Watched

by Marina Budhos

  —

  The afternoon crawls along, me stuffing papers into folders. Not many people come by, maybe because who would want to spend a sweaty June afternoon in a basement office, making up packets for a workshop? A Sikh kid walks in from the South Asian Club down the hall and wants to borrow a stapler. I don’t pull out my phone—nothing to photograph. I’m about to give up when Taslima is standing over me, a sheaf of flyers in her hand. “I’m dying in here, I need a drink. Want to come?”

  “Sure.” I stumble to my feet and struggle to keep up with Taslima, who’s dashing down the hall, up the stairs, and over to the student union. She gets black tea with milk—as if she needs more caffeine to charge her up. We sit outside, under an umbrella, while she impatiently dunks her tea bag in her cup.

  “So why do you do it?” I ask.

  “What?”

  “Help out so many people. And all that mosque stuff. I mean, you’re not into any of that. They’re kind of—”

  “You mean they’re jerks to me?”

  I tense. “Yes.”

  She looks off, into the distance, her chin tipped upward. I can’t tell what she’s staring at. I keep searching for that girl who chopped her hair into an angry slant, who dared and rebelled. But Taslima’s not like that anymore. Something has gone hard in her, like a thick leather hide. She married her boyfriend and then they got divorced. Now she barricades herself behind her meetings and placards and tables.

  “You keep your eyes on the result, that’s what I always say.” But she doesn’t sound so convinced. There’s a husky sadness running under her voice, same as that look I saw in the office.

  A girl is making her way toward us at the table, her expression brightening as she nears Taslima. She’s carrying what look to be accounting books. She’s nice-looking, with fair skin and a round, open face framed by a bright blue head scarf. Probably not Bangladeshi.

  “Are you coming on Tuesday?” she asks Taslima.

  “Have they agreed to give me thirty minutes?”

  “I made them agree!” she giggles. The faint smell of soap drifts off her skin.

  Taslima nods. “Okay, then.” She swivels to me. “Naeem, meet Ishrat. She’s willing to work with those guys over at Muslim Student Association. She’s much more patient than I am.”

  Ishrat dips her head, blushes. Those eyes—startling sea-green, sparkling, too clear. They remind me of the smooth chunks of glass Zahir would collect at Rockaway Beach. They set me off a little, make me anxious. “They’re not so bad.” Then she adds, to me, softly, “You should come.”

  “Forget about him. He’s just putting in time for the family. He’ll be back to his Xbox as soon as they don’t care anymore.”

  “I’ll come,” I say.

  Taslima slings me a Yeah, right look.

  “I will!” I laugh.

  Excited, Ishrat fumbles with her flyer and hands it to me. I notice a tiny mole just above her mouth. “That would be great. We’re having a youth conference on Saturday. A lot of great speakers are coming. An imam from the UK, even—”

  A vibration starts in me; my bones tune in, expectant. The air under the umbrella has a new sheen. It’s like one of those moments when you pull the lever down on those old-fashioned machines and you win—all the gumballs, the little toys in plastic bubbles, come gliding down the chute to you. I’m giddy, hungry to grab what I can. Everything glints, bounces with light, possibility. “Sounds cool. If you want, I can help out. Lifting boxes, whatever.”

  “Really?”

  “Why not?” I grin. “I do it all the time for my parents.”

  I can see Taslima smirking in the background. After Ishrat leaves, she remarks, “It’s because you like her, isn’t it?”

  I shrug. Even with those eyes, Ishrat seems bland, too student-government for me. It’s everything else she said—conference, speakers—that’s got me humming, alert. “She’s pretty.”

  “I thought so. You don’t fool me.”

  —

  Saturday morning I’m up early. Both my parents are still here, which surprises me. Weekends are busiest in Jackson Heights, when all the families come in from other parts of Queens, New Jersey, Connecticut, Long Island, to do their shopping. From my closet I dig out one of my long kurtas and put it on over jeans. I never do that on regular days—only for family events. It feels weird. But when I look at myself in the mirror, I like what I see: my hair combed back with gel, a little mustache and goatee starting to grow in. Maybe I’ll let it stay.

