A Place at the Table

by Saadia Faruqi

  I say, “How will she know any better if no one tells her? She should hear it from a friend. From you.”

  “That sounds easier than it’s actually going to be,” she replies.

  We are quiet for a moment, both lost in our thoughts. Elizabeth sighs and opens up the laptop. “Let’s not be sad. YouTube time, right?”

  She presses a few keys. A video of a woman in orange hijab with plump hennaed hands and lots of jewelry fills the screen. She’s making a beef dish, stirring the pot while talking nonstop in a friendly Pakistani accent. “Today we will teach you meat cooked in a special pot called a karhai.”

  “Introducing Salma Aunty’s Desi Kitchen!” Elizabeth announces excitedly.

  “She reminds me of Mrs. Newman, with all those bangles,” I murmur.

  Elizabeth doesn’t respond. Her eyes follow every move of Salma aunty’s hands with their pumpkin-orange nails. I settle down next to Elizabeth on her bed. Salma aunty makes Pakistani food sound like the most deliciously irresistible cuisine on earth. Despite myself, I’m grinning from ear to ear.

  The door opens with a whoosh. A boy with curly hair and freckles rushes in like a messy whirlwind. “I’m bored, Els. Watcha doing?” He flops his sweaty body down on the bed with a grunt.

  “Ew! Justin!” Elizabeth shrieks, shutting the laptop. She jumps up and points to the door. “Go take a shower! You stink.”

  Justin rolls back and forth. “Mom said I don’t have to,” he sing-songs.

  “You’re making my sheets wet with your disgusting sweat.”

  His smile disappears. “I’m hungry, but there’s nothing good in the house. Even the pretzel jar is empty. Mom has her headphones on and she said not to bother her unless I’m bleeding.”

  “Not really,” Elizabeth is quick to explain to me. “She’s exaggerating. It’s a joke.”

  I stand up. “I can whip up something for you really quick,” I offer to Justin. “I do it for my brothers all the time.”

  He jumps up with a bound and pulls me to the hall. A little black dog with the funniest gray beard and eyebrows rushes at my knees, barking and bouncing. I squeal a bit. Elizabeth shouts at Robin Hood to quiet down.

  We make a little parade, Justin in his bright green soccer uniform and knee socks, the barking black dog, me, and Elizabeth calling, “You don’t have to . . . the kitchen is a mess.” She trails behind us like she’s been called to the principal’s office. We pass the living room, and I catch a glimpse of Mrs. Shainmark lying on the couch. Then we’re at the kitchen.

  Baba says truth is stranger than fiction. I have an image of a kitchen full of food scraps and broken dishes, like the A-Team after one of their bar fights. Thankfully, it’s nothing like that. It’s a small kitchen close to the front door, with a huge window that makes it bright and cheerful. I smile at the glass jar with yellow and blue wildflowers sitting on the windowsill. The kitchen is a little shabby, with old-fashioned white cabinets full of handprints, unwashed mugs on the counter, and a sink full of dishes. Nothing a good cleaning can’t fix.

  Elizabeth tosses Robin a dog biscuit. He munches happily, then settles down to watch us, hoping for more treats. “I’ll wash the dishes before we cook,” she mumbles.

  “You should see my kitchen,” I tell her. “There’s a ton of dirty pots and pans at all hours of the day.”

  She relaxes. I ask Justin to find some potatoes, tomatoes, half an onion, and three eggs. I cover the potatoes with plastic wrap and heat them in the microwave. “My mama would be so mad if she saw me using this shortcut,” I say. “But boiling potatoes takes forever.”

  “You can always use potato flakes. There’s a big box in the pantry,” Elizabeth jokes.

  While the potatoes are cooking, I mix eggs, tomatoes, a little onion, a sprinkle of salt, and black pepper.

  “You’re not gonna put stinky cheese in those eggs, are you?” Justin asks with a smirk.

  Elizabeth shoves him in the arm. “Hey! That was one time.”

  He grins at me. “I almost barfed.”

  “No cheese. I promise,” I assure him.

  The microwave beeps. “As soon as they cool down, peel the potatoes like this, Justin.” I demonstrate, feeling just like Mama in front of her cooking club.

  He hurries to comply. I wish Rafey and Tariq were so obedient.

