Spilled Ink, page 3
I take out my sketchbook to make use of this quiet. I never post my art on Pic-Up because I already know it’s not the best work out there, and if I receive a few polite stars, I will quickly forget them if I get even a couple of questionable comments. My sketchbook has been my safe place, my sanctuary. I’m free to draw what I want without worrying about whether my art will be liked. Maybe I’m just trying to return the favor by keeping the sketches to myself, guarding them from judgmental eyes.
I pick up a pen, a thicker one that I use for outlines.
I draw a glass bottle with a cork top, the kind that Alice drank from in Wonderland. I use a blue pen that is as close to black as possible and make the bottle half-full of a liquid. The liquid dips in the middle but then climbs the bottle’s walls, creating a small whirlpool. Using my thinnest pen, I draw a tiny, inky figure standing on the surface of the water, at the center of that whirlpool, a raft under her feet. The figure is featureless, a shadow. Starting from the bottom of the bottle, I draw a vine that wraps around the glass, pointy leaves sprouting in all directions. Round and round goes the vine, wrapping itself twice around the bottle and then choking the cork top.
When I lift my pen from the page, I think what I’ve drawn is not perfect or even amazing—but it is interesting. I almost want to show it to someone. Maybe Mom?
One more look at my drawing convinces me that’s a bad idea. She’ll read so far into it that she’ll start taking me for long walks around the lake to increase my vitamin D levels. I flip through my last few pages of drawings. About a month ago, listening through the walls to Yusuf practice his music, I started to draw a seahorse, but not the tiny little wobbly creatures most people think of.
Yusuf’s band is called The Hipper Campus, which is a twist on hippocampus, a mythological sea monster we first heard of in the Percy Jackson books. Poseidon sent the half-horse and half-fish sea monsters to take Percy and his friends. I don’t know what made Yusuf think this was a good name for his band, but his friends must have liked it because that’s the name they go by. For fun, I thought I’d try drawing a hippocampus.
I walk over to my brother’s room with my sketchbook open to the page with the ink drawing of a stallion, front hooves in the air and nostrils flaring. The hair of his mane is wild, spread out as if he’s underwater. His back half is scaled and ends with a curled-in flipper, like a dolphin. I sit in Yusuf’s chair and debate ripping the page out and leaving it on his desk for him to find. That feels safer than being right there to see his reaction.
I’m about to tear the page when I notice a crumpled paper under his desk. He must have been aiming for the trash. Maybe it’s the super-neat Yusuf energy in the room that makes me pick it up. Before I toss it into the trash, I notice it’s a receipt from Room, the coffee shop by Crescendo. Room is actually called A Room with a Brew. According to a framed sign on the wall, the two owners were finance people who left their glass offices to fulfill their life’s dream. The place is earthy and cozy and never rushes anyone out. My friends Mona and Asma love their organic lemon balls and I like that they sell books and magazines too. I feel less like a student and more like a creative when I have a mug and a notebook in front of me. It seems like a great place to draw too, but I’d have to go there alone to do that because I can’t do anything more than casual doodles if anyone’s watching.
The receipt in my hand is for a chai latte, an iced coffee with Yusuf’s usual creamy, sugary additions, and one giant chocolate chip cookie.
Two drinks and one cookie.
I can’t imagine Yusuf splitting a cookie with Liam or Chris. Who did he go with? I get the distinct feeling Yusuf hid this on purpose. I take my sketchbook back to my room and tuck it into my drawer without leaving my artwork on Yusuf’s desk. Maybe I’m not the only one with secrets.
3
I’m at a red light, the smell of bolani filling my dad’s car, when I look at the car next to me and feel my heart skip. The driver to my left is singing along to music, his hand tapping a rhythm on the steering wheel. He must feel my eyes on him because he looks over at me, and when our eyes meet, he laughs and waves.
It wasn’t his singing that caught my attention. Plenty of people sing in their cars. But this guy resembles Rahim—or I think he resembles Rahim. The last time I saw my cousin, he didn’t really look like himself.
