As I circulate, my relatives all notice I've grown.
"Such pretty eyes," an aunt says.
"Wow, you're a stunner," an older female cousin named Mahla says. "We'll be looking for a husband for you in no time."
This husband talk makes me more nervous. I grab Nasreen by the arm and pull her through the living room. On our way to Javed's painting room, she grabs something off a table.
"What is that?" I ask.
"A bottle of I don't know what," she says.
"We're not drinking anything."
"To the left," Nasreen directs in the narrow hallway, the bottle still in her hand.
There's a front and back stairwell in Javed's home. The back stairwell will lead us to Javed's painting space, where his music also happens to be. There are cassettes in the living room, but while relatives were grabbing and kissing me, Nasreen looked through them and didn't find any Umm. "Most of his music is up here," she says.
"I hope you're right," I say.
We're on the second floor. There are two bedrooms and Javed converted one of them to his painting space. I turn on a light and I'm confronted by easels, canvas boards, and paints... also, more flesh. There are even nudes propped up against walls.
"Whoa, nice paintings," Nasreen says.
"He's very talented," I say. "But I can see why he keeps this here." Nude paintings are the results of nude models, and I don't want to think about any of my relatives in that light. Nasreen puts the pilfered bottle of wine on a table, and we start looking.
I open a closet and it's full of paint supplies, but we hit it big with the other closet. There's a whole entire shelf dedicated to cassettes. We pull out the boxes, sit on the floor, and look. We don't want to sit on the chairs or sofa because who knows how many naked booties have been on those things.
It looks like the other collections I've seen. Many bootleg cassettes, a few real inserts featuring pictures of the singers, and foreign script I can't read. I put the ones with Arabic and Persian writing to the side since Nasreen is better at reading them than me. We're looking for Umm's name or picture. At least I know how she looks... like a queen with her big hair, stately profile, and luxurious dresses. So far, I haven't seen her image.
"Hey, this may be it," I say, finding a cassette with a picture of an older woman with hair in a large bun, red lipstick, and sunglasses.
"That does look like her!" Nasreen screeches.
"Shhh, keep quiet," I say. There's a bathroom downstairs, as well as one upstairs, but we don't know who may pop in and for what reason. We were going to ask Javed if we could come up here and we were sure he would say yes, but he was too busy arguing with Uncle and following the trail of single women. We don't have his permission to be here but assume he'd be cool about it if he catches us.
Nasreen takes the cassette from my hands. She inspects the outside and then looks inside. "It looks like her," she says. "Oooh, it says 'Umm Kulthum' on the side. This is it."
"This is it," I echo with a sigh. "This is the answer to our problem. We don't have to tell Uncle what really happened, we won't get into trouble, and we won't have to go back to those skeevy men in Brooklyn to fork over one hundred dollars. I'm so relieved."
Nasreen turns around. She's looking at a cassette player next to a can of brushes. "Let's take a listen," she says.
"You're right," I say. "Our initial plan was to dub, not to steal."
"That's right. We're not stealing from Javed. If anyone interrupts us or if Dad says we need to leave soon, then we'll ask Javed if we can borrow this tape, but we must do that secretly or Dad will ask questions. First, I want to be positive this is the tape before we copy it or bring it home. Also, I pretty much memorized the songs on the original tape's insert, and we need to make sure this is a good match."
There she is with her gloomy, skeptical self. I'm positive this is the tape and our search is over. "Okay, but with the party going on downstairs, let's keep the volume low at first before we dub..."
Chapter Eleven
Music shakes the floor. Someone downstairs has turned it up. Drumbeats and a man wailing about romance fill the entire house. I'm in a new world. I'm far from Florida, out of Uncle's house and in another uncle's house, surrounded by strange sights and smells. I've been in New York for a few days, and I've managed to get myself into trouble and all sorts of situations. This isn't me, although I've daydreamed of intrigue and adventure.
