The Chai Factor Page 6

  “I have an idea,” Raymond said. “How about you get a letter of reference from a professor? Jim loves reference letters.”

  “From who?”

  “Wasn’t one of your professors the guy who wrote that text on sustainable manufacturing?”

  Amira’s shoulders slumped. “My first project supervisor. Not likely he’d give me a good reference. I told you about him, remember?”

  “Right. The guy who made jokes about girls not getting math.”

  “Yeah.”

  Raymond paused a moment, then smiled. “Your academic adviser is Alison Kennedy. Get her to give you a reference letter. A glowing one. I happen to know that Jim admires her research on linear sensor systems. He mentioned her when I told him I did my master’s there.”

  “You think a reference letter from Professor Kennedy will mean he’d one day promote me?”

  “It will put you in the front of his mind. He got a note complimenting my work from a client a couple months ago, and he was talking about it for weeks. Jim has no idea how amazing you are, so let’s show him. It can’t hurt either way.”

  That was true. It couldn’t hurt. And if her project was really well done and accepted with little or no revision required, Professor Kennedy would likely give her a glowing letter of recommendation. “You still willing to look over my final report?” she asked Raymond.

  He grinned. “Of course I am.”

  Raymond was amazing. With his help, she had the potential to produce a kick-ass project and leave Professor Kennedy with no choice but to sing her praises in any letter Amira asked her to write.

  She could do this. She would do this. She was going to show this old-school prat exactly who this pretty little thing was.

  Amira smiled widely. Game on, Jim Prescott.

  Chapter Seven

  AMIRA WENT STRAIGHT to the library after meeting with Raymond, taking off her blazer and getting to work. Now more than ever, her focus was not on just finishing the damn report but making it the absolute best it could be. She went through countless research sites and found new sources that dug deeper into the topic of noise and vibration reduction. She found every book in the enormous reference library that so much as mentioned noise dampeners and their applications in manufacturing. She texted several classmates and emailed her project supervisor to ask his opinion on which journals to dig up. Eventually, when all the letters and numbers on all the screens and pages were starting to bleed into each other, Amira called her mother to see what was happening for dinner. Mum had worked an early shift and told Amira she was just about to put a frozen lasagna in the oven. It wasn’t hard to convince her to skip the frozen dinner and meet Amira at their favourite Middle Eastern sandwich shop instead. She wanted a chance to really catch up with her mother and sister, and the thought of mediocre frozen pasta wasn’t appealing after her trying day.

  Sitting at a grease-stained table in the tiny shop, Amira unwrapped her spicy beef shawarma, grinning at Mum and Zahra.

  “I needed this,” she said, licking the juice dripping down her hand after her first heavenly bite.

  “Tough day?” Mum asked, passing Zahra a bottle of mango juice.

  “Yeah. Just work stuff. Been a lot of changes at Hyde since I left. It’s going to take some getting used to. I don’t want to talk about it now, though.” She took another delectable bite. God, it was so good to be back home. The food in this city was second to none.

  “How are your dance classes going? You have a summer recital, don’t you?” Amira asked Zahra after they’d made a dent in their sandwiches.

  Zahra had been going to a Bollywood-style contemporary dance school for years. In the last few months, she had also started lessons in Indian classical Kathak dancing, something that their mother had studied as a child back home in India.

  “Yeah, the Bollywood Beat one is in July. Are you coming? I have a duet and a group dance. My classical recital is in September.”

  “Of course I’m coming. How’s the Kathak going? You still like it?”

  Mum smiled with pride at Zahra. “She’s doing wonderfully. If you were on Facebook, you’d see the video I posted of her last rehearsal.”

  “You enjoying it, Squish?”

  Zahra bit her lip, then smiled. “Yeah, the dance is harder, but I like it. I don’t like the dance school as much as Bollywood Beat, though. But my teacher is nice.”

  “It’s better now, right, sweetie?” Mum asked, a reassuring lilt to her voice.

