Courtship: A 'Snowflake' Novel

by Nia Forrester

  Nasim’s grandmother was a small woman with skin that looked tissue paper soft and just as delicate. Smiling when she saw Nasim, she took the remaining three pies from him and scolded him when he confessed that he had eaten one.

  “Doggone it, boy! That’s for my church group!” she said, but still not sounding too broken up about it.

  Then she insisted that he and Ibrahim stay for some of the chicken, mac-n-cheese and greens she made for lunch.

  “I have my one full meal in the afternoon,” she explained. “Just small meals in the morning and a little something in the evening. It’s how I keep my trim figure and good looks all these years.”

  She did look young to be grandmother to someone Nasim’s age, but grandmothers tended to be young around here. Young mothers, young grandmothers … and sometimes young girls like Bree dying early deaths under violent circumstances. The thought made Ibrahim doubt his appetite could be revived even for a grand-momma’s homecooked meal.

  “Those pies ain’t gon’ help with them good looks and good figure,” Nasim teased her.

  Ibrahim had never seen Nasim smile before.

  He was wrong about his appetite. Despite the pie he helped eat, and the intruding thoughts of Bree, his taste buds made an appearance when Nasim’s grandmother brought a plate piled high and set it in front of him.

  “Lord,” she said once they were all seated and had heads bowed for a simple grace. “We thank you for this, and all your blessed abundance.”

  After they ate, she swatted Nasim with a dishtowel when he suggested another piece of pie for dessert, then walked them to the door. She hugged them both as they left, but her grandson she held a little tighter and for a little longer, as if it just might be their last goodbye.

  When they got back to the house, it was almost five o’ clock and when Nasim dropped Ibrahim off at his gate, it was without one more word. He didn’t ask him what he was going to do. He didn’t even look like he cared. He walked away without a backward glance, and left Ibrahim to it, to decide his own fate.

  39

  Then

  “This is getting to be a habit. These unannounced visits.”

  Jada bit back her smile and stepped out onto the front porch looking Ibrahim over. He looked much better than he had when he stopped in the day before—well-rested and freshly-shaved, his eyes brighter.

  Glancing down, she saw that in his hand was a bag from Dairy Queen.

  “And what’s that?”

  “The bribe,” he said, grinning.

  “Who’re you bribing?”

  He glanced over her shoulder and lowered his voice.

  “Your parents. For letting me come over and sit with you on a weeknight, the week before your finals.”

  She smiled wider. “They’re not going to be happy about it. I was just about to start studying.”

  “I figured. That’s why …” He lifted the bag.

  “Well, since have gifts, I guess you’d better come in.”

  The sun was just going down, casting a purplish-orange glow over everything on the street. There had been rumors of a storm but for now the sky was clear, and only wispy, half-hearted clouds were in sight.

  Jada stepped aside to admit him into the house and watched as Ibrahim smiled at her parents and wished them a good evening. There was no trace of his dark mood from a few days ago, nor of him remembering what she had shared about her parents’ misgivings about their relationship. This was the first time he had seen either of them since then.

  “I thought since it’s been so humid lately, you might like some ice cream,” Ibrahim told them now. “I stopped off on my way over.”

  “Well, that’s nice,” her mother said. She stood and took the bag from him. She turned to Jada’s father for confirmation. “Wasn’t that nice of him, honey?”

  “Ibrahim just stopped in for a minute. He knows I have finals so he won’t stay long,” Jada said, heading off the objection she could see building on her father’s face.

  “Well, you definitely have to study,” her mother agreed. “But I don’t see why he can’t stay a while and watch some television with us. Cosby will be on in a minute.”

  “I thought you worked nights.” It was the first thing Jada’s father said since ‘hello’.

  “Yes sir, I do. But I took tonight off. Double-shifts and long nights finally caught up with me.”

  “Hard work is … hard work, isn’t it?”

