Hani and Ishu's Guide to Fake Dating

by Adiba Jaigirdar

  “I have to. It’s … going to get dark soon, and … yeah.” The truth is that Amma won’t mind if I stop by and watch a few episodes of Riverdale with Aisling and Dee and am home a few hours later. She probably wouldn’t even mind if I slept over at Aisling’s. But if I go to Aisling’s, I’ll definitely miss Maghrib, and watching Riverdale with the two of them is not worth missing that. Going over to Aisling’s means I can’t pray at all, because the one or two times I’ve mentioned prayer to Aisling and Dee they’ve gotten so uncomfortable that it made me uncomfortable. So it’s better that I just keep that part of my life wrapped up and hidden away in my own home.

  “You’re coming tomorrow, right?” Dee asks, and I look away from the window and toward her. She’s wearing a bright smile.” After school … bring something to change into!”

  “I don’t know …” Aisling and Dee invited me to the cinema, and I already know that their boyfriends, Barry and Colm, are going to be there. I’m not sure if I want to spend a whole afternoon listening to them shift in the movie theater, being the fifth wheel. Before I can make an excuse, Aisling leans forward and shoots me a glare.

  “Don’t you dare back out!” she says. “Come on, Maira. We came to your dad’s thing. And you promised!”

  It’s the last thing I want to do after a whole day of school, but I nod. “Sure, yeah. I’ll be there.”

  Aisling still seems a little annoyed at me the next day at school. I try to appease her with bright smiles all day.

  But at lunchtime, while I’m slipping books out of my locker, Aisling shoots me a strange look.

  “Everything okay?” I ask.

  She leans her back against the locker next to mine and says, “Are you really friends with Ishita Dey?”

  Dee stops secretly scrolling through her Instagram by her own locker next to mine to give me a once over at Aisling’s question.

  “Why would you ask that?” Ishita and I are definitely not what I would call friends. I wouldn’t even call us friendly. Honestly, I’m not sure what I would call us. Complicated, I guess.

  “This Instagram picture you put up last weekend has her in it?” Her statement comes off more like a question, even as she’s holding up her phone to show me the picture. Aisling must have really been analyzing the picture well, because you can only see Ishita in the very corner and she’s not even very clear.

  “She’s like … a family friend, kind of. Or like … a Bengali friend. I don’t know. I was at a Bengali thing.” I shake my head. I don’t know how to explain myself. The whole Bengali thing is so different from anything my white Irish friends have ever dealt with—there’s no way to explain it without getting into the nitty gritty of it. And even then, they don’t get it. Or don’t want to get it, I suppose. There’s just no Irish equivalent of dawats.

  “It looks like fun,” Dee says, tucking her phone into her breast pocket and away from the prying eyes of the teachers. “How come you never invite us to your ‘Bengali’ things?”

  “Urn.” I hesitate, unsure of exactly how to answer that. Because you’re not Bengali seems a little too direct. But it’s also the truth. I’m not sure why they would even want to come. They would fit in about as well as an elephant in the middle of a poultry farm. “I guess … it’s just a thing that … my family does. It’s not really for … friends.”

  “Ishita isn’t your family,” Aisling points out.

  I have to stifle a sigh. I also have to stop myself from rubbing my nose in frustration. And I have to keep my tone in check, ensuring none of my annoyance seeps in. “Yeah, Ishita is like … a family friend. So it’s a little different. It’s complicated.” Aisling and Dee look like they still have a million questions. Questions I don’t have answers to. Questions I don’t want to answer. So I zip up my bag and swing it onto my back and say, “I’m starving. Can we have lunch please?”

  By the time the last bell rings, I am exhausted. Somehow, Aisling and Dee are the exact opposite. They seem to be even more energized by the fact that it’s Friday afternoon.

  “We’re going to get changed in the bathroom,” Aisling tells me. “You coming?”

  “I have to get my stuff from my locker first. I’ll meet you guys there.”

