Always Be My Bibi, page 22
“You won’t be,” I reply fiercely, cupping his cheek with my free hand. “I have never met anyone who cares as much as you. You try to act all tough, but I can see how much it hurts you whenever someone else is hurting, how much you go out of your way to help others whenever you can. How can someone like that ever be careless?”
“Bibi…” His hand moves to cover mine. A wary smile curls his lips as he confesses, “I tried to be careless with you. I told myself you were hasty and impulsive, that looking for love was a fool’s errand at our age. I tried so hard not to care when it became clear Akash would break your heart, told myself it was your fault for letting him, but I—I…”
“Couldn’t?” I finish for him.
He nods, looking away. “It’s impossible not to care for you, Bibi. When I finally stopped fighting your orbit, I realized… well, maybe I’m a coward, but you are brave.”
“I’m starting to realize I can be a bit reckless,” I admit with a contrite smile.
“A bit?” He shuts his eyes in disbelief. “It’s—it’s more than a bit, but I like that about you. I like everything about you, even when you make me want to tear my hair out. When I’m with you, I want to try to be brave too, because I… I like you. I like you a lot. Too much to want to be just a summer fling.”
“Sohel, no….” I shake my head fervently, shocked he could ever believe that. “There’s no way I could see you as just anything. You’re so much more than that.”
Sohel is an entire garden. As stubborn as a weed. As beautiful as a rose. You might prick your fingers on his thorns if you aren’t careful, but if you take your time, if you water and prune and care for him, he can blossom into something entirely unexpected. As lovely and complicated as the tea gardens he belongs to.
My eyes fall to his lips. Before I can make sense of the jumble in my mind, he pitches forward to graze them against mine. His are soft and featherlight, tasting ever so faintly of citrus and sugar, the rich coffee-chocolate scent of agarwood imbuing my senses. I rock forward more urgently, dropping my hand from his cheek to his collar. His mouth shapes into a smile, his puff of laughter no more than a single breath as the hand that held mine rises to pet my hair, playing with the dangling frills of the comb.
The motion jerks the tube in his other hand. I jump at the cold squirt of henna on my skin. Sohel pulls away to frown down at the blob spreading across my palm, before grimacing at me. “I can fix that.” I giggle but reluctantly allow him to redirect his attention before the henna can stain. Without looking up from the roses he’s drawing on my skin, he says, “I—I think we should keep this between us for now.”
Reality comes crashing in the moment his words register. “O-of course,” I stutter with an awkward laugh, but the words taste bitter on my tongue as I forcibly disperse silly thoughts of telling my friends, fantasies of him visiting for prom.
Before I got here, I didn’t want to be in love, but with him, it feels like it could be a possibility someday. Perhaps it’s still too early to believe that, but from the second I met Sohel, he fascinated and infuriated me at every turn. He’s probably the prettiest boy I have ever met, but beneath the porcelain mask he sometimes wears, at once fragile and sharp, he’s also sensitive and kind.
“I’m sorry, Bibi,” he whispers. “I like you more than I know what to do with, but you’re leaving after the wedding, and I—I don’t want us to be the reason anything else goes wrong.”
“I understand,” I make myself say, dredging up a smile. “We wouldn’t want to distract from Halima Afu and Sunny Bhaiya’s big day. Besides, my dad has had me under a renewed dating ban since the Akash incident. He might not take the news too well.”
Sohel peers up at me with equal parts yearning and hope. “So, it’s okay if we take things slow?”
“I can do that,” I promise, caressing the curve of his cheek with the pad of my thumb.
After all, what’s one more thing to pretend about? Once the wedding is over, we can figure out how to move forward together from different continents, but for now it’s sort of romantic to have this secret, with only the moon and stars as our witnesses.
This time I close the distance between the two of us, and Sohel lets me.
CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
A couple of mornings after the mehndi, the golden rays of the sun rouse me, warm and almost ticklish across my scrunched face. Not my parents or sister, not Abbu’s rooster, not Ireima, not even my alarm. After I turn the latter off before it can ring, I creep out of bed to open my curtains so more sunshine saturates the room.
It dawns on me that this has somehow become a familiar routine. If you told me at the onset of the summer that I would one day happily wake up at five thirty, excited for another day at the tea garden, I would have laughed in your face. But now that my time is running out with my friends here—now that my time is running out with Sohel—I can’t help missing something I haven’t actually lost yet. Part of me never wants the summer to end.
But that’s silly—going back home doesn’t mean I won’t be able to stay in touch with my Tea Girl Gang or my—my—
With Sohel.
Is he my boyfriend now?
We haven’t exactly had that talk yet, but we spent hours strolling hand in hand through the tea gardens yesterday, with him showing me all the secret copses no one else knows so we could steal kisses and talk about the future.
Even if we can’t tell anyone about our relationship yet, he thinks we have a future, and that’s what matters most, right? That he wants to try, despite the eight thousand miles that will come between us at the end of this month?
I hold on to this hope while I change into my uniform for one of my last shifts ever here, finding that I no longer mind the drab outfit as much—although, I will totally suggest some upgrades for a more breathable material and extra pizazz to Sohel the next time I catch him in a good mood.