  Amira tilted her head. Zahra was usually quite positive, and she was obsessed with all things dance related, so hearing anything other than unrestrained enthusiasm about the dance school was a surprise. “What’s the problem with the school?”

  “It’s better now, but the kids there have all known each other, for, like . . . forever. I’m new.”

  “But, Zahra, you make friends so easily. You don’t like those other kids?”

  Zahra looked out the window. “Some of the girls were mean to me at the beginning. They got in trouble, so they stopped.”

  “Did you know about this?” Amira asked her mum.

  “Yes, of course. We dealt with it, but we’re going to keep an eye and take stronger steps if it happens again.”

  “What happened?”

  Zahra looked at her mother, unsure if she should say anything, but Mum nodded gently, urging her younger daughter on. “One of the girls, Priya, said I shouldn’t do Kathak dance since I’m not Hindu.”

  Amira sat up straight. “That’s ridiculous! Did she say anything else?”

  “Another one said I wasn’t really a Muslim because I don’t wear a hijab. Then she said Muslims can’t be trusted and only cause problems, so I shouldn’t be at the school. Anyway, Miss Kavita got really angry and talked to us all about racism and stuff. Priya and Ruchi had to say sorry and I think they got in trouble. They don’t say that stuff anymore.”

  Amira closed her fist around her bottle of mango juice. “But they aren’t really being friendly either, are they, Squish?”

  “No. It’s okay.” Zahra took a slow bite of her pita.

  “It’s not okay.” Amira looked at her mother. How could Mum keep her at the school?

  “Zahra was singled out when she first got there because of her talent,” Mum said. “The teacher was very impressed at how quickly she picked it up. It seems the other girls resented the attention.”

  “Miss Kavita says I have natural rhythm since I’ve been dancing Bollywood style forever. She said I can have a solo in the recital, but I’d need individual lessons for that.”

  Mum shook her head. “We barely have time for the lessons you already take, Zahra. Your school work would suffer. Not to mention the cost . . .”

  “I can do individual instead of group. I know it’s more expensive, but we can ask Dad to—”

  “No, Zahra. We’ve talked about this.”

  “You want to take individual classes so you don’t have to be with those girls?” Amira asked.

  “No, it’s fine. They don’t bother me anymore. I just want the solo in the recital.”

  Amira looked carefully at her sister. Zahra was an extraordinary girl—smart, resilient, friendly, and usually the most exuberant, enthusiastic person in the room. Amira could read between the lines. Even though Zahra said it was okay, it wasn’t.

  Zahra was getting older, and with that came the realization that there were many places where she would be seen first and foremost by her religion or the colour of her skin, and as a person after the fact. Amira had heard it all growing up. Not really fully Indian because she’s Muslim or because her dad’s family left India in the 1800s. Not a real Canadian because she’s brown. Hell, even within their own community, they were judged. Zahra was the girl from that scandal-prone family with the divorced parents and the weird, single sister who was all over the news. And now, with so many people seeing Muslims as the world’s villains, just being herself was about to get very difficult for Zahra. Amira was not sure her family could kee
p sheltering her forever.

  “I’m sorry, Zahra. I’m really sorry that those kids were mean to you. They should not have said anything about your religion. That was wrong.”

  “I know, Amira. They were just jealous. Mum said people are mean to Muslims right now because they don’t know any”—she looked at her mum—“but Shayla is Muslim and in the class, too, so they do know Muslims. I think they’re just mean.”

  They ate quietly for a while. Zahra was probably right; these were probably just mean girls, jealous of the attention the new girl was getting.

  “Mum, can I get baklava?” Zahra asked.

  Mum smiled, pulling out a ten-dollar bill from her wallet and handing it to Zahra. “Get three.”

  Once Zahra was out of earshot, Amira gave her mother a pointed look. “Why can’t we just put her in the individual class? Can’t be that expensive.”

  Mum snorted. “More than double the price.”

