Page 7 of The Love Match

My stomach plummets.

Amma waves at a table hosting a familiar figure. I recognize her henna-red coif at once: Pushpita Emon, the woman we sat next to at Anika Afa’s wedding.

This is her restaurant.

“Oh no, Amma, tell me you didn’t…”

“Chup!” she hisses at me, even as a sweet simper greets our audience. “Assalamualaikum, Pushpita Afa!”

“What asurpriseto see you here.” Pushpita Khala’s overemphasis on the word “surprise” reveals it wasn’t much of one at all. “Why, you simply must sit with us. Nai ni, Mansif?” The well-dressed man next to her nods, inspecting us above thin, wire-rimmed bifocals.

“Ji na, I couldn’t impose,” Amma replies.

“Nonsense! It’s no imposition at all,” Pushpita Khala says. “Zoey”—this she directs at the hostess, who snaps to attention—“get Nadir to push our tables together, please.”

“Yes, ma’am!”

All too soon, we’re at a long, makeshift table with the Emons, all of us on one end, the two of them on the other. While my brother does his best to keep our hyperactive sister from crawling around under it seeking dropped quarters—a task that normally falls to me when we go anywhere, though tonight, Amma clearly has another mission in mind for me—I stare up at the ceiling.

Et tu, Allah?

As always, there’s no response.

Amma’s query fractures my reverie. “Are you dining alone?”

“No, our son, Harun, will be joining us soon.”

I slump into my chair.Of coursetheir son is joining us.

“There he is now!” Pushpita Khala says with a bright smile.

She and her husband rise from their seats to hustle over to a teenage boy waiting next to the hostess stand, whom I can only assume is the infamous Harun. With his parents in front of him, I can’t get a good look at his face, but I can tell he’s a good half foot taller than me, even while hunching over to speak to them.

After a brief but heated back-and-forth, Pushpita Khala snatches something off her son’s face and manhandles him over to the table, giving me my first proper glimpse of Harun. Tousled black curls that look as if he’s run his fingers through them one time too many do little to hide his dour expression or the firm set of his jawline. Renewed humiliation burns in my cheeks.

“Assalamualaikum,” he mutters.

Did you get ambushed into this too?I wonder, but my tongue sticks to the roof of my mouth, and I suddenly feel dizzy under the intensity of the lantern lights.

Not that my silence matters.

As if God is punishing me for my ungrateful whining, Resna barges out from under the table like a possessed Whack-a-Mole and asks, “Are you gonna marry my sister?”

“Resu!” I squeak, face red as a tomato.

Arif scrambles out of his seat to catch her, but she’s too slippery, chanting, “Zahra and Harun sittin’ in a tree, K-I-S-S-I-N-G—” while zipping between everyone’s legs.

By the time he gets ahold of her, the damage is already done. Harun ducks his head, refusing to make eye contact with me or anyone else. The adults, meanwhile, are guffawing at Resna’s antics. The conversation soon shifts to other topics without me. Withoutus. My unhappy date barely speaks unless spoken to, but no one else pays his reticence any mind, especially when platters overflowing with the menu’s specialties arrive.

They talk about—boastabout—all manner of things while stuffing their faces. Amma recounts the princess story for Harun’s father, who explains how he went from waiting at an Indian restaurant after first immigrating to the US to opening up Gitanjali with his brother.

“This is that very restaurant.” He smacks the table, a gold watch peeking out of his sleeve. “Now we’re planning to open another in Paterson itself.”

“Mashallah!” Amma gushes. “This is the most delicious meal I’ve had in ages.”

I almost choke on a bland bite of chicken marinated in a watery tomato-butter gravy. It’s not the worst tikka masala I’ve ever eaten, but it’s under-seasoned, probably to appeal to the palates of the white customers sitting around us.

Oblivious, my mother continues, almost wistfully, “You’ve done well for yourself, Mansif Bhai.”

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