  Jada held her breath. Her father was clearly looking to be disagreeable, or at least determined to take Ibrahim down a peg.

  “Yes sir. And I’m definitely not afraid of it.”

  Jada’s mother, who had been watching the exchange, looked in the Dairy Queen bag. “Three flavors. Looks like vanilla, chocolate or strawberry. Now who wants which?”

  ~~~

  The hum of her father’s and Ibrahim’s voices from the living room was hard to ignore while she reviewed her practice History quiz answers. It had been constant since she left the room. And though she knew her mother was there as a buffer, Jada still worried about what was being said.

  She knew two things: one, her father thought Ibrahim might not be “headed in the same direction” as her; and two, Ibrahim was proud. If her father said the wrong thing, she wondered whether his politeness would break.

  Unlikely. She was only too well-acquainted with Ibrahim’s self-control. The no-sex thing felt crazy to her. Especially for someone who was so obviously a sexual being. He couldn’t stretch his arms over his head in a yawn without it looking sexy. It almost made her want to agree to his even crazier notion—that they prepare to get married or engaged or whatever—just so she could later coax him into making their relationship physical.

  She imagined herself saying something like, ‘But if we’re getting married anyway …’

  Jada giggled at the thought. Guys were supposed to be the ones making empty promises of commitment in order to get girls into bed.

  It was terrible, but even when he showed up looking all crestfallen about something, she’d almost forgotten about all that the minute he took his shirt off. Part of her had hoped he was coming to her for some purely sexual healing of whatever was bothering him that day.

  God. She needed to get ahold of her imagination.

  But it wasn’t that easy. She sometimes touched herself when she thought about him. Remembering the indescribable, tingly pleasures of sex with Kyle, she couldn’t even begin to guess how much better it would be with Ibrahim. But her imagination sure gave her plenty of material.

  Her bedroom door opened, and Jada jumped, quickly picking up her textbook so it wouldn’t look like she had just been sitting at her desk, daydreaming.

  “How’s it going, sweetheart?”

  “Okay. How’s things out there?”

  “Ibrahim just left, so …”

  Jada shoved back from her chair.

  “He left? But …”

  She moved past her mother and went back out to the living room. Her father was nowhere in sight.

  “Mom.” She spun to face her mother who had followed her to the front room. “What …”

  “That was a nice gesture, wasn’t it? Him bringing ice cream? Because lately, this heat …”

  “But where’d he go?”

  Her mother looked nonplussed by her reaction.

  “Home, I expect, Jada. It’s late for a weeknight. I’m guessing he’ll have work tomorrow. Just as you have school,” she added pointedly.

  “Did Daddy … say something to him?”

  “Like what?”

  “I don’t know. Just … What did they talk about?”

  “That’s between them. I think you should probably get back to your books, don’t you? Before it gets too late?”

  Sighing, Jada returned to her room, but her concentration was shot. There was no way she was going to be able to get through reviewing details of the Civil War if she didn’t get at least some idea of how the conversation between her father and Ibrahim had gone.
r />   Waiting until she was sure she heard her mother retire to her parents’ bedroom, she quietly made her way back to the living room and picked up the phone. Paging Ibrahim would mean he had to call her back, and the ringing phone would only make her father annoyed.

  Sighing, she replaced the receiver. She would have to call him tomorrow, or hopefully he would have guessed at her curiosity and come see her at lunchtime, or the library.

  ~~~

  He didn’t come to her school the next day at lunchtime. And after school, basketball practice felt interminable. Twice, Jada almost got hit in the face when she lost concentration as the ball was being passed to her. When Coach yelled at her asking where her focus was, she mumbled something about being distracted by finals.

  And afterward, though it was something she seldom did on practice days, she went to the library. She waited around in the study lounge for almost two hours before accepting that Ibrahim wasn’t going to show up there, either, then took the bus home, alone since Lisa hadn’t gone to the library with her.