  “Is money that tight?”

  “No, of course not. It just seems wasteful. The school itself costs so much more than Bollywood Beat, but Kavita is the best classical instructor in the city. Anyway, it’s fine. Zahra will have to learn to work with difficult people.”

  “But Hindu nationalists? I can’t believe this would happen in Toronto.”

  “They aren’t Hindu nationalists, Amira. They’re eleven-year-old girls.”

  “Their parents might be. I wrote an article about this a few years ago. The sentiments are spreading outside of the fringes, both in India and—”

  Zahra returned to the table, so Amira swallowed the rest of her rant. These were not topics she spoke about with her sister around. Mum was likely right, anyway; they were probably not sprouting far-right ideology, at least not intentionally. The world was full of these mean girls. If you’re a bit different, they use it as ammunition against you. The problem wasn’t that Zahra was Muslim, but they used her religion as a rock to whip at her because of jealousy. Amira hated that they had found such an easy target on her sister’s chest.

  She wished she could do something. She half-wanted to storm into that school and insist that the trouble kids were transferred out of Zahra’s class, or even better, kicked out of the school once and for all. A couple of years ago, that’s exactly what she would have done. But now, she knew that it wouldn’t really help in the long run. All those articles she wrote for online blogs and magazines, as well as her university paper, plus all those tweets and Facebook posts, all for the purpose of raising awareness about intolerance—but she hadn’t helped anything. She hadn’t changed any minds; the world wasn’t any better. Fighting all these tiny battles was having no effect on the war. But it was killing her. She made a decision a while ago to stop engaging, for her own survival.

  While eating their dessert, the three made plans for amusement park visits and shopping trips over the summer, but Amira’s mood was already soured. Once home, she headed down the stairs to the basement, rubbing her temples to stave off the headache forming. Between the meetings with Jim and Raymond, working in the library all afternoon, and then that unsettling conversation with Zahra and her mother, she was physically and emotionally drained. Clearly, life was going to be an exercise in emotional torture until her project was signed, sealed, and delivered to Professor Kennedy. But she had no choice but to keep at it and not let anything else distract her.

  Not even the bearded garden gnome standing in the kitchen and peering into the tea tin with a wrinkled brow.

  “There you are, Princess,” he said. “How’d you make that tea last night? There are no tea bags . . . and this tea doesn’t smell like what you made. I saw you do something funny with a pot.”

  “I’m not here to make your chai.”

  “I know that, I just want you to tell me what you did. It was really good. Hell, you tell me what you did, and I’ll make you some tea. You look beat. Long day?”

  “Yeah, that’s an understatement.” She kicked off her shoes and pulled out a pot from the cupboard. A good cup of chai would be amazing right now, but she couldn’t trust an inexperienced chai maker to brew it to her specifications.

  Amira silently carried out her chai routine, making a mental note to swipe some of her grandmother’s fresh spices from upstairs for next time. She filled the pot with enough water for two cups and added two heaping spoons of the strong black loose tea and a bit of the chai spice blend. She let it boil for three minutes before adding a generous splash of milk and bringing it back to a rolling boil. She then strained the brew directly into two mugs.

  Duncan watched her silently through the process, maybe realizing Amira was in no mood for friendly small talk. Or what was more likely when the two of them were involved, aggravating banter. And for some reason, being watched by a burly lumberjack type while making chai didn’t annoy Amira. Honestly, after what she had gone through today, Duncan Galahad was probably the least of her annoyances now. She added one teaspoon of sugar to his mug.

  “Thanks,” he said once she handed it to him. The smile he gave her was unlike any she had seen on him before. Genuine, honest, and a bit concerned.

  “You’re welcome.” Amira nodded to him and took her mug to her room.

  * * *

  AMIRA WOKE EARLY the following morning, eager to get back to work. And thankfully, it seemed working was possible while living with a barbershop quartet. There were no interruptions. No male voices, no clapping hands, singing, stomping feet, beat boxing, yodelling, spoken word, or anything else she half-expected to hear from a weirdo barbershop quartet. Maybe this would be okay?