  I scramble everything together in a pan, letting it bubble. “If you had cilantro and cumin, you could make this even yummier,” I say, scraping the scrambled potato-egg mixture onto a plate and handing it to Justin with a flourish.

  He sits at the kitchen table, pushing aside the pulled-apart toaster, and wolfs the eggs down. “This is delish,” he says with his mouth full. “What’s it called?”

  I hesitate, then tell him. “Khagina. Scrambled eggs, South Asian–style.”

  “Kha-gee-na,” he repeats, stumbling a little on the Kh but getting it mostly right. I’m so pleased, I give him a little pat on the back.

  * * *

  When Justin and the dog are gone, I teach Elizabeth how to make a simple paratha. We knead the dough, then divide it into little balls. Elizabeth is literally hanging on my arm, eyes wide. She’s a great student, listening carefully as I show her what to do. I motion for her to take over. “Now roll each ball out until it’s in a flat circle.”

  Elizabeth doesn’t have a proper skillet, so we make do with a shallow pan. She surprises me with a jar of ghee. “I was so excited when I saw this at the grocery store,” she confides. “I used it for cooking French toast. It was scrumptious!”

  The paratha is beginning to burn. It comes out stiff and elongated, nothing like Mama’s fluffy creations, but we gobble it up anyway. “We need to do this about a hundred more times, until we get the hang of it,” Elizabeth announces.

  “Don’t tell my mama what a bad cook I am, and you have a deal.”

  Elizabeth opens a cabinet and takes out a packet of puffy marshmallows. “Want to make our Secret Award-Winning Recipe?”

  Paratha s’mores turn out to be a terrible idea. The gooey marshmallow sticks to the pan, our hands, even our teeth. Both of us get chocolate on our clothes. But we’re laughing so hard, neither of us cares that we’ll have to come up with a new idea for the competition.

  The bell rings. “Sara’s mom is here!” Mrs. Shainmark calls.

  By the time we enter the living room twenty minutes later, Mama and Mrs. Shainmark are sitting on a beige corduroy couch. Mama’s eyes are so creased with laughter that I can barely see them. “Best show on earth! I can’t believe the actors didn’t crack up.”

  “And the one with Chandler’s mom. That’s hilarious!” Mrs. Shainmark gasps.

  “I can’t believe your mom likes Friends. My mom watches reruns all the time,” Elizabeth whispers.

  I rub my hands with glee. “Operation Citizenship seems to be a success.”

  Mama turns to us. “Hello, girls. Guess what! I invited Elizabeth to come spend some time with us on Thanksgiving Day, since Nasreen’s family will be out of town.”

  Elizabeth shrieks so loud, I jump. “That’s fabulous! Can I, Mom?”

  Mrs. Shainmark is smiling. “Of course. You can take Justin with you, and I can spend the afternoon studying.”

  “Perfect,” we both whisper together.

  20

  Elizabeth

  “THANKSGIVING! TODAY’S THANKSGIVING!” I pull the turkey tea cozy off the giant jug of pretzels where it usually sits, stick it on my head like a hat, and dance around the kitchen.

  Mom is curled up in her usual spot, still in her dressing gown. She laughs at me, so I put on a show, making bird wings with my arms as I sing, “Turkey day is here, sitting on your rear, eating all the treats of fall, my favorite time of year.”

  Then Mom comes into the kitchen and starts dancing with me. She snatches the tea cozy and puts it on her own head.

  I am still disappointed that we aren’t seeing Bubbe today. Bubbe usually takes over our kitchen and cooks turkey, chestnut stuffing, mashed po
tatoes, two types of pie, and Jewish apple cake. Food is the one area where my grandmother likes being traditional. But every few years, Bubbe goes to the West Coast for Thanksgiving. Dad only has one sibling (lucky). His name is Uncle Ted and he’s a doctor in Oregon. It’s his turn to have Bubbe, so there will be no delicious apple cake today, because my mom can’t bake and Bubbe still hasn’t taught me the recipe. She says she can’t write it down.

  “You have to know it up here,” she always says, tapping her head. “And you have to know it in here,” she adds, dramatically putting a hand over her heart.

  That’s when Mom rolls her eyes.

  Enough thinking about Bubbe. I will miss her apple cake, but I’m happy that I get to spend time at Sara’s house. Mrs. Hameed said I could come over to cook as long as Justin comes too. He’s going to play with the twins, to keep them occupied while Mrs. Hameed finishes packing her Thanksgiving catering orders and Sara and I come up with a new recipe.