  As soon as she was inside, she dumped her gear at the front door and paged him right away, sitting by the phone and waiting for it to ring She hadn’t called out to her mother like she always did when she came in, but neither did she hear her anywhere in the house. Hopefully, she was out at the store or somewhere.

  By the time the phone rang about fifteen minutes later, Jada had built up a cluster of nervous energy that sat somewhere low in her stomach, making her feel like she was about to throw up.

  “Hey,” Ibrahim said when she answered. He sounded maddeningly calm.

  “You left,” she said right away. “Last night.”

  “Yeah. I wasn’t planning on spending the night, so …”

  “You know what I mean,” she said. “What happened? What did my father … What did you guys talk about?”

  “You, mostly.”

  Jada shut her eyes. “You didn’t tell him that … courting stuff, did you?”

  “I didn’t use that word, but, yeah …”

  “Ibrahim.”

  “You didn’t want me to tell him?”

  Jada thought for a moment.

  Didn’t she?

  She wasn’t sure. But what she was sure of was that long before it made sense, long before she had reason to feel that way, Ibrahim felt like he was hers. Like he was meant for her. So why did it feel so … off for him to have told her father he wanted to ‘court’ her?

  Like the Youth Pastor said, courting was a statement of intention. And if Ibrahim told her father he wanted that with her, it meant he had to feel some of what she felt. Except …

  “You talked to my father, and you told him you think you want to work towards a commitment to me.”

  “Yeah. I mean, we …”

  He sounded confused. She could tell he was reading her tone and didn’t understand it.

  “I guess that’s it, then. You talked to my father, so … what? We’re like, engaged?”

  “Jada, I don’t know what’s going on right now. Why d’you sound so …?”

  “No reason,” she said.

  Her throat was tightening. She could feel something like a sob about to surface.

  “Jada …”

  “I just got back from practice. I need to shower,” she said.

  And then she hung up.

  She sleepwalked through the rest of the afternoon. She showered, reviewed for her French exam, and then ate dinner with her parents. Her father didn’t mention Ibrahim at all, and Jada didn’t bring him up.

  If he had any objections to Ibrahim coming to “keep company” with her, he didn’t voice them. And her father was the kind of man who would have voiced them. That meant he was probably reserving judgment. If she knew him—and she did—he was probably not thrilled by the idea.

  After all, he and her mother had said as much in that little talk about how serious she and Ibrahim were. But both her parents were just traditional enough, just conservative enough to respect Ibrahim for approaching them as he had.

  The sound of the doorbell startled them all just as they were finishing up the meal. Her father went to answer the door and Jada was helping her mother clear the table when she heard his voice, deep and unmistakable. And then her father’s voice, though she couldn’t hear what he was saying.

  Moments later, while Jada and her mother were standing in the kitchen both immobile and transparently trying to eavesdrop, her father entered.

  “This is the second night, during your finals week, Jada,” he said. “I told Ibrahim you have to be back within the hour.”

  Swallowing, she nodded her assent and went out to the living room, leaving her parents facing each other in the kitchen. Their expressions were unreadable, but Jada felt that some unspoken message, or concern was passing between them.

  She found Ibrahim waiting for her, standing by the front door, his car keys still in hand. He was wearing pressed slacks and a dress-shirt, like he had been on an interview or to a semi-formal event; and he looked tired.

  He inclined his head in the direction of the door.

  “Want to take a ride?”

  They drove for a few miles without either of them speaking until they were in the parking lot of a Walmart. Ibrahim pulled into a space far away from all the other parked cars, under a light and turned off the engine. Still looking straight ahead, Jada waited for him to speak. She heard him take a breath.

  “I’m sorry,” he said.

  Jada turned in her seat. “What’re you …?”

  “I messed up, didn’t I? And skipped a real important step.”

  She said nothing.

  “It’s been a while since I told you about where I hope we’ll go, you and me. But even then, I told you. I didn’t ask you. And I should have. And I definitely should have asked you before I talked to your father about anything.”