  “What is this?” my stepmother asks when I come into the kitchen. She tries to hide the pleasure in her voice. My father is busy leafing through a newspaper, ignoring me.

  I give her my usual noncommittal shoulder movement. “Nothing.”

  “Where are you going?”

  I show her the flyer for the conference. “I heard about this, thought I’d check it out. That okay?”

  “You see this!” Amma says to my father and sets it down next to his elbow. Poor Amma. Always trying to be the peacemaker.

  “You are going with friend?” she asks hopefully. “Ibrahim?”

  I start. Amma met Ibrahim once when he came by the shop. She liked the way he offered to hold the door and carry her bags home, which she waved away, laughing. “I am too young for this!” But she was pleased, color showing at her throat. That’s Ibrahim. Knows how to work it on the outside. Who knows what’s going on inside.

  “No. I’m going alone.”

  “And where is Ibrahim these days?”

  “I don’t know, Ma.”

  It’s been six weeks since the incident at the mall. I can still see him turning in that three-way mirror, a wash of yellow store light on his slender face. Later his shoulders pushing away from me, toward the makeup counters. Was that a joke? Something he did on impulse? Ibrahim was like that. Sometimes we’d ride the subway, and it drove me crazy, the way his leg would bounce up and down. Cut it out, man, I’d say. It’s weird. He’d jerk his head back, embarrassed.

  —

  When I get to Queens College and see three guys, one with a skullcap, walk through the swinging doors, I almost lose my nerve. What am I thinking? All these MSA folks, they’ll know I’m not the real deal. They volunteer, or talk about the ways they do good. They care. How am I going to fake that?

  Taylor doesn’t get it. I’m as much on the outside as he is. Abba had hoped I’d achieve Hafiz, memorizing all the verses of the Quran. I never got through more than a few. The few times I’ve tried, I felt exposed. Dirty, dingy inside. Nothing pure here.

  Then I see someone waving to me from behind a table. “Hey!” It’s Ishrat, waving heartily, looking kind of silly and clumsy. Her long green tunic and turquoise head scarf bring out the color of her eyes. They startle me a little.

  “I’m so glad you came! Taslima was sure you wouldn’t.”

  “What does she know.” I grin.

  Her face goes pink. I feel bad and confused by how easy it is to tease her. It gives me a strange, dizzy power that I like and don’t like.

  “Would you mind taking over the men’s table? The guy who was supposed to come called in sick.”

  Soon the participants start streaming in and I can barely keep up, checking names off the list, counting out bills, handing out programs. Malik at Baruch, business major. Syed at Queens, marketing. Mo, also at Queens. All the guys I’ve been compared to my whole life. They’ve got accounting and law books stacked up on their windowsills at home; they glide up the escalators at Hunter or Baruch. All of them are in college, on their way.

  The lobby goes quiet, just like after the morning rush at my parents’ store. I’m all alone. I relax. I can hear the muffled sound of the speakers inside. Quickly, I slide out my phone, set the registration pages on the table, and press. Click. Another page, click. Four in all. It’s smooth-swift, faster than I would have thought. Thrilling, even. When break time comes, I offer to take a few pictures. I perch in the front row for the next speaker, snap some of him and the
audience. Ishrat gives me a grateful look. The edges of her pupils, I notice, have a touch of gold. My stomach flops over. I can’t tell if I’m glad this is so easy or dismayed.

  That afternoon, when I join one of the workshops, is when the shift begins. I start to know what I’m doing. It’s like putting myself through a door and realizing it’s made of melting glass. It’s not so hard. You can step right through and be on the other side. Your shoulders, your arms are made of putty. You are stronger, more flexible than you think.

  The best thing about being one of the kids at the back of the room is you’re already a spy. You know how to fake it. The other guys who are poking their hands in the air, involved, could never do what I can. I’ve got all the moves, the feints and angles. I know how to rearrange my face, make it attentive. How to slant my body, use my arm to hide my phone. Half listen while a camera coolly spools inside my head. For the first time, what I’m good at—lying with my body—has power.

  I’m in; I’m so far in.

