Also by Sabina Khan

The Love and Lies of Rukhsana Ali

Zara Hossain Is H
­ ere
 MEE T
ME
IN
MUMBAI
s abina k han
  Copyright © 2022 by Sabina Khan

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Library of Congress Cataloging-­i n-­P ublication Data available

ISBN 978-1-338-74928-1

10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 22 23 24 25 26

Printed in the U.S.A. 23

First edition, August 2022
Book design by Maeve Norton
To all ­t ho s e who love with abandon,
and to the thre e bright st ar s
of my own love stor y
 part one
AYESH A
December 2000, Blooming ton, IL
 C H A P TER ON E

I stare at the stick, willing the second line not to appear. But my
powers of persuasion must have dulled b ­ ecause it shows up,
a pretty baby pink, which is ironic considering t­here’s nothing
pretty about this. An avalanche of thoughts threatens to bury
me. Suresh h ­ asn’t responded to any of my emails or messages. I
­don’t even have his home number in India.
It’s starting to dawn on me that I might be alone in this.
­There’s a loud knock on the bathroom door, and I almost
drop the stick. “Ayesha, are you done? ­You’re g­ oing to be late for
school.” Salma Aunty sounds anxious, which is nothing new.
The w ­ oman could win a gold medal if ­there’s ever an Olympic
event on how to worry yourself into an early grave. But she’s
sweet, and I hate it when she worries about me.
“Coming, Aunty.” I quickly wrap the pregnancy test stick in
a wad of toilet paper and shove it into the pocket of my Dora the
Explorer robe, a gift from my cousin Reshma, who’s only a
­couple of years older than me and headed back to college just
before I arrived in Bloomington, Illinois. Apparently, she thinks
I’m seven, not seventeen.
1
 I open the door to find Salma Aunty smoothing the duvet on
my bed. Then she turns around and begins to straighten the
­things on my desk. She picks up a few sketches that I’ve left on
top of my notebooks and puts them together in a neat ­little pile.
“You ­don’t have to do that, Aunty,” I say in protest, mostly
­because I ­don’t like her touching my stuff, but partly also ­because
I promised my mom that I would be super polite and always
keep my room neat and tidy, so as not to bring shame upon
my f­ amily back in India.
Salma Aunty is my mom’s cousin. She settled h ­ere in
Bloomington-­Normal about twenty years ago when her hus-
band got a job teaching physics at Illinois State University. She
graciously offered to let me live with them during my se­nior
year of high school so I could apply to college from within the
US. It’s a bit complicated ­because my parents moved back to
India soon ­after I was born ­here. So, I have a US passport but an
Indian accent and brown skin, which is what drew Suresh and
me together in the first place. ­There a­ ren’t a lot of brown ­people
in our school, and it’s nice to have someone ­else who misses eat-
ing pav bhaji and ragda patties at Elco Market as much as I do.
“Come down and have breakfast before it gets cold,” Salma
Aunty says. “I made Bombay toast. It’s your favorite, na?”
“Yes, thank you, Aunty,” I say, giving her arm a quick squeeze
before disappearing into the walk-in closet to get changed.
The thick slices of fried bread soaked in egg with onion, green
chilies, and cilantro are still hot and crispy as I slide into a chair
at the breakfast t­able. Normally I would inhale at least three
slices, but ­today all it does is make the bile rise up to my throat.
I’ve been feeling this way for a couple of days now, starting right
after I realized I’d missed my period. When I woke up that morn-
ing, I just knew.
2
 I ­didn’t r­ eally need a test to confirm, but I bought one any-
way. And now I would kill for a cup of coffee, which I’m pretty
sure is bad in my condition. Condition. Is that what this is? I meet a
cute boy who feels like home, we hang out, talk a lot, and I end
up getting pregnant? It’s like w ­ e’ve known each other for a long
time, but in real­ity, it’s only been three months. Though h ­ ere,
far away from my parents and my l­ittle ­sisters, even a week feels
like an eternity.
I have no idea what I’m ­going to do.

