‘Whatever,’ Kali says.
‘No, I mean it, matchmaker. If half the stuff I hear is true, it’s amazing you guys have time for school.’
We stop in our tracks.
‘I thought that might get your attention,’ Fletcher says. ‘I don’t know what you’re up to right now, but I want you to think long and hard before you ever play one of your stupid tricks on me. Because it’ll be the last thing you do.’
‘Oooh, scary,’ Kali says. She probably is scared. I sure am. Fletcher is as mean as they come, and we know he likes to play dirty.
He stops in front of Syd. ‘I hear your doggie isn’t doing too well these days. It would be a shame if anything happened to him.’
What little color there was in Syd’s face drains. ‘Stay away from my dog.’
‘Then stay out of my business,’ he says. ‘Even a sick pooch can’t resist a poisoned wiener. Catch my drift?’
He doesn’t wait for an answer, but pedals back toward the school.
‘Call off our slam,’ Syd says.
‘But—’ Kali starts.
‘Fine,’ I interrupt. ‘We can’t put Banksy at risk.’
A silver Audi is idling by the curb. As we approach, the driver’s window rolls down. ‘You guys wanna lift?’ Willem asks.
Syd walks around the car and gets into the passenger seat, so Kali and I jump into the rear.
Willem gets straight to the point. In addition to the spa offer, he’ll pay us seven hundred dollars to get the answer he needs, with a bonus of a hundred each if we can pull it off before Valentine’s Day.
‘Addison is starring in a big musical revue for one of her dad’s charities that day,’ he explains. ‘Afterward, the governor is throwing a coming-out party for her. Everyone we know will be there. It’s the perfect time to propose.’
‘If you really have doubts about Addison, maybe you should hold off on proposing,’ Kali suggests.
He shakes his head stubbornly. ‘We’re meant to be together. I want to know if you can help me or not. I’m leaving with my family for the holidays next week.’
‘Consider it done,’ Syd says, from the front seat.
‘What she means,’ Kali says, ‘is that we’ll need to discuss this privately. The majority rules.’
‘What I mean is that I need the money,’ Syd says. ‘And I’ll do it myself if I have to. This is my area of expertise anyway.’
The car pulls to a stop for a light, and Syd hops out. ‘I’ll be in touch, Willem. I’ve got your number.’
I sit down with my hot chocolate and try calling Syd. The call goes straight to voice mail as it has each time I’ve called her over the past four days. Three friends are chattering happily at the table next to mine, and it gives me a pang of regret over our recent trouble with Syd. She’s been dodging us at school, she hasn’t been returning our calls or texts, and today isn’t any different. I understand why she’d want to take on Willem’s case, but with Fletcher’s network of evil keeping an eye on us, we have to be extra careful.
That didn’t stop Kali and me from collecting our equipment from the locker rooms, but unfortunately we can’t use the evidence we found. I know the Maroons’ coach would be interested in seeing the footage of a hooded intruder creeping into the football equipment room and messing around in two specific cubbyholes just hours before the big game. At one, he made adjustments to a helmet and smeared something on the mouth guard. At the other, he fiddled with a pair of cleats and sprinkled some powder under the cup in a jockstrap. For a while it looked like we wouldn’t get a good look at the intruder’s face, but finally he pushed back his hood to reveal a pinhead and swampy eyes.
Fletcher’s threats to Banksy meant our hands were tied. Luckily, neither Maroon defenseman was seriously hurt, although both were benched early, giving Fletcher a chance to shine for the college scouts. It makes me sick to think he got away with it, but there’s nothing we can do right now. Kali and I didn’t even mention it to Syd. We don’t want to add to the tension.
That doesn’t mean I can’t keep calling Syd, though. Framily doesn’t give up on framily.
I’m just finishing another voice mail when my next client comes in – a cute guy with auburn hair and freckles. ‘Zahra?’ he asks, taking a seat on the sofa opposite me. ‘I’m Ben.’
Ben and I have spoken several times but never met in person. He’s booked a session with me because he’s worried that his girlfriend is slipping away. She’s been distant lately, but whenever he’s tried to discuss what’s bothering her, she insists everything is fine. Hopefully a frank conversation with an impartial third party will clear the air.