  —

  It’s late by the time I get to a party at the Hassans’, a graduation celebration for Ahmed, a kid I knew from way back, though he went to Stuyvesant, the top high school in the city. His mother once told my parents that Ahmed studied so hard for his entrance exam that his hair fell out. What kind of mother boasts about that? I guess it was worth it, since we’re celebrating tonight—his graduation, his scholarship to Carnegie Mellon.

  I should be pissed, but I’ve got six fifties folded into my pocket. Taylor gave them to me an hour ago, sitting in his car under the elevated tracks. “Not bad,” he said. “Keep it up.”

  My family is already there. The apartment is packed—a tumbling narrow stream of shoes and sandals reaches all the way down the corridor to their door. Inside, the furniture has been pushed to the walls, cushions and sheets laid out on the floor. But even that’s not enough room for the many people crowded inside. Mrs. Hassan is moving around the guests, happily giving out paper plates piled high with food. I don’t see Ahmed, which is something of a relief, because then I would have to congratulate him.

  I see my father with the other men, sitting on the floor, one leg drawn up, lost in talk. I freeze. I don’t want to go there. I’m afraid of the hurt and anger that will pulse toward me like an electric current, and everyone else will see.

  But then he waves me over, like a command. Next to him is Farouk Uncle, who owns a chain of pharmacies. “And what is next for you, Naeem?” he asks.

  I feel my stomach tense and flex, remembering what Abba said this morning. “Taking a class this summer,” I say.

  He gives a nod of approval. “Bhalo. You are majoring in?”

  “Still figuring that out, Uncle.”

  I go in search of my stepmother. She’s not in the kitchen, where a lot of the women are doling out steaming food into the big foil containers. Nor is she in another room, which has been done up for the women, sheet and cushions spread on the floor. Where is she? Down a hall smelling too tartly of perfume, I find a darkened bedroom. This is where the purses and any jackets people brought are piled up on the mammoth-sized bed. Everything here is too big for the room: the walnut dresser, the tables, probably bought on some special. Two children are curled up asleep, their legs tangled in pocketbook straps and pillows.

  And then I see. Through a sliding glass door, a tiny balcony with a purple bicycle locked to the rail. And a slender shadow: my stepmother.

  My chest stirs. It’s sometimes hard to see Amma by herself. When I see her this way, I’m always a little shocked, because it’s then that I see how young she is. When she’s next to my father, she’s my stepmother, bugging me, setting down plates of fish curry and rutis or emptying out Zahir’s backpack. But when she’s alone like this, a little cord tugs loose in me.

  “Hey, Amma,” I whisper.

  She turns. Her eyes are shiny-wet. Is she crying? “How come you’re here?”

  “I don’t know,” she says, shrugging. “So crowded and hot in there.”

  We stand, quiet. A soft breeze is blowing; I feel it on my elbows. The day’s heat is starting to ease up. It’s a nice, velvet-air night. She adjusts the dupatta on her flushed neck.

  When she does start to talk, to my surprise, she doesn’t say anything about how this isn’t my graduation we’re celebrating. “I am remembering when I graduated,” she murmurs. “My parents, they too had party.” She giggles. “They invited everybody!

  “It was so great. They gave me tickets to see The Lion King. I had never been to Broadway! Never took a subway by myself with my girlfriend!”

  She smiles slyly. “At that party, they told me about my marriage, they had taken care of it. I was so surprised. They had two gifts for me. I did not know this.”

  I start; this is actually the first time I’ve heard this story. “Were you…disappointed?”

  She shakes her head. “I was so happy. Everything was good. Marriage, that is good too. And at the party they pointed to your father. Even though I saw he is old, they let me speak to him, and I could see he is a kind man. That sometimes, when you are older, you have learned enough to be kinder. The young ones, they break so easily, and they can hurt you. Your father, he can never hurt. That is not his way.”

  We glide into silence a moment. I know what she’s saying to me: I am the one who has broken my father, not the other way around. She does not hold it against Abba, all he could not be or do for her: The failing store. His bad back. But me—the young one, the brittle one, the one who can snap like a stalk and hurt others—it’s me she holds responsible. This I understand. It’s my weight and sadness too. It’s as if I’m carrying her youth and mine together. I have no choice. If I fail, I fail her.

  “Hey, Ma?”

  “Hmm?” Her eyes are kind, but they glimmer with a trace of melancholy.

