“What’s the weather like outside?”
“Not too bad today.”
“Not too bad today.”
She grins at my accent, until I turn the tables on her and ask her to speak in Urdu. Her accent is so bad it’s like she’s acting in a spy movie whose trailer I sometimes catch on Sahib Ji’s television. I dissolve into giggles again, each bout of laughter easier than the one before it.
“What are you laughing about?” She pretends to be offended.
I shake my head, holding my sides. “You don’t know much Urdu, do you?”
She sticks out her tongue at me, a habit she seems to have. “No, but I know a little bit of Spanish from school and Korean from my friend Zoe. Hola. ¿Cómo estás?”
I pause and stare at her, my laughter gone. “You learn different languages at school?”
She nods. “Hola is Spanish for ‘hello.’ Or . . . salaam, I guess.”
I file this in my brain for future reference. “Hola. Salaam. Hello. Now I know how to say this in three languages.”
She beams at me like a proud amma. “Excellent! You’ll pass that test in no time!”
I’m pretty sure she has no idea what she’s talking about, but her smile reaches out and touches my heartstrings in just the right way. “So tell me more about your school,” I say.
“What do you want to know?” She shrugs as if it’s such a boring, unimportant thing. “It’s just like any other school.”
Sometimes I wonder about this girl. “I haven’t been to school, so I wouldn’t know what that’s like,” I say.
I try not to sound harsh, but my bitterness must show because she immediately looks downcast. “Oh, yeah, sorry.” She taps her pencil to her chin, thinking. “Well, it’s a big brown building with lots of rooms to study in. And long hallways with lockers for the older kids . . .”
“What are lockers?”
Her brow wrinkles as if working on a puzzle. “Uh, they look like narrow closets with locks on the doors, and each student gets one to keep all his or her books and stuff inside. Lots of elementary schools don’t have them, but mine was different.”
I try to imagine rows of closets with books and stuff inside. I’m dying to know what stuff is, but she already thinks I’m stupid. Then she adds, “For example, in my locker I have a mirror to check my hair, and a few stuffed animals in case I’m having a bad day at school, and a bag of peanut M&M’s for when I’m hungry. And all my notebooks, of course.”
The pictures dance through my mind, and I let out a sigh. “What else?”
“Hmm, let’s see. There’s a music room with all sorts of instruments on the walls, and an art room with a ton of paints and crayons, and there’s a gym where we play sports.”
“What’s your favorite sport?” I ask. “I heard that American girls love to play tennis.”
She gives me a strange look. “Tennis? No, thank you! I like soccer the best, but we have to go outside into the public field across the street to play that.”
On the way home, Abba wants to know what I’ve been up to with Mimi all afternoon. “You were so distracted, Sakina,” he shouts over the noise of the traffic swirling around us. “That’s not like you.”
“Mimi was telling me about her school in America,” I shout back, smiling a little into his back.
“School? What do you care about school?”
My smile slips away. “Nothing,” I mumble.
He’s silent the rest of the way. We reach home, and he parks his motorcycle on one side of our verandah while I lock the door behind us. Jammy rushes up and clings to his legs, shouting, “Abba! Abba!”
Amma is bent over the stove, sweat running down her face. “Dinner is almost ready,” she calls out. “Wash your faces, get that grime of the roads off, and sit down.”
I know she means only Abba. My job is still not done. I go to help her with the chai, but Abba pulls me back. “Listen, Sakina. There’s no point in learning too much about how those Americans live. It will only make you unhappy with your own lot in life.”
I want to tell him it’s too late: I’ve been unhappy for a long time. But I look away and nod. He will never understand, nor will Amma.
It’s only at night, when everyone is asleep, that I let my imagination run wild. I lie awake next to Jammy’s warm little body, imagining Mimi’s beautiful school. I run on the field where she plays soccer, which is Pakistani football. In the art room, I draw her and me laughing together, and I sit in a classroom listening to a white, golden-haired teacher give lessons in English. And finally, I go into the hallway to my locker, where in the middle of all my English books is a glass bowl full of peanut M&M’s.
11
Mimi
Unwanted Guests
“Where on earth is your mother, Mimi?” Nani asks as I come down the stairs from my bedroom a couple of days later around noon. She looks even more vexed than usual, if that’s possible. She’s draped in a bright orange sari decorated with white sequins, and her hair is a perfect bun encased in a black lace shell. Around her bony arms, a multitude of silver bangles glint in the midmorning light.
“Um, she’s gone out somewhere in a taxi,” I say. “As usual.”
“Again?”
I make a face. “Don’t complain to me, I’m as mad about it as you are! This was supposed to be our summer vacation, but she hardly ever takes me with her when she goes to all these mysterious places.”
Nani is patting at her hair, and I’m distracted by all her bling. “Why are you dressed up?” I ask.
Her hand stops. “Why are you not dressed up? We have guests coming soon, your mother is nowhere to be found, and you are wearing . . . that!”
I look down at myself. True, my T-shirt is a bit threadbare, and has a picture of Cookie Monster asking WHY YOU DELETE COOKIES? but that’s no reason to get mad at me. I had no idea we were having guests. “I’ll go and change into my orange shalwar kameez,” I tell her brightly. “You and I can entertain the guests together, all matchy-matchy.”
She looks at me as if I’ve lost my mind and marches away, shouting “Tahira! Is the drawing room dusted properly yet for my cousins’ arrival? If I find you sitting on your behind chatting with the cook when I get there, I will fire you!”
Alarmed, I run back up the stairs to change. I rummage in my suitcase and pull out the only shalwar kameez I brought with me from Houston, an orange embroidered cotton tunic with white pants we’d found on a trip to the Indian supermarket before last Eid. The lady in the store had called out, “Buy one, get one half-price,” in her thick Indian accent, and Mom had ended up buying a red-and-gold ensemble for herself too, only she has never worn hers.
It takes me all of five minutes to get dressed, not having all the fancy accessories Nani owns, so I take out my journal.
Dear Dad,
Let’s play a game of what’s your favorite. Do you know how to play it? I ask a question about your favorite something, and you have to respond with the first thing that comes to mind. Quick, what’s your favorite clothes? I bet it’s T-shirts with corny sayings on them. Me too. What’s your favorite food? Pizza? Cheeseburgers? I have to admit chicken pulao is getting to be on top of my list. It’s yummy but not spicy.