  She didn’t know much about a cappella. Her experience with musical groups was all amplifiers, keyboards, and electric guitars, so she hadn’t appreciated how silent they would be with no instruments. If this is how they “rehearsed,” she could work with these guys around, no problem. But as she was opening the second academic paper, downloaded from yesterday, she heard it. Snapping fingers. Then clapping. Then a deep, guttural, throaty sound to a steady rhythm, before a clear, crisp voice started singing.

  Oh god. “Stand by Me”? Really? This was the most original song the guys could come up with? Amira tried to ignore the singing and continued working. And it worked, for about thirty seconds. Until the chorus started.

  Loud, powerful, and resonant. Whoever was singing the chorus, he had the best singing voice.

  They continued through the next verse. At least three of them, maybe all four, harmonized together. She couldn’t deny these guys sounded good. Really good. But that was beside the point. They were distracting.

  But as Duncan said, they had the right to be there. They had the right to practise. She moved to the far side of her room.

  But their voices carried. Starting and stopping, trying out different arrangements, discussing, arguing, clapping, and preventing Amira from being able to concentrate. She grasped her phone and looked through her backpack for her headphones but couldn’t find them. She finally connected her phone directly to her speakers. Queuing up the Bollywood playlist Zahra made for her, she played it at a volume high enough to drown out the boys. She preferred silence when she studied, but she wasn’t above a touch of noise warfare. She read for two more minutes before a loud pounding shook her door in its frame. She stormed over to open it. Duncan, of course.

  “Can you put your volume down, you’re making it hard to practise.”

  “You guys are making it impossible for me to study. Can’t you sing quietly?”

  His nostrils flared. “No.”

  “Just that? No?”

  “Yes, just no. It’s useless to practise quietly. We need to practise it the way we’ll be performing it. Loud!”

  She squeezed her lips together before turning and unplugging her computer. “Fine! I’ll go upstairs.”

  “You do that, Princess,” he drawled, clearly pleased he’d won.

  “Don’t call me that!” She turned back to her door and slammed it shut, wishing she had yanked that idiotic red beard right off his f
ace. She paced the room, gathering the things she needed to work upstairs. That man made her absolutely insane.

  Storming past the boys, who were standing around the family room, she tramped up the stairs and settled in the dining room. She sprawled her books around her and tried to focus, but she could still hear them below her. Belting out at top volume, sounding even better than earlier. They changed something—new key maybe? She liked this variation more. She tilted her head. It would sound even better if the bass would stop humming during the chorus so that the best voice could sing alone, pure, clean, and unaccompanied. That would sound awesome.

  “Those boys are good, aren’t they?” Nanima strolled into the dining room, a mug of chai in her hands, and sat across from Amira.

  “They are. But distracting. I’m having trouble focusing on my work.”

  “Why don’t you wear ear . . . bits?”

  Amira couldn’t help but chuckle. “It’s earbuds, Nanima. Or headphones. Anyway, I don’t like music while studying.”

  “I don’t understand this band, though. Why are these young men singing old-man music?”

  “I don’t get it either, but apparently barbershop quartets are trendy again. They’re a strange bunch, that’s for sure. Are you home tonight or do you need me to watch Zahra?”

  “No, I’m home. I think your mum said she is going out after work. Come up for dinner, I’m making korma.”

  Nanima took a sip of her tea, then tilted her head as the singing started up again. “I heard some of those boys are, you know, different. Fruit.”

  “Huh?”

  “You know, poofs.”

  Amira raised a brow. “Seriously, Nanima? Poofs?” She knew her grandmother wasn’t exactly the most forward-thinking elderly Indian woman out there, but Amira loved her too much to challenge her less-than-sensitive comments, most of the time. Deep down, she knew Nanima was loving and accepting, even if she didn’t always seem that way.