  I plan to eat as many Pakistani Thanksgiving treats as possible, because we are not having a home-cooked holiday at my house.

  Mom wanted to go to a restaurant, but Dad found out it was cheaper to order a precooked turkey, gravy, stuffing, and sides from the grocery store. “Plus, we’ll have leftovers,” he said last weekend as he finished grilling hamburgers for our dinner. We also had sweet potato fries—frozen, but deliciously salty-sweet—and a salad kit. Not bad for my parents. I like it when they work side by side in the kitchen. They bump into each other on purpose and pretend to argue about whose fault it is.

  “I’m going to Sara’s today, remember?” I remind Mom more than once.

  Mom twirls me around and pulls me into a hug. “Sara’s mom and I have a surprise for you,” she says.

  But before I can beg her to spill the beans, Justin rushes into the kitchen and pulls the turkey tea cozy off Mom’s head. She chases my brother down the hallway, shouting, “Come back with that turkey, you turkey!”

  I love when Mom acts like a big kid. Even when things were normal, when Nan was alive and my mom was only depressed some of the time instead of all of the time, moments like this were rare. Mom hasn’t made me laugh so hard since that time she took a balled-up sock out of a laundry basket and threw it at Dad’s butt. Next thing I knew, the five of us were having an all-out sock war. David even found a pair of Mom’s tights and made a slingshot. Socks flew across the upstairs hallway like giant cushy snowballs. Robin was barking, of course. He hates to feel left out.

  At ten o’clock, I walk and Justin rides his bike to Sara’s house. It’s a few streets away from our townhouse, in the Old Oaks neighborhood. While the two of us are gone, Mom will go pick up our holiday dinner. Dad and David are busy changing the oil in Mom’s car.

  Justin rides ahead of me, zipping along the sidewalk. I yell at him to stay in my sight. I should have guessed that he knows the Hameed twins from school. When we find Sara’s address, I realize I remember this place from Halloween because it looked so dark and spooky. It’s kind of a tragedy that the Hameeds don’t celebrate Halloween. Their house has a rambling front porch that would be awesome decked out in spiderwebs and bedsheet ghosts. Before I can ring the bell, Sara throws open the door. Two small boys with dark hair come flying out. They scream, jump off the top step, and land on the path, right in front of Justin.

  I haven’t even said hello to Sara, and these three are already playing tackle tag in the front yard.

  Sara and I look at each other. “Brothers,” we say at the same time.

  I enter a small hall lit with a couple of warm lamps on a table. Sara motions for me to put my shoes on a rack in the corner. I’m glad I’m wearing socks.

  There’s a giant painting in Arabic script across from the doorway. Its bright colors remind me of the Ketubah hanging in my parents’ bedroom. Uncle Ted’s husband, Rory, is a graphic artist, and he wrote out my parents’ Jewish marriage contract in calligraphy, decorated with colorful flowers, vines, and stars. When I was little, I loved to trace the vines with my finger. I like the way they wind around the Hebrew letters.

  I follow Sara to the living room, where Mr. Hameed is sitting on a brown leather couch. His feet are propped up on a small ottoman and there’s a teacup sitting on his belly. I peek at the TV.

  “You like cricket?” I blurt out before I even say hello. Sara raises her eyebrows at me, so I backtrack. “I mean: Hello, Mr. Hameed. Thank you for having us over.”

  “Nice to see you, Elizabeth,” he says. “You enjoy cricket?”

  “Not me. When my cousins visit from England, they always complain that there’s no cricket on American TV.”

  “Hello, Elizabeth.” Mrs. Hameed walks in from the kitchen, smiling. It’s strange to see her without her hijab. Her long black hair is shiny and smooth. I can’t stop looking at it. “Would you girls gather some tindas from the porch, please?”

  Sara begs, “Mama, please. We talked about this! Can’t we have normal American sides? Stuffing. Cranberry sauce.”

  Mrs. Hameed flourishes the wooden spoon she’s holding, as if she’s the new Doctor Who and the spoon is her sonic screwdriver. “We can have those things and some traditional Pakistani food as well. Now, go.” She points toward the back door.

  Sara leads me out to a small sunroom, where there are planters lined up along the glass walls. In each container, herbs I recognize from class are growing next to vegetables I’ve never seen before.

