherine says, even though she takes Priti in like this is the first time she’s seen her.

  “Yes, well, she’s my little sister,” I say, just in case they’ve forgotten.

  I hand them the laminated price list I created.

  “These are my prices,” I say, in my professional businesswoman voice. “It costs more to get a complex design. It will also take more time. And …” I hand them my design notebook. “These are some of my original designs that you can choose from. I can also probably do a design of your choice if you have one.”

  They take in my laminated price list with raised eyebrows, looking thoroughly impressed. I try not to beam with pride, because I have to be professional and I don’t think grinning like a lunatic is part of professionalism.

  I wait patiently as Janet and Catherine go through my design book, even though my heart is going too fast and I don’t feel patient. I’m somewhere between excited and absolutely terrified.

  Finally, Janet hands the notebook to me and points to one of the simpler designs. It’s a cluster of flowers and leaves and swirls.

  I smile. Easy.

  “Great!” I say brightly. “This is the menu for the restaurant, by the way, if you want to order anything while you wait.” I hand Catherine the leather-bound menu and reach for my henna tube. “Where do you want to get it?”

  Janet seems to consider this for a moment, turning her hand round and round to get a good look.

  “Umm … the back of my hand.”

  “Okay, can you put your hand palm down and flat on the table?” I ask.

  Janet does exactly as I instruct her—wordlessly—and I get started. Catherine spends the entire time leaning forward in her chair and watching the process with wide eyes. Halfway through, Priti even snaps a few photos for the Instagram account.

  When I’m finished, Janet looks at her hand with a smile on her lips. I’m smiling too, because the design came out exactly as it looks in the notebook.

  “You’ll have to keep it like that until it dries off. Shouldn’t take more than thirty minutes, probably even less, but the longer you keep it on, the more the color will set.”