Hot Pink in the City (12 page)

When he's inside the cab, he blows me a kiss.
Or does he blow Nasreen a kiss? "My heart is melting," I say.

"We have to go back," Nasreen says, looking
at her Swatch.

I look at my own Swatch, and I'm startled by
the time. It really flies by when you're snooping and doing things
you're not supposed to be doing.

We get back inside. Nasreen puts her camera
bag away. I put the notebooks back under the sofa the way I found
them, or how I remember I found them. Math, science, and English...
then the gambling notebook at the very bottom. Nasreen had
disturbed some of Omar's toys, so she sets Transformers and Gobots
upright.

We step out of the alcove. I put my hands
back on the curtains to draw them shut. There's a problem. The
right side is snagging against the curtain rod. I pull, but it
won't budge.

"What's wrong?" Nasreen asks, joining me in
the yanking.

"I don't know," I say.

"Hurry up." Her efforts are also futile,
because the curtain panel refuses to be drawn shut.

Then we hear the jingle of keys as someone
opens the door. This can't be happening, not when we've done our
best to cover our tracks.

Chapter Fourteen

Here's another difference between New York
and Miami: the complexity of key chains. I have one key for my
front door, but Uncle and Auntie have multiple keys.

They have the key to the lobby to get their
mail and throw garbage down a chute, a key to their mailbox, and
three keys for the front door. Omar's voice booms behind the door.
"Come on, Mom! I need to pee."

The second lock twists open. Nasreen pulls
her father's desk chair to her, hops onto it, and lifts the curtain
to unsnag it from the bump in the rod.

"Help me," she says.

I pull and it moves. The curtains are closed!
Nasreen shoves the chair back to her father's work area, where
books and bills are in piles. Then we throw ourselves onto the
sofa, as if everything's normal. We're two cousins who spent the
morning chatting.

Auntie's working on the third lock. I'm
breathless but force myself to slow down my breathing. Three
seconds inhale, three seconds exhale. Omar rushes past me to the
bathroom, and Auntie comes in, putting paper and plastic bags on
the kitchen counter.

Nasreen and I help Auntie put things away.
Omar saunters out of the bathroom and heads to the bags that
contain new toys. He's truly a prince, getting everything he wants
at home and then handling an underground economy at the yard where
he plays with his friends.

My cousin goes to her room to look through
brochures of colleges her parents won't let her attend. I continue
sitting on the sofa, pondering my dilemmas: I want to go to the
Madonna concert, but the more pressing issue is replacing the
Kulthum tape. Omar hums a happy tune as he walks through his
curtains, disappearing into his haven of toys and games.

Since we've put everything away, Auntie wipes
the windows; phase one of her housekeeping. When she pulls the
curtains open, I'm back to seeing people's legs and torsos cut
through the air in a headless world. It adds to the Bizarro quality
of my summer vacation.

Auntie has a spray bottle and a towel in
hand. I ask her if she needs help. "No, no, you relax," she
says.

"Hmmm, that spray smells interesting," I say.
It smells sharp, but not like the chemicals I normally detect in
household cleaners.

"I mixed it myself," Auntie says, huffing and
puffing after her arms get a workout. She puts her hand down, the
towel drooping from her fingertips. "It saves money. Anyway, your
auntie was once a chemist."

"You were a chemist?" I gasp.

"Yes." She nods. "I have my degree in
chemistry and I worked in a lab before I got married."

We look at each other, and I'm falling into
confusion and disbelief. Auntie has a science degree? I assumed she
was a simple village girl, uneducated, forever destined to be a
housewife... but I'm wrong.

Auntie breaks away from my stare and
continues to clean. "But I'd rather be here doing this," she says.
"This is my home, this is my life. It was exciting going to college
and working, but marriage changed me."

"I don't think Nasreen wants to be a
housewife," I say. "Or maybe not in the near future."

"I know she wants to leave us," she says.
"That's what young people want to do. But I can't let her go that
easily, and I want to look out for her safety."

