Love from a to Z

Sounds fun. What time is it? Morning?
All day. Emma P.’s dad does this whole thing where he gets a company to set up tents in the desert
with a bbq. Everyone’s coming.
Maybe I can come for part of it? Because I can’t go for the day. My mom’s coming to Doha on
Sunday.
Too bad! It’s far from Doha so it’ll be hard to get back.
I imagined the Emmas and the guys having fun on the dunes, doing
whatever it is that people do when they’re dune bashing.
I saw Adam standing a bit apart.
Then I imagined Emma P. breaking away from the rest of them to join
him. They smiled at each other and then walked off into the dunes, holding
hands, a sunset ahead of them.
Agh, I guess I’ll have to miss it. Thanks so much for asking!
Ok, then you HAVE to come with us tomorrow to the souk.
Oops, I just went today.
Oh, come again. Please! Emma P. and Z. and Madison are getting henna done. Meet us there at
one?
I thought about it. I did like Emma D. a lot. Even if she wasn’t like my
squad back home. 
Ok.
I put my phone back on the night table and saw the burkini from this
morning in the pile of clean laundry. One closed eye of the clamshell
peeked out from underneath pink underwear.
I pulled the swimsuit out and took it with me to the kitchen, where I’d
sighted a promising-looking junk drawer yesterday.
I needed the big black Sharpie I’d seen.
I grabbed it and snapped the lid off and went back to my bedroom.
When I finished, the sleeping, sad clamshell had turned into a wide
awake, widely happy, slightly high-looking clamshell.
There, this will be a sign of good things to come.
• • •
This Is What You Missed, Bulletin IV by Kavi Srinivasan, filed as FYI for Zayneb Malik:
I have nothing to tell you.
That’s new. Any news about Ayaan?
The action is happening offscreen.
So there IS something happening?
Offscreen.

---

Off MY screen?
She sent me a speak-no-evil-monkey emoji.
Okay why send me ANYTHING at all then? Some bulletin. Some friend you are.
Exactly. Because I’m a FRIEND. I want you to enjoy yourself.
But you’re excluding me. I thought we were a team. Tight.
Exactly again. You already took one for the team. So now it’s our turn.
OUR turn? Who is OUR? There’s the two of us. That’s our team. Ayaan is our sage. She’s beyond
teamness.
We have new members. Noemi.
Oh.
So Kavi was including her in this.
I pulled up Instagram and checked Kavi’s account. She had three stories
I’d missed, but only one of them included Noemi. They were gawking at an
open locker. The video panned the interior. It was covered, literally every
inch, with stickers of a smiling white man with an Afro, sitting with a raised
paintbrush in front of a painting of trees. Then we saw a quick shot of the
inside of the opened locker door, which was covered with pictures of an
angry-looking Picasso. Noemi: Picasso on the outside, Bob Ross on the
inside was the text Kavi had added to this story.
I didn’t even know what that meant. It was something artsy. That they,
Noemi and Kavi, got.
One out of three of your Instagram stories are with Noemi?
Zay? Why are you looking at my stories in the middle of our chat?
Noemi and you?
And Ms. Margolis.
The librarian? But she’s a teacher?
Noemi relies on her for art research. They’re friends. She came as a package with Noemi. Listen,
you already got more out of me than I wanted. Stop.
I don’t like it. Not knowing what’s happening. Standing by. Actually, shoved aside.
So let it be my turn now. I sat in class quietly listening to you taking on Fencer for eons, not
saying anything.