By the time I’m dressed, there’s a knock at the door. I open it and blink at Yumjao, who has a saucer and teacup in her hands. The sweet smell of a perfectly brewed cuppa—as my insufferably posh boy calls it—permeates the air, a cake rusk on the saucer beside it.
“Yumi, what are you doing here?” I ask as I accept it. “Where’s your sister?”
“Afa pawned off all her morning duties on me but refused to tell me why,” she answers with a shrug, braided pigtails bouncing around her round face.
“Jeez, girl, do you ever sleep?” I grumble.
As always, I’m awed and a little envious of how peppy and daisy-fresh she manages to look at the crack of dawn. In spite of my new habits, I still have a looooong way to go before I hatch out of my egg into a proper early bird.
“I’ve been up for at least an hour.” She grins toothily at me. “See you down there when you’ve woken up, Bibi Afa!”
“Yeah, yeah,” I call after her, before taking a long sip of the tea and immediately feeling the last vestiges of sleepiness melt off my shoulders. I will never tell Sohel because his ego will grow too big, but he’s so right about the benefits of a good cup of tea.
Halima is too busy, with the wedding mere days away, so I drain my cup, munch on my biscuit, and take the scenic route to join the other girls on the hill we were assigned to work. Along the way I can’t help marveling at how exquisite my henna is, as vibrantly dark as an actual rose. My heart sings whenever I remember what it’s supposed to symbolize.
Silly again.
Sohel and I aren’t the ones getting married, after all.
Jui spots me first and jumps up and down. “Bibi, we’re over here!”
“About time!” Yumjao shouts with her palms raised around her mouth.
Her older sister isn’t yet back from whatever errand she’s running—and Sohel is missing too, which is only a little odd, since he’s probably with a different set of employees—but Khoibi and Nganu are there. Ever since their family began to reconcile, the latter’s daughter spends more time with her grand-aunt, Mrs. Rahman, in the manor while her parents and grandparents work. The boys are also operating tractors not far from us. Even as he digs a small trench with his, Parek keeps shooting concerned glances our way.
“Our girl’s not back?” I ask loud enough for him to overhear us.
“She said she’d be back by lunch,” Yumjao explains.
Jui shakes her head. “Ireima would never skip work if it wasn’t important. We’ll get her to spill all the tea later.” She looks to me to see if she’s used the phrase correctly and beams at my approving nod. “It might be about university. She was telling me the other day that she’d start researching requirements for enrollment, even though she won’t be able to attend for another two years. Not many tribal girls go to university, so she’s trying to be proactive.”
“Really?” I exclaim, a frisson of excitement running through me at the prospect. That’s something else I never would have expected, once upon a time: feeling thrilled that someone else wants to go to college of all places. “Maybe she’s getting the scoop from Sohel. He’ll know all about enrolling at Dhaka University.”
A chuckling Khoibi chimes in then. “All right, girls—let’s get to work for now so you can gossip as much as you like later, achaa?”
Sheepishly we stoop to follow her lead, but there’s something meditative about picking tea with the other girls while we chat and listen to music. Humming under my breath, I lose myself in the ministrations until the sun changes positions in the sky.
Ireima still hasn’t returned when our break rolls around. When a flash of worry crosses Yumjao’s face, I pipe up, “Why don’t you and the others go check if she went home? If she’s not there, you can bring the food I know your mom made back here, just in case she skipped lunch.”
“Thank you, Afa!” the pigtailed girl cries out. “We will be back in a gif!”
I don’t bother correcting her, leaving the task to Jui while I rearrange all of our baskets so there’s room for the picnic blanket they’ll come back with. It’s far from the first time we’ve taken our lunch this way, but something wrenches in my chest when I realize it might be the last.
“Need help?” a quiet voice asks me suddenly.
I leap to my feet. “Ireima! We’ve been waiting for you! Your sister and the others went to check if you were in the village!”
“I thought about going back to my room.” Her voice wobbles, and it hits me all at once that her eyes are red-rimmed, the tip of her nose ruby red as well.
“What happened?” I demand, guiding her onto the grass with my arm around her shoulders. “Is it—is it about coll—I mean university?”
A watery laugh bursts out of her. “Sort of, but no.”
“You don’t have to tell me if you don’t want to.” I rub her back in time with my words. “We can just sit here until your sister comes back. We don’t have to talk at all.”
She stares at me for a second, before shaking her head. “Afa, I… confessed.”
“Confessed?” I repeat. “To what?”
“To Sohel, Bibi Afa,” she replies with more patience than the situation calls for.
“Oh.”
Ireima doesn’t know about me and Sohel, because no one does, but I’ve been aware of her feelings for him for so long and never even considered them before he and I got together. I would have talked to her if I could have—I would have told her I was starting to fall for him too, begged for her understanding—but I promised Sohel I would keep us a secret.
Because of that, I had to violate the girl code.
Am I the worst? Do I even deserve to call her a friend?
“Yeah,” she mumbles, fussing with the torn stem of a tea leaf she must have plucked when I wasn’t looking. “He—he shot me down. Said he only saw me as a little sister and—and apparently he’s in love with someone else?”