We hadn’t seen Rahim in years, not since Thanksgiving five years ago, which was the last time his family flew from Indiana to Virginia to spend the holiday with us. That had been tradition since Rahim’s parents had a long weekend off from work, but our restaurant only closed early on Thanksgiving Day itself. I loved those visits. While our parents were gossiping about the far branches of the family tree and playing cards, the cousin crew got to hang out. Of my dozen cousins, no one was like Rahim. Because he was older than us, it felt like he had unlocked special knowledge. He could talk about the best player on the Manchester soccer team over lunch with our dads and then discuss orcas with the younger cousins over dinner. And he could mimic his mother’s voice so perfectly that he’d even tripped up his father on more than one occasion. He had the kind of manners that made grandmothers swoon.
Mom loved that Rahim wasn’t glued to his phone all the time. He said he didn’t want to be a slave to the algorithms. Yusuf had suggested, in a half-joking, half-serious voice, that Rahim led some undercover life. There was a pause, then Rahim laughed and said that he wasn’t a spy but even if he were, he would never tell. He’d laughed and I laughed too, surprised at how Rahim had made the comment light as a feather and blown it right out of the room.
Yusuf, Rahim, and I often stayed up late watching movies in the living room. One night, Yusuf went to bed early. We’d run out of decent options, so I put on one of those shows that Rahim and I agreed was so bad that it was almost good. It was about a strict boarding school for teen witches.
Uncle Zahir must have woken up thirsty. He stopped in the living room with a glass of water in his hand and said we should get to bed. Then his eyes moved to the television screen, where three girls were trying on dresses for an upcoming dance. In two strides, he had crossed the room and grabbed the remote from the table. His thumb fumbled and the room went dark, but I could sense Uncle Zahir glaring at Rahim. Wanting to break the brick-heavy silence, I said something about being exhausted anyway. Even now, my stomach tightens to think of the look on Rahim’s face when his father walked in.
But the next morning, Rahim acted like nothing had happened. He played video games with Yusuf for a bit but mostly sat outside on our deck reading a spy novel. They left for home two days later. After that, more time started to pass between calls from Uncle Zahir, until, at some point, our uncle wouldn’t even call back when Dad left him a message. Rahim’s mom, Ama Leeda, still took Mom’s calls but they were short, empty exchanges. Rahim and his family never came back out to visit, and Ama Leeda always made some excuse when Dad suggested we could fly out to see them.
Yusuf and I had our suspicions, though suspicions isn’t the right word because it carries judgment with it, and that’s not what I meant to do. I can’t remember which one of us said it first. With an extended family as large as ours, the odds were that someone didn’t fit into the cishet categories. But then we didn’t see Rahim for a couple of years, and we were certainly not sitting around debating his orientation. It was much easier to think it wasn’t any of our business anyway—until the day I overheard Mom on the phone with my dad’s cousin, who also lived in Indiana.
Mom was closer to her than to most of the other relatives on my dad’s side, including Rahim’s parents. She kept Mom updated on the Indiana happenings, which is a polite way of saying she gossiped. Rahim was graduating from college soon, and his mother had been spending a lot of time visiting friends with daughters. They were hoping to find a match for him. Rahim was older than me, but not by so much that I could wrap my head around the word marriage in the same sentence as his name.
But instead of Rahim’s mom planning his wedding, Rahim’s dad ended up arranging his funeral.
I pull into the parking lot of the strip mall where Yusuf works. Crescendo is on the corner, on the second floor. My friends and I sometimes study at Room, on the other end of the strip. I park the car and text my mom that I’ve made it here. She gets nervous when I drive, more nervous than she gets when Yusuf drives. She told me once that it was because she feels like I’m nervous when I drive, so I’m not quite sure where her feelings end and mine begin.
Yusuf, Chris, and Liam are in the studio practicing for their big night at WhereHouse. Yusuf isn’t nervous. That’s not his brand. When Yusuf has a show coming up or a song he’s working on, he gets intense. These days, WhereHouse is consuming his attention. At home, he doesn’t even notice me watching him tap his feet, practice his finger work even without a guitar in his hands, hum while he’s doing homework. And with the Battle of the Bands heavy on his mind, he’s been a little forgetful about other things—like the potluck holiday party at the studio today.
