She only responded to about five of my texts, but I couldn’t really blame her for that.
Chyna was already at the front door when I arrived, ringing the bell and waving at Ammu while she backed out of the driveway with one eye on me the entire time.
“Hey,” Catherine said after flinging open the door. She was smiling at me tight-lipped, and I immediately knew the answer to half of my texts. Chyna hadn’t told Catherine she was bringing me. It wasn’t okay for me to come.
But I was there already, my hands full of bags, my Ammu already halfway home, and there was nothing I could do. So I swallowed my pride and stepped inside, mumbling a half-hearted, “happy birthday!” and thrusting a present into Catherine’s hands.
Chyna fit into the party like the final piece in a puzzle. I fit into the party like somebody really bad at puzzles had tried to super glue a piece in out of frustration.
For a while I hovered around the edges of the party, watching Chyna be the life of it.
I texted Priti, pretending that my phone was the most interesting thing to ever exist.
This party is awful, I want to leave!!!
Priti texted back, you have to stick it out, it’s your first party with those girls!! YOU’LL BE OKAY!
I squeezed in next to Chyna mid-conversation.
“Hi!” I tried to be bright and bubbly like I’d seen Chyna be with other people. On her, it was charming. On me? Pathetic, maybe. That’s what I gauged from the way everyone in that room looked at me, with smiles that didn’t reach their eyes.
“Oh, this is … Nishat.” Chyna was smiling the exact same sort of smile as the others. She waved a hand at me as if everybody couldn’t see me clearly. As if my brown skin didn’t set me apart like a question mark in a sea of full stops.
“Nesha, hi, I’m Paulie,” a girl with bright red hair said, sticking out her hand like we were middle-aged moms and not twelve- and thirteen-year-olds.
“Uh, hi. It’s Ni-shat.”
“Neesha.”
“Nishat.” I tried again.
A wrinkle appeared on her forehead, like pronouncing my name was a difficult math problem she couldn’t quite get right.
“Hey, can I talk to you for a sec?” Chyna was already pulling me up and away from the crowd of girls before I managed to reply to her. She pulled me into a corner of the hall, right by the door. I remember seeing a reflection of the sunset on Chyna’s face—gold and orange and red.
“I think you should go.”
I frowned. “You invited me here.”
“It was a mistake. I thought it’d be okay but I think Catherine just said I could bring a friend to be nice.”
“But I’m already here.”
“Yeah, well, you can make up an excuse and leave. Tell Catherine you’re feeling sick, I’m sure she’ll get it.”
“What about you?” I asked. I didn’t think both of us could pretend to be sick and get away with it. “You’ll tell her you need to go with me, to make sure I’m okay?”
Something passed over Chyna’s face. A shadow, or maybe just the sunlight on its way down. But there was a shift. Not just in her expression, but in the air around us.
“I’m not coming with you.”
“Why not?” But even as I asked it, reality was dawning on me. Chyna had found her place, and her place here didn’t—and couldn’t—include me. I was being thrown out into the cold. Literally, because it was about thirty seven degrees outside despite it being September.
“I can’t go. That would be impolite.”
“Oh,” I said, even though it made no sense. “I guess I’ll call my mom and—”
But Chyna was already turning around, already slipping into the sitting room, already grinning like she was glad to be rid of me.
As I called Ammu to pick me up, I could hear Chyna recounting the story that made her fit right into that clique of girls.
“So why is your name Chyna?” It was redheaded Paulie that asked the question. “I’ve never met anyone with such a unique name before.”
I would have rolled my eyes into the back of my head if my hands weren’t shaking as the ring-ring-ring of the phone kept fading in and out with no indication of Ammu picking up anytime soon.
“My mom went to China after she finished university, to teach English. And that was where she met my dad. They stayed there for about a year, dating, so it was like the place where they fell in love, and they decided to name me after it.”
There was a round of awwws, and Chyna’s face lit up.
“Have you ever been?” Catherine asked.
“Not yet, but Mom and Dad promised that someday soon we’ll go so I can see for myself!”
“That’s so exciting.”
Ammu finally picked up the phone. She agreed to swing back around and pick me up, though she didn’t sound happy about it. Surprisingly, Catherine came to see me off, though she still wore that tight-lipped smile.
“Shame you couldn’t stay, we were going to watch a horror movie,” she said, turning the lock so she could open the door. “I guess it’s bound to happen though, with the food you eat.”
“Excuse me?”
“Chyna said … you know, because Indian people eat so much spicy food, you had …” She leaned down to whisper the next words, like they were a dirty secret. “Some digestive issues.”
“I don’t have … I’m not …” But my words got lost because the next minute Catherine had opened up the front door and was pushing me out with a cheery wave of her hand.
That was how the rumor that my father’s restaurant gave people diarrhea started, and spread around the whole school.
It was also the last day Chyna and I were friends.
7
I DON’T HAVE ANY CLASSES WITH FLÁVIA IN THE MORNING. At lunchtime I watch out for her, but when I catch her sitting down with Chyna and her posse I quickly put an end to my roaming eyes.
Chaewon and Jess share one of their curious looks, and I’m sure that it’s about me, but I pretend not to notice.
At the end of the day, the three of us stroll into our Business class. Even though it’s only the first day of the school year it already feels like we’ve been here forever, and I’m restless for the end-of-school bell to ring.
“The front?” Chaewon asks, resting her bag on the row of tables right in front of the teacher’s desk—the seats that everybody detests but Chaewon adores for some reason.
Jess is already sidling into the back row, apparently done with sitting through teacher scrutiny at the front of the class. Chaewon purses her lips tightly but she doesn’t complain. The two of us slip into chairs beside Jess, pulling our Business books out of our bags.
“Which teacher do you think we’ll have for Business?” Jess leans forward on her desk to whisper to us as a slew of students trickle in, the sound of their chatter filling up the room.
“Ms. Montgomery, maybe?” Chaewon asks hopefully. Ms. Montgomery used to teach us Business back in First Year, and she always had the most creative ways of teaching. She made us think about everything practically instead of just making us read through the book and do exercises. Her classes were always just … fun. Although that was something First Year Business could afford to be. First Year was when exams seemed impossibly far away.