3
 C H A P TER T WO

I met Suresh about three months ago, a month a­ fter I arrived

from India, when Natasha, my new best friend, dragged me to
my first American party. Salma Aunty believed I was sleeping
over at Natasha’s b ­ ecause of a late-­night group proj­ect. Mike
Taylor, who sat ­behind me in En­glish, was throwing the party at
his ­house while his parents ­were out of town, and he had a cool
older ­brother who supplied beer and an alibi in case their par-
ents called.
I ­didn’t ­really want to be t­here, but Natasha insisted that I
needed to experience a “real high school party.” She deserted
me as soon as we arrived to go make out with Brian.
The basement was pretty crowded, but I managed to find
an empty spot on the green couch in the corner. A few p ­ eople
I vaguely recognized from school attempted to dance to
Britney Spears’s “Oops! . . . I Did It Again,” but they mostly
ended up shuffling awkwardly on the spot. I pulled out my ­little
sketchpad and pencil and attempted to capture the scene in
front of me. By the time I was done, I realized I’d drawn the
faces of my friends from back home. I contemplated how
­
4
 Natasha and I ­were ­going to get back to her ­house, b ­ ecause I
­d idn’t ­really plan on getting into a car with her ­after watching
her chug beer from a hose. I did not understand the appeal of
parties like t­ hese.
At home in Mumbai, if I was g­ oing to lie to my parents and
sneak out, it would be to go to Juhu Beach and walk ­under the
stars with my friends. We would get l­ittle plates of bhelpuri and
drink fresh coconut w ­ ater. Some of my friends smoked ciga-
rettes, but none of us ­really drank alcohol. ­Later we’d stand
around our cars listening to m ­ usic blaring on someone’s stereo.
That felt natu­ral to me. But this basement scene felt strangely
artificial.
I watched my classmates having drink a­ fter drink and get-
ting more and more “frisky,” as my dad would say. It was as if
they needed the alcohol to enjoy each other’s com­pany. I got
up to grab a soda and was trying to decide what I wanted
when someone held a red Solo cup out to me. I looked up to
see a boy, about half a foot taller than me, smiling down. He
was kind of cute, with thick curly hair and a dimple on his
right cheek, his skin a slightly darker shade of brown than
mine.
“­Don’t worry, it’s just a cold drink,” he said.
­Here in Bloomington, other than Salma Aunty and Hafeez
­Uncle, I h ­ adn’t heard anyone use the words cold drink for soda.
When I still ­didn’t take the cup, the mystery boy set it down
and reached over the ­table b ­ ehind us. He pulled out a can of
Sprite and handed it to me.
I tucked my sketchpad and pencil back in my purse and took
the can from him with a smile.
“Thanks.”
“I’m Suresh.”
5
 I pulled the tab and took a long swig.
“Ayesha.” I d ­ idn’t recall seeing him around the hallways at
school . . . ​and I was pretty sure I would have remembered
him if I had. Judging by his accent, he d ­ idn’t sound like an
ABCD—an American-­ Born Confused Desi. In fact, he
sounded like a Mumbaiite. As far as I knew, ­t here ­wasn’t any-
one e­ lse at my high school who was from India, which made
me ­really excited to meet someone who was. But I ­d idn’t want
to give him the wrong impression, so I played it cool and basi-
cally ignored him while casually taking sips from the can he’d
just given me.
“So how long have you been ­here?” he fi­nally asked.
“I just got h ­ ere half an hour ago.” It was hard to hear over
the ­music, so I moved a tiny bit closer.
“I meant, how long have you been ­here in Bloomington?” he
said.
“Oh, about a month,” I said. “What about you?”
“I came h ­ ere in August of last year,” he said. “I take it you
­don’t go to school in Normal. I mean, I’m pretty sure I w ­ ould’ve
remembered if I’d met you before.”
“No, I go to Bloomington High. How do you know Mike?”
“I ­don’t ­really,” he said. “I came with my friend Rick. ­You’re
from Mumbai too, right?”
“What gave it away?” I asked with a grin. “My tapori
accent?”
He smiled back, a r­ eally wide smile, showing off very white,
straight teeth.
“Obviously. And can I just say how ­great it is to meet some-
one ­else who even knows what that is? I d ­ on’t know a single
person ­here from Mumbai.”
I knew exactly what he meant. We Mumbaiites had a unique
6
way of speaking; our vernacular was heavi­ly influenced by
dialogues from Bollywood movies. Or maybe it was the other
way around; I ­couldn’t be sure. It was hard for me to explain,
but the sound of my ­mother tongue ­here in Bloomington, half
a world away from home, touched me in a way nothing e­ lse
could.
“So where do you live? In Mumbai, I mean,” he asked.
“Chembur. You?”
