Page 2 of Bows & Eros
Tick. Click. Tick. Click. Tick. Click.
Ding!
"How do youdothat?" Hazel Callaghan’s clicking heels came to a halt at the door to the classroom as she crossed her arms over her chest with a toothy grin. "It’s like clockwork, every day! Do I smell roses?"
"Mm," I nodded, blinking my eyes open and motioning her closer. "I just got a new package from home. Good morning, by the way.”
“Good morning, Noor,” Hazel responded, dimpling at me as she shrugged her coat off and hung it on the peg next to my door. “Ready for Family Fun Day?”
“I will be,” I said with a grimace. “After we have our tea.”
"Oh, blessMama-jaan," Hazel breathed, taking her customary seat across from me and sliding a crumbling shortbread round from the foil. She'd painted her nails an eye-watering day-glow purple that bounced the sunlight from the window into the foil and directly into my eyes. "One day I'll convince her to adopt me, Noor, and you’ll have to compete with me for these care packages."
"Ha." I chuckled into the rim of my teacup. "Mama-jaanwould lose her mind if she suddenly hadtwounmarried daughters to fret over. Just be grateful the mother you have isn’t constantly trying to marry you off."
“I'll take any help I can get," Hazel replied, flipping her shiny blonde hair over her shoulder. "Replacing coffee breath with rose petals is a good start, I guess, but I’m open to any and all wisdom she has to offer. Did I tell you that the last date I went on was at least twenty years older than his profile pictures?”
“Many times.”
She hesitated over her teacup and wrinkled her freckled nose. “He kept calling meyoung ladybetween slurps of clam chowder."
"Mm." I laughed. "Very seductive."
"Oh, very." She smirked at me, dipping one of the biscuits in her tea and whisking it out and into her mouth before it could break in half. After a pained swallow, she asked, "Are yousurewe shouldn't fish in the PTA pool?"
"Most of the PTA pool is married," I reminded her. “And we’re terrible fishermen.”
"Hasn't stopped them from asking you out," she retorted with a roll of her eyes. “Married fish have loose morals.”
"Yes, I shall never tire of hearing howexoticI am." I heaved a sigh, shaking my head. "Those eyes! That hair! That skin! Surely agirl like meenjoysdiscretion. Say, don’t they have harems where you’re from? Can you belly dance, Miss Avri?"
"Gross.” She sipped at her tea, tapping those garish fingernails against the ceramic as she considered it. “You should tattle on all of them,” she decided. “I would."
"I know you would."
She pulled a face, making me grin.
My brother had been so concerned about me being the only brown person in a small upstate village. He’d said a thousand times, as though I hadn’t heard him the first several hundred:Noor, you’ll be theonlyDesi person in town! Who will you talk to? Where will you shop? What will you eat?!
It made me laugh to think about it. He knew I was a rotten cook. He also knew I preferred a takeout menu to a fully stocked fridge any day.Dry cereal and microwave meals will be just as easy to find upstate, I’d said.
It wasn’t that I hadn’t been afraid of moving here all on my own. I had. What scared me was that in a village like Crete, everyone had known one another from the day they’d first saidgaga. How hard was it going to be to make friends or find a true confidante in a place where those jobs had already likely been tenured long ago?
I had gotten lucky, though. Hazel had given me a tour of the school on my very first day here, and we’d been inseparable ever since.
"What about Aaron Weaver's dad?" she asked coyly. "He's different. Dare I say DILFy? He’s successful, gorgeous ... hmm. Maybe I can suggest drinks during Family Fun Day. I should have baited the hook better. You think I have time to run home and change into that white dress?"
My smile deflated, replaced with a look of distaste. "I would be truly stunned if that man showed up today. I spent the entirety of last year begging him to come to a meeting about his son and he could never be bothered. Like I said, there's a reason they're single."
Hazel sighed, frowning at the cloud I'd imposed on our fun. "Well, there's probably a reason we are too."
"Mama-jaanwould agree," I said, choosing not to share any of my mother'sspecificopinions on why Hazel and I were unlucky in love—and there were many,manyreasons, all of which I had heard expounded upon at great length. Somehow, I didn't think either of us would find those opinions helpful. "Let's just enjoy the tea while we can, hm?"
"Hm," she agreed, somehow managing to squeeze sarcasm into that lone syllable.
Outside, the rumble of other cars pulling into the faculty lot had started to harmonize with the quiet winter hum of the morning.
Family Fun Day, I thought with a little snort.
