That night, I tossed and turned in my stuffy bedroom, my skin sticky with sweat and contemplated sleeping downstairs like my parents had been doing. The windows were wide open – no doubt all sorts of spiders and mosquitoes were taking up residence in my room – and thoughts of Zakariya and Noah kept turning over and over in my mind.
I hadn’t heard from Noah since that awful drive back from the airport when he all but threw me out of the car. The strange thing was, I wasn’t broken. I missed him and I missed all the possibilities for the future that our relationship had held, but I knew what the stakes were when I told him the truth about the list and I was ready to pay the price for it. If I was being completely honest, I wasn’t that into him, which made me feel rather pathetic. I think I was more into his incredibly good looks than anything else. The truth was, we didn’t connect on an intellectual, spiritual or emotional level. If I had been getting it on with him and enjoying his spectacular body, it would have been worth it . . . but I wasn’t even doing that, so what was the point?
‘Why did I continue with it when I knew that he wasn’t the right one?’ I had asked Fareena once it became clear that I wouldn’t be hearing from him again. He disappeared from all my social media without a trace and yes, I experienced a pang of . . . something. Disappointment. Embarrassment. Loneliness. But it certainly wasn’t heartbreak.
‘But you didn’t, did you?’ she said gently. ‘When you told him the truth, you overcame your need to feel wanted and the desire for companionship. You realised that you couldn’t find the new when you were still holding onto the old, so you let go.’
‘The new? There is no “new”.’
‘Maybe not right now, but it’s there. All this time you’ve been shackled by Noah’s list. And yes, a lot of good came out of it, you experienced new things, you developed self-esteem, but you were using it as a crutch. Now the list has gone, Noah has gone, it’s time to find your own new things. It’s time for your own truth.’
It was a nice sentiment, but I didn’t have time to find my own truth. It was Pretty’s nikah in a couple of weeks and there was still so much to do. As joint chief bridesmaids (don’t ask), Pinky and I found ourselves lumbered with a mammoth list of things to organise, from planning an epic bridal shower to organising the mehndi night to putting together all the favours. It was beyond time-consuming, but at least it kept my mind off other things. And this wasn’t the big shebang; it was the Islamic ceremony to make them legit in the eyes of God so they could hang out the halal way. The big, fat Bengali wedding was going to take place the following spring.
Now that Arabic classes were over for the summer holidays and Zakariya was getting ready to leave for Dubai in less than a month, we hadn’t had the opportunity to see each other. Every night I’d pick up my phone to text him to see if we wanted to meet before he left and every time I’d chicken out and put it back down, my heart contracting as I did. With his imminent departure and some other girl on the scene, what was the point?
On the day of Pretty’s mehndi, Pinky and I spent the morning at the venue in east London making sure the events team set up the decor properly. Pretty wanted a traditional Bangladeshi-style henna party, which meant lots of flowers and brightly coloured sarees draped to look like decorations. The dress code for the event was yellow and as per our Bridezilla’s instructions, Pinky and I had to wear matching sarees, along with their first cousins from their mum’s side.
As the nikah was going to be a simple, holy affair at the mosque, Pretty wanted the mehndi to be the complete opposite: a DJ, dancing, shisha, the lot of it. Pinky and I therefore spent all of our free time trying to make her vision come alive and as I stood back and surveyed the scene, I decided that we had succeeded.
The hall was packed with friends and relatives; aunties dressed in colourful jamdani and kathan sarees were huddled around the tables, enjoying biryani, tea and their favourite past-time: gossiping. If they weren’t boasting about their offspring, they were keeping their beady eyes peeled for an unsuspecting future daughter-son-in-law. A handful of uncles in either traditional cotton shalwar kameez or casual shirts and trousers sat in the opposite corner of the hall, chewing paan stuffed with betelnuts and talking politics, religion and basically all the topics white people considered bad form at weddings.
Meanwhile, kids were sweating on the bouncy castle, teenage girls self-consciously shimmied on the periphery of the dancefloor to the latest Bhangra beats, teenage boys watched them from afar and the rest of us did a bit of all the above. I found it hilariously ironic that we were never allowed to go clubbing, but it was fine to turn the ancient tradition of applying henna to a bride into a nightclub.
‘Pretty looks stunning, doesn’t she?’ I breathed in awe to my mum, as I watched my cousin sitting on the stage, her arms spread out as the mehndi artists decorated her pale, buttery skin with intricate henna designs. She wore a classic Bangladeshi green and gold saree and had red flowers trailing all the way down her curled hair. Instead of sitting on a regal sofa like most brides, she sat on the floor like they used to do back in the day, on a luxurious silk carpet surrounded by patterned Aarong cushions. She looked like something out of a colonial-style Bangladeshi poster, right down to her dark, kohl-rimmed eyes.
