Page 55 of The Love Match

Nayim cocks his head and both brows, then glances over at the box of ingredients he abandoned. “I suppose I’d better sort out my errands too, before Mr. Tahir comes back and chews me out for slacking off.”

“Wouldn’t that be tragic?” comes Harun’s snarky reply.

“Are you okay?” I ask him. “You’re being moodier and more monosyllabic than usual.”

There’s no way the roof of his mouth isn’t peeling right now, but he turns to me with the subtlest approximation of a smile. “Peachy. We’re still on for Operation Zahrun tomorrow at my folks’ Eid party, right?”

Wordlessly, I nod, and his jaw tightens.

“What’s that?” Nayim peers between us.

Before I can figure out if I imagined Harun’s injured expression or decipher what it means, it’s replaced by one that veers on smug. He claps Nayim on the bicep as he heads toward the exit. “Inside joke. Don’t worry about it.”

A bewildered Nayim glances at me next, but I only shrug, not yet ready to tell him everything that happened last night because I don’t want to hurt his feelings. I know firsthand how much it stings when you’re told you’re not good enough.

“It’s not a big deal,” I say. “You should finish with the inventory.”

For a few seconds, Nayim considers me with such serious intensity that I break out into a sweat. It’s clear that even if he wasn’t suspicious about my relationship with Harun earlier, my cold shoulder and Harun’s caginess have changed that. I want to admit everything, but the explanation snags in my throat, chased by the hope that it will be easier after tomorrow.

At least, that’s what I tell myself after both boys leave me to my thoughts and I get back to work and try to figure out what the hell just happened.

Chapter21

When I was a kid,I would rise with the sun for Eid, sneak into my parents’ bedroom, and crawl under their blanket while they slept, oblivious to the fact that they’d only just returned to bed after morning prayers.

I couldn’t help it.

The whole house smelled different during Eid, of fresh dhonia fatha, dried thez fatha, and other herbs; the spiced beef minced or braised for somosas, biryani, and haleem; the eggs that were boiled alongside roasting chicken for kurmas and chickpeas for chotpoti.

In the days preceding it, Amma and Nanu would let us kids crimp the edges of naikol fitas once they filled the pastry with coconut or cut shapes into the turmeric-yellow dough for lobonor fitas. When they weren’t looking, my brother and I would grab fistfuls of the salty dough to eat raw, until they chased us away, giggling, with wooden spoons.

It was like swallowing sunshine.

Although we were too excited to sleep the night before, the whole world would wake for Eid. Visitors and video calls would pervade our apartment with cheery cries of “Eid Mubarak.” Baba and Amma’s cousins in Bangladesh would WhatsApp them pictures of the cattle they’d purchased for Eid al-Adha.

We’d dress up and visit others, eat till our bellies burst, and go to the masjid for jamaat, returning home after midnight carried in our parents’ arms, with treats and money that cooing adults had pressed into our fists after pinching our cheeks red.

These are some of my loveliest memories.

But as you get older, holidays lose their wonderment.

Amma’s done her best to rally us in the years since Baba’s death, for Resna’s sake, and the Tahirs always welcome me with open arms to celebrate with them. But if it weren’t for my sister’s innocent anticipation and the increase in the chores expected of me around then, I’m not sure I’d remember Eid al-Adha anymore.

At least for the Ruzar Eid, Eid al-Fitr, breaking the monthlong fast feels noteworthy, but the Kurbanir Eid is yet another day in America, even in a place like Paterson.

That’s why it feels so strange to be standing in front of Amma’s bedroom mirror now, the ruffled skirt of my multicolored lehenga swishing over my ankles like the train of a peacock’s feathers. Rather than spend the night cooking, my mother and grandmother pieced this outfit together for me by repurposing scraps of the bride-zolad’s fabric so I could steal the show at the Emons’, but enthusiasm and hunger don’tflutter in my belly today, only drunken butterflies I attribute to the beaded bodice being too tight.

Amma comes up behind me and puts her chin on my shoulder, lighting up at my reflection. “Do you like it?”

I almost shake her off, but her sallow cheeks give me pause. Although I’m angry at what she’s forcing me to do, it’s become a weary sort of anger, a flame doused in a bottle, and it won’t serve me well to unleash the smoke yet.

Remember the plan,I remind myself, nodding as I say aloud, “Everything you make is lovely, but Harun and I have been trying this dating thing for weeks now and…”

My already crimson bottom lip flushes darker when I trap it between my teeth. Her gaze travels to it at once, like I expected it to. Her sigh reverberates down my back. “And? I hoped you two were getting along. If this is because of that other boy—”

There it is.

“This has nothing to do with Nayim!” I pivot in her arms, eyes big and solemn. “I know you like that the Emons have money, and that they want a princess-in-law, but Harun hates me.”

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