Page 29 of Meet Me on Love Street
“Oh,” she says, not even pausing her dancing/exercising. “I thought you were at your father’s this weekend. Do you want some leftover chili?”
Hadn’t Mom noticed that I never spend the night at Dad’s anymore? “Nah, I ate a ton of cheese at the park.” I plop onto the armchair to greet Zuri, who is draped over the back of it. There’s a big pile of fake flowers on the table. Mom buys them from thrift stores to practice new designs. “What were you working on here?”
Mom pauses the TV. She’s in leggings and a tank top, and there’s a sheen of sweat on her shoulders. “Was playing with some hydrangeas. Don’t you think these would begorgeousas hanging wedding centerpieces?” She shows me some pictures on her phone of hydrangeas made into large orbs. She tells me about her vision, and it sounds amazing.
“How’s the festival planning going?” she asks after she puts the exercise class back on and gets into position.
I pull Zuri onto my lap. “It’s going. Miles put together a draft of our proposal, but we couldn’t talk about it tonight because Cara was a no-show. I don’t know what’s going on with her. She only does what Hannah wants lately.”
“Young love,” Mom says as she does this sideways shimmy, mirroring the lady on the TV. “It’s consuming her life.”
“I wasn’t like that with Priya, was I?” I scratch Zuri’s chin while I think about it. It’s funny—all I could think about a few weeks ago was manifesting a meet-cute and finding a prom date. But with the problems on the street, and Mom thinking of selling the building, and putting together this festival, plus, of course, finding Miles a match, I’ve barely thought about my own love life lately. Maybe that’s for the best, though. Seeing Cara lose herself in a relationship makes me think I should stay single for a while.
“It’s a good thing you have Miles,” Mom says. She’s still dancing. “He’s a smart kid.”
I don’t “have” Miles—haven’t we had this conversation already? I change the subject before giving it too much thought. “Hey, do you know Nasrin Kanji? That’s Miles’s mother. She’s Ismaili, like us.”
Mom shakes her head. “I don’t recognize the name.” I tell her where Miles grew up to see if she knows his family, but she’s zoned out, concentrating on the dance instructor’s movements.
This is frustrating. I was fine with pretending that everything’s okay and not telling her that I know about hermoney problems, but she’s not evenlisteningto me. Maybe she’s trying to stay extra busy to keep her mind off her problems? I just wish the fact that she’s thinking about selling the building was out in the open so I could ask her. Should I tell her I know?
“I bumped into Ina Kozlak today,” Mom says suddenly. “She’s going through a rough time.”
“Oh no! What’s wrong?” I ask.
“Sales at Kozlaks’ are down. She can’t compete with the large chains anymore. She may have to close. Did you know Rossi’s has their own brand of pierogies?”
“Ugh. But there’s no way they are as good as Mrs. Kozlak’s.” This sucks. I love Kozlaks’. They have the best European chocolates and cookies. “Maybe the festival will be good for them too.”
“Maybe.” Mom shakes her hips while doing this sweeping motion with her hands, but I can tell that her mind is elsewhere again.
I sigh. This festivalhasto happen. If not, this Love Street,myLove Street, won’t exist anymore.
CHAPTER TENTHE DRESS APPROPRIATION
On Monday I stay in my advanced painting classroom during lunch so I can keep working on my final project piece. My teacher, Ms. Carothers, stands behind me and watches me work.
“That’s gorgeous,” she says. “Is it a self-portrait?”
I squint at the painting. It does look a little like me. It’s a watercolor of a woman sitting on a tall stool wearing a simple black dress, but instead of hair she has an enormous riot of colorful flowers cascading from her head. I think when I started the painting, I was loosely modeling her on Priya, but now that I look at it, I’ve definitely made her hips bigger, which is more my figure. And the flowers make her look like she has curly hair. Actually, if I’m honest, this looks a lot like my mother. She even has the same wide, unfocused eyes.
Ms. Carothers and I chat a bit about the work, and she tells me about a mural she’s been commissioned to paint over the summer, which sounds super cool. While she’s showing me some sketches of her mural project, I get a text. It’s Priya, asking if I forgot that there’s a prom committee meeting today. Ihadforgotten. I clean up my art things quickly and head to the library to join the rest of the prom committee.
As prom committee chair, there isn’t a lot of work left for me to do. My role has mostly been in the ideas stage,plus being the point of contact for the banquet hall and making sure everyone else does their jobs. The committee is great, so everything’s going fine. I listen to everyone’s updates on how their duties are going. The girl in charge of communications just put up some teasers on the school’s Instagram account, and students are saying this is going to be the best prom in years.
I meant what I said to Miles earlier—Idothink prom is one of the most important events in high school. And I’ve been looking forward to mine for four years. I’m even the chair of the committee because I wanted my dance to be perfect. But now my prom is almost here, and there’s so much else going on that I feel like I got cheated out of my prom experience. Like how can I get excited about the rotating 360-degree photo booth and cream puffs for dessert when the livelihoods of the people on my street are at risk? I don’t even have a prom date because everything happening on Love Street made me put finding one on the back burner.
I’m putting all my faith in this festival to help the street, but I know that even with super-smart Miles working on the proposal, getting approval is a big long shot. And even if wecanhave the festival, will it help? Will people come to a festival on such a small street? And will they keep coming to the street after the festival? I may have no choice but to live with my dad if Mom has to sell the building, unless Mom moves somewhere else in town. And I still don’t know how to talk to Mom about what I overheard her saying to Jenn. Or even if I should.
And no matter what, my life is going to change significantly in the next few months… and I have no idea whether it will be a good change or a bad one. Prom seems like theend of an era for me. And I don’t know what life will be like after that era, so it’s hard to look forward to that ending.
But maybe Miles is right. Prom is just a dance, and it doesn’t need to mean the end or the beginning of anything significant. And actually, maybe he’s also right about my head being in the clouds for thinking thatloveis going to be the answer to all our problems. I know he’s right about love changing people, and not always for the better. Look at what’s happening to Cara. Look at my father, who used to be a fun and attentive dad, until Noureen.
All this uncertainty is getting harder to ignore, and it’s making it kind of hard to get excited about a carefree, happy dance with my friends. And the fact that I’ll bedatelessfor my prom isn’t helping.
After the meeting, Priya stops me as I’m leaving the library. She’s positively glowing. Before, Priya always used to seem a little stressed and harried. Falling in love with Amberdidchange Priya for the better, so Miles is wrong that it always changes people for the worse.
Not all hope is lost.