We’re still waiting for Ben’s girlfriend to show when a tall strawberry blonde straight out of the pages of Interview magazine steps into the café and looks around: Juliette. I sink into my seat, hoping she won’t notice me. The last thing I need is her hanging around while I’m trying to work.
‘Over here, babe,’ Ben calls. Juliette turns and smiles.
Correction: the last thing I need is to waste my mediation skills on the girl who’s two-timing Ben with Brody.
‘Hi,’ Juliette says, joining us. I’m still trying to figure out how to play this when she takes the reins. ‘Nice to meet you. I’m Juliette.’
‘Zahra,’ I say, extending a hand for the air shake.
‘Benny,’ she says, slipping into the chair beside mine. ‘Could you grab me an herbal tea before we get started?’
He leans over to kiss her cheek before walking to the counter.
‘So you’re not just a Love, Inc. client,’ Juliette says, proving she’s a bit sharper than she came across originally.
‘No,’ I say. ‘But we try to keep a low profile.’
‘Client confidentiality guaranteed?’ she asks.
I take a sip of my hot chocolate and force a smile. ‘We do our best.’
‘Then please don’t tell Ben we’ve met,’ Juliette says. ‘If he finds out about Brody, he’ll flip.’
‘I won’t,’ I say. ‘Does Brody know about Ben?’
‘Yeah, but don’t discuss this with him either, OK?’
I have no intention of discussing this – or anything else – with Brody. He might be free to go out with whomever he wants, but seeing a girl you know is taken is another form of cheating, as far as I’m concerned. I’m ashamed my hormones came out of hibernation for that guy.
Ben comes back with Juliette’s tea, and I get down to business. It is business, I remind myself. I don’t have to agree with everything a client wants. The Love, Inc. charter says we have to deliver what’s asked unless it’s illegal or dangerous. Ben wants his girlfriend back, and it’s my job to help him get her – even if she is a lying, ditzy, air-hand-shaker. I am not here to judge. I am here to ease communication.
I fire off my usual warm-up questions about how they met, how long they’ve been going out, and how they spend their time together. I do this partly to get a sense of how a couple feels about each other. If the love is still there, it shows.
Today, as Ben describes the moment he first saw Juliette, she chimes in, correcting small details, filling in blanks. They talk about it like it only happened a few days ago, even though they’ve been together a year. I can tell their story is not over yet. All I have to do is find the roadblock and guide them around it.
‘I thought she was the most beautiful girl I’d ever seen,’ Ben says, squeezing Juliette’s hand.
Juliette takes her hand away. ‘You changed your mind about that pretty fast.’
Ah. The roadblock.
‘What do you mean?’ Ben asks. ‘You’re gorgeous.’
‘If that were true, you would have been more supportive when that modeling scout approached me at the mall.’
‘But that was a scam,’ he says. ‘Dude was trying to pick you up.’
‘You don’t think I’m pretty enough to make it as a model.’
Ben runs a hand through his auburn hair, leaving it crushed down the middle. ‘I nev
er said that.’
But he’s not saying she is pretty enough, which tells me there’s more going on here than meets the eye.
‘My dad checked out the agency,’ Juliette says. ‘It’s totally legit.’
Ben snorts. ‘A legit agency doesn’t need to find models at Abercrombie & Fitch.’
‘Actually, I’ve read that agencies do scout for models in malls,’ I say. I hate to help Juliette’s cause, but the truth is the truth.
‘See?’ Juliette says. ‘You’re more uptight than my dad.’
‘Excuse me for wanting to protect you. I saw an exposé on how fly-by-night agencies get girls to blow a lot of cash on a portfolio, then skip town.’
I make a suggestion. ‘What if Juliette approached a well-known agency and they were interested? How would you feel about that?’
Ben squirms in his seat. ‘I don’t see why she has to put herself out there like that. You do OK in school, Juliette. You’ll get into college.’
‘Modeling could help me pay for college,’ she points out. ‘I don’t understand why you’re so negative about this.’