  Sara shows me the cutest little baby green pumpkins growing on a prickly vine. “Let’s get this over with.” She snaps a tinda off the vine and puts it in my hand. It’s about the size of a small green apple but hardly weighs a thing. Sara pulls more fruit off the plant, making a little basket with the bottom of her tunic to hold them.

  “They are adorable,” I declare as I pick a few more tindas. “I want to take a Sharpie and draw little faces on them.”

  “You wouldn’t think they were adorable if you actually had to eat them,” Sara says. “They are as sour and disgusting as Maddy Montgomery’s heart.”

  I stop for a second and take a deep breath. I’ve tried to imagine pulling Maddy aside in the lunchroom or the PE locker room for a conversation. But what would I say to her? Hey, former bestie. The racism thing? I know you can do better. Okay, Mads? Good talk. I know I’m not ready. Will I ever be?

  I ask Sara, “Can we not talk about Maddy today?”

  “Sure. Let’s just cook and have fun.”

  I can’t help it—even with two tindas in each of my hands, I wrap Sara in a hug. She’s so surprised that she drops the edge of her tunic. Little green gourds spill out.

  “Escaping tindas!” Sara shouts. “Look out, they’re making a run for it!” Then we’re both laughing and picking up gourds, making sure none of them have cracked.

  At dinner tonight, when my family shares what we’re each thankful for, I’m going to say, “I’m thankful for my new friend.” And for my mother’s new friend too.

  21

  Sara

  ELIZABETH AND I deposit the tindas on the kitchen counter. She stands in the middle of the kitchen, closes her eyes, and smiles, as if she’s asleep and having a wonderful dream. When her eyes open, she sighs and says, “Everything smells so good, Mrs. Hameed. It’s like chicken and mashed potatoes decided to dance a ballet with your spice cabinet. What are you making?”

  I drag her away. “No time for that! I want to show you my room.”

  Mama is fiddling with the oven. “I’m baking zeera cookies—come back soon.”

  In my room, though, I pause, suddenly shy. I wish I’d cleaned up a little more. Elizabeth looks around. What is she thinking? Thankfully, my bed is made. My stuffed animals are in a tidy row on the top shelf above my desk like welcoming hosts. The desk itself is messy, but it’s a contained mess. Paints, markers, and piles of sketchbooks. On the wall, a few pencil sketches are pinned to the corkboard. “I like it!” Elizabeth announces. She notices the poster spread out on my desk. “What is this? It’s so good!”
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  I touch the lacy sleeves of my tunic. “You think so? Mrs. Newman asked me to make a sign for the International Festival. These are preliminary designs.”

  “Whoa. She asked you instead of an eighth-grader? The whole school is coming to the festival.” Elizabeth puts up her hand for a high-five.

  I give her a weak slap. “I’m not used to people looking at my art.”

  “Well, get used to it. You’re going to be famous!”

  I feel an excitement inside me. Famous. A few months ago, the thought of the entire school looking at my art would’ve made me hide under the bedcovers. Not anymore. I’m done being invisible. “Any ideas for the white spaces?” I ask Elizabeth. I’ve painted the border with flags of different countries and the middle with smiling faces. The rest is empty.

  “A cupcake emoji would look great here.”

  When I glare at her, she laughs. “Kidding! Your artwork is amazing. Why are you even in cooking club? You should be in art club. You should be president of the art club.”

  I flop down on my bed. “My parents don’t think art is a viable career option.”

  She frowns at me like a stern teacher. “We’re kids. It’s too soon to think about careers. Our brains haven’t even developed yet.” Elizabeth taps the side of her head. “Our gray matter is still, like, ten percent mashed potatoes.”

  “Please. My brain is perfectly well developed, especially the creative side.” I pat my head. “But my parents want me to be good at math and science, not art.”

  “Have you actually talked to them about this? Have they ever said, Art is beneath you, Sara?” She says the words in a fake adult voice.

  I think about that. There have been no actual conversations about my art. Baba always tells me how good I am, but since sixth grade started, Mama hasn’t even looked at my drawings. She’s always running around juggling ten jobs at once. I sometimes wonder if she sees me at all. “They always say immigrants should go into scientific fields, like medicine or computers,” I finally reply. It’s what I’ve heard from every South Asian parent or teacher my entire life.