I imagine myself back in Miami, in my room listening to pop stars, at the mall with my friends, at school where people know me as the "quiet, athletic girl," and at relatives' houses where I daintily eat pastries and talk about neutral things like soccer, school, and studying. I visit Misty and Tamara's houses to help them pick outfits. We braid each other's hair and paint our nails during weekends of innocent fun. I discuss my grades and what I want to do with my life. Now I find myself doing all sorts of odd things, in various boroughs, during all times of the day, and even in Nasreen's closet. Life isn't about gazing at the TV set wishing I were the characters. There's more to me than my beloved scrapbook.
Javed has a large stereo with two cassette players for dubbing, and Nasreen fumbles with the buttons. "Will you help me with this?" she asks.
"Your eyeliner is running down your face," I gasp.
She puts a hand to her cheek, and black traces of powder stain her fingers. I didn't realize we were both sweating so heavily. I'm used to central air in Miami, but many buildings in New York don't have it. There are air-conditioning units hanging out of windows, or some people go without, relying on open windows in the summer and radiators in the winter. Javed's windows are open, but that's not doing anything to cool me. My bangs, which I had carefully hair-sprayed before I left, are sticking to my forehead, and Nasreen's eyes are a blotchy mess. Instead of the smoky-eye look, it looks like she's sporting two shiners.
"Let's just do our business and get some fresh air," I say. "Javed has a backyard, right?"
"Yes," Nasreen says. "I'm dying for some air. We'll do this and then talk my dad into leaving soon."
I find the On switch and Nasreen hits Play. We wait for the first few seconds of blankness, the part where the tape is white and then it turns into the black strip holding sound. I always itch to hit Fast Forward on that strip, but then I end up going too far ahead.
There's a dramatic beginning with guitars. It almost sounds electronic and modern. This is strange, but Umm made music for years. I'm sure she experimented with different sounds. She died in the seventies. Maybe she even dabbled in disco.
Nasreen rubs at her eyes some more, so now there's black stuff all across her cheeks and forehead. She wipes her hands across her pants. "I can't wait to copy this," she says.
"Shhh," I say. I imagine I'm the Bionic Woman with powerful hearing. I recall the show's sound effects, that eerie echo sound whenever Lindsay Wagner does something extraordinary. My ears are powerful as they listen on, and they hear something dreadful...
A man's voice comes on. He's speaking English, not Arabic.
"Hey, I know this song," Nasreen says.
"Is this Bon Jovi?" I ask.
Nasreen presses Fast Forward. Someone accuses me of giving love a bad name.
"This is Bon Jovi!" my cousin shrieks in surprise.
"Fast Forward some more. There must be some Umm Kulthum songs on this thing."
Nasreen sings along to the next Bon Jovi song. She closes her eyes, the black marks looking ridiculous on her face. "Who-ah..."
"Stop it!" I say. I push Stop and flip the cassette over, but all it has is guitars and male voices. Side B sounds like Van Halen.
"I didn't know Javed was into rock," Nasreen says. "How cool is that?"
"And how much does it suck that this isn't Umm Kulthum?"
"I'm sorry, Asma. Let's keep looking."
As we return to the boxes of cassettes, I make a big stink about our raised, then dashed, hopes. "How could Javed tape over Umm?" I ask.
"Who are we to judge?"
Nasreen says. "We did the same."
"That was an accident. We thought it was a blank tape, and we only ruined a few minutes of it. Javed, on the other hand, used the whole thing. That was on purpose. You don't accidentally tape over an entire cassette. Her name is on the cassette and everything."
"If everyone starts taping over Umm, there will be no replacement cassettes for us to find."
"Don't say that. Some people have respect. Even I know she's a great singer." The Madonna of Arabia.
We've exhausted ourselves looking through the boxes. We go through them a second and third time. "Let's just go already," Nasreen says. "My eyes hurt reading the script and fine print."
"What a bummer. I don't want to think about it, but maybe those brothers in Brooklyn are really our only shot at getting these songs."
"I hate thinking about it too, but you're right."
My legs are stiff from sitting for what seems like forever on the floor, and my clothes are sticking to my skin. We get up like old people, our bones creaking, and Nasreen takes the bottle from the table.
