My Best Friend Brother

Chapter Three

Scarlett POV

Two miles into my walk and I was downtown. I

skipped past the ornate Fairview Hotel, the building holding a massive cache of memories for me. The Bashirs owned it, and it was the nicest hotel in Fairview. They also had several other hotels in nearby big-city Dallas, but I never saw them. Sometimes Annika and I would swim at the hotel pool, and later she would sneak a key to an empty room where we would watch cable and gorge ourselves on Snickers bars and Doritos from the supply room—until the front desk clerk would call and warn us Annika’s brother was looking for her. That brings me to her brothers.

Annika had two. Her younger brother, Rasheed, was two years younger and a perfect target for our torture and jokes with his plump belly and his funny lisp. It seemed like a nightly occurrence that his mother would chase him out of the kitchen smacking him with a kitchen towel and yelling in Hindi, sometimes making a point to use English when she was especially vexed. “Rasheed, put that cookie

back! You’ll be too full for dinner!” She screamed in her thick Indian accent like a mad-woman, but never getting so flustered as to jostle a perfectly coiffed hair out of place piled high on her head or smudge the tiniest bit of lipstick. Her prediction was never right because I don’t recall a single time he was too full for dinner. Looking back now, I guess eating was his way of dealing

with all the teasing at school. He was the darkest in the family and had the most ethnic sounding name. Sometimes the kids called him “Fatsheed,” and the fact that he couldn’t even pronounce his own name correctly because of the lisp just added to the humiliation. Poor, poor Rasheed.“My name is Rath-eed!” he yelled, correcting the little monsters who often attacked at recess. Thankfully he was smart as hell moving up several grade levels. I imagined he would be one of those nerd billionaires like Bill Gates one day and have his revenge. “

All his quirkiness and awkward growing pains aside, I liked Rasheed. He was funny, friendly and never full of himself. A complete contrast to his brother. To say that Annika’s older brother by four years, Dev, was quiet and aloof was an understatement. The few times I witnessed him talking, I noted his British accent was stronger than Annika’s and Rasheed’s, and he had the English superiority complex and snobbiness to go with it. Mostly, though, I avoided

him. And after today, I would stop talking to him altogether.

“After I arrived at Annika’s, we pranced outside to the backyard swimming pool—the size of something you would see at a country club with our bottles of suntan lotion, magazines, iced teas and beach towels. My smile faded when I saw Dev on the diving board. Hopefully he’ll go away soon. The tall, tanned senior and captain of the soccer team with Hollywood good-looks and the arrogance to match always made me feel awkward and inadequate, and I suddenly felt self-conscious in my white two-piece which Annika had convinced me looked “really sexy” on me. She had to be wrong. I felt like a little girl playing dress up in his presence.

“Annika, let’s swim later,” I begged her as I watched Dev emerge above the water from his perfectly executed dive, his long, lean muscles enhanced by his bronze smooth skin. “Can’t. I have to pack for our trip. Just ignore my stupid brother. The pool’s big enough for all of us. Don’t worry, his idiocy isn’t contagious.” Dev swam up to our side of the pool and grabbed the edge, his handsome face in a full-on smirk. Did he hear us? “I can leave if you want, Scarlett. I mean, it is my pool, but I will be happy to vacate it if it makes you more comfortable.”“I don’t know what you’re talking about. I’m fine.” I forced a fake smile and decided he was too much of a jerk to let him ruin my day. He shrugged then pushed off the edge and started swimming a freestyle lap. I couldn’t help notice how nice he looked in his navy blue swim trunks, and I hated myself for it. He was tall and muscled from hours spent on the soccer field every day, and the fact that he was attractive made his rudeness sting infinitely more.