  “I got a job. To help us out.”

  Her eyes widen. “Where?”

  I have to think quickly. “Jamal got it for me. A computer shop. I’m helping out.” I can taste the lie on my tongue, metallic, cool.

  “What about your summer school?”

  “The hours aren’t too bad. I can do both.”

  She looks at me, surprised. Then she sets her hand on my cheek, holds it there just a little longer. Her palm is surprisingly dry and cool. I have to look away so she won’t notice the raw catch in my voice, my own wet eyes.

  I hand her two fifties and head back into the party, into the night.

  The thing about being a superhero is you have to be okay with lying. You’re not who you say you are. You’re lying for truth. That’s the weird thing. You’re Iron Man, building a suit of metal, concealing your wounds. Your flaws are your strength. Disguise is your virtue. Just like acting.

  With the two hundred left from what Taylor gave me, I register for my English class at LaGuardia. It runs four mornings a week, through the whole summer. To my surprise, I kind of like it. Twenty of us, sitting in a circle and listening to a teacher not much older than me. Messy hair, rumpled plaid shirt over skinny black pants. She doesn’t look anything like a teacher. More like a barista at Starbucks. The first day she writes on the whiteboard English Fundamentals: Intensive Reading & Writing. You Are All Grown-ups. Not Participating Is Not an Option!!

  I’m in such a good mood I decide to get a haircut at the nearby Dominican barber. Already I’ve worked on my essay. It banged out of me, easy. I’ve never had words come like that. Rat-a-tat, like one of those plastic guns me and Zahir use at Coney Island. This is fun. By the time I’m done, my arms are sore and warm, like I’d been lifting weights.

  Instead of the usual flattop, I have the barber do a number two buzz cut. In the mirror I watch my slow disguise, tufts of hair brushing down my ears and neck. A new look: black bristle, like a shadow around my skull, fuzzy-soft to the touch. My new beard growth trimmed.

  As I’m twisting out of my chair, I hear, “Hey, man, look at you.”

  It’s Tareq, settling into the next chair.

 
“Summer cut,” I say. Everyone knows about Tareq. Bagh’a, they call him—Tiger—with his thick, wavy hair and wide-set eyes. Rumor has it that he was in trouble with the law—something about stolen social security cards. Maybe even worse. Somehow Tareq’s lawyer got him off. Last I heard he worked in some kind of auto shop over in Corona.

  “And nice threads.” He nods to my reflection in the mirror. “Where you been, dressed like that?” He’s pointing to my kurta, a cotton blend Amma brought back the last time she went to Bangladesh to visit her family.

  I stuff my hands in my pockets, uncomfortable. “Just around.” The combs floating in a jar of blue liquid make me queasy. “Gotta go.”

  He nods. “Don’t be a stranger.”

  Even though he’s a pain, I kind of like Tareq. Sure, he’s got a bad rep in the community, but whenever he shows up at a party, it gets exciting. Kind of like Ibrahim. Half the stuff he boasts about is bull. But he has imagination. Panache, as Mrs. D would say, one of her favorite words. My parents don’t like him, though. The tiger eats his own tail, my father says, in that tsk-tsk voice of his.

  One more stop for the day: Ishrat asked me to help out a charity group. An hour later I find myself in a masjid basement, counting out packages and soup cans, stuffing them into boxes, which are taped and sealed with a little decal that reads Young Muslims Care. There are four of us—a serious dude called Mahmoud, who I saw at the conference; Rashid, tattoos twisting up his thick arms, a crocheted skullcap floating on his curls; and Suman, a chubby, placid guy. Then we take ourselves out to eat at a kebab place, digging into plates of skewered meat and watching the soccer game. It’s so easy. I tilt in a friendly way, casually ask for phone numbers. Info on a retreat in Pennsylvania. “You should come,” Rashid urges me. “The paintball stuff, man. It’s seriously down.”

  After, I’m outside, watching the others angle down the pavement, evening sun shredding across the sky. What a day, I think. School, essay done, haircut. My phone is stuffed with names and numbers, even a quick pic of a license as a car drove away. Taylor texted, wants to meet near Roosevelt Avenue. I get the sense he’s going to hand me more. The next step.