"You're putting that back?" I ask.
"Nope," she says.
We go down the back stairwell and into the kitchen. There's a door leading to a garden with a metal security door over it. We also have that in Miami, but not every house has bars over windows and doors. In New York, everything is hard to get into. There are bars, grates, doormen... barriers because the city is big and dangerous. All I want is an Umm Kulthum tape, and a city that's supposed to have everything doesn't have that for me. There's a barrier across that too.
Javed has a tiny yard with a wooden fence that's rickety and missing a few slats. There are plastic chairs facing a small table with an opaque glass top. We sit in the dimly lit yard. Nasreen places the bottle between us. I see that it's red wine. Merlot.
Nasreen wipes her face some more, and there are no longer black marks on her forehead and cheeks; they've transferred to her hands and arms. I still feel icky and moist but considerably better in the outdoors. I inhale deeply, my head tilted to see the full moon. I smell whiffs of barbecue, Chinese food, fish, and whatever else the neighbors are cooking. Not only can I hear Javed's party, but a few doors down I hear someone playing rap music. Despite the noise, I feel peaceful, even though we ran into another problem tonight.
Nasreen pulls a strand of hair to her nose. "I smell like an ashtray," she says.
I do the same, sniffing my hair. I also smell of cigarette smoke. That was just from being downstairs for a few minutes. Uncle must smell like actual tobacco leaves since he's been inside the whole time. When we get home I'll take a shower, and if Nasreen is up to it we'll watch TV in her closet. I'm in the mood for Letterman.
"You want to take a swig?" Nasreen asks, nodding her head toward the wine bottle.
"No, I shouldn't," I say. "I've never drank before."
"I have. It's no big deal. You should do it."
"No, no." My parents don't have alcohol in the house. My mother has never tasted it, and my father only tried it once, but didn't like the taste. We're not drinkers. Also, TV taught me all about winos on the street who are unkempt and without jobs because they drink all day.
"Come on, Asma," Nasreen says. "Live a little. One sip won't hurt."
But what if guilt consumes me? My few minutes kissing Dorito-breath made me feel bad about myself. I did something against my upbringing, something my parents would disapprove of. Looking at Javed's nude paintings just now felt a little wrong. Even though I'm now wearing makeup and trendy clothes, putting my plain soccer-star self behind me, and even though I think about boys and daydream of having a summer fling, there's something inside me that agrees with my parents and doesn't want them to be ashamed of me.
"Well, I'm going to take a sip," Nasreen says. The cork in the wine bottle is loose, and someone had already drunk a third of the liquid. She uncorks it and tips it over, the wine draining into her mouth.
"Stop," I say. "You're drinking too much."
Nasreen puts the bottle down. "Your turn," she says.
"No."
"Your turn, your turn, your turn."
"Stop! What if someone walks in on us?"
"Javed's guests? Please. My father probably has them all riled up about politics. Once they start talking about that, they don't stop. Take a sip and I'll leave you alone, I promise."
Now I'm reconsidering. She won't pressure me anymore? I just have to take one little sip? I can just let the alcohol touch my tongue or maybe take a pretend sip. I grab hold of the bottle, which to my surprise feels chilled even though it's been out of the fridge for a while.
"You can do it," Nasreen urges.
"You can be such a bully," I say.
I put the bottle to my lips and tip my head back. I tip too far, and the bottle has more wine than I realized. It falls into my mouth and down my throat. I start coughing.
Nasreen laughs. Meanwhile I'm dying. That tasted dreadful. I was hoping it would taste like strong grape juice, but it doesn't. It doesn't matter the type of drink -- whiskey, wine, beer, a yummy-looking fruity drink -- the actual alcohol is detectable. I've smelled it on others, but now it's inside me.
"Congratulations on no longer being an alcohol virgin," Nasreen says. She takes the bottle and drinks some more.
"I didn't... didn't know you were such a lush," I stammer.
"I drink at my friends' homes. I've never been drunk though. You need to stop taking things so seriously, Asma. People our age drink. It's a given."
