When I look up from the table, Cáit has gone back to her own stall, arranging different cosmetics into a straight line. The rest of the hallway is awash with happy noise—of work, play, excitement.
I slump down on my chair. All of my hard work—gone. Just like that.
“What the hell happened here?” Jess and Chaewon are standing over me; Jess is glaring at the bare table with furrowed eyebrows, like it’s wronged her, and Chaewon is peering at me with soft eyes like I’m a kicked puppy she needs to protect.
“Someone … I don’t know, they messed my table up.” I somehow manage to get the words out even though the lump in my throat has set up camp and is showing no sign of dissipating anytime soon.
“We have to tell Ms. Montgomery!” Chaewon says, at the same time that Jess casts a glare across the hall and declares, “I’m going to kill Chyna.”
“You don’t know it was her.” Chaewon interjects.
“Who else would it be?”
I shake my head. “It could have been anyone,” I say. I think about the way Cáit smirked when I came over. Did she do this? Chyna? Ali? The list of people who hate me simply for being me is too long, and I’m not sure what I’d do about it even if I knew who did this.
30
“APUJAN!” PRITI’S VOICE CUTS THROUGH THE THRONG OF people darting around the hallway, eyes hungrily taking in everything that’s on offer. She’s grinning from ear to ear—until she takes in my sad, trashed stall.
“What happened here?” she asks.
I’ve been trying to clean it up. I successfully wiped up the spilled henna and cleaned up the trashed fairy lights, but there are still bits of glass and shredded crepe paper lying about. The slashed banner I folded up and slipped into my bag. It can’t be salvaged, but the idea of throwing it away makes my heart hurt.
“Someone trashed my stall,” I say. People passing by have been giving me sympathetic looks, but apparently they’re not sympathetic enough to offer to help.
“Ali?” Priti whispers.
I shrug. “I don’t know, maybe. It doesn’t even matter.”
“You should tell Ms. Montgomery.” She looks around, but Ms. Montgomery hasn’t returned from her lunch break yet. “Ok—Ms. Grenham. Ok—”
“No,” I cut her off firmly. “What are they going to do?” Priti doesn’t know that I’ve been late to P.E. almost every day since being outed because now I have to change after all the other girls have left. She doesn’t know the things I hear them whisper about me sometimes. She doesn’t know that there’s nothing to be done about it all—just like nobody ever called out Chyna for all of the awful, racist things she has done, nobody is going to face consequences for their homophobia in this school.
“Apujan.”
“Just leave it,” I say.
She frowns, before casting a glance over her shoulder. “I don’t know if you’re going to have a choice, Apujan. Ammu and Abbu are here.”
“What?”
When I look up and follow her gaze, I can make out my parents weaving their way through the crowd, sticking out like sore thumbs. Ammu is wearing a green and red saree, one that I’ve only ever seen her wear on Noboborsho, the Bengali New Year. Abbu has opted to go traditional too, with a collared off-white Panjabi with a subtle black and gold design along the edges. They both look far too fancy for a regular school function; I can see some of the other kids, and a lot of the other parents looking at them with raised eyebrows.
If this was any other day, I might be embarrassed, but right now I actually feel a swell of pride and joy. Their fancy outfits are an obvious show of support.
They stop in front of my stall with frowns on their lips and exchange a quick glance with each other. Speaking in that unique, exclusive language they’ve always had.
“What’s this?” Ammu asks. “This is your stall?”
I know she doesn’t mean it as an insult, but I wince.
“It’s …” I’m not sure how to string the words together to tell them what happened, but before I can try, Priti chimes in.
“Somebody destroyed it!”
“What?” Abbu asks, one eyebrow raised.
I shoot Priti a glare. “I came back from lunch and all my stuff was … gone.”
Abbu and Ammu share another look. Then, to my surprise, Ammu steps forward and plops herself down on the chair I have set up for customers. She looks small and uncomfortable—like she really, really doesn’t belong, especially in her saree.
“Well?” She looks up at me. “Aren’t you going to do my mehndi?”
I grab one of the only henna tubes that hasn’t been slashed and begin to weave henna patterns into her hands while Abbu goes for a stroll around the hall with Priti.
“I’ll scope out the competition!” Priti says with a little too much delight in her voice, while Abbu shakes his head, like he’s not quite sure how he got stuck with her.
“Does this happen often?” Ammu asks after so much time has passed that I’m drawing flowers at the edge of her fingertips, and her palm and forearm are already covered in henna.
“Henna?” I look up to see her staring at me a little too intently.
“No, not henna.” She nods at my bare table. “The thing that happened to your stall.”
“Oh.” I take hold of her palm again and draw a flower on the tip of her ring finger. “Not this specifically.”
“But other things?”
“Sometimes, yeah.” I feel the prick of tears in my eyes and blink them back. I don’t want to be having this conversation with anyone, least of all Ammu when it finally seems like we’re reconciling our relationship in some way.
Silence hangs between us until I finally finish her henna. Then she stares at her hands like it’s the first time she’s seeing them.
“You know your Nanu will try to make a museum out of your henna designs when she sees your handiwork, right?”
I bite down a smile, but I can’t help the way warmth spreads all over me.
“You like it?” I ask.
“It’s beautiful,” Ammu says.
I’m somewhere between relief and sadness when the day finally comes to an end and I can pack up my things and head home.
“You know, the other businesses aren’t as original as yours,” Abbu tells me in the car, between Rabindranath sangits.
“And not as talented either,” Ammu adds with a nod toward Abbu.
“They’re obviously very jealous of you to have done what they did,” Priti says, crossing her arms over her chest and looking out the window. She’s probably talking about Ali. But I doubt any of it was because of jealousy.
“It doesn’t matter,” I sigh. “Only a few more weeks …” Considering the way my customers had swiftly dwindled from few to none, I seriously doubt I’m in the running to win. No matter how original my idea is, or how talented I apparently am.
To my surprise, a few minutes after we get home, the bell rings. When I swing the door open, Flávia is standing in the doorway, her face flushed from the cold.
“Hey …” she says. I saw her out of the corner of my eye a few times during the showcase today, but our stalls were so far apart, and after I found my stall trashed I couldn’t face going up to hers.