I put my shoulder to the roadblock and push. ‘Ben, if Juliette started modeling, how do you think it would affect your relationship?’
Ben stares at the floor. He probably wouldn’t have hired me if he thought it would get this awkward, but he rises to the challenge. He must really love Juliette. ‘I’d never see her. She’d travel all the time. Hang out with cool people.’
‘So,’ I say, shining a light on the problem, ‘you’re worried that you’ll lose her.’
‘I guess.’ He flashes a quick look at Juliette. ‘That makes me sound like a jerk.’
Juliette doesn’t think so. She gets out of her chair and sits on Ben’s lap. ‘You’ll never lose me, sweetie. I promise.’
They quickly become a mass of groping, intertwined bodies on the sofa. I get up to leave and they don’t even notice.
It’s a bit much for a café, but on the bright side, two redheads going at it like that could bring our kind back from the brink of extinction.
Chapter Twenty-One
‘You’re stirring too much. Just leave it.’ This, from the woman who was singing my culinary praises a few weeks ago.
‘If I just leave it, it’ll scald. The thermometer says—’
‘Forget the thermometer; use your eyes.’
I knew cooking with Nani was a bad idea. Even with the apron, she’s a tyrant in a tunic. But when she suggested teaching me how to make her burfi while I interviewed her for my Social Studies assignment, I couldn’t say no. I knew Mr Kahn, my teacher, would love it, especially if I include samples. Despite my best intentions, my grades have started to slip, and I need all the help I can get.
As an added bonus, if this recipe turns out well, I’m going to put a seasonal stamp on a couple of batches and let René give them away to customers on Christmas Eve later this week. I was supposed to bake cookies, but time is running short and René’s a sucker for a twist on tradition.
‘I’ll just stir a little,’ I say. ‘You can start telling me about life in Karachi when you were my age.’
Her hand hovers, ready to snatch the spoon at the first opportunity. ‘Well, I was quite a scholar. I wanted to go to England to study medicine like my brother, but Abba wouldn’t hear of it, even though my grades were better than Mohammed’s.’
‘That wasn’t fair.’ She makes a play for the spoon, and I block her with an elbow.
‘No, not when I worked so hard. But for girls, marriage was the only option. And by the time I turned fifteen, my parents had already begun looking for a suitable man. There were plenty to choose from because I was very beautiful then.’
Very might be overstating it, but I suppose Nani is attractive for her age, and she passed on some good genes. Lately she’s started taking credit for my eyes as well as my cooking skills.
‘So my parents could afford to be picky,’ she continues. ‘It took two years to find someone with the right pedigree and prospects. And by the time they finally found your Nana, I was already in love with someone else.’
I’m so shocked I drop the spoon and she snatches it. ‘Someone else?’
‘An American,’ she says. ‘He was studying in Karachi. Abba was a scholar, so Thomas was often at our home. He was handsome and charming and brilliant. I wanted to marry him, not a stranger my parents picked out.’
‘What happened?’ I ask, forgetting the burfi.
‘I spent an hour with your Nana, and he seemed so … boring.’
I laugh. ‘Nana’s not boring.’ I mean, considering. He doesn’t get a chance to say very much.
She laughs, too. ‘I suppose he was shy, and naturally we were chaperoned. For me, no one could compete with Thomas anyway. I panicked. They were going to force me to marry this boring man I didn’t even know. So I arranged to go for a walk and meet Thomas to tell him about my parents’ plan. I hoped he would propose.’
Now she has full control of the spoon while I lean against the stove, watching her. ‘Did he?’
‘Well, he kissed me. In my world, that came after a proposal. So I thought our fate was sealed.’
‘But …?’
‘But all of Karachi has eyes, and a friend of my father’s saw us. Thomas took me home, and Abba … he was so angry, so ashamed.’ Fifty years later, her voice still quavers at the memory. ‘People gossiped. My reputation was ruined.’
‘By one kiss?’
‘By one kiss in public with the wrong man. An American. It really couldn’t be worse.’ She turns to look at me so that I’ll understand what follows. ‘At that time, in some circles, girls simply disappeared for less. Abba was very modern for his day, but in the eyes of the community, I was ruined. No man would ever want me. Nana’s parents withdrew their offer.’
