Saving Kabul Corner (15 page)

Ariana stood tongue-tied, not quite believing what she'd heard, but Wali kept his cool. “So you're sure it's Paige, the one from his campaign staff?”

“Uh-huh,” said Melody. “I remember her because she's so nice and recommended her hair stylist to me.”

Ariana and Wali stared at each other, stunned. Someone named Paige in Ronald's office had printed up the horse meat flyers. They now knew
who
had printed up the flyers, but now they needed to find out
why
.

W
HEN ARIANA GOT HOME
, the entire house was in chaos, crammed with people running around, sitting, standing, talking, shouting, and weeping. Her heart lodged in her throat, Ariana's first thought was that something terrible had happened. As she held her backpack in a death grip, she noticed that even though Sara
Khala
had tears rolling down her plump cheeks, she was also laughing. Next to her, Hava Bibi gave a great whooping laugh and hugged Zainab
Khala
, who dabbed her eyes with a tissue, looking worn out.

Laila bounded over to Ariana and gave her a huge hug. “They found him,” she cried, her tiny nose red.

“What?” said Ariana, still not fully processing what was happening, but she was over her initial fright.

“They found my father,” said Laila, dragging her over to the sofa.

“Oh my gosh,” cried Ariana, her trip to Leaf Designs momentarily forgotten. “That's amazing news!”

“He was hiding in a farmer's field,” explained Laila. “He'd dug a hole under a tree and lay there for ten days.”

“How did he end up there?”

“After he got separated from his unit, he left the village, since he was still in Taliban territory and wearing a uniform, so he couldn't trust anyone. First he hid in the outlying forest, but there was no food or shelter, so he found a farm, managed to steal some bread, and hid under the tree. In the end the farmer's son found him, and it turned out that the farmer was a kind man, and he helped him out.”

“Is he okay?” asked Ariana, horrified at the conditions her uncle had endured.

“He's lost weight and has frostbite on his toes, but he's alive.”

“C'mon, girls. We have a lot of cooking to do,” said Nasreen, rolling up the sleeves of her blouse. “We've invited friends and family to come over, including Mariam. It's a celebration!”

Ariana's heart sank as she remembered that she'd told Wali that they'd meet up later that afternoon, along with Laila and Mariam. But now that was impossible. She grabbed Laila's hand and pulled her aside. “We found out who had the horse meat flyers printed up.”

“Who?” Laila gasped.

“It was someone from Ronald Hammersmith's office—one of his assistants.”

“WHAT?” cried Laila, her eyes widening in shock.

Ariana gripped her arm. “Shhh. . . . I know—we couldn't believe it either. Why would Ronald or his assistant want to ruin Pamir Market's reputation?”

“It makes
no
sense,” whispered Laila.

“We need to make sense out of it,” said Ariana. “Wali wants us to meet later.”

“We can't leave right now,” said Laila, eyeing her mother and Sara
Khala
planning the menu.

Ariana nodded. “I'll take care of it.”

Silence greeted Ariana as she slipped into the garage. Perfect. She had privacy to call Wali and Mariam and coordinate when and where they were going to meet up. Stepping toward the desk, she spotted her calendar; a stretch of white boxes sat empty, abandoned like the house she'd never live in. Surprisingly, instead of hot, pulsating anger, she felt cold resolve. Yes, she was disappointed, hurt, and resentful, but honestly, there were bigger things in life to worry about than not having a room of her own. She ripped the calendar off the wall, crumpling Snoopy's head with a satisfying crunch just as the garage door opened. Ariana whirled around and saw her father.

“Hey, kiddo,” he said, looking more relaxed than she'd seen him in weeks.

“
Salaam
, Dad,” she said, taking a deep, calming breath.

“Isn't it wonderful news about Hamza?” he asked.

“Amazing,” said Ariana. “It's such a relief that he's okay.”

“I know. We got the call a few hours ago,” said Jamil. “We all needed that, a bit of good news for a change.”