So Auntie had a life, an education, and even
a career before she got married. Why doesn't she want the same for
her daughter? Why can't Nasreen experience freedom, explore college
options and such? I see a chink in the family's armor. Maybe I can
persuade Auntie to let Nasreen go to the college of her choice,
which will then sway Uncle. I just need to think of how to do this
since it won't be easy.

***

Nasreen wants to be super careful with the
money. She wears her purse strap across her chest and then throws a
denim vest over it. "I've never been mugged, and I want it to stay
that way," she says. "We can't lose this money. Let's go."

"I'll cross my fingers that this guy will
lower the price."

Auntie blows on us. Spittle lands on my
cheeks and nose, which happens sometimes. My parents' voices echo
in my head -- I shouldn't travel far from Manhattan, be careful in
the subway, and don't talk to strangers. But I will talk to
strangers: those sleazy men at the Brooklyn store, Wahib and Tahir.
I don't like how Tahir looks at me, and Wahib wants to rob us for a
tape from his personal collection.

"Hey, can you check the mail and see if
there's anything for me?" I ask.

"Sure," Nasreen says. I step inside the lobby
with her. Inside there are rows of copper-colored mailboxes with
air holes. It's sort of like being in a sci-fi movie, as if these
mailboxes contain electronics or maybe alien pods. The mailboxes in
Miami, lined up one per house, are so humdrum compared to these.
The lobby has a lived-in, comfy smell, like my favorite leather
jacket. Nasreen checks the mail, but there are two bills and some
junk mail that she leaves inside for her dad.

"Nothing for me?" I ask.

"No." She shakes her head.

"Shoot!"

"Did you expect something from close
friends?'

"Yes, or I thought they were close."

"I'm sure they have their own summer plans.
You'll catch up with them later."

But they're both at home with no special
plans, or so they told me. Tamara and Misty promised they would
write to me. I feel jilted and ignored, but I squash down these
unpleasant emotions. I'm in the greatest city on the planet, even
though I messed up my trip with the Kulthum tape. Once we find a
replacement, I'll really enjoy this trip and see what I want to
see.

After my disappointment over the mail, we're
out on the street. Long train rides ensue, made longer by the first
train being stuck in a tunnel for ten minutes. I brought a
Harlequin romance book with me, a thin paperback that fits into my
purse, and Nasreen has her Walkman, but all we do is end up talking
to each other. On our last transfer, we voice our concerns about
the tape and the store manager.

"You need to be tough," Nasreen says.
"They're going to try to trick us, raise the price, but we need to
haggle. Don't let on that we're desperate for the tape, and don't
be too nice. They already know we want the tape, but we need to be
cooler about it. And you have 'tourist' written all over you.
You're too polite and wide-eyed, taking everything in as if you've
never been to the big city before."

"That's not true," I say.

"Look, I'm just telling you what I've
noticed."

"Okay."

"Okay is not good enough! I'm serious, Asma.
You have that open look in your eyes when you need to be guarded.
Don't slip and get emotional, because you can't be like that around
these people. Trust me that those two men are vultures, ogling us
and wanting a ton of money for a tape."

"Okay."

"Ugh! Stop saying okay. You're not making me
feel better. I hope you don't mess up."

I don't know why Nasreen thinks I'm going to
mess up. Sure I live in the suburbs, have straight As, hang out
with other straight-A students, and most of my friends are from my
soccer team. All this does shelter me from all the bad kids. I may
never have cut class or gone all the way with a boy, but I know
there's something inside of me that's street smart and hip. I just
wish that side came out of me. I saw an inkling of my wild side
when I gussied myself up on the plane ride and talked to Abe, but
that's just appearances and a bit of flirtation. I think about
Madonna strutting around in the "Papa Don't Preach" video. Her
attitude shines through her every motion. I want attitude. I pull
my chin up to practice being bad. I give a dirty look to a model in
a subway poster. She's advertising a popular perfume. Someone
spray-painted nipples on her dress, the black points like eyes, and
there's also a red moustache on her.

"What's wrong with your face?" Nasreen asks.
"You look like you ate something sour."

I stop trying to look tough. I can't be
snappy and snazzy like my favorite idols.