Ma had dressed me in the yellow and gold chiffon the bridal party were all wearing and helped me fasten little flowers in my hair, which we had styled into a chic updo. Like Pinky, I wore a deep red lipstick and a golden tikli sat majestically down my middle parting. Fake lashes and bangles completed the look and I had to admit that I looked pretty amazing. Until I moved. My movements were restricted by how tightly Ma had wrapped the nine yards of cloth around me, secured by safety pins everywhere so I had to shuffle rather than walk, trying my best not to trip over the pleats. When I was stationary, I looked elegant, but as soon as I began to walk, I turned from swan to duckling, yellow feathers and all.
‘She does look beautiful,’ Ma agreed. ‘Now come, I want you to meet your Lilly khala, she’s looking for a bride for her nephew, you know.’
‘Ma!’ I moaned as she pulled me across the room. ‘I’m not ready to do this whole biodata thing all over again.’
‘Well, get ready,’ my mother said curtly. ‘That was the agreement.’
My mum all but dragged me over to the potential mother-in-law and plastered a fake smile all over her face.
‘Assalaamu alaikum Lilly Affa, bala asoinni?’ Ma greeted the aunty. ‘This is my daughter, Maya. Maya, this is your Lilly khala.’
‘Asaalaamu Alaikum khala,’ I squeaked, as Ma pushed me forward to allow me to be inspected by this woman who had an eligible nephew. The aunty began interrogating me about what I did and when I mentioned that I was going back to uni to do my LLM, Ma elbowed me so sharply she almost poked a hole in me. The last thing she wanted was people knowing I had commitments for the next year.
Surprisingly, Lilly khala didn’t seem put out that I had aspirations that went beyond getting married and popping out babies. She gestured for me to sit down next to her and asked me about the course, where I hoped it would take me, what I liked doing for fun. The conversation was easy.
‘See? That wasn’t so bad, was it?’ Ma stage-whispered when we walked away ten minutes later. ‘You did so well! I bet she’s going to call to arrange a dekha dekhi soon!’
‘Don’t arrange anything until I’ve seen his biodata, please,’ I warned Ma as her pupils practically morphed into hearts right before me. Ma spotted another distant relative’s cousin’s wife’s aunt or something and disappeared to talk to her, so I took the opportunity to duck outside for a breather.
The night was sticky and humid and the faint sounds of Coke Studio Bangla could be heard through the closed doors of the venue. The heat, together with the music and scent of biryani, made me feel as though I was in Bangladesh. Not that I knew what being at a Bangladeshi wedding in Bangladesh was like; I hadn’t been since I was seven years old. But this was exactly how I imagined it: the smells, the sounds, the air, the heat. Leaning back against the cool of the steel fire exit door, I closed my eyes. In two days, Pretty was going to get married. Pinky was going to lose her identical twin sister. I was going to lose a friend. But I was hoping rather than an immense loss, we were going to gain a new brother.
‘Maya?’
His voice brushed against my ears, causing the flesh on my bare arms to instantly prickle in anticipation, interrupting my thoughts in the most delicious way. Taking a deep breath, I tried to compose myself as I opened my eyes.
‘Hey, Zak, salaams,’ I said quietly, a tremor in my voice as I stepped away from the wall and turned to face him. He was wearing a jet-black kurta with black embroidery along the neck and baggy black shalwar trousers. He looked dashing, like the hero of a Bollywood movie, and I felt my stomach twist and turn like a blender as he stared down at me. Why had I never noticed before how kind his eyes were? His expression may have been in a permanent state of sullen indifference, but his eyes were different. They were so expressive. Forget being windows to his soul, they were like trapdoors that you could fall through if you weren’t careful.
‘How are you?’ I managed to croak.
‘Tired,’ he shrugged. ‘I’ve been packing all week. Can’t believe I’m flying out in a couple of weeks. You look nice, by the way.’
‘Thank you,’ I replied dully, looking down at the ground. ‘I can’t believe you’re leaving so soon either. How do you feel?’
‘Excited. Nervous. What about you? Are you ready to start your course in a few weeks?’
‘As ready as I’ll ever be,’ I shrugged. ‘My workplace is making things hard for me, so I’m handing in my resignation on Monday.’
‘What? That’s big.’ Zak looked taken aback by my admission and ran a hand through his hair.
‘It is,’ I sighed. ‘But I want to do my LLM full-time. I don’t want it to drag over two years. My manager’s refusing to be flexible so . . .’ I let my sentence trail off.
‘So . . .’ he repeated thoughtfully. ‘Why are you in such a hurry to finish the course? What’s the rush?’
‘There’s no rush,’ I lied. ‘I want to be able to move on with my life, that’s all. I don’t want to long it out unnecessarily.’ I want to hurry up so next time someone like you comes along, I’m ready.
‘“Long it out”, huh? I like it when you go all street on me, Maya Rahman.’
I glanced at Zakariya in surprise. Was Mr Too Cool for School flirting with me?
‘It’s funny hearing you talk like that,’ I smiled, nudging him playfully.