  Jada nodded, but still didn’t speak. Her throat was constricting again, just as it had earlier that afternoon, but now for different reasons.

  “So … I’m sorry,” he said again.

  He looked at her and there was something in his eyes. A hint of the same something she had seen the day he showed up when her mother was out and all he wanted was to lie down with her for a while.

  “It’s not cool that I talked to your father before I looked at you and said … to you … that I want to marry you. I want to take care of you. I want to one day make babies with you. I want to make … my life with you.”

  It was hard not to smile, not to crawl across the armrest to his side of the car and to straddle him.

  “So, now I’m asking. D’you want …?”

  “Yes.”

  Ibrahim smiled for the first time. “I haven’t even finished saying what I wanted to say yet.”

  Jada shook her head. She reached for him, yanking on the front of his shirt, pulling him toward her.

  “No need,” she said, shaking her head. “Don’t be stupid, of course I want all of that. And we have less than an hour now before you have to take me home, so just … kiss me.”

  40

  Then

  “So this is what vindaloo is supposed to taste like, huh?”

  “I make very good vindaloo,” Raj returned. “Just without all the ghee.”

  “Then maybe the ghee is what makes this better.”

  “Hardly,” Raj said. “But I’m glad you like it. This is one of my favorite restaurants.”

  When Raj invited him a week earlier to go have some authentic Indian cuisine, Ibrahim was embarrassed to remember that he hesitated. His and Raj’s friendship and philosophical conversations, confined to the office in Redwood City while they were both working was one thing. To leave the premises and eat elsewhere felt a little boundary-crossing. Like when your school-friend first invited you over to their house to play videogames or shoot hoops.

  “I got into the program I applied for,” Raj said, casually, reaching for a piece of naan. “The one at MIT. And as luck would have it, Vidhya got into Harva
rd after all. She was worried she wouldn’t.”

  “Dang,” Ibrahim breathed. “Y’all are some smart …”

  “That’s a stereotype,” Raj said.

  “Is it?” Ibrahim ribbed him. “Is it really though?”

  Raj laughed.

  “So, Boston, huh?” Ibrahim nodded thoughtfully.

  He had never been to the East Coast. Always wanted to see New York City, but it had always felt so far away, and the steps to make it happen too numerous and complicated.

  “Cambridge, actually.”

  “Couldn’t have worked out any better. You and your future wife going to school in the same city.”

  “It didn’t just ‘work out’. It was the plan.”

  “How was it the plan? You didn’t even know her when she applied.”

  “Not our plan,” Raj said. “Not a mortal plan. Divine.”

  Ibrahim picked up his fork and took a bite of chicken.

  Raj laughed again. “I know you don’t believe in that, but honestly, take your high-schooler for instance …”

  Ibrahim gave him a look.

  “Take Jada,” Raj corrected himself. “Do you really think it was an accident you met her just weeks before you went to jail? And that through her letters to you, you had to focus and get to know her, undistracted? Something you never would have done if you weren’t incarcerated?”

  Incarcerated. Raj would never just say ‘in jail’ like a regular person. Even though he sometimes made fun of it, it filled Ibrahim with admiration as well. It made him think about his own vocabulary and diction and want to improve both.

  Over time, Ibrahim had grown comfortable enough to share with Raj most of the details of his life. He told him about his mother’s death, finishing school early, and even about his brief stay in California’s correctional system. The only thing he didn’t share was that crime he was convicted of wasn’t his own. Nor did he tell him about Breonna whose name it was still sometimes difficult to say aloud.

  “So, by that reasoning, I went to jail just so I could get together with Jada.”

  “No.” Raj shook his head. “You probably would have ‘gotten together’ with her … in one manner of speaking, even if you hadn’t gone to jail. You might have … slept with her, for instance. And then probably left it at that. What going to jail did is it allowed you to know her.”