  As I’m getting my things, I notice Ishita glaring at her locker on the other side of the hallway like it has somehow wronged her. I swing my P.E. bag out of my locker at the same time that Ishita shuts her locker door with a thud. Nobody else seems to notice just how loudly the door hits home. What did that locker ever do to you, Ishita?

  “Hey,” I call over, even though I know I shouldn’t. Ishita isn’t exactly known for being happy-go-lucky, but I don’t think I’ve seen her this angry since last year, when she got a B+ on an English essay. She tried to contest the grade by talking herself up to Ms. Baker, the English teacher, but Ms. Baker had smiled wanly and said she’d made up her mind and the result couldn’t be changed. Ishita threw a fit and got a week of detention.

  “What?” Ishita turns her glare to me.

  “Everything okay?” I lower my voice so she knows we can have a private conversation.

  “What do you care?” Ishita asks.

  “You just seem … angry? Bad test result?”

  Ishita blinks at that, like a bad test result shouldn’t have come into my mind. Even though that’s literally all Ishita ever seems to think about.

  She shakes her head. “No, it’s nothing. Whatever.” Then she turns on her heel, swinging her bag over her shoulder, and disappears out of sight.

  “Yeah, bye to you too, Ishita!” I mumble under my breath as I swing my own locker door shut. “You have a great weekend too, Ishita!”

  “Who are you talking to?” Dee turns the corner, looking around me at the nearly empty corridor. She’s already changed into jeans and a crop top, her hair is out of its usual ponytail, and I’m pretty impressed at the amount of makeup she’s managed to put on in this short amount of time.

  “No one.” I shake my head, getting Ishita out of it. She’s been nothing but a burden since the day she moved to this school. Before Ishita, I was whoever I wanted to be. After Ishita, it was like our shared culture painted us with the same brush. If Ishita did something, Aisling and Dee would ask, “Why does she do that?” If Ishita said something, “Why does she say that?” I know it’s not her fault that people think our culture must be why we act and say the things we do, but still.

  “I need to get changed,” I say. “I’ll be back.” I try my best to forget about Ishita. I have other things to worry about.

  chapter three

  ishu

  I am literally going to catch pneumonia and die.

  I roll my eyes at my phone even though Nik isn’t here to see—it’s just me rolling my eyes at a non-sentient object. Nik has been texting me for the past hour about how she’s at home and I need to let her in. Even while I was in the middle of class! I guess because Nik has spent so little time thinking of anyone other than herself it didn’t occur to her that I can’t open the door for her while I’m in school. She didn’t even remember what time school ends, even though she was attending the same school as me just two years ago.

  Ishu!!!

  Her texts are getting more and more frequent and more and more annoying. They’re making my blood pressure rise. I can hardly do anything for her from the bus, and her texting repeatedly isn’t going to change the fact that there’s a downpour, or that I still have fifteen minutes on my route before I reach home.

  I tuck my phone into the front pocket of my bag, cross my arms over my chest, and glare at the rain-drenched window. If I don’t get my anger down to at least a simmer I’m sure I’ll say something to Nik that I’ll regret later. I probably shouldn’t start her first trip home in months on the wrong foot.

  Nik tries to give me a smile when she sees me coming through the pouring rain. I can tell her heart’s not in it, but whatever. I guess I can’t really blame her—the rain is cold.

  “Hey.” I slide past her and s
lip the house key into the front door. I twist it just once before it clicks open. Slipping inside, I leave the door open for Nik to come in. She does, with a slight shudder, taking in the house as if she’s seeing it for the first time.

  “You’ve had the walls repainted,” she says.

  I look at the walls when she says this. That feels like so long ago; it’s a memory that’s already blended together with others.

  “I guess.”

  “It looks nice.” Nik lifts a finger to touch the wall, like somehow it will feel different too.

  We both slip off our shoes, and as Nik walks from room to room, taking in all that’s changed since the last time she was here, I take her in. Because it’s not just the house that’s changed; Nik has too.