‘But what about Thomas? Did he know? Did he fight for you?’
‘He knew,’ she says, sighing. ‘Because my father, uncles, and brothers arrived at his door.’
‘To kill him?’ I whisper.
‘To talk to him,’ she says, smiling. ‘Although, my uncles did want to whip him and ship him home. They told Thomas he’d ruined my prospects and that Abba wanted him to take me to America so that the shame I’d caused could die down. There were my younger sisters to consider. They would be tainted, too.’
Nani has stopped stirring, her mind far away in another time.
‘And Thomas said …?’
‘That he couldn’t marry me. That his family would never accept me.’ She takes a deep breath. ‘And that he was already engaged to an American girl.’
‘Oh, Nani!’ I throw my arms around her. For the first time, it occurs to me that she was once a girl like me, with the same feelings about boys. My eyes fill with tears, and when I pull away, hers have, too. ‘I’m so sorry. Thomas played you.’
‘Yes. He played me.’ She wipes her eyes on her apron. ‘But it wasn’t a game. It was very serious. The men gathered to decide what to do with me. My mother wouldn’t speak to me, or allow my sisters to speak to me. I cried all day in my room, thinking they would send me away, disown me. But then your Nana came to the house and told Abba he still wanted to marry me and on the same terms. He insisted on speaking to me first to see if I was willing. And when I saw what a wonderful, kind man he was, I realised he was not boring at all.’
I laugh again. ‘The gossip didn’t bother Nana?’
‘No, because his own sister had been judged unfairly once.’ She takes the pot off the stove and turns to me. ‘It helped that I was the most beautiful girl in Karachi.’
‘She was,’ Nana says, coming into the kitchen with my sister. ‘She still is. The Ahmed women deserve to be cherished.’
Nani turns to me with a wink. ‘What did I tell you? Marry a man who accepts you for all that you are.’
‘Don’t try to tell me you cherish her burfi,’ I say, showing Nana the lumpy and burnt mass.
‘Just how I like it,’ Nana says.
I usher my grandmother to the table and push her into a seat. ‘I learnt all I needed to. Let me try it for myself.’
By the time my mom comes home, I’ve made four more batches in different flavors, including two batches of cherry chocolate for the store. Nana tests them all and pronounces each better than the last – but none quite as good as Nani’s.
If that’s brainwashing, I sure hope I inherited Nani’s talent, along with her beautiful eyes.
I find Mom in the basement laundry room pouring shower gel from a large pitcher into hotel-size vials. The room is filled with the scent of nutmeg and cardamom.
‘How’s Sydney’s dog?’ she asks without looking up.
‘Still sick, I guess.’
‘You guess?’
‘She’s not speaking to me and Kali.’
Mom sets the pitcher on the washing machine and turns to me. ‘How can she not be speaking to you when you’ve worked so hard to raise money for her dog’s surgery?’ Even Mom helped out, suggesting I hit up her colleagues at Whole Foods. ‘What’s wrong with that girl?’ Mom asks.
‘She’s going through a hard time, and she doesn’t have any brothers or sisters. Banksy’s all she’s got,’ I say. ‘She’ll come around when she hears how much we’ve raised.’
Mom picks up her pitcher again. She’s heard enough about my problems. We’re back to hers. ‘I don’t know how I’m going to fill all my orders,’ she says. ‘And then there’s the packaging …’ She shakes her head. ‘I’m sure Xavier knows what he’s doing. He’s been in business a long time.’
‘Just admit you hate the packaging. Let me try to design it.’
‘You?’ She peers over her shoulder and spills the fragrant gel over the washer.
‘I know how to use a computer, you know. Some people think I’m good at graphic design.’
‘Well,’ she says, backpedaling, ‘you do design beautiful cakes.’
I start screwing lids on the vials. ‘So I’ll come up with something better, and you can tell Xavier that you can’t hurt my feelings. Daughter trumps boyfriend.’
Love Inc. Page 28