Page 58 of The Love Match

“Ma, stop,” Harun cuts in, a note of genuine fluster creeping into his voice. “Zahra doesn’t care about stuff like that.”

In any other situation, I’d kill to hear every painstaking, blackmail-worthy detail about Harun twinning with his cousin, but I clear my throat and say, “Iamgetting hungry.”

“Oh, of course.” The way his mother deflates almost makes me tack on a compliment about how good everything smells out of guilt, but Pushpita Khala perks back up. “The others are on the way. I’d hoped we could all catch up on the patio before they arrived, but…”

ButHarun and me acting like spoiled brats ruined all her plans.

Good.

At least that meansourplans are going off without a hitch.

Chapter22

Sensing the imminent defeat ofTeam Parents, Amma strikes the next blow, but the waver of her voice betrays her nervousness. “You’ve worked so hard, Afa. Khoshto theelam. Can I help serve?”

Pushpita Khala shakes her head. “Na, khoshto arbar keetha? I prepared appetizers to tide us over until dinner. It wouldn’t be Eid without those, would it?”

She lifts the gold-plated lids off an array of painted ceramic tureens: cool, pink custard flecked with chunks of strawberries and bananas; mishti doi with a delicate crust of brown sugar and date molasses that must be cracked to reach the yogurt, steaming hot chotpoti with tamarind chutney, boiled egg halves, sliced onions, and whole chilis in smaller metal containers around the main bowl; shredded beef swimming in the golden broth of haleem.

So many appetizers, I could happily give up dinner for the rest of my life.

My stomach utters an unseemly grumble. Paying no mind to the heat that crawls up my neck, I grab one of the stacked, empty glass bowls next to the tureen containing custard and pour some of the dessert into it. A little sweetness will make this night a less bitter pill to swallow.

Pushpita Khala beams but hesitates before handing me a spoon. “Harun told me you don’t eat away from home often, Zahra. If you’re not comfortable using a dessert spoon, I can get you a ladle to sip out of? We wouldn’t want you to spill on that beautiful dress your mother made.”

Hanif’s thick brows vanish into his hairline. Mansif Khalu chokes on his own bite of haleem, but manages to cover it up with a sputtered, “Whatever Zahra prefers is fine.”

“What!” Amma exclaims, in time with Arif’s mouthed,Afa, what the heck?

Harun flashes me a smirk. The glower I shoot back at him is less fake than the others, although we both agreed we’d accept any humiliation levied tonight to make our disdain for one another appear that much more authentic.

Before my mother can disabuse the Emons of the misunderstanding, I push aside the offered spoon and slide my bowl closer, a patented Good Bangladeshi Daughter smile plastered on my soon-to-be-smudged lips. “Thank you, Khala. I prefer eating with my hands.”

“If Api is eating with her hands,” Resna announces, slamming a tiny fist, “I want to too!”

Amma buries her face in her palms.

Nanu cocks her head at me, as flabbergasted as anyone else, then says, in her best impression of a referee, “Zaynab, don’t fuss. Eating with our hands is the Bengali way.”

In spite of this, I note she and the rest of my familydoaccept spoons.

I almost regret not doing the same when I realize how slippery each fruit has become in the gloopy custard. It takes every bit of my hand-eye coordination not to stain my dress, but I stubbornly refuse to stop shoveling it into my mouth with my fingers, going so far as to lift the bowl to my lips to slurp out the last dregs.

Then I slam the bowl back down onto the table. In the reflective glass of the showcase across from me, I spy a mean custard-stache on my upper lip, accompanied by a slowly dripping custard-beard and a blot of custard on my nose.

Turning to Harun sweetly, I say, “Can you pass me some tissues from that roll over there? My napkin is already messed up.”

His face scrunches up in passable disgust at the grungy cloth I wave in front of it, but the faintest hint of a smothered laugh is at odds with his ire. “Why’re you asking me? They’re closer to you.”

“Zahra, shuna, let Amma help you,” my mother interrupts in a reed-thin voice I can tell is on the verge of snapping. She practically throws a wad of paper towels that she must have torn off the roll on the table while I was focused on Harun.

I bite my lip to keep from laughing.

It’s working! Operation Zahrun isfinallyworking!

We both know our parents enough to target their Achilles’ heels.

The Emons want a mild-mannered daughter-in-law from a reputable family, so the rest of the community stops looking down on them for their own checkered family history. Amma desperately wants a rich son-in-law who’ll take care of me.

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