Much Ado About Nada by Uzma Jalaluddin

Author:Uzma Jalaluddin [Jalaluddin, Uzma]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Penguin Publishing Group
Published: 2023-06-13T00:00:00+00:00

* * *

On the day of the nikah, Nada took care to dress in a flattering, butter yellow salwar kameez with silver zari embroidery at the sleeves and hem. She put on a white hijab, subtle makeup, and her heavy silver bangles and earrings.

Her mother was busy with Jamal these days. His official diagnosis had come through only a few months ago, and the family was still adjusting. She slipped out of the house and walked quickly to the corner, where she had told Baz to meet her.

He pulled up in a black Mercedes. He was dressed in a formal dark blue salwar suit with subtle white embroidery around the starched collar, hair neatly combed and beard trimmed. There was something grounded and calm in his air that had been missing the last time they met. Maybe he really had “found himself” during his travels.

“This seems to have become a habit with us,” she said once he started driving. It was awkward to be in a car with Baz. Though they had technically known each other since they were eleven years old, the total amount of time they had spent in each other’s company wouldn’t fill a month.

“What do you mean?” he asked, his eyes on the road. He had only given her a cursory glance and quickly averted his gaze when she settled in the passenger seat.

“You disappeared from campus for two years,” she said, trying not to sound accusatory. “I looked for you everywhere. Around campus, at MSA events, the library. You vanished.”

“Why were you looking for me? We’re not friends. We barely know each other,” he said.

He was right. She sat up straight. Might as well get this part over and done with; it was the reason she had spent months looking for him in the first place.

“I shouldn’t have read your poems,” she said. “It was an invasion of your privacy, and it was a rotten thing to do.”

Baz shook his head, his eyes pinned to the road. There wasn’t a lot of traffic on the quiet residential streets of the Golden Crescent on a Saturday afternoon. “Song lyrics,” he said. “Not poems.”

“You’re a singer?”

“I’m not anything,” he said.

“Impossible dream,” she recited quietly from memory. “Blossom, I beg of you. Your words stayed with me, even though I’m only an engineer. You’re definitely something.”

Baz sighed, turned his indicator on, and joined the line snaking into the Tim Hortons drive-through near the mosque.

“We’re going to be late,” Nada said.

Baz waved away her objections. “It’s a Nigerian wedding. An hour late is starting on time.”

They waited in silence for their turn to order.

“Did you leave school because of me?” Nada asked, her voice small. She felt stupid for even asking, but the thought had haunted her.

“I left because . . .” He stopped, considering. “I was eighteen years old, and the future felt like a tidal wave heading toward me. I don’t know if that makes any sense.”

“I’m an engineer,” Nada said. “I know how tidal waves work.”

There was a pause as they both looked at each other, and then they burst out laughing.

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