I found a spot in the far corner of the shallow end of the pool to submerge my body, keeping it hidden from Dev. It was becoming curvy and womanly, and I didn’t like the attention it was bringing me when I walked down the street, especially near construction zones. Regardless, I knew that Dev would never see me as anything but a vapid trailer park kid mooching off his family.Annika went inside to bring us some ice tea, and I froze when I noticed Dev swim over and stop for a breath just a few feet away. I thought I would try and show him I could engage in civilized conversation—that I had a brain. I cleared my voice and turned toward him. “Annika tells me your

family is leaving on a trip tomorrow. Where is it you’re going?” I asked, making sure to annunciate each syllable perfectly and not to end my sentence with a preposition. He wiped the water from his large, long-lashed dark eyes, and smiled at me, amused at my question. “The U.A.E.” Where was that? I tried to look like I knew what he was talking about and nodded, but he didn’t buy it “Do you know where that is,

Scarlett?” he asked, his smirk having made a successful return to his face.

I felt my cheeks burn as my

brain froze. I’d gotten an A in geography, but talking to Devcaused my synapses to misfire. After a moment of staring, he laughed. “I keep forgetting how most Americans don’t realize there are other places besides Canada and Mexico. My initial embarrassment turned into anger. How dare he… “It must make you feel good about yourself—pointing out the flaws in others,” I accused him. “You do it so well and so often.” For half a second, he looked

guilty, like I’d just exposed something about him that he didn’t like. He shook it off and his usual smugness filled the void. “It stands for the United Arab Emirates, Scarlett. It’s a small country off Saudi Arabia, along the Persian Gulf. The capital is Abu Dhabi and the population is 9.5 million,” I interrupted, my senses returning to me. “You must be traveling to Dubai, home to the world’s tallest building and a shopping mecca and playground for the rich and privileged—who tend to believe they’re somehow better than everyone else in the world,”I finished, happy to have gotten a zinger in at the end. “He raised his eyebrows in surprise. “I guess you’ve heard of it then.” I stood up a bit straighter in the water, proud I had recovered. “The acronym threw me off.” He chuckled, obviously amused there was something of substance in my empty head. “I didn’t know Glamour Magazine covered any topics beyond make-up and dating. They must be expanding their foreign style section.” In that moment, I hated him. It was the kind of self-protecting hate that I would cling to for

years when it came to Dev. I turned away and climbed out of the pool, hoping he would notice my hourglass figure and would

instantly kick himself for insulting such a goddess. I wanted to leave. When he saw I was going, he threw me a stale crumb of an apology. “Sorry, Scarlett. Don’t be so sensitive. I was just joking.” But it was too late. He had insulted the only thing I had going for me: my intellect. He could have teased me for being poor, for living in a trailer, for wearing sandals that cost just one dollar on sale at Wal-Mart. I could have

lived with that. But Dev talked down to me like was some dummy ignoramus—and that was simply unforgivable. That was everything to me.

Tears were burning behind my eyes, but I held them off. I grabbed my towel and put

on my flip-flops. Annika walked out with two glasses of iced tea just in time to see my dramatic exit worthy of a Soap Digest Award.

Before rushing past her through the door, shouted over to the pool, my chest heaving in pent up rage. I remember the cocky grin

on his face watching me go, which only incited more anger. “Dev, dome a favor. Never speak to me again. He shrugged again,

pretending to be confused, like I was just being melodramatic.

But my request was honored.

He didn’t talk to me for years. Whenever I ate with his

family, I could feel his eyes scowling at me, his disapproval like

an invisible toxic cloud. For all the years I played at Annika’s house, I tried not to let his silent judgment affect me. I had better things on my mind, like studying for my advanced Algebra

class, gossiping and laughing with Annika into the wee hours of the

night, and wondering what his mother was cooking for dinner.

Whatever it was, it was

certainly better than what I had waiting at home, which oftentimes was a peanut butter sandwich on white. Dad worked long hours as a

mechanic and cooking just wasn’t his thing. So we had kind of an unspoken deal: he grabbed a hamburger at Dairy Queen and I ate at Annika’s house. I had a standing invitation. Sometimes after dinner there would be an “extra” shirt or dress that Mrs. Bashir “accidently bought,” and would I mind taking it home with me to save her the trouble of returning it at the store? The nicest clothes I had were “accidental” purchases like this. It took me a few years to realize that this was her clever way of mothering her daughter’s motherless friend without making me feel like a charity case. Mrs. Bashir was very good to me. I really miss that about her.