We're here. I don't know my way around
Brooklyn since I don't spend much time in that borough, but I
remember the way from our previous trip. Straight down and make a
right. We're at the store.

"Remember, keep your cool," Nasreen says, her
hand on the door. "We can't get nervous."

"Excuse me!" a man says, opening the door and
almost knocking us down. He pulls his baseball cap down, ducks his
face into the collar of his shirt, and holds a brown paper bag
tightly to his chest. The rectangular shape makes it obvious it's a
videotape.

"Jerk," Nasreen says. "Come on."

Inside the store, the curtain in the back of
the store sways. Another man departs. He's tall and lanky, as well
as sweaty and creepy. He smiles at us. Like the guy who bumped into
us, he has a paper bag in his hand with a rectangular lump
inside.

"I thought there was an office behind those
curtains," Nasreen whispers to me.

"I thought so too," I whisper back. "Maybe
they do some of their business there."

"Hmmm."

The tall guy leaves, but not before he
undresses us with his eyes. They rake over my body in slow motion,
as if he's taking off each article of my clothing one by one.

"Okay, I feel naked," Nasreen says.

"Let's be fast and get out of here. This
place is full of creeps."

"Hello there!" Wahib says. Closely behind him
is his brother, Tahir. Their big bellies emerge first from the
curtains, followed by their ridiculous comb-overs.

"Hello," we say.

"Ah, you two are back, Shireen and Isma," he
says, which jogs my memory that we gave him fake names. "Are you
here for the Umm Kulthum tape?"

"We're wondering if we can strike a deal,"
Nasreen says.

"I like to stick to my prices, but I don't
mind giving a discount now and then. The thing is, it's the only
Umm Kulthum tape I have, and I already told you why it's hard for
me to part with it. It's not part of the store inventory. This is
my tape. Weeks ago I had several of her tapes on the shelves, but
they went quickly. It's going to take me a while to get more."

But we don't have a while to get a
replacement tape! He doesn't have to be such a jerk because he has
this one tape. "Then there shouldn't be a problem if more are
coming in," I say.

"But I don't know exactly when," he says. "So
for the one I have, it's still one hundred."

"Fifty," Nasreen says.

"One hundred," he says with a smile.

"Fifty-five."

"One hundred." His smile is unwavering.

"Sixty."

"One hundred." The smile plastered on his
face fills me with unease.

"Sixty-five."

"Listen, how about a real deal?"

"What do you mean?" I say.

"How old are you two?" he asks.

"Seventeen," I say.

"Eighteen," Nasreen says at the same time. We
each made ourselves a year older.

"Interesting," he says. I don't like the
sound of this. Anytime a man asks me how old I am, it's never any
good. I recall icky men at the mall, at stores, all over the place
asking about age. Usually I just walk away, but I feel enclosed in
this store, needing something from this man. "How old are you?" men
wonder about young girls. "Are you legal?" they're really
asking.

"Then you're of age," he says, nodding in
Nasreen's direction. Then he looks at me. "Well, you're almost of
age." He points to me, the younger one, the seventeen-year-old
who's really sixteen.

"Of age for what?" I say, my voice becoming
squeaky. Damn, what street-smart person has a squeaky voice? I
deepen my voice and ask, "Why is my age important when all we want
is this tape?"

"We want something from you," Wahib says. Not
only is he the store manager, but he's the big talker of the two.
Tahir smiles and rubs his mustache.

"What do you want?" Nasreen asks.

"We want her," Tahir says, breaking his
silence, pointing at me. "We want her..."

Chapter Fifteen

"Yes, I want her," Tahir repeats.

There are times when life seems surreal and I
wonder if I'm dreaming. Or maybe I'm psychotic and imagining
things. Am I really in a store that smells like hair gel -- for the
brothers' comb-overs, I assume? Am I truly facing two strange men
in a small store off the beaten path, away from any major landmarks
when I'm in the most exciting city on the planet? I must have
entered a parallel universe or something. I know... I must be on
Candid Camera
. But the store is so small that I doubt a
camera crew can be hiding somewhere.

"Excuse me?" Nasreen says.