“Bandra. Did your ­whole ­family move ­here?”
“No, just me. I live with my aunty.”
“Same,” he said. “I mean no aunty, just me,” he added hur-
riedly. “And my dad’s college buddy. That’s who I stay with.”
His ner­vous­ness made me smile . . . ​and I was glad that I
­wasn’t the only one.
He cleared his throat. “It’s a bit loud down ­here. Want to find
somewhere quieter to talk?”
I nodded, not giving it a second thought. Anything to get out
of this space, which was becoming more and more suffocating
by the minute.
We walked up the stairs and out of ­the house into the starlit
night. The patio was empty except for one ­couple making out on
a chair in the corner, but they ­were too oblivious to notice us. I
sat on the steps and took a long deep breath of the night air. It
smelled like lavender and faintly of pot, but it was way better
than downstairs. Suresh leaned against the wooden post and
smiled down at me.
“So, is this every­thing you thought it would be?” he asked.
“This party?” I raised an eyebrow at him. “Or Amer­i­ca in
general?”
“Both, I guess.” He plonked himself down beside me, and I
got a faint whiff of his aftershave. Something woodsy and
7
 fresh, unlike Hafeez ­Uncle’s Old Spice, which forced me to
breathe through only one nostril whenever he was around.
Suresh’s shoulder brushed against mine, just a glance, but it
was enough to make me very aware of him.
“Well, I ­wouldn’t say every­thing,” I replied. “I think it’s so weird
how ­people ask what’s up and then, when I start to tell them,
they ­don’t ­really seem to care.”
Suresh grinned at me. “I know exactly what you mean. When
I first got ­here, I was so surprised that every­one wanted to find
out how I was ­doing. And then I realized, it’s just something
they say.”
I nodded. “You know, I used to think that I was so familiar
with all this just ­because I watched Dawson’s Creek and Friends
back home, but honestly, it’s been r­ eally hard.”
I had no idea why I was talking so much to a guy I’d just met
a few minutes ago. It had to be a combination of seeing someone
from back home and the loneliness I’d been trying to keep at bay
for weeks now. ­Either way, it was embarrassing. But when I
looked up, he was smiling.
“I get it,” he said. “I’ve been h­ ere for a while now, and it’s still
hard sometimes.”
“Do you miss your ­family?” I leaned back against the wooden
post and took a sip of my soda.
He nodded. “Yeah, ­we’re ­really close. And Dad’s not been
­doing well lately. He has heart issues.”
“I’m sorry,” I said. “I hate being so far away. E ­ very time my
phone rings in the ­middle of the night, I panic.”
“My mom can never remember the time difference,” he said
with a laugh. “And that’s not even taking into account—­what do
they call it? Daylight savings time?”
I shook my head. “What’s up with that anyway? I swear only
8
Americans would try to manipulate time just to make them-
selves feel better.”
“Last year I missed a test ­because I forgot about it,” Suresh
said. “Luckily, my teacher let me take it ­after school.”
We ­didn’t say anything for a while, just listening to the muted
sounds of ­music coming from inside.
“Do you ever feel like ­you’re on National Geographic?” I said
when the silence became too much.
Suresh let out a loud laugh, startling the c­ ouple making out in
the corner ­behind us. They looked up to glare at us briefly
and then went back to what I could only describe as an attempt
to inhale each other’s f­aces.
“Are you kidding?” Suresh said. “I’ve only been asked a mil-
lion times ­whether we ­ride to school on elephants.”
“I can do you one better,” I said. “My social studies
teacher asked me how it feels to fi­nally be liberated from the
burqa.”
“No, she ­didn’t.” Suresh narrowed his eyes. “You ­can’t be
serious.”
“Oh, but I am. It was right a­ fter our unit lecture on world
religions, which lasted a ­whole half hour.”
He shook his head slowly. “That’s so stupid. What did you
say?”
“I ­didn’t know what to say. I mean, where would I even
begin?”
We sat in silence again for the next few minutes, lost in our
own thoughts. T ­ here was something about his presence that
comforted me. It d ­ idn’t make sense, but I felt like I knew him
even though we’d just met. The cadence of his speech, the way
he used his hands and face when he talked, all felt like home.
I’d been pretending to myself that I ­wasn’t completely alone in
9
a sea of strangers for hours ­every day, longing to be around
desi ­people my age who could understand what I was g­ oing
through. But I knew I had to be cautious. I had a history of
getting too attached too quickly, and I c­ ouldn’t afford to make
that m
­ istake again.

10
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