“You aren’t gonna shake me, Mansour. We’re neighbors,” Jesse says. I absently open my mouth to correct him before realizing I don’t need to. He pronounced my last name without any trouble.Mun-soor.
Jesse matches my clip down the street. I glare at his long legs, pumping mine in retaliation. Five foot four is a perfectly decent height. I haven’t had a problem with it until now, when it’s forcing me to linger next to a six-foot-two pile of questions I can’t answer.
Under normal circumstances, I would probably be too shocked by the sheer novelty of Jesse acknowledging my existence to care about the context. After all, this is the guy who spent four years crossing his driveway every morning to avoid saying hello to me. I called out a good morning to him once, and he cringed like a dog was lifting its leg over his shoe.
“Oh, now you care that we’re neighbors?” I double-check the street. Thanks to the nearby middle school, a long line of impatient parents usually clogs up this road around three, waiting to pick up their kids. I don’t have to worry about accidentally finding myself alone with a random pedestrian.
A traffic guard in a bright yellow vest marches past me and Jesse on the crosswalk, a gaggle of tiny kids trailing behind her.
“Sorry, did I miss the deadline?” Jesse sounds mildly amused, which is more emotion than I’ve observed from him in close to half a decade.
I ignore the sarcasm. “Yeah, you did. Four years is a little past the expiration date for friendly small talk, don’t you think?”
One of the kids to our right holds out his palms, showing off the melted marshmallow of a Rice Krispies treat to his friend. Jesse eyes him distrustfully. “Aren’t we getting a little off topic here? Miss Diaz just tried to kill you.”
I shush him immediately. “Don’t worry about it.”
If you had asked me when I woke up this morning whether it was more likely Miss Diaz would use my head for target practice or Jesse Talbot would trap me in conversation, I would have painted a bull’s-eye on my forehead.
We finally turn onto our street, where dusty, two-story houses face each other across a pothole-riddled road. A knot at the base of my neck relaxes. Almost home.
Bits of splattered fig stick to the bottom of my shoe as we pass the yellow house at the corner. Per unspoken custom, each house in our little neighborhood maintains a fruit tree in its front yard. The Millers planted figs; the Ahmads, tangerines.
At our old house, an exceptionally eager Baba planted a pomegranate tree in our yard before he’d even set up the electricity. Mama used to tend to it, but the task fell to me after she died.
I could barely keep a fish alive, let alone a fruit tree. I researched everything there was to know about pomegranates. Watered and weeded and sprayed for bugs. When we moved one block down and replanted it, I’d done my best to keep it alive and kicking.
Not because I cared about the pomegranates. I never understood the appeal of eating a fruit that tastes like it’s trying to eat you back. But Mama was in her best mood with a bowl of pomegranate seeds on her lap.She’d dip a spoon in honey and coat it in sugar for me. “Come, Mina. I made the spoon sweet, so you won’t even taste how bitter the seeds are. You won’t say no to your mama, will you? Ashan khatri.”
As soon as she whipped out the “ashan khatri,” I was done for. No good daughter disappoints her mother’s khatir, even if it means eating a fruit you can barely stomach. Her hands would be stained a reddish pink for days from peeling the pomegranates as fast they were dropping from the tree. It broke my heart to see her studiously stripping away the white spongy bits around the seeds, spooning in the honey she’d driven down to San Francisco to buy. The least I could do was shut up and take the bowl.
Nowadays, when the tree swells heavy in the spring, I collect the pomegranates and give them to our neighbors. I can’t eat them, but I also can’t bear to watch them pile up on the grass and wither.
Meanwhile, nothing ever ripens on the Talbots’ land; it only rots.
The paint peels in gray strips around their house, leaving flakes of white dandruff circling the property like the chalk outline at a crime scene. Dead grass creeps from their gate to the rickety porch steps. Metal bars stripe the windows, pinning the shutters closed. No matter how many times I watch Jesse work on the porch, hammering at the molding old wood, the front steps always groan. Low and mournful, as though the house is using its last breaths to warn others away.
None of the houses in Ward are getting featured inArchitectural Digest,but the Talbot house … I’ve watched strangers cross the street rather than pass in front of it.
We stop at the gate separating Jesse’s barren front yard from the sidewalk. Jesse shoves his hands into his jacket pockets, eyeing me warily. “If Diaz is dangerous, we need to tell someone.”
“Miss Diaz wouldn’t hurt a fly!” One measly little murder attempt while under the influence of a supernatural force doesn’t mean anything.
Jesse arched a brow. “No, apparently she only hurts cheerleaders with a chip on their shoulder.”
“I’m not a cheerleader,” I snap. “I was captain of the dance team.”
Exasperated, Jesse runs his knuckles across his jaw. “You’re killing me, Mansour.”
“I’d like to,” I say, and immediately slam my mouth shut. Horror washes over me. I glance down at myself without an ounce of recognition. My hands are balled into fists. My nails form red crescents on my palm from where I’ve dug them into my skin.
Whoisthis?
The Mina from before wasn’t quick to anger. The other Mina was kind, forgiving. She would have tried to invite Jesse to the lakeside picnic and laughed off his caustic remarks. She wouldn’t be standing here wondering whether to push him into the street or ask the Rice Krispies kid to smear his hands on Jesse’s jacket.
How strange. I’m jealous of who I used to be.
“Leave it alone, okay? Go back to your regularly scheduled seclusion.” I swivel on my heel, intent on my own yard. Jesse catches my arm. I gasp as his hand closes around my wound, sending another gush of hot blood trickling down my sleeve.
