“Of course.Nesha,right?” She asks it like she hasn’t spent the last three years spreading racist rumors about me around the school. Like we weren’t friends once.
“Nishat.” I give her a smile of my own, but it probably doesn’t look very friendly.
“Come on in.” She opens the door wider and allows the two of us to step inside.
“Happy birthday!” Priti says brightly once Chyna has closed the door behind her. She thrusts a pretty floral bag at Chyna and throws her arms around her neck. It’s an awkward, uncomfortable hug; even before Chyna and Priti disentangle from each other I wonder what exactly Priti was thinking.
Chyna smiles. “Thanks. I think Ali is around here somewhere. The kitchen, maybe.”
“Great, I’m going to go … find her.” Priti gives me a look, her eyebrows raised asking if I’m joining her as she turns around. I’m about to follow but Chyna says, “nice sweater,” and I stop.
I look down at my plain black sweater and smile.
“Thanks.” I’m not sure if she’s being serious or mocking.
“I saw your new Instagram account. About your henna business?”
I sigh.
“You’re not going to do better than us, you know. Flávia is the best artist in our entire school. You really think you can beat her? You don’t even take art as a subject anymore.”
I dropped the subject after First Year, opting for Home Economics and Business instead. Art, at least the form of it we learned in school, was definitely not my forte. But henna isn’t a form of art we learned in school. It’s something I’ve been brought up with, and I’m not about to back down just because Chyna thinks she and Flávia have some form of claim over it.
“We’ll see,” I say with the politest smile I can muster.
Chyna smiles back before sauntering off toward one of the rooms with music blasting from it, leaving me alone in the empty hallway. I take a deep breath and lean back against the off-white wall.
Chyna’s house is not like I imagined it. It’s sparse and clean and empty, or at least this part of it is. It barely looks lived in. It’s so vastly different from our house, which is brimming with things: knick-knacks and photos, old toys that Priti and I used to play with years ago but are too sentimental to throw out, and the things we always pick up when we go to Bangladesh—a silver rickshaw, a wooden baby taxi, stitched dolls of brides and grooms, a dhol, a latim. So many things sprawling and spreading everywhere.
I take another deep breath and walk toward the door Priti disappeared through. The brightly lit kitchen is already filled with people chatting and eating and drinking. A few of them look up as I enter. I recognize most of them from school, but not all of them. They don’t seem bothered by the presence of someone new. Priti and Ali are in the corner, their heads bowed together.
I hesitate for a moment, wondering if I should interrupt whatever conversation they’re in the middle of. Then I remember that if it wasn’t for Priti, I would be home in bed right now, wearing my PJs and binge-watching a show on Netflix. I march right over.
“Hey!”
They break apart and turn to me, Ali with a frown on her lips and Priti looking sheepish.
“Hey Nishat.” Ali’s pale red hair, which is usually straight, is falling in curls around her face. It looks almost exactly like Priti’s. I wonder if they planned this, or if they’re so close that these things simply happen. Like they have some kind of telepathy going on.
“Most of your classmates are in the sitting room, I think?” Ali says.
I know a brush off when I hear one, but I still glance at Priti, wondering if she’ll ask me to stay. After all, she asked me to come. But she says nothing. She doesn’t even look at me; she just stares at the ground. At her pretty pink shoes and the cream-colored tiles.
“I guess I’ll head over there, then,” I mumble, turning away. I feel a hole opening up inside me. I wouldn’t have come to this party if I’d known this was how things were going to go.
I guess I shouldn’t be totally surprised though. Ali and Priti might be best friends, but Ali’s never been my biggest fan. I always chalked it up to jealousy; Priti and I are close, obviously, and in the teen scheme of things—where you need that one BFF, the one you share half a heart necklace with—I’m Ali’s competition. If I’m honest, maybe I’m a little jealous of Ali too.
Slipping away, I peek through a crack in the door of the sitting room. It’s much fuller than the kitchen. I recognize more girls from school, but there are still so many who aren’t familiar to me; they must be from other schools, I’m guessing. And then there are all the boys, with pimples all over their cheeks and foreheads and AXE body spray so strong that my nostrils are overpowered from outside the room.
I spot Flávia and Chyna in a corner with a group of boys. Flávia is looking at one tall guy with messy blonde hair with particular interest. She has an arm on his shoulder and is listening to him speak intently, though how she can hear him over the persistentthump thump thumpof the music is beyond me.
I can’t help it; I feel my stomach drop even though my little crush on Flávia is supposed to have disappeared. I guess it’s not that simple to get over someone. I still have a thing for Taylor Swift, after all—even though I hate all of her white feminism nonsense.
Maybe this is good for me. Flávia is not only okay with stealing my henna ideas, she’s also not interested in me. She’s interested in a gangly, pimply lad who is definitelynotin her league. I guess I shouldn’t judge, because I’m not in her league either.
I close the door and edge away from the sitting room, trying to get the image of Flávia and that guy out of my head. Even though they weren’t doing anything, there was definitely some kind of attraction. I could see it in the way she was looking at him. The way she was touching him. The wayhewas looking ather.God, when did I become this girl? Obsessing over someone I never had a shot with anyway?
I sit down at the bottom of the stairs, halfway between the kitchen and the sitting room, and slip my phone out of my pocket.
