I waited another hour before I gave in to the temptation of FaceTiming Mariam. But screw it. I felt justified. She’d made me promise I’d resist for her sake, because free video calling was illegal on her end, whatever the platform, even Skype. (Needless to say, my attempts to instruct her on how to circumvent this failed. She was hopeless. VPN, girl! It’s easy!) Maybe it was a mistake to wait. It was past midnight her time. I was almost positive she wouldn’t pick up. I listened to the dial and waited for video.
Audio came on first. “Mariam?!”
“YOU!” she shrieked in delight. In that moment, her face filled the screen.
I hadn’t seen her since we’d said goodbye.
In a way it was lucky the sudden lump in my throat kept me from talking. I couldn’t tell her what happened. Best not to. Besides, she looked so happy. Why ruin a glow I missed so much? I kept my brace and crutches out of frame.
She got right into it, jabbering away. Everyone was well. Her father was finally happy. His new practice was kicking ass. It was apparently much easier to fast in a Muslim majority country. Not that I would know either way. “And no idiot bigots! Only rich people with back pain!” Her new school seemed cool. Well, with caveats. “Weird, though, like…linguistically. My teachers are from Scotland, and Australia, and New Zealand, and I can’t understand them. My math teacher is the worst. He’s a Kiwi and sounds like a rugby player who got all his teeth knocked out. I’m like, ‘Wait, we’re speaking the same language, aren’t we?’ Oh, get this: I’m a total anomaly. All the kids here ask me to talk ‘American.’ ”
When she finally took a breath to pause, I wasn’t sure what to say.
In the silence, she sighed. “Problem is, I’ve got nobody there like you. I never will.”
It was an offhand line. But it was exactly what I’d craved to hear. Our moon was still full.
Luckily, before I could start bawling, she was off again on another tangent. I forced myself to recover. Her only real complaint—aside from the lack of an insta-friendship with a Salma B. clone—was that there weren’t any boys as cute as Amir.
“Or as funny,” she lamented.
The old Salma B., her Mason Terrace BFF, was back. I smirked into the phone. “Give it time. At least another week. Want me to hack the school database? Maybe I can find a boy you missed.”
“You know, there is this one teacher…”
“Mariam!” I laughed.
“I’m kidding. That’s super-haram.”
We hung up promising to check in with each other through any means (legal or illegal), at least twice a month. “Until the future.”
This actually used to mean something. It meant Boston. Mariam had applied to BU; I applied to MIT. Vanessa…well, Vanessa wasn’t sure she was ready for college. She wanted to take a gap year. Amir, of course, took his sweet time agreeing to the “plan,” but eventually he did—thanks to Epstein, who reminded him that the New England Conservatory of Music had a top string program. The latter point appealed more to Epstein than Amir, because I think Epstein secretly wants to be a teen again. But whatever, it worked. Amir applied. There was a plan. We were supposed to stay together.
* * *
—
Later I found out that Mariam already knew what happened. And that Amir had told her. And that they had conspired with Vanessa, who then conspired with Lisa, to plan what followed next.
At 12:04 a.m., Amir texted with a cryptic message:
I’m asking you a favor. The sucky part: You need to go upstairs and open your front door.
Seconds later, I heard a car outside. It loitered for a minute, then sped away.
I was touched, intrigued, but also mildly annoyed. Amir knew the nature of my injury. He knew what he was asking. This was going to be a pain in the ass. Well, a pain in the leg.
On the other hand, everyone was asleep.
Slowly, cautiously, I limped upstairs.
When I opened the door, I found a vase of fresh flowers on the stoop: a bouquet of lilies and baby’s breath. The fragrance filled the hallway. Once I managed to close the door, I allowed myself to take a deep intoxicating whiff. It was only when I opened my eyes that I noticed the small card strung around the vase.
WITH LOVE FROM MARIAM, VANESSA, DORA AND BOOTS, AMIR, AND EDWARD NORTON
My phone dinged: another text from Amir.
Tomorrow morning I’m asking you one more favor.
I didn’t even realize I’d started crying until a tear splashed on the screen.
Ready for it. Thank you.
In a delirium, I hobbled into the kitchen to set the flowers down. My mom had left her laptop open on the table, which was unusual for her. I touched the pad to revive the screen.
There I saw an unsent email in progress to Principal Philip.
I am writing on behalf of my daughter, who was attacked on the Franklin premises. I am outraged that I haven’t heard from you. We are not litigious, though in this case we certainly have every right to be. Above all, I am deeply shocked and saddened. Your silence signals tacit approval of bigotry at your school. My daughter’s pre-calculus teacher enabled a fellow student, Michelle Mayor, to
That was all.
It was enough. I wiped another tear away. Mom wasn’t broken at all.
I WASN’T SURE what to expect the next morning. The muffled purr of cars pulling in and out, the thump of doors closing—these noises generally don’t register during breakfast, as it’s the only time Mason Terrace ever consistently has traffic. So when I opened the door to hobble to the bus, I was genuinely surprised to see Amir’s white Volkswagen Jetta. I giggled like one of my sisters. I couldn’t help it. He stepped out of it with a big fake show of being gentlemanly.
He placed his hand over his heart and bowed. “Here I am, at your service.”
“Okay, I get you’re being ridiculous,” I said. “But this is totally out of your way. And don’t you usually practice oud right now?”
Amir waved his hand dismissively. “Not an issue,” he said.
That was BS. He loved his oud like I loved my computer.
“Your bag and crutches, my sweet?”