Ariana looked at her father, the shadows under his eyes and the exhaustion lining his face, and nodded.

“What do you have there?” he asked, staring quizzically at her calendar.

“Uh, it's nothing,” said Ariana, hiding the calendar behind her back.

Her father gave her a shrewd look. “Come here,” he said softly.

As Ariana came close, he enveloped her in a huge bear hug. Warmed to the bones, Ariana inhaled his familiar scent—aftershave and a hint of cardamom from his habit of drinking green tea. “You've been a great help to me these past few weeks, Ariana
jaan
,” her father whispered into her hair.

“Really?” said Ariana, thinking that he mainly thought that she got in the way all the time and was too nosy for her own good.

“With all the challenges our family has faced, you have been there, helping both at home and at the store. You've been so kind and generous with your time, especially with Laila.”

“Oh,” said Ariana, not realizing that he'd noticed. The calendar dropped from her fingers and she couldn't help but finally ask. “Are we going to lose the house?”

Jamil sighed and let her go. “Well, I'm not surprised, with all that's been going on, that you found out about that.”

“I overheard you and mom talking,” Ariana confessed. “And I know things haven't been going well at the store.”

Jamil nodded. “I came very close to forfeiting the deposit, but I didn't.”

Ariana's heart leapt to her throat. “What?” she mumbled.

“I was about to call and cancel the other day, but that morning we found out about the fire at Pamir Market and I forgot to do it,” he explained. “Then, that evening, Haroon called.”

“Haroon called you?”

“Yes.” Jamil sighed. “The damage at Pamir Market is extensive and he's out of work. He wants his old job back.”

“Did you hire him?”

“Shams and I talked about it for a long time. We've decided to bring him back, based on a strict contract that he's agreed to sign.”

“Wow, we'll have our bread back,” said Ariana, floored by the turn of events.

“It's a shame, though,” said Jamil with a grimace. “Our good fortune is coming at another's expense.”

Ariana nodded. With Pamir Market gone, they were back to being the only Afghan grocery store in town, with the best bread. All their old, and new, customers would come flooding back.

“So I've decided we will move ahead and get the house,” said Jamil. “If things keep improving, great. If not, I can always sell the house or rent it out.”

“Okay, Dad,” said Ariana. Her feeling of happiness was tempered as she thought about Wali and his ­family. What would they do? Where would they go?

“Enjoy the garage till your room is ready. I banned the boys from this room, since I consider this to be our special space,” he said, and grinned.

As she stared into his warm hazel eyes, her thoughts shifted to everything they had learned in the past twenty-four hours, and pressure in her chest built to the point where she felt like bursting. She opened her mouth, desperate to share what she and Wali had learned about the Ronald and the fake feud.
You still have no direct proof,
a little voice inside her head reminded her. She pressed her lips together and gave her dad a kiss on the cheek instead.

• • • 

It took another little lie to get Ariana and Laila dropped off at the entrance of Wong Plaza the following Saturday afternoon. Ariana told her mother that Jamil had called and asked that the girls be dropped off to help out at the store. With Pamir Market now closed, Kabul Corner was overflowing with customers, so it was a believable deception. The girls stood at the curb and waved good-bye as Nasreen drove off, turning left onto Magnolia Street. Instead of walking toward Kabul Corner, they headed in the opposite direction, toward the Daily Grind Café. On the way they passed Pamir Market, or what remained of it.

“Oh, no,” whispered Laila, staring at the once sleek, brand-new grocery store.

Ariana hadn't been back to Wong Plaza since the night before Halloween, and she never could have imagined the horror laid out before her. Rage blossomed deep in her bones, sending sparks of fury through her as she stared at the burned and blackened shell of Pamir Market. The wind picked up flecks of ash, which floated toward them like the tiny snowflakes she'd seen while visiting the ski slopes in Lake Tahoe the winter before. Only the
P
in “Pamir” had survived the voracious flames. The rest of the sign was gone. Beyond the boarded up windows lay inky blackness.

