Read Online Hot Pink in the City by Medeia Sharif - Free Book Online

weren't for soccer I'd have joined the
journalism or yearbook staff. I have talents, so there must be
something I can do for some quick bucks in a short amount of
time.
    Auntie walks out of the kitchen, a spoon in
her hand. She's seeking her daughter out for her taste-testing
abilities. Her eyes skim over me, and then she goes into Nasreen's
room. "Habibti, taste this for me. What are you doing?"
    "What does it look like I'm doing?" Nasreen
asks.
    "Why are you applying to a college in Los
Angeles? No, no, I won't have this. You cannot go there."
    "If I get a scholarship and a job to support
myself, I'll go wherever I please!"
    "How dare you yell at your mother..."
    They're arguing in a mix of Farsi and
English, their voices muffled behind the wall, yet I can hear
everything since the door is open. This doesn't look good.
    "I don't want to stay with you, Mom. Get over
it. I want to leave this apartment. I want to leave New York."
    "Why do you want to leave us? Have we not
provided for you? Don't we love you?"
    "You don't get it."
    But I do. I know that intense yearning for
freedom. I've felt it many times myself. I've felt it at school,
when I'm out by myself, at the airport, in the airplane... being
out on my own, no parents telling me what to do, making my own
decisions, the freedom to make mistakes I can learn from. Why is
that so much to ask for?
    I hear a sniffle. I'm not sure whether it's
Nasreen or her mother who's begun crying. They lower their voices,
repeating their argument. Auntie walks out of the room, rice still
on her spoon. She's frowning, walking past me and ignoring me.
Nasreen rebelled by refusing to eat the offering, which I've never
seen her do before. I want to rush in and comfort her, but I'll
give her privacy. It's bad enough she shares her room with me
during my stay and that she just had a tiff with her mother. When
I'm in a crying mood, I don't want anyone talking to me.
    I wonder if there's anything I can do to
help, but things aren't right with me either. How am I able to help
someone else when I can't help myself? My first priority is to
replace the tape, but I also want to help my cousin. It'll be tough
since Uncle and Auntie think the way they do, but there must be
some way to crack their old-fashioned resolve.
    With this heavy stuff swirling in my head, I
decide it's time to call my friends in Florida. I sneak into
Nasreen's room to get a handful of quarters from underneath the
clothes in my drawer as well as the letters I wrote to my friends
last night. She bends her head down and doesn't look at me. Auntie
is also in a funky mood, chopping up vegetables and not saying
anything when I tell her, "I'm going to drop off these letters in a
mailbox."
    First I go around the corner to a heavily
graffitied mailbox, and then I return to the building to where the
payphone is. I deposit a coin and after I dial Tamara's number, an
operator asks me for more money. Ugh, long distance is a pain in
the ass.
    Tamara's mom answers and then puts her on the
phone. "Hey," I say. "I wanted to check up on you."
    "Hey, girly," she says. "I miss you. How's
New York?"
    "It's great."
    "Doing anything wild?"
    "Well, I met this guy, but I lost sight of
him at the airport."
    "Oh, Asma, you should've been more
aggressive, be more of a go-getter."
    "I know," I admit.
    Please deposit twenty-five cents , an
automated message rudely interrupts.
    "Can you hear me?" I ask.
    "Yeah, I can now," Tamara says. "Get me a
souvenir, at least a keychain."
    "Err, okay. Hey, something else happened,
something sort of bad--"
    "Bad? To a goody-goody like you?"
    "Yes, it's because I left a Madonna tape at
home."
    "You and Madonna! It's not that big a
deal."
    "But there's more..."
    Please deposit twenty-five cents.
    I give the greedy payphone more money while
picturing myself throttling whoever owns that voice. Stop
stealing my money! I want to scream. I also want to tell Tamara
to stop interrupting so I can tell her about my problem with