“No. You really aren’t.”
“I’m funny and charming. Ask anyone. Right, Zar?”
Zar didn’t answer, studying the peas in the samosa he was holding like they were works of art.
Sohrab added, “You know that girls only laugh at your jokes because they find you attractive, right?”
“Whatever. No one thinks that. Right, guys?”
When the uncles in training all just sat there in silence, I jumped up and walked off in a huff.
The problem with walking off in a huff is that it isn’t really effective if you don’t have anywhere to go.
I didn’t want to sit with the uncles because they were talking about boring stuff like the fate of the world or whatever. I couldn’t go hang out with the aunties because I was a dude, even though all aunties loved me. And I couldn’t go hang out with the girls because...well, I don’t know what would happen, actually, because no one I know had tried, but it probably wouldn’t be good.
I also couldn’t go to the kitchen. Mrs. Sabsvari was very clear that I was to steer clear of it in order to avoid suspicion.
So I made my way outside. The Sabsvaris had a sprawling backyard with a massive pool and a concrete half basketball court. As I walked toward the hoop, laughter and talk from the dawat got quieter and quieter until, for a second, it felt like I was all alone, under a dark night sky.
That was when I heard the dull thwap of a basketball hitting the ground. I looked behind me and Kaval was there, her shimmery shalwar kameez, trailing dupatta, and high heels all at odds with the casual confidence with which she was dribbling.
“You look lost,” she said.
“Usually am, I guess.”
She didn’t smile. Not even a little. Maybe Sohrab had been right. Maybe I was having an off night bringing the funny. Instead, she asked, “What were you thinking about?”
“Nothing. Just...I don’t know....There aren’t any stars out. It seems like there are fewer stars in the sky than there were when we were kids, don’t you think?”
“They’re still there. Our lights are just so bright now that we can’t see them.”
I’d never thought of it that way. I was trying to figure out how to respond, when Kaval whipped the ball toward me and it smacked into my chest, startling me. “Want to play?”
I frowned. “Now? With you?”
“Sure,” Kaval said, stepping out of her heels and pulling her dupatta from around her neck. As she tied the long piece of delicate fabric around her waist, she added, “Unless you’re scared.”
“Terrified.”
“Don’t worry. I’ll go easy on you.”
I nodded toward the house and the “party” going on inside. “What if someone sees us? All the aunties will freak out.”
“If you’re not scandalizing aunties, Danyal Jilani, what is even the point of your life?”
That was impossible to argue with, so I tossed her the ball. “First to get to twenty-one?”
“Sure.”
That was when Kaval Sabsvari, sugar and spice and all things nice, stepped behind the three-point line and
drained a jumper that would’ve stunned Steph Curry.
“What was that?” I exclaimed.
“What was what?”
I grinned and shook my head, jogging up the court to get the ball. Typical Kaval. Always a badass. As I passed it to her, she went for another jumper that, even though it clanged around the rim a bit, ultimately dropped through the hoop.
“I can do that all night, Jilani. You’re going to have to get closer and actually guard me.”
“Oh.” It came out squeakier than I would have liked. “How...um, how close can I get?”
Kaval crossed her arms behind her back and walked up to me, slowing down as she got closer, until her chest was almost touching mine. I wasn’t sure if my heart had ever beat as fast as it was beating now.
“How close do you want to get?” Her eyes were shining with the intense promise of being up to no good.
How was I supposed to respond to that?
“There you are.”
I jumped so high at the sound of Sohrab’s voice that, had an NBA scout been around, I would’ve gotten signed right there. Kaval, however, stayed exactly where she’d been standing, somehow not startled by her brother’s interruption.
Sohrab had a vaguely disapproving frown on his face, but that was kind of how he always looked. Zar, who was following him, flashed a wicked smirk that I desperately hoped he would put away as soon as possible.
“Mom is looking for you,” Sohrab told his sister.
“Really?” Kaval said in “I Don’t Believe You Times a Hundred” font.
“Yes.”
Kaval narrowed her eyes at Sohrab, then glanced at Zar, who gave her a “what’re you looking at me for” shrug. “Fine,” she said, turning to me. “But we’re not done talking.”
“What? Oh. Right. Sure,” I said. “Talking at school, then. We’ll talk, I mean at...” Kaval didn’t wait for me to finish. She picked up her heels and marched across the grass barefoot. I turned to my friends. “We were just... talking.”
“About what?” Zar asked, not at all helpfully.
“Nothing. Just, you know, stars.”
“Stars?” Sohrab asked.
“Yeah. I was telling her that it seems like there are a lot fewer of them now. Remember when we were kids? The sky was beautiful then.”
“Maybe you’re just standing in the wrong spot and looking in the wrong place,” Sohrab suggested.
That made zero sense, just like his “advice” in the kitchen earlier. At least, I thought so. Zar, however, nodded along like he understood. So maybe it was just me.
“Come on,” Intezar said. “We came to find you because they’re serving dinner. Let’s eat. You know the food is always amazing here.”
“Yeah,” I said. “I’m sure it’s all right.”
Work the next day was super stressful but being around Chef Brodeur could be like that sometimes. I’d started working at Remarquable part-time three years ago, when I was sixteen. My mother knew the saucier somehow— often it seemed like she knew the whole world—and she’d told him how much I wanted to work in a restaurant.
He’d said they were looking for a dishwasher, and I’d jumped at the chance. Since then I’d been bumped up to a line cook, and last year to something like an apprentice. As such, I was required to learn every position in the kitchen. At least, that’s what I was told. So far as I could tell, I was the only apprentice the relatively small restaurant had ever had, so they were probably making the rules up as they went along.
Anyway, Chef Brodeur, a lean, hawk-eyed Frenchwoman, was sharp with her criticism, so days when you weren’t perfect could be rough. My coworkers said she wasn’t as tough on me as she was on them, but I think that only seemed true because I wasn’t considered worthy of the night shift.
Instead, I worked during lunch on the weekends, and sometimes helped prepare for the dinner rush, though I always had to be out by six. I kept waiting for Brodeur to tell me I was good enough to work at night, but that hadn’t happened yet.
Whatever. My toque was off, and I didn’t have to think about work for a while. Instead I tried to figure out what I’d make when I got home. It’d have to be something basic. My father wasn’t an adventurous eater. According to Ahmed Jilani, if you had to use your imagination to make it, it wasn’t really food.