  Her hair is much shorter than it used to be. Her thick black locks that she used to proudly grow out have been cut up to her shoulders, and even have brown highlights. She’s put on weight too. Before, Nik was all skin and bones, and I’m pretty sure the only thing she consumed regularly was buckets of coffee. Now she and I could fit into the same clothes.

  Ammu won’t be happy about that at all.

  “When did we get this fancy coffee machine?” Nik exclaims from the kitchen.

  I sigh, slipping inside to see Nik admiring the coffee machine I convinced Ammu and Abbu to get by insisting that I needed it if I was going to ace my Leaving Cert. I’m pretty sure Ammu and Abbu would buy me an army of unicorns if I told them it would help me ace my Leaving Cert.

  “Like two months ago,” I tell Nik.

  “Wow, Ammu and Abbu have really been spoiling you, huh? Their babu.”

  I roll my eyes. Babu is a nickname that Bengalis sometimes give to the youngest child in their family; it literally translates to baby. But I used to throw a fit whenever anybody called me that, so it never really stuck. Only Nik uses it, to tease me. Like Ammu and Abbu haven’t been doting on her, their perfect, favorite child, for our entire lives.

  “Why are you here?”

  Nik halts her excited examination of the coffee machine and eyes me with some disdain.

  “I’m not allowed to come back to my own house without having to explain myself?” Her voice is huffy.

  “You haven’t been back here in more than a year,” I say. “You barely even call.”

  “Doesn’t change anything,” Nik says. “I just wanted to see you guys. See Ammu and Abbu …” She trails off for a moment, before adding, “Well, I have something to tell them as well.”

  “So you couldn’t tell them that you were coming?” I ask.

  “It’s a surprise, like I said. They’ll be happy to see me unexpectedly.” Nik smiles as she says this, and everything clicks into place.

  Nik doesn’t just have a surprise for Ammu and Abbu—she has a bad surprise that will make them mad. But if they’re delighted to suddenly see Nik back home, will they let their anger get in the way? That must be what Nik is banking on—their happiness overriding their anger.

  The news must be pretty bad for her to fly all the way here to tell it to them.

  “Well, they probably won’t be back for a few hours still, just so you know.”

  “That’s okay. I can catch up with you, right? How’s school? Got a boyfriend?”

  I sigh. “I have to go study.”

  “Seriously? I haven’t seen you in a year.”

  I want to say, And whose fault is that? She’s the older sister. She’s supposed to come visit. She’s supposed to spend Christmas and New Year’s with us. She’s supposed to call and text to let us know what’s going on with her life. But she never has.

  It’s not like we were ever close anyway, but ever since Nik left, it’s like an emptiness has opened up in our house. The lack of her presence has always pressed on us.

  “Your surprise visit isn’t going to stop my teachers from giving me tests.”

  “It’s Friday,” Nik insists. Like she didn’t use to spend her Fridays locked up in her room, studying for the Leaving Cert. You don’t get into UCL by taking time off studying whenever you feel like it.

  I sigh. “You know what will make Ammu and Abbu even happier to see you?”

  Nik’s face brightens at the question. “What?”

  “If they come home to a home-cooked meal prepared by their two daughters.”

  By the time Abbu and Ammu arrive home, Nik and I have managed to cook a pot of biryani. Neither of us are exactly skilled chefs, but with the help of a packet of Shan Masala we managed to make something halfway decent. Something Ammu and Abbu will definitely appreciate.

  When the click of the door sounds, a shadow passes over Nik’s face. It’s only there for a moment, and then she’s pasting the kind of smile on her face that she reserves for our parents—the one that tells them she’s the star daughter. I finish setting the table while Nik goes to greet my parents.

  While I set the plates and pour the water, I can hear the squeals of delight Ammu and Abbu let out at the sight of Nik.

  “What are you doing here?” Ammu’s voice is brighter than I’ve heard it in a long time. “You didn’t call!”

  “It was a surprise …” Nik is unexpectedly stoic in her responses. “Come in the kitchen, Ishu and I cooked you dinner.”