About an hour ago, Yusuf walked into the break room at the music studio, saw foil-wrapped trays on the counter, and called Mom, our personal 911 operator, to report his emergency.
Mom’s love language is food, which is why the restaurant is a passion project for her. She has spent so much time behind our kitchen island, the fridge and stove within arm’s reach, preparing for the moment Yusuf and I would inevitably become hungry. In the restaurant, she will always bring a free dessert to customers who have returned for more of her recipes. She also gives a free dessert to new customers because she wants them to have the experience of a complete Afghan meal. She loves bringing steaming palau and sautéed butternut squash to the Afghans who have found themselves so far from home and everything they knew.
I open the passenger-side door of the car and pull out the aluminum tray of bolani, which Mom predicted everyone would love. The mashed, seasoned potatoes were already in the restaurant fridge. Dad quickly fork-smashed the mix onto flattened dough, then folded and fried it.
I get out of the car and am almost to the steps when I spot something out of the corner of my eye. It’s a fox, darting between two cars and running into the miniature forest behind the building. His long, bushy tail disappears and I’m trying to shake the feeling that I’ve just experienced a close call. I tell myself the fox probably feels the same way.
I walk up the concrete steps, passing a nail salon and a vacant shop with a “For Lease” sign in the window. This strip mall is one of the oldest in town and a few of the shops have had to close in the past three years, so people are wondering if it’s time to tear it down and start fresh or if it can be revived with some paint and new stores. I think swapping out the vape shop for just about anything else would be a great start.
Crescendo is the end unit on the second floor. The concrete walkway wraps around the end, but the entrance to the studio is a few feet away from that. I open the door and see Beto, the manager, talking on the phone from behind the front desk. A small Christmas tree stands in the corner of the sitting area, decorated with a hundred tiny drum ornaments, the kind that come ten for a dollar. He smiles when he sees me and signals for me to go on through to the back while he reschedules a lesson. There are posters of bands and flyers for concerts on the walls, pictures of instruments and students performing on small stages.
On either side of the hallway are soundproof rooms. In the first room on my right, a woman is flipping through pages of a music book while a tween warms up on a violin. Chris comes out of a room down the hall.
“Hey, Yalda,” he says. “Saving Yusuf again?”
“If he tells you he made these, throw a guitar at him,” I reply. Chris laughs. He’s the kind of person whose feelings float close to the surface. Last month, the guys were at our house rewatching a Marvel movie. Yusuf had asked Dad to pick up some ice cream on the way home, and, of course, Dad obliged. I helped my dad take a tray of bowls and spoons into the living room, since Yusuf and his friends could not tear their eyes from the television screen. Yusuf and Liam said a quick hello and thanks, but Chris was different. He watched Dad put a hand on Yusuf’s shoulder and then looked into the bowl of ice cream in his hands, like it was a wishing well. Chris lost his dad to some kind of cancer when he was seven. He reminds me of the people who stick around at the airport after they drop off a mom or brother to watch the plane take off. He has that look always—a permanent state of missing someone.
“You can put it in the break room,” he says, pointing to the end of the hall. Yusuf and Liam are in the room just before the break room. Liam’s sitting at a drum set that looks like the grown-up version of the Christmas ornaments on the tree. He’s wearing a flannel shirt with a white T-shirt underneath. Yusuf’s got his back to me. Looking over his shoulder, I can see him texting someone. He’s been more guarded with his phone lately. He turns slightly so I can’t see his screen and switches apps when I get close to him.
I called him out on it once but he just laughed and invited me to hand over my phone so he could go through my messages. That was the end of that conversation.
I set the bolani on the small round table, moving foil-covered bowls, a basket of white plastic forks, and a bag of tortilla chips to make room. If I’d known tortilla chips were an option, I would have told Yusuf to go to the gas station across the street and saved myself a trip.
“Yalda came through,” I hear Chris say in the hallway. I join him and the guys in the room they use to play together, the biggest of the six rooms in the studio.
