“I want you to do my henna.” Flávia’s voice startles me out of my reverie. She sits up and says, “You never did it. That one time—I got henna all in my hair and you never finished.”
“You’re realizing this now?” It’s still only been a few weeks, but it feels like an eternity has passed since the competition finished, since our first kiss, since Flávia and I began our more or less public relationship.
She frowns and turns all the way around so we’re directly face-to-face—like we’re in the middle of a serious discussion and not just talking about henna.
“I’ve been thinking about this a lot,” she says.
“About henna?”
“About … yes, henna. Kind of. I talked to your friends and your sister and—”
“Behind my back?”
She rolls her eyes. “Don’t be dramatic, Nishat. It’s a good thing. Think of it as a present.”
“Are you feeling okay?” I wonder if this is a side effect of pumpkin spice lattes. They do have a very strong scent.
Flávia just smiles. She pulls her phone out of the pocket of her jeans and taps it for a minute before thrusting the screen toward me.
“I didn’t know when was the right time to show you, but … I think we’re ready.”
The Instagram page that I disabled after the business competition stares me in the face, but I barely recognize it. The profile picture is brand new. In bright red cursive handwriting it reads Nishat’s Mehndi, with the same written in faded Bengali script in the background.
“Jess helped me with the design and we even set up a website. And your sister says your dad will let you use his restaurant again.” There’s this bright gleam of hope in Flávia’s eyes that I’m not sure I understand.
“My business kind of failed miserably last time,” I say. “I’m not—”
“But you like doing it. Love it, actually.” She says it like it’s a fact. “Your sister thinks so. So do your friends. And last time things went up in flames because of us.”
“But—”
“You’re really talented, Nishat.” Flávia leans forward and cups my face with her hands. I feel myself flush. Feel the bloom of warmth in my chest. “And everyone should see that.”
“I do still have leftover henna tubes,” I admit.
“And you have an entire catalog of original henna designs.”
I think of the design book collecting dust in the back of my bookshelf.
“Maybe,” I say finally.
It must be enough for Flávia, because she leans forward and presses her lips to mine. But it’s such a brief kiss that when she pulls away I’m still leaning into her and nearly topple over.
She’s too busy digging into her schoolbag to even notice. For a second, I’m afraid she’s going to pull out her French book and insist that we get serious about school. But she pulls out something totally unexpected—a tube of henna.
She lays it on the table in front of us and looks at me with her dimpled smile. “Okay. I’m ready for a Nishat original.”
“Flávia.”
“Please?” She looks at me with big, round puppy-dog eyes, and it’s not like I can say no to those.
I grab hold of the henna tube and begin to squeeze a pattern into Flávia’s palm while she beams at me as if this is the best day of her life. It feels kind of surreal: The warmth of her hand. The tenderness of her gaze. The way the setting sun illuminates her face.
The fact that I’m weaving my very culture into her skin.
This is one of those moments that I want to bottle up and keep with me forever. Not because it’s extraordinary, or because it’s the kind of thing you would find in a Bollywood movie.
But because it’s the kind of moment I could never have dreamed of having in a million years.