  Abbu catches my eye as soon as he steps into the kitchen. “Ishu, you knew Nikhita was coming? And you didn’t say?”

  I shrug. “She just called me yesterday … she said she wanted to surprise you.” For a moment, I’m afraid they’re going to reprimand me for keeping the secret. Instead, Abbu and Ammu both break out into smiles—which grow wider when they spot the table laid out and the bowl of biryani in the middle.

  “You made this?” Ammu breathes in the aroma as she sits down, eyes wide. Abbu takes the seat opposite her, already piling biryani onto his plate.

  “Ishu helped.” Nik gives my shoulder a little nudge, like I’m supposed to be grateful that she’s given me some credit. Even though I didn’t “help” her—we made it together.

  In fact, it was my idea to make it in the first place. So if anything, she helped me. But whatever.

  “It’s so good,” Abbu says between mouthfuls. Even Ammu seems to be enjoying it. I have a feeling they would say it was amazing even if it tasted like shit, just because their favorite daughter, Queen Nikhita, made it.

  When I sit down to eat, though, I have to admit that it isn’t bad. It’s not quite as good as Ammu’s biryani—but she’s had years of practice, and Nik and I have had none. We’ve kind of outdone ourselves.

  I’m bubbling over with pride and good biryani when Nik drops the bombshell.

  “Ammu, Abbu …” she says. “I didn’t just come home to see you. I have some news.”

  “Oh?” Ammu leans forward. No doubt, she expects something good: Nik has won an award, she has an internship, she’s somehow graduating early. Something worthy of a star daughter.

  Nik takes a deep breath and says, “I’m taking a year out of uni. I’ve … met someone.”

  Suddenly, it’s like someone has sucked all the air out of the room.

  chapter four

  ishu

  “WHAT DO YOU MEAN YOU’VE MET SOMEONE?” ABBU asks, at the same time that Ammu shrieks, “A year away from uni?”

  Everybody’s forgotten about the biryani now. It sits untouched in front of them.

  Well, I haven’t forgotten about the biryani, but I can hardly dig in while we’re having a family crisis.

  Nik isn’t looking at either of our parents. Her eyes are trained on her plate, like that’ll somehow dig her out of this hole. Of all of the bad news I could have imagined Nik sharing, I would have never imagined this.

  “It’ll just be for a little while,” Nik says. “We’re … I mean, we’ve been seeing each other for a while. And … well, we want to get married, and I can’t really study and manage wedding planning at the same time. And—”

  “Are you pregnant?” Ammu interrupts. “Is that what this is about?”

  “No!” Nik final
ly looks up, and I can see unshed tears in her eyes. Confessing all of this must really be taking a toll on her. Seeing her like this sends a little pang through my heart. I don’t think I’ve ever seen Nik cry before. Maybe when we were kids, but not in years and years. Nik is made of stone. Nik is invincible.

  At least, that’s what I used to think.

  “I just …” Nik mumbles slowly. “Isn’t that something you want from me? To get married and start a family? Isn’t that what you did, Ammu?”

  Ammu shakes her head, even though that is what she did. She got married just before her final year of university, barely pulling it together to scrape a pass in her final exams. She’s only ever used her degree to help Abbu with his grocery shop—never to find a job that’s all her own. She’s always wanted more from us. Both Ammu and Abbu always have.

  “Not yet,” Ammu says. “You’re at UCL, Nikhita. You’re studying medicine. This is your dream. You can’t give it up for some man who obviously doesn’t want you to achieve your dreams if he’s asking you to take time off.”

  “He’s not asking me.” Nik’s voice is firm now. “I’m the one who wants to take time off. I … I need it for myself. For us. We’re getting married. It’s a big commitment. It’s a lot. And taking time off, it’s not forever. Just a year, and then I’ll go back. It’ll be like I was never gone. I promise.” There’s a whine in her voice as if she’s a child asking her parents for a birthday present, not an adult who is apparently about to get married.