The roof had a hole where the fire had eaten through, then spread over the building, leaving a charred, broken skeleton of walls. The perimeter of the store was encircled by yellow police tape, warning people to stay away from the unstable structure. Traumatic memories of walking into Kabul Corner after the break-in came rushing back, flooding Ariana's mind. It was ­impossible to think how devastating this had to be for Wali and his family—the utter destruction of their store, and ­livelihood. As she averted her gaze, thinking of how Ronald or his assistant could be involved in any of this, her eyes fell on the
sold
sign on the warehouse beyond the plaza.

“Come on,” said Laila, interrupting her depressed thoughts.

The light flickered green, urging them across the street toward the café. Mariam called out as the girls entered, directing them to a table tucked away in a back corner. Wali slouched in his seat, enveloped in a black hoodie, his face pale. Ariana placed the file of clues next to him, her eyes downcast.

“We just saw the store,” said Laila, her voice wavering. “It's just awful.”

Wali nodded, his jaw clenched. “Tofan
Baba
's been trying to calm my father down, but he goes from being sad to really, really mad.” He glanced at Ariana with dull, tired eyes. “He still thinks your father and uncle had something to do with it.”

“I know.” Ariana sighed. “He wants
badal
. And I don't blame him. I'd want revenge too—to get back at whoever did this.”

“Ari is right,” said Laila. “We have to figure out who's behind all this.”

“Well, let's get to it,” said Wali, pushing back his hood, his tone resolute.

While Laila opened her notepad, Ariana absentmindedly glanced toward the front door and spotted a group of men playing chess, partially hidden by a display of Thanksgiving coffee. Ariana blinked as an old memory flickered, like a movie projector whirring to life. She'd seen this exact scene before, earlier in the summer, when she'd come in to get coffee for her father and uncle. Men had been playing chess, and beside them, partially hidden by a similar display, had been Lucinda Wong, talking to a red-haired man. Ariana blinked.
Red hair.
The day at the fall festival, she'd seen Ronald Hammersmith with his ponytailed red hair and tried to remember where she'd seen him before.
It was right here
. She shook her head as if to clear it. “I know the ­connection between Ronald and Wong Plaza,” she blurted out, her heart ramming against her rib cage.

“What?” asked Wali, sitting up, alert.

“I saw Ronald and Lucinda talking to each other here, in the café, a week before your store opened.”

“You did?” asked Wali.

“So there
is
a connection between the two,” cried Mariam.

“And Ronald's assistant, Paige, made the horse meat flyers,” said Ariana.

“And those flyers ended up all over Wong Plaza,” said Wali, opening the file of clues and dumping them out over the table.

“But why? Why would he do it?” asked Laila, looking bewildered.

“The answer must be in here somewhere,” said Wali.

Mariam picked up Ronald's campaign flyer, its bold headline promising to bring “Change with Conscience.” Beneath the slogan were phrases such as “environmental responsibility,” “sustainable urban renewal,” and “land management.” “Well, he sure is worried about the environment,” she said, stroking the recycled flyer. “He's into real estate, right? Since it says he's all about building green, sustainable neighborhoods.”

Ariana's eyes widened. “Wali, remember the day we were at Mrs. Wong's?” Wali nodded. “The article on the front page of the
Tri City Express
was about the mayoral elections, how they were heating up. The woman running against Ronald talked about his recent land acquisitions and accused him of trying to lobby for rezoning Fremont neighborhoods. What if all these clues point to something bigger?”

“Do you really think . . . ,” said Wali, his voice soft as he contemplated her words. “I mean, it kind of makes sense. He was here, talking to Mrs. Wong, the owner of a valuable piece of real estate in the middle of Fremont.”

“Yup,” said Ariana, fidgeting in her chair. “Ronald meets with Mrs. Wong. Then all these strange things start happening at Wong Plaza!”

“Nobody's going to believe us if we tell them about all this,” exclaimed Mariam, waving her hands over the clues.