Now I've done another thing I never saw myself doing. What will I do next? Skydive? Get a tattoo? Rob a bank? The last one would take care of my problems, because with an endless amount of money I can buy an Umm tape with or without those two sleazy brothers.
"We can always rob a bank," I say aloud.
"What college will want me if I have a record?" Nasreen asks. "But hey, maybe we can try seeing if my father has money. I can always use my allowance later on to pay him back."
"What do you mean, pay him back?"
"Everyone has emergency funds around, right? We can look for my father's. I hope it's more than a hundred so he won't notice a big loss. Then as he pays me my allowance, I'll put the money back. We can go to that store in Brooklyn and pay those crooks for their cassette. We've tried so many stores and we came here tonight. Let's face it; this is a hard-to-find cassette."
"I don't know," I hesitate.
"It'll work," Nasreen says.
Stealing from Uncle? What have I come to? Ruining Uncle's favorite tape, lying about my whereabouts when I'm visiting music stores, nights spent in a closet, looking at nudie paintings, drinking alcohol... what's one more thing? I can add thief to the list.
Chapter Twelve
We luck out. We thought Uncle was in the mood to listen to Umm, but he proclaims how tired he is. "I feel like I've talked forever and that we've been out for an eternity," he says. "I'm going to bed."
It's almost eleven when we arrive home, which is late for a weekday. Omar is up though. As soon as he comes in, he asks Uncle to open the coat closet. Uncle has a skeleton key for this closet, and he opens it to retrieve a cigar box. Omar disappears behind the curtains and returns so his father can lock up the box.
"It's cash," Nasreen whispers to me. "The boy is loaded. I don't know how."
"He must be blackmailing other people besides us," I say.
My eyes are on Uncle's skeleton key attached to the rest of his key ring. He always has his keys on him, and I'm unaware of a duplicate key. I've peeked into the coat closet before. There's a box of jewelry Auntie rarely wears, priceless antiques and pieces from Iran. There are unused electronics, which might sell for a small fortune. Then there's Omar's cigar box, which I imagine is brimming with cash. He even has a rubber band around it to hold it in, so that the money doesn't burst out.
"Did you have a good time with your mother?" Uncle asks.
"Yeah, and I went to the playground with friends," Omar says. "We played
ball until the sun set. Don't worry, though. Reinaldo and Winston walked me home."
"They're nice boys."
Omar smiles. I'm envious of the money he's collected for himself but relieved this is one more night Uncle won't be looking for Umm. Ever since we destroyed the tape, the urgency to replace it dogs us... and we're still aware we have to act fast. He'll want to listen to her eventually.
"Let's watch some TV," Nasreen says.
Letterman's monologue is hilarious. We both chuckle. I want to guffaw. Nasreen sits on her hands, because when she laughs she pounds her hands against the table, floor, or wherever she's sitting. In the closet, we have to be as quiet as possible so no one knows we're here. While we wait for Josie and the Pussycats, I write some letters on a legal pad that I'll mail to my soccer friends in Florida. I'm writing to them about how exciting it is to be in New York, but I don't mention the tape, the icky men at the store, or drinking.
Before I go to sleep, I look through my scrapbook. I've placed glue and tape on the windowsill so I don't have to get in and out of bed and disturb Nasreen, who snores underneath me. I take the label of the bottle of Merlot that I had peeled off before we left the party -- while Nasreen was talking to cousins, I lingered in the kitchen and peeled it as slowly as I could, but it's still raggedy and torn in places -- and glue it inside my scrapbook. I want to remember tonight. Despite not getting what I wanted, I was in good company. I saw far-flung relatives and dabbled in naughtiness with Nasreen.
***
In the morning, a face looms in front of me. I almost scream in surprise. It's Nasreen. She's perched on the side of the bunk bed staring at me at eye level... without makeup. She looks like a different person, unrecognizable without the eyeliner and shadow smeared across top and bottom lids. Even though I've seen her without makeup before, I thought someone had broken into the apartment.
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