‘Always. You know we’re here for you.’ She smiles, then the smile drops from her face and her eyes laser-focus on her daughter. ‘Now, this one I don’t know what to do with.’
‘What are you talking about, Mother?’
‘Your floor! What else?’ Auntie shakes her head at the sight of Shirin’s room. ‘Please, my angel, you need to do something about this.’
‘What? It just means there will be extra padding underneath the blow-up mattress. You know how uncomfortable that thing is, and this way whoever sleeps on it won’t have a stiff back in the morning.’ Shirin grabs the mattress from her mum and drops it to the floor before jumping onto it. ‘See? Perfect.’ She tucks her hands underneath her head so her elbows are on either side of her pillow. ‘Honestly, this might be more comfortable than the bed. Poppy, you can take the bed with Lipi and I’ll stay here.’
Auntie shoots me a can-you-believe-this-is-my-daughter glance and I can’t help but giggle.
‘What am I going to do with you?’
‘Hmm.’ Shirin taps her chin with her finger in thought. ‘Raise my allowance?’
‘You don’t have an allowance.’
‘Then maybe it’s time you gave me one.’
‘You have a job.’
‘I have aninternshipwhich pays only minimum wage. Not enough for that new laptop I want,’ Shirin corrects with a smirk. She goes back and forth with her mum and they riff off one another, bickering in the way mothers and daughters do, and all I want is to cry. As much as I hope that Ma and I can go back to the way we were, I don’t see how that’s possible after tonight. If she’s not going to change her mind about talking to Salman’s parents, how can we ever move past this giant obstacle in our relationship?
‘This floor had better be clean by the time Lipi comes over,’ Auntie says sternly before shifting her gaze to me. ‘I’m so sorry my daughter couldn’t do it before you arrived.’
‘Yeah, yeah, whatever,’ Shirin says, picking a top and a pair of jeans off the floor and waving them in the air like a flag. ‘I’ll get it sorted. You can go now.’
Auntie steps out of the room slowly, as if she knows Shirin will stop putting things away as soon as she’s out of sight.
Which is exactly what happens.
‘Thank God.’ Shirin abandons the top she’d picked up and drops it on the floor, even though she’s standing right next to her wardrobe. She falls dramatically onto her bed, her hand on her forehead like a damsel in distress. ‘I’m exhausted.’
‘You did nothing!’
‘I didsomuch! Do you not see how clean it is now?’
I don’t. It’s still the same mess it was before. It might actually be worse somehow. Not that she’ll listen, so I simply slap her in the face with one of her pillows. ‘You deserved that and I’ll hear nothing else.’
Shirin is about to argue with me when the doorbell goes, signalling Lipi’s arrival.
‘I brought reinforcements.’ Lipi holds up two orange plastic bags that are close to bursting with snacks. She pulls out crisps, popcorn, chocolate and soft drinks while Shirin runs downstairs to get some glasses.
When she comes back, she wastes no time before starting her interrogation.
‘So what’s up?’ Shirin asks, abandoning the glasses on her desk without filling them. She jumps onto her bed, her Mario and Luigi plushies moving with her. She lies down on my left while Lipi sits on my right. ‘Why can’t you stay at yours tonight?’
I sigh. I don’t even know how to explain the whirlwind that has been the last twelve hours. Do I start with Salman or withMa? With the feud or with the fact that Salman only broke up with me because he saw how miserable I was with our parents’ fight looming at the back of my mind, and thought that he was the problem?
‘Actually, wait, let me guess!’ Shirin taps her forehead like that will help her gather her thoughts. ‘It’s about the demon in your house, isn’t it?’
When I don’t say anything, too stunned by her suggestion to open my mouth, Shirin claps her hands together like she’s won the jackpot. ‘I knew it! Meanwhile, Lipi was boring and thought it had to be something to do with you and Salman rekindling.’
I swallow. ‘I do need to update you guys on Salman but I kind of wanted to talk about something else first, if that’s OK?’
‘Of course,’ they say. ‘We’re here to listen.’
So I tell them. I start with the biryani, setting the scene the same way Ma did, and how it escalated after the chat, unable to hold back my anger as I think about how stubborn Ma is being, and finishing with the parents having a fight so big it ended their friendship, and how it confused me so much it caused Salman to break up with me because he wanted me to be happy and not worry about our parents’ feud. For the moment, I leave out the kiss, not wanting to complicate the story any more than necessary.
‘You just can’t have one drama-free day, can you?’ Shirin teases. ‘First it was the fire and now a whole ass revelation about an argument that could have been solved with a chat.’