“Hey,” Liam says. I wave at him. Liam is so quiet he makes me look chattier than an online gamer looking to entertain followers. Yusuf says he’s got a classic drummer personality, reserved but steady and persistent. He and Yusuf have been friends since middle school, when Liam shared his earbuds with Yusuf and introduced him to some older rock bands.
I take a seat on a swiveling stool.
“Did you guys decide what you’re playing yet?” I ask.
Liam scoffs. I think I’ve hit a sore spot.
Yusuf takes in Liam’s reaction and shrugs.
“Not yet,” Chris fills in. “Trying to decide between Yusuf’s new song or something we’ve done before. Liam says the crowd likes stuff that’s familiar.”
“What do you think, Chris?” Yusuf asks, his arms folded across his chest.
“He’s going to agree with you,” Liam grumbles. “He always does.”
“That’s bull,” Chris says. “And you know it.”
Liam starts tapping his drumsticks at the edge of the drum.
“Name a band you like that plays other band’s songs,” Yusuf says. “I’ll wait.”
“Bro, are you serious right now?” Liam shakes his head, exasperated. As much as I know that feeling, I’m also prickled. Siblings have a solid standing when they’re annoyed with each other. Others are on shaky ground. “This is not some school talent show. WhereHouse is a real gig and it wasn’t easy to get.”
“Thanks for the reminder because we almost forgot that you know the manager there,” Chris jokes. Liam is not amused.
“I know it’s a real gig. That’s why I’m taking it seriously. I don’t want to be a cover band. They should know we’re not just mimics,” Yusuf says.
“Fine,” Liam says with a shrug. “We’ll do your song.”
“You want to do it? Or do you just want me to shut up?” Yusuf asks, trying to sound lighthearted.
“Does it matter?” Liam responds. The room is tense, definitely not holiday-party energy.
“It does to me,” Yusuf says.
“Look, WhereHouse is two weeks away,” I say, trying to defuse the situation. These guys never argue, but they’ve also never had a show this big before. “You have time to decide.”
The guys don’t look at me, probably because I sound like a kindergarten teacher trying to negotiate peace in the sandbox. Something buzzes. Chris digs his phone out of his backpack and answers it as he walks out of the room.
“Hey, Mom. Everything okay?” he says, then goes quiet. “Come on. Why can’t you pick me up? He’s always late.”
Yusuf shakes his head and goes into the hallway. I watch him through the glass window.
“I’ll drop you off,” he tells Chris, who nods. It is a slight and subtle acknowledgment.
“I better get going,” I tell Liam, who still looks frustrated. “And I don’t think it matters which song you guys pick. You’ll sound great.”
“Yeah, maybe it doesn’t matter,” he says in a way that tells me his opinion hasn’t changed much but his willingness to argue has.
I say goodbye to Yusuf and Chris and slip out of Crescendo. I drive back to the restaurant, forgetting to turn the radio on until I’ve parked the car. My mind has been elsewhere and the sky is heavy with clouds, the early evening darker than it has any right to be.
4
“No one beats this guy,” Keith says as we stand with our backs against the moss-green hallway wall. His shoulder presses against mine as he holds out his phone so we can both see the screen, and his head is tilted toward mine. “After I watched this video, I thought, this is what I want to do with my life—make obstacle courses for squirrels in my backyard.”
I recognize the guy instantly and laugh. He managed to turn his fenced backyard and his neighborhood squirrels into a moneymaking machine by building complex mazes and using nuts as bait.
“Oh, this was good, but it’s gotten even better since then. Did you see the casino he built for these guys?” I ask. “The level of detail . . . I mean, he had blueprints and tiny tools inside the little squirrel houses.”
“Yes! That trapdoor was sick,” Keith says. “I’m impressed. I wouldn’t have guessed you were the squirrel obstacle course type.”
“You only really know someone when you’ve seen their streaming history.”
Keith laughs. “Ah, well then, let me know when you’re ready to reveal yours,” he teases, and I gulp because this is almost definitely not just friendly chatting and now I feel like I’ve got my shoes on the wrong feet.
