Mariam Sharma Hits the Road by Sheba Karim

Author:Sheba Karim
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: HarperCollins
Published: 2018-04-02T00:00:00+00:00

Twenty-Four

UMAR WAS HUNGRY, and we went straight from the Tipple estate to eat some of Nashville’s famous hot chicken. Even at eleven a.m., there was a line out the door. Thankfully, unlike the line at Starbucks, it moved quickly.

Umar kept wiping the sweat from his forehead with the edge of his scarf, which always grossed me out a little because I was pretty sure he hardly ever washed his scarves, unlike his ass. At least he took them off when he ate.

Forty-five minutes later, Umar and Ghaz were in the throes of a culinary orgasm. Every few bites, Umar would make an enthusiastic proclamation. Delish! Roy Rogers has nothing on this. So good.

“This is amazing,” Umar said. “My parents would love this.”

“Screw your principles,” Ghaz told me. “Have a bite.”

I wasn’t disgusted by meat like some of my vegetarian friends, and I used to love it growing up: I still remembered this goat and okra curry my grandmother used to make. But six years of abstaining had made me lose interest. I wondered if it was the same way with sex. I really enjoyed hooking up with Doug, but when Ghaz complained about being hard up and horny, I couldn’t relate. Ghaz said it was because I’d never had amazing sex, but with Doug it had been pretty amazing.

It sounded like Hannah Rae and my father had once had amazing sex.

Sick.

“Earth to Mars,” Ghaz sang out.

They’d consumed their chicken like good desis, relishing every last bit of meat and cartilage, leaving only a carcass of slender bones resting atop a slice of grease-soaked white bread. I’d eaten less than half my fries and pimento macaroni and cheese but was already feeling ill.

“I’m back, I’m back. What were you talking about?” I asked, offering Umar what remained of my food.

“I’m so full I can’t,” he said, before taking a bite.

“I was saying we should hit up the honky-tonks tonight,” Ghaz said.

“I hate country,” I said.

“You and half the world’s population,” she countered. “The point of a road trip is to expand your horizons. Have either of you ever been to a honky-tonk before?”

We shook our heads.

“Exactly.”

“You guys go,” I said. “It’s not that I’m anti-new experiences—I know I won’t be up to going out tonight.”

“Yeah,” Umar chimed in. “Let’s get a couple of pints and watch a Lifetime movie.”

Ghaz regarded me with the intensity of a mind reader. “Hmmmm. You’re obviously upset about your father; even though you knew he was a wastoid, it was another thing to witness his full wastoid-ness in the flesh. You were concerned that you might have inherited some of his less desirable traits, but I think we can safely say you’re nothing like him.”

“Nothing at all!” Umar piped up.

“You feel sad for yourself, sad for Hannah Rae Tipple, sad for your father. You feel sad for the polar bears and the polar ice caps.”

“They are melting at an alarming rate,” I said.

Umar snickered.

“What did I miss?” she pressed.

That was Ghaz—she’d keep prying and poking until satisfied that I’d laid my heart bare.

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