My eyes bug out, and the ground begins to spin below me. If I wasn’t already sitting, I’d probably fall over from the shock.
“In love?” I choke out.
She nods and muses softly, “I wonder who this girl is. His voice sounded different when he talked about her. I could tell he was heels over head even if he didn’t give much away.”
“Did he really say that?” I press, reaching for her hands and not even bothering to correct her mistake. “He said ‘in love’?”
Ireima grimaces. “I—I don’t know. I think so? After he rejected me, I sort of blacked out.” She digs her palms into her eyes to dry them, inhaling a long, sniffly breath through her stuffed-up nose, before releasing it through her lips. “Whatever!” she says in an admirable impersonation of me, pumping her fist. “He’s not that hot anyway, right, Bibi Afa?”
“R-right,” I agree, not sure whether to cringe or be proud.
Luckily, she doesn’t appear to notice, a determined expression brightening her ebony eyes with something other than tears. “Forget Sohel Bhaiya! I am going to focus on getting into a good university and meeting lots of new people! Perhaps I will fall in love while I’m there like Halima Afa, but even if I don’t, I will be self-sufficient! I will take my family and leave the tea gardens someday so we can see what else is out there!”
Although my mind is reeling from the revelation she foisted on me—Sohel is in love with someone? And that someone might be me?—I manage to muster up enough enthusiasm to pat her on the back. “Attagirl!”
“At… ta?” she repeats, not having heard that phrase before. “Like wheat? I think I cried so much, my brain is no longer functioning well. English is hard right now, Afa.”
“Don’t worry about it,” I answer with a weak giggle. “Don’t worry about Sohel or anything else right now, except getting that bread so you can accomplish all your dreams, okay?”
“Okay,” she replies, her smile resolute, even though I can tell my dough metaphors have flown right over her head and confused her more.
As I watch her shuffle off toward her empty basket to wait for the others, I spy another familiar face hovering nearby, half-hidden behind his tractor. Parek tenses when I wander over and ask, “You didn’t go with Jui to the village?”
“I—” He swallows, eyes skirting past me to follow Ireima’s distant figure. “I was worried about her. I wanted to be here when she came back.”
“I’ve watched you watch her all summer,” I remark, then smile when he flinches. “It’s all right. I think it’s sweet. Have you told her you like her?”
He rubs the back of his neck, shaking his head.
Exactly as I expected.
Parek has faded into the background for most of the summer, especially when compared to fiery Sohel and jovial Taamba, but he’s actually pretty cute, with the same curls and baby-deer-brown eyes as his cousin Jui. Perhaps he’s what Ireima needs—a loyal shadow to support her while she pursues her dreams. Perhaps she doesn’t need to wait for college to find that.
“You should tell her,” I continue. “I can’t promise she’ll return your feelings, but you’ll never know until you try, right?”
He exhales the breath he’s been holding. “Okay, Bibi Afa. I-I’ll try.”
“Attaboy!” I tell him, just like I told Ireima.
Later that day, when I catch him carrying her basket for her while she smiles and blushes, nothing in the world can bring down my triumphant mood. Not even all the questions I want to ask Sohel about the girl he’s supposedly in love with.
CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT
My henna dries into an even darker red over the next day, a physical reminder of everything that happened with Sohel that makes my head spin whenever I look down and see it or catch a glimpse in my reflection. Although I still haven’t worked up the courage to ask him about what Ireima confided in me, I know Sohel can’t tear his eyes away from my henna either.
Halima’s is even more striking. I catch her admiring it with a smitten smile while we both dress for the rehearsal dinner before tomorrow’s wedding.
The real ceremony will be much more involved, but tonight only the bridal party, groomsmen, and closest family members are invited. It’s the final opportunity for everyone to practice their toasts and get a rundown of the following day, but also to receive gratitude in return from Sunny and Halima for helping them cross the finish line.
I wolf-whistle at my sister. “Bhaiya must love you a lot. I’ve never seen henna so red.”
“That’s the work of a professional henna artist for you,” she retorts with a laugh, pointing at my arms. “Yours doesn’t look half bad either.” My cheeks darken, but thankfully, she returns her attention to the elegantly simple lantern-sleeve white gown she’s wearing tonight. I almost don’t catch her murmured “I do love him a lot, though.”
I smile at her in the mirror. “I’m happy for you, Afu. By this time tomorrow you two will officially be husband and wife.”
“I’m happy too,” she replies with another beam of her own. “Sunny’s already found us an apartment with a guest room, if you ever want to come visit. He’s hoping Sohel might be willing to leave Bangladesh now and then too.”
She doesn’t have to tell me twice. “Unlike him, I will definitely take you up on that the next time me and Abbu fight.”
Just then the man himself pounds on the door to come collect us, and we both burst into laughter, prompting him to demand, “Is everything okay in there?”
“Everything’s fine!” we call back simultaneously.
Arm in arm we exit the room and join our parents and grandmother, striding down to the baby taxis together on our way back to the teahouse. There’s barely enough room for three people in one auto-rickshaw, so I reluctantly